Overview

A vivid blow-by-blow of the controversies that have wracked the Catholic Church during the past twenty years Liberation theology, birth control, women's ordination, inclusive language, radical feminism, homosexuality, religious pluralism, human rights in the church, and the roles of bishops and theologians-one man has stood at the dead center of all these controversial issues: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. A teenage American POW as the Third Reich crumbled and a progressive wunderkind at the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger, for twenty years, has been head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (until 1908 known as the Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, or Holy Office). The book goes a long way toward explaining the central enigma surrounding Ratzinger: How did this erstwhile liberal end up as the chief architect of the third great wave of repression in Catholic theology in the twentieth century? Based on extensive interviews with Ratzinger's students and colleagues, as well as research in archives in both Bavaria and the United States, Allen's account shows that Ratzinger's deep suspicion of the world, his preoccupation with human sinfulness, and his demand for rock-solid loyalty to the church run deep. They reach into his childhood in the shadow of the Nazis and reflect his formative theological influences: Augustine, Bonaventure, and Martin Luther(!) rather than the world-affirming Thomas Aquinas. When the cardinals of the Catholic Church next gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect a pope, Allen argues, they will in effect be deciding whether to continue the policies Ratzinger has been the central force in shaping. The servility of thesycophants, of those who shy from and shun every collision, who prize above all their calm complacency, is not true obedience. . . . What the church needs today as always are not adulators to extol the status quo, but men whose humility and obedience are not less than their passion for the truth; . . .men who love the church more than the ease and the unruffled course of their personal destiny.-Joseph Ratzinger (1962)

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9780826417879

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Reviews

this book is the first biography of Ratzinger in English, and probably the only one written prior to the papal election of 2005 the book is an excellent introduction to the underlying theological concerns of Ratzinger in his role as prefect of the CDF this book is also an excellent historical survey of the division and controversies that have divided the Catholic church, especially in North America, in the post-conciliar world. Catholic Books Review, 2005--Catholic Books Review

Full of important information about Ratzinger's career and changes of position his most original contribution is to argue that Ratzinger sometimes promotes views even more conservative than the Pope's. The New York Review of Books A terrific writer who is well informed in theology and church history, Allen skillfully navigates the ideological and political controversies of the last 20th-century church. Publishers Weekly An important, sensitive, and well-written book. National Catholic Reporter A fair and unfailingly interesting account of one of the most controversial figures in religion today. The Irish Times Well researched, informative and analytic, adequately critical, yet thoroughly and determinedly fair. The Tablet ...[Ratzinger] is perhaps the most important theologian of the twentieth century. He was a principal architect of Second Vatican Council, and for many years now he has been the principal agent in the restoration of the church to the condition before the council. John Allen s cautious, objective, and fair biography...explains this seeming paradox and, with full respect for the [former] cardinal s brilliance and his good intentions, raises some serious questions about the long-term effects of his influence on the church. -Andrew M. Greeley John Allen brings a journalist s discipline and a keen understanding of the Catholic Church both as an institution and as the people of God to this extraordinarily well observed study of one of the most powerful of all Roman officials...Allen s story has ready-made drama, which, to the education and pleasure of his readers, he handles in an even-handed and professional manner, showing the complexity of this man...Anyone interested in Catholicism, in religious institutions, or in the moral and cultural issues now intersecting before our eyes must read this book, the story of a man that is also the religious story of our times. Eugene Kennedy Allen asks and answers all the right questions about the church s chief

Author Information

John Allen is still the Rome bureau chief for the National Catholic Reporter and CNN's on-camera expert on the death of JP II and the elction of the new pope. He is the author of the definitive Enlish-language biography of Cardinal Ratzinger (Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, Continuum, 2000). Since then he has published 2 books with Doubleday: Conlave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election (2002) and All the Pope's Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks (2004). From 1993-96, he ran the journalism program at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California. During that time the student newspaper consistently ranked in the top ten in the nation and dozens of his students won national writing awards. He holds an M.A. in religious studies from the University of Kansas.

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