Joseph Ratzinger’s dedication to theology has been discontinuous; as he himself admits in his autobiography My life, has been characterized not so much by evolution, but by involution and has developed within the purest orthodoxy. He began teaching theology at a very young age in dialogue with the cultural and philosophical climates of modernity and with the Protestant theologians of his time. He participated as an expert witness at the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 together with some of the most important theologians of the day, including his colleague Hans Küng. He contributed with them to the elaboration of the conciliar documents that paved the way for the reform of the Church, for dialogue with religions and with the modern world, and for the position of the Church in society.
Two are his works that reflect the reforming climate of the Church and of theology: Introduction to Christianity Y God’s new peoplewhere he criticizes the “theology of encyclicals”, which reduces theology “to being a record and systematization of the manifestations of the magisterium”, rejects pontifical centralism and defends the theoretical fallibility of the pope.
He soon began the path towards a conservative theological thought that led him to distance himself from his conciliar colleagues and to link up with theologians and Christian groups of neoconservative tendencies. This tendency was reinforced when he acceded to the leadership of doctrinal power as president of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and to the papacy.
There are three texts that demonstrate its involutionist drift. The first is the Instruction on some aspects of liberation theology, of 1984, of the CDF during his presidency. In it, this theological current born in Latin America is accused of “serious deviation from the Christian faith” for reducing it to a terrestrial humanism, uncritically using the Marxist method of analysis of reality, offering a rationalist interpretation of the Bible and identifying the category biblical “poor” with the Marxist category of “proletariat”. This resulted in prosecutions, sanctions, and condemnations of the works of some of the leading liberation theologians.
The second example is the work report on faithwhere he criticizes the serious deterioration of Christianity after the Second Vatican Council and proposes a project to restore the Church in full harmony with Pope John Paul II, whom he accompanied throughout his pontificate and who became the main ideologist.
The third text is the declaration Dominus Iesus, from 2000, also authored by the CDF, in which it identifies the Catholic Church with the Church of Christ, with a clear exclusion of other Christian churches, and describes religious pluralism as relativism. The condemnation in this case was against the theology of interreligious dialogue and fell on the theologians who were cultivating it.
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As a final balance, Ratzinger’s contribution to the passage from anathema to philosophical and cultural dialogue at the Second Vatican Council seems positive to me, but I consider him co-responsible for the paradigm shift produced during the pontificate of John Paul II and his from dialogue to the anathema of the new theological currents. I recognize the merit of having maintained lucid dialogues with non-believing thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas, Paolo Flores d’Arcais and Piergiorgio Odifreddi, from different and even conflicting positions, but I criticize him for not having respected ideological pluralism within the Church and not having been able to build bridges of communication with his colleagues who disagreed with his interpretation of some of the great issues of Christianity.
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