UNITED STATES
Anglican Curmudgeon
If there is one person within or without the Catholic Church who is qualified to place Pope Benedict XVI into a long-term perspective, it is James V. Schall, S.J., professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University. Father Schall has written and edited more than three dozen books and monographs, as well as countless articles (here are links to those published just in Crisis Magazine). Two of my favorites are his book on the paradoxes of G. K. Chesterton, and his book on Benedict’s Regensburg Address.
Even with all of Fr. Schall’s qualifications, his evaluation of the contributions made by Benedict XVI to our age may still come as a surprise. Here is an excerpt from his article, “On the Mind of the Pope”, at The Catholic World Report:
Over the years of his life, Benedict has produced an enormous amount of writings. I suspect his Opera Omnia, when finally published in a German critical edition, will equal or surpass the collected works of Augustine or Aquinas , both of which are enormous. It would take most of an ordinary person’s lifetime just to read the works of Aquinas or Augustine or Benedict, let alone write and understand them. We now have the works that Joseph Ratzinger produced as a philosopher and theologian, together with that which he wrote and spoke as part of his Petrine office. As pope he gave hundreds and hundreds of talks, wrote encyclicals, exhortations, letters, even books….
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