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More on Lüdemann and the Pope
2007-08-11 23:50:00 Presterjosh has posted a very interesting critique of my recent review of Lüdemann?s book on Benedict XVI. And Gerd Lüdemann tells me that he?ll also be responding to my review in the forthcoming English edition of the book.
The Pope's Jesus: Gerd Lüdemann and Benedict XVI
2007-08-07 13:34:00 Gerd Lüdemann, Das Jesusbild des Papstes: Über Joseph Ratzingers kühnen Umgang mit den Quellen (Springe: zu Klampen Verlag, 2007), 157 pp. (review copy courtesy of zu Klampen)Just months after Benedict XVI released Jesus of Nazareth, the New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann has produced this spirited book-length critique of ?the Pope?s Jesus.? Lüdemann writes both as a post-Christian who is deeply sceptical about the claims of church doctrine, and as a rigorous advocate of the historical-critical method. A central contrast between Benedict and Lüdemann thus lies in their respective attitudes towards the biblical texts: while Benedict approaches the texts with basic trust and theological commitment, Lüdemann insists that it is ?a blind alley? to privilege these texts and to assume that they are historically or theologically trustworthy (p. 23).Indeed, for Lüdemann it is precisely the integrity of the texts that is at stake in all this. For instance, against Benedict?s overtly christol...
Remembering Jesus: Benedict XVI and James D. G. Dunn
2007-08-05 04:28:00 In his masterful work, Jesus Remembered (Eerdmans, 2003), James D. G. Dunn observes that the Gospels give us access not directly to Jesus himself, but to memories of Jesus. And he suggests that ?it is precisely the process of ?remembering? which fuses the horizons of past and present, by making the past present again? (p. 130).Similarly, Benedict XVI?s new book, Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, 2007), emphasises the disciples? remembrance of Jesus. And Benedict rightly notes that this memory is shaped and structured ? or, to be more precise, ?inspired? ? by faith in the resurrection: ?the Evangelist tells us that after the Resurrection the disciples? eyes were opened and they were able to understand what had happened. Now [for the first time!] they ?remember??. The Resurrection teaches us a new way of seeing; it uncovers the connection between the words of the Prophets and the destiny of Jesus. It evokes ?remembrance?, that is, it makes it possible to enter into the interiority of the ...
Gerd Lüdemann on Benedict XVI
2007-07-16 13:21:00 Jim West alerts us to Gerd Lüdemann?s forthcoming book, Das Jesusbild des Papstes (July 2007), which offers a detailed critique of Benedict XVI?s recent Jesus of Nazareth. Jim also provides us with a sneak preview of Lüdemann?s epilogue (in English translation), entitled ?Ten Objections to Joseph Ratzinger?s Book on Jesus.? These ?ten objections? make it clear that Lüdemann?s critique is concerned not only with historical method, but also with church doctrine. Anyway, the publishers are sending me a copy of Lüdemann?s book, and I?ll be posting a review when it arrives. I?ll try both to evaluate his criticisms of Benedict, and to offer some general remarks about the strengths and weaknesses of the pope?s book. If you haven?t yet read Benedict?s Jesus of Nazareth, I?d encourage you to check it out.
Bob Dylan and the pope
2007-05-17 00:18:00 A while back, I mentioned Benedict XVI?s dislike for the music of Bob Dylan. Now Sean Curnyn (who has a blog with the unlikely title Right-Wing Bob) has written a nice piece about ?The Pope and the Pop Star? in First Things: ?In a world of popular music that often seems dominated by nihilism and its close relations, Dylan?s work can be seen as sneakily inserting important question marks and surprising diversions toward biblical truths.?
Benedict XVI: Jesus of Nazareth
2007-04-30 22:37:00 Here?s something to look forward to: Benedict XVI?s first book written as pope, Jesus of Nazareth, will be published in English soon. It looks as though it will be an excellent book, blending historical scholarship with pastoral and theological reflection. Chris and Zadok have been reading the German and Italian editions ? and they?re both pretty impressed with it.
Pope Benedict XVI: the first official portrait
2007-04-25 10:23:00 Michael Noakes is a portrait and landscape painter who has painted everyone from the Queen, Prime Ministers and Presidents to famous actors.He has just painted the first official formal portrait of Pope Benedict XVI which is being exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London from 26th April ? 13th May 2007.The Pope?s only suggestion was that the picture ought to show him with his mouth closed.For Noakes, he came over as a slightly shy man: ?I wanted to imply that. He also smiles a great deal, but it?s an oil painting and is going to be around as part of the records for a long time. So I made him look cheerful, with a degree of gravitas and a bit of a twinkle.?Noakes has been President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and Chairman of the Contemporary Portrait Society. He is a Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and a Freeman of the City of London. Himself a Catholic, he is also a past President of the Society of Cath...
Pope Benedict XVI: Augustine as a model of conversion
2007-04-23 23:13:00 "You have created us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.?St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Those are the words that resounded in my mind and heart time and time again as I journeyed back to Catholicism. For a long time, my heart had been wandering restlessly until I recognized Him as he had always recognized me since the beginning.It is very hard to read the Confessions of St. Augustine and not feel an intimate connection with him and feel for him. Any Christian who has any doubts about how to establish a personal relationship with God has to read the Confessions. It is an easy read and there is really no formal background needed to start reading this book. Augustine?s journey towards its encounter with God is deeply moving, and although he is one of the greatest theologians of all time, he was able to convey beautifully how this personal encounter with our Creator takes place through personal conversion.If you ask me or Michael who is our favorite saint...
Pope Benedict XVI on St Augustine: Conversion is a lifelong journey
2007-04-23 10:59:00 Following on the post here on St Augustine, Argent by the Tiber provides a report on the pastoral visit by the Pope to Pavia and lengthy extracts of his homilies there.At the place where the relics of St Augustine are kept, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the saint?s life journey as the ideal itinerary for every Christian.?It can be seen quite clearly that his conversion was not an event of one moment in time, but a journey?.?What was the most essential aspect of this journey? Augustine on one hand was a product of his times, profoundly conditioned by the dominant habits and passions of his era, as well as all of the questions and problems pertaining to his young age. He lived exactly like the rest of the men of his time, and yet there was something special in him: he remained a person in continual search. He never contented himself with life as it was presented to him and as other lived it. He was forever tormented by the question of the truth?.?He wanted to find the truth. He wante...
Pope Benedict XVI and "theistic" evolution
2007-04-12 19:51:00 H/T: Insight ScoopCathNews reports that Pope Benedict XVI endorses a view of biological evolution that is at once scientific and theological. Reportedly, Benedict is hesitant, however, to endorse "intelligent design". This does not surprize me as most intelligent design theories either marginalize scientific data and theory or result in a weak concept of divinity. Intelligent design theory attempts only to answer the question as to whether or not there is a "designer" of the cosmos, but this designer need not be God or even divine at all (think of Descartes' evil demon or Plato's demiurge, for example). In other words, intelligent design does too little in aiding reason in a journey to the divine.Here's the whole report from CathNews.In remarks published in a new book yesterday, Pope Benedict refused to endorse "intelligent design" theories, instead backing "theistic evolution" which considers that God created life through evolution with no clash between religion and science.The ...
Pope Benedict XVI - "Nothing Positive Comes from Iraq"?
2007-04-11 07:56:00 Easter is over and I'm back to blogging. It was not my intention to commemorate my return to blogdom by kicking the dead horse of topics past -- the war in Iraq, capital punishment, or political matters in general. But alas, events being what they are . . . Out of Pope Benedict XVI's 1,444 word Urbi Et Orbi Easter Message for 2007 devoted to an observation of all manner of human suffering throughout the world and the response of the Gospel, much is being made of the following sentence:In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees. Amy Welborn has a roundup of pundit's reactions to the Pope's comment (along with the usual raging debate in the combox), including an editorial in the New York Sun (The Eyes of Hope, April 9, 2007):If the pope wants to help Iraqis and the Americans and others who are risking their lives to hel...
Michael Novak: "Benedict XVI's Easter Sunday remarks...hit a low point"
2007-04-10 23:47:00 H/T: Amy WelbornPerhaps the Pope is able to see the big picture of the lives of the Iraqis, as a pastor of souls that he is, and Novak is only able to isolate certain instances that show some improvement in order to justify the war.Benedict XVI's Easter Sunday Remarks in St Peter Square hit a low point, I would think. He said that "nothing positive comes from Iraq." This is a very skewed report on the realities on the ground. But it might mean that the message the Pope wanted to convey is that of the American Left: "Whatever the good or the bad achievements, it is time to get out." In other words, not an accurate description, but a prescription for the near future.When I was invited to the Vatican in 2003, just before the war began, I told the Foreign Minister of the Vatican, Archbishop Tauran, that articles appearing under a Vatican imprint in Civilta Cattolica were blaming the US for seeking oil in Iraq (a hypothetical), while ignoring the real and existing contracts of the Frenc...
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Easter Sunday Mass
2007-04-08 15:22:00 Vatican City, April 8: Pope Benedict XVI marked Easter Sunday with a Mass in St. Peter's Square and a message to the world recalling the "natural calamities and human tragedies that cause innumerable victims and enormous material destruction".
By: newkerala.com
Pope Benedict XVI leads Easter Vigil
2007-04-08 10:53:00 Vatican City, April 8 : Pope Benedict XVI lead the traditional Easter Vigil late Saturday in Rome's Basilica of St Peter, describing the resurrection of Christ as the triumph of love over death.
By: newkerala.com
Pope Benedict XVI begins Easter rites
2007-04-05 14:37:00 Vatican City, April 5: Pope Benedict XVI commenced four days of intense Easter celebrations Thursday by presiding over a Holy Chrism Mass in the Basilica of St Peter's in Rome.
By: newkerala.com
Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth available for pre-sale
2007-03-09 22:16:00 Though Benedict XVI's forthcoming book, Jesus of Nazareth, will not be released until May 15th, it is available now for pre-order in two hardcover editions through Amazon.com.
Top Muslim cleric agrees to meet Pope Benedict XVI
2007-02-23 18:26:02 Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, grand sheik at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, has agreed to meet Pope Benedict XVI in Rome, the Vatican said Tuesday. The sheikh is described as a moderate and is regarded as the highest spiritual authority for nearly 1 billion Sunni Muslims worldwide. His decision to accept the pope’s invitation was made public by the Vatican press office after a visit to Cairo by Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Vatican’s commission on relations with Muslims. A date for the meeting has not yet been announced. Benedict has been working hard to improve relations between the Church and the Islamic world since making a speech in Germany in Sept in which he angered Muslims by appearing to equate their religion with violence.
By: Templar Globe
Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Journey to Turkey Nov. 28 - De
2006-12-08 00:41:31 Ecumenical Patriarchate | EWTN Coverage | Weekly Schedule (Vatican) | Vatican Radio [This post will be updated regularly throughout the coming week (Tuesday 28th - Friday 1st) as we chronicle Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic journey. Please bookmark and pass along if interested. God bless! - Christopher] November 28, 2006 - Arrival; Visit to the Ataturk Mausoleum; Meeting with the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ali Bardakoglu, Chief of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directories; November 29, 2006 - Eucharistic celebration before the Shrine of Meryem Ana Eva in Ephesus; Moment of prayer at the Patriarchal Church of St. George and private meeting with H.H. Bartholomew I; November 30, 2006 - Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Church of St. George -- Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Patron Saint of the Church of Constantinople; Visit to the Museum of Saint Sofia and the Grand Umayyad Mosque ["Blue Mosque"]; Moment of prayer in the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral and meeting with H....
Sundays are sacred says Benedict XVI
2006-12-06 10:21:02 From Zenit:Benedict XVI says that it is urgent to emphasize "the sacredness of the Lord's Day and the need to participate in Sunday Mass."The Pope expressed this in a message sent to Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, on the occasion of a study day organized by the Vatican dicastery.The study day marked the anniversary of the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council constitution "Sacrosanctum Concilium" of Dec. 4, 1963.The meeting on the topic "Sunday Mass for the Sanctification of the Christian People" was held Friday in the Vatican.The Holy Father stressed that, for the early Christians, participation in Sunday Mass "was the natural way to express one's belonging to Christ, his communion with his Mystical Body, in the joyful hope of his glorious return."This "was manifested in a heroic way in the case of the martyrs of Abitene, who faced death exclaiming: 'Sine dominico non possumus,' that is, we cannot live without ga...
The Many Faces of Benedict XVI
2006-12-03 04:16:02 "Believe me, guys. I can take all four of you American seminarians with only my writing hand.
Benedict XVI on the meaning of death
2006-11-07 15:30:01 Today in St Peter?s Square, Benedict XVI gave an address on the meaning of death: ?Since [Jesus], death is no longer the same: It has been deprived, so to speak, of its ?venom.? The love of God, acting in Jesus, has given new meaning to the whole of man?s existence and in this way has also transformed death. If in Christ human life is a departure ?from this world to the Father? (John 13:1), the hour of death is the moment in which this departure takes places in a concrete and definite way.?
Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI by Leading Mus
2006-10-19 08:57:04 In an unprecedented move, an open letter signed by 38 leading Muslim religious scholars and leaders around the world was sent to Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2006. The letter, which is the outcome of a joint effort, was signed by top religious authorities, Muslim leaders, Muslim scholars in the West such as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf from California, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Professor Tim Winter of the University of Cambridge.All the eight schools of thought and jurisprudence in Islam are represented by the signatories, including a woman scholar. In this respect the letter is unique in the history of interfaith relations. The letter was sent, in a spirit of goodwill, to respond to some of the remarks made by the Pope during his lecture at the University of Regensburg on Sept. 12, 2006. The letter tackles the main substantive issues raised in his treatment of a debate between the medieval Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an ?educ...
So what DOES Pope Benedict XVI think about Islam?
2006-09-18 09:36:03 Benodette, from the RatzingerForum, reminded all of us today of a much-overlooked address by Benedict to representatives of some Muslim communities, whom he met while visiting Cologne for World Youth Day on Saturday, August 20, 2005. A portion of the address is printed below. You can find the full text on the Vatican website. In light of everything that has happened in the past several days, the words of our Holy Father appear all the more striking and relevant for us today.Dear Muslim Friends,It gives me great joy to be able to be with you and to offer you my heartfelt greetings. . . . I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bring up one of our concerns as we notice the spread of terrorism. I know that many of you have firmly rejected, also publicly, in particular any connection between your faith and terrorism and have condemned it. I am grateful to you for this, for it contributes to the climate of trust that we need. [...] If together we can succeed in eliminating from...
Pope Benedict XVI on "Faith, Reason and the University" (Reg
2006-09-17 15:30:08 In 1969, following a tense period at the University of Tübingen (see The difficult years, by Gianni Valente 30 Giorni May 2006), Joseph Ratzinger received the invitation to teach at the University of Regensburg in Bavaria. Having turned down the initial invitation in 1967, he remarks in Milestones that "I was still dean [of the faculty of theology at Tübingen], but the exhausting controveries I
Muslims riot over Pope Benedict XVI?s remarks
2006-09-16 08:36:01 As if they really needed an excuse. Puh-leeze. Methinks these folks live to be offended and will seek any reason whatsoever to riot. They certainly do not give a good impression to non-Muslims with such prima donna behavior. From the New York Times: Some of the strongest words came from Turkey, possibly putting in jeopardy Benedict’s scheduled visit there in November. “I do not think any good will come from the visit to the Muslim world of a person who has such ideas about Islam’s prophet,” Ali Bardakoglu, a cleric who is head of the Turkish government’s directorate of religious affairs, said in a television interview there. “He should first of all replace the grudge in his heart with moral values and respect for the other.” Muslim leaders in Pakistan, Morocco and Kuwait, in addition to some in Germany and France, also criticized the pope’s remarks, with many demanding an apology or clarification. The extent of any anger about the speech may become clearer on Friday, the Muslim day ...
By: GayPatriot
Faith, reason and the university: Benedict XVI
2006-09-15 23:00:02 As noted on Insight Scoop, this week Pope Benedict XVI gave an address at the University of Regensburg entitled ?Faith, Reason and the University.? It?s an excellent address that deserves attentive reading. After offering a critique of the rise of modern reason, the Holy Father says: ?The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity. ?The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing...
Pope Benedict XVI Roundup!
2006-09-04 08:03:03 Greetings and welcome to another installment of the Pope Benedict Roundup, an occasional -- usually monthly -- roundup of news and commentary on the Holy Father and all things Benedict. You can view previous editions at the recently-established Benedict Blog, the blog of the Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club. Pope Benedict XVI and the "Evolution Debate" This weekend (September 2-3, 2006) Pope Benedict is taking some time to gather with a group of close friends, students and scholars in a private seminar to discuss the topic of Darwinian evolution. Ian Fisher ( Pope Benedict and his ex-students holding seminar on evolution, by Ian Fisher. The New York Times Sept. 2, 2006) reports on those attending:As might be expected from a German professor, all sides of the evolution question will get a hearing, though with an emphasis on skepticism. The seminar on Friday reportedly began with a presentation by Peter Schuster, an eminent molecular biologist, president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences ... |
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