Dubious Demonizing. - Review - book review

Commonweal, Nov 3, 2000 by Joseph A. Komonchak

This is too bad because we could use a good analysis and critique of the thought and actions of a man who has played so powerful a role in the church over the last twenty years.

Ratzinger's theology, early and late, fits within a trajectory of Catholic thought that was one of the paths of renewal that made Vatican II possible. It was not the only one, of course, and a much-neglected dynamic of Vatican II was the tension among various groups within the majority. Their differences, latent when the common goal was getting rid of the official texts prepared for the council, began to be expressed in the last two sessions of the council and are visible in the final texts. When the council was followed by some developments in the church that few if any had anticipated, the tensions became divisions and their representatives now vie over how to interpret Vatican II, both as a set of documents and as an event in the life of the church. For the moment the line represented by Cardinal Ratzinger is in the ascendancy in Rome and claims a monopoly on the interpretation of the council; and he has not hesitated to use the power of his office to reinforce this line, sometimes in language and by means that are difficult to reconcile with either the texts of Vatican II or the council's communion-inspired methods. But to show all this would require a more attentive and critical book than this one.

The Reverend Joseph A. Komonchak, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, holds the John C. and Gertrude P. Hubbard Chair in Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America. He is the co-editor of the English-language edition of the History of Vatican II (Orbis/Peeters).