The primacy of Peter. On Wednesday April 17 2015 at the College of Campo Santo Teutonico, during a meeting on "The primacy of Peter in the pontificate of Benedict XVI," organized on the occasion of the birthday of the Emeritus Pope and the tenth anniversary of his election to the papacy, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - and editor of the complete works of Ratzinger - Gerhard Muller, gave a speech of which we publish an excerpt. Jesus, the cardinal pointed out, did not want to build his Church as an abstract reality; the papal service is always realized by the very concrete personality of the one who is called to build the house of God in the world.
(Gerhard Muller) An important feature of the pontificate of Benedict XVI was his extraordinary theological talent. Not simply meaning the impression deriving from the activity of a teacher, but the molding of the most important themes of the Doctrine of the Faith through the high originality of his theology. To the Supreme Pontiffs also applies what is true all Christians in general: the different charisms are given by the Spirit of God that they may be useful to others so that the Body of Christ be built up in knowledge and love of God. So the entire body, through the joint action of its members, grows on its way to meet Christ. Those who have received the gift of teaching, teach! And this is in accordance with the faith (cfr. Romans 12: 7). This analogy of faith, understanding the intimate connection between the revealed truth and the end of salvation for every man, is based on the analogy of being, that is, created reason's capacity for truth too, that in the real being of the world recognizes being, verum et bonum (the truth and the good), which is a reflection of and a parable for God's reason and love. On the basis of the analogia entis (analogy of being), theology as the science of revealed truth is possible as tha analogia fidei (analogy of faith).
Theological knowledge does not serve intellectual curiosity, which delights itself in the closed circle of a few experts and takes delight in its own intelligence. Without theology, as it has been developed in different schools by the Church Fathers, the great theologians of the Middle Ages and the modern era, the magisterium can not fulfill its responsibilities. In fact, the Magisterium of the Church bears witness to the revealed truth of the Church in the profession, in the auditus fidei (hearing of the faith), while the intellectual representation is carried out in a rational and conceptual way, so that the inner rationality of the deposit of faith shines forth in theological teaching. In her authority as authentic witness to what has been revealed, by virtue of the assistance of the promised Holy Spirit, the magisterium certainly stands above academic theology, but she uses it out of strict necessity. The Pope and the bishops can teach in a pure and complete way and propose for the faith only what is contained in the historical revelation of God. But as for the linguistic and conceptual form: "the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in view of their office and the seriousness of the matter, apply themselves with zeal to the work of enquiring by every suitable means into this revelation and of giving apt expression to its contents; they do not, however, admit any new public revelation as pertaining to the divine deposit of faith "(Lumen Gentium, n. 25). In fact, unlike Peter and the other apostles, the Pope and the bishops are not personal carriers of revelation. However, for the faithful transmission of the faith, in their ministry they have the assistance of the Holy Spirit (assistentia Sancti Spiritus).
Peter himself in his first letter, an "encyclical", urged the Christians, and especially priests and bishops, to respond to all those who would ask them for the "logos of the hope" that is in us through faith in Christ the Lord, "the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls" (1 Peter 2, 25).
One issue that was very dear to Joseph Ratzinger the theologian, but also to the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and to the Pope, was to show the intimate connection for the faith between and understanding, between the auditus (hearing) and the intellectus fidei (understanding of the faith).
In this the faith is not measured by an external instrument of subjected to a standard which is foreign to it. Faith as being illuminated by the light of Christ (lumen fidei) is quite rational in itself, in conformity with the Logos of God, a rationabile osequium (a logos offering [cf. Rom. 12:2]). Scientific theology has the task of mediating between the knowledge of God in faith and knowledge of the world through natural reason (lumen naturale), as it is represented in the natural sciences and humanities, so that in the awareness of the faithful the truth of the faith and natural knowledge are not divided.
Of course the overall activity of a pontificate and its fruitfulness for the Church, which, however, only God can judge, can not be reduced to a single subject. However, the theological development of the intimate unity and interpenetration of faith and reason is something that gives the papacy of Benedict XVI a special character. Faith and reason do not limit each other, nor are they mutually exclusive; but rather they serve the completion of man in God and in his Word, who became flesh like us, and in his Spirit, who reveals the being and the deepest life of God: God is love, as the great encyclical Deus Caritas Est explains.
So it can be said: Benedict XVI was one of the great theologians of the Chair of Peter. In the long line of his predecessors, it is easy to compare him to an extraordinary scholarly figure of the eighteenth century, Benedict XIV (1740-1758). Similarly one could think of Pope Leo the Great (440-461), who formulated the decisive insight for the Christological creed of the Council of Chalcedon (451). In the long years of his academic work as professor of fundamental and dogmatic theology, Ratzinger has developed an autonomous theological work, which places him in the ranks of the most important theologians of the twentieth and twenty-first century. For over fifty years, his name is synonymous with a total original project of systematic theology. His writings join the scientific knowledge of theology to the living form of faith. As science with its rightful place in the Church, theology can show us the particular vocation of man as a creature and the image of God.
In his scientific work, Benedict XVI has always been able to take advantage of an extraordinary knowledge of the history of theology and dogma, which he has transmitted so as to make man's vision of God shine, on which everything depends. This is made accessible to many thanks to Joseph Ratzinger's use of words and language. The complex contents are not removed from common understanding through complicated reflections, but made transparent in their interior simplicity. At the center of it all there is always the fact that God wants to speak to every man and that his word becomes a light that enlightens all men (cfr. John 1: 9).
L'Osservatore Romano
http://kairosterzomillennio.blogspot.com/2015/04/le-parole-semplici-del-papa-teologo.html
Plinthos translation (ever correcting and improving Google Translate!).