Ratzinger's Faith

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 30, 2009 | In Reviews

I've just finished reading Tracey Rowland's Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. Rowland is Dean and Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology at the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne, Australia. She is also on the editorial board of Communio, the theological journal founded by Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger. She had already written a critically-acclaimed book, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, as part of the Oxford University Press Radical Orthodoxy series. This new book carries cover blurbs from James V. Schall, SJ, Aidan Nichols, OP, and Piers Paul Read.

This is an incredibly fine book, which will thoroughly explain Benedict XVI's thoughts on and analysis of a wide range of ecclesiastical, theological and cultural issues. You can get the flavor of what it covers, and how good a job it does, in my extended review: Good Questions, Great Answers. I mention it here for those who may not read the In Depth Analysis—and because most reviews appear in our blogs, where they will soon be able to be retrieved as a separate category by our users. For those who wish to understand the fundamental questions currently faced by both Church and culture, this book should be on a short list of one.

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[Tracey Rowland, Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) Paper. 227pp. (Benefit CatholicCulture.org by ordering from Amazon cover link at left.)]