Joseph Ratzinger was a theologian before being pope, his funeral was held on January 5, he left behind a great intellectual work. A legacy that, for some, would have given him a rare and symbolic title in the Church's tradition, and which requires discernment on a variety of criteria.
Portrait of Pope Benedict XVI at Our Lady's Cathedral in Munich January 3, 2023. Sven Hoppe/dpa/picture-alliance“He has the stature of a doctor of the church someday”
Father theologian Jean-Robert Armogathe , director of the journal Communio
Benedict XVI is undoubtedly one of the great theologians of the 20th century. His long life has enabled him to do a tremendous amount of work. This work will one day make him a doctor of the church. However, if he is one of the leading theologians who marked the end of the 20th century, he is certainly not the only one. The end of the second millennium contained many eminent intellectuals and gave us other great theologians. I think in particular of the theologians Hans Urs von Balthasar or Henri de Lubac. Aside from being a great theologian, it's not enough that Benedict XVI is pope. His pontificate cannot be the only key to the title of doctor of the Church.
On the other hand, the title of Doctor of the Church has appeared recently in the history of the Catholic Church. It dates back to the late Middle Ages. The four Latin Fathers who were conferred this title by Pope Boniface VIII in 1295 were Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory the Great. After the Council of Trent, four Eastern Fathers, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Saint Basil of Caesarea, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint John of the Money were added to this list. To be recognized as a doctor of the Church, their teaching must be recognized as a master.
With his immense erudition and high culture, Benedict XVI imparted a wonderful teaching. He was a great theologian in two ways: as a professor and as a prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later as supreme pope. He has two main qualities. First of all, his outstanding pedagogy in the way he explained his thoughts is reflected in the work The Christian Faith Yesterday and Today , an introduction to Christianity. And he knows the point. With exceptional sensitivity, he was never satisfied with the general idea of repeating what his predecessors had molded. As a young theologian, he had a keen eye for the works of Saint Augustine, Saint Bonaventura.
Thanks to his long life, he had access to all theological treatises. In particular, he developed strongly on eschatology, in his work Death and the Beyond , on ecclesiology, on the life of the Church. He also maintained a complete exegesis that, in the end, combined scientific and biblical exegesis to be understood in the true sense of the word, that is, the story handed down by the faithful. If he did not publish many works on moral theology, let us not forget that he was the inspiration for the great writings of John Paul II, especially the social encyclicals.
“Not to be confused with 'great intellectuals'”
Father Olivier Artus, Doctor of Theology, Rector of the Catholic University of Lyon, former member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (2001 to 2014)
“In my opinion, it is too early to question such a statement with Pope Benedict XVI. But he certainly left a considerable theological legacy in exegesis, a theme he emphasized in his spiritual testament. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Word, Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council insists on paying attention to the exegesis of the Fathers (no. 8) and adopting more contemporary methods of historical exegesis (no. 12) – without going into the details of specific modalities in their argument – Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sought to define the relationship between these two textual approaches.
As early as 1968, motivated by intellectual curiosity and by his determination to seek the truth from which, in his opinion, no one could escape, he envisaged, in his work The Christian Faith Yesterday and Today , a "canonical" approach to the biblical text. In its entirety, he affirmed, the Bible makes possible an authentic encounter with Christ, the ultimate truth of our world. An encounter in faith with Jesus Christ is a prerequisite for an accurate interpretation of Scripture, which does not depend solely on a technique, but seeks to clearly present the results of a scientific study and the results of a theological approach.
To see if Benedict XVI could one day be a Doctor of the Church, perhaps we should first remember in history that only 37 saints have received this title – the last being Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (January 1. year 2022). Saints doctors have different portraits, from Saint Bonaventure to Saint Thomas Aquinas, to mystics such as Saint Hildegard of Bingen or Saint Teresa of Lisieux...
Their acquisition of this office is based on their holiness on the one hand, and on the other hand on their theological contribution to the better understanding of the divine mystery by God's people. In connection with this last point, Benedict XVI emphasized, in Faith Yesterday and Today , on the communal dimension of discovering God, for it is never an act. purely personal program.
Basically, in my opinion, we should not confuse the 'great intellectual' with the doctor of the church. The discernment leading up to his proclamation as a doctor will involve the popes who succeed him and will be a long time. The Church has clear rules about the time it takes to beatify, canonize and declare a new "Doctor of the Church". This enduring transience of the Church is indeed a wisdom.”
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