Ratzinger, Joseph. Western Culture Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2019.
Part III: 'Responsibility for Peace', Chapters 3 & 4: 'The Responsibility of Christians for Peace’ and ‘The Grace of Reconciliation’.
With these two chapters the book concludes. What follows after this―the Epilogue―is a separate topic. The chapters are speeches given at events in France commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day.
What makes these chapters significant is that they capture several of the general themes developed through the book, such as:
the importance of Christianity in the configuration and understanding of European (and Western) identity two thousand years ago as well as now;
the role totalitarian, secular regimes of the XX century played in dehumanising power, attempting to erase the idea of God from society and trampling on the most basic rights of people such as the right to live;
the discussion on power, law, justice and its moral foundations;
the critique of a secularist conception of morality as based on abstract principles by which all other worldviews (including religious ones) are measured and which does not respond itself to any standard, a completely ‘autonomous’ morality.
Under the totalitarian regimes that dominated Europe in the XX century (Fascism and Communism) men came to be considered as ‘human material’ to be used and even experimented on.1 Christianity, on the contrary, brings us to see God’s image in every person we meet in view of eternal life.2
When Ratzinger refers to ‘the generation to which I belong’3 he is clearly speaking of the one who was coming of age in the sixties, at the time when Vatican II took place. This generation interpreted and applied or distorted the Council in different ways.
One of those ways was the view which produced what we would call the ‘social justice Catholic’, dismissive to a certain point of the afterlife and concerned with the construction of society here and now. They ‘...imagined...there would be plenty of time to think about the thereafter’ and what was worth instead was to strive to improve this world.4
Ratzinger shows how the authentic Christian view is rather grounded on eternal life, on God, and that any activity in this life (parable of the talents in Mt 25:14-30) finds its purpose and meaning within that context―even if in the process it also contributes to making the world better.
If we think of it, the ‘social justice’ perspective might be a bit too horizontal, too immersed in the immanent frame, and thereby lose verticality, the window to the transcendent, to God. When that happens there is little difference between what is left of the Catholic Church and any secular NGO.
Moreover, points out Ratzinger, ‘to live with the thought of eternal life is to be free of the desire to enjoy everything right away...for...one knows that now is the time to work and afterward comes the great feast’5. Interestingly if we think about it, without this perspective founded in eternal life even changes to this world become difficult to achieve as they require sacrifices and the motivation to sustain them.
Ratzinger concludes Chapter 3 with three ideas and three Christian responses. First the ideas:
Reconciliation. The difference between the aftermath of the first and second world wars was the way in which the former enemies dealt with each other. In the latter, the goal, strongly inspired by Christianity, was foster forgiveness and friendship6 and work together towards reconstruction.
Reconciliation based on justice brings peace7. In the Christian perspective, an offence calls for forgiveness. Christ’s spilt Blood calls not for vengeance (as with Abel’s) but for reconciliation: ‘His death has broken down the wall of separation and enmity...The peace of Christ surpasses the boundaries of Christianity and is valid for all, both near and far.’8
The third idea is responsibility, so that the tragedies brought about by the totalitarian regimes and wars of the XX century do not happen again. Christians know that ‘salvation’ comes from Christ beyond history. The utopian dream enacted by totalitarian ideologies and regimes at the costs of countless lives and the loss of the most basic tenets of human dignity is unattainable for as long as human nature is what it is. The only kingdom the Gospel speaks about is that of God.9
In the face the utopias still held by secular ideologies of some sort of possible ‘paradise on Earth’ if only we follow them, the Christian outlook differs in three important ways:
The heavenly Jerusalem in which Christians hope is not built by men, but given by God (Rev 21:1-2).
Secondly, the world belongs to God and not to the Devil, ‘...however much territory the latter may acquire. This certitude is fundamental,...a decisive point in the apocalyptic imagery’.10
Thirdly, God sustains the world but by means of our freedom well exercised, by choosing to do good. In Ratzinger’s words, ‘Faith does not create a better world, but it awakens and strengthens those ethical forces that construct embankments and bulwarks against the tide of evil. Faith awakens the freedom to do good and fortifies it against the temptation to use freedom in a distorted way to choose evil.’11
Is there space in our lives as Catholics to combine the contemplative and active aspects implied in our faith?
Is the outlook of Christian faith essentially pessimistic or optimistic based in the Book of Revelation?
What is the right mix in the tension between the Christian glance towards the heavenly Jerusalem given by God at the end of time and the current, imperfect world in which we live today? What is the role of Christians in it?
1. Ratzinger, Joseph. Western Culture Today and Tomorrow: Addressing the Fundamental Issues. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2019, p. 134.
2. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 134.
3. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 134.
4. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 135.
5. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 135.
6. Already Aristotle had pointed out that ‘...a city is not an association...for the sake of preventing mutual injustice and easing exchange’. Those were conditions for a city to exist but not its fulfilment. What constitutes a city is, rather, ‘...an association of households and clans in a good life, for the sake of attaining a perfect and self-sufficient existence. Thus, ‘...the various institutions of a common social life―marriage-connections, kin-groups, religious gatherings, and social pastimes generally―arose in cities. This sort of thing is the business of friendship, for the pursuit of a common social life is friendship’. Friendship, therefore, is an essential element of the political community. See: Aristotle, Politics, trans. Ernest Barker, rev. R. F. Stalley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1280b29 (pp. 105-106).
7. St Augustine’s ‘tranquilitas ordinis’, the peace that arises from order. See: Saint Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), XIX, 13.
8. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 136-137.
9. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 138.
10. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 138.
11. Ratzinger, Western Culture Today and Tomorrow, 139.