Who is Pope Benedict XVI? "After the great John Paul II, the cardinals elected me, a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord."
With those gentle words, Pope Benedict XVI greeted the faithful of Rome and the world as the Church’s 265th pope.
In selecting Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to lead the Church, the cardinals chose a man they had known well for many years, but one who remains relatively unknown to most of the world’s Catholics.
Now, noted Catholic author and historian Mathew E. Bunson, D.Min., provides a detailed portrait of Benedict XVI, introducing Catholics to a man of powerful intellect and confident faith who now must lead the Church as it confronts some of the most challenging issues facing modern men and women. Bunson examines
• What made him the man he is today • What you are not being told about him by the secular media • What lies ahead for Catholics worldwide
Twenty-six years ago, when Karol Wojtyla was chosen to be the successor to Peter, some of the most difficult challenges to the Church's mission came from the East. Twenty-six years later, the most difficult challenges to the Church's mission come from the West. There is a man now very well prepared who understands Western society and the history of the world. — Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago
Pope Benedict XVI, like many people including myself, is very uncomfortable with some of the trends that came after the Second Vatican Council, which ended up in destroying large segments of religious life, undermining vocations, undermining Catholic theology and moral teaching. When people say that he’s a conservative, they’re saying that he wants to restore those vital parts of the Catholic Christian life. I’m one hundred percent in agreement with him. — Father Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.
[Pope Benedict’s] acceptance of the humanly crushing burden of the See of Peter tells us something important about the man: Like John Paul II, this is a Christian radical who long ago handed his life over to the will of God, manifest through the call of the Church. — George Weigel
