Benedikt XVI. Ein Leben [Benedict XVI, A Life]

The book by Peter Seewald is an attempt at a complete biography of Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is the first Pope in the history of the Church who has had two biographies written since his retirement (although the problematic word ‘emeritus’ does not seem to reflect his status accurately for several reasons), read them before publication and was most probably consulted regarding their content. In the case of the book by Seewald, this is evidenced, not only by the conversation from 2018 attached to the biography, but also by the several decades of cooperation between the author and the protagonist. As for the biography by Elio Guerriero (2016), apart from the interview with the (at that time) Pope Emeritus, the evidence includes the preface by Pope Francis, which could never have been written if he had not known the book was authorized by the protagonist. This is a unique situation, since the state of official retirement of Joseph Ratzinger makes it possible to write what we may call ‘participant biographies’, and Seewald’s work is definitely one of them. It is beneficial for the reader because the author is well informed and can analyze the events he describes thanks to personally knowing the protagonist. It is also worth noting that the German pope has himself published a short book with autobiographical memoirs (Ratzinger 1998), and clearly has a liking for the biographical form.

The biographies of Joseph Ratzinger and books with biographical elements serve different purposes. It is worth making a mind map of previous biographies of the former pope. As early as 2014, shortly after the abdication, Nicolas Diat published a book that could be classified as a ‘theological biography’: L'homme, qui ne voulait pas etre pape. Histoire secrete d'un regne (Diat 2014). This is the story of the pope’s pontificate and his biography, in which Monte Cassino, Assisi, and Regensburg are the key sites, while the foundations of the faith and the crisis of the Church are the key concepts. It is also written from the perspective of theological continuum with the pontificate of John Paul II. The primary (and so far, central) works are the above-mentioned biography written by Elio Guerriero, Servitore di Dio e dell’unmanita translated into Polish as The Witness of Truth, alluding to the biography of John Paul II by George Weigel (1999), The Witness of Hope (in Polish Świadek nadziei), and the monumental biography published in Spanish by Pablo Blanco (2019). The book by Elio Guerriero is also a commentary on the changes occurring in the Church during the past several decades, showing the role of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in these changes, and the author aims to present the protagonist’s life comprehensively. On the other hand, the book by Hans Küng (2015), Una battaglia lunga una vita, is a critical work containing many sections devoted to Ratzinger, who is perceived in it through the prism of personal and ecclesial conflicts. The author overtly displays his critical attitude towards both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Seewald’s book basically fits the type of project typical of Guerriero, substantially extending it not only with biographical data but also with contexts, including non-theological ones.

The book by Peter Seewald is monumental, composed of six parts and 74 chapters, plus several dozen pages of endnotes and the index of names. Thus, it may serve as a kind of encyclopedia of the life of Benedict XVI (Seewald 2020). The work by the German journalist shows the valuable context of changes in secular politics. Ratzinger is presented as a witness to liberty in the time of black and red totalitarianism, and afterwards, as a crucial ecclesiastical personality who has shaped the contemporary Church. Seewald very soberly approaches the theological ecclesial figure of Ratzinger as swimming upstream, often experiencing exclusion and theological marginalization. He mentions the price he had to pay for that, e.g. having his books placed on worse shelves in bookshops, or the policy at German faculties of theology, where following by Joseph Ratzinger/Karol Wojtyła line prevented one from holding the chair. As a theologian and a person in power, initially a bishop, then the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and then a cardinal, Ratzinger had many opportunities to go mainstream and gain popularity. On page 497 of the German edition the author writes that the difference between Ratzinger and other theologians was that he always argued in accordance with the faith of the Church, never against it. This may be interpreted as a principle he upheld until the end of his pontificate. Seewald shows the reader that it’s impossible just to study Ratzinger. The amount and essence of his thoughts make a complex, multidimensional structure that changed with his personal intellectual development, position in the Church, and historical events. In order to understand Ratzinger, we need to use a historiosophical key (just like in the case of John Paul II), look at the Church from the temporal perspective, and find the references to the present time. The figure of Benedict XVI in a unique way links different periods of history and the Church. From the ecclesial point of view, he links the Second Vatican Council, the pontificate of John Paul II, and the activities aimed at fighting the crisis in the Church, up to the development of current perspective –which, however, was predicted earlier– of secularization and the processes of the abandoning of the faith in the West. In other words, the figure of Benedict XVI is a bridge between our times and the 20th century. This image of the pope who becomes a link in the ecclesial bridge between generations emerges from the monumental biography by Peter Seewald.

The message perceptible in the book apart from the main topic is that the Church is universal but not really global, i.e. it does not display ‘corporate similarity’. Ratzinger cannot be interpreted apart from the religious culture of Bavaria, with its simple, popular religiosity and what we might call ‘the Alpine Catholic culture’. It is an important message: in every part of the world, the universal Church is immersed in the local culture, local liturgical language, exemplifications of faith in the form of local saints, and different historical experiences. Thus, cultural diversity overlaps with universality. Seewald points to this issue when interpreting Ratzinger according to the narrative of belonging to the local culture and its simple, popular religiosity, which the pope, although a great intellectual, has never been ashamed of because it contributed to his development.

However, the book raises some reservations, first of all, regarding the sources of information. As we analyze the bibliography, we can see the author drew a lot from written sources, less from conversations or direct testimonies, including the international environment of Benedict XVI. His doctoral students or coworkers from all over the world seem to have too little to say in Seewald’s book, although they could have said a lot about his working style and lifestyle. If we read this book from the perspective of Central Europe, especially Poland, a country where theologians are actively working on Ratzinger’s thought (i.e. all the Herder editions of Opera Omnia have been published at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin), we may discern some insufficiency in the biography regarding the Central European context. Poland is a country where the thought of Benedict XVI is very present both in academia and in journalism. Ratzinger had visited several times even before his papacy, both with John Paul II and without. The marginalization of this perspective results in harmful omissions, e.g. the book does not mention the pope’s 2006 pilgrimage to Poland, the homeland of his predecessor and a country where he was received very kindly, with several hundred thousand believers attending the mass he celebrated in Warsaw. For Poles, the German pope was not only the Church leader but also a symbol of dialog, reconciliation, and the beginning of change that took place in the Polish Church in the decade after his election.

To conclude, Seewald goes beyond the framework of a regular biography and the poetics of a journalistic biography, both in terms of the volume and of the scale of the issues discussed in the book. The work will surely be a must-read for those who study the thought of Benedict XVI.

However, A Life definitely needs one more chapter, describing in fuller scope the time of isolation mentioned in the epilogue. Sermons from Mater Ecclesiae or other texts and speeches, as well as comments to the current events in the Church, will probably be published one day. A Life is a symbolic title, as Christianity is based on the choice of life and pursuit of the meaning of life as long as there is a will to do so, a will stronger than the fading body.

Cezary Kościelniak
Department of Anthropology and Cultural Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
[email protected]

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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.