Short Summary: Early Memoirs of Pope Benedict XVI, As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, was the rare erudite theologian who never lost the simplicity of a child in his wonderment both of ideas and of people and nature.

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We also reflect on:
• The wartime experiences of the young Ratzinger as a teenager, and his personal memory when Nazi Germany invaded Russia.
• How both the experiences of World War I and World War II affected the calling of the Second Vatican Council.
• How Ratzinger loved books, including books by Martin Buber, book by St Augustine, The Confessions, St Thomas Aquinas, Yves Congar, and the book by Henri de Lubac, Catholicism.
• Ratzinger’s views on the patristic method and the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation, dogma, and liturgy.
• The danger that Marxism could corrupt the faith.
• His ordination and Psalm 84.
• How his doctoral dissertation was St Bonaventure and his views on Revelation, and their influence on the Vatican II decrees, and how this disproves the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, or Scripture Alone.
• His friendship and academic debates with Hans Kung.
• His appointment as Archbishop of Munich and Freising.
• How he adopted as his episcopal motto the phrase from the Third Letter of John, Co-worker of the Truth.
• How he adopted as his episcopal symbols the shell and the bear.
• The Legend of St Corbinian and the bear, and its relation to Psalm 72.

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As Socrates teaches us, the examined life is a life worth living. We would be fools if we did not desire to learn from our multitude of friends whose words live in the works of the classics that have survived from past centuries and millennia. The Stoic and moral philosophers of Greece and Rome saw philosophy as an evangelical enterprise, seeking to spread the joy of living a godly life for its own sake.

This is original content based on research by Bruce Strom and his blogs. Images in the Public Domain, many from Wikipedia, some from the National Archives, are selected to provide illustration. When images of the actual topic or event are not available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. The ancient world was a warrior culture out of necessity, to learn from the distant past we should not only judge them from our modern perspective but also from their own ancient perspective on their own terms.