Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny, 2024, R. 32, Nr 1

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Przeglądaj Wrocławski Przegląd Teologiczny, 2024, R. 32, Nr 1 wg Temat "Christianity"

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    Benedict XVI and the Foundations of Politics
    Seweryniak, Henryk (Papieski Wydział Teologiczny we Wrocławiu, 2024)
    This article aims to present the political theology of Joseph Ratzinger/ Benedict XVI. The first paragraph focuses on Ratzinger’s interpretation of selected New Testament source texts and the basic assumptions of what he called the “service to politics rendered by the Christian faith.” The second paragraph deals with Ratzinger’s interpretation of the key relevant logion: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). It cut the knot of the legal, moral and cultic order, on which states based their status, regarding the binding character of its laws as an expression of the divine will. The Enlightenment, according to Ratzinger, was faced with the necessity of cutting the equation “in two,” this time in the Christian world, by exposing the Gospel-rooted model of separation of Church and State. The fundamental task of Christians then is to maintain the balance of the dual system as the basis of freedom. The third paragraph traces the development of Ratzinger’s reflection on the greatness and weaknesses of the contemporary vision of democracy. The clou of this reflection was the reference to the “Böckenförde paradox,” particularly topical in the era of the “dictatorship of relativism” that destroys democracy. The author refutes the criticism of the “Böckenförde paradox” made by Chantal Delsol in her book predicting the end of the Christendom, and concludes with a presentation of the Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life (2002), which is, in his view, the culmination of Ratzinger’s thought on the foundations of politics in the light of fundamental theology and Catholic social teaching.
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    “Life without God and against God”: Joseph Ratzinger on Christianity and the (Secularized) World
    Kaucha, Krzysztof (Papieski Wydział Teologiczny we Wrocławiu, 2024)
    Despite all the efforts of responsible Christians to withstand secularization, the process as shown by various parameters appears to be unstoppable. Joseph Ratzinger developed a much-desired comprehensive, theological understanding of secularization. His theology of the world and his vision of the modern times is presented here succinctly at the time that the Western world seems to dispense with God and even live against Him. First, the article recalls Ratzinger’s 1965 text on the meanings of the term “world.” Any serious thought about the world should first deal with the question of how it is conceptualized. Ratzinger responded by presenting the Christian understanding of the worl+d and confronted it with various philosophical positions and scientific visions. He demonstrated the superiority of Christianity as having the exclusivity of possessing “good news” for humankind. Further, this article offers a comparison of the Christian and increasingly secularized worlds. While denouncing the project of building a secular world (the modern Tower of Babel) and challenging the tenets of the advocates of secularization, Ratzinger also enumerated elements uniting the global community. Finally, the article quotes an important text by Ratzinger brought back to the public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which he juxtaposed two main mechanisms propelling human history: the development of a world without God and the operation of the providential “hand of God.” The clash of the belief in God with that of a life without God started at the dawn of history and will continue to the end of time. Ratzinger’s understanding of the world and secularization is realistic, intellectually principled, and very often dramatic, but concurrently full of Christian hope and optimism. His theology rebuts and reverses the common understanding of the terms “liberal” and “conservative.”