Ratzinger Quotes

I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger. ~ Oriana Fallaci

Some argue that in time there was a noticeable change in Ratzinger's position held during the Council. However, as he himself said, and others would say about him, "It is not Ratzinger who has somehow changed and suddenly become reactionary and conservative. It is the secular culture that has drifted beyond the pale. ~ Gediminas T. Jankunas

faith presupposes reason and perfects it, and reason, enlightened by faith, finds the strength to rise to knowledge of God and spiritual realities'.15 For Ratzinger, faith and reason, theology and philosophy, are symbiotically, and not extrinsic-ally, related. Faith without reason ends in fideism, but reason without faith ends in nihilism. ~ Tracey Rowland

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues. ~ Carl Bernstein

The pollution of the outward environment we are witnessing is only the mirror and the consequence
of the inward environment, to which we pay too little heed. I think that this is also the defect of the ecological movements. They crusade with an understandable and also legitimate passion against the pollution of the environment, whereas man's self-pollution of his soul continues to be treated as one of the rights of his freedom.
There is a discrepancy here. We want to eliminate the measurable pollution, but we don't consider the pollution of man's soul and his creaturely form ... he must acknowledge himself as a creature and realise that there must be a sort of inner purity to his creatureliness: spiritual ecology, if you will.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth, Ignatius Press, 1997, pp. 230-231 ~ Pope Benedict XVI

And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people's damnation - just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord's parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because THAT kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God.
-What It Means To Be A Christian ~ Pope Benedict XVI