Benedict XVI On His Writings: "Who Is Going to Read All That?"

In his English homily (excerpted below), delivered at the Eucharist in memory of Pope Benedict XVI on the eve of the third anniversary of his death, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller praised the former pope for his theological legacy [and despite the fact that Ratzinger’s pontificate paved the way for Bergoglio's].

“As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he set standards of the highest diligence, intellectual precision, and incorruptibility for the Roman Magisterium.”

And: “During his pontificate, he was one of the greatest theologians on the Cathedra Petri.”

And again: “He has left us an immense theological legacy of exceptional quality and was rightly recognized as one of the great Catholic intellectuals of our time.”

For the Writer, Not the Reader

When Cardinal Müller presented Pope Benedict XVI with the first volume of the Opera Omnia, he explained that the project would eventually comprise 16 volumes amounting to an estimated 25,000–30,000 pages.

Cardinal Müller recalls:

“Rather than expressing pride in such a monumental intellectual work, he said to me, calling me by my name, 'Gerhard, who is going to read all that?’

Somewhat embarrassed, I replied, ‘Holy Father, I don’t know — but I do know the person who wrote it all.’”

The Church Is Not an NGO

In his homily, Cardinal Müller then turned to the nature of the Church itself: “She is not a man-made organization with a grand ethical or social program — an NGO, as it were. The Church of Christ is a community of His disciples who say of themselves and profess before the world: We saw His glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

Canonization

Finally, Cardinal Müller stated that Joseph Ratzinger is “not far from us, for our earthly liturgy corresponds to the heavenly liturgy in which he is united with us in worshipping and glorifying God.”

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