Joseph Pearce - Benedict XVI: Defender of the Faith

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Benedict XVI

Joseph Pearces biography demonstrates the immense devotion and enthusiasm Pope Benedict evoked among the young disciples of Jesus around the world. Pope Benedict is probably the best theologian among all the popes and he should become a Doctor of the Church. Joseph Pearces work will help further this cause.

George Cardinal Pell

In an age marked by so much frenzied and false search for mans purpose, a pope whose brilliance was exceeded only by his love of Jesus Christ directed and redirected the focus of the faithful over and over to the complementary realities for which man was made: human friendship and divine worship. Joseph Pearce, with his customary liveliness and his rare capacity to render the complex accessible, has performed a unique and highly valuable service in revealing to the faithful the heart and mind of a pope whose magnificence never once hindered his humility.

Christopher Check, President, Catholic Answers

This very clear and accessible new biography of Pope Benedict XVI is a perfect introduction to the life of this great theologian and pope. Joseph Pearce has managed to make the thought of this soaring intellect and prayerful soul understandable and compelling for the ordinary reader. Pearce gives us the main outlines of Benedicts life, then takes us with him from the enthusiastic joy of Benedicts election on April 19, 2005As the name of Joseph Ratzinger was proclaimed as the new Vicar of Christ, all heaven broke loose!to the unexpected sorrow of Benedicts resignation on February 11, 2013. Throughout, Pearce makes a compelling case for his conclusion: that Benedict will be remembered as one of the greatest defenders of the Faith in the Churchs long and tempestuous history.

Dr. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, author of Let Gods Light Shine Forth: The Life and Spiritual Vision of Pope Benedict XVI (2005)

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Joseph Pearces Work

Joseph Pearce has a remarkable gift of writing about history, literature, and culture in general. His writing is objective and accessible, that is, it shows his steadfast attention to the truth and to language which manifests the same truth in its inherent beauty or natural attractiveness.

I express deepest gratitude to Joseph Pearce for his tireless pursuit of the truth revealed to the heart of man by reason and by faith as it is manifest in the beautiful and the good. It is my hope that his pursuit may inspire the same pursuit in the reader, who, attracted by the beauty of the truth, will be ever more disposed to follow the truth by what is most beautiful of all, a good and holy life.

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

BENEDICT XVI

Joseph Pearce

TAN Books
Gastonia, North Carolina

Benedict XVI: Defender of the Faith 2021 Joseph Pearce

All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in critical review, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Creation, exploitation and distribution of any unauthorized editions of this work, in any format in existence now or in the futureincluding but not limited to text, audio, and videois prohibited without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Spe Salvi, Caritas in Veritate, Deu Caritas Est, Summorum Pontificum and other encyclicals, speeches, and other writings copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the BibleSecond Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design by www.davidferrisdesign.com.

Cover image: Pope Benedict XVI LOsservatore Romano, used with permission.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021946024

ISBN: 978-1-61890-736-3

Kindle ISBN: 978-1-61890-738-7

ePUB ISBN: 978-1-61890-737-0

Published in the United States by

TAN Books

PO Box 269

Gastonia, NC 28053

www.TANBooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

For Joseph Fessio, S.J.
In admiration, gratitude, and friendship

CONTENTS

T he author would like to express his heartfelt gratitude to Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke who had agreed to write the foreword to this book until a serious COVID-related illness prevented him from being able to do so. In addition, the author would also like to thank Scott Hahn for agreeing to step into the breach at very short notice to provide the foreword.

T his book is surprising. This book is unique.

But it earns those adjectives not because it is about the man we knew as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and know today as Pope Emeritus Benedict. Books about that man constitute a genre by themselvesand I love those books, because I love the man.

There are thick volumes that situate him in history, that summarize his writings on the liturgy, that synthesize his theology of the Church, that place him in relation to one or another thinker, that trace the development of his thought on faith and culture.

This book touches on all those things, but only in a subordinate way.

Joseph Pearce did not write this book to analyze anything, or advance an agenda, or incite responses from excitable academics or pundits.

What he did was produce a portrait of a beautiful mana shy, kind, Christian man who received many gifts from God in the course of his life. And, as we see in these pages, he labored to use all those gifts in loving service of the Giver.

Yes, we see the mans luminous intellect. That light could not be hidden under a bushel. But we also see his humor, his sense of family, his enduring friendships, his counsel given to both the lowly and the mighty. We come to know him through the things that are most important to him, rather than the themes that pique our curiosityor our hunger for gossip.

Thus, I see, for perhaps the first time on paper, the image of the most remarkable man I have metthe man whose books led me gently but inexorably to the Catholic Church.

Joseph Pearce makes abundantly clear the gift we have had in Joseph Ratzinger and Pope Benedict. God gave him to the whole world as a cardinal and then as pope.

Joseph Pearce has now given him to us as a gentleman we are compelled to love, a true Defender of the Faith.

At the end of the book, the response of my heart rose with words from the Roman Missal: Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!

Thanks, too, to my friend, Mr. Pearce.

Scott Hahn

L ike most people, or at least like most Catholics, I remember exactly where I was on April 2, 2005, the day John Paul II died. Minutes after hearing the deeply saddening news, I gathered together with Father Joseph Fessio and a small group of students on the campus of Ave Maria University in Florida, in the open air, to pray for the Pope. I dont remember the actual prayers that were said, but I do recall that we sang the Salve Regina, beseeching the intercession of the Blessed Virgin for the Pope and for the Church.

Even as we grieved for the passing of one pope, our minds and prayers were already turning to thoughts of the next. The Church was under siege from her secularist enemies from without and was being betrayed by the modernist fifth columnists from within. She was in need of a strong and faithful shepherd to protect the flock from the wolves outside her walls, baying for her blood, and the wolves in sheeps clothing within her own ranks, betraying her with a kiss. Even though we knew that Christ would protect His bride, it was difficult to avoid feelings of anxiety as we awaited the election of John Pauls, and Peters, successor.