Benedict XVI: A Life: Volume One: Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927-1965

Wow! What an erudite and challenging read. This profile of Benedict XV1 is one that firmly places him on the road to sainthood. Peter Seewald is a journalist not a historian so the flavour of what is written is controlled more by an agenda than facts. Oh! there are plenty of facts that seem to paint a very authentic picture but the problem is with verification. His reference section is sparse and while Benedict is his primary source some of his assertions contradicts what Benedict says in Memories, and even what he (Seewald) wrote in previous works. Mistakes are so significant that one may regard this book as partly fiction. Here are some examples.Page 62 - “Hufschlag, near the Upper Bavarian town of Kleinstadt” they are 300 miles apart and that’s not near. “P 120 - “At last the Americans arrived in Hufschlag. It was May 7th.” It was May 3rd and on the 7th Joseph was a POW for four days, and was now held in a POW camp at Bad Aibling. P 119 - “Joseph’s company was quartered in the girl’s school in the middle of Traunstein” Does not say what school. All schools were requisitioned as hospitals so he could not have been billeted there, and Joseph never said so. In Milstones he said he left from the barracks. P119 - “I decided to go home” We have a date and a time for everything but he cannot remember the most important date when he claims his life was at risk. Maj Quimby who took over Traunstein on May 3rd believed Joseph had just come home and that was after the town was surrendered. P119 - “As he sneaked through the station subway two soldiers were standing there on guard duty” This comment is really sick. The station was bombed on April 18th and over 100 people were killed. The subway took a direct hit. The area was being searched for bodies. One man was found 9 days later (27th) having been blown out of the area by the explosion. Another man was dug out eleven days later (29th). There was no tunnel to go through, and any soldiers around were looking for bodies. That is not Seewalds only problem. Joseph would have been travelling from south to north. To get home he would have to cross the Traun River and the only bridge is near the barracks an area of high security. P119 - “Bandaged hand” other accounts state his arm was in a sling. Which is it? …. His arm being in a sling would be consistent with a novice using a machine gun? P119 - “Jews locked in a brewery pigsty” We are not told the pigsty was at 3, Waginger Street a very short distance from the Ratzingers home. Kurt Messerschmidt escaped at night and would have passed Ratzingers house as he made for cover in the woods. We do not hear about Leo Neumann who was one of the 62 Jews shot but survived to give us an account of what happened! P120 - “There was a tank pointing its canon towards Ratzingers house” Very dramatic but fiction. Maj Quimby, 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion, understood Joesph Ratzinger Sen was chief of police and made his headquarters there. There were no tanks in his battalion - it was a chemical unit specialising in setting down smoke screens. P94 - Seewald mentions that Cardinal Ratzinger would spend a few days on holidays every year in the Seminary where studied as a child. A section of the upper floor was walled off and made into a spacious self contained apartment. It has not been used since 2005. (McCarrick would have been envious) Much is made of Josephs ‘desertion’ but unless we know the date we cannot assess the claim. The barracks was shut down on May 2nd, all but a few were sent home. Locals were looting the barracks. Order within the city had collapsed before that, and the roads to Austria were blocked by military fleeing.One striking feature in this book is the total lack of empathy with all the suffering Joseph witnessed, and there is no evidence that he went out of his way to help anyone. In Allach he was based beside a concentration camp and visited a devastated Munich but had no feelings for the death and sufferings all around. Traunstein was full of hospitals with critically ill patients and two soldiers dying every day yet it was his finger that commanded attention. Even as Archbishop in Munich he never visited Dachau. Oh, he visited the convent which opened onto the camp, and stood at the threshold, and gawked at where the priests barracks were, and where 2579 priests were detained and 1034 martyred but he never walked the 100 yds to pray there. His lack of empathy is disgustingly blamed on a non existing condition called ‘War Intermezzo’ (P102). The same condition explains why he could ignore the thousands of abuse complaints that landed on his desk, as he devoted his time to writing eschatological papers only relevant to his devoted admirers.There are important things the book does not mention. No evidence young Joseph ever went to mass or visited the church. There were many opportunities to give spiritual support or assist at funerals but no evidence of that kind of witness. His brother had taken part in the battle for Mount Casino and was later badly injured and sent to Traunstein for hospital treatment. No word whether he visited him in hospital or at home. It may well be that between his sore finger and Georg’s injuries Joseph spent as much time at home as he did in the barracks. Indeed he seems to have been able to negotiate his passage through the Nazi period with privileged respect. The writings of his contemporaries show more sensitivities to the realities of war. Seewald who had unique access to Pope Benedict fails to extract and convey the information that makes his subject an integrated person. One is left feeling we are only being given the information that he wants us to have.The murder of 62 Jews is a case in point. There were two criminal investigations with different defendants. No information was provided by local people and the cases collapsed. The Ratzingers knew who the SS were who stayed in their house and who wanted to take young Joseph away and probably execute him. At the time the Commandant of Dachau Wilhelm Eduard Weiter was on the run with a jeep full of food and booze. It would be nice to know who those SS officers were. Joseph says they “left without causing any harm”. Harm to who? How does he know they had nothing to do with the execution of the Jews? Could it be that Joseph was forced to take part in the detachment that escorted the Jews to their execution as the price of saving his own life? Could it be that the “little-known back road out of town” (Milestones P36) was Jahn Road, with its rail underpass, and close to Surberg where they were executed? The only reason the soldiers would be placed there was to stop the Jews from escaping? That scenario makes more sense than the one offered by Seewald?This book is a great read, but not one I would recommend and I doubt if I would give the time to read the next volume.

I say only a portion, as my view is that the author paints a very sycophantic picture. As an extremely lapsed Catholic with two Post Graduate Degrees in Christian Theology obtained in a College with a strong Jesuit ethos, my interest is in the "human" side of the Popes and their detractors and supporters. I am not sure I got a three dimensional view of Benedict in this first volume and it did make him appear a "goodie two shoes". Reading elsewhere there is more to Benedict than might meet the eye. Nevertheless, I particularly liked the author giving a background history as to what was going on in the world which was concurrent with Benedict's early life. At times the translation I found lacking and also the editing, but only in places. For example, Karl Jaspers is given in one place as Japsers and Sachenhausen concentration camp is referred to as Sachsenhaus. Dreadful. Also, the phrase for a someone who teaches religion is given as "religion teacher". Surely "Teacher of Religion" would be better. Overall, a long read and Benedict's pious early life and his subsequent studies no doubt earmarked him for greater things. Playing priests and dressing up as a kid seems an odd thing to do. Personally, Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II may not be seen in a favourable light given their conservative proclivities with the decline in the priesthood and their failure to address the woes of the Catholic Church, particularly exclusion of certain categories from receiving the Sacrament. I would love to see a biography of Benedict by John Cornwell, who I am sure would give a whole different nuance. Cornwell's book on Francis being the point in question. I await the second volume which is due in November, 2021, I believe. My interest then would be Benedict as Cardinal Ratzinger and his strong arm tactics against those who would differ from orthodoxy. Regrettably, and this is my personal view, the Church is afraid to move forward. Change will be inevitable in the long run, but who will make the first move. Married Priests would be a good start and already there those who have crossed over from the Anglican Church and are married priests in diocese or Auxiliary Bishops. Work that one out.

The book is well-informed and sympathetic, but clumsily translated and poorly edited. It is a shame that Bloomsbury didn't employ an editor or proof-reader: 'Ratinzinger'? 'Paul XI'? It should be possible to get a Pope's name right.

This personal encounter with Joseph Ratzinger brings to life the period of history that brought about the most devastating time in modern history - Nazism. It reveals his journey from early childhood to the priesthood, family life, and his early encounters with God. Only Peter Seewald could achieve such book!

Peter Seewald has written four books based on interviews with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, JosephRatzinger. This book was criticized by Rupert Shortt in the London Spectator because Seewald hasbecome less critical in his questioning over the years. Well, it was not promised to be critical, andfor those who seek criticism of B16, it has been easy enough to find over the years. After five books,Seewald has changed and come to a deep understanding of the man. And for the record, he beginsthat he is loyal to his successor Pope Francis Bergoglio.It is important to understand that Benedict is Bavarian, from the most Catholic region of Germany,a beautiful countryside that is perhaps more laid-back than our image of most of Deutschland. Thereis a profound portrayal of the former Pope's mother and his father, who was a policeman. He was faithfulbut critical, for instance when the bishops were insufficiently opposed to the Nazis at times. He wasa police officer, and highly political and thoughtful. Being close to both of his parents, Joseph hadaspects of both. He was highly thoughtful and also deeply connected to the emotional life, althoughnot expressive in a dramatic way. He was close to his brother Georg, a priest who specialized in music,and his sister Maria, who assisted in many ways with the ministry. Maria kept Joseph down to earthand connected to "real" people, which led to a populist devotion to the faith of the simple people,when he entered the ivory tower of scholarly life.Seewald gives a lengthy description of the rise of Nazism and the effects of World War II. This isimportant, because B16 has been criticized for participation in the Hitler Youth, which obviouslywas compulsory. Hitler and the Nazis, along with the Communists, showed what happens whenthe world is without God. Unlike the Bolsheviks, Hitler invoked God in his rhetoric. But Nazismwas not Western Civ, it was modernity without the divine point of reference.Joseph seems to have been a spiritual prodigy, in a way like Ste Therese. He was going throughall these complex spiritual questions, and then you realize it's just his First Communion orConfirmation. He was smart but not really memorable in school, shy, and not athletic. Hiscloseness to his brother Georg gave him a sense of music. What puts him in the upper tierof theologians with Hans Urs von Balthasar and Henri de Lubac is the aesthetic sense. Mosttheologians know philosophy as the foundation for theology, and those three certainly did.But to be truly comprehensive, the other side of the brain is needed, and for German speakers,that means Mozart. (For everybody else, too).After Joseph enters the seminary, Seewald's book becomes more intellectual, because itssubject is. Ratzinger immersed in the thought of St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure. What'ssignificant is that he wasn't as much into St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was not as affectiveas the other two, although his Eucharistic hymns show that side. Scholasticism, the waythat pre-Vatican II theology understood St. Thomas, was highly rational and felt distantfrom pastoral experience and the emotional life. (There are those who disagree, of course,like Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, but this is Ratzinger's view). What I learned was that he didtranslate a book of St. Thomas into German, which obviously requires deep engagement. So it'snot that he didn't know Thomistic thought.Seewald presents the conflict over Ratzinger's dissertation between his advisor GottliebSohngen and his rival Michael Schmaus. This is truly "inside baseball". But it involvesegos, and most people can relate, from experience in any organization that involves peopleand their egos and competition. As a young professor, Ratzinger continued to be "shy" andunassuming in his physical presence, but radiated a spiritual charisma and quickly becamea wildly popular lecturer. It's the charisma of non-charisma.For those who aren't insiders in Catholic theology, all these names might be confusing. Hereare some of the important ones. Cardinal John Henry Newman was the 19th century thinkerwho inspired much of the direction of 20th century theology. Karl Barth was the great Reformedtheologian who provoked the Catholic need to respond. He, along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer,was a standout for his opposition to Nazism. Martin Heidegger was the most influentialphilosopher of the 20th century (but not so heroic on the Nazis). Romano Guardini wasa philosopher and theologian of the earlier part of the century, who wrote Spirit of theLiturgy in 1924 or so, inspiring Ratzinger's book in 2000. Josef Pieper was a Catholicphilosopher connected to Guardini and Thomas Aquinas. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wasa scientist who ventured into questions of theology and mysticism.I already mentioned Henri de Lubac (his book Catholicism came out in 1939) and HansUrs von Balthasar. Other theologians of Vatican II were Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, JeanDanielou, Gerard Philips and Hans Kung. Sebastian Tromp was the defender of the old way of doingtheology. But Ratzinger was in dialogue not only with fellow theologians. He was friendswith the political philosopher and historian Eric Voegelin (which I didn't know), the IndologistPaul Hacker, and the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. Note that most of these namesare German. The Nazis were elected in the most culturally advanced country in the world.The mid-century produced an enormous amount of theology from Germany as well asFrance.Seewald concludes with the debates of Vatican II. Here the theologians were mostly priests(often Jesuits and Dominicans, but Ratzinger was diocesan) who had to influence the Popeand bishops. The Popes were Pius XI, who wrote an encyclical in German condemning theNazis, Pius XII Eugenio Pacelli, whom Seewald defends effectively against slanders, JohnXXIII Angelo Roncalli, who called Vatican II, and Paul VI Montini, who continued it to itscompletion. Ratzinger was the advisor to Cardinal Josef Frings, who was a key playerin the Council and the election of Paul VI in 1963. Ratzinger was the key thinker behindDei Verbum, the document on Divine Revelation. The topics matched his specialty, andhe argued for more pastoral language that could reach people, rather than the abstractlanguage of Scholasticism. Those who defended the Roman scholasticism includedCardinals Ottaviani, Siri and Ruffini. Also Abp. Lefebvre and Brazilian bishops. Cardinals Bea, Konig and Suenens were leaders of themore progressive approach advocated by the theologians. Karol Wojtyla was a risingyoung Polish bishop who became John Paul II.The obvious question is, did Ratzinger move from left to right, from liberal to conservative?Seewald argues for consistency in his theological vision. He didn't want an individualistpersonal expression, but the life of faith at a higher spiritual level. Rely on the ChurchFathers of the first centuries, and the Scriptures, themselves, not the documents of the1800s. Perhaps it will be a smaller membership in the church, but not a dry identificationbut real faith, love, personal commitment and relationship. But clearly something happened,and the second volume will show that. The one criticism, which will carry over into hispontificate, was surrounding himself with assistants who weren't in his best interest.