L-istorja wara dan il-ktieb tibda meta Peter Seewald kiteb artiklu dwar il-Kardinal Ratzinger li fih attakkah fuq diversi temi differenti. Mal-publikazzjoni tal-artiklu, diversi qarrejja Kattoliċi kitbulu lura u qalulu biex imur jiltaqa’ mal-persuna li kien qed jikteb dwarha… u hekk għamel – Ir-riżultat kienu żewġ intervisti li ġew ippubblikata f’żewġ kotba, Salt of the Earth u God and the World. Barra minn hekk, din il-laqgħa, jew serje ta’ laqgħat, li kellu mal-Papa wassluh biex jirritorna għall-Fidi Kattolika, u jgħid li Ratzinger kien dak li għallmu xi tfisser ‘to swim against the stream’.
Il-ktieb jirrakkonta l-ħajja ta’ Joseph Ratziner, mit-twelid snin ilu fil-Bavaria sal-jiem tiegħu bħala l-ewwel Papa Ġermaniż wara 482 sena. Il-biografija hija akkumpanjata b’selezzjoni kbira ta’ ritratti li qatt ma dehru qabel – minn ritratti tat-tfajjel Ratzinger f’età żgħira għal oħrajn tal-ewwel snin bħala saċerdot. Fuq kollox ħafna minn dawn ir-ritratti jpinġulna l-vera persuna wara l-isem tal-Papa, bniedem komuni bħalna mimli bi qdusija liema bħala.
It all began in Rome, in November 1992. I was sitting on one of the red Baroque chairs in the audience room of the Congration of the Doctrine of Fath, when the door opened and a delicate man with fine features entered. We sat down at the window and talked about him, about his work, and about God. This was the beginning of a process that was to change my life.
Once, we drove at top speed through the Vatican in his secretary’s new Golf. The high dignitary in the passenger’s seat sang like Pavarotti (well, almost like Pavarotti). On our way to Montecassino, the monastery of Saint Benedict, we stopped to eat at a restaurant. He took his place with his tray in the queue and the said grace – like any rural parish priest. I was impressed by his supreme personal ease, by his Bavarian heart, by the breadth of his thinking.
There is no one who can listen with such concentration – and reply with such precision. In the course of our interviews, he sometimes flung his foot over the arm of his chair like a young, inquisitive student. And when he spoke of the ordering of the universe, one could sense something of the God who holds this world together.
Joseph Ratzinger is a spiritual master and a great teacher of the Church. He taught me what it meant to swim against the stream. “The Church needs a revolution of faith!” he cried. When our society began to drift off into a situation of spiritual negligence where ‘anything goes’, he became one of the harshest critics of ‘modern living’. He explained his passionate intensity by saying that Christ demands a radical exodus. The great element of continuity in his life is the desire to preserve the faith of the fathers for their grandchildren. Some people call this conservative. I have come more and more to see it as something absolutely essential.
A new age of faith began with John Paul II. With his successor, the ‘new spring of the human spirit’ of which Karol Wojtyla spoke is now becoming perceptible. The crisis of religion will not be overcome at a single stroke, but the Pope is looking for the keys precisely where they were lost. He wants to lead the Church back to her roots, to Christ himself.
Benedict XVI, the ‘blessed’ man, will thus not only renew the Church and become in his own turn a patron of Europe; he will also change Germany, that country which has played such an important role for the shole of Christendom. This means that we must come to know the message of Jesus anew. It contains immense treasures that we have failed to see! – Peter Seewald, Editor
