In his address to the Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Foundation, themed Key Aspects Of The Theology Of Professor Joseph Ratzinger, Siegfried Wiedenhofer noted: "The theology of Joseph Ratzinger is not a theology for all times or a theology about history but, rather, a theology for this time and this time is for him, above all, the time of a fundamental crisis."
Four major documents of Benedict XVI address four main issues, which are experiencing a fundamental crisis: love, hope, the Eucharist and economics.
In the encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict says that although "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16), "the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence" (§ 1). But "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should... have eternal life" (Jn 3:16). In Jesus, God's eternal agape and meeting with humankind, everything becomes holy, including sexuality and eros.
Love between men and women is God's gift that should not be wasted away. "Eros, reduced to pure 'sex', has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold or, rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great 'yes' to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will" (§ 5). True "love... becomes concern and care for the other" (§ 6), enfleshed into altruistic acts of service. The highest context of love is the conjugal relationship.
The encyclical Spes Salvi, presents a faith-based hope. Genuine hope must be established on faith in God, who is love. Christ's death on the cross did not end suffering but presented it as a splendid opportunity of communion with God. Unlike Spartacus, Barabbas or Bar-Kochba, "Jesus, who himself died on the cross, brought something totally different: an encounter with the Lord of all lords, an encounter with the living God and, thus, an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which, therefore, transformed life and the world from within" (§ 4).
Contrary to the prevalent attitude of fleeing from suffering, true hope lies in "our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love" (§ 37).
In his post-synodal exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, the Eucharist is the causal principle of the Church. "Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus draws the faithful into his 'hour;' he shows us the bond that he willed to establish between himself and us, between his own person and the Church" (§ 14). For Benedict, "union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own" (§ 89).
The self-giving character of the Eucharist motivates to social commitment.
This is so, since "the Eucharist is the sacrament of communion between brothers and sisters who allow themselves to be reconciled in Christ, who made of Jews and pagans one people, tearing down the wall of hostility, which divided them (cf. Eph 2:14).
Only this constant impulse towards reconciliation enables us to partake worthily of the Body and Blood of Christ (cf. Mt 5:23-24)" (§ 89).
The social encyclical Caritas In Veritate is a bold response to a reductive view of development. Authentic development is human and integral only if it directed by charity in truth. "Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and, especially, by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity" (§1).
Benedict offers two proposals to counter economic and human exploitation: (1) "the development of peoples depend, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family" (§53); (2) the Christian faith, together with other religions, is called to contribute to development "only if God has a place in the public realm" (§ 56).
Real development in charity and truth "needs Christians with their arms raised towards God in prayer"; to recover that "love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace" (§79), which alone brings a sure hope to our shattered world. Only in this way can "the dignity of persons and peoples" (§73) be promoted and supported, especially by "an ethics that is people-centred" (§ 45).
Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote: "Those only can preach the truth duly who feel it personally: those only can transmit it fully from God to man who have in the transmission made it their own". What an eloquent portrait of our theologian Pope, Benedict XVI!