Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Ratzinger on Faith and Politics

From Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (1987), page 6-7
Quoted in Joseph Ratzinger, Life in the Church and Living Theology, by M. Heim, page 253

The man of today looks towards the future. His slogan is "Progress," not "Tradition"; "Hope," not "Faith." He is moved, it is true, by a certain romanticism about the past.... For that to which he looks forward is not, as in the early Church, the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of man.



From A Turning Point for Europe? The Church in the Modern World (1991), page 89
Quoted in Joseph Ratzinger, Life in the Church and Living Theology, by M. Heim, page 220 (footnote 63)

Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.

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