Benedict XVI's theological viewpoint: interview

David Schindler is Edouard Cardinal Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology and Provost-Dean of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.

He is also editor of the English-language edition of Communio: International Catholic Review, a theological journal founded in 1972 by Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Henri de Lubac, among others. There are 15 different national editions of Communio, whose editors meet biannually to plan their common work.

This interview has a twofold goal: to bring the insights of a collaborator and reader of Ratzinger to bear on Pope Benedict’s approach to culture in general and American culture in particular; and to present Ratzinger’s approach to important questions of the day in light of the American historical experience. Following Benedict’s theology, it attempts to bring to light some of the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of America and the Church in America.

EMILY RIELLEY: Professor Schindler, you have been involved with Communio since the North American edition was founded. In his autobiography, Milestones, then-Cardinal Ratzinger described the founders’ goal for Communio as "an international journal whose work would both be done out of the heart of communion in sacrament and faith, and also lead to its enhancement...

Since the crisis in theology had emerged out of a crisis in culture, and, indeed, out of a cultural revolution, the journal had to address the cultural domain, too."

What part does Communio play in the cultural landscape today?

DAVID L. SCHINDLER: The journal was founded most basically to recover a Godcentered understanding of the Church and of the human being. And also to recover the fact that the reality of our being in the Church and the reality of our being in the world is a matter, in the deepest sense, of love.

This task of recovery is at the heart of the Second Vatican Council, and it is even more important today, I would say, than it was then.

Joseph Ratzinger had to step down from editorial work at the German edition when he moved to Rome, of course, but he continued to contribute articles. He gave an address, "Communio: A Program," in 1982, on the 10th anniversary of the journal’s founding, which was a beautiful recapitulation of its history and mission.

This past December (2007), he invited the various national editors to hold the annual winter meeting in Rome, where he received them in the Vatican and was able to greet each one personally. On another note, he cited articles from the 2006 Communio issue devoted to the Wedding at Cana in Jesus of Nazareth, in the section on symbols in the Gospel of John, and he says he continues to read the German edition regularly.

How did you first meet Cardinal Ratzinger?

SCHINDLER: Through Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Swiss theologian and co-founder of Communio. In 1984, Balthasar was awarded the Paul VI International Prize by Pope John Paul II, who asked him to organize a conference in September 1985 on the work of Adrienne von Speyr. Ratzinger held a reception for Balthasar at Castel Gandolfo immediately following the conference, and it was at this reception that Balthasar introduced me to Ratzinger. I had been editor of the North American edition of Communio for three years by then.

How would you characterize Joseph Ratzinger as a theologian?

SCHINDLER: What’s characteristic is his capacity for integration. His scholarship is marked by a great integration of academic theology and spirituality -- and always in a way that speaks from within the heart of our cultural problems.

A sign of this integration: when you read his homilies, they