VATICAN:Pope Benedict's latest book was launched last night in the Vatican, writes Paddy Agnewin Rome
Theology hung heavily in the Vatican springtime air last night as the Holy See formally presented Pope Benedict XVI's latest literary offering, Jesus of Nazareth. Begun in the summer of 2003, two years before Benedict's election as pope, this dense work's release was inevitably timed to coincide with the pope's 80th birthday on Monday, when it will appear in Italian, German, Greek and Polish editions.
Inspired to some extent by the work of the Jewish theologian Jakob Neusner, namely A Rabbi Talks With Jesus,this book is an expression of the pope's desire to get in on the conversation, according to the Cardinal of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn, who formally presented the book last night. The pope himself describes the work as the fruit of a "long gestation", while he adds that it does not form part of the Magisterium, his official teaching: "I hardly need point out that this book is in no way a magisterial act, but rather is only the result of my personal search for the 'face of the Lord'.
"Therefore everyone is free to contradict me. I only ask readers for that primary sympathy without which there can be no comprehension," writes the pope in his introduction.
Primarily, this book is the work of a rigorous theologian who justifies his assertions based on exhaustive knowledge of sacred texts and relevant literature. The pope explains: "Admittedly, to believe that, as man, he [ Jesus] truly was God exceeds the scope of the historical method. Yet, without anchoring in God, the person of Jesus remains shadowy, unreal and inexplicable. This book sees Jesus in the light of his communion with the Father."
Jesus of Nazarethis the first part of an anticipated two-volume work. This first part examines the public life of Jesus from his baptism in the river Jordan to the Transfiguration, that moment when the disciples Peter, James and John witnessed his face shine like the sun and his clothes become white as light, while both Moses and Elijah appeared beside him. The 400 or so-page English-language edition of the book will be published on May 15th by Doubleday in North America and by Bloomsbury in the UK and Ireland.
Much attention is likely to be paid to the part of the work where the pope appears to decry the spiritual and material plundering of Africa by wealthy western countries. Meditating on the parable of the Good Samaritan and on the need to love one's neighbour, the pope writes: "If we apply it [ the parable] to the globalised world, we see how the populations of Africa who have been robbed and plundered should concern us. Instead of giving them their God, the God that is close to us in Christ, and welcome from their traditions all that is dear and good, we have brought them the cynicism of a world without God, in which only power and profit matter."
In keeping with the spirit in which this book was written, the Vatican chose some unlikely speakers to present it yesterday.
Sitting alongside Cardinal Schönborn were the Protestant theologian Prof Daniele Garrone, from the Waldensian Evangelical Church, and the leftist philosopher and one-time mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari.
Fittingly, Prof Garrone took the pope at his word and offered this criticism of Jesus of Nazareth, with reference to the pope's denunciation of an ever more material world: "I would disagree with the pope when I say that the biggest threat to the teachings of Christ today come not from an ever more atheist world, but rather from some of those who preach his gospel."