The Pope emeritus and the unrealistic idea of an ‘escape into pure doctrine’

“The idea of an ‘escape into pure doctrine’ seems completely unrealistic to me”. Theologian Joseph Ratzinger, Pope emeritus, responded in writing to questions from the German monthly “Herder Korrespondenz”, and once again seems to wish to free himself of the clichés that have been attributed to him. In one passage of the interview, on which almost no one has focused in the retakes and comments, Benedict xvi states: “Above all, then, the believer is a person who questions himself, a person who constantly has to find the reality of this faith behind and against the oppressive realities of daily life. In this sense, the thought of an ‘escape into pure doctrine’ seems absolutely unrealistic to me. A doctrine that would exist only as a sort of natural reserve, separate from the everyday world of faith and its demands, would represent ...