Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI by Tracey Rowland (review)

506 BOOK REVIEWS Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XW. By TRACEY ROWLAND. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. 224. $24.95. ISBN 978-019 -920740-4. In this book, Tracey Rowland provides a thematic introduction to Joseph Ratzinger's theology. It complements Aidan Nichols's The Thought of Pope Benedict XW, which gives a chronological account of Ratzinger's work. In her first book, Culture and the Thomist Tradition after Vatican II, Rowland approached Thomism and Catholic theology from the perspective of Radical Orthodoxy and the Ressourcement theological tradition. She enriched this approach with special attention to political philosophy and culture. InRatzinger's Faith, she explores Ratzinger's thought in the same vein. The book is both intellectually sophisticated and yet aimed at the ordinary educated reader. Before considering the details of her approach, it would be useful to note certain aspects of it which might be unusual to Catholics who are not familiar with the Ressourcement tradition or the more recent and primarily Anglican Radical Orthodoxy movement. Ressourcement scholars attempted to revive theology by returning to the Fathers. They were often critical of Scholastic theology but generally had some first-hand acquaintance with it. Joseph Ratzinger was connected with this movement and an associated later journal, Communio. More recent scholars in this tradition often uncritically accept the earlier Ressourcement scholars' claims and do not have a deep acquaintance with Scholastic theology. Rowland is influenced by this approach as well as that of the Radical Orthodoxy movement, which is an attempt to revive Christian theology in a postmodern perspective. Sweeping remarks about Thomism and Scholasticism are common in this book. Rowland eventually finds herself forced to explain, "This book has not been written to annoy Rahnerians or other species of Thomists" (149). She frequently cites the anti-Scholastic Hans Urs von Balthasar, stating at one point that "It is popularly believed that the only other twentieth-century Catholic theologian who comes anywhere near von Balthasar's stature is Karl Rahner from the circle of Transcendental Thomists" (22). Although Rowland is often critical of Thomists, she is not so critical of Thomas Aquinas. In this respect she falls squarely in the mainstream of twentieth-century Thomist attempts to separate Aquinas from the supposedly ahistorical Thomism of some Thomists. This fall-and-recovery model of Thomism has been commonplace for nearly a hundred years and was perhaps most distinctly held by existential Thomists such as Etienne Gilson. But Rowland's guides here are Henri de Lubac and two mainstays of Radical Orthodoxy, namely, John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock. Her comments on these figures may be misleading to a general audience. For instance, she states that Henri de Lubac's main theses are commonly accepted, whereas he never answered his critics and his historical accuracy is still hotly debated (20-21). Another instance may be when she states that Milbank and Pickstock's Truth in Aquinas is "how Ratzinger would prefer to read the Thomist tradition" (27). She BOOK REVIEWS 507 does not cite Ratzinger to support this claim. She does show sympathy for more recent "Biblical Thomists" and for the Thomist Servais Pinckaers's attempt to move moral theology away from an ethics of obligation towards a focus on the virtues. This sympathy might seem out of place since she regards Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as a villain of preconciliar Thomism-even though he rejected casuistic approaches in his attempt to center moral theology around progress in the spiritual life, and focused especially on the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The above remarks point to a recurring tendency in the book to describe Ratzinger's thought as a struggle against a variety of poorly defined movements. The bad movements include Scholasticism, Kantianism, moralism, andJansenism (141). Rowland gives very little information about the theses held by members of these movements or their justification of the theses. Even the positively portrayed movements are not described in enough detail. For instance, she states that Ratzinger has a strong preference "for Augustinian and Bonaventurian over Kantian epistemology" (46). I hope that she is correct, but it is hard to know, as this statement is not explained. The scattered remarks on Bonaventure...