The Pope and the Antichrist
Ironically, an honest discussion of our apocalyptic moment would have resonated most powerfully with young people. They understand and fear the existential dangers of climate change, artificial intelligence, demographic collapse, and nuclear weapons. Benedict could have taught the young the particularities of the biblical apocalypse, including the totalitarian peace and safety that precede it. Such a discussion would have revealed reasons for hope, as we seek the bravery to “be not troubled” (Matt. 24:6). One cannot imagine a more qualified person than Benedict to lead such a conversation. Now we must make do without him.
It is not my place to tell the Church what time it is. Benedict already did that, as this essay, which I wrote with my friend Sam Wolfe, attempts to show. My humble hope is that others might succeed where Benedict failed, in answering the question: Facing the hour of darkness, how can we recover faith in the future?
Eschatology enraptured the young Joseph Ratzinger. Sometimes autobiography disguises itself as biography; this is a rule to remember when reading Ratzinger’s 1957 The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure (his Habilitationsschrift, which qualified him for a professorial appointment in the German university system). He wrote that “Bonaventure’s theology of history presents a struggle to arrive at a proper understanding of eschatology. . . . [T]he theology of history does not represent an isolated area of Bonaventure’s thought. On the contrary, it is related to the basic philosophical and theological decisions which provided the basis for his participation in the bitter controversies of the 1260’s and 1270’s.” Ratzinger excavated these “controversies” because he thought that “it would not be difficult to work out applications to the present,” even seven centuries later. “Precisely at the present moment,” he added, “theology has every reason for remaining in contact with its own history.” He chose not to identify those applications and those reasons, because “the task of the historian is to present his findings and nothing but his findings. . . . At times this limitation has disturbed me.”
Whatever its limitations, Ratzinger’s exposition of Bonaventure established his genius. It translates Bonaventure’s medieval density for the modern mind. As he proceeds, Ratzinger seems to be on the point of adjudicating questions the Church has neglected for centuries, questions reaching to Christianity’s mysterious core. At this core lies the problem to which Ratzinger devoted the final section of his treatise: How and when will the world end?
