Submitted by M.F, Chicote, May 16, 2007 13:39

Contrary to Bruce Chilton's assertion, Pope Benedict's XVI's Christology has been consistent throughout his lifetime and it is the Christology that has been taught by the Catholic Church for over 2,000 years. To pretend that Pope Benedict has only now discovered the centrality of Christ is laughable. One only has to read his opus to verify that Christ is central to his teaching.

Furthermore, Bruce Chilton glosses over and simplifies the Vatican's censure of Martin Fox and Leonardo Boff. It is simply not true that Martin Fox was "silenced for his views on the centrality of the mystical knowledge of God to Catholic teaching." Mysticism in the Catholic Church has a long and proud tradition as attested, for example, by figures such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Martin Fox was censured for distorting Catholic belief and teaching and for inventing liturgies that disfigure and dilute the importance of the Mass. As for Archbishop Romero, Bruce Chilton surely must know that his cause is ongoing but that certain conditions must be met before he can be canonized. It is not in the Pope's authority to simply "attend to the wishes of millions of Catholics in Latin American, and see that Oscar Romero is canonized a saint"

Bruce Chilton also chides the Pope for "his habit of berating Protestants." Yet this is the very same Pope who has made ecumenism the cornerstone of his pontificate and underlined the point during his inaugural Mass. Also, let it not be forgotten that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger negotiated with the Lutheran World Federation and signed the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification which was subsequently approved by the World Methodist Council in 2006.

On one thing Bruce Chilton is correct: the Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth is "a remarkable and elegantly written book."

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