Pope Benedict XVI

And I just want to provide some context here.

For those of us approaching theology for the first time, I mean, you know, Ratzinger has his own lexicon.

Aquinas has his own lexicon.

Augustine has his own lexicon.

So that was my lesson to Catholics, right? I know sometimes the church documents are written in a kind of odd style.

I mean, official ones and stuff.

But again, there's oftentimes, again, when you're reading Ratzinger, when you're reading Pope John Paul II, when you're reading Thomas Aquinas or Augustine, it can be a hard language to get into, but there's a lot there.

Why the reticence, Randall? And maybe I'm asking a question that has an obvious answer, but why the unwillingness to do the work of kind of hacking the weeds of the language so that we can get into the meal?

Since martyrdom is both a grace and a virtue, the martyr participates in the very unity being goodness, beauty, and truth of God Himself.

Pope Benedict XVI highlights the fact that the capacity to suffer for the sake of truth is the measure of humanity.

The more one is able to suffer for the sake of the truth, the more human one becomes.

I do not mean to say that one is not human until one suffers on account of the truth, but rather that one becomes who he was meant to be in the first place.

To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org.

We've already had two conferences on this, uh, during this retreat of Forming the Catholic Imagination, and in the first one, uh, Father Allen was so kind to kind of walk us through some of the thought of Benedict XVI on the, the role of, of art in the Christian way of life, and we learned about the, the wound of beauty, and there's a particularly, I think, important, um, element in that talk among the many, uh, in which the wound of beauty is something that, you know, it, we, we encounter beauty in artwork or within the liturgy, within music, where, uh, it strikes us, it transforms us, and precisely because it sort of acts as a, like a catapulting veil, if that makes any sense.

Um, but the idea is that it doesn't simply want you to look at it as object, but to lead you through into something kind of deeper or higher, uh, with regard to reality, especially with regard to God.

Uh, our second talk, um, from Father Chris, uh, going through a lot of, uh, Aquinas's epistemology, um, showed us that the, the place imagination has within this, this sort of apparatus, which is the, uh, the human body and soul composite, uh, by which we come to intellectual knowledge through what's called epistemological abstraction, uh, where we move from what is visible to what's invisible.

Divine mercy is also a message, the message of the gospel.

And Pope Benedict said it well.

He said divine mercy is not just a secondary Christian devotion, but an integral part of Christian life and prayer.

He called it the nucleus of the gospel.

He is the Fatima expert par excellence.

This appendix is entitled Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Speaks About the Third Secret.

And of course, he became the Pope in 2005, if memory serves, when John Paul II passed away.

So those of you who've been following each and every broadcast know that Fr.

He knew it would center on the Pope.

So we begin.

In November 1984, an account appeared in an Italian review of an interview granted in August by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to journalist Vittorio Massori.

In this long article entitled, Here is Why the Faith is in Crisis, an important section was devoted to Fatima and its third secret.

And if you're intimidated by the Gospels, there are four great books to accompany your reading of the Gospels.

There used to be three, then Pope Benedict wrote Jesus of Nazareth, and now there are four.

There are four great, not quite biographies of Jesus, but they're Lives of Christ, To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed, The Life of Christ by Fulton Sheen, The Lord by Romano Guardini, and then Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict, which is only volume one.

Hopefully volume two is coming out soon.

Next quick observation on the scriptures.

Mm-hmm.

That was, I wanna say that was Pope Benedict?

Yeah.

Maybe.

They know that Sheen is this trusted voice that, um, hey, um, it's pre-approved.

I always say, when the Vatican in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI, uh, declared Sheen venerable, he was saying his writings are approved.

His-

Mm-hmm.