I finished this book a few weeks back and was overall very impressed by it.
Seewald gives a lot of background context and there is quite a bit on German politics and early 20th century history. Nazism looms large. The Ratzinger family were pious loyal Catholics who stood all of from National socialism until both Ratzinger brothers were compelled to join the Hilter Youth and the anti aircraft gunnery units.
8000 catholic priests were murdered in the concentration camps, a number I was unaware of. In Bavaria over a quarter of the clergy fell foul of the law in those years in some way.
The young priest Fr Joseph Ratzinger was a surprising figure. He comes across as more radical than many of his current defenders might admit to. He was critical of the manualist Thomism then taught in catholic seminaries and chose to study Augustine and Bonaventure in his higher studies rather than St Thomas.
Ratzinger's lectures on Hinduism were wildly popular and he was a fan of Hidelgard of Bingen ( later co-opted by new age aficionados).At Vatican II he was highly critical of the Roman curia and the traditional school of catholic theology. He seemed to personally convert his own bishop Cardinal Frings to the progressive cause.
Originally a friend of the now notorious Dr Hans Kung the pair drifted apart as Kung saw the council as begining a process of ever increasing liberalising and accommodation with modernity. Ratzinger seems to have been one of the main authors of the dogmatic decree on Divine Revelation. In this account Ratzinger was a middle of the road reforming church liberal. As we know a liberal 1960s position may now be judged as "far right"! The book ends with the closing of the Vatican council.
The next volume will take up his rather undistinguished career as a diocesan bishop , his call to Rome as head of the CDF by Pope John Paul and his own papacy.
