Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

January 13, 2023

A Rabbi Reflects on the Legacy of Benedict XVI

A singular defender of the West, who sought the restoration of reason as its crowning achievement.

Born in southeastern Germany in 1927, Joseph Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth as a teenager, and was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1943. He later became one of the Catholic Church’s leading academic theologians, before being made Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. In 2013, he took the unusual step of retiring due to his declining health, and passed away on December 31, 2022. Rabbi Mark Gottlieb considers Benedict’s ideas and his historical significance:

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