Werner Herzog, the well-known film director and film legend [Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1978), Fitzcarraldo (1982)], praised Benedict XVI in a December 7 interview with German newspaper Die Welt.
Asked if he planned a similar film project about Benedict XVI, as Wim Wenders had done about Francis, Herzog said that Benedict was the much more interesting person. “Nobody had such deep thoughts in 300 years as he – nobody!” Herzog likes to speak Latin himself. “No one speaks more Latin today, except for old Benedict.” The emeritus Pope is for him the “deepest thinker”. “I think with disdain that he spoke in front of the Bundestag in 2011 and many MPs left the plenary, and probably missed the best speech ever held there.”
The above comes from a Dec. 10 story on Kath.net.
Hymn to St. Benedict
Father of many children! in the gloom of the long past, how beautiful thou art! And still dear Saint the weary nations come to drink from out thine unexhausted heart. ………..Thou art the Christian Abraham–to thee, Saint of the insatiate love! thy God hath given, for thy grand faith a sainted family, countless as are the crowed stars in heaven. Kind Shepherd! tend us with thy pastoral love across the mountains to our heavenly rest! Father! we see thee beckoning from above–we come! we come to bless and be bless —-Faber
To understand Pope Benedict, one must understand St. Benedict.
In all things may God be glorified. (Rule of St. Benedict, ch. lvii.)
A few specifics why Herzog thinks Benedict is a great thinker would be helpful.
mike m, I suggest that if you begin reading Pope Benedict’s works, you’ll have many, many specifics about why he is thought of as a great thinker. And, much of his writing as Pope is quite readable (in contrast, for example, with the writings of Saint John Paul, which are more challenging to understand upon first reading). He has a brilliant mind. We were blessed to have not only a knowledgeable, but wise, holy and charitable Pope. May God bless him!
Deacon Craig, I know you are right about Benedict’s mind, but how good is a mind in the body of, what seems from my poor vantage point, a complete coward? Yes, a coward. His abdication stinks to high heaven, the longer I have to endure the present holder of the papal office, while Benedict shuffles about the Vatican still in relatively good health. OK, my attitude stinks as well, but I am more frustrated with Benedict, who should know better, than with Francis, the Jesuit.
Benedict explained that in Greek Logos means both Word and Reason. Et Logos caro factum est means that Reason was made Flesh in our redemptor. Our redemptor is the Son of God, Jesus, who is a reasonable God. We cannot lose the intervention of our Creator in the beginning of our evolution because without our Creator we would not have salvation through his Son Jesus.
Deo Gratias for Benedict XVI, best Pope of my lifetime. I pray almost daily that he may have a long life. Ora pro nobis Beato Ratzinger, we need your prayers of great wisdom.
Yes, the “Benedict Option” is looking better and better.
“O Benedict! thy special gifts are peace, freedom of heart and sweet simplicity; they fail not with the ages, but increase as thine own graces grew of old in thee.”
His book “Jesus of Nazareth” also tears apart the “Raymond Brown theories”.Am reading it now.
Actually the words Pope Benedict wrote are quite gentle, but it is also quite clear that he did not agree with the trashing of some of Christ’s words and of the gospel writers’ by some theologians, which made it appear that miracles were not actual miracles nor prophecies actual prophecies but incidences written after the fact.