Pope Hopes "Complete Works" Get Past Polemics

(October 24, 2008) Pope Benedict XVI says he hopes the publication of his complete works will help get past polemics regarding the liturgy. The Pope affirmed this in the preface to the first of 16 German-language volumes, which was presented Wednesday. The "Complete Works" will contain previously unpublished texts, and range from Joseph Ratzinger's university years up to his election as Pontiff. "It would please me very much if the new publication of my writings on the liturgy could contribute to making visible the great perspectives of our liturgy, putting again in their place the small and pitiful diatribes on exterior forms," the Holy Father writes in the preface, which was partially made available in Italian by Vatican Radio. The Pope said that starting off his complete works with the theme of the liturgy, as happened at the Second Vatican Council, reflects the primacy of God. The liturgy, he added, "has been for me the central reality of my life since childhood." He said it gives the answer to the question, "Why do we believe?" "God before all else," Pope Benedict XVI affirms in the preface. "Wherever the gaze at God is not focussed, everything else loses its orientation." Pope Benedict XVI affirmed that beyond "often pedantic questions about one form or another," the essential intention of this work is to put the liturgy in the framework of the "greatness of the cosmos," which "embraces together creation and history," at whose centre is the Saviour, to whom all of us direct ourselves in prayer. The Pope admitted that he decided to approve the publication of his complete works after "some hesitation." The bishop of Regensburg, Gerhard Ludwig Muller, is in charge of the project. The prelate presented the first volume Wednesday in the Vatican.