​In 1947, a young Joseph Ratzinger experienced what Germans call Das Hungerjahr. During that experience he saw his way to entering a seminary and, eventually, becoming a Catholic priest who served Cardinal Frings during the Second Vatican Council. By the 1980s, he assisted John Paul II in Rome on the CDF (Congregation of Doctrine and Faith). His writings from the CDF galvanized the Catholic base in the Western world. They were happy to see him follow JP2, and just as dismayed at what Der Spiegel called his fahnenflucht.

​With his recent passing, we will begin four seminars to understand and assess his life and work, with a view to conceptualizing how we can assess his life so as to plan for what to do next. He himself thought that we should avoid noncontextualized theology, and so, if we are going to assess his theological thought, it is important to do so within the context of the historical circumstances he lived and how he applied his thought to those circumstances.

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