Books, Arts & Manners

The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, with Vittorio Messori (Ignatius Press, 197 pp., $9.95)

On the rare occasions when he had spent the day worrying about the state of the Church, John XXIII would ask himself, “Angelo? Who’s running the Church, Angelo or the Holy Spirit? All right, then, go to bed.” For the faithful of the Church, concerning whose ultimate governance Angelo Roncalli was never in the least doubt, to think otherwise is to court despair; it is to surrender the very citadel against which the Church had been told that not even the gates of Hell would prevail. But in the confused and chaotic aftermath of Vatican II, word got around that the unthinkable had happened: While Good Pope John serenely slept, sly Old Mother Church had up and married the Spirit of the Age. Leaving her children bereft and, soon after, herself a widow.

The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, with Vittorio Messori (Ignatius Press, 197 pp., $9.95)

On the rare occasions when he had spent the day worrying about the state of the Church, John XXIII would ask himself, “Angelo? Who’s running the Church, Angelo or the Holy Spirit? All right, then, go to bed.” For the faithful of the Church, concerning whose ultimate governance Angelo Roncalli was never in the least doubt, to think otherwise is to court despair; it is to surrender the very citadel against which the Church had been told that not even the gates of Hell would prevail. But in the confused and chaotic aftermath of Vatican II, word got around that the unthinkable had happened: While Good Pope John serenely slept, sly Old Mother Church had up and married the Spirit of the Age. Leaving her children bereft and, soon after, herself a widow.