Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Ius canonicum
128 ALBERTO SORIA JIMENEZ, OSB sanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council, or in the reform itself, and even less in the Missal of St. Paul VI. He has not changed his opinion on this aspect. The theologian Joseph Ratzinger already asserted in 1966: “If by this means not only does the liturgical reform of the Council appear to be justified, but also necessary, it does not mean by any means that all the practical realisations of the same may also be so”.15 And a long time afterwards, in the year 2011, Benedict XVI gave an allocution to those taking part in the Congress of the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm, on the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, in these terms: “We should be aware of the abundant fruits brought about by the Holy Spirit in half a century of history and we should give thanks for these to the Giver of all goodness, even despite the misunderstandings and errors in the practical implementation of the reform”.16 In summary, it is not surprising that the thoughts of Benedict XVI have been theologically classified as a “positive extrapolation” of the university professor’s knowledge, in so far as he has been able to synthesise and relativize the various confronted ideas.17 Perhaps because of this, when writing the prologue for the Spanish version of his Opera omnia, Cardinal Rouco Varela said of him: “Joseph Ratzinger is the author of a theology of his own making in which, together with an extraordinary historical and exegetical knowledge and the precision and intellectual strength of a privileged mind, a love of the faith of the Church and a concordance with the efforts of the same to respond to the demands of our times converge, predominantly by means of the Second Vatican Council”.18 15 Cf. Ratzinger, J., El nuevo Pueblo de Dios. Esquemas para una Eclesiologla, Barcelona 1972 (repr. 2005) 342. These are words from El catolicismo después del Concilio, of which the original in German was printed in Auf Dein Worthin. 81. Deutscher Katholikentag, Paderborn 1966. It was re-printed in numerous German magazines and in other languages: in French: in La Documentation Catholique 63 (1966) 1557-1576; in English: in The Furrow 18 (1967) 3-23. 16 Benedictus XVI, Alloc. Vi accolgo con gioia (6 mai. 2011): AAS 103 (2011) 341-342. 17 Cf. Barthe, C., Papst Benedikt XVI. und die Stunde der Reformer, in Una Voce-Korrespondenz 36 (2006) 341-350 and other comments in Ein Motu proprio, das einen Wendepunkt darstellt, in Una Voce-Korrespondenz 37 (2007) 376-378. See Lüdecke, N., Canonical remarks on the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, in Antiphon 13 (2009) 193-227. It is the translation from the original in German Kanonistische Anmerkungen zum Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, in Liturgisches Jahrbuch 58 (2008) 3-34. 18 Rouco Varela, A. M., “Prefacio para la edición espahola", in Ratzinger, J., Obras completas XI. Teológia de la liturgia. La fundamentación sacramental de la existencia cristiana, Madrid 2012. In this series has been started publishing a Spanish edition of the Opera Omnia by Ratzinger, J. This is a fifteen-tome editorial project with a total of twenty volumes, as well as the last one, Bibliográfia e Indices. So far eleven have been published: I (2014), II (2013), IV (2018); one of the two volumes of VI (2015); both tomes of volume VII (2013, 2016); both volumes of tome VIII (2015, 2020); and tomes X (2017), XI (2012), XII (2014).
