It is with the immense burden of his office in mind, to protect the integrity and wholeness of the faith for future generations, that he is reassured that he is not alone and without support in this task. “I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me.”[1] It is this awareness and indebtedness to the communion of saints, the living tradition of the Church, and its scriptures, which allows him to excavate with confidence from the deposit of faith articulated by previous masters and doctors of the Church. In particular he acknowledges a specific debt to St Augustine “a figure to whom I feel closely linked because of the role he has had in my life as a theologian, priest, and pastor;”[2] And on a pilgrimage to venerate his mortal remains at his tomb in Pavia, Italy in April 2007, he referred to him as “this great lover of God”[3] where he wished to express not just his personal tribute but the homage of the entire Catholic Church.[4]
Here he consigned to the Church and to the world his first encyclical entitled Deus Caritas Est; (God is Love) specifically attributing the influence of Augustine to the first half of that encyclical. On that occasion he also wished to devote his second Encyclical Spe Salvi (In hope we are saved) which he says was also directly influenced by Augustine’s encounter with God.[5] It is perhaps fitting that the mission and daily life of Pope Benedict is best summarised in the words of Saint Augustine, who has so shaped Pope Benedict’s XVI thinking that they could equally be applied to his role as supreme pastor of the Church: “The turbulent have to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel’s opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved.”[6]
[1] Pope Benedict XVI’s Homily at his installation Mass, 24th April 2005 (Nichols, Aidan (2007), The Thought of Pope Benedict XVI, An Introduction to the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger, Burns & Oates, London, 236).
[2] Benedict XVI Pope, 2008, 191.
[3] Ibid, 196.
[4] Ibid, 191.
[5] Ibid, 196.
[6] Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi (29) P15 (Sermo 340, 3: PL 38, 1484; cf. F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, London and New York 1961, 268).