In the Beginning...: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall by Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

From the Publisher

While the stories of the vcreation of the world and of the fall of humankind have often given rise to conflict - fundamentalists twist the Bible into science and history while rationalists approach this issue by "divorcing God from creation" - Cardinal Ratzinger presents the Catholic middle ground between extremist positions in explaining the vitality of these early Old Testament writings.

New Oxford Review

"With penetrating insight, Cardinal Ratzinger here treats the profoundly important and far-reaching doctrine of Genesis.... I've not read a more profound or magisterial book in years."

Liguorian

"These homilies on Genesis...will be a source of light to many priests and religious educators who are seeking the deeper meaning of the biblical truths of dependence or of the Sabbath rest or who are looking for an answer to the claim that God's mandate "Fill the earth and subdue it" is responsible for the shameless exploitation of the earth that we have witnessed."

Library Journal

As the Vatican's Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger is responsible for public orthodoxy in Catholic faith and morals. The first four of his five sermons included here, which have been published in English (Our Sunday Visitor, 1986), originated as 1981 Lenten homilies given in Munich's cathedral to counter a modern abandonment of creation doctrine based on scripture. A fifth homily by a different translator augments this edition. Ratzinger's sermons treat God the creator, biblical creation accounts, creation of human beings, sin and salvation, and the consequences of faith on creation. The readable but challenging meditations attempt a balance between extremes of fundamentalism and rationalism and emphasize a unity between the Old and New Testaments. Notes are generally from German sources. Recommended for Catholic collections.-Anna Donnelly, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, N.Y.

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