All the Theology That’s Fit to Print

Herder Press is doing the world the great favor of publishing Benedict XVI’s complete theological works. The first volume to be published (of the sixteen planned) is not, oddly enough, Volume I, but Volume XI, which comprises Benedict’s writings on the liturgy. An article on Chiesa provides an English translation of Benedict’s preface, wherein the pope explains why this volume comes first:

When I decided, after some hesitation, to accept the project of an edition of all of my works, it was immediately clear to me that the order of priorities at the Council also needed to be applied to it, and that therefore the first volume to be published had to be the one containing my writings on the liturgy. Ever since my childhood, the Church’s liturgy has been the central activity of my life, and it also became, under the theological instruction of masters like Schmaus, Söhngen, Pascher, and Guardini, the center of my theological work. I chose fundamental theology as my specific topic, because I wanted above all to go to the heart of the question: why do we believe? But right from the beginning, this question included the other one about the proper response to to God, and therefore also the question about the divine service. It is on this basis that my work on the liturgy must be understood. I was not interested in the specific problems of liturgical study, but in the anchoring of the liturgy in the fundamental act of our faith, and therefore also its place in our entire human existence.

Volume XI is being published in Benedict’s native German first, and then in Italian sometime next year. There’s no word yet on how long we will have to wait for the English translation, so I suggest learning German or Italian.