Salt of the Earth: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church at the End of the Millennium

In the same style as the 1985 bestseller The Ratzinger Report, this is a question-and-answer interview with the much-loved and much-maligned head of the Vatican's Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith, a man who, after the pope, is the most high-profile Vatican official. Peter Seewald, a secular German journalist, pops the questions, and Ratzinger replies. This book is divided into three sets of questions: on Ratzinger's personal history; on the state of the Catholic church today; and, on the future of the church. Cardinal Ratzinger comes across in ways unlikely to be thoroughly pleasing either to the right or to the left. For example, his observations on the contemporary Roman Catholic liturgy will not be easily dismissed by Catholic liberals, and his pastoral sensitivity to the use of contraceptives will startle hardline conservative Catholics. Although Seewald seems to want Ratzinger to embrace a more reactionary Catholic conservatism, Ratzinger is unwilling to be caught doing so, and the book may both surprise and humble its readers, regardless of their ideological leanings. (Oct.)