Pope Benedict XVI has had a book of essays published posthumously in which he defends the unique character of the Mass and the Catholic priesthood and attacks rising intolerance in the increasingly atheistic West.
In the book, which is called What Christianity Is, the German pope, who died aged 95 on New Year’s Eve, warned Catholics in particular of the danger of a “radical manipulation of human beings” and “the distortion of the sexes by gender ideology”.
He wrote that although the intolerance of modernity towards the Christian faith “has not yet turned into open persecution … it manifests itself in an increasingly authoritarian way with the aim of achieving, by appropriate legislation, the eradication of what is essentially Christian”.
There are 16 essays in the book, four of which are previously unpublished. Benedict dated a preface May 1, 2022, and told Elio Guerriero, an assistant who helped him to compile the essays, that he did not wish the book to be published until his death.
“I do not want to publish anything else in my life,” Guerriero said Benedict told him, according to news reports.