Benedict XVI: Still With Us

Recently in an interview with Fr. Jacques Servais, SJ, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI showed why he is one of the most perceptive minds on the planet. The Pope emphasized that both faith and the Church come from God, and are neither self-generating nor man-made: “The Church must introduce the individual Christian into an encounter with Jesus Christ and bring Christians into His presence in the sacrament.”

He then focused on modern man's tendency to ignore any personal sin and need for justification, and to focus instead on the suffering in the world, believing that God has to justify himself for this suffering. The emeritus Pope reflected that God “simply cannot leave 'as is' the mass of evil that comes from the freedom that he himself has granted. Only He, coming to share in the world's suffering, can redeem the world.”

He concluded by again emphasizing that the true solution to evil is the love of Christ: “The counterweight to the dominion of evil can consist in the first place only in the divine-human love of Jesus Christ that is always greater than any possible power of evil. But it is necessary that we place ourselves inside this answer that God gives us through Jesus Christ,” he added, saying that receiving the sacrament of confession “certainly has an important role in this field.”

Receiving confession, he said, “means that we always allow ourselves to be molded and transformed by Christ and that we pass continuously from the side of him who destroys to the side of Him who saves.”

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