Queensland-born author Tracey Rowland has written a book on Pope Benedict XVI – Ratzinger’s Faith: the Theology of Pope Benedict XVI – which the London Times has recently rated as the best book on the Pope.
Here the past pupil of Catholic schools in Ipswich and Rockhampton and now Dean of Melbourne’s John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family talks to journalist PAUL DOBBYN about some of her academic and spiritual influences and some of the insights she received writing her book
Q: Who or what influenced you to take up the study of theology?
A: I don’t think there was any one person or event that influenced me … I was always quite academically inclined from my earliest years and it was really just a question of what discipline I would end up focusing upon. I was always a strong Humanities type, so I loved history and literature, above all European intellectual and social history, and since I was a Catholic it was natural that I would be interested in the way that the faith played such a foundational role in this. It’s impossible to go anywhere in the territory of European Letters without stumbling across Catholic theology.
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Queensland I studied
political philosophy under a brilliant Czech professor Vendulka Kubalkova, who was then living in exile from her country. She was one of those Central Europeans who spoke seven languages, held two doctorates and a degree in music. She thought this normal for an educated person. I learned a lot about scholarship from her.
At the same time I would read anything I could find by the American Jesuit James V Schall who is based at Georgetown University in Washington DC. I started to send him fan mail and we ended up becoming friends.
He gave me an enormous amount of encouragement and from time to time would quote me in his articles as if I were someone everyone would know. He once quoted me alongside St Augustine which my friends and husband thought was a great hoot. (I should also add he is very fond of quoting Charlie Brown and Lucy).
When I won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Cambridge I was fortunate to be
there at a time when the chaplain was (Dominican) Fr Allan White, (a scripture scholar who is now Master of the Dominican Order’s Socius for North West Europe and Canada).
If there is one theologian who I have found to be inspirational above all others it is Fr Aidan. He is an Anglican convert and his most recent book was a kind of manifesto for the re-conversion of England.
He also wrote the first book in English on the theology of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as he was, published in 1988, and, like Pope Benedict, he loves cats.
Q: What about your belief in guardian angels. Would it be correct to say, despite extensive learning, aspects of your faith are childlike?
A: You could say that despite two theology degrees (one from Cambridge and one from the Lateran in Rome) I still believe that what I was taught in primary school is true. I belong to the last generation, at least for a time, to know what it means to have been convent educated.
I was taught by nuns who were really in love with the faith and the Church and they passed it on through the medium of love and a strong Catholic culture. I know that plenty of people claim to have had bad experiences in Catholic schools but for the most part my experiences were very positive.
When it comes to the specific issue of guardian angels I do believe in them and I don’t place them in the same basket as the tooth fairy.
There is quite a respectable body of theology around angels, built on solid scriptural foundations, and officially recognised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. So, belief in angels isn’t Irish blarney for the Grade 2s.
A number of the early Church fathers wondered whether we are assigned a guardian angel at birth, or only after baptism. Pope John XXIII had a strong devotion to his guardian angel and there is a feast day assigned to them in the Roman liturgical calendar.
Q: Favourite Christian philosopher(s)… Why?
A: My favourite Christian philosopher is the 20th century Frenchman
Etienne Gilson and I also like his Italian contemporary Cornelio Fabro.
Apart from the fact that they were both philosophers who could write
beautiful prose they were also both of the view that Catholic philosophers shouldn’t be shy about mentioning God.
Gilson’s essay “The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the King” is something I have run off many times for my students.
Q: How did your interest in Pope Benedict’s thought come about?
A: I read The Ratzinger Report, which is a book-length interview with him
published in 1985. After that Ignatius Press started publishing many of
his works in English translation and I bought them as they came out. I also read some of his earlier essays in German.
He writes extremely well so one does not normally need to be some kind of expert theologian to follow his line of reasoning, though there are some exceptions.
His book “Introduction to Christianity” is not for the faint hearted but many of his academic publications are easy to follow. He has been particularly critical of the trend to “dumb down” and de-solemnise liturgy, or to turn the Mass into a “parish tea party” (his phrase). I am very much a part of his cheer squad for liturgical reform.
Q: What key aspect of Pope Benedict’s thought/character do you feel your book conveys?
A: I think it conveys a sense of the importance of the relationships between love and reason and truth and beauty in his thought. He of course believes the Catholic faith is the truth but he also thinks it’s important to emphasise that of all the religious options on the global market, Christianity is the only one based on the notion that God is love and the Catholic expression of Christianity has really been the single greatest defender of beauty in the world.
He has said that the strongest arguments in favour of the Catholic faith are the saints and the art which the Church has produced and that a theologian who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous!
Q: Response to book so far? Comments from the Vatican?
A: The responses to the book have been very positive. The London Times
recently carried an article on the best books on Benedict and mine came in at number 1. They have run out of copies in the US and a second print run is due for release next week. The two most popular chapters have been the ones on liturgy and the place of Benedict XVI within the constellation of his contemporary theologians.
I haven’t had time to send one to the Pope, though I will be in Rome for a meeting of the leaders of the John Paul II Institutes at the end of June and I will try and get one to his secretary while I am there.
I don’t expect him to read it, and I would be mortified to think he might waste his time doing so, but I do hope that he sees its cover and knows that the Oxford University Press book about him was written by an Australian. I am quite proud of the fact that the OUP contract went to an Australian.
A Scottish academic started a review of the book I published in 2003 Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II by
saying “when I was asked to review a book by an Australian about culture,
I thought, this has to be a joke …”
So, I feel as though with Ratzinger’s Faith, I have done my bit to make it clear that Australians can be good at things other than sport (to which I am not opposed), but we should be able to hold up our heads in the worlds of literature and scholarship as well.
