The Benedict Proposal: Church as Creative Minority in the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI

How ought the church respond to the rise of a post-Christian secular age? Should it retreat? What is the mission of the church in this context? Joseph Ratzingers eucharistic ecclesiology provides a model for living the relation between communion and mission a model that provides a sound image for conceiving of and imagining the churchs engagement with modernity and the embodiment of missionary communion. Ratzingers vision deeply influenced by St. Benedicts and St. Augustines responses to the problems of their day offers a theologically and liturgically grounded vision of missionary communion that transcends politics. In light of our creation by from and for the triune God authentic responses to the present dis-integration of reason and community require the witness and invitation of the church as a community for the world. Ratzinger argues that right worship can and does habituate Christians and equip churches to respond to the existential questions confronting modern persons many of whom seem partially paralyzed by the anxieties of life without truth and communion. Might the witness of communion for mission lived by the new ecclesial movements especially the Focolare offer an example of how Ratzingers creative minorities can successfully evangelize this secular age?