On December 31, 2022, Pope Benedict XVI went to his reward. Despite his age and poor health, the reality of his death left many of us heartbroken. 

On that December morning, I looked at the website of the National Post, a paper where I worked for 15 years. Part my time there was covering religion and ethics and it was through my reporting that I was finally convinced to become a Catholic.

There was no story about his passing on the Post’s website. I called the editor to say Benedict’s death was a huge story and we needed something up right away. Sometimes the secular world doesn’t see what we see.

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He then suggested I write something. I said yes. Buy panicked wondering how to sum up his life in 1,000 words in the few hours before deadline.

I decided to write from my heart – akin to a love letter to the memory of someone I couldn’t conceive losing. I let what I knew in my bones about Benedict fill the blank screen.

“For me, he was one of the greatest men the Roman Catholic Church has ever produced,” I wrote. Those of us who loved him understood what the media constantly got wrong: He was not a liberal or a conservative. He was an orthodox Catholic who did what he was supposed to do as a bishop, cardinal and then pope. He defended the faith from novelties. He understood that while secular society is in constant flux, the Church’s role is to stand firm on eternal teachings.”

I had the advantage of reading a great deal of what Benedict wrote, and still refer to his books and essays.  One thing I understood as an adult convert was an obligation to go deeper into the faith. It was for me a great honour and responsibility for me to become a Catholic. It was important for my edification and for being a good Catholic apologist. 

A first book I picked up was Benedict’s Introduction to Christianity. That was a mistake. I thought “introduction” meant Catholicism for Dummies. It was a slog. I put it aside. But something kept bringing me back until the pieces fell into place. There were things I struggled  but I learned enough to know the effort was worthwhile.

I understand it was written after Vatican II as an answer to those exploiting the great Church council for their own progressive agenda. It was Benedict’s stand “against novelties.”

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His thoughts on doubt particularly drew me. For some, doubt can seem like heresy. For Benedict, it was a path for self-clarification and dealing respectfully with atheists.  

“Both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief, if they do not hide from themselves and from the truth of their being. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief … It is the basic pattern of man’s destiny to find the finality of his existence in this unceasing rivalry between doubt and belief, temptation and certainty.” 

He notes that even for the atheist there is the persistent questioning hovering over certainty: “Yet perhaps it is true.” Many converts have had that very thought before taking the plunge.

There are many of us who dislike talking about doubt as it may seem our faith is on shaky ground. Benedict saw it as a road to evangelization.  

“Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue for communication.”

I’m still reading Introduction to Christianity as I go deeper into the truth. I imagine I’ll be reading it until my last days.

A good entry point into Benedict’s thought is his trilogy on the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Each book is built around a period in the Lord’s life: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration; Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection; His Infancy and Childhood.

For a better understanding of Benedict’s contributions, read He Gave Us So Much by Robert Cardinal Sarah. It’s a wonderful tribute by another great Church thinker. 

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He writes of Benedict’s essays: “In them you may discover an unexpected, unknown Benedict XVI. In them you perceive the coherence of the immense treasure he left to us. You sense that his teaching and his example are a continent, still unexplored where the Church will be able to find nourishment for a long time.” 

Nothing more need be said.