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Benedict and Voegelin

Josef Ratzinger c. 1980

With the retirement at the end of this month of Pope Benedict XVI, we thought it fitting to show here a letter sent by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to Eric Voegelin to thank him and to congratulate him on the occasion of his 80th birthday. We show the original followed by an English translation.

 

Der Erzbischof    8 München, den 11. Juli 1981
von München und Freising    Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße 7

 

Herrn Professor

Dr. Eric Voegelin

839 Sonoma Tr

Stanford Cal. 94305

USA

Sehr geehrter Herr Professor Voegelin!

Es war für mich eine ebenso große Überraschung wie Freude, von Ihnen mit persönlicher Widmung Ihre philosophische Meditation zugesandt zu erhalten,1 in der Sie den so nötigen und so sehr zerbrochenen Sinn für das Unvollkommene gegenüber der Magie des Utopischen erwecken wollen.

Seitdem ich 1959 Ihr kleines Buch “Wissenschaft Politik Gnosis” in die Hand bekommen hatte, hat mich Ihr Denken fasziniert und befruchtet, auch wenn ich ihm leider nicht in der Gründlichkeit nachgehen konnte, die ich mir gewünscht hätte.

So habe ich es außerordentlich bedauert, an Ihrer Geburtstagsfeier2 nicht teilnehmen zu können und die Gelegenheit versäumen zun müssen, Sie persönlich kennenzulernen. Umsomehr hat mich Ihre Gabe gefreut.

Mit bestem Dank und allem guten Wünschen für Ihre weitere Arbeit bin ich

Ihr

+ Joseph Card. Ratzinger3

(Joseph Card. Ratzinger)

 

The Archbishop
           Munich 8, July 11, 1981
of Munich and Freising           Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße 7

 

Professor Dr. Eric Voegelin

839 Sonoma Tr

Stanford Cal. 94305

USA

Dear Professor Voegelin,

It was for me both a great surprise and a joy to receive from you your philosophical meditation, with your personal dedication.1  You wish to evoke with it the sense of imperfection, a sense so needed and yet so broken, in the face of the magic of utopian thought.

Since I came across your small volume on Science, Politics, and Gnosticism in 1959 I have been fascinated and inspired by your thought, even though I was unable to explore it further as thoroughly as I should have wished.

By the same token I greatly regretted that I could not take part in your birthday celebration2 and thus had to miss the oportunity to become personally acquainted with you. All the more did I enjoy your gift.

With sincere thanks and the very best wishes for your further work,  I am

 

  Yours

+ Joseph Card. Ratzinger3

(Joseph Card. Ratzinger)

 

 

Notes

The original letter was supplied to VoegelinView by Fr. Brendan Purcell. The three footnotes that follow are his. Several people contributed to a translation supplied by Fr. Purcell, including Bill Petropulos and Gilbert Weiss. However we solicited a translation from Tilo Schabert, and it is his that we finally chose.

1. I presume this was an offprint of “Wisdom and the Magic of the Extreme: A Meditation,” possibly the 1977 Eranos Jahrbuch version, as part of a symposium on The Sense of Imperfection.

2. The meeting mostly of Voegelin’s former students at Tutzing, a resort south of Munich, for his 80th birthday, in, as far as I remember, June of 1981.

3. Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature. The letter itself is typed, including Ratzinger’s name under the signature.

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Josef Ratzinger is Pope Emeritus of the Catholic Church. He was Pope Benedict XVI (2005-13) following the death of Pope John Paul II.

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