IN HIS OWN WORDS - Texts and interviews before JR became Pope

Here is a translation from Italian of part of a letter written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to his friend Professor Alfred Laepple in June 1995. The letter was published in Italian translation in the January-February 2006 issue of 30 GIORNI.

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Left, Prof. Laepple in 1946; Right, Prof Laepple today,
with a bound copy of Joseph Ratzinger's first 'book' -
a translation of an Aquinas work on love


23 June 1995
Vatican City

Dear Alfred,

...You opened my eyes to philosophy much more than did our teachers at the University. Thanks to you, I became acquainted with the great figures of Western thought in their perennial relevance, and so I started to think with them.

Then, in assigning me toi translate the Quaestio disputatio of St. Thomas Aquinas on love, you also introduced me to the world of original sources, you taught me to write first-hand myself and to school myself directly after the masters.

Therefore, you were at the start of my philosophical and theological path, and what you gave me was an essential part of that path.

Thanks to your tireless work and creativity, you have produced a bountiful harvest of published works which are too many to count and with which you have been able to orient so many persons in the disarray of our times.

You have never lost the openness and generosity of spirit that impressed us all in 1946. At the same time, you have shown in all your work that an open mind and faith, the freedom to think and faithfulness to the Church, are not in opposition as many think today - even as it becomes more and more evident that it is precisely the loss of a living rapport with the Church that can turn thought sterile.

For all this, I thank you with all my heart, and do not think it is just an expression of courtesy when I add to my thanks the wish that you will continue to enrich us for a long time more, with your spiritual gifts.

I greet you as with one heart and with gratitude. With my most sincere blessing -

Joseph