On Faith

Fr. Aidan Nichols notes in The Theology of Joseph Ratzinger (T&T Clark, 1988) that Ratzinger “finds two figures within the Wittenberg Reformer. First, there is the Luther of the Catechisms, the hymns and the liturgical reforms: and this Luther can be received by Catholics whose own biblical and liturgical revivals in this century reproduce many of Luther’s own criticisms of the late medieval Church. But besides this Luther there is also another: the radical theologian and polemicist whose particular version of the doctrine of justification by faith is incompatible with the Catholic understanding of faith as a co-believing with the whole Church, within a Christian existence composed equally of faith, hope, and charity” (p. 276).

And, at the Communio website, they have posted a pdf of Ratzinger on Luther: Luther and the Unity of the Churches: An Interview With Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Communio 11: Fall, 1984).