Both in this essay and in her previous work ("The Faith of Ratzinger") the author, Tracey Rowland, shows, in this interesting study, a deep knowledge of the theological panorama at the end of the 20th century.
Joseph Ratzinger faces in his long career as a Christian intellectual the strongest challenges of society. What has been called the "Crisis of Modernity" or the "Crisis of the West", forcing the Church to a profound renewal of Christian culture, which the Second Vatican Council tried to face.
The traumatic history of thought in the 20th century suggests that Modernity has failed and is even hostile to human development. Lyotard shows this failure of modernity and initiates postmodernity. However, the corresponding generation of Catholic intellectuals continued with the tendency to defend modernity when many jumped overboard seeing the shipwreck coming. Catholic intellectuals defended Modernity when it was showing signs of exhaustion and the end of its cycle.