Abstract / DOI
Who’s Speaking, When Benedict Speaks? On Resigning Offices and Authorship. This essay focuses on the double authorship of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Starting from Benedict’s remark that his work was completed during the interview Letzte Gespräche (2016), I discuss the ambivalence of personal and papal statements in the texts of Ratzinger/Benedict. A close reading of the foreword of Jesus of Nazareth (2007) and other texts shows that the author is well aware of the different authorial positions of speech. The theological fundation of authorial concepts like ‹I› and ‹identity› can be derived from Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity (1968). The resignation of Benedict XVI., I conclude, could not take place before his work, the Jesus Trilogy, was completed for reasons of authorial authorization.