Pope Benedict XVI publishes second volume of book on Jesus of Nazareth
Baku, March 11 (AZERTAC). Pope Benedict XVI rejects the idea of Jesus as a political revolutionary and insists that violent revolution must never be carried out in God`s name in a new book that was released Thursday.
“Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection” is the second installment of Benedict`s planned trilogy on Jesus. Part I, which covered Jesus` early ministry, shot to the top of the best-seller lists in Italy when it was published in 2007.
Already, 1.2 million copies of Part II have been printed in seven languages, editions in Arabic, Greek, Korean and Japanese are planned, and reprints of 100,000 more are planned for the Italian editions and 50,000 in German.
At the official launch Thursday, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who heads the Vatican`s office for bishops, said he felt he was living in a “historic moment” because the book was ushering in a new era of theological analysis that blended faith with history.
To underline the significance of the event, the pope`s personal secretary Monsignor Georg Gaenswein attended the presentation.
In the book, Benedict insists that Jesus never advocated violent revolution, as some liberation theologians have suggested, saying violence was not his way no matter how idealistic the motivation.
Benedict has spoken out frequently to denounce religiously motivated violence against Christians in the Middle East, Pakistan and elsewhere. “The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all,” he noted in the book.
In the book, Benedict also asserts that the Catholic Church shouldn`t concern itself now with trying to convert Jews, though he stresses the need for all Christians to “visibly” unite — a veiled call for other Christians to convert to Catholicism.
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