5 things to know about Late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, January 04, 2023

5. Ratzinger played an instrumental role in the drafting of the final text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

In 1992, Pope St. John Paul II approved the text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, intended to serve as a summary of “all Catholic doctrine regarding both faith and morals.” 

An informative dossier compiled by the Vatican regarding the Catechism identified then-Cardinal Ratzinger as the president of the Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, one of several “working boards” tasked with the preparation of the final document. The Catechism itself contains an Imprimi Potest authorized by Ratzinger, which translates to “it can be printed” in Latin, indicating that the high-level Vatican official had approved the publication of the religious document.

Ratzinger gave a press conference in September 1997 to announce the publication of the Catechism in Latin. As the Catechism was originally written in French, Ratzinger stressed that the Interdicasterial Commission “took care more directly of the preparation of the aforementioned typical edition” that “faithfully reflects the original French text in its contents.”

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“It is therefore not a question of a new Catechism, but only of the definitive Latin text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which since 1992 has already been translated and published in about thirty languages, while about twenty are in preparation. All translations, even those already published, will now have to conform to this typical Latin edition,” he asserted.

Ratzinger elaborated on the role of the Interdicasterial Commission, which reviewed “numerous proposals for corrections to the contents and sources of the Catechism.” The Commission “submitted them to the judgment of experts, whose evaluations were then examined by the Commission itself, in order to evaluate the opportunity of eventual acceptance in the typical edition, subject to the approval of the Holy Father.”

Ratzinger estimated that “about a hundred paragraphs” from the original French text of the Catechism approved in 1992 had changes made to them, highlighting the Commission’s desire to “limit the changes to be introduced to the original French text to the bare minimum.”