Dialogue Derailed

Joseph Ratzinger has shaped and guided the church's understanding of its mission to proclaim the good news, as well as to forge good relations with non-Catholic Christian communities, other religious traditions, and the secular world at large. Through a critique of Ratzinger's theology, this book draws attention to the importance of theological discourses originating from non-European contexts. Mong highlights the gap between a dogmatic understanding of the faith and the pastoral realities of the Asian church, as well as the difficulties faced by Asian theologians trying to make their voices heard in a church still dominated by Western thinking. While Mong concurs with much of Ratzinger's analysis of the problems in modern society--such as the aggressive secularism and crisis of faith in Europe--he focuses attention on the realities of religious pluralism in Asia, which require the church to adopt a different approach in its theological formulations and pastoral practices.