Resurrection Realism

In Resurrection Realism, Patrick Fletcher examines the key role played by Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013), in the lively twentieth-century debates over the resurrection. Since Ratzinger has repeatedly claimed to be a follower of Augustine of Hippo, whose theology of resurrection has been so significant in Western Christianity, this book begins by identifying the key characteristics of that theology before studying Ratzinger's theology of resurrection in detail, examining the original sources of both Ratzinger and his German interlocutors, in order to paint the clearest picture to date of Ratzinger's thought on the resurrection. Some issues dealt with include: the development of Ratzinger's thought, the question of Augustinian duality and Thomistic hylomorphism, the salvation of matter, and the nature and identity of the risen body.

Patrick Fletcher's magnificent study teaches us exactly what it means to call Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI an Augustinian realist in the light of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. By providing readers with clear and concrete standards for calling Ratzinger's eschatology 'Augustinian,' and by demonstrating the ways in which he developed an increasingly realist account of bodily resurrection, Fletcher has established himself as the foremost authority on Ratzinger's eschatology. Essential reading.
--C. C. Pecknold, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC

What more important task has theology, in any age, than to wrestle with the doctrine of the resurrection? What cannot be learned about a theologian through his treatment of it? Fletcher plots the trajectory of the great Augustine's thinking and overlays it with the parallel trajectory of Joseph Ratzinger. The result is highly informative for the study of both, and a timely defense of Christian respect for 'the beauty of the exquisite body-soul ordering of the human being.'
--Douglas Farrow, Kennedy Smith Chair in Catholic studies, McGill University, Montreal


Patrick Fletcher is the Senior Advisor for Theology and Social Doctrine at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in Ottawa, Canada, where he lives with his wife and four children.