Covenant and Communion by Scott Hahn

Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI
by Scott W. Hahn (Brazos Press, 2009)


AC Librarian's Review

"Never before in the history of the Catholic Church has a world-class biblical theologian been elevated to the papacy." With these words as an overture, Scott Hahn, a well-known convert to Catholicism and a noted biblical theologian in his own right, launches a book-length essay entitled Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. As its subtitle suggests, Covenant and Communion is a study of the approach to biblical interpretation taken by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict over the course of his long career as a theologian, bishop, and more recently as leader of the universal Church. Dr. Hahn has culled a wide array of Benedict's writings and drawn out some of the Holy Father's most cogent insights on a wealth of Scriptural topics. He begins by presenting a lengthy analysis of Ratzinger/Benedict's critique of the ways in which historical-critical methodology has at times been misused over the last couple of centuries. This section is somewhat negative in tone, and while both Benedict and Hahn acting as an interpreter of the pope's work raise valid points about the dangers of using the historical method in isolation (or divorcing it from the perspective of faith), I could not help feeling at times that Hahn engages in over-generalization. For example, he fails to mention that many biblical scholars (Catholic and otherwise) have made the historical approach a hallmark of their methodology while remaining faithful to the Church and retaining a strong faith in the Bible's divine inspiration.

Once Hahn turns to his exploration of Ratzinger/Benedict's own biblical theology, however, Covenant and Communion takes on a decidedly positive tone. Hahn highlights a number of key themes that have surfaced over the decades in the pope's theological writings: the need to approach the Scriptures from a perspective of faith; the notion that the biblical authors were the "normative theologians" of the Church; the typological approach to Scripture, whereby events and persons in the Old Testament find their fulfillment in Christ and the Church; and the intrinsic relationship between Scripture, liturgy, and doctrine. I was especially pleased with Hahn's treatment of Ratzinger/Benedict's thoughts on the connections between Scripture and liturgy. In a particularly beautiful chapter entitled "The Cosmic Liturgy", Hahn illuminates Benedict's presentation of the Mass as the preeminent setting in which the Word of God comes to life as a "performative" text which (especially in the words of the Eucharistic prayer) brings God's past saving deeds into the present moment and prepares us for the "eternal liturgy" of heaven.

There were times when reading Covenant and Communion when I was tempted to wonder if Scott Hahn was simply pulling out those aspects of Benedict's biblical theology with which Hahn himself is particularly enthused (e.g. the covenant, the liturgy, etc.). Not being an expert on Ratzinger/Benedict's literary corpus (although I have read a fair amount of his work) I cannot say with certainty whether this is the case. Nevertheless, Covenant and Communion is a useful study of the pope's approach to the Bible, and is worth having simply for the wealth of excerpts Hahn includes from Benedict's writings, some of which are difficult to obtain.