Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents:

Foundations and development of Ratzinger's theology

Challenge of religious pluralism

Ecclesiology: all roads lead to Rome

Ecumenism: logos versus ethos

Threat of secularism

Dictatorship of relativism

Tissa Balasuriya: Mary and human liberation

Jacques Dupuis: Toward a Christian theology of religious pluralism

Peter Phan: Being religious interreligiously

Theological context and vision

Perspective of the Federation of Asian Bishop's Conferences

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 with the secular world at large. Through a critique of Ratzinger's theology, this books 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 problem 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.