...

Well, D-man, you've recycled that quotation again, but I've now found my copy of "Without Roots." Ratzinger indeed writes those words. But before that, he describes a bit more about what he means: "In the 19th century, the two models that I described above [Latin secular model of church-state relations, and Germanic liberal Protestant model of church-state relations], were joined by a third, socialism, which quickly split into two different branches, one totalitarian and the other democratic. Democratic socialism managed to fit within the two existing models as a welcome counterweight to the radical liberal positions, which it developed and corrected. It also managed to appeal to various religious denominations." He goes on to condemn the materialism of the totalitarian brand of socialism. It is clear that he is speaking mainly about models of church-state relations and their implications for religious institutions and freedom, and ultimately for faith itself. As an economic arrangement, the phrase "Democratic socialism" is vague and can mean a range of kinds of government. To the degree Ratzinger was connecting democratic socialism as an economic arrangement to Catholic doctrine, I'd speculate that he was thinking about Schumpeter's 1941 interpretation which Wiki describes as "the growth of workers' self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions" -- a reaction, or humanizing improvement, to the radical liberal models that Ratzinger was criticizing in this letter. That would explain why, as Ratzinger notes, Democratic socialism appealed to Catholics in England and Germany, and why it made a contribution "to the formation of a social consciousness." Ratzinger is not a socialist as socialism is usually understood, nor is he a libertarian. So far as I am aware, he and Mr Warren are in the same ballpark, though perhaps with differing judgments on specific questions of prudential judgment. - Joseph Wood