These two words summary the character of Joseph Ratzinger, as the gesture of his Withdrawal has demonstrated to the whole world. He is not a brilliant personage who imposes himself and shines, but a little man with a weak voice who lets things speak for themselves. Let them show their own beauty and capacity for conviction. He does not dazzle but he enlightens. His pontificate has had the genuine style of the German theologian: he has not remained in external events or manifestations, but has gone deeper. He has addressed himself to the essential, to the roots of the problems and hopes of the Church and the world of an early third millennium.

There is an anecdote about the then Cardinal Ratzinger, which occurred after the 1980 Synod on the Family, convoked by John Paul II. The synodal work was over and the prelates in charge were looking for a good topic for the next meeting of bishops. "New evangelization" was the topic proposed over and over again. Someone then recalled, Ratzinger commented, the words of Jesus: "Repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mk 15:1). Glosing these words, the commentator said: for there to be faith, true faith, there must first be a change and conversion. Then can come the true act of faith and the oft-repeated new evangelization.

First, purification and cleansing. This has been - in my opinion - the strategy of Benedict XVI in these eight years of his pontificate, which I summarize in these four words:

1. Love comes first. This was the degree scroll of his first encyclical. The cases of pederasty had shown that the Church needed to purify itself. "The greatest attack against the Church," he said on his trip to Portugal, "is the sin within her. That is why he affirmed in Deus caritas est that human eros must be purified in order to become true Christian love. To cleanse the selfishness and impurities that dwell in our hearts. In this way a true "revolution of love" will be possible in this sometimes somewhat cruel world.

2. Reason, compatible with religion; indeed, both can be cured of their "respective pathologies," he said in 2004 before Jürgen Habermas. Reason can prevent religion from falling into fanaticism and fundamentalism. Religion can prevent reason from engendering monsters like Auschwitz, Hiroshima or Chernobyl. Of course, we need a reason that is open ("expanded" he said in Regensburg) to other dimensions of life such as love, art, ethics or religion. Reason and heart at the same time and, therefore, truth and love, as the degree scroll of his social encyclical says.

3. The mystery of creation. In Caritas in veritate he speaks of both sexual ethics and the ethics of finance, of how care for the environment goes hand in hand with bioethics, and inner corruption with external pollution. For Pope Ratzinger, ecology and respect for nature must be linked to their very origin: creation. They are good because they have come from the hand of God. Nature (ours too) can also be known by the conscience of any person, believer or not. This can be a privileged common platform for dialogue between cultures and religions.

4. The secret, adoration. It is the core, the heart of the Church, the source of communion and the mission statement. Benedict XVI sees activism as a great black beast: acting without thinking and praying. If we put worship at the center, action will go in the right direction. Prayer also allows us to be more united among Christians. Care for the liturgy and preaching must be the priority to give primacy to God himself. The rest will come later. Perhaps it will be the laity who will take on some of the tasks that pastors cannot or should not do. It is the time of the laity... who first know how to pray.

According to Benedict XVI, we must take care of this intimate nucleus and go to the essential. Then the Church will be in a position -now yes- to launch into the new evangelization. Asia, Africa and America are awakening, but there is still a long way to go to reach "the whole world" (Mt 28:16). With this previous "per diem expenses of thinning" the Church can launch out with more strength and vigor "into the deep" (Lk 5:5). Now is the time to make the name of Christ resound to the ends of the earth. This is what the Pope-Professor has been explaining for all these years, discreetly and always with some light. Benedict XVI has repeated in numerous ways the name of Jesus Christ, for he alone can save us. We also need God now and financial aid. In a world in crisis (not only economic), it is the most convenient for all, believers and non-believers. Benedict XVI's words.