Introduction to Christianity Introduction to Christianity Introduction to Christianity () is a 1968 book written by Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI). Considered one of his most important and widely read books, it presents a "narrative Christology" that demonstrates the place for faith is in the Church. The book offers a "remarkable elucidation of the Apostle's Creed" and gives an "excellent, modern interpretation of the foundations of Christianity". Originally published in German in 1968 under the title, "Einführung in das Christentum", Ratzinger restates the Apostles' Creed and the meaning of this foundational text in language that has a greater contemporary resonance than the
Joseph Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Church, along with José Manuel Estepa Llaurens, William Joseph Levada and Estanislao Esteban Karlic with Christoph Schönborn, O.P. serving as the secretary of the group. Many saw in a contrasting light Ratzinger's planning and overseeing of the opening of the long-sealed Inquisition archives, making available at the beginning of 1998 all materials up to the 1903 death of Pope Leo XIII. However, the lag behind availability of other Vatican archives (at that point open up to the 1922 death of Pope Benedict XV and, since Ratzinger became Pope himself, up to the 1939 death of Pope Pius