Here is an alternative review, which is slightly more positive.

I’d expected to dislike the encyclical entirely. And am suprised to find myself in partial agreement with AC1. But on reflection I think Pope Benedict isnt quite so negative as it is portrayed. Certainly it is inherently conservative, and I am a little concerned that he should make no reference to the Conciliar document Gaudium et Spes (which deals with the Church and its place in the modern world) a document that shows a desire for progress and reconciliation.

Most of the encyclical reads like the conclusions of a philosopher nearing his death (which he is), sorting out his intellectual estate. A lot of it is old news and a repeat of his pre-papal writings. Yet within the document he expresses some suprisingly (for him) progressive views. Including a reformulation of the idea of purgatory. Part of his lifes work has been to promote the unity between faith and reason, a project that is not entirely at ease in the postmodern condition where it seems to have been completely seperated.

I particularly found this quote interesting (having already judged the encyclical to be a discourse of power – and a conservative theological manifesto).

No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world. This is why the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, were equally critical of atheism and theism.

Although ultimately he rejects this thesis as having gone too far, he accepts that it is a valid response to the injustices created by competing discourses of power – hiding behind whatever mask (including Christian love) it chooses to seduce us with. This is quite radical I must say for a conservative pope, and his vaguely implied conclusions are that in order to avoid reaching that same thesis the Church is in need of reform – perhaps not progressive reform – but a renewal of itself. And thus ultimately as all Christian institutions aim to do – he harks somewhat towards a return to the idealized picture of the early apostolic church.

His opening lines state this message quite clearly. Salvation/Redemption (the justification for the Church’s existence) is not a guarunteed given. It is offered, and therein lies hope. The goal towards which the achievement makes the journey of life worthwhile (within his worldview). But the process by which this is achieved is in our hands which sounds rather existential. In that light I feel that this encyclical is not quite as bad as I at first feared.