Benedict emphatically sets aside the view that faith amounts to a form of law, and insists that the relationship of the believer to God through Christ defines Christian belief. He does not acknowledge his debt to Martin Luther, but it is palpable.

Those sentences come from a book review of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest book, "Jesus of Nazareth:From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration", in this morning’s New York Sun.

Maybe His Holiness is starting to see Luther’s point: Faith is not a law. Faith is a gift of God, nourished by God through His gifts He gives to the Church.

Of course, the Pope doesn’t go that far. But it’s a start.

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