Pope's book: Meditation on Jesus

VATICAN CITY - Benedict XVI criticizes the "cruelty" of capitalism and colonialism and the power of the wealthy over the poor in his first book as pope.

Benedict began writing his personal meditation on Jesus Christ's teachings, Jesus of Nazareth, in 2003 when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. He stressed that the book, released on Friday, was an expression of his "personal search for the face of the Lord" and was by no means official Catholic Church doctrine.

"Everyone is free, then, to contradict me," he wrote.

Benedict - a prolific and well-known theologian well before he became pope - thoroughly examined the Gospel accounts of Jesus' public ministry to arrive at the foundation of the Christian faith: that Jesus is God.

Benedict said the fundamental question he explores in the book is what Jesus did.

"What did Jesus truly bring, if he didn't bring peace to the world, well-being for all and a better world? What did he bring?

"The answer is very simple: God. He brought God."

The 448-page book is due in bookstores in German, Italian and Polish on Monday, Benedict's 80th birthday. The English edition is due for release May 15, and translations are planned for 16 other languages.

"Confronted with the abuse of economic power, with the cruelty of capitalism that degrades man into merchandise, we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and we understand in a new way what Jesus intended in warning us about wealth," Benedict wrote.

In another chapter on the key Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, Benedict decries how the wealthy have "plundered" Africa and underdeveloped nations both materially and spiritually through colonialism.

"Instead of giving them their God . . . we brought them the cynicism of a world without God, in which only power and profit matters," he wrote.