Ever the academic, Benedict’s speeches to leaders in culture, science and the arts are always among the most personal and carefully considered during his foreign trips. In his address…the pope made three basic points:
”¢ The best of modernity lies in a broad humanistic “wisdom,” expressed in values such as universality and fraternity. That wisdom rests on a three-legged historical stool formed by Christianity, the Enlightenment and secular thought. Trying to suppress Christianity makes the stool wobbly, so the church’s defense of objective truth is a matter of saying “yes” to those values rather than “no” to rival ideas.
”¢ Dialogue among different cultures and philosophical systems is a “priority in the world, from which the church does not intend to withdraw.” In fact, Benedict quoted Pope Paul VI to the effect that “the church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it finds itself.”
”¢ The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) “welcomed and recreated the best of the longings of modernity,” thereby generating “an authentic Catholic renewal.”
Read the whole article.
John Allen–An ”˜Affirmative Orthodoxy’ tour de force in Portugal
Ever the academic, Benedict’s speeches to leaders in culture, science and the arts are always among the most personal and carefully considered during his foreign trips. In his address…the pope made three basic points:
”¢ The best of modernity lies in a broad humanistic “wisdom,” expressed in values such as universality and fraternity. That wisdom rests on a three-legged historical stool formed by Christianity, the Enlightenment and secular thought. Trying to suppress Christianity makes the stool wobbly, so the church’s defense of objective truth is a matter of saying “yes” to those values rather than “no” to rival ideas.
”¢ Dialogue among different cultures and philosophical systems is a “priority in the world, from which the church does not intend to withdraw.” In fact, Benedict quoted Pope Paul VI to the effect that “the church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it finds itself.”
”¢ The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) “welcomed and recreated the best of the longings of modernity,” thereby generating “an authentic Catholic renewal.”
Read the whole article.