The pope recalled that Westminster Hall was where St. Thomas More, the 16th-century English scholar and statesman, was sentenced to death for opposing King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church. He said the saint’s trial underscored a perennial question about how much governments can impose upon citizens and their religious beliefs.
Modern democracies, he said, face a particular challenge: making sure that fundamental moral principles are not determined by mere social consensus.
The pope said the church teaches that the ethical foundations for political choices can be found through reason; the church does not dictate these norms as religious truths, but it does promote them in a “corrective” role, he said.
This contribution of religion is not always accepted, he said, in part because “distortions of religion” like fundamentalism are seen as creating serious social problems. But he said reason, too, can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology.
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CNS–In major speech, pope lays out vision of religion's role in public life
The pope recalled that Westminster Hall was where St. Thomas More, the 16th-century English scholar and statesman, was sentenced to death for opposing King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church. He said the saint’s trial underscored a perennial question about how much governments can impose upon citizens and their religious beliefs.
Modern democracies, he said, face a particular challenge: making sure that fundamental moral principles are not determined by mere social consensus.
The pope said the church teaches that the ethical foundations for political choices can be found through reason; the church does not dictate these norms as religious truths, but it does promote them in a “corrective” role, he said.
This contribution of religion is not always accepted, he said, in part because “distortions of religion” like fundamentalism are seen as creating serious social problems. But he said reason, too, can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology.
Read it all.