Benedict XVI continued: “In particular, you need to ensure that the Christian Gospel is in no way confused in their minds with secular principles associated with the Enlightenment.<\/p>\n
“On the contrary, by ‘speaking the truth in love’ you can help your fellow citizens to distinguish the wheat of the Gospel from the chaff of materialism and relativism.<\/p>\n
“You can help them to respond to the urgent challenges posed by the Enlightenment, familiar to Western Christianity for over two centuries, but only now beginning to have a significant impact upon other parts of the world.”<\/p>\n
“While resisting the ‘dictatorship of positivist reason’ that tries to exclude God from public discourse,” the Pope said, “we should welcome the ‘true conquests of the Enlightenment’ — especially the stress on human rights and the freedom of religion and its practice.”<\/p>\n
“By stressing the universal character of human rights, grounded in the dignity of the human person created in God’s image, you carry out an important task of evangelization,” the Pontiff said, “since this teaching forms an essential aspect of the Gospel.”<\/p>\n
“In so doing,” he added, “you are following in the footsteps of St. Paul, who knew how to express the essentials of Christian faith and practice in a way that could be assimilated by the Gentile communities to which he was sent.”<\/p>\n