Pope Benedict XVI lectured on faith and reason at the University of Regensburg in Germany Sept. 12, 2006. A quotation from a Byzantine emperor he cited provoked outrage in the Muslim world. The Pope said he was "deeply sorry" (CNS photo/Catholic Press Photo, L'Osservatore Romano)
The general result is not worthy to be called a culture. Because Manuel’s dialogue was between a Christian and a Muslim — between one who believes in the eternal Word, and one who accepts the voluntarist deity of the Koran, for whom to say that God acts according to the logos is to clap fetters on the divine will – the journalists at the time wrote angry reports about how Benedict had insulted the whole Islamic world. I doubt very much that one journalist in a hundred had the historical, literary, and theological acumen necessary to understand what Benedict was talking about. Benedict, whom I have sometimes described as the last true liberal alive in Europe, was for them a sour old man who does not accept the enlightened morality of our time, which morality is notable for its incoherence, individualistic loneliness, shrill demands for an unspecified ‘change,’ and bloodshed. It never occurred to them to examine the content of what he was saying — to take up the central questions, as to what reason is,
what it has to do with God, whether we have a wrong or truncated view of reason, and, if so, whether Western culture is far along its way to death. To take up those questions, the reporters, and the many professors afterwards who expressed their outrage, would have required more than a broad and deep education in the humanities — and this is the real point of my essay. They would have required the habits and the spirit of the true scholar; the calm, the willingness to entertain questions; the care to distinguish between what someone says and the various motives — which are seldom either completely good or completely evil — for his saying it; a generosity that puts the best construction on what the opponent brings; and the humility to acknowledge one’s own limitations and never to pretend that even a strong likelihood, let alone plausibility or a single instantiation or two, can constitute proof. In other words, the journalists were not scholars. But then, in our time, neither are the scholars.
But we are in dire need of such. We need scientists humble enough to admit that even the things they subject to analysis are in part but fabrications, parts of a real thing or partial considerations of a thing, manipulated or reduced to fit the tests we want to run. We need men and women of letters generous enough to be open to the wisdom that comes from people who did not accept our political and moral assumptions, scholars who will find beauty and truth in Milton or Dante because they are there to be found, and who will be grateful when they find it. In general, we need people like Benedict himself, who welcomes as fellows all those who are genuinely seeking the truth, to form true universities, and not snake-pits of political hatred and strife, or vast bureaucratic entities with the name — but neither the spirit nor the reality — of a university, whose faculties hardly ever speak to one another, because they do not believe, in the end, that there is anything to say. Thus must the Church, once again, return man to himself.m
“I APPRECIATE HIS QUIET HUMILITY” n BY THOMAS G. WEINANDY, OFM, CAP.
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hat I appreciate most about Pope Benedict XVI, a virtue that he has manifested throughout his life, is his quiet humility. He has never been a boisterous man wherein he pushed himself into the limelight. Rather, his calm, unassuming presence brought to every situation a reassuring strength that all would be done well and in accordance with the Holy Spirit’s will. This quiet humility is founded, not upon Benedict’s intellectual acumen, but upon his firmness of faith in the Gospel, a faith that is expressed in the Church’s magisterial teaching and her ecclesial theological tradition. Benedict is but a humble servant of Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior. That being said, all would acknowledge, and most would praise, Benedict’s intellectual ability, a gift that is manifested in academic work. To this day, his Introduction to Christianity continues to be read by appreciative students and members of the theological academy. Likewise, his Spirit of the Liturgy is a foundational text for appreciating and understanding the Church’s liturgy that has come down to us through the ages. I am convinced that every priest and seminarian should be required to
read and study this work. If such were done, it would help alleviate much of the rancor that exists in our present “liturgical wars.” Much of his sound learning and wise counsel would calmly prevail. Both before and after his election as Pope, Joseph Ratzinger bore the slings and arrows that were hurled at him by many within and outside the Church. Members of the secular and ecclesial liberal elite media were, and still are, relentless in their criticism and in their characterization of him as an unyielding rigid conservative. However, such rancor towards Benedict merely makes evident the lack of faith among many of his critics, as well as simultaneously highlighting his own steadfastness in the faith. Benedict, as a person, as an academic, as an archbishop, as Pope, and now in his retirement, is a light in the darkness of our present world. His light will continue to shine even when he has passed from this world into his heavenly reward. There, with all of the Saints, he will give glory to God the Father, in union with Jesus, the risen incarnate Son, in communion with the love of the Holy Spirit. MARCH-APRIL 2022 INSIDE THE VATICAN
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