Pope Benedict, the Church and the Modern World
Date: November 25, 2006
Time: 10:45pm est

The Wall Street Journal weekend edition showcased a front page story on Pope Benedict. The story was occasioned by the Pontiff's imminent trip to Turkey (he arrives on Tuesday), a trip that will have the world watching. On September 12, the Pope Benedict delivered a speech during his trip to Germany and the University of Regensburg which rocked the Islamic world, provoking anti-Christian violence and even the murder of a Catholic nun. While the speech was broadly interpreted as a kind of shot over the bow to worldwide Islam, most of its content was actually directed elsewhere, namely, the secularized, religion-less West. This weekend's WSJ piece got that correct when stating that "for Benedict, the modern age is defined by growing secularism in the West and the rise of religious fanaticism most everywhere else." More precisely, the disturbing characteristic of modernity which has had the Pope's attention for decades now is the West's growing irrationality. In a word, the Holy Father holds that faith without reason (religious fanaticism) and reason without faith (secularism) are dangerous paths for humanity. On either path, mankind can fall prey to what the Pope has termed a "dictatorship of relativism" - a phrase he coined in a homily he delivered at the mass preceding the Conclave that would elect him Pope. Here's part of what he said in that homily:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth .Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

For Pope Benedict (and millions of Christians world wide), having a firm, clear, unambiguous "faith based on the Creed" ought to be the antithesis of the dangerous form of religious fundamentalism the Pope himself decried at Regensburg if, and to the extent that, our faith has sure moorings, first and foremost in God's free gift of grace, but also in sound reason. Christian faith is either reasonable, or it is not Christian faith. Christian faith is both a free gift from God-indeed surpassing the limits of our finite human intellects-and a life-stance that can be explained and explored by the sound use of human intellect. "Always be ready to given an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason (logos, ratio) for your hope," exhorts St. Peter to an early Christian community (I Peter 3:15). Christians are called to breath from both lungs: faith and reason. That was the message of Benedict's predecessor, and it is his message. To learn a lot more about what he has to say on the matter, I recommend his new book, released just before Thanksgiving:

Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures. I also recommend you read the comments papal biographer George's Weigel delivered at the recent presentation of the book at the United Nations.

Meanwhile, we look forward to Pope Benedict's visit to Turkey which, we pray, will be safe and fruitful. What exactly will happen? Let's say I don't expect he will kiss the Koran. But I do expect he will have more to say to his hosts about faith and reason.

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Fr. Thomas Berg is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.