Cara Week,
reading the second encyclical of Benedict XVI published in recent days, it seems to me that the pope is moving between the certainty of doctrine and practical challenges in the history of civilization.
This paradox remains difficult to forecast the impact socio-political (and church) encyclical Spe Salvi, Benedict XVI, the second of his pontificate. In this connection, I raise the question: it is just a learned (and repetitive) dissertation on the fate of Christian hope in a contemporary world that turns its back to transcendence, or an attempt to relate it with starting the search for answers the most serious issues of justice, suffering, life after death?
reactions of the public, also internationally, oscillate between these two poles, confirming that it is not easy to enter the mind and method of teaching of Benedict XVI. For where the encyclicals of his predecessors is coupled to a fact, such a situation, such a problem and relate it to the Gospel and the doctrine of the church, often confirming and sometimes innovating, Pope Ratzinger is kept to a strict criterion unique exhibition do not necessarily coupled ( at least in appearance) to contemporary living.
For this you can read in Madrid (El Pais) that the pope "is not proposing a theocracy in form but in substance" and that its concepts recover "Integrity pre-conciliar," while in Paris ("Le Monde") warns about the risk of interpreting the text as "yet another attack by a pope to progress, science, atheism," ignoring the logic that it contains proposals and that revolves around a fundamental statement drawn up with a formula very essential: "Man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope." Man as an individual and human society as a whole.
What signs of the times? It is a "argumento ... Decimononico the arsenal of fundamentalism," as sentenced "El Pais", or is there another way? Of course, Spe Salvi, that does not contain explicit references to the council and distances itself in its logical process, the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, which identified the feelings of people today - "the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties" - and those of the disciples of Christ, so that "there is nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts." In that context, the church was asked to strive "to know and understand the world in which we live, its expectations, its longings and its nature, often dramatic."
was the inductive criterion inherent in reading the "signs of the times", for which, since the Council, has developed a dense critics fear that sociology could take precedence over doctrine and one might be able to justify all the tendencies of every historical moment, with the inevitable outcome of ethical relativism.
a risk to which you can cope - how much is in the Catechism of the Catholic church - if the theme is declined form of the beatitudes of the Gospel, that "raise our hope toward heaven as the new promised land 'and' it trace the path through the trials that await the disciples of Jesus. " Parameters very little soft spot to measure the consistency of the believers.
In fact, with this encyclical on hope Benedict XVI demonstrate the desire to develop the systematic-theological reasoning started with Deus Caritas Est. It is the belief in a God who is love to give meaning, consistency and truth to every authentic human hope. Staying at this level that goes beyond the political-historical analysis, summarizing the text, often charming, with plenty of references to biblical, patristic, and philosophical - as well as reminiscent of examples - the doctrine of Christian hope.
From Bacon on ... The man is described as a major grower of expectations, from minor to major ones, but it remains unfulfilled because "in need of a hope that goes beyond" and that "may be enough only something infinite , something that will be more and more of what he can ever attain. " In the daily search there has been a failure since mankind has been able to progressively acquire resources and ever more effective means of control over nature.
Following the message of the philosopher Francis Bacon, this has led them to replace the biblical scenario of the "kingdom of God" with that of a "kingdom of man," centering on a progress which is centered on a vision of self-sufficient "reason and freedom. "
Enlightenment and Marxism are indicated by the pope as the "icons as examples (but certainly not exclusive) of this drift deceptively humanist: the first with the claim Kant to supplant the "ecclesiastical faith" with a "religion" is derived from reason alone, the other with the mistake of thinking that social change of the structure would, by itself, eliminated the causes of injustice and, in some way , peaceful relations civilians.
criticism involves all the modern time who believed in the feasibility of a perfect world, thanks to scientific knowledge and a "policy based on science."
Even a certain vision of the individualistic pursuit of happiness is attributed to self-critically, to a Christian view, long and widely fed, which has tended more to the salvation of the individual that the need to deal with the "we" community, as well as requiring the commandment of love. A hint that it would also be explained in comparison to some existing trends in the Catholic doctrine that are ever larger concessions to function ... "redemption" of the market and its automatic mechanisms, such as a seal to the final triumph of capitalism over ideologies that have hindered in the last century.
Perhaps one of the themes of the announced social encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI?
The God with a human face. The arguments of Spe Salvi lead to the conclusion that the hopes that keep us going every day are not enough if is not the "great hope which must surpass everything else" and that "can only be God, who encompasses the universe and can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, can not achieve," a rebuttal of an accusation traditional that it is not just any god, but "the God who has a human face and who loved us to the end, each individual and humanity as a whole," whose kingdom is not an imaginary beyond salvation but "this is where he is loved and wherever his love reaches us."
Around this core rotates a galaxy of ideas, references and examples that make a real rhapsody of Christian hope, decision which rejects the argument used to reject: the existence of death, suffering, sickness and violence sopraffattrice.
Atheism is not a "morality" as a protest against "a world in which there is so much injustice, suffering and cynicism of power ..." and that this can not be "the work of a God good. " Conversely, if the hope is combined with the work of a God who loves man, the same "final decision" lost his image "terrifying" and presents itself as the 'decisive image of hope. "
If the world helps the church. Letta the encyclical, and granted the controversy, is now worth dwelling on one aspect that has been established as a constant of the Magisterium of Pope Ratzinger.
In his teaching, he is led to compare Christianity with the "essence" of the "other entities" religions, doctrines and ideologies. The question is whether this trend in the comparison is not necessarily abstract the uncertainty inherent to flatten the Gospel message on the category of "isms" intellectual arena, with the inevitable outcome if not irreconcilable conflict. Conversely, the historical experience allows us to see how, incarnated in human affairs, even the more rigid and exclusive theories have been forced to modulate on the denominator of tolerance, coexistence and mutual recognition.
This is a phenomenon that has led everyone to learn something from each other and give them something, a mechanism of reciprocity, which, ultimately, is the most reliable figure of the civilizing process. This is where that help can come to the church by the modern world was talking about the Second Vatican Council.
A more precise knowledge of the value of historical movements would among other things to check - as suggested by Edgar Morin - that "the message of brotherhood of religions has been found secularised and worn by the French Revolution, then amplified and universalized by socialism and the brotherhood and compassion were continually denied by the actions committed in the name of these religions and in the name of socialism, but they remain below the layer from which we can choose our purpose. "
mixed in the events of history, doctrines and religions are never pure but influence each other, you change and evolve in practice. Accompanying the comparison of the doctrines of a more careful perception of the history of mankind - like the council asked it to do - you get a critical settling that identifies a heritage and a common fabric of humanity, from which cooperate focused "reasons for life and hope." Not the Christians themselves for others, but "with" all "to" all.
Domenico Rosati
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