Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures

By Joseph Ratzinger

Foreword by Marcello Pera

Written by Joseph Ratzinger shortly before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures looks at the growing conflict of cultures evident in the Western world. The West faces a deadly contradiction of its own making, he contends.

Terrorism is on the rise. Technological advances of the West, employed by people who have cut themselves off from the moral wisdom of the past, threaten to abolish man (as C.S. Lewis put it) whether through genetic manipulation or physical annihilation.

In short, the West is at war-with itself. Its scientific outlook has brought material progress. The Enlightenment's appeal to reason has achieved a measure of freedom. But contrary to what many people suppose, both of these accomplishments depend on Judeo-Christian foundations, including the moral worldview that created Western culture.

More than anything else, argues Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the important contributions of the West are threatened today by an exaggerated scientific outlook and by moral relativism-what Benedict XVI calls "the dictatorship of relativism"-in the name of freedom.

Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures is no mere tirade against the moral decline of the West. Razinger challenges the West to return to its roots by finding a place for God in modern culture. He argues that both Christian culture and the Enlightenment formed the West, and that both hold the keys to human life and freedom as well as to domination and destruction.

Ratzinger challenges non-believer and believer alike. "Both parties," he writes, "must reflect on their own selves and be ready to accept correction." He challenges secularized, unbelieving people to open themselves to God as the ground of true rationality and freedom. He calls on believers to "make God credible in this world by means of the enlightened faith they live."

Topics include:

Reflections on the Cultures in Conflict Today

The Significance and Limits of Today's Rationalistic Culture

The Permanent Significance of the Christian Faith

Why We Must Not Give Up the Fight

The Law of the Jungle, the Rule of Law

We Must Use Our Eyes!

Faith and Everyday Life

Can Agnosticism Be a Solution?

The Natural Knowledge of God

"Supernatural" Faith and Its Origins

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9781681490960

Joseph Ratzinger

Joseph Ratzinger (Alemania, 1927-2022) se doctoró en Teología por la Universidad de Múnich en 1953, dos años después de haber sido ordenado sacerdote. Tras participar en el Concilio Vaticano II como teólogo consultor del arzobispo de Colonia, prosiguió su carrera académica y se convirtió en vicerrector de la Universidad de Ratisbona. Fue nombrado cardenal y arzobispo de Múnich en 1977 por Pablo VI, y prefecto de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe en 1981 por Juan Pablo II, cargo que desempeñó hasta su elección como Papa —Benedicto XVI— el 19 de abril de 2005. Tras su renuncia en febrero de 2013, ostentó el título de Papa Emérito. Falleció el 31 de diciembre de 2022 y está enterrado en las grutas del vaticano.

Book preview

CHRISTIANITY AND THE CRISIS OF CULTURES

JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER

(Pope Benedict XVI)

CHRISTIANITY AND THE CRISIS OF CULTURES

Introduction by Marcello Pera

Translated by Brian McNeil

IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO

Title of Italian original:

L’Europa di Benedetto nella crisi delle culture

© 2005 by Edizioni Cantagalli, Siena

Cover photograph:

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, New York

© Kevin Forest / Photodisc

Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

© 2006 Libreria Editrice Vaticana

© 2006 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-58617-142-1

ISBN 1-58617-142-9

Library of Congress Control Number 2005909729

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Introduction by Marcello Pera: A Proposal That Should Be Accepted

The Crisis of Cultures

1   Reflections on Cultures That Are in Conflict Today

2   The Significance and Limits of Today’s Rationalistic Culture

3   The Permanent Significance of the Christian Faith

The Right to Life

1   Why We Must Not Give Up the Fight 

2   The Law of the Jungle, the Rule of Law 

3   We Must Use Our Eyes! 

What Does It Mean to Believe?

1   Faith and Everyday Life: A Fundamental Human Attitude

2   Can Agnosticism Be a Solution?

3   The Natural Knowledge of God

4   Supernatural Faith and Its Origins

5   Development of Premises,

1. Faith is anchored in what Jesus and the saints see

2. The verification of faith in life

3. Faith’s I, you, and we

INTRODUCTION

A Proposal That Should Be Accepted

by

Marcello Pera

At the origins of what Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) calls in this book the most radical contradiction that has developed in Europe lies the great division brought about by the scientific revolution.

Galileo, in his endeavor to avoid a conflict with the Church over the relationship between the new Copernican astronomy and the interpretation of Scripture in keeping with Aristotelianism, put forward two theses.

The first thesis maintains that if Scripture is correctly interpreted, it is necessarily in agreement with astronomy, because, as Galileo wrote in his letter of December 21, 1613, to Don Benedetto Castelli:

Sacred Scripture and nature proceed equally from the Divine Word, the one dictated by the Holy Spirit, the other a most observant executor of the orders of God. When Scripture accommodates itself to our understanding of the universe, it says many things that diverge from the absolute truth, on points of detail and in terms of the meaning of words. . . . It seems that what our eyes observe of the workings of nature or what our senses experience or the conclusions we necessarily draw from the demonstrations of science should not at all be called into question by passages of Scripture that appear to say something different. For not every single word of Scripture is binding on us with exactly the same force as every working of nature.

The second thesis is that Scripture and astronomy are dealing with different things, the former with the salvation of men, the latter with factual questions. As Galileo wrote to Madame Cristina di Lorena in 1615:

And if the same Holy Spirit has intentionally refrained from teaching us propositions of this kind [that is, of astronomy], since these have nothing to do with his own true intention—which is our salvation—how can one then assert that it is absolutely necessary to hold this position rather than that, so that one is de fide, the other erroneous? . . . Here, I would repeat something I once heard from an ecclesiastical personage of the most eminent rank, namely, that it is the intention of the Holy Spirit to teach us how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes.

We can call the first point the thesis of convergence or of unity between science and Scripture and the second the thesis of separation or of diversity between the sphere of scientific research and the sphere of religious salvation.

At least prima facie, the two theses are not incompatible, and in the case of Galileo, a great scientist and a deeply convinced believer, they were certainly not so. Both theses maintain the possibility of reconciling science and religion, although they do so in different ways. For the thesis of convergence, there cannot be conflicts between truths of science and truths of the faith, because both Sacred Scripture and nature proceed equally from the divine Word and advance in harmony, so that every scientific progress becomes a hermeneutical progress. In the same way, for the thesis of separation, there cannot be conflicts, because both advance independently, each in its own autonomous and separate sphere and with different methods, criteria, and sources.

But although these theses may appear incompatible, in reality they are saying something different about the theoretical perspectives and about the practical consequences. And both theses have left a profound mark on European culture.

From the theoretical point of view, the thesis of convergence sees the discourse of science and the discourse of faith as two authentic forms of knowledge that are (or ought to be) in harmony. However, the thesis of separation sees scientific knowledge as authentic knowledge, because the discourse of faith is not knowledge, properly speaking, but something one believes. In the first case, knowledge is one: man knows (in the full sense of this word) both his world and the meaning of his world. In the second case, knowledge is—or ends up as—fragmented: there exist a public and objective scientific knowledge and a private and subjective religious belief.

What are the practical consequences? For the thesis of convergence, the science that deals with the world ought

Reviews for Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures

[tabascofromgudreads · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a very good book, that deserves to be read carefully, weighing every word and paragraph. As a catholic, I listen to everything the Pope has to say with the utmost respect, and I trust his full genuinity. This, however, doesn't mean that I take every single word he says as if I was prohibited from formulating an opinion about it, whether in accordance with it or not.

The main point of this book is the moral crisis in which our western world finds itself in today. "The growth of our technical possibilities is not matched by an equal development of our moral energy". Moral strength, argues the Pope, has actually diminshed, because the technological mentality confines morality to the subjective sphere.

I particularly liked the part where Benedict XVI summarizes the issue of the European Union having rejected any mention of God or Christianity from the European Treaty (Lisbon Treaty). A move that I myself found moronic and purely driven by an ideological war among a limited group of "elite" European academics, scholars and politicians. Benedict XVI outlines very clearly his reasons, and it's not even a great effort to do so, as anyone with a pinch of common sense can see that he is 100 per cent right. In particular, denying that Europe rests on Christian foundations means spitting in the face of centuries of history. Benedict hits the nail on the head when he states: "The failure to mention Christian roots is not the expression of a superior tolerance that respects all cultures in the same way and chooses not to accord priviledges to any one of them. Rather, i expresses the absolutization of a way of thinking that is radically opposed to all the other historical cultures of humanity. This is the expression of a consciousness that would like to see God shut up in the subjective sphere of cultural residue from the past. In this way, relativism becomes a dogmatism that believes itself in possession of the definitive knowledge of human reason".

In other words, human dignity in our culture is very much tied to God and to our roots. And I wholeheartedly agree with this.

The following chapters, probably different sermons or parts of them, proceed to make the argument in defense of Christianity and God even stronger, against the relativistic view that is pushed by the "Enlightment" movement.

Here is where I liked the book a bit less. Despite the topics are very wide and touch everyone of us, I see this arguing and bickering as a very academic / scholarly exercise, very much confined to 10 or 20 big names in the European philosophy / theology world, and therefore completely out of touch with reality. What I mean is, the discussion becomes more and more rarefied, theoretical, and in my opinion it loses the traction that I felt at the beginning of the book. It becomes, in short, an airy philosophical treaty.

Some points deserve to be mentioned, because they screamed out at me: "Very soon, it will no longer be possible to affirm that homosexuality - as the Catholic Church teaches - constitutes an objective disordering in the structure of human existence". Please! Please! I truly hope that day comes very soon. And I hope that even the Church will update their view on homosexuality. Considering homosexuality a disorder and not accepting any sexual relationship between gay people is a position that goes against the preaching of Jesus and that needs (and will) be overcome. Hopefully soon.

The chapter "Why we must not give up the fight" is another perfect example of this attitude of taking a topic and making a big emotional war of ideologies about it, completely forgetting the practicalities involved. The Church is definitely too rigid on this subject. What about that poor woman for example, who died recently in Ireland because the doctors wouldn't perform an abortion on her? I wish the Church were able to demonstrate more common sense, practical intelligence and flexibility on some matters.

Another point that I found completely off the rail is the following: "If we come to experience a clash of cultures, this will not be due to a conflict between the great religions, which of course have always been at odds but, nevertheless, have ultimately always understood how to cohexist with one another"... WHAT?? They cohexisted only because they didn't succeed in exterminating one another!!! .... "The coming clash will be between this radical emancipation of man and the great historical cultures (and religions)". What does that mean, exactly? What will the "clash of cultures" be in practice? A civil war? People hating each other and calling each other names? Or just, once again, a couple of big wigs bitching and arguing from their academic publications that no one reads? (erm.... except for me and for people who have to).

I really liked the chapter on "Faith and everyday life", on how having faith is compatible with being a modern adult person.

On the other hand, I found the argument against agnosticism really weak: "When faced with the question of God, man cannot permit himself to remain neutral. All he can say is Yes or No". WHY? Why in the world can someone not say "maybe", or "probably not, unless you can prove it to me"? To have faith or not is a matter of choice, that comes from your heart and soul. Full stop. There is no way you can prove agnosticism wrong, not even with this sophisticated philosophical arguments, and there is no way you can actually prove a Christian right. So, give it a rest, Benedict!

Towards the end, I found an excellent description of human nature in the following paragraph: "On the one side, there is the interior opening up of the human soul to God; but on the other side, there is the stronger attraction of our needs and our immediate experiences. Man is the battlefield where these two contend with each other". Amen to that.

Finally, Joseph Ratzinger writes "the relationship with God is, before all else, a relationship with men; it is based on a communion among men". This is a great truth, and even perhaps an inconvenient one for the Church, that has never admitted openly that God can be interpreted, from a purely scientifical/biological point of view, as a collective illusion. The most important point though is that this doesn't make Him less real, or less important, or less existent. Just like our sense of "self", that is a construct, an "illusion", but nevertheless we feel we do exist as persons, as individuals, as real personalities.

Overall, enjoyable reading, even though open to a lot of arguments and discussions. Definitely great thought- provoking material