The cardinal said Pope Benedict's overall goal is to reclaim the authentic Christian identity as understood by the faithful and practiced in the world.This really doesn't come to a surprise to anyone who follows the Pope and his Pontificate. Looking at Deus Caritas Est (which I may post about some time) and Sacramentum Caritatis, the Pope has been trying to make clear what it means to be a Christian, specifically authentic Christian love and what it means to live a Eucharistic life.
In the pope's view, he said, a fundamental problem for faith is relativism, which holds that there is no undeniable truth and that no one can claim to have the right answer.
In today's context of widespread secularism, Pope Benedict recognizes that faith needs to be explained in a way that appeals to human intelligence, said Cardinal Bertone. This recognition has brought the pope into dialogue with experts in the fields of science, philosophy and theology, he said.The fact that the Pope is dialoging with scientists and philosophers is an interesting and important point. As Catholics, we believe that God is truth, and there is one Truth. Scientific truth, philosophical truth, and religious truth are one in the same Truth, and therefore cannot be contradicted. As scientists discover things about the Universe, we discover things about the mind of God. (Read Fides et Ratio if you think otherwise) God is one who can neither decieve nor be decieved, so the Truth we can find from science is just as real as religious truth. This is why we are Catholic and not fundamentalist Christians, we can believe in the Big Bang and Evolution, and not have any problem with believing in God, and his intervention.
This is an important point for Catholics to know, and for all Christians to believe. The image of Christ riding on a dinosaur is simply ridiculous for, really, everyone, and so Christians are, in general, ridiculed due to fundamentalist statements. I, for one, think that Christianity would be better off without these sorts of ideas associated with it. But, I might be biased.
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I often find myself amazed at the artificial barriers some people erect between faith and reason.
To borrow from George Weigel, some people are shocked "at discovering the obvious: that the Bible is neither geology text nor critical biography; that, over the centuries, Christian hagiographers have embellished the stories they tell about saintly people; that some uncritically examined beliefs are, in fact, superstitious. Oh, really?"
In leet-speak, when someone states the obvious, it is common to mock them with the phrase "ORLY". In my mind, that gets the point across much better than spelling it out.
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