Word: benedict
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Apple Pie and the Pope Thanks for the lovely article on Pope Benedict XVI [April 14]. I appreciated your bringing out his appreciation for America, its unique and diverse faith history and his current efforts to balance science with morality as well as his efforts to balance faith with reason. I disagree, however, with the suggestion that Catholics have the prerogative to "legitimately balance church teaching against the demands of their conscience." There is a Vatican II that existed only in the imaginations of a generation into sex, love and rock 'n' roll. When one attends to the actual written...
...context of sexual mores," citing pornography and the decline of traditional family models. "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" It remains to be seen which Catholics will find most meaningful: Benedict's groundbreaking but guarded admission or his contextualization of abuse in what he sees as a general U.S. trend toward loose, if legal sexual practices...
...HOLLOW U.S. FAITH? For many years and more frequently in the past month, Benedict has been lauding America's vigorous piety, which he has said is partially a result of the First Amendment's leveling the religious playing field and ensuring competitive vigor by forbidding the government to pick an "established" church. The Pope has called it a "positive secularism," in contrast to what he considers outright government hostility to religion in Europe. He expressed this admiration to President Bush this morning. But in front of his bishops, for the first time, Benedict gave vent to an idea that...
ENDANGERED FAMILIES Benedict's worries about American and Catholic faith led him to a related criticism: a fear regarding the advanced corrosion of families, whose welfare (the Catholic ones, at least) he said is the American bishops' specific responsibility. He explained that as children become adults, a "healthy family life" is a model not only for respect for proper authority, concern for the weak, and cooperation as we become adults, but for harmony among nations, all of which he feels are threatened. Although the words "healthy family life" in the U.S. usually precede a polemic against gay rights, Benedict...
SALT FOR THE FLOCK Benedict is at his best when he's thinking spiritually and strategically at once. He has clear ideas about how his Church can renew itself in the face of modern secularism. He told the American bishops to preach the ancient traditions of the faith in clear and inspirational terms, shrewdly noting that "if this seems counter-cultural, that is simply further evidence of the urgent need for a renewed evangelization of culture." In light of secularism on one hand and competing religions on the other, Benedict urged his lieutenants to preach the Gospel "as an integral...