Word: faithful
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...effect real social and political change had somewhat exhausted those who entered in 1963 so full of hope. The Vietnam War dragged on, with the worst yet to come, and the civil rights movement had made only superficial gains. “Few classes have entered Harvard with more faith in government (stirred by calls to action from a young, vigorous leader) but few have left with less,” wrote Richard Blumenthal ’67 in an article published June 14, 1967, in The Crimson. “[We] leave college with a far more profound sense...
...agrees with him, stands out for his intellectual honesty and linguistic clarity. He believes what he says, and says what he believes in terms that are simple but thought-provoking. In this latest document, he uses Marxism - though no longer a clear and present danger to Catholic faith - as a warning against the rampant growth of reason, science and freedom without a commensurate growth of faith and morals. "The ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil - possibilities that formerly did not exist," Benedict writes...
Defeated, Marxism is no longer the incarnation of evil in our midst, but rather the perfect (vanquished) foil in Benedict's ongoing intellectually driven sermon that Christian faith is history's only true answer. But the Pope is not ready to declare victory. The Church's current foe, as he sees it, is still in the heart of Europe and still atheist in nature: a sort of post-Socialist, anything-goes brand of Utopia that Benedict calls "relativism" - and disparages as the root of everything from loose sexual mores to a breakdown of the traditional family to runaway capitalism...
Benedict traces relativism back to 16th-century English philosopher Francis Bacon and his godless idea of "faith in progress." In Benedict's reading of history, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution that followed paved the way for Marx; his ideology may have eventually been discarded but his influence still lingers in modernity?s false hope of life without suffering. "We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it," Benedict writes. "It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort...
Benedict's message of old-fashioned faith in the modern world is itself a call to revolution - or counter-revolution. Only time will tell how many respond to the call...