Pope Benedict- There Would Be No Liberalism Without God

This post will be of some length but I think it is worth posting this material. It appears that the Pope has written a preface to a book which to say doesn't happen every day. I think there is a lot to chew on here. Plus the Pope is a busy guy. He is interesting to see what he is reading. Also again we are seeing here Pope Benedict's gravitation to people that are influened by Alexis de Tocqueville and the Founding Father among others.

This has been translated from Corriere della Sera which is a is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan. The Ratzinger Forum has the Pope Letter (which is the Preface) and review of the book Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani [Why we should call ourselves Christians, Mondadori, 2008) translated here.

Update- ALso check out Pope Benedict's engagement with one of Europes leading athiest on related topisc that is quite interesting too after reading the verbage below at Jurgen Habermas: A Secular Atheist Changes His Mind on Religion in the Public Sphere

I will post the Pope's Letter (The Pr eface)and the review

'There would be no liberalism without God' A LETTER FROM THE POPE: A review of Marcello Pera's new book

Translated from November 23, 2008

Dear Senator Pera,

These days I was able to read your new book Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani [Why we should call ourselves Christians]. It was a fascinating read for me. With a stupendous knowledge of sources and cogent logic, you have analyzed the essence of liberalism starting from its foundations, showing that such essence is rooted in the Christian image of God: man's relationship with God of whom he is the image and from whom we received the gift of freedom.

With irrefutable logic, you show that liberalism loses its very basis and destroys itself if it abandons this foundation. Not less impressive is your analysis of liberty and of 'multi-culturality', of which you show the internal contradiction of this concept, and therefore, its political and cultural impossibility.

Of fundamental importance is your analysis of what Europe could be, and what a European Constitution could be in which Europe is not transformed into a cosmopolitan reality, but will find, on the basis of its Christian-liberal foundations, her own identity. And particularly significant for me is your analysis of the concepts of inter-religious and inter-cultural dialog.

You have explained with great clarity that an inter-religious dialog in the strict sense of the word is not possible, and thus, inter-cultural dialog becomes even more urgent in order to explore in depth the cultural consequences of underlying religious decisions.

Whereas a true inter-religious dialog is not possible without placing one's faith 'within parentheses', we must face in public confrontation the cultural consequences of religion-based decisions. In this case, dialog with mutual correction and reciprocal enrichment is possible and necessary. The significance of all this for our contemporary crisis is evident in what you say about the trajectory of the liberal ethic.

You show that liberalism - without ceasing to be liberalism - in order to be faithful to itself, can link to a doctrine for good, particularly, the Christian doctrine, with which it has the same origin, and thus offer an authentic contribution to overcoming this crisis.

With your sober rationality, your wide philosophical knowledge, and the power of your argumentation, this book, in my opinion, is of fundamental importance today to Europe and the world. I hope it will be widely received and help to give the political debate - beyond a discussion of urgent problems - the depth without which we cannot overcome the crisis in the present historical moment.

Thanking you for your work, from my heart I wish you the blessing of God.

To the Review

Christianity as a chance for Europe: Marcello Pera's new book has a preface by the Pope by Maria Antonietta Calabrò

Translated from Novemeber 23 2008

My position is that of a layman and liberal who turns to Christianity to question the reasons for its hope" - possible hope for our society, for politics, for the world of institutions.

Hope especially for old Europe - 'the most de-Christianized place in the West, and which boasts it". Where living as if no God exists "has not given the promised results". Europe which should turn back to Christianity "if it truly wishes to unite itself into something that resembles a nation, a moral community".

In his new book, Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani [Why we should call ourselves Christians, Mondadori, 2008), Marcello Pera follows the footsteps of Immanuel Kant (who in the Critique of Practical Reason said, "Hope begins only with religion"), and of Benedetto Croce (who wrote Non possiamo non dirci cristiani - We cannot not call ourselves Christians).

But even more, he follows the 'scientific' lesson of English empiricism in John Locke (who wrote The reasonableness of Christianity), of the Founding Fathers of the United States, and of Alexis de Tocqueville.

It is precisely from the study of the dramatic problems of moral, political and religious order posed by contemporary human coexistence (from bioethics to cultural integration) that impels Pera [an agnostic], to go farther - from "we cannot not say we are Christians" to 'we must say we are Christians'

The changes in the last years of the twentieth century demand, according to Pera, through their internal logic, this development, with respect to the times in which Western society was still largely permeated by Christianity and its religious spirit. That is why he maintains - and demonstrates - that "to raise the Christian standard" is the only chance for, not just the West, but every single human being (since liberalism is, by nature, not ethnocentric but universalist) to still have a positive outlook, a 'chance'. "

It has nothing to do with conversions or illuminations or second thoughts.... (which) are all important, sensitive and respectable, but involve personal conscience only", he notes. "It has to do with cultivating a faith - there is no other appropriate term - in the values and principles that characterize our civilization and to reaffirm the cornerstones of a tradition of which we are the children. "

The great fathers of classical liberalism saw this problem clearly... Now that liberalism has become anti-Christian, it is without foundations and its freedoms rest on a void." It can be said that the 'secular equations' of Pera - professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Pisa, an expert on Karl Popper, and co-author with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of the best-selling Senza radici(Without roots) - on the level of Kant's 'practical reason' or Aristotle's phronesis (practical wisdom), matches what Goedel's theorem is - which demonstrates the necessity of the existence of God - to metaphysics.

On the one hand: "God must necessarily exist, as has been demonstrated". On the other: "Because of this, and in conclusion, we must call ourselves Christians".

Pera writes: "Liberalism and Christianity are congeners [having the same roots]. If you take away from liberalism the faith of Christianity, then the it will disappear. " The liberal, he points out, is 'Christian by culture'. For him the 'gift of God' that Christians see is merely "a patrimony of virtues, customs and civilization - ours". And that's different from 'the Christian by faith', who has faith in Jesus as someone personally encountered, followed and loved. But being 'Christian by culture', in this first decade of the 21st century, no longer suffices, according to Pera. "

Whoever limits himself or feels limited to being only a Christian by culture" should not rule out the possibility of believing in Christ as well. "It is necessary that the richness of the human experience not be amputated by the presence in our life of a sense of the divine, the sacred, mystery, the infinite".

Of course, he says, this is "an appeal, motivated and dramatic, which is not yet (if it will ever be) a solution that is already theoretically available". There are issues that have 'political' consequences that remain wide open.

Pera rejects those which in recent years have become veritable taboos in the public discourse, both Italian and international. For instance, that there can be so-called 'inter-religious dialog'. Benedict XVI himself, in the letter which introduces the book (an exceptional if not unique event) and which we have reproduced in full, openly agrees with him on this, saying one should speak, rather, about a 'dialog between cultures'.

In the same way, Pera shows the self-contradiction intrinsic in the concept of 'multi-culturalism'. In order that what reason recognizes as necessary can take place in the life of anyone and in in the history of nations and peoples, decisions are needed. "In the end, it is up to us to choose... the Christian choice, to give oneself to God [the Christian by faith], or to behave velut si Christus daretur (Christian by culture), has produced the best results.

That choice has great advantages in the field of public ethics... Let us not separate morality from truth; let us not treat individuals - about to be born or about to die - as things; let us not agree that every desire be transformed into a right; let us not confine reason only to scientific limits; let us not feel alone in a society of strangers or more oppressed in a state which appropriates us because we can no longer orient ourselves".

But, he points out, such a decision, which one cannot evade, can only be generated by an encounter with a fact that inspires faith and/or hope. A fact that keeps reason 'open' to the possibility that everything about modern liberalism (relativism, the aggression of religious fundamentalism, the 'thing-ification' of man) calls forth as a 'necessity'. Of Papa Ratzinger, 'the Pope of Christian hope', Pera writes: "

I can only say that notwithstanding all my own interior reflections, this work would not have been possible if Benedict XVI had not written and said - and borne witness to - what he writes and says". Only hope, that which St. Paul writes about in the Letter to the Hebrews, can fill the gap between reality and the condition perceived by reason as necessary. That is why Charles Peguy in his Portal of Mystery to the second virtue, makes his God say, "The faith that I love best is hope".