An “arrogance of reason”

Pope Benedict met with the Pontifical Council for Culture and talked about the challenges of secularization and a cultural mindset that denies the existence of truth.

Benedict XVI expressed the view that believers are being conditioned by a “culture of images which imposes contradictory models and impulses, with the effective negation of God”. Hence people come to believe “there is no longer any need for God, to think of Him or to return to Him”, said the Pope…

“The phrase ‘etsi Deus non daretur’ [as if there were no God] is becoming a way of life which has its roots in a kind of ‘arrogance’ of reason”, he said. Reason “was actually created and loved by God” but is now “held to be sufficient unto itself and closes itself off from contemplating and seeking a Truth that lies beyond it”.

This was the note George Weigel hit in his keynote address “We Hold These Truths” to the first annual Illinois Catholic Prayer Breakfast a few days ago, presented as both an analysis and a challenge. “That idea on which everything rests is falling apart,” said Weigel, about the existence of truth. “Freedom must be tethered to moral truth if it’s not to be self-cannibalized.” And civil society needs groups of citizens and schools of democracy that know and exercise moral judgment. “There’s no pass for that.”

The state of a ‘state’ untethered to moral truth is clear and everywhere. Especially when a presidential candidate cites the Sermon on the Mount to deflect moral judgment. Talk about arrogance. And audacity.

I’ll try to get more of that Weigel address together here in the Forum. It’s subtitle was “Challenges of Catholic Citizenship.” The timing couldn’t be better.