A Penny Catechism (for Philosophers)
EDITORIAL
Fides et Ratio (FR) “Faith and Reason,” the Holy Father’s new encyclical, is an old philosopher’s gift to Mother Church, and it calls us to our lessons.
Warm-up question: What did The New York Times say in its news section?
The Times reported that the encyclical signals “paradoxes” — we have a papacy “marked by a return to rigid conformity in doctrinal matters,” and yet we have a Pope who “still meets regularly with scholars to debate ideas….”
Hmm. Was the Times’s dumbfounded woman on the beat, Alessandra Stanley, perhaps angling for an invitation? Are there scholarship funds (not that she’d really need them)?
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She was a great Bible-quoter, a practice that seemed at once to console her and to show off her spiritual achievement.
A kernel of nihilism undoes whatever meaning modern men try to inject into their own lives.