Here's another article flagged by Beatrice on her site
http://benoit-et-moi.fr/
Emerging from the ‘relativist’ fog
By Denis Tillinac
Translated from
January 7, 2010
At the time the Pope Benedict XVI was attacked by a madwoman in St. Peter’s Basilica, I was reading some of his writings, among them, his lecture at the College des Bernardins.
The Holy Spirit is said to enlighten the cardinals when they vote in Conclave for a Pope, but there have been, at the very least, ‘intermittences’ throughout the long history of the papacy.
However, for the election of Benedict XVI, the Spirit did not spare his grace – he is the Pope whom the Church needs. He inspires comparison with the erudites of the Merovingian ages, who, in the monasteries, gave everything in order to make culture live on perennially even while barbaric anarchy was raging around them.
With morality tamped down, we live in barbaric times – one only has to turn TV on or surf the Web to know it. And the Pope is well aware of it. But instead of vainly adhering to the times, he pursues his exegesis of Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church - in short, the basics of the faith. Some find it ‘retrograde’. But that is his mission as Pope.
Well aware of the depths of modern nihilism, he continues to advocate the marriage of faith and reason in the service of a freedom that aims much higher than the navel of our ego.
For now, the impression may be that he is preaching in the desert. But that is a deceptive impressiom, due in large part to the thoughtless negligence of the mediatic system.
The philosophers of ‘deconstruction’ are at the end of their rope; there is no metaphysics behind the ideology of ‘innovation’, no morality behind the exhortations on values; and we are pestered daily about condoms, priests who want to marry or women who want to say Mass.
As though the Church (with more than a billion souls) does not have more crucial concerns. As if the substance of its message should dissolve in the air of the times.
The deep de-Christianization of the West goes back to the Enlightenment, to Descartes. And it cannot be remedied by demagoguery over sexuality, hetero or homo.
The Pope knows this - he has taken the measure of the challenge, and it is vertiginous, even as the basis of the problem has become clear: a world without God is ultimately unlivable.
Everything shows this, including the compensatory divinities of an infantile polytheism which are being sold to us relentlessly to mask the evidence of a nauseating void.
The Pope rightly wants nothing to do with this barbarism. And one ends up realizing that only his voice is indicating the one route mankind can take without getting lost. That, in fact, this octogenarian is the only contemporary philosopher.
It would be good if, sooner or later, a savior could emerge from the ‘relativist’ fog, as Benedict XVI calls it. But when? God knows.
A commentator has said that using argot and wearing a cap backwards is not the best way for a young man to find a job.
[I suppose he is referring to the ‘angry young men’ of the Muslim street in France.] It’s a testimonial of fact. Why pretend this is somehow a ‘racist’ comment ?
Another one has said that if there were as many minarets on our territory as there wre belltowers, then France would no longer be France. It’s a testimonial. Why impute to him some kind of Islamophobia ?
Why this neurotic, even autistic, need to deny reality? What does one fear? What unsaid phantasms are eating at the subconscious of these socialist dignitaries?... Out of folly in some, out of cowardice in others – So why are we surprised that France is basically disoriented, without a compass ? …..
[The closing paragraphs are a commentary on France’s coming regional elections in March.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/01/2010 18:16]