BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

French philosopher on BXVI's thinking:
'Genuine, well-structured and highly informed'
Translated from the Italian service of


ROME, Oct. 5 (ZENIT) - Benedict XVI has "genuine thinking, well-structured, informed by a vast culture, aided by strong reflection and clearly expressed in a picturesque way," says the French philosopher Remi Brague, one of two winners of the 2012 Ratzinger Prize in Theology.

Brague says Benedict XVI's thinking is free of elements that favor extremist thought, that exaggerate due to emotivity", and are therefore not said in the cold light of reason.

Here is ZENIT's interview with Prof. Brague:

When he presented your name as one of the 2012 RAtzinger Prize winers, Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke of you as ;a true philosopher' and a 'great historian of ideas and cultjure'. In what way have philosophy and history enriched your life experience?
I will leave Cardinal Ruini - who, I believe did much to make me win this prise - with the responsibility to explain his praise! The fact is the description 'philosopher' is not respected in France. A phuilosopher is presented on French TV as someone who can pump up banality with a lot of hot air.

I dream of the possibility of something like the Order of Physicians and Surgeons to oversee the profession of philosophy, in which there exists a crime called abuse of the medical profession.... Yet when one is dealing with the minds and thinking of persons, so many are allowed to disseminate their poison.

So I prefer to call myself 'a professor of philosophy', which is, objectively, what I do. I have never studied history, and I am not worthy to be called a 'historian' as they would want to honor me.

But in philosophy, I do what I feel obliged to do for the history of ideas.

What do you think is essential in the thinking of Joseph Ratzinger that would help overcome these these times of crisis, characterized by nihilism and relativism, individualism and hedonism?
In the first place, his is genuine thinking, well-structured, informed by a vast culture, sustained by strong reflection, expressed clearly and amply restated.

Its content is classic: a theologian's thought. If it were just a bishop speaking, one does not expect him to be particularly original, but one must present the faith of the Church in the most intelleigent and convincing manner possible.

And his thought does not just oppose all the isms that you mentioned. I do not deny the significance of these categories, or the dangers they represent. The Pope is tireless in pointing out these dangers.

But Benedict XVI's way of thinking excludes all these isms from the intellectual sphere - it is free of any elements that favor extremist thinking, which is that emotivity that can get to your head and make you fool yourself.