I missed this entry by Bruno Mastroianni on July 29, following the Vespers in Aosta and the Angelus at Les Combes.
Benedict XVI says
God helps man to use his reason
Translated from
Benedict XVI speaking to more than 6,000 persons for the noon Angelus last Sunday at Les Combes got good play in the Italian media for it.
His praise of grandparents as 'repositories and witnesses of life's fundamental values' grasped one of the signs of a society that is increasingly longer-living, while families are experiencing a full educational emergency.
Less reported was the Pope's homily the preceding Friday at Vespers in the Cathedral of Aosta. In the city that gave birth to St. Anselm (whose 900th death anniversary is marked this year), the Pope spoke extemporaneously of the primacy of God and his 'true power' which is forgiving.
Benedict XVI underscored that without God, man has no compass, and said so in the very cathedral that was the first seat of St. Anselm, the 'Doctor magnificus', father of a school that spread erudition and study in all Europe. The saint, to whom faith and openness to the truth of God are the true guarantees for the correct use of reason.
His famous dictum - "that about whom it is not possible to think there is anything greater" - was not an exercise for philosophers but a simple idea to make it understood that God, even if we ignore him, is an inescapable reference point of man's intellect.
There is almost a millennium between Anselm and Joseph Ratzinger. But the question remains the same: mankind, despite all kinds of rational enlightenment and scientisms, is more keenly aware than ever of the difficulty of going anywhere without a compass.
On that Friday in Aosta, the Pope gave us the orientation: "We must bring anew to this world the reality of God, make him known and make him present."
From this, the first to profit would be reason.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/08/2009 19:55]