Jul

30

Co-Workers of the Truth 7/30

Posted By reynor | Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI 

Benedict XVIMen expect redmption from themselves, and they seem quite prepaired to provide it. Thus there is linked to the primacy of the future the primacy of practice, the primacy of human activity above all other activities. Theology, too, shows itself more and more open to this concept - orthopraxis replaces orthodoxy.

“Eschatopraxis” seems more important than eschatology. If in earlier days it was left to popular enlightenment to tell the lower class that artificial fertilizer was more effective than prayer, now, after a suitable interval, we can read similar commentaries in the kind of “religious” literature that strives to reflect the argument that under certain circumstances prayer itself will have to be “refunctioned”: it can hardly be considered any longer an appeal for divine assistance; on the contrary, it must be regarded as a period of quiet composure in preparation for the practice of human self-help.

Belief in progress, which has often been declared dead, has taken a new hold of life, and the optimistic confidence that the human race will eventually be able to build the city of man is finding new believers. The city of man - for many the words were the symbol of all their desires; for others, they have a melancholy sound. For along with hope, fear is also beginning to spread. The anxiety that seemed almost banished by the optimism of the post-war years is reappearing. When, for the first time, men set foot on the moon, no one could help feeling the excitement, the pride, the joy at this enormous achievement of mankind. Their success was regarded, not as the victory of one nation, but as a victory for the human race.

But there was felt as well, in the moment of victory, a deep sadness that the same men who were capable of such a magnificent feat were not able to prevent thousands, perhaps millions, of their fellow men from starving to death year after year; that they were not able to provide for other millions, lives characterized by human dignity; that they were not able to put an end to war or to stem the flow of crime. The way to the moon is easier to find than the way to the human heart and mind. Technical ability does not necessarily include the ability to deal with men. The ability to govern one’s self is quite clearly on a very different plane from that of technical achievement.

From: Glaube und Zukunft, pp. 100-101

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