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John Paul II: the philosopher pope - includes related article on the Catholic Church in China - Cover Story

Christian Century, Feb 15, 1995 by Leo D. Lefebure

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In The Pope's eyes, the greatest threat to Christian identity arises from the subjectivism, rationalism, relativism and indifferentism of much of modern Western culture as expressed by its philosophers and lived by millions of people who never read philosophy. Moral relativism is but one aspect of a broader relativizing trend which undermines the quest for the truth in any form. Cut off from metaphysical and religious foundations, all forms of culture risk being dissolved into forms of competition fueled by the will to power. In the struggle for the soul of modern culture, the dialogue with modern Western philosophy takes on a critical importance. The former philosophy professor is extremely critical of Descartes for seeking to ground philosophy in the human subject; he sees the fruit of this strategy in the later rationalism of the Enlightenment, which abandoned metaphysics, banished God from the world, and left humans to follow their own reason. In the French Revolution reason presided over the reign of terror. The search for freedom and pleasure divorced from responsibility has led to a culture of death in which the most vulnerable are made the victims.

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While harshly critical of modern rationalism and positivism, John Paul is nonetheless warmly appreciative of philosophers who have a more complex relationship to modern thought. He cites with approval such philosophers as Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricoeur, both of whom have a more positive relation to the major figures of modern philosophy than the pope's teacher, Garrigou-LaGrange, would ever have tolerated. Ricoeur, for example, has a profound respect for the philosophy of limits of Immanuel Kant and for Kant's retrieval of the role of the symbol. Ricoeur invites Christians and secularists alike to a deeper appreciation of religious symbols as evoking more than can be captured in concepts. In welcoming Levinas's and Ricoeur's theories of interpretation as authentic retrievals of the profound meaning of religious metaphors and symbolic language, John Paul is at least implicitly opening the path to a more positive relationship to major elements in modern thought.

In As the Third Millennium Approaches, the pope reaffirms the church's preferential option for the poor and commitment to work for justice, and proposes that the biblical tradition of the jubilee year be revived: the year 2000 could become a time of reducing or canceling the international debt that burdens poorer nations. He also welcomes broader movements in society that seek scientific, technological and especially medical progress, as well as efforts on behalf of the environment, peace and justice.

Within the Catholic Church, the pope's concern for safeguarding identity has led to strict discipline, an insistence on fidelity to received understandings of the truth of the gospel. John Paul 11 is acutely aware that many Catholics do not follow all papal teachings, especially in matters of sexual ethics. He publicly laments a "crisis of obedience" in relation to the church's teaching office. He has relentlessly demanded loyalty to papal and conciliar teaching and has been firm in rejecting alternative visions of Catholic belief and practice - as the censures of theologians Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff and Charles Curran have indicated. Even bishops are not secure. Last month Bishop Jacques Gaillot of Evreux in northern France was dismissed from his responsibilities as bishop because of his open challenge to the pope's teaching on abortion, the use of condoms, married priests and homosexual couples.

John Paul II: the philosopher pope - includes related article on the Catholic Church in China - Cover Story

Christian Century, Feb 15, 1995 by Leo D. Lefebure

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