“A God who responds to our reason”

To be sure, “God loves us, but He loves us to attract us to the good, to the truth and against evil.” The Church is to address itself to the consciences of everyone, not just Catholics. Its duty is to unmask evil, the idolatry of money which “enslaves” part of humanity. “Lies and deceptions stand behind drugs.” (See Schall,  “Why the Drug Problem is a God Problem”, Ignatius Insight, February 3, 2011).

Here Benedict sees that behind drugs is a false messiah. Drugs substitute for what is really sought in our longings. “Man has need of the infinite. If God does not exist, the infinite is created as a parody of Him, an appearance of ‘infinitude’ that can only be a lie. This metaphysical and theological root of the drug trade and its causes shows how important it is that God be present, accessible. We have a great responsibility before “God the judge who guides us, attracts us to the true and the good. In this sense, the Church ought to unmask this evil, render present the goodness of God, his truth, the true infinity of which we have a great thirst.” It is to this duty to which we must “hasten.”

II.

What about the question of “social justice” on this great Continent? We must first remember that “the Church is not a political power. It is not a political party. Rather, it is a moral reality, a moral power. Insofar as politics itself fundamentally ought to be a moral reality, the Church, on this duality of authorities, has fundamentally something to do with politics.” Benedict adds that the “first responsibility of the Church is to educate the conscience and thus to create the necessary responsibility, to educate the conscience be it in individual ethics, be it in public ethics.”

Perhaps, the Church does not do enough. Wherever we look, not just in Latin America, we see “in not a few Catholics a certain schizophrenia between individual and public morality. In the sphere of personal morality, they are Catholics and believers. But in the public order they follow a path that does not correspond to the values of the Gospel. These latter are what are necessary for the basis of a just society.” No doubt this principle applies directly to many well-known Catholic politicians in the United States.

“But public morality ought to be a reasonable ethics, understood and appreciated even by non-believers, a morality of reason.” The pope acknowledges that faith can help reason to be reason, to see many things, both good and evil, that might be overlooked. “Faith frees reason from false interests.” Frankly, Benedict, on being asked, doubts whether “liberation theology” would help much. With many proper distinctions, the phrase can have a good meaning. (See, Ratzinger, “Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation'”, Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, August 4, 1987).

What is important is “the common rationality to which the Church offers a fundamental contribution.” Notice that the Church does not claim sole jurisdiction over reason, but rather the abiding duty and responsibility for itself to address this reason on its own grounds. The Church stakes its stand on, as it were, “the reasonableness of reason” and addresses itself to it from within its own resources but not as reason could not itself be understood and normative.

Today, “Marxist ideology, as it was originally conceived, does not respond to reality.” It cannot “reconstruct” society. New models have to be found. We need patience and decisions. The notion of a “fraternal and just society” is a worthy one. Everyone in the world would like to see it come about. The Church would freely like to cooperate in this effort to work for and establish what is reasonably possible. What is especially at stake is freedom of conscience and religion. The irony of this passage is that, in fact, modern governments are deviating more and more from reason and no longer hold themselves bound by it.

III.

The new evangelization in fact began with Vatican II. The Gospel always needs to “express itself” in new ways. The world itself, in its “confusion,” has need of a new “word.” In a secularized world, the “absence of God” and widespread “syncretism” make it difficult to grasp how God is concerned with “my life.” Behind all this variety of particular situations, however, Benedict sees a common issue. Interestingly, it is not, per se, a question of faith or its loss. Rather, “We must announce that God responds to our reason.” I note that it is the Pope of Rome who is saying this remarkable truth about reason to the secular world, not vice versa. We need to see how the God who created the cosmos relates to the God who is my judge and destiny, in my very life. In Latin America especially “it is important to see that religion is not only something of reason but also of the heart.”

Finally, following the theme of reason and the heart, the pope turns to Our Lady of Guadeloupe in Mexico and Our Lady of Cobre in Cuba as a reminder of the love of Mary and her Son for everyone, something of the “heart” that everyone understands. “But these intuitions of the heart should go along with the reason of faith and with the profundity of the faith that goes beyond (but not contradictory to) reason. We should look not to lose our heart, but to associate heart and reason so that they work together, since alone in this way is man complete and able really to aid the world for a better future.” Benedict is not a utopian, but he does see how things can be better, but only on the grounds of reason and the truths of faith addressed to it, be it in Mexico, Cuba, or anywhere else.