Themes
Watching the Pope speak to Catholic educators I am amazed once again at the words of the Holy Father. There was so much ink spilled beforehand of what the Pope would say during his trip and for the most part there were as accurate as false prophets. In most cases they would have the Pope say what they wanted said on any hobby horse issue. This was especially true in what was written previously in regards this speech. A guilty conscience seemed to spark many to think that they were going to get scolded by the Pope and others hoped that they would indeed be scolded. Either perspective shows a total lack of understanding of Pope Benedict. People seemed to be shocked that the theme of the Papal Visit "Christ our Hope" is actually the theme of the Papal Visit. When the Pope did address serious issues in this speech it was not as a scold but to act as a persuader. He is able to both point out the problems and their solutions. I look forward to looking at the full text of the speech to go through it again because it was certainly one to go over again.
I did find odd the places where the audience clapped like when the Pope praised the good work of Catholic educators and this seemed rather like they were applauding themselves. No applause though when the Pope spoke about Catholic identity and how the beauty of the Church's teaching on sexuality is reduced to risk management - those were applause moments for me.
Here is the text of the speech.
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The risk management line was a powerful one.
I definitely agree with you about the applause. I found myself thinking exactly what you said, "Are you clapping for yourselves?" Pope Benedict delivered a great message, though, which should give Catholic educators a great deal of encouragement as well as some valuable things to think about.
Short of the entertainment industry (that includes sports) there are fewer other groups more self-congratulatory than educators. The amount of hubris from university academicians of their own righteousness and wisdom is simply amazing. That they clapped where they clapped was thoroughly predictable though, they are the saviors, don't you know, and their version of the truth IS the truth...whether it agrees with the Church or not.
I also found the applause quite strange. It left me wondering if I had missed something the pope said, or if maybe there was some strange clapping protocol that goes into effect in the presence of the Holy Father. Very odd. Let's just hope they respond to Pope Benedict's challenges half as enthusiastically as they did to his compliments.
Just finished reading it and found it very instructive, though I'll have to go over it again. I think one interesting point of discussion would be when he mentioned academic freedom, after a solid discussion of what freedom itself really means. As I understand it his basic point was that true freedom is ordered to the good and the truth. That means that it is an abuse of academic freedom to try to use it to justify teaching whatever new theory or position that is opposed to the faith happens to be fashionable that week. It means, for example, that no one's academic freedom is being violated by refusing to have proabortion speakers on campus. Academic freedom doesn't mean you get to say whatever you please or push whatever agenda you like, it means that the doors are open for you to seriously explore and seek truth. But since truth is one (something the pope mentioned several times), your search for new aspects of the truth has to remain consistent with the whole. To put one obvious example, if we hold it as truth that humans have a dignity that should not be violated, then any form of research that denigrates human life or human persons is inconsistent with true academic freedom.
That sounds good to me. Go Pope!
'Guess these educators we're surprised to find that the Pope is Catholic.
Sorry 'bout the apostrophe. It should be "were."