TY  - BOOK
AU  - Benedict
TI  - Christianity and the crisis of cultures
SN  - 9781586171421 (alk. paper)
AV  - BR 115.W6 B36 2006
U1  - 261 22
KW  - Church and the world
KW  - Christianity
KW  - 20th century
KW  - Spiritual life
KW  - Catholic Church
KW  - Secularism
N1  - Includes bibliographical references; Introduction by Marcello Pera: A Proposal That Should Be Accepted -- The Crisis of Cultures -- Reflections on Cultures That Are in Conflict Today -- The Significance and Limits of Today's Rationalistic Culture -- The Permanent Significance of the Christian Faith -- The Right to Life -- Why We Must Not Give Up the Fight -- The Law of the Jungle, the Rule of Law -- We Must Use Our Eyes! -- What DOes It Mean to Belive? -- Faith and Everyday Life: A fundamental Human Attitude -- Can Agnosticism Be a Solution? -- The Natural Knowledge of God -- "Supernatural" Faith and Its Origins -- Development of Premises -- The verification of faith in life -- Faith's "I", "you, and "we"
N2  - Written shortly before his election to Papacy, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the crisis of culture that is evident in Europe today, and the Western World in general.  Some of the results of the crisis are greater threats to security, growing poverty, the danger of genetic engineering, and a decline in moral energy.  The Christian roots and foundation of Western civilization are being replaced by "modern Enlightenment philosophy", observed Cardinal Ratzinger.  Such philosophies recognize God's existance or objective truth, these philosophies consequently reduce morality to relative concept, leading to a "confused ideology of freedom that leads to dogmatism" and ultimately "to the self-destruction of freedom", cautioned Cardinal Ratinger.  What Cardinal Ratzinger offered then –and what Pope Benedict XVI is offering now– as an answer to the nihislic secularization that pervades Europe and the West, is not politics, but a spiritual renewal, a renuewal similar to that of Saint Benedict and the members of His Order who combined holiness and love for the truth which ultimately helped save a similarly declining Europe from cultural collape
UR  - http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0608/2005909729.html
ER  -