Cardinal Ratzinger On Europe's Crisis of Culture

Translation of the lecture given in Italian by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XIV, in the convent of Saint Scholastica in Subiaco, Italy, upon reception of the St. Benedict Award for the promotion of life and the family in Europe on April 1, 2005. Zenit News Service.

• Part I: "Excludes God From the Public Conscience"
• Part II: "A Confused Ideology of Freedom Leads to Dogmatism"
• Part III: "Meaning and Limits of the Present Rationalist Culture"
• Part IV: Christianity: "The Religion According to Reason"

I initially tried posting a few excerpts but the whole thing's just too good. The subject may be the Enlightenment philosophical presuppositions of the European Constitution, but there's plenty that Europe's neighbors 'across the pond" can learn from as well.

Excellent address. I spent part of Sunday afternoon in Barnes & Noble, halfway through Pope John Paul II's Memory and Identity, and there are definite parallels.