紐約時報的教宗訪問blog 其中之一的討論文章
http://thepope.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/a-pope-for-the-counterculture/#more-13
The official theme for the pope’s visit, “Christ Our Hope,” seems to offer
few clues to his message, other than signaling his intention to encourage his
American flock as they live their faith in challenging times.
Benedict surely will speak to the particular concerns of American Catholics.
His itinerary and statements from Vatican officials indicate that he will
comment on everything from waning Catholic identity on Catholic college
campuses to the ongoing impact of clergy sexual abuse scandals and the role
of young Catholics in shaping the future of the Church.
But Benedict will not be preaching only to Catholics, even as he celebrates
Masses at Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium. This pope has a passion for
speaking to the spiritual seekers of our secular age. And he has a knack for
doing so in creative and sometimes surprising ways.
A hallmark of Benedict’s three-year-old pontificate has been his outreach to
Western societies where the pope sees a link between increasing
secularization and decreasing hope for the future. Taking seriously the
contemporary questions of those who doubt the relevance of religion and the
existence of absolute truth, Benedict has labored to emphasize the freshness
and originality of the Gospel message for audiences that consider it old
news. Whether citing the moral restraint driving the modern environmentalist
movement as an argument for recognizing the existence of a universal moral
law or using the remarks of a 12th-century Cistercian monk to warn against
the dangers of excessive activity in our frenetic Internet age, the
professor-turned-pope has displayed an affinity for connecting ancient
Christian doctrines with post-modern life.
Benedict believes, in keeping with Catholic tradition, that the most
fundamental moral and spiritual yearnings of the human person transcend the
boundaries of time, place and culture. As he wrote in his 2007 encyclical,
Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope), “For the great majority of people - we may
suppose - there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior
openness to truth, to love, to God.”
Benedict’s belief in this universal openness, and his desire to answer it
with reasoned argument and invitations to dialogue, has defined his
pontificate thus far. And it will likely define his U.S. visit as well.
As Benedict makes the rounds in Washington and New York this week, we can
expect to hear novel explications of the same themes that have dominated his
encyclicals and public addresses since 2005: the compatibility of faith and
reason, the necessity of interior contemplation preceding exterior action and
the universality of the human hunger for a transcendent hope grounded in
something greater than human progress or happy circumstances.
These themes are countercultural and Benedict’s penchant for exploring them
in depth will challenge his American listeners more accustomed to sound-bite
theology. But his track record for richly textured reflections on the
contemporary search for meaning suggests that Benedict’s visit may yield as
much food for thought for the spiritual seekers who stumble on his words as
for the churchgoing Catholics who await them with anticipation.
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