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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