25 Apr 2005

Political leadership role

Europe: futures

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INAUGURATION PONTIFICATE BENEDICT XVI

VATICAN CITY, APR 24, 2005 (VIS) - Given below is the text of the homily - published in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German - delivered by the Pope during the Mass for the inauguration of his pontificate:

VIS-Press releases
the link

"Yes, the Church is alive - this is the wonderful experience of these days. During those sad days of the Pope's illness and death, it became wonderfully evident to us that the Church is alive. And the Church is young. She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way towards the future."


"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."


19 Apr 2005

Lecture by Cardinal Ratzinger, 1999

Culture and Truth: Some Reflections on the Encyclical Letter, Fides et Ratio

St. Patrick's Seminary - Patrician - Lecture by Cardinal Ratzinger

"The search for truth by believers takes place in a movement in which listening to the Word that has been spoken meets continually with the search of reason. Through this process, on the one hand, faith becomes more profound and more pure, and, on the other hand, human thought is enriched because of the new horizons open to it.

It seems to me that one could develop a bit further this notion of circularity. Philosophy too should not enclose itself in total particularity or simply in the results of its own reflections. As philosophy must be attentive to empirical discoveries, which occur in the various branches of knowledge, so too it should consider, as a source of knowledge for its enrichment, the holy tradition of religions and, above all, the message of the Bible."



"Indeed, the reduction to experience traps the human person in the subjective. Revelation is more than experience, and only thus does it give us an experience of God and help us to bring our own experiences together, to order them rightly, and through positive and critical discernment, to understand and communicate them. I am convinced that, in our current philosophical and theological debate, precisely this section of the Encyclical must he given further thought and investigation; it could well become a valuable source of enrichment for cultural research in our time."

17 Apr 2005

knowledge on the Lisbon strategy

LISBON REVISITED - FINDING A NEW PATH TO EUROPEAN GROWTH

EPC / Accenture
a link

"An elitist project?

The Lisbon process has not attracted bottom-up support at a grass roots level, and the absence of the press and civil society engagement has resulted in a process that is seen as removed from the citizens for whom it claims to operate. While the project remains owned and managed from the top-down, the serious lack of information surrounding Lisbon will continue to limit the urgency and momentum of the process, and weaken the legitimacy of that ownership. Key stakeholders are not sufficiently involved in the Lisbon process, particularly at the early stages of policy formation, at a European, national and regional level. Learning from the example of the single market programme in terms of managing an effective information campaign would be beneficial. At present Lisbon is at serious risk of being regarded as an elitist project. This is in some respects symptomatic of the wider issue of democratic deficit within the Union and its institutions.

Although Europe is making progress towards the social, economic and environmental objectives set out by Lisbon, it is clear that this is not happening quickly enough. Performance levels vary significantly across Europe and, in some cases, the performance gap is increasing. As a result, the EU is currently not on target to deliver its objectives by 2010, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to the internal and external challenges outlined in previous chapters." (p.42)

3 Apr 2005

the Manifestation of the Spirit

God Man Nature
the Holy Spirit
Manifestation of the Holy Spirit
Jesus Christ
John Paul II Karol Wojtyla

1 Apr 2005

God and nature. Knowledge

Letter of Pope John Paul II; Our knowledge of God and nature: physics, philosophy and theology

To the Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J.
Director of the Vatican Observatory
From the Vatican, June 1, 1988

JOHN PAUL II GENERAL AUDIENCE Wednesday 17 March 1999



a link to
JOHN PAUL II ON SCIENCE AND FAITH
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