NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      ROME, 24 (NE) A series of conferences on Pope John Paul II´s last encyclical Fides et ratio began yesterday in Rome. The event, organized by the Lateran University, started with an introduction to the Holy Father's thought in the encyclical by the rector of the university, Angelo Scola.

      In his conference "Faith and Reason: Reality, Knowledge, Truth," Scola stated that the encyclical marks a new stage in the path of thought. We find in it, "the concern to maintain the prerogative of human freedom, of the person as free subject in its search of a way to reach God, freedom, good." The necessary and urgent step from phenomenon to foundation pointed out by the Holy Father would be the fundamental element of this way.

      "This option," he added, "shows how the encyclical opens a new beginning to the reflection on the relationship between philosophy and revealed truth. Fides et ratio, far from putting limits or ends to investigation, has opened space for the genuine philosophical and theological investigation. In this sense it represents a milestone in the path of the great tradition of the Magisterium and it strongly and deeply promotes the freedom that human nature needs in order to answer the questions that always arise from experience."

      Scola also emphasized that, "the process of separation of faith and reason goes through the whole of modernity and reaches post-modernity, and characterizes the way of thinking of our present lives." These two realities are seen as separated, as two extrinsic realities when not in opposition. And all this due to a presupposition, "denounced by the Pope as a 'dogmatic' assumption, in the sense of uncritical, not rigorously thought." This would "consist in starting from a reason that is considered absolute, separated and universal, that pretends, as it is separated, to become the horizon that encloses everything."