09-10-2006, 02:48 PM
Pope says not to reject God for science
By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
MUNICH, Germany -
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday warned modern societies not to let faith in science and technology make them deaf to God's message, and suggested that Asia and Africa could teach the wealthier West something about faith.
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In his sermon to some 250,000 pilgrims at an open-air Mass in Munich, Benedict said modern people suffered from "hardness of hearing" when it comes to God.
"Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God â there are too many different frequencies filling our ears," he said. "What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age."
"People in Asia and Africa admire our scientific and technical progress, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision, as if this were the highest form of reason."
Benedict, on the second day of a six-day homecoming trip to his native Bavaria, rode in his popemobile through a cheering crowd to say Mass atop a platform in a sprawling field on the outskirts of Munich, where he served as archbishop from 1977 to 1982.
People waved yellow and white
Vatican flags and blue and white Bavarian ones, while Mexican, Croatian, Slovak and Polish banners also fluttered above the crowd. Munich police spokesman Peter Reichl said the crowd numbered around 250,000.
The need for Western Europe to return to its Christian roots is one of Benedict's favorite themes, and he is repeating it during his visit to his native country â home to a shrinking and liberal Catholic Church and a highly secularized society. Over 100,000 people leave the German church every year, and only about 14 percent attend Mass on an average Sunday.
Benedict gently rebuked the German church for putting social service projects and technical assistance to the poor ahead of spreading the Christian message. African bishops, he said, told him all doors were open to them in Germany when they wanted to talk about aid projects, but added they were greeted with reservations when it came to evangelization.
"Clearly, some people have the idea that social projects should be urgently undertaken, while anything dealing with God or even the Catholic faith is of limited and lesser importance," Benedict said.
He said that faith must come first, before progress can be made in social problems, such as the
AIDS epidemic in Africa. "Hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin, and if â for example, AIDS is to be combated by realistically facing its deeper causes."
That message is consistent with church teaching that chastity and faithfulness to one's spouse â and not condoms â are the best way to prevent the disease.
In the crowd, Johann Habla, 76, praised Benedict's touch with the young. "He reaches young people. ... If they all go to church is another matter, but perhaps something will remain," Habla said.
Gerda Holzinger, 57, said that since former
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became pope last year she was seeing a new side of the conservative former theology professor, who left Munich in 1982 to become the Vatican's chief doctrinal watchdog.
"Cardinal Ratzinger was for us a stubborn theologian; now he is opening up, and a completely different person is coming out," she said. "I find him good. He sticks to the old values, which have been good for 2,000 years."
On Monday, Benedict plans to make a brief visit to Marktl am Inn, the small town where he was born, and to Freising, where he was ordained a priest. He will also visit Regensburg, where he once taught theology; he still has a house in the city, and his brother Georg, a retired priest and choir director, lives there.
Police said that vandals tossed balloons filled with blue paint on Benedict's birth home in Marktl am Inn early Sunday. The damage was not serious, and Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi dismissed the incident as "really secondary."
It is the second visit to Germany by the pope since his election in April 2005 to replace John Paul II, but his first to Bavaria.
By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago
MUNICH, Germany -
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday warned modern societies not to let faith in science and technology make them deaf to God's message, and suggested that Asia and Africa could teach the wealthier West something about faith.
ADVERTISEMENT
In his sermon to some 250,000 pilgrims at an open-air Mass in Munich, Benedict said modern people suffered from "hardness of hearing" when it comes to God.
"Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God â there are too many different frequencies filling our ears," he said. "What is said about God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited to our age."
"People in Asia and Africa admire our scientific and technical progress, but at the same time they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision, as if this were the highest form of reason."
Benedict, on the second day of a six-day homecoming trip to his native Bavaria, rode in his popemobile through a cheering crowd to say Mass atop a platform in a sprawling field on the outskirts of Munich, where he served as archbishop from 1977 to 1982.
People waved yellow and white
Vatican flags and blue and white Bavarian ones, while Mexican, Croatian, Slovak and Polish banners also fluttered above the crowd. Munich police spokesman Peter Reichl said the crowd numbered around 250,000.
The need for Western Europe to return to its Christian roots is one of Benedict's favorite themes, and he is repeating it during his visit to his native country â home to a shrinking and liberal Catholic Church and a highly secularized society. Over 100,000 people leave the German church every year, and only about 14 percent attend Mass on an average Sunday.
Benedict gently rebuked the German church for putting social service projects and technical assistance to the poor ahead of spreading the Christian message. African bishops, he said, told him all doors were open to them in Germany when they wanted to talk about aid projects, but added they were greeted with reservations when it came to evangelization.
"Clearly, some people have the idea that social projects should be urgently undertaken, while anything dealing with God or even the Catholic faith is of limited and lesser importance," Benedict said.
He said that faith must come first, before progress can be made in social problems, such as the
AIDS epidemic in Africa. "Hearts must be converted if progress is to be made on social issues and reconciliation is to begin, and if â for example, AIDS is to be combated by realistically facing its deeper causes."
That message is consistent with church teaching that chastity and faithfulness to one's spouse â and not condoms â are the best way to prevent the disease.
In the crowd, Johann Habla, 76, praised Benedict's touch with the young. "He reaches young people. ... If they all go to church is another matter, but perhaps something will remain," Habla said.
Gerda Holzinger, 57, said that since former
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became pope last year she was seeing a new side of the conservative former theology professor, who left Munich in 1982 to become the Vatican's chief doctrinal watchdog.
"Cardinal Ratzinger was for us a stubborn theologian; now he is opening up, and a completely different person is coming out," she said. "I find him good. He sticks to the old values, which have been good for 2,000 years."
On Monday, Benedict plans to make a brief visit to Marktl am Inn, the small town where he was born, and to Freising, where he was ordained a priest. He will also visit Regensburg, where he once taught theology; he still has a house in the city, and his brother Georg, a retired priest and choir director, lives there.
Police said that vandals tossed balloons filled with blue paint on Benedict's birth home in Marktl am Inn early Sunday. The damage was not serious, and Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi dismissed the incident as "really secondary."
It is the second visit to Germany by the pope since his election in April 2005 to replace John Paul II, but his first to Bavaria.