Comments for Confident Catholicism at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Fri, 24 May 2013 10:02:51 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/confident-catholicism.html#comment-14047 Dear Fr.James V. Schall, In Cardinal Martini's last interview he is noted as saying Catholics have lost their confidence. Please tell me what you might think he, who was somewhat challenging of the Church of today in that same interview, might have meant by this? Would you tend to agree with some of those statements he made? Katie h - katie h Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:22:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/confident-catholicism.html#comment-5051 With regard to Peter Brown's good comment--this is a citation from Brague, who always speaks carefully. In context, as I understood him and agree with him, Brague was concerned with the Comte thesis that science could explain the world better than religion. Brague's blunt response was that science explains the world, but the world is not everything, even when science explains all that it can explain. Religion has to do also with what is not just the world or matter subject to scientific method. Such realities, of spirit, if you will, are also present in the world of our experience. They are not subject to scientific method which depends on quantity. With regard to the concern that somehow Brague is against the Thomist enterprise of reason by saying that religion deals with what is not just material (which is what the pope says all the time also), I do not understand Aquinas as saying that faith or religion explains the world the way science does. Rather I understand him to say that science understands it as reason. Faith simply tells reason to be reason. When reason cannot explain everything, there may or may not be a higher explanation, but it does not come from "science." Yet, revelation is also addressed to reason and depends on reason being reason. This is what Aquinas was about, I think. Again, Catholicism wants reason to be reason, and, as we suspect, what comes from revelation comes from the same source as reason does. Aquinas does not confuse the two, but keeps each what it is. This is his greatness. jvssj - james v schall, sj Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:23:14 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/confident-catholicism.html#comment-5049 Father Schall, You quote approvingly this line, "whoever said explaining the world was what religion was about?" ouch!!!!! I about fell out of my chair when I read this. Doesn't this utterly torpedo the great conceit of Thomism, the perennial philosophy of the Church, which does, in fact, purport to explain the world and its true meaning building on the truths of the empirical sciences? And doesn't this pretty much concede that secularists have been right all along--not in the strong form of secularism which denies God-- but the more modest form which files the things of God under "religious questions" pretty well detachable from the actual day to day world in which we live?? If this is "confident Catholicism" count me among the pusillanimous. - Pete Brown Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:55:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/confident-catholicism.html#comment-5048 Another edifying essay, thank you Father Schall! Our public schools and universities are becoming more and more dangerous places. Blinded by artificial light many of us entrust our children to them. Satan is smiling. - Achilles Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:10:33 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/confident-catholicism.html#comment-5046 Dear Father Schall, Thank you for this excellent article. We Catholics need this kind of encouragement. I especially liked your concluding paragraph. - Scott Hesener Tue, 19 Oct 2010 03:29:03 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/confident-catholicism.html#comment-5045 Dear Fr. Schall, Several years ago I heard Fr. Saso speak about, among other things, taking Americans on tours of Tibet. I asked him how he was treated as a Catholic priest in Tibet. Obviously sensing the intent of my question, he replied, "Whenever I see one of those bumper stickers that says 'Free Tibet' I want to stand up shout'Free the Blacks and Mexicans'!". Have you ever noted that side of him? From his remark I can only infer that he is an unashamed apologist for the government of Communist China. I know that this is not what your wonderful article is about, but I think we should understand that IF the Chinese Communists would allow a course in Christology to be taught at all it would not be for purposes of bringing souls to Salvation. While Fr. Saso was lavishing praise on the Muslim practice of charity--in contrast to that of us Christians who only give it lip service, I was tempted to ask him if that is what accounted for near disappearance of poverty in the Islamic world, but I kept my peace, having provoked him once. - Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:40:02 +0100