The Modern Papacy [Hardcover]

Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, modernity and the Papacy have experienced a difficult though never severed relationship.The Modern Papacygoes beyond the caricatures to demonstrate how the popes - specifically John Paul II and Benedict XVI - have articulated a sophisticated critique of the post-Enlightenment world, one that acknowledges the real progress made in modernity while simultaneously highlighting its political and philosophical shortcomings. Far from falling on deaf ears, the nature of their engagement with the modern world has sparked criticism and praise from Catholics and non-Catholics alike - sometimes in surprising ways. Whether the subject is faith and reason, religion and the modern sciences, the roots and future of Europe, or the origin and ends of human freedom, John Paul II and Benedict XVI pose questions that simply cannot be ignored, regardless of whether one likes their answers.

Series Introduction

Series Editor's Preface

Author's Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Encountering Modernity

In Enlightenment'sWake

From 'Intransigence'to Critical Engagement

From Engagement toCrisis

APhilosopher from Krak?w

ATheologian ofLand Bayern

A New Papacy, A Distinct Agenda

Chapter 2. Against the Dissolutionof Man

Restoring Wisdom to Reason, andFaith in Reason

A Crisis of Truth and Freedom

Returning Europe to Europe

Seeking Responses

Chapter 3. Inside the Modern Areopagus

Restorationists, Accomodationists,and Liberationists

Modernity Critics, New NaturalLawyers, and Catholic Whigs

Secular Rejection, SecularEngagement

A New Terrain

Chapter 4. Paradoxes of Enlightenment

Enlightenment, Progress, andIdeologies of Evil

Benedict at Regensburg

A Wider Agenda

Twenty-First Century Challenges

Bibliography

Index

Samuel Greggis Directorl/