The Modern Papacy [Paperback]

Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, modernity and the Papacy have experienced a difficult though never severed relationship. Modern Papacy goes 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.

Dr Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute. He is the author of several books, including Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2000), Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (2001), On Ordered Liberty (2003), The Commercial Society (2007), as well as monographs such as Ethics and Economics: The Quarrel and the Dialogue (1999), A Theory of Corruption (2004), and Banking, Justice, and the Common Good (2005).

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, Accoml×