Benedict XVI - Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam

JOSEPH RATZINGER
NOW POPE BENEDICT XVI
MARCELLO PERA

Foreword by George Weigel

Translated by Michael F. Moore

WHAT DRIVES HISTORY? Politics? Economics? Some combination of politics and economics? Or should we look elsewhere to find the engine of historyto the realm of the human spirit, perhaps? Might it be that culturewhat men and women honor, cherish, and worshipis the most dynamic element in human affairs, at least over the long haul?

What is a civilization? Can we understand European civilization, for example, simply by looking at its artifactswhat Europe makes, technologically, agriculturally, and aesthetically? Or is that merely civilization on the surface? Might the sources of the civilization we call Europe be found in a distinctive encounter with, and a distinctive idea of, the sacred?

Indeed, is it possible to imagine anything properly called civilization that lacks a sense of the sacred?

These are some of the large questions explored in great intellectual depth in this small book, the result of a dialogue between Professor Marcello Pera, a philosopher and politician, and Cardinal Joseph Ratzingerat the time of their exchange, the Prefect of the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Benedict XVI. Without Roots was a stimulating exploration of the current state and future prospects of Europe when it was first published in Italy in 2004. Now, with Cardinal Ratzingers election as the 264th successor of St. Peter, Without Roots takes on a new life, as a window into the mind of a pope who was elected, in part, because of his long experience with, and profound understanding of, the current crisis of European civilization.

Crisis is an overused word these days, but in the present circumstances of Europe it is, unfortunately, appropriate. Europe, Joseph Ratzinger writes, has become hollowed out from within, paralyzed in its culture and its public life by a failure of its circulatory system. And the results of that hollowing-out are most evident in the unprecedented way in which Europe is depopulating itself. Generation after generation of below-replacement-level birthrates have created a demographic vacuum which, like all other vacuums in nature, is not remaining unfilled: the vacuum is being filled by transplanted populations whose presence in Europe is a challenge to Europes identity, and could become a threat to European democracy.

What is happening when an entire continent, healthier, wealthier, and more secure than ever before, fails to create the human future in the most elemental senseby creating future generations? There are obvious sociological and economic factors affecting Europes demographic decline; might there be spiritual factors at play, too? Could Europes disinclination to create the future have something to do with an apostasy toward the pasttoward the spiritual roots of European civilization? And could that apostasy eventually threaten Europes commitments to human rights, to equality before the law, to tolerance and civility among peoples of diverse convictions? Is it possible to sustain public commitments to those public goods on purely utilitarian groundsbecause civility and tolerance work better? How can we speak of, and defend, universal human rights in a cultural climate in which the very idea of truth is under sustained assault?

These are some of the questions implied by the dialogue between Cardinal Ratzinger and Professor Peraand these are some of the questions that Pope Benedict XVI will likely be raising during his pontificate. The questions are of urgent importance on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The American culture war is, in fact, an ongoing debateand a continuing political strugglebetween those who believe that human beings can, however inadequately, grasp the truth of how we ought to live together, and those for whom any notion of transcendent truth involves an unacceptable imposition of someones values on someone else. Europes exponents of a thoroughly secularized public space have their counterparts in the United States (and, it seems, have seized the cultural and political initiative in Canada). Thus, the issues explored so carefully by Cardinal Ratzinger and Professor Pera have everything to do with the future of North American democratic culture, as well as with the future of Europe.

George Weigel