St Robert Bellarmine, Benedict XVI, John Paul II and culture

Many years ago now, I had reason to describe St Robert Bellarmine as being "the Cardinal Ratzinger of his day". The context was a discussion of his part in the Galileo affair, and the deep interest that he had in the new scientific discoveries being made in the late 16th-early 17th centuries. Both Robert Bellarmine and Joseph Ratzinger are men with a deep love for the Church, and a thorough engagement of their Catholic faith with the culture of their times. They both express in their lives the idea that we would now call the "evangelisation of the culture".

During his recent visit to Paris, Pope Benedict XVI delivered an address on the roots of European culture. His theme was that monasticism - that is, the search for God - lies at the roots of European culture. The musical component of that culture has its roots in the singing of the praise of God; the literary component has its roots in the study of the Scriptures; and the educational component, which might be termed the cultural component in its most general definition, has its roots in the schools associated with the monasteries.

In 1980 Pope John Paul II addressed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) at its headquarters near Paris. The English translation of that address that I have is "Man's Entire Humanity is expressed in Culture". Sorry, the link is going to take you to the French version on the Vatican website as I haven't been able to find an online English translation. The following little quote will give you a flavour:

Man, who, in the visible world, is the only ontic subject of culture, is also its only object and its term. Culture is that through which man as man, becomes more man, "is" more, has more access to "being". The fundamental distinction between what man is and what he has, between being and having, has its foundation there too. Culture is always in an essential and necessary relationship to what man is, whereas its relationship to what he has, to his "having", is not only secondary, but entirely
relative.

Pope Benedict quoted the following from John Paul II's address when he met with the Bishops of France in Lourdes last weekend:

"The Nation is in fact"-to take up the words of Pope John Paul II-"the great community of men who are united by various ties, but above all, precisely by culture. The Nation exists ‘through' culture and ‘for' culture, and it is therefore the great educator of men in order that they may ‘be more' in the community".

The contrast between the (very, very, very) complex phenomenology of Pope John Paul II and the more straightforward historical presentation of Pope Benedict XVI summarises the difference between their two pontificates. It is not that you can say that one is "better" than the other as much as saying that they are different and complementary. The one is a perfectly worthy successor to the other.