The following paper was presented at the Seventh Annual Telos Conference, held on February 15–17, 2013, in New York City. Bishop Giovanni D’Ercole is Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of L’Aquila, Italy.
In the paper I am presenting, I shall focus on how I think the Catholic Church can contribute to solving the crucial issues facing humankind today. I will do so by referring to two events that have marked the evolution of the Church in her dialogue with the modern world, namely, the publication of the encyclical Pacem In Terris, and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. We are currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of both events.
A quick overview of the globalized world reveals the many contradictions and forms of injustice plaguing it. Underlying the crisis that has now taken on a global dimension is a three-fold question that characterizes what has come to be defined as the postmodern era. First of all, there is a fundamental question that is coming up again today, after the fall of totalitarian ideology. This is the anthropological question, a truly crucial question. The second question is related to the first. The social question has now become critical, and has to do with the very nature of man. Finally, the anthropological and the social question inevitably leads to the theological question, for man, by his very nature, is open to the transcendental and cannot be reduced to a creature that merely satisfies its material needs.
Could there really be such a thing as a “Christian” Nietzsche? Superficially, of course, there couldn’t be a thinker less Christian than Nietzsche. His savage critiques and well-known aphorisms about the servile, masochistic, and ugly character of Christian life have had a decisive influence on contemporary Western thought. His proclamations of God’s “death” and his analyses of ressentiment have even managed to lodge themselves firmly into popular culture. Nietzsche’s brutal hostility toward everything Christianity stands for is, for better or worse, one of the best-known aspects of his philosophy. It is, thus, rather fascinating that, in spite of this (or perhaps because of it), many theologians and philosophers have tried to answer this seemingly paradoxical question about a Christian Nietzsche in the affirmative.
“Au secours, Voltaire! Ils sont fous.“ (“Save us Voltaire, they are crazy.”) With this cry for help, the French newspaper France Soir appealed to a national hero, the notoriously anti-religious philosopher of the Enlightenment, in the face of burgeoning Muslim protests against its reproduction of the Danish caricatures of Mohammed. As of this writing, European embassies in Damascus are in flames, and angry protestors have filled the streets from Jakarta to Jutland. The consequences are, as the Danish Prime Minister has put it, “unforeseeable,” at least as far as the political dimension goes. Suddenly it is Western Europe and not the U.S. that bears the brunt of Muslim anger. The contrast is telling, though hardly a reason to gloat. On the eve of the Iraq War, opponents warned that the “Arab street” would be up in arms if the U.S. were to invade. Nothing of the sort ensued; with few exceptions, demonstrations in the Muslim world in response to Operation Iraqi Freedom were few and far between. How striking the difference, then, is the scope of public outrage to the cartoons in the European press. When all is said and done, caricaturing the Prophet is worse than toppling Saddam. Reams of public opinion polling about anti-Americanism in the Arab world suddenly seem irrelevant in the face of this unpredicted explosion of anti-European sentiment. (The long-standing pro-Palestinian tilt of Denmark and Norway has not won them much sympathy, not even in Gaza.)
