Oh, I understand the Age of Enlightenment. What I don't understand is a Jesuit putting forth such a position.
I also understand about the French Terror.
But the Church had similar bouts with terror and statism.
Condemning the Enlightenment for similar atrocities is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Rationalism and reason are not sins. Actually the last pope wrote an excellent
Encyclical on this topic.
Condemning the Enlightenment for similar atrocities is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. What's the "baby"? Marxism? Was it Rousseau or Voltaire who wanted to strangle the last noble with the entrails of the last priest? Those guys were revolutionary atheists, not conservatives and not Christians.
Rationalism and reason are not sins.
Reason is a tool. Like any tool, can be used both for good and ill. And, like any tool, it's a tool, not an idol.
"Rationalism" is precisely the replacement of God by reason turned into an idol, and it is most definitely a sin.