Posted on 08/02/2006 10:30:49 AM PDT by Nihil Obstat
Professor Ratzinger goes back to school. After Islam last year, Darwin topic this year
Evolution will be the focus of the upcoming seminar between the pope and his former students in Castel Gandolfo. Meanwhile, Jesuit scholar Christian W. Troll has updated his analysis of progressive Muslim thinkers
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, August 2, 2006 – This year’s Ratzinger-Schülerkreis seminar will focus on "Schöpfung und Evolution", creation and evolution. The private meeting is set for Saturday, September 2, and Sunday, September 3, at the Pontifical Villa in the pope's summer residence of Castel Gandolfo (see photo).
The Ratzinger-Schülerkreis, that is the ‘Ratzinger Students’ Circle’, brings together once a year the old theology professor, now pope Benedict XVI, and his former students to discuss a new topic every year.
The first such meeting was held when Joseph Ratzinger was still a professor in Regensburg. Once he became archbishop of Munich, his students asked him to continue and he accepted. When he moved to Rome to take up the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the annual event continued. Typically, meetings were held at a monastery over a weekend. When the 2004 meeting ended, participants left already knowing the following year’s subject: the concept of God in Islam.
When in the spring of 2005, cardinal Ratzinger became pope, his former students thought that their annual tradition would stop, but were proved wrong. Thanks to Benedict XVI, the annual meeting was held last year and so it will this year.
Next September 2, professor Peter Schuster, president of the Österreichichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Austrian academy of sciences, and cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna and theologian, will open the discussion on creation and evolution. Among the participants, there will also be Jesuit Paul Erbrich, professor of the philosophy of nature in Munich, and Robert Spaemann, professor of political philosophy and one of Germany’s foremost experts on modernity.
On July 7, 2005, “The New York Times” ran an article by cardinal Schönborn on the same topic which was read around the world.
But the subject is not foreign to Benedict XVI either. As pontiff he touched upon it last April 6 when he addressed young people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for World Youth Day. “Science,” he said in answering a question, “presupposes the trustworthy, intelligent structure of matter, the ‘design’ of creation.”
In preparation of the coming seminar, the members of the Ratzinger-Schülerkreis can also find insight in an article that appears in the latest issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica,” a Jesuit journal published in Rome under the control and with the authorization of the Vatican secretariat of state.
In his article “L’evoluzione dei viventi: il fatto e i meccanismi [The Evolution of Living Things: Facts and Mechanisms],” Jesuit Giuseppe De Rosa looks at the debate among scientists over Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. In his conclusion, he writes that “while most scientists accept natural selection and random genetic mutation as valid processes, others who also accept evolution deny that the mechanisms identified so far are sufficient to explain it.”
* * *
But “La Civiltà Cattolica” has crossed paths with the Ratzinger-Schülerkreis in another way as well, in an article on Islam it published in its penultimate issue that deals with a topic the pope and his former students had discussed in their September 2005 meeting.
German Jesuit Christian W. Troll, professor of islamic studies at the Sankt Georgen faculty of theology in Frankfurt, wrote the article. He also opened the discussions in last year’s Ratzinger-Schülerkreis seminar.
The 2005 seminar caused a considerable stir, especially in the United States after an account by one of the participants, US Jesuit Joseph Fessio, gave the impression that for Benedict XVI Islam and democracy were incompatible.
Things were not as reported however. Both Father Fessio and professor Troll, as well as Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian-born Jesuit expert on Islam who attended the seminar, and Ratzinger-Schülerkreis coordinator, professor Stephan Horn, made it clear that while the pope thought that a positive encounter between Islam and modernity was difficult, he also believed that it was not altogether impossible.
In his “La Civiltà Cattolica” article, professor Troll takes up exactly this point. In it he looks at what is happening in Islam and illustrates how some Muslims are trying to reconcile modernity and the Qur'an.
The article in Italian, entitled “Il pensiero progressista nell’islam contemporaneo. Un profilo critico [Progressive Thinking in Contemporary Islam: A Critical Profile],” appeared in the July 15, 2006, issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica,” pp. 123-135.
Here are its main passages. It must be said that most Muslim thinkers quoted in the article either live and work in the West, or have had to flee their respective countries.
saying it is virtually impossible. Not much of a back-track imo.
Well, I'm sure it will be interesting. (German words give me a headache.)
i thought there would be a lot more posts on this. It's got it all - the Pope, Muslims, Darwin, evolution, creation, Jesuits... even a Jesuit named Professor Christian Troll.
What do I know. Ich habe Kopfschmerzen.
Maybe there will be a pile-on later. It's getting to the end of work day and dinner-prep time, Eastern.
Hee!
"Professor Christian Troll"...already the image is making me smile. Considering much of this is taking place at Castel Gandolfo I keep expecting Frodo or Galadriel to turn up as well. Can't you just see Papa Benedict talking to a group of hobbit lads and lasses?
Or maybe even he gets a visit from Aslan and Tumnus? (hee hee)
Okay, I'll stop.
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