Pope Benedict Defends Religion and Morality’s Vital Role in Public Life

by Steve Farrell

A week ago, on the South Lawn of the White House Pope Benedict observed,

As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue to build a more humane and free society.

Amanda Powloski writing at the Acton Institute comments,

How to integrate religion into the public sphere in a pluralistic culture is and has been a demanding task for modern secular America. Twentieth-century political philosophers, such as the late John Rawls, saw a solution in simply drawing together our most common “unbiased” factors and leaving the rest aside. In Rawls’ Political Liberalism he clearly stated that no arguments deriving from faith should be admitted into public debate.

“Benedict XVI begs to differ,” she notes, “Faith also gives us the strength to respond to our high calling and the hope that inspires us to work for an ever more just and fraternal society,” he insists. “Democracy can only flourish, as your founding fathers realized, when political leaders and those whom they represent are guided by truth and bring the wisdom of firm moral principle to decisions affecting the life and future of the nation.”

Ms. Powloski insightfully adds,

Faith is an important foundation not only for politics, but also for business. Who really believes that an “unbiased” Business Ethics 101 course at a secular university will adequately substitute for the morality ingrained in a child who has been reared in a Christian home? Critics of capitalism say that businessmen are greedy, and often in the same breath denounce Christian morals for “constricting” personal freedom and imposing standards upon others.

We at the Center for Moral Liberalism agree. Just take a tour around the world and witness the long list of countries where democracy failed, like France, Nazi Germany, Russia, Palestine, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, up and down Africa, up and down South and Central America … and ask yourself if these travesties in freedom had anything to do with the morality of the people.

American Founders Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both held little hope for the American experiment in liberty spreading its wings, for instance, to South and Central America - not for a very long season - for they concluded, they were too ignorant and superstitious, that is, they lacked knowledge, moral discipline, and vision to pull it off.

Prophetic? Perhaps. But then again, it’s common sense.

Self-government is one of the quickest paths to self destruction if the people lack religion, morality, and education. So it is and ever will be.

Every other opinion is fantasy.