It was not the kind of feel-good talk usually heard at interfaith gatherings: Pope Benedict XVI urged the leaders of other Christian churches to oppose a secularized, do-your-own-thing religion. If religion is treated as a matter of personal feeling instead of a search for eternal truth, he said, it loses its force."Only by holding fast to sound teaching will we be able to respond to the challenges that confront us in an evolving world," the pope said in an interfaith prayer service at St. Joseph’s Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. "Only in this way will we give unambiguous testimony to the truth of the Gospel and its moral teaching. This is the message which the world is waiting to hear from us."
Religion, he said, should not be limited to what can be verified scientifically or restricted to "the shifting realm of personal experience."
He added: "For Christians to accept this faulty line of reasoning would lead to the notion that there is little need to emphasize objective truth in the presentation of the Christian faith, for one need but follow his or her own conscience and choose a community that best suits his or her individual tastes."
Photo: Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., greets Pope Benedict XVI after interfaith prayer service. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II.
0 comments:
Post a Comment