Mocking of the truth

I beg to disagree with Ranier Fsadni's thesis in his article Carnival Of Reason. The Bishops in their appeal for the protection of public order were not claiming fragility. Neither do they want to assert strength when they proclaim the teachings of the Catholic Church.

It is truth which needs protection from Mr Fsadni's pen. He states "in his sermon, Mgr Grech depicted atheism as having a very weak hold on rationality and disparaged those professing the liberal creed". The thesis of Bishop Grech is that if reason is allowed to dialogue with faith then truth can be allowed to emerge strong and beautiful. "But man started to use reason not only to know the truth, but also to 'create'; and in order to be able to create he managed to put aside and remove God, who is creative intelligence! In order to gain autonomy, reason performed a self mutilation by closing in on God; reason raised up self barriers and thus is unable to roam freely in the wide spaces of truth!"

It will be truth "that guides man out of the moral or civil-ethical crisis of Europe" as described by Marcello Pera. When the Bishop cites Mr Pera he is not contradicting himself as Mr Fsadni attests. This philosopher of science is "an atheist and self-professed liberal conservative" but his professed creed did not put his reason behind bars. True to his calling to search for the truth he has given an analysis of the socio-ethical situation of Europe and has opened up a dialogue, a dialogue even with the Catholic Church. True dialogue can only take off from the common premise that all are searching for the truth.

Bishop Grech's appeal is for us to nurture a thinking faith (fede pensonsa) and he concludes that "all human beings carry within them the potentiality to know God if they learn to use reason in an authentic and not in a reductive way, as when they limit themselves to positive reason. Therefore each human being should seek help so as to develop his intellectual faculty. Our pastoral concern should be alerted not so much by the person who declares that he does not believe, as by the person who does not think or else is hindered from thinking in a free manner!"

And surely if one goes through the Lecture of the Holy Father in Regensburg he will not find the Pope saying that "the identity of Europe needs both liberalism and Christianity". The Pope rejoices in the new possibilities open to humanity but acknowledges the dangers arising thereof. He concludes that we can overcome these dangers only "if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self imposed limitation of reason to the empirically falsifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons".

The sermon delivered by Bishop Grech is an explanation of this thought of the Pope. How can Mr Fsadni declare in his conclusion that it can only sound to the non-believer "as a carnival of reason, as mocking of non-believers as those youths were of Christianity"? I can only conclude that it is this article by Mr Fsadni which is a mocking of the truth and a base attempt to belittle the importance of this sermon for our society.