Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Michael Novak on Pope's U.S. Visit (Part 2)

Interview With Theologian and Author

By Carrie Gress

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- With the election of Benedict XVI on the heels of Pope John Paul II's papacy, we have the best of both worlds, says Michael Novak.

Novak is a theologian, former ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights, and author of nearly 30 books, including the forthcoming "No One Sees God."

In this interview with ZENIT, Novak discusses the Pope's address at the United Nations and his relationship with youth.

Q: What was your reaction to the Pope's address to the United Nations?

Novak: Part of his statement was standard, and repetitive of past statements, but part was very original and penetrating. The Pope emphasized that what is crucial for the United Nations and the world of the future is the protection of religious liberty. Religious liberty is the most basic of all liberties because it protects the precious conscience of every person. He spoke of the need to protect religious minorities. Implicitly, he defended the concept of equality before the law, and his comments relied on the establishment of the rule of law -- and probably also, of pluralistic democracies, of the sort that respect human rights.

But he did not stop at religious liberty. The United Nations, he said, must work to create room for religious people to speak of their faith and to argue from their faith in the public square. The public square does not belong only to secular people.

These passages brought to mind his exchange of letters with then president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera, in a volume called in English "Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam." There, the Pope pointed out that in America the separation of church and state is not negative, but positive. For example, the state does not try to control the public square, but it allows room for religious people to fully express themselves in the religious sphere. While church and state are separate in their functions, in actual life there can be no separation of religion and the political dimension of life. Each human person is at the same time a religious and a political being.

In those essays, he also distinguished the American idea of the separation of church and state from the European idea, which is very negative. What the Europeans do is give the state all the power and try to drive religion out, limiting it to the domain of private conscience. It has been rare for Europeans to see the difference between Europe and America so clearly, and at least in this one respect, to command the American side of the argument. That was the spirit that seemed to animate many of his remarks in America.

At one point at the White House, the President quoted St. Augustine and Pope Benedict. And for his part, the Holy Father quoted George Washington. It was rather nice. I don't remember a Pope analyzing an American text in such a scholarly but easily understandable way. One hasn't often heard the Vatican make such distinctions.
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