B
BarbaraTherese
Guest
http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word012706.htm
Vatican Correspondent - National Catholic Reporter
The first encyclical;
What the encyclical says about Benedict;
Reactions to Deus Caritas Est: Cordes, Wolfensohn, and George; Copyrighting the pope’s words;
The family and economics
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
“That’s the solution to Derrida’s problem,” he said.
George made an intriguing point about Benedict’s motives for writing Deus Caritas Est, which most other commentary has missed.
“Love is the measure of, and the source of, a truly lasting peace,” he said. “The desire to be a peace-maker is, I think, a driving factor behind the Holy Father’s writing to the world about love in his first encyclical.”
George warned about three “separations” that the pope wants to overcome: between eros and agape, between justice and love (charity), and between longing and fulfillment.
George said the difference between eros and agape can be expressed as the difference between love as an experience and love as a choice.
“When love is seen just as a spontaneous experience, it implies a loss of personal freedom,” he said. “It’s a kind of determinism. People say ‘we fell in love, we couldn’t help it.’ It can be reduced to an experience, and the person is lost. As a free choice, however, the loss of self in love is not to an experience but to the other person, which is finally a finding of the self.”…"
Vatican Correspondent - National Catholic Reporter
The first encyclical;
What the encyclical says about Benedict;
Reactions to Deus Caritas Est: Cordes, Wolfensohn, and George; Copyrighting the pope’s words;
The family and economics
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
The only way out, George argued, is to enter into the logic of God, who has no need of our gifts, and we have no claim upon God’s. The Roman Missal expresses the point by saying that God “has no need of our praise.” Thus we enter into the “loop of grace,” George said, rather than the “carefully calculated loop of exchange and obligation.”
“That’s the solution to Derrida’s problem,” he said.
George made an intriguing point about Benedict’s motives for writing Deus Caritas Est, which most other commentary has missed.
“Love is the measure of, and the source of, a truly lasting peace,” he said. “The desire to be a peace-maker is, I think, a driving factor behind the Holy Father’s writing to the world about love in his first encyclical.”
George warned about three “separations” that the pope wants to overcome: between eros and agape, between justice and love (charity), and between longing and fulfillment.
George said the difference between eros and agape can be expressed as the difference between love as an experience and love as a choice.
“When love is seen just as a spontaneous experience, it implies a loss of personal freedom,” he said. “It’s a kind of determinism. People say ‘we fell in love, we couldn’t help it.’ It can be reduced to an experience, and the person is lost. As a free choice, however, the loss of self in love is not to an experience but to the other person, which is finally a finding of the self.”…"