Rockford, Ill., Apr 20, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The Howard Center For Family, Religion and Society believes Pope Benedict XVI “will be a strong voice for the natural family," said Allan Carlson, Howard Center president.
In 1988, Carlson co-hosted Pope Benedict XVI, then the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as he delivered the Erasmus Lecture in New York City. "It was clear to me then that he wasn't intimidated by modernist critics of his Church," Carlson stated.
In his New York lecture, the future Pope criticized theologians who employ the modern technique of applying strictly scientific methods to analysis of the Bible as having "relegated God to the unknowable."
The mystery of revelation eludes materialists and radical feminists who "are no longer interested in ascertaining truth, but only in whatever will serve their own particular agenda," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had said.
The Erasmus Lecture, essays and informal dialogue of the future Benedict XVI with other Christian leaders were published in a book, "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The Ratzinger Conference on Bible and Church", which is available from the Howard Center.