Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam - Hardcover

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal; Pera, Marcello; Moore, Michael F.; Benedict

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465006345 ISBN 13: 9780465006342

Publisher: Basic Books, 2006

Synopsis

On May 12, 2004, Pope Benedict XVI - then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger-addressed the Italian Senate on the state of the West; the very same day, Joseph Pera, President of the Italian Senate, spoke before the Lateran College of the Papal University. Together they called upon the West to confront the spiritual, cultural, and political malaise that have afflicted it in the earliest years of the 21st century. In the months that ensued, before Cardinal Ratzinger's election to the papacy, they developed their ideas into the eloquent dialogue that is Without Roots - a book that quickly became an Italian bestseller and is even more timely today than ever. With Europe shaken by the war in Iraq, terrorism, security, Israel, relations with the U.S., immigration, and the rejection of the EU constitution in both France and the Netherlands, the issue of European identity has profound implications for the rest of the world. Bringing together their unique vantage points as leaders of Church and State, Pope Benedict XVI and Pera challenge us to imagine what can be the future of a civilization that has abandoned its history for a relativist secularism. They call on the West to embrace a spiritual rather than political renewal-and to accept the moral beliefs that alone can help us to make sense of changes in technology, economics, and society. Pope Benedict XVI joins the President of the Italian Senate to offer a provocative critique of the spiritual, cultural, and political crisis afflicting the West.

About this title

About the Author

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under the late Pope John Paul II, and has long been regarded as one of the most profound Catholic theological and spiritual writers of our times. His numerous books include God and the World, Introduction to Christianity, Salt of the Earth, and The Spirit of Liturgy. Marcello Pera, a professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Pisa, is also President of the Italian Senate. He lives in Italy.

Reviews

Complementary lectures delivered in May 2004 and the lecturers' letters of response to one another make up a small, potent book on the topic that Bruce Bawer's startling While Europe Slept (2006) gives electrifying currency: the decline and all-too-possible fall of European culture to the radical Islam that Mary Habeck in Knowing the Enemy (2006) calls "jihadism." Pera, a philosopher of science who has become president of the Italian senate, dissects political correctness and the condition of which it is a symptom, cultural relativism. Ratzinger, who a year later became Pope Benedict XVI, summarizes Europe's Christian heritage with breathtaking concision and historical mastery. Both men see Europe today in a crisis of identity that has made it largely unable and unwilling to defend its culture against intransigent Islam, and both call for revivifying Christian identity. In his letter, Pera advocates nondenominational Christianity as the basis of a revitalized Europe; in his, Ratzinger propounds the conditions for a pan-European Christian civil religion such as Pera outlines. An engrossing, enlightening, extremely timely discussion. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465006345
• ISBN 13: 9780465006342
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 159