{"id":5084,"date":"2006-01-27T14:23:54","date_gmt":"2006-01-27T14:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html"},"modified":"2006-01-27T14:23:54","modified_gmt":"2006-01-27T14:23:54","slug":"word-up-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html","title":{"rendered":"Word Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allen on the encyclical, with some added remarks from Cardinal George. As well as conversations on the nature of Catholic charitable work from the Cor Unam conference.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Even apart from policy questions, there’s much to learn about Benedict XVI’s papacy from Deus Caritas Est<\/em>. <\/p>\n

First, he will not, as some feared, lead the Catholic church to collapse in on itself and become preoccupied with its own internal business. One can hardly imagine a theme of more universal human concern than love. <\/p>\n

Second, while he possesses vast erudition (in the first 20 pages of Deus Caritas Est<\/em>, he manages to cite Nietzsche, Descartes, and Plato), Benedict expresses himself as a pastor. He treats a core theme of Christian faith, and for the most part uses terms that don’t require a license in systematic theology to grasp. While history will remember John Paul II as a great evangelist, Benedict XVI may go down as the most classic example of a "teaching pope" in modern times. <\/p>\n

Third, for all the talk about Benedict as an Augustinian pessimist, he actually believes there are still people in the world who can be influenced by unadorned argument, shorn of theatricality or grand symbolism. In its own way, it’s a remarkably optimistic stance. <\/p>\n

Fourth, Benedict grasps the old bit of wisdom about governing the Catholic church expressed by John XXIII, who once said, "I have to be pope both of those with their foot on the gas, and those with their foot on the brake." Deus Caritas Est<\/em> reflects an obvious concern for balance. He warns Catholic charitable groups they must not forget about Christ, yet understands there are times when this faith must go unspoken, so charity workers don’t give the appearance of "proselytism"; he stresses the "vertical dimension" of prayer and worship, yet also writes that "a Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented." <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allen on the encyclical, with some added remarks from Cardinal George. As well as conversations on the nature of Catholic charitable work from the Cor Unam conference. Even apart from policy questions, there’s much to learn about Benedict XVI’s papacy from Deus Caritas Est. First, he will not, as some feared, lead the Catholic church…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWord Up - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Word Up - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Allen on the encyclical, with some added remarks from Cardinal George. As well as conversations on the nature of Catholic charitable work from the Cor Unam conference. Even apart from policy questions, there’s much to learn about Benedict XVI’s papacy from Deus Caritas Est. First, he will not, as some feared, lead the Catholic church…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-01-27T14:23:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Word Up - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Word Up - Via Media","og_description":"Allen on the encyclical, with some added remarks from Cardinal George. As well as conversations on the nature of Catholic charitable work from the Cor Unam conference. Even apart from policy questions, there’s much to learn about Benedict XVI’s papacy from Deus Caritas Est. First, he will not, as some feared, lead the Catholic church…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-01-27T14:23:54+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html","name":"Word Up - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-01-27T14:23:54+00:00","dateModified":"2006-01-27T14:23:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/word-up-8.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Word Up"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}