The Regensburg Lecture

The man who was simultaneously the Pope and the greatest living theologian is retiring, and he is joined in retirement by Fr. James Schall, S.J., the English-speaking world's greatest living Catholic essayist. This book is a collaboration by them on Pope Benedict's amazing Regensburg Lecture, which shocked the world (even to the point of rioting), was misread everywhere, and yet forthrightly dealt with the "unavoidable dilemma" of Islam needing to "re-Hellenize" in order to fulfill its promise as a "religion of peace." And Benedict did this all within the context of a renewal of Catholic mission and purpose in a secular and degenerating Europe. Fr. Schall's accessible, definitive explanation clarifies the meaning and importance of the Regensburg Lecture (the Lecture itself is included as an appendix) to restate the central role of reason in man's relationship with God. Father Schall says in the Preface of the book, "When I first read this lecture, I knew something momentous had happened in the human mind. Something was said here that no one else had been saying. Sorting out what was spoken in Regensburg is, I think, an intellectual enterprise that awaits the attention of every person who is concerned about intelligence and truth and, indirectly, about their consequences in the realm of action. This lecture is one of the fundamental tractates of our time. It is almost the first one that really understands the fuller dimensions of what our time is intellectually about."