Face to faith
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1701915,00.html
Pope Benedict's latest encyclical hints at the possibility he could
turn out to be the feminists' friend, says Catherine Pepinster
Saturday February 4, 2006
The Guardian
Few would have guessed last April, when Joseph Ratzinger, the notorious
hardman and "enforcer" of the Catholic church was elected Pope
Benedict, that the first teaching document of his pontificate would be
a hymn to love. Last week when he published his encyclical, Deus
Caritas Est (God is love), all thoughts of Cardinal Ratzinger, head of
the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, were banished.
Rather than a finger-wagging edict of disapproval, here was a lucid
celebration of love, both human and divine. There was even a paean of
praise for sexual love. When it comes to sex, the Catholic church is
more likely to be associated with inducing guilt, but here the Pope
instead confirmed erotic love as the most joyous form of love, and
contested Nietzsche's claim that Christianity destroyed eros, with its
loathing of the body.
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