The Valley Catholic
in the diocese
February 3, 2015
5
Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx lectures at Stanford
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, head of
the German Bishops’ Conference, and
a member of the Council of Cardinals,
which advises Pope Francis on church
governance, was the Roger Heyns Lecturer in Religion and Society at Stanford
University on January 16. The Roger
Heyns Lecture is an annual event, which
has featured such speakers as His Holiness the Dali Lama, Dr. Eboo Patel, and
Jim Wallis.
The title of Cardinal Marx’s talk was
“The Contribution of Christian Values
to the Common Good”. He began by
outlining what he saw as the common
good: the right of each individual to
reach fulfillment. Just how to reach the
common good on a global level? Just
how do we make possible human rights
for all?
Simply put, it is to teach and model
responsible freedom and create institutions which do the same. Cardinal Marx
warned that societies often try to provide simple answers to complex questions, and impose them from on high. In
a pluralistic society, with religious and
cultural diversity, we need to organize
society to accept diversity; we need to
create a culture of freedom, but one that
has limits that protects those who do not
have the power to protect themselves.
For example, how do we create a society
that protects the poor and those who are
not poor? These are not easy questions.
What is the role of The Church in all
of this? First of all, we need to aware
of the most important message of the
gospel: “God loves me! Come! The time
is fulfilled, be confident.” God doesn’t
love us because we are good; God loves
us, and so we chose good for others.
As Church, we have to live this and
model this. We need to engage with
other religions and philosophies visa-vis the common good.
Cardinal Marx left us with both a
challenge and a hope: We need to adopt
a culture of Encounter with the world
we live in, not always looking back,
assuming the best times were behind
us. They are not behind us, they are not
ahead of us. The best times are now! the
Church needs to be an instrument of
the gospel, ent