INTRODUCTIONlectual and cultural resources—‘‘generate a renewed ethical consciousness,’’ which is ever
more needed in a time when ‘‘the acceleration of the tempo of historical developments’’
confronts us with ‘‘the formation of a world society’’ in which different ‘‘individual politi-
cal, economic, and cultural powers depend, more and more, on each other,’’ and in which
human technological possibilities exceed ‘‘everything to which we have previously been
accustomed,’’ thus requiring unanticipated political intervention and legal regulation.
Stressing the ‘‘shattering’’ of ‘‘old moral certainties,’’ as an (unintended) result of the
increasing permeation, if not necessarily clash, of different cultures, Benedict XVI calls on
‘‘philosophy’s responsibility to separate the nonscientific element from scientific results
with which it is so often intermingled, and in this way to remain attentive to the whole,
to the further dimensions of the reality of human existence, only some aspects of which
can reveal themselves in science’’ (pp. 261–62). The claim is consistent with his overall
theological outlook, which has been characterized as more ‘‘traditionalist’’ than that of
his predecessor.^126 Influenced byla nouvelle the ́ologie(represented notably by Henri de
Lubac), with its critique of abstract neo-scholasticism and its strong emphasis on ecclesial
authority, especially on patristic tradition, in the interpretation of Scripture, he is said to
hold a ‘‘vision of Christianity as a community with a distinctive culture,’’^127 rather than a
set of doctrines, from which secular society and other communities of faith should be
engaged in a pluralistic spirit (which, from the historical and present standpoint of Catho-
lic doctrine is, of course, not to be confused with the adoption of metaphysical, ontologi-
cal pluralism—and hence the affirmation of many truths or truth-events—per se).
In this unlikely dialogue between the strict Catholic theologian who from 1981 until
his election as the 265th Pope was the head (or Prefect) of the Holy Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei, the successor to the Inquisi-
tion) and the liberal philosopher of the discourse of modernity, intellectual heir of the
Frankfurt School Critical Theory of Western Marxism, Habermas starts out from a ques-
tion raised in the mid-sixties by Ernst Wolfgang Bo ̈ckenfo ̈rde, a ‘‘doubt that the demo-
cratic constitutional state can renew the normative preconditions of its existence out of
its own resources.’’ This question seems to express a modern predicament, for if the state
is ‘‘dependent upon autochthonous conceptual or religious traditions’’ (p. 251), how can
it assert its ‘‘neutrality’’ in matters of ‘‘comprehensive doctrines,’’ which, as John Rawls
argued, must be seen as an essential requirement for ‘‘political liberalism’’ (or for Kantian
republicanism, Habermas adds), and which Rawls associates with religion in the most
public of its manifestations? In his contribution, Habermas rearticulates his long-held
view that the distinctively modern conception and legitimacy of constitutional law, the
legal process, and its core statutes and principles (such as human rights) are self-sufficient
and hence independent of religious and metaphysical traditions. He nonetheless holds
that there remains an open question from the viewpoint of motivation as to how the
public good will be upheld by citizens if they perceive themselves not as the law’s authors
but as merely its addressees and subjects. The former requires ‘‘a greater motivational
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