Perhaps the overarching theme of JP the Great's papacy, and a continuing theme of Ratzinger/Benedict's teaching as well, is finding true freedom in Christ. Here is Michael Novak's interview w/ Zenit on the subject. Money quote:
"More than we used to think, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus seems indispensable to the Western hunger for liberty. It seems empirically evident that secularism has precipitated the death of the hunger for liberty."This interview made RC2 remember the marvelous Church and State in Early Christianity by Hugo Rahner, SJ (Ignatius). That marvelous little work covering the first eight Christian centuries demonstrates that every time we get the relationship between Church and state wrong (in either direction), we also distort our image of man and his freedom.
