Pope suggests questions are important

Thanks to Fernando’sDesk for the link to this report of the Pope’s recent statement to a delegation from the faculty at Tübingen:

"Universities, societies and humanity need questions and also answers," the Holy Father affirmed. "In places where they no longer ask questions, particularly those regarding essential issues that go beyond specializations, they also no longer receive answers."

"Only if we ask questions, and are radical with our questions, radical as theology has to be, going beyond specializations, only then can we find answers to these fundamental questions that affect all of us," Benedict XVI said. "Before everything else, we have to ask questions.

"But, in the case of theology, in addition to the courage to ask questions, it is also necessary to have the humility to listen to answers which the Christian faith gives us: the humility to perceive in these answers their reasonable character and to make them in this way, accessible to our times and to ourselves.

"In this way, not just the university is built up, but also, humanity itself is helped to live."

I have no idea how "radical" he intends for us to be with our questions, if he was only interested in theologians in a university asking questions, or if his emphasis on humility in listening means listening only to the Vatican (can you sense my skepticism emerging?). Still, I like this statement, and enjoy agreeing with the Pope on these sentences, at least.