Before we unpack what cultural literacy might mean it would be good to register a dissenting opinion. Pope Benedict XVI has a characteristically firm idea of what the Church and its people requires of her priests: “The faithful expect only one thing from priests: that they be specialists in promoting the encounter between man and God”¹. This means that “there is absolutely no need for the priest to know all the latest, changing currents of thought; what the faithful expect from him is that he be a witness to the eternal wisdom contained in the revealed word”. In other words, “the priest is not asked to be an expert in economics, construction or politics. He is expected to be an expert in the spiritual life.”² This might seem to be an assertion of an older, restricted, expertise for the priests of the church, a conservative revision of “rendering unto Caesar”. But Benedict XVI is too good a theologian to fall into that trap. In one of the innovations of his pontificate, the Pope has instituted regular Q&A sessions with various groupings within the church. He has met the priests of the diocese of Rome twice now, and in the session held in the summer of 2007 he responded to a question about his beliefs on the human side of the priesthood. The Pope’s response was clear:

Catholicism, somewhat simplistically, has always been considered the religion of the great “et et”: not of great forms of exclusivism but of synthesis… we cannot always live in exalted meditation; perhaps a Saint on the last step of his earthly pilgrimage could reach this point, but we normally live with our feet on the ground and our eyes turned to Heaven. Both these things are given to us by the Lord and therefore loving human things, loving the beauties of this earth, is not only very human but also very Christian and truly Catholic… this aspect is also part of a good and truly Catholic pastoral care: living in the “et et”; living the humanity and humanism of the human being, all the gifts which the Lord has lavished upon us and which we have developed; and at the same time, not forgetting God, because ultimately, the great light comes from God and then it is only from him that comes the light which gives joy to all these aspects of the things that exist.³

Even a dissenting opinion can be tempered by the great et et.

1. Benedict XVI in an address to the clergy of Warsaw, 25 May 2006, reported via Zenit.org. [↩]
2. Benedict XVI, ‘Address to the clergy of Warsaw’. [↩]
3. Benedict XVI, in the record of ‘The Meeting of the Holy Father Benedict XVI with the Clergy of the Dioceses of Belluno-feltre and Treviso’, Church of St Justin Martyr, Auronzo di Cadore, 24 July 2007. Available online here. [↩]