Rome, Italy, Mar 3, 2005 / 22:00 pm
In his weekly column for L’Espresso Online, Vatican watcher Sandro Magister notes that although Pope John Paul II has temporarily lost his voice, “he speaks strongly and clearly” in his latest book, “Memory and Identity.”
According to Magister, the Pope has not spoken so boldly against democracies that pass legislation in favor of abortion and against life and natural law since his 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae.”
Magister says that coinciding at least partially with non-Christian writers who, nonetheless, recognize the role of natural law—such as philosopher Leo Strauss and scientist Leon Kass—“the ‘anti-modern’ John Paul II is anything but behind the times.”
“Memory and Identity” is a collection of conversations that took place in 1993 between John Paul II and two Polish philosopher friends, Josef Tischner, who died in 2000, and Krzysztof Michalski.