Articles written by Paula Bernardini

Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Modern World


Since his election in March 2013, Pope Francis has aroused enthusiasm and raised the hopes of many through the articulation and lived example of his vision of a Church open to dialogue with the modern world. Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, is no exception, delivering an even more explicit invitation for the Church to avoid entrenchment. Read the full article »

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Pope Benedict XVI: Modern, Not a Modernist


PAOLA BERNARDINI

While Benedict XVI’s sympathetic observers define his act of resignation as “an eruption of modernity inside the Church,” critics point to his “crackdowns on nuns and liberal theologians,” “his outreach to the Lefebvrists” and “his resurrection of the old Latin Mass” as a sign of his conservative legacy. Neither side is completely wrong, nor completely right. For Benedict XVI’s papacy seems to have struck a balance between “the modern” and “the traditional,” in an attempt to avoid the excesses of both modernism and traditionalism. Read the full article »

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Debating the Status of Women in Tunisia


As noted in a previous post on the Contending Modernities blog by Michael Driessen, post-authoritarian Tunisia has become the site of fascinating debate between contending modernities — one being self-consciously Islamist and democratic and the other being assertively secular and liberal. One battlefield where the conflict is currently fiercest is the status of women.

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Contending Conceptions of Democracy


The recent wave of violent reactions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to the online video mocking the Prophet Muhammad may be taken as the most recent example of a clash between “contending modernities.” The US-based moviemaker is sometimes taken to represent the values of “Western democracy” and “free speech,” while the protesters in places such as Libya and Pakistan are taken to represent “extremism” and “illiberalism.” Arguably, though, they represent not a clash of “democracy” vs. “extremism” but a clash between rival conceptions of democracy.

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