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In the encyclicals Fides et Ratio (1998) and Lumen Fidei (2013), the mysteries appear as key elements when analysing the relationship between faith and reason. Fides et Ratio deals with the mysteries as a formal category (without forgetting the content); in Lumen Fidei it is the content of the mysteries that is important. In the article, first of all, the basic texts of the two encyclicals on mystery are presented. It then examines the relationship betwen mysteries and rationality. Negative theology and its expression in paradoxes are also considered. The incarnate mystery and liturgical celebration of mysteries are the final points of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The university teaching of theology, which was historically considered as the highest discipline, is often times deemed a problem. It seems that one of the principal causes of this state of affairs is the conflict, conceived by some thinkers, between reason and authority. Pope Benedict XVI offers both a diagnosis and a remedy to the «crisis of university» by developing the idea of «extended rationality». Through this idea, secular universities could, without compromising its demand of rationality, provide room for theology, even though it does not adopt the way theology is imparted in confessional universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a process that lasted almost five centuries, philosophers gradually renounced thinking about the great questions that still concern humanity, including the religious ones. The problem is not just a lack of trust in the human ability to solve them but in a kind of conviction that there is no rationality at the base of reality. We deal both with the historical process that led to nihilism and the fact that nihilism was taken as a starting point never proven as valid. We show the validity of the enquiry into the meaning of human existence, some of the philosophical implications in the very fact that we can't help but posing the question, and the need for philosophy to rediscover herself as a useful discipline for finding significant answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the ideas of Benedict XVI on the understanding of love, as may be gleaned from his last encyclical and other pronouncements As regards love, there exist very diverse ideas which either reject its spiritual character, or deprive it of any objective criteria, or just deny it cynically. In contrast to these ideas, the Pope proposes a recuperation of the spiritual and rational dimensions of love. For only love that is understood in this way is Christian love, true love; and only thus does love has the capacity and power to shape all human activities, including social ones, as the Pope proposes in the Encyclical Caritas in veritate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, the theological study of contraception has provided new ways to understand Paul VI's encyclical more profoundly. This essay tries, from a rational perspective, in concrete, from the point of view of chastity, to collaborate in the challenge to show that reason and faith are like the two wings that enable the faithful to reach Truth and discover the full significance of human sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the unsuccessful post- modern criticism of rationality, the current Magisterium is providing new arguments on the necessity of a tighter alliance between faith and reason. The main barrier to defeat Relativism appears to be the lack of solidarity between faith and reason. Therefore, we aim to reflect from both a philosophical and theological perspective, about two central ideas in Benedict XVI's thought. Firstly, we propose the need of a decision in favor of either reason or irrationality at the origin of the universe. Secondly, we suggest the importance of broadening our concept of rationality. The combination of the discussed arguments enables us to present Christian rationality as confident in the Reason at the origin unfolding throughout the time a meaningful goal according to human reason. We summarize this project as the role of divine action in history for human divinization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]