Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Defending tradition means defending truth, says pope

LISBON, PORTUGAL - Pope Benedict warned that modern society's exaltation of the present threatens to undermine the traditionally Christian culture of Portugal.

In a meeting with Portugal's artistic and academic elite, the pope said the Church's role includes the defence of traditional cultural foundations.

"For a society formed by a Catholic majority and whose culture has been deeply marked by Christianity, the attempt to find the truth outside of Jesus Christ is a dramatic development," said the 83-year-old pope.

He made the remarks at an encounter in Lisbon May 12 with more than 1,000 artists, filmmakers, critics, musicians, writers and academics.

Modern culture wants to "absolutize the present, detaching it from the cultural patrimony of the past," he said. This has created a conflict with Portugal's strongly Christian history.

This cultural conflict is actually a "crisis of truth," the pope said. A culture that stops knowing the truth about itself and its own history ends up lacking clearly defined values and purposes.

The Church's mission in today's culture, he said, is to "keep alive the search for truth and, consequently, for God."

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