The Secretary General to the Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation, Dom Henry
O'Shea explains to Veronica Scarisbrick how the great attraction of Saint Anselm
is that he combines a very strong faith with a strong sense of intellectual inquiry
and intellectual rigour.
As it transpires in the course of this interview
, this Saint whose feast day falls on April 21st is a figure of importance for Benedict
XVI precisely because:
"... Saint Anselm empashized the importance of reason,
the importance of intelligence, the importance of intelligent inquiry, the possibility
of uniting that with faith. The important thing for Saint Anselm as it is for the
present Holy Father is that we start off in a context of faith "...
In this
same interview Dom Henry O'Shea also gets quizzed about the ship as the symbol attributed
to Anselm as a Saint:
"..What it really is, is the idea of 'to set out into
the deep'. Set out into the deep for various things, set out into the deep as a pastor,
as a fisherman but also set out into the deep of the possible dangers of exploration
and inquiry. So it's a very happy symbol ..."
By the way in this interview
Dom Henry O'Shea also clears the ground as to how to refer to this medieval Benedictine
monk: whether he's to be referred to as of Canterbury , of Aosta or of Bec...