2012-04-20 09:13:55

Saint Anselm: set out into the deep...


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...

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