Edith Stein co-Patronesses Euro

Edith Stein, Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

One question ANSWERS one, and a LEADING article of topical interest.

1. Edith Stein is Doctor of Philosophy and later one of 3 Co-Patronesses of Europe but NOT, so far, Doctor of the Church.

2. As the Queen opens the new Parliament , Joe Egerton urges us to reflect on what Edith Stein.

Edith Stein Co-Patroness of Europe POPE JOHN PAUL II APOSTOLIC LETTER ISSUED MOTU PROPRIO PROCLAIMING SAINT BRIDGET OF SWEDEN SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA AND SAINT TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS CO-PATRONESSES OF EUROPE Reflection: Reform, Morality and the Coalition

ICN NEWS: Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:36 pm

Edith Stein As the Queen opens the new Parliament, Joe Egerton urges us to reflect on what Edith Stein, twentieth century philosopher, martyr and canonised saint, had to say about the morality of government, and recognise that the Members of the House of Commons are elected to be above all the guardians of virtue in public life. Read his piece on Thinking Faith: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20100525_1.htm The Coalition is a momentous political change. As Anthony Carroll observed in Thinking Faith, our politics are adjusting to the end of tribal Britain[1]. He is only one of a number of thoughtful commentators to recognise a seismic – and beneficial – shift in our politics[2]. Comparisons are inevitably being drawn with earlier coalitions, including that of 1918 -1922[3]. We need to re-think the relationship between electorate, parties and the state, and to ask what we mean by morality in politics. It is this question that was addressed in 1921 by the philosopher Edith Stein. Stein on morality and the state The political background to Stein’s work was the collapse of Imperial Germany and the emergence of the democratic Weimar Republic, which involved a shift in the relationship between the individual and the state. The intellectual background was Edith Stein’s own work on the conception of the individual and the community. We will need to return to some of her questions, but at this stage I focus on the position she took on the relationship between the state and ethical norms and values. ‘The state is not an abstract entity. It acts and suffers only as those individual agents through whose actions the functions of the state are discharged act and suffer. And it is their actions that conform to or violate norms and values.... the state is just or unjust, protective to those whom it ought to protect, and scrupulous or unscrupulous in its dealings with other states, only insofar as the relevant individual persons have these characteristics. Moral predicates apply to the state only insofar as they apply to the relevant individuals.' ... Contd.