The Second Council And Atheism

An article on how Catholics should treat critics of faith:

The committed Catholic (indeed, the committed practitioner of any great religious tradition) is bound to bristle at the aggressive tone and the tendency toward caricature and sweeping generalization that runs through these works. It is tempting simply to dismiss these attacks. Yet the Second Vatican Council’s mandate for respectful engagement with the critics of faith invites an alternative course of action. We must certainly defend the integrity and reasonableness of our deepest religious convictions, but an adequate Catholic response must go beyond traditional apologetics; we must also ask ourselves whether there is anything in our Catholic Christian culture that invites these attacks and might be avoided without abandoning what is essential to our faith. I focus on three elements in the Catholic faith that call for our attention: Catholic practices that suggest a nae theism; the nature of Catholic truth claims; and the exercise of church authority.