[471]

Now this I think is all we should say here because it is a little beyond our subject, "Religion^a and Culture^b," but it is something which goes deeply into the life of every family, and you cannot imagine [the life of] how many NON-Christians, in the technical sense of that word: non-members of churches^c, or humanists, people who call themselves non-religious. I have been asked again and again, "What to do with our children?" They don't WANT that these children get this empty feeling they have themselves; they want to do for them something beyond it. But who can answer this often very urgent and very desperate question? Now I tried at least to give you some hints, and of course, for the Religion and Culture, this is a fundamental problem.

QN [P.H.John]: [--re the authority of the Church and (Jacques) Maritain^d--how does such a mind comply with it? – etc....]

PT: Do you remember when I said this before, on another occasion? [Yes] Then you want me to repeat it for the others:

In a meeting, [for] five days, when we came to the problem of autonomy,^e heteronomy^f and theonomy^g in the churches^h, and I spoke of the heteronomy of the Roman Church. Then Maritainⁱ--who is a very good friend of mine--said, "We are not heteronomous, we are theonomous." Then I said: "Now let us make a test question: If the prophetic spirit grasps YOU, Maritain^j, one day, and you SAY something which later on is denied by the Church authority^k, what do you say?" And he said, "Then I was in error." Now that is what I mean with heteronomy: "then I was in error." The Protestant^l would say: "Then the CHURCH was in error." [some laughter]