Cardinal: Atheism Is Irrational

Cardinal Walter Brandmuller is underlining the irrationality of atheism, noting that only in God can the human person find fulfillment.

The former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, who just became a cardinal on Saturday, said this in a new Italian-language book "Ateismo? No grazie! Credere è ragionevole" [Atheism? No Thanks! To Believe is Rational], published by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

It features an original interview of the prelate by Ingo Langner, journalist, publicist and film director, on the most debated questions: Does God exist? Faith or atheism? Science or religion? God or non God?

The interview begins with Langner who asked, quoting Richard Dawkins, "Why still believe?"

Cardinal Brandmuller responded: "The question is not a novelty. Friedrich Nietzsche makes his madman announce that God is dead and Yury Gagarin, the first Russian in space, on his trip of April 12, 1962, said that nowhere had he seen something that resembled God. Dawkins does not recognize God even as a hypothesis. For him God is a hallucination that exists only in the mind of a retarded person."

"In reality, the target of the atheists is not so much God but the Church, the Pope and the Vatican," said the prelate. He added that the Church has been attacked since the beginning of the Christian era, the Pope for 2000 years and the Vatican since its existence.

The cardinal addressed the topic of miracles, recalling what happened in Calanda, a small town not far from Saragossa, Spain, where there was a youth named Miguel Pellicer whose leg was amputated. Two years later and despite the difficulty in walking, the youth undertook the journey to the Marian shrine of Santa Maria del Pilar in Saragossa.

Once he arrived at the shrine, he prayed intensely to Mary to help him. That night an incredible event took place. When he woke up in the morning his leg had grown back, perfectly healthy.

To explain the miracles, Cardinal Brandmuller quoted William Shakespeare who said to followers of the Enlightenment: "There are more things between heaven and earth than your scholastic erudition can imagine."

The prelate explained that "modern man wants to come to himself through self-fulfillment, but he doesn't succeed by separating himself from God; he succeeds only if he turns to God."

He continued: "For modern man this means the prodigal son who returns to the father, hence to God. Only then does he fulfill himself, when he recognizes what he is and for what purpose God has created him."