Every year, Professor Ratzinger offered a summer reunion/seminar of sorts for his former students. He continued last year, his first year as Pope, focusing on Islam. This year Darwin, Evolution and Christianity will be the topic.

Next September 2, professor Peter Schuster, president of the Österreichichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Austrian academy of sciences, and cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna and theologian, will open the discussion on creation and evolution. Among the participants, there will also be Jesuit Paul Erbrich, professor of the philosophy of nature in Munich, and Robert Spaemann, professor of political philosophy and one of Germany’s foremost experts on modernity.

That’s from Magister, who continues his column by reprinting an article from Civilta Cattolica written by the Jesuit who opened last year’s seminar discussion. The piece is on Islam and modernity and addresses the issue of Muslims who are attempting to reconcile the two. Magister notes, briefly, but pointedly:

Here are its main passages. It must be said that most Muslim thinkers quoted in the article either live and work in the West, or have had to flee their respective countries.