Fr. Julián Carrón agrees with Benedict XVI’s statements about the Christian origin of the values upon which European civilization, from the Enlightenment onwards, has taken form, and also with his diagnosis of their failure in a moment in which the key of the human condition in the West is “the collapse of the evidences that for centuries formed the foundation of our co-existence.” Then-Cardinal Ratzinger observed in 2005 in Subiaco, “The quest for a reassuring certitude that could stand uncontested beyond all differences has failed.” “Not even Kant, for all of his undeniable greatness, was able to create the necessary shared certainty. (…) The extreme attempt to fashion the things of man without any reference to God leads us ever closer to the edge of the abyss, to the total abolition of man,” he concluded. “Thus we witness a singular and significant reversal,” Carrón commented in Disarming Beauty, a work rich in erudition and ethical reflection that explores the roots of the current crisis, “the radical detachment of the Enlightenment philosophy from its Christian roots, which should have ensured a full and autonomous affirmation of the human person, ‘ultimately leads it to dispense with man’.”