Catholicism has an ethical role in contemporary culture as raising questions about norms and practices in order to preserve the dignity of the human being. The Church must give the Word (Christ) to the world. Man as absolute principle (in Descartes, Kant, and Hegel) becomes a means to an end. The “I” treated as absolute subject of knowledge becomes an object. The I cannot be the source of values or knowledge (man reverts to himself); this devalues the I. Man transcends man. Instead of objectifying man as an object of knowledge, we must “recognize” man as created in the image of God (which assures man’s essential unknowability). Christians must “keep the vigil of the unknowable.”