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Letter #24, 2016: Synod Document, T Minus 1[2016-04-07][Engleză]April 7, 2016, Thursday -- The Synod Document and the Problem of GodThe essential question is the existence of God... and so, consequently, the nature of man... "The splendor of being an image of God no longer shines over man, which is what confers on him his dignity and inviolability, and he is left only to the power of his own human capacities." —Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, lecture at the Convent of St. Scholastica in Subiaco, Italy, on April 1, 2005, 11 years ago, two weeks before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI. "God is neglected in this way, notwithstanding the fact that it is precisely he who is the subject and cause of the kingdom of God." —Ibid. "Europe has developed a culture that, in a manner unknown before now to humanity, excludes God from the public conscience, either by denying him altogether, or by judging that his existence is not demonstrable, uncertain and, therefore, belonging to the realm of subjective choices, something, in any case, irrelevant to public life. "This purely functional rationality, so to speak, has implied a disorder of the moral conscience altogether new for cultures existing up to now, as it deems rational only that which can be proved with experiments. As morality belongs to an altogether different sphere, it disappears as a category unto itself and must be identified in another way, in as much as it must be admitted, in any case, that morality is essential." —Ibid. "The radical detachment of the Enlightenment philosophy from its roots becomes, in the last analysis, contempt for man. Man, deep down, has no freedom, we are told by the spokesmen of the natural sciences, in total contradiction with the starting point of the whole question. Man must not think that he is something more than all other living beings and, therefore, should also be treated like them, we are told by even the most advanced spokesmen of a philosophy clearly separated from the roots of humanity's historical memory." —Ibid. "The real opposition that characterizes today's world is not that between various religious cultures, but that between the radical emancipation of man from God, from the roots of life, on one hand, and from the great religious cultures on the other. If there were to be a clash of cultures, it would not be because of a clash of the great religions which have always struggled against one another, but which, in the end, have also always known how to live with one another but it will be because of the clash between this radical emancipation of man and the great historical cultures." —Ibid. ======================= What is Really at Stake? What is really at stake in the document that will come out tomorrow is the question of God. Is there a "God," a being, reality, force, entity, person, who actually exists and, indeed, may be known, and is therefore the source and measure of all things, all space and time, all action -- all morality? And the second question is like it: Are we, or are we not, made in the image and likeness of this reality? The consensus of our secular culture is "no." No, our culture teaches (and increasingly requires us to believe) there is no such reality or being at the core of all being, and certainly we are therefore not in the "image and likeness" of any such being. We are simply material biological forms, briefly living, in a material world. Nothing more. Our culture defines itself as "secular" (oriented toward this age, this "saeculum," this world, this "order of things which we perceive by our senses," this "space-time continuum" we inhabit). And our culture therefore, ipso facto, by this very self-definition, denies the opposite of the secular, which is... the sacred. For us, nothing is holy, because holiness is not real, it doesn't exist, it is a myth, a category of being which has no actual reality. And so, we inhabit a secular universe, and we make ourselves at home in it as best we can. But the consequence of this is grave. The consequence of this is a forgetfulness of our deepest dignity. For our deepest dignity has a dimension of transcendence. A dimension that transcends this "saeculum," this world order, this "age." What Christian faith has always held, in keeping with the revelation which came through the Jewish patriarchs and prophets, and through the Law of Moses, is that the human "person" could transcend this "world" and come into relationship with the ultimate reality, which was holy, and which desired our being, our lives, to be marked by this holiness. The kingdom of this ultimate reality was a holy kingdom, one in which mutual charity flourished: the love of God and the love of one's neighbor -- not treachery, not deception, not trickery, not oppression, not injustice, not anger, wrath, bitterness, envy, pride... What Christian faith has always held is that man was destined by his nature to be in relationship with a standard, an exigency, woven into the nature of reality itself, eternally valid, unchanging, that was good, that was true, that was holy. That this reality was a person, and had a face, was the "Good News" at the center of the Christian proclamation: "The Lord has come, He is with us." However, as we all know well, this entire argument about God and his reality the takes place against a background of a profound, impenetrably incomprehensible, catastrophe. We call it "the fall." The fall of man into sin. The fall of the world into sin. The fall of all reality into sin. And it is against this tragic backdrop that the entire dynamic of salvation is worked out, in the life of Israel, in the life of Christ, in the life of the Church. The world, the age, the saeculum, the universe, needs to be "saved" from frustration, from corruption, from sin, from death. The Christian believes this salvation has been accomplished in Christ. The Christian believes this salvation comes through sacrificial love. The Christian believes this salvation is being worked out in space and time, by men and women of free will, who unite their sacrifices and sufferings to those of Christ, that the world, and souls, may be made holy, redeemed from frustration, corruption, and death. What does all this have to do with the document that will be published tomorrow? We know that the Church teaches, following the words of Christ, that marriage between a man and a woman is indissoluble. We know that the man and woman, who become a father and a mother, form a unity that no power in the world, not even the Church, can dissolve. And we know that this high standard, this perfect union of two imperfect beings, is one of the glories of our race. We must honor and praise those who have married and created families, and lived lives of mutual love and self-sacrifice. This is our faith. At the same time, we know how weak is the flesh, how prone to sin and error. We know how many fall -- we know, in fact, that all of us fall. And so we face the pastoral problem, made more grave in this secular age, of millions upon millions of couples who married and then separated, then sometimes sought again to be married, and sometimes again separated, in a series of efforts to find harmony and happiness in a fallen world. And Pope Francis, out of his great love for fragile human beings, wishes to extend a hand of love toward all. And the document will describe ways that the Church believes this can be done without contradicting the fundamental doctrine on marriage and its sublime dignity. In this sense, the document will be an appeal to many to consider a return to their first hopes, to their life of faith, to their belief in God, even after having wandered far off, like the Prodigal Son in the parable, who spends his inheritance in riotous living in Babylon. This appeal to return is what I expect from the document that will be released tomorrow. It is the desire of Pope Francis to be like the father who saw his returning son from far off, and went out on the road to meet him as he was coming home. ======================== Cardinal Ratzinger On Europe's Crisis of Culture (link) By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) Here is a translation of the lecture given in Italian by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, in the convent of Saint Scholastica in Subiaco, Italy, 11 years ago, on April 1, 2005, the day before Pope John Paul II died, and just two weeks before he was elected Pope. We are living in a time of great dangers and great opportunities for man and the world; a time which is also of great responsibility for us all. During the past century man's possibilities and his dominion over matter grew by truly unthinkable measures. However, his power to dispose of the world has been such as to allow his capacity for destruction to reach dimensions which at times horrify us. In this connection, the threat of terrorism comes spontaneously to mind, this new war without boundaries or fronts. The fear that it might soon get a hold of nuclear or biological weapons is not unfounded, and has made it necessary for lawful states to adopt internal security systems similar to those that previously existed only in dictatorships. The feeling remains, nevertheless, that, in reality, all these precautions are not enough, as a global control is neither possible nor desirable. Less visible, but no less disquieting, are the possibilities of self-manipulation that man has acquired. He has plumbed the depths of being, has deciphered the components of the human being, and is now capable, so to speak, of constructing man himself, who thus no longer comes into the world as a gift of the Creator, but as a product of our action, a product that, therefore, can also be selected according to the exigencies established by ourselves. Thus, the splendor of being an image of God no longer shines over man, which is what confers on him his dignity and inviolability, and he is left only to the power of his own human capacities. He is no more than the image of man. To this are added the great global problems: inequality in the distribution of the goods of the earth, growing poverty, and the more threatening impoverishment and exhaustion of the earth and its resources, hunger, sicknesses that threaten the whole world and the clash of cultures. All this shows that the growth of our possibilities has not been matched by a comparable development of our moral energy. Moral strength has not grown together with the development of science; rather, it has diminished, because the technical mentality relegates morality to the subjective realm, while we have need, precisely, of a public morality, a morality that is able to respond to the threats that weigh down on the existence of us all. The real and gravest danger in these times lies, precisely, in this imbalance between technical possibilities and moral energy. The security we need as a precondition of our freedom and our dignity cannot come, in the last analysis, from technical systems of control, but can, specifically, spring only from man's moral strength: Whenever the latter is lacking or is insufficient, the power man has will be transformed increasingly into a power of destruction. A new moralism It is true that a new moralism exists today whose key words are justice, peace and conservation of creation words that call for essential moral values of which we are in real need. But this moralism remains vague and thus slides, almost inevitably, into the political-party sphere. It is above all a dictum addressed to others, and too little a personal duty of our daily life. In fact, what does justice mean? Who defines it? What serves towards peace? Over the last decades we have amply seen in our streets and squares how pacifism can deviate toward a destructive anarchism and terrorism. The political moralism of the 70s, the roots of which are anything but dead, was a moralism that succeeded in attracting even young people full of ideals. But it was a moralism with a mistaken direction, in as much as it was deprived of serene rationality and because, in the last analysis, it placed the political utopia above the dignity of the individual man, showing itself even capable of arriving at contempt for man in the name of great objectives. Political moralism, as we have lived it and are still living it, does not open the way to regeneration, and even more, also blocks it. The same is true, consequently, also for a Christianity and a theology that reduces the heart of Jesus' message, the "kingdom of God," to the "values of the kingdom," identifying these values with the great key words of political moralism, and proclaiming them, at the same time, as a synthesis of the religions. Nonetheless, God is neglected in this way, notwithstanding the fact that it is precisely he who is the subject and cause of the kingdom of God. In his stead, great words (and values) remain, which lend themselves to all kinds of abuse. This brief look at the situation of the world leads us to reflect on today's situation of Christianity and, therefore, on the foundations of Europe; that Europe which at one time, we can say, was the Christian continent, but which was also the starting point of that new scientific rationality which has given us great possibilities, as well as great threats. Christianity, it is true, did not start in Europe, and therefore it cannot even be classified as a European religion, the religion of the European cultural realm. But it received precisely in Europe its most effective cultural and intellectual imprint and remains, therefore, identified in a special way with Europe. Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com Contor Accesări: 1006, Ultimul acces: 2026-09-27 09:59:41
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