Christianity must rescue modern culture: Cardinal Scola
September 26, 2011
Cardinal Angelo Scola said that the Church must respond to a crisis in contemporary culture, during his installation as Archbishop of Milan.
The modern world is experiencing a “convulsive tradition,” with a breakdown in political, social, and cultural models, the Italian cardinal said. This crisis, he argued, should not be seen as a reason for deserting the traditions of the Church. On the contrary, he said, at such moments of crisis the world desperately needs the witness of the Church.
Cardinal Scola quoted one of his many illustrious predecessors in the Milan see, Cardinal Giovannit Battisti Montini—later Pope Paul VI—who observed that “Christ is unknown, forgotten, absent in much of our contemporary culture.” The result, Cardinal Montini warned, would include “serious consequences for the personal and community life of Church and society.”
Cardinal Scola said of that those who reject the Church today: “Typically, they are not against the Christian spirit of life, but they cannot see its use in their daily lives and in those of their loved ones.” This is the great challenge for Catholicism today: to find ways to speak to the culture, he said. “Christianity that does not embrace every aspect of human life, which does not become culture, cannot find a way to express itself anymore.”
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