Cardinal Ratzinger Warns of 'Aggressive Secularism'

by Unknown

In an interview with the left-leaning Italian daily, La Repubblica, that later made headlines across Europe, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger warned of an "aggressive secular ideology which is worrying."

"In Sweden," said the 77-year old Bavarian prelate, "a Protestant pastor who had preached about homosexuality, based on a line from Scriptures, went to jail for one month. Laicism is no loner that element of neutrality which opens up spaces of freedom for all.

"It is being transformed into an, ideology which 'is imposed through politics and which does not give public space to the Catholic or Christian vision, which runs the risk of becoming something purely private and thus disfigured," he added.

Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, added:

"In this sense, a struggle exists and we must defend religious freedom against the imposition of an ideology which is presented as if it were the only voice of rationality, when it is only the expression of a 'certain' rationalism."

The cardinal's comments came just after members of the European Parliament. refused to approve Italian' Catholic politician Rocco' Buttiglione as European justice commissioner because of his views on homosexuals and marriage. His remarks were widely viewed as the opening of a new Vatican initiative to convince Europeans their culture is at a dramatic turning point with the demographic rise of Muslim Arabs, Turks, and north Africans.

"Negative birthrates' and immigration are changing Europe's ethnic makeup, he said, adding: "Above all we've gone from being a Christian culture to one of aggressive secularism which at times is intolerant."

Q. But for you, what is laicism?

A. A just laicism is religious freedom The state does not impose religion but it gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building, up society....

Q. Where is God in modem society?

A. He has been put on the sidelines. In political life, it seems almost indecent to speak of God, as if it were an attack on the freedom of those who do not believe. The world of politics follows its norms and paths, excluding God as something that does not belong to this world The same in the world of business, the economy, and private life. God remains marginalized.

To me, its seems necessary to rediscover, and the energy to do so exists, that even the political and economic spheres need moral responsibility, a responsibility that is born in man's heart and, in the end, has to do with the presence or absence of God. A society in which God is completely absent self destructs. We saw this in the great totalitarian regimes of the last century.

Q. A big issue is sexual ethics. The encyclical Humane Vitae produced a gap between the Magisterium and the practical behavior of the faithful. Is it time to remedy that?

A. For me, it is clear that we must continue to reflect. In his first years as Pope, John Paul II offered a new anthropological, person-centered approach to the problem, developing a very different vision from the relationship between the "me" and "you" of men and women.

It is true that the pill has given rise to an anthropological revolution of great dimensions. It has not been, as thought in the beginning, the only solution for difficult situations, but it has changed the vision of sexuality, the human being, and the body itself.

Sexuality has been separated from fecundity and in this way it has profoundly changed the concept of human life. The sexual act has lost its purpose and finality which before was clear and specific, so that all forms of sexuality have become equivalent. Above all, from this revolution comes the equalization between homosexuality and heterosexuality. This is why I say that Paul VI indicated a problem of great importance.

Q. Homosexuality is a topic that regards love between two people and not just mere sexuality. What can the Church do to understand this phenomenon?

A. Let me say two things. Above.all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people.

Q. Therefore you judge negatively the choice made in Spain?

A. Yes, because it is destructive to the family and society. The law creates morality or a moral form, since people habitually think that what the law affirms is morally allowed. And if we judge this union to be more or less equivalent to marriage, we have a society that no longer recognizes either the specific nature of the family, nor its fundamental character, that is to say, the nature of man and woman which is to create continuity — not only in a biological sense — for humanity.

For this reason the Spanish decision does not provide a real benefit to these people, since in this way we are destroying the fundamental elements of an order of law.

Q. Sometimes the Church, in saying no to everything, has met defeat. Should it not at least be possible for a pact of solidarity between two homosexuals to be recognized and protected by the law?

A. But to institutionalize an agreement of this type whether the lawmaker wants it or not would necessarily appear in public opinion like another type of marriage that would inevitably assume a relative value. Let us not forget that with these choices, to which Europe tends today — shall we say — in decline, we make a break from all the great cultures of humanity that have always recognized the very meaning of sexuality. That is, that men and women were created to be jointly the guarantee of the future of the humanity Not only a physical guarantee but also a moral one.

Reaction

Among the reactions to the cardinal's November 19 interview was an editorial, "Persecuted Christians," in one of England's leading newspapers, The London Telegraph, which described Ratzinger as 'perhaps the only man alive of whom it might be said that he is more Catholic than the Pope. Even though his enemies caricature him as the most bigoted of grand inquisitors, he knows John Paul II like nobody else. Among the college of cardinals, he is one of the few likely Successors who is the ailing Pontiff's intellectual equal. His long interview in yesterday's La Repubblica is thus an authentic reflection of the consensus inside the Vatican. It makes for disturbing reading''

After reciting a litany of negative signs — rising Muslim immigration, declining Mass attendance, the marginalization of Catholics from political life — the editorial proposes that the Catholic Church needs to drop some of its doctrinal positions for the sake of ecumenism and forging a united front with Protestant churches.

"If the cardinal's grim diagnosis is accurate, then the logic of the Christian predicament points toward ecumenical unity. The Vatican has sometimes spoken as if non-Catholic churches were mere sects. Yet the fastest-growing forms of Christianity are the evangelical movements emanating from America. The Catholic Church cannot lead the 'struggle' against secularism unless its leaders can acknowledge the sufferings and merits of their fellow Christians.

"If Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope, it is safe to assume that the reconversion of Europe would be his aim. But is this guardian of Vatican orthodoxy ready to consider compromise on matters of doctrine for the sake of a united Christian front against secularism and jihad? It is an enticing prospect."

A different view was taken by reporter Bernardo Cervellera of AsiaNews.it, the news service of the PIME missionaries.

Cervellera agreed with Ratzinger, observing that "today's Europe, that preaches its tolerance and openness to dialogue and input, has shown itself to be profoundly intolerant toward a minister who was appointed to the European Commission. For what reason? Because he is Catholic and his ideas on marriage and homosexuality do not coincide with the 'political correctness' that is so much in vogue these days....

"The manipulative and deceitful media campaign conducted against Minister Buttiglione was just the latest in a series of incidents.

"The European Union's intolerance toward the Christian vision has been expressed in many other ways: birth control campaigns in Asia, Africa, and South America involving Northern European politicians who propound abortion, contraception, and lessons against John Paul II, singling him out as the 'enemy' of the peoples in question; attempts at labeling as 'anti-feminist racism' Cardinal Ratzinger's document on the collaboration between men and women; the censuring of the monks of Mount Athos because they do not allow women to visit their monastery; the 1 proposal to outlaw veils. worn by nuns in Germany, the iconoclastic and pacifist fury of ZapAtero in Spain.

"All such attitudes of intolerance and delusions of limitless power are but the latest results in a plan to rip Europe from its Christian roots. And since, in point of fact, Christianity also provided Europe with a synthesis of values deriving from Judaism and Greco-Roman culture, this attempt to suffocate these roots amounts to simply wiping out Europe's history and identity... .

"To all this, the European Union simply replies with the intolerance of its formal democracy, which is just another face of philosophic relativism and economic fundamentalism.

"A Europe thus maimed cannot encounter other peoples and cultures: it can at the most barter in arms, industries, technology, low-cost manpower, all the while exporting its emptiness. Meanwhile, its economic violence, so intolerant to the religions of its past, is destined to create slaves for none other than a new divinity: the euro"

Deep Dismay

The concern at the Vatican over the "aggressive secularism" on the march in Europe was also addressed by Knight-Ridder's Vatican correspondent, Liz Sly, who wrote November 9, before the Ratzinger interview, of the frustration of curial officials that the new European Union's constitution failed to acknowledge Europe's Christian roots, as the Pope and top Catholic politicians across Europe had insisted it do.

"For the ailing Pope John Paul II, whose 26-year papacy has been marked by a dramatic expansion of the Vatican's authority worldwide, Catholicism's waning influence in Europe is a source of deep dismay," she wrote.

"The Pontiff expressed his regret about the constitution to worshipers at last Sunday's Mass in St. Peter's Square, urging Christians to continue to lobby Brussels.
"'Taking into account the Christian roots of the European continent remains fundamental for the future development of the union: he told the pilgrims in a voice that witnesses said was stronger than usual.

"The omission is more than symbolic; had the reference been included, the Vatican would have been able to challenge Europe-wide legislation that conflicted with its own teachings as unconstitutional, said Marco Politi, the Vatican correspondent for Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

"Instead," continued Sly, "the Church fears that its teachings will be swept aside, even in countries where its authority still holds sway, by the emerging new European bureaucracy.

"'There's a real feeling that the Church is under an attack, an aggression, and that it must defend itself against this wave of de-Christianization,' Politi said....

`The prospect hat such practices [i.e., homosexual marriages abortion] could take hold even in staunchly Catholic strongholds is being perceived by some powerful Church figures as a threat to Christianity's very existence. In much publicized comments last month, Renato [Cardinal] Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, attacked what he called a 'new holy inquisition' targeting Catholicism in Europe by groups 'motivated predominantly by prejudice toward all that is Christian.'

"It's not just a question of Christianity, or even Catholicism, said Archbishop John Foley, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

"'There's this militant secularism, a denial of spirituality, of the destiny of the human person, and it's a great concern,' he said. 'A number of Muslim countries are closer to us on these issues than some of the European countries'."

Another Voice

Another voice in the growing discussion is that of Fr. Giandomenico Mucci, who addressed it in the influential Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica.

"Anti-clericalism is a political view," he writes, borrowing a phrase from philosopher Richard Rorty. " It is the idea that ecclesiastical institutions, despite all the good they do, are dangerous for the health of democratic societies."

Yet, in the face of this anticlerical mentality, "in general, silence is kept," says Fr. Mucci, an expert in ecclesial affairs.

Articles that appear in Civilta Cattolica are reviewed by the Vatican Secretariat of State before publication.

In the article, Fr. Mucci states: "Laicism is a positive value, recognized by the Church when it means the autonomy of the civil and political sphere from the religious-ecclesiastical." He justifies it with three principles: "the inseparable character between politics and morality; the separation between political society and religious community; and the exclusion of agnosticism or state atheism.

"Laicism is profoundly linked with pluralism, which is the immediate consequence of freedom," he explains.

"For its part, the only thing the Church does is to show its concern not to confuse the plurality of culturally and politically legitimate options, with pluralism on the question of moral principles or of substantial values in the Christian conscience," the priest continues.

The article ends with a question: "Is there a new form of despotism at the door?"

This item 6256 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org