From an address by Archbishop Charles Chaput at the Fifth Symposium Rome: Priests and Laity on Mission:
Having said all this, we still face a problem. And here it is: God has never been more absent from the Western mind than he is today. Additionally, we live in an age when almost every scientific advance seems to be matched by some increase of cruelty in our entertainment, cynicism in our politics, ignorance of the past, consumer greed, little genocides posing as “rights” like the cult of abortion, and a basic confusion about what – if anything at all – it means to be “human.”
Science and technology give us power. Philosophers like Feuerbach and Nietzsche give us the language to deny God. The result, in the words of Henri De Lubac, is not atheism, but an anti-theism built on resentment. In destroying God, man sees himself as “overthrowing an obstacle in order to gain his freedom.” The Christian understanding of human dignity claims that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Thomas Aquinas – whose feast we celebrate tomorrow – said that “In this [likeness to God] is man’s greatness, in this is man’s worth, in this he excels every creature.” But this grounding in God is exactly what the modern spirit rejects.
(Via: Insight Scoop)
January 28th, 2010 | 10:40 am
Once again we are treated to a right-wing bishop lecturing us on the sins of the West- entertainment, science and abortion. Funny how government-sponsored, society-accepted torture did not make his list.
“Ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” The Rubber Hose Right.
January 28th, 2010 | 11:36 am
Additionally, we live in an age when almost every scientific advance seems to be matched by some increase of cruelty in our entertainment, cynicism in our politics, ignorance of the past,
I do wonder if someone complaining about increased cruelty in entertainment is demonstrating ignorance of the past. First-person shooter video games and manipulative reality shows have nothing on bear baiting and public disembowelments.
January 28th, 2010 | 2:05 pm
Mark S: When sitting down to compile a list of What’s Wrong With the World as a side-note in what is essentially a philosophical address to a group of academics — please forgive the good Archbishop (or yours truly) for not nailing everything wrong with the world.
Nickp: Agreed. Of course, I must consistently remind myself that most bishops and priests remember a more wholesome age than any I’ve ever known in my brief years. Comparably speaking, we’re not exactly in the 50′s/early 60′s anymore.
January 28th, 2010 | 2:53 pm
Josh,
When inclined to view the past with rose tinted glasses, I try think about it in a way similar to John Rawls’s ‘Veil of Ignorance’ thought experiment. If I had no idea what my gender, race, or economic status would be, would I want to be transported back to the 1950s? Nope, I’d stick with 2010. Your mileage (and that of the archbishop) may vary.
January 29th, 2010 | 5:27 pm
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January 30th, 2010 | 10:21 am
Mark, The Bishop should not be critisized for not addressing every evil in the world. what he did point out were actions and trends that have far reaching effects on mans understanding of his place in the world. To compare several instances of “torture” with the wholesale acceptance of the deliberate death of millions of nascent human beings over the last 37 years is missing the forest for the trees.Torture is bad, abortion is bad, the unbridled use of scientific advances to create violent games is bad, a citizenry captured by the glitter of new things with the corresponding desire to possess them morphing into the need for them joins easily with a entitlement mentality that when disappointed turns to cynicism and moves us further from our true calling.My sense is that he was not speaking of all us but of what would appear to be trends that replace a considered understanding of who and what we are. Read from a different angle some of these things could just as easily be a Jeremiad from the left albeit for different reasons.Oh, rubber hoses are bad.
NickP, so since you can identify bad things from the past, mostly,things that the vast majority of people did not and do not engage in, and at least had a practical pupose, eating being one, is your point that these present games which involve killing as many of the virtual enemy as possible for no purpose other than the shear fun of it and to win a game and is practised by 10s of millions of people everyday and as recent studies have shown for many hours every day is your point that this has no negative effect on the perspectives of the participants and therefore is good , huh. Just asking.
February 16th, 2010 | 10:39 am
And one day I hope to see God so absent from our minds that bishops like this will be seen as crazy as the guys who try to bite their face off on the bus.
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