The story comes out vague because it did not carry any background on why the Pope gave such a message to the young Catholics in Spain. Another story by AP, this time on the Pope's comments on "profit-at-all-cost mentality" gives us a little insight.
The Pope's visit was timed ahead of Spain's elections in the fall. The story said that, "While the church officially keeps out of politics, it will be sure to be watching closely because the outcome could affect Spain's direction on hot-button ethical issues".
Among the hot-button issues are "social reforms, including gay marriage and a law allowing 16-year-olds to get abortions without parental consent" which is being supported by the Socialists. On the other side of the political fence are "the conservatives which tend to back the church's thinking on such issues".
I am not very familiar with the issues on gay marriage, but reading some news items in the Internet I understand that gays want same-sex marriage legalized. I don't really get the point on why gays should make a big fuzz on the legalization of same-sex marriage when no country has a law prohibiting people of the same sex from living together.
Personally, I consider same-sex marriage as a non-issue. Since there is no law prohibiting people of the same sex from living together, why can't they just live together quietly? If there is any country banning people of the same sex from living together, then they should take their campaign there.
Abortion is quite a ticklish issue. It immediately raises a legitimate debate on whether we have the right to end the life of an innocent baby, aside from the psychological effects of such an act on the mother. It also raises questions on whether a 16-year-old girl is mature enough to decide for herself.
Abortion, especially involving teenage girls, is a complicated issue that has no easy answer. The issue, along with same-sex marriage, gives us a clear notion of what the Pope calls as "fashionable ideas" and why he raised the concern about people who tend to "take shelter in the here and now ... take refuge in their own opinion" and believe that "they need no roots or foundation other than themselves".
Indeed, our relativist values have generally made each of us an island among ourselves. There's an apt Filipino term for that: Kanya-kanya or to each his own. As life gets more complicated since the dawning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, we have been slowly shedding off old-fashioned values, recoil into our individual shells and become more self-centered.
That brings us to the Pope's other gripe about Big Business's profit-at-all cost mentality. The Pope gave the message against the backdrop of the world's economies in shambles, from the United States to Europe and the Third-World countries, because nations as well as people tend to look after their own vested interests more than the common good.
The phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the newspaper "News of the World" in the United Kingdom recently, clearly amplified this issue. As the investigation of the scandal goes on, it appears that other newspapers run by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch were involved in it. To get ahead of competition, they have to violate the rights of people into whose lives they want to pry.
That brings us to the Pope's warning against our tendency to create "new gods" and to "believe that (we) need no roots or foundation other than (ourselves) ... to decide what is true or not, what is good and evil, what is just and unjust; who should live and who can be sacrificed in the interests of other preferences; leading each step to chance, with no clear path, letting (ourselves) be led by the whim of each moment."
The Pontiff's message opens a window to a sweeping landscape of what's going on around us, from the biblical times to what we now fondly call as a modern world, as we rush into the future in a journey that has no clear path but guided by random impulses. Civilization, which is supposed to bring us lofty ideals, gave us advanced technologies but has not lifted us from our banality.
Awed by the advances of science, which many of us has spun into a new god, we have replaced our old-fashioned values with self-centered ethics to get ahead in life. Many of us have discarded the virtue of humility for a new code of aggressiveness in our quest to ascend in the corporate ladder, even if that means stepping on the toes of other people.
Blinded by the allure of the worldly glitz and glitter, we are gradually abandoning, if we still have not abandoned, our spiritual quests because materialist science is teaching us that we have no soul, there is no life after death and hence we are not accountable to anybody but ourselves.
We have ceased to believe in our spirituality or religion as our compass in life's journey in "the here and now" because we have found human reason to be our new compass, forgetting that our relativist values have made us turn to reason merely as a convenient tool to justify what we have done, what we are doing and what we want to do.
Our relativist values give the Big Business on Wall Street the reason to put human conscience into the back burner and seek more privileges from the US government, although their owners and executives have amassed wealth more than what they need, even at a time when the rest of the American citizens are suffering from the economic slump that the corporate giants themselves have caused.
Our relativist values have driven our politicians into thievery in so many countries in blind pursuits to build material wealth, despite the admonition in the Bible not to amass wealth that rust. Corruption is no longer confined to Third World countries. Signs of it are slowly creeping in advance countries like the United States and Britain.
It is sad that in our shifting preferences for what is material, a growing number of hard-core scientists have turned to attacking religion for all the troubles of the world by looking at the flaws of churches - the wrongdoings of priests, pastors and other church leaders as if science itself has no flaws - instead of building on the positive virtues that the Faith has bequeathed to mankind.
A case of looking at the hole instead of the doughnut.
Please visit my other blog Fun in Life hyperlink http://www.salt-funstories.blogspot.com
smartautowarranty.com is available across the United States.
SimpleTuition is the smart way to choose student loans. We are dedicated to helping students and their families through the confusing education loan process by providing innovative and effective tools, resources, and most importantly, choices that help students and families make the best choice for them. This offer is available only in the United States.
Snap Dollars is available only in the US and Canada
No comments:
Post a Comment