{"id":27352,"date":"2012-12-21T17:06:28","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T21:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2012\/12\/in-fractured-world-is-pope-ben\/"},"modified":"2012-12-21T17:06:28","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T21:06:28","slug":"in-fractured-world-is-pope-ben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2012\/12\/in-fractured-world-is-pope-ben\/","title":{"rendered":"In a fractured world is Pope Benedict calling for political engagement?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"benedict<\/a><\/p>\n

Pope Benedict
\ngave his annual address, a “State of the Church,” if you will, to the curial officials
\nof the Holy See today. <\/span><\/p>\n

You might say the content talk is crucially relevant for the
\nwork of the Church and the proclamation of the Gospel as he reviews key events
\nand focuses on some themes.  Among many things which need our attention and reflection,
\nthe Pope spoke about nature of man, family life, and inter-religious dialogue.
\nRegarding man in which he gave insight into, he speaks of how evil and destructive vague and
\nideological the “gender conscious crowd” is to the nature of the person and removes God from conversation. Read the full text<\/a> here.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pope notes the crisis of the family and its effect on society, caused by the
\nunwillingness to make a commitment and by unwillingness to suffer.  But he
\ngoes beyond the symptoms to diagnose the cause of the crisis. This talk is not an attack, it is an appeal to truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each of Pope
\nBenedict’s addresses to the Roman Curia are important, certainly the 2005
\naddress stands out, but today’s will be memorable. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s a section:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

First of
\nall there is the question of the human capacity to make a commitment or to
\navoid commitment. Can one bind oneself for a lifetime? Does this correspond to
\nman’s nature? Does it not contradict his freedom and the scope of his
\nself-realization? Does man become himself by living for himself alone and only
\nentering into relationships with others when he can break them off again at any
\ntime? Is lifelong commitment antithetical to freedom? Is commitment also worth
\nsuffering for? Man’s refusal to make any commitment – which is becoming
\nincreasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of freedom and
\nself-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering – means that man
\nremains closed in on himself and keeps his ‘I’ ultimately for himself, without
\nreally rising above it. Yet only in self-giving does man find himself, and only
\nby opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by
\nletting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of
\nhis humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human
\nexistence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the
\nexperience of being human are lost”.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim<\/a>, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir<\/a>: ‘one is not born a woman, one becomes so’ (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term ‘gender’ as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being.  They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defense of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AND<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In her dialogue with the state and with society, the Church does not, of course, have ready answers for individual questions. Along with other forces in society, she will wrestle for the answers that best correspond to the truth of the human condition. The values that she recognizes as fundamental and non-negotiable for the human condition she must propose with all clarity. She must do all she can to convince, and this can then stimulate political action.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Some questions I have:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n