Paedophile priests and the Pope

by Marcello Pera. President of the Italian Senate (2001-2006). Marcello Pera is an Italian philosopher and politician. He was the President of the Italian Senate from 2001 to 2006. In the wake of the allegations of priestly sexual abuse and the accusations of inaction on the part of Catholic Church authorities, he sent this article to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. In the article published on 19 March 2010, he argues that beneath the façade lies an ongoing battle between secularism and Christianity. The abuses are only an excuse for this war. Pera is an agnostic. .

The recent breaking news in Germany of paedophile or homosexual priests is a direct attack against the Pope. It will be a serious mistake to think that the blame will not stick given the graveness of the matter. It would be an even greater mistake if one thinks that the matter will blow over for good as happened in similar situations in the past. This is different.

There is a war going on. And this war is targeted not against the Pope himself per se, because that is impossible on this matter. This is because Benedict XVI has made himself impregnable thanks to his image, serenity, clarity and to his doctrine. His gentle smile is enough to defeat an entire army of opponents. No, the war is between secularism and Christianity. The secularists know that if mud were splashed on the white robe, it would stain the church, and if the church is stained, so would the Christian religion. That is why the secularists accompany their campaign with questions like, “Who will continue to bring children to the Church?” or “who will continue to send boys to Catholic schools?” or even, “who will cure our little children in a Catholic hospital or clinic?”

A few days ago, one such secularist completely missed the point by writing that “the extent of the spread of sexual abuse of children by priests undermines the very legitimacy of the Catholic Church as the guarantor of the education of minors”. To this writer, it does not seem to matter that this is a judgement that has no foundation in reality, because the so-called “extent of the spread” is a vague term. What percentage of priests are paedophiles? One, Ten percent? All of them? It does not also seem to matter that the statement is devoid of logic. One only need to replace the word “priest” with “teacher”, “politicians”, or “journalists” in order to undermine the legitimacy of public schools, the senate or of the newspaper. What matters to such persons is to make insinuations even at the cost of using coarse arguments. Priests are paedophiles therefore the Church has no moral authority… therefore Catholic education is dangerous… therefore Christianity is a fraud and a danger!

The battle is pitched between secularism and Christianity. To find a simile, one must cast his mind back to Nazism and communism. The medium has changed but the end remains the same. Today, just like yesterday, they ardently desire the destruction of religion. The price Europe paid for this destructive fury was its own freedom. And it is incredible that Germany while still beating its breast in remembrance of the price it inflicted on all of Europe (which today has become democratic) seem today to have forgotten so soon. Germany now does not seem to understand that democracy itself will be lost if Christianity is erased. The destruction of religion leads to the destruction of reason. Nowadays it will not be triumph of secular reason but the introduction of a new barbarism.

On the ethical plane, it is the barbarism of those who kill the foetus because its life will be detrimental to the “mental health” of the mother. They are the ones who say that an embryo is a “blob of cells” suitable for experiments. They are those who kill an old person because he no longer has a family to care for him. They are the ones who hasten the death of the child because it is no longer conscious and is incurable; who believe that “parent A” and “parent B” is equivalent to “father” and “mother”; who think that faith is like the tail bone, a body organ that is no longer participating in the evolutionary process because Erect and Independently standing man no longer needs a tail. And so on.

On the other hand, considering the political angle of this secularist war against Christianity, barbarism will lead to the destruction of Europe. This is because once you destroy Christianity, the end result is multi-culturalism, which believes that each group has a right to its own cultures; Relativism, which says that one culture is as good as the other; Pacifism, which denies the existence of evil or maintains that rhetorical and irresponsible Europe does not need to have its own identity, but should rather be a container of all identifies. After all these claim, they go into Strasbourg Cathedral to exclaim: “Now we need the Christian soul of Europe”.

This war against Christianity would not be so dangerous if Christians understood what was going on. Instead a great majority of them live in incomprehension. Theologians are frustrated by the intellectual supremacy of Benedict XVI. There are unsure bishops who believe that compromising with modernity is the best way to update the Christian message. There are cardinals suffering a crisis of faith who are beginning to suggest that priestly celibacy is not a dogma and that it would perhaps be better to reconsider it. There are plush Catholic intellectuals who think that there is a feminine question within the Church and an unresolved problem between Christianity and sexuality. There are Episcopal conferences that being out of touch with daily realities, adopt an “open door” policy with everyone, and yet lack the courage to denounce the aggressions and humiliations which Christians suffer by being continually brought to the dock and forced to defend their cause. Or those senators who show off a beautiful homosexual foreign affairs minister, while at the same time attacking the Pope on every ethical issue; or those born in the west who think that the west must be secular i.e. anti-Christian.

The secularist war will continue. If for nothing else, because a Pope like Benedict XVI who smiles but does not shrink an iota feeds it. If however one understands why he does not yield, one would then take up the battle without sitting back to await the next shot. Whoever limits himself only to showing solidarity with the Pope, is either someone who enters the Garden of Olives at night and secretly or is yet to understand what is going on.

The Coming Secularist Storm

BY Father Alfonso Aguilar, LC

National Catholic Register. November 30-December 6, 2008 Issue | Posted 11/24/08 at 11:41 AM. Fr. Alfonso Aguilar of the Legionaries of Christ distinguishes between secularity (a good thing) and secularism (bad).

In the last few years, the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ has been celebrated as “winter holidays” with “holiday trees” and “season’s greetings.” December has become the month of the “Christmas wars”: In some schools and public squares, Nativity scenes and Christmas carols are forbidden or replaced by non-religious displays and songs.

By now, we are used to seeing movies, TV shows, novels, papers, magazines, websites, works of modern art and stage plays mock religion, especially Christian symbols and practices. The Catholic Church authorities are often portrayed as criminals involved in various kinds of malicious activities. Anti-Christian legislation isn’t rare. At some Catholic schools, what students learn is not inspired by the Gospel.

We live in a secularized world — and we are worried that, post-election, it will only get worse. The practice and public expression of our faith will be increasingly hindered. Our children will find it difficult to be authentically Christian.

“The secularizing process is the heartbeat of modernity,” said Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, archbishop of Toledo, Spain, at a 2007 conference on “Christianity and Secularization” held at the Legionaries of Christ-run European University of Rome.

“Silencing or abandoning God or confining him to the private sphere is undoubtedly the defining theme of our bleak times in the West. There is no other movement to be compared with it, not even the loss of the moral sense.”

Pope Benedict seems to agree. Secularization is a constant theme in his speeches and writings. “Secularization, which presents itself in cultures by imposing a world and humanity without reference to transcendence, is invading every aspect of daily life and developing a mentality in which God is effectively absent, wholly or partially, from human life and awareness,” the Holy Father said to the members of the Pontifical Council for Culture on March 8, 2008.

“This secularization is not only an external threat to believers, but has been manifest for some time in the heart of the Church herself. It profoundly distorts the Christian faith from within, and consequently, the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers.”

So, what is secularization and secularism? How is it possible that the Christian West has become the anti-God civilization?

Secularization, Secularity and Secularism

Let us begin by clarifying concepts — and by defining a few pairs of opposite terms.

“Sacred” is whatever is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity, or is worthy of religious veneration. Churches and chalices, for instance, are sacred places and vessels.

“Secular” (from the Latin saeculum) refers to everything which is not sacred or concerned with religion and relates to what is worldly or temporal.

To “sanctify” is to consecrate — to set apart to a sacred purpose or to a religious use. By contrast, to “secularize” is to make a sacred reality become profane, not religious. The process to attain this end is called “secularization.”

From the moral and religious points of view, the words secular, secularize and secularization are neutral. Money, technology and family are secular realities. To secularize political power — to separate it from ecclesiastical authority — is most beneficial and in accordance to the Gospel, as we learned in the European Middle Ages.

Secularization is, therefore, a concept that has no negative connotations. In the West, secularization usually refers to the historical process, initiated around the 13th century, by which society has increasingly become autonomous from religious and ecclesiastical influence. It also refers to the results of that process.

Secularization had two outcomes in the West. The first one is called “secularity,” which consists of the right autonomy of earthly and human things — such as the state, culture, economy, politics, social customs, art and sciences — from the Church and her rules. A secular state, for instance, is religiously non-confessional. Dress codes and scientific endeavors are not regulated by religious authority.

The second outcome is called “secularism,” a term coined by British writer George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906). It consists in the rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations in all areas of the public square. The “Christmas war” is waged in the name of secularism.

From the moral point of view, secularity is intrinsically good, because it is in harmony with the will of the Creator. “All things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order,” the Second Vatican Council says (Gaudium et Spes, The Church in the Modern World, No. 36). “Man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of the individual sciences or art.”

The autonomy of earthly affairs is right inasmuch as it is relative, depending on God and conformed to his will expressed in the natural moral law.

Secularism, instead, is intrinsically wrong — it intends to achieve an absolute independence of temporal affairs from God and his moral law. It pretends to replace God’s role with man’s.

Secularity affirms the autonomy of the earthly spheres from religion but not in opposition to it. Secularism intolerantly seeks the annihilation of religion.

Our concern is not about secularization in the abstract, but about secularism.

Secularism Today

Secularism suffuses all areas of society — namely politics, culture, social life, religious practice and the Catholic Church.

In the political arena, we face anti-Christian and anti-religious legislation that forbids, for instance, religious symbols and group prayer in public, or crushes the objection of conscience in Catholic hospitals.

A state with secularist trends is indifferent or even hostile to confessional schools and charities that objectively help society flourish. Secularism is implemented by anti-life and anti-family policies as well as by policies that promote “alternative” types of family, such as same-sex “marriages.”

The cultural milieu is constantly bombed by a secularist agenda. Take, for instance, the false opposition to faith and science promoted by scientists like Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger and Carl Sagan, or by organizations like AAI (Atheist Alliance International).

Anti-religious bioethics is fostered by thinkers like Peter Singer and by the inhuman practices of in vitro fertilization and experimentation with embryos. Psychology is often taught in college and practiced clinically with no reference to God and religion. Academic philosophy neglects or rationalizes man’s natural search for God, as in the case of Daniel Dennett, author of the 2006 book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

An easy way to provide a negative view of religion in general and of Christianity in particular is the manipulation of history. To prove it, see the books by Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, or watch movies like Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code.

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, whose first installment was brought to the big screen by the 2006 The Golden Compass movie, was explicitly written “to kill God.” For a long time now, religion has been ignored or attacked in pop music, literature and the entertainment industry.

Social life and customs have been increasingly secularized, too. Sunday and the liturgical feasts like Christmas and Easter have lost much of their sacred meaning.

Life, sex and death have been profaned by practices such as abortion, embryo selection, “free sex,” homosexuality, assisted suicide, the abandonment of the sick and the elderly, and secular funerals.

The most appalling expression of secularism might be found in the silent distancing of entire populations from religious practice and even from any reference to the faith. The Church today is confronted more by indifference and practical unbelief than by atheism.

The Second Vatican Council considered this spiritual drama as one of the most serious problems of our times (see Gaudium et Spes, No. 19). It is, in fact, less visible than militant atheism but more perilous, because it is subtly spread by the dominant culture in the subconscious of believers.

Secularism is also manifest “in the heart of the Church herself,” as Pope Benedict noted. “It profoundly distorts the Christian faith from within, and consequently, the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers.”

To be aware of the Pope’s point, think of the way the Church’s magisterium is opposed by theologians and believers, and of the loss of the supernatural sense in the liturgy, sacraments, priesthood, charity work and ascetic life.

Although secularism is ubiquitous, it doesn’t dominate over all society. Many forces oppose it. Yet, we need to understand its nature and realize how it suffuses various areas of our world.

Knowing the enemy is the first step to overcome it. Next week: Step two.