... Split in Conscience" he sees in some of the responses so far to Caritas in Veritate:
As Cardinal Josef Ratzinger pointed out more than 25 years ago, the political terms “liberal” and “conservative” are grossly misleading when applied to the Kingdom of God. They are especially so when applied to the ongoing evangelical mission of the Church, which is to draw all men to Christ, to work while the light lasts, to be a “light to the Gentiles.”
The most destructive aberrations in social and political thought of the post-war era have arisen from the application of these artificial constructs to the human community: left versus right, liberal versus conservative, neo-liberal versus neo-conservative, love versus truth, justice versus mercy, etc, etc. These adversarial templates present to us as fact certain images that function in the mind much the same way as does myth, faith systems, and symbols. But myths, if they are not based in reality, can create artificial dichotomies that derive from damage done to man’s concept of himself and his societies. They alter consciousness, the psychology of perception at its very roots. And thus they alter conscience. This in turn largely determines the choices we make and the actions that come from them.
While the templates may have a strictly limited value
in their particular sphere of reference, they become destructive to the
degree that they displace or negate “the whole truth about Man.” The
slow mutation of the crucial templates since the end of the Cold War
has not brought about the end of dehumanizing forces at work in the
world. It is part of our current state of delusion to think that the
fall of major Marxist regimes has ushered in a new era in which freedom
largely reigns, and in which the spread of democracy has taken a leap
forward in a determined historical process.
The truth is that the errors inherent in all forms of Materialism,
including Marxism, varieties of Socialism, and certain kinds of
exploitive Capitalism, have now spread throughout the world as the
great leveler and engine of societies. Theocratic tyrannies (radical
Islamicism being the most obvious) are a different category, yet they
and the Materialist societies have one thing in common, and it is a
decisive thing, a most deadly thing: In their anthropology and
practice, each in their way minimalize, where they do not negate
altogether, the value of man—every man, any man from conception to
natural death.
Pope Benedict’s stunning new encyclical cuts
across all ideological lines, calling all mankind to an examination of
conscience regarding our fundamental approach to the meaning of the
human person. He does not speak about mankind in the abstract, not as
“the masses”, not as geopolitical statistics or economic utilities, but
as the entire community of human beings in this world, each possessing
inherent rights and duties. We are, he says, “the Family of Man.” Thus,
the encyclical challenges human enterprises of every sort to see
farther and deeper than we have until now, to understand that the
development of a truly human world can only be based in solidarity with
all members of the community: “The truth of development consists in its
completeness: if it does not involve the whole man and every man, it is
not true development.” (C in V, n. 18)
The Pope warns that globalization’s principle new feature, the
“explosion of worldwide interdependence,” presents colossal risks, for
“without the guidance of charity in truth, this global force could
cause unprecedented damage and create new divisions within the human
family.” (C in V, n. 33).
Read the entire piece over on the LifeSiteNews.com website.
• Michael O'Brien's author page on Ignatius Insight
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