Pazdziernik II

Six Points, obviously contested, that are also obvious

George Weigel in The Pilot of the Archdiocese of Boston, reposted remarks that Pope Benedict XVI made "to Croatia's religious, political, business and cultural leaders in Zagreb's National Theater" in Zagreb, Croatia, in early June 2011.

The propositions of Pope Benedict are certainly obvious to me and many others I know. However, they are good to review and keep in mind as points that many, many contemporaries do not share for what ever reason — perhaps because they have never adequately reflected upon them?

1. Religious conviction is not something outside society; it is part of society's inner core: "Religion is not a separate area marked off from society...[but] a natural element within society, constantly recalling the vertical dimension: attentive listening to God as the condition for seeking the common good, for seeking justice and reconciliation in the truth."

2. The human element in religion is imperfect and flawed; there is no shame in admitting this, for reason can help refine religious passion: "Religions need always to be purified according to their true essence in order to correspond to their true mission."

3. Ancient religions should welcome the political achievements of modernity while calling modernity to open its windows and doors to a world of transcendent truth and love: "...the great achievements of the modern age -- the recognition and guarantee of freedom of conscience, of human rights, of the freedom of science and hence of a free society--should be confirmed and developed while keeping reason and freedom open to their transcendent foundation, so as to ensure that these achievements are not undone...The quality of social and civil life and the quality of democracy depend in large measure on this critical point--conscience, on the way it is understood and the way it is informed."

4. "Conscience" is not a matter of determining what I want to do and then doing it; "conscience" is my search for truths that can be known to be true and then binding myself to those truths, which stand in judgment on me and on society: "If, in keeping with the prevailing modern idea, conscience is reduced to the subjective field to which religion and morality have been banished, then the crisis of the West has no remedy and Europe is destined to collapse upon itself. If, on the other hand, conscience is rediscovered as the place in which to listen to truth and good, the place of responsibility before God and before fellow human beings -- in other words, the bulwark against all forms of tyranny -- then there is hope for the future."

5. Europe detached from its Christian roots will wither and die, for, in the name of a dessicated secularism, it will have cut itself off from one of the sources of its cultural vitality: "I am grateful to [those who remind us] of the Christian roots of many of the cultural and academic institutions of this country, as indeed all over the European continent. We need to be reminded of these origins, not least for the sake of historical truth, and it is important that we understand these roots properly, so that they can feed the present day, too."

6. The Church does not seek a direct role in politics; the Church forms the people who can shape the culture that makes democratic self-governance work: "It is by forming consciences that the Church makes her most specific and valuable contribution to society. It is a contribution that begins in the family and is strongly reinforced in the parish, where...[we] learn to deepen [our] knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, the 'great codex' of European culture..."

The Restoration of Responsibility

British Prime Minister David Cameron, 43, of the Conservative Party and PM since May 2010, recently had some edifying, insightful and exacting analysis on the summertime riots in Great Britian: Prime Minister says British riots showed consequences of relativism .

What last week has shown is that this moral neutrality, this relativism - it's not going to cut it any more,” Cameron said in an August 15 speech delivered at a youth center in his constituency of Oxfordshire. “One of the biggest lessons of these riots is that we've got to talk honestly about behavior and then act - because bad behavior has literally arrived on people's doorsteps.”

Widespread rioting in London from August 6 through 9 left five people dead, and has resulted in the arrests of over 2,700 people. The days of chaos began after a 29-year-old Tottenham father of four, Mark Duggan, was shot and killed by north London police officers attempting to arrest him during an illegal firearms operation.

In his Oxfordshire speech, Cameron denied that the resulting wave of looting and burning was a form of social or political protest. He stressed that participants came from all racial backgrounds, and said the participants “targeted high street shops, not Parliament.”

And those attributing the violence to poverty, he countered, were insulting “the millions of people who, whatever the hardship, would never dream of making others suffer like this.”

Cameron said the riots were ultimately “about behavior” – specifically, an “indifference to right and wrong,” “complete absence of self-restraint,” and a “twisted moral code.”

He placed heavy blame for this condition on “politicians shying away from speaking the truth about behavior, about morality,” saying their timidity had “helped to cause the social problems we see around us.”

“We have been too unwilling for too long to talk about what is right and what is wrong,” Cameron declared. “We have too often avoided saying what needs to be said - about everything from marriage to welfare to common courtesy.”

He described a political climate in which “you can't say that marriage and commitment are good things - for fear of alienating single mothers.”

“You don't deal properly with children who repeatedly fail in school - because you're worried about being accused of stigmatizing them. You're wary of talking about those who have never worked and never want to work - in case you're charged with not getting it, being middle class and out of touch.”

“In this risk-free ground of moral neutrality,” he lamented, “there are no bad choices, just different lifestyles.”

He went on to name many of the social disorders fostered by a morally neutral attitude: “Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline … Communities without control.”

The prime minister said the British “must fight back against the attitudes and assumptions that have brought parts of our society to this shocking state.”

And the government, while not all-powerful, will have to play its part. “People's behaviour does not happen in a vacuum,” Cameron pointed out. “It is affected by the rules government sets, and how they are enforced; by the services government provides, and how they are delivered; and perhaps above all, by the signals government sends about the kinds of behavior that are encouraged and rewarded.”

...

“Families matter,” he stated. “I don't doubt that many of the rioters out last week have no father at home. Perhaps they come from one of the neighborhoods where it's standard for children to have a mum and not a dad.”

“So if we want to have any hope of mending our broken society, family and parenting is where we've got to start.”

Cameron said he wanted a “family test” applied to all future domestic policies.

“If it hurts families, if it undermines commitment, if it tramples over the values that keeps people together, or stops families from being together, then we shouldn't do it.”

...

He closed by emphasizing that every sector of British society must examine its conscience in the wake of the riots.

“Government doesn't make the video games or print the magazines or produce the music that tells young people what's important in life,” he pointed out. “In the highest offices, the plushest boardrooms, the most influential jobs, we need to think about the example we are setting.”

Cameron stressed that behavior at the top of British society showed clear signs of the same moral confusion found elsewhere.

“In the banking crisis, with MPs' expenses, in the phone hacking scandal, we have seen some of the worst cases of greed, irresponsibility and entitlement.”

“The restoration of responsibility has to cut right across our society.”