Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Secularization, which often leads to secularism when it strays from the positive acceptance of the secular, is an arduous trial for faithful and pastors in living their Christian life,” the Holy Father Benedict XVI insisted in his address to the participants of the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture, whom he received in an audience on the morning of March 8. Recalling the theme for the encounter, “The Church and the Challenge of Secularism,” the Pope said, “Secularization, which appears among cultures as an imposition of the world and humanity without any reference to the Transcendent, pervades all aspects of daily life and leads to a mentality in which God is either completely or partially absent from existence and the human conscience. This secularization is not only an external threat to believers; it has also been a threat, for some time, in the very bosom of the Church herself. It undermines the Christian faith from deep within and, therefore, effects the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers.” The faithful live in the world and are influenced, if not conditioned, by “the culture of the image,” that imposes a practical denial of God: “God no longer seems necessary; it is no longer necessary to think about Him, or return to Him. Moreover, this predominantly hedonist and consumerist mentality leads both the faithful and pastors, on a mistaken path of superficiality and egocentrism that wounds ecclesial life.”
While in the past, many intellectuals announced the “death of God,” today we are witnessing “a sterile worship of the individual.” To avoid the risk of falling “into spiritual atrophy and an emptiness of heart,” Pope Benedict XVI stressed the urgent need to react, “making recourse to the high existential values that give meaning to life and can satisfy the longings of the human heart, in search of happiness: the dignity of the human person and his freedom, the equality of all men, the meaning of life and death and of all that awaits us after our earthly existence.”
Quoting the Servant of God John Paul II, who often mentioned “the urgency to find man’s cultural meeting ground and thereby transmit the Gospel message to him,” the guiding principle behind the establishment of Pontifical Council for Culture, Benedict XVI pointed out that “the contemporary man often has the impression that he no longer needs anyone in order to understand, explain, and dominate the universe; he feels that he himself is the center of it all, the measure of all.” Modern information technology often contributes, as well, “to the spread of many materialist and individualist components of the West, to the rest of the world cultures…The exalted light of reason-which is really very dim- since the Enlightenment, has radically substituted the light of faith, the light of God.”
At the close of his address, the Holy Father spoke of the great “challenges that the Church must face in this area,” and exhorted his listeners to continue the dialogue regarding “the characteristic specifications of faith and science. Each one, in fact, holds its own methods, contexts, objects of investigation, purposes, and limits, and should mutually respect and recognize the other’s legitimate range for autonomous action, each according to its own principles; both should serve man and humanity, favoring the integral development and growth of each and every person.”
The Pope concluded, saying, “I exhort pastors of the flock of God to a tireless and generous mission to counteract - in the field of dialogue and meeting between cultures, of announcement and testimony of the Gospel - the worrying phenomenon of secularization which weakens man and hinders his innate longing for the entire Truth. May Christ’s disciples, in light of the service that your particular Dicastery offers, continue announcing Christ in the heart of culture, because He is the light that illumines reason, man, and the world.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 10/03/2008; righe 49, parole 645)
