Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bujumbura (Agenzia Fides) - "The new global ethic" was the focus of the formation seminar sponsored by the Episcopal Conference of Burundi (CECAB), which was held from September 5 to 7 at the Procure Saint Charles Borromeo in Ngozi. According to what Don Lambert Niciteretse reports to Fides, Secretary General of the CECAB, the symposium, which was moderated by Margaret A. Peeters in Brussels, was attended by more than sixty people representing various sectors of the life of the Church: Bishops, with some of their closest collaborators, the Rectors of the major seminaries in Burundi with a few moral theology, ethics and philosophy Professors, and the major Superiors of the local religious congregations, as well as some responsibles of the interdiocesan services.
"With this initiative - writes don Niciteretse – the Bishops of Burundi wanted to make sure that the first pastoral operators of the Church of Burundi were informed about the challenges of the new cultural revolution, with its new global ethic and new language in order to help them to perceive the consequences of this situation for evangelization, faith, the Church and the society in Burundi".
Professor Peeters clarified aspects of the globalization of Western cultural revolution, its key concepts and operational mechanisms. She offered a historical and institutional framework of the revolution brought about by globalization and showed the strategies and techniques of the agents of social transformation.
According to the rapporteur, now a global language has prevailed in all spheres of human life and the concepts have become ambivalent. In everyday language, some concepts have been replaced by others that diminish the ethics relegating it to a very low level. Many human and Christian values are therefore challenged by these new formulations. As a result we are losing the concepts of good and evil. Ethics is no longer ruled by what is right but by what is technically possible. Man wants to take God’s place, but denying God, man denies himself and his life has no meaning. It is noted that the ideologies that govern the world are destructive ideologies and that Satan is throwing in the destruction Church members.
Faced with these destructive ideologies - stressed the rapporteur - the faithful need to carry on a struggle for life and truth, through testimony, to build a civilization of love. In all this we must remain rooted in Christ and in faith.
Meeting the challenges of the new global ethic, the participants proposed concrete actions to address the destructive ideologies brought by the new global ethic. During the debate the urgent need to inform and educate the consciences of the faithful to understand the dangers they face was highlighted.
At the end of the Seminary, the Bishops decided to establish a commission to monitor what is happening in the global governance so that the Church is aware of the cultural revolution under way. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 09/09/2011)
