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July 14, 2008
I do not understand the purpose of World Youth Day. What are the Catholic pilgrims coming for? There are no sacred sites in Sydney. The media go on about sex abuse in the Catholic Church, the organizers talk in terms of numbers, and the NSW Government thinks in terms of major events and tourist dollars. What is the Church trying to achieve with World Youth Day in terms of needing God and combating religious indifference and disenchantment?
Petty
The Catholic youth on Radio National Breakfast talk in terms of expressing their living faith, yet we have a church that reckons the only Christian Church is that of Rome. Sinners can be absolved of their sins with penance indulgences if they attend the traveling journey of the cross, yet the Church deals with dissent in its own ranks (eg., that of liberal Catholicism) with a heavy repressive hand.
That implies the Catholic Church has a narrow kind of religious awakening in Australia in mind in this historical moment, when the signs are interpreted by Benedict as faith and belief returning and taking new forms in a secular liberal society.
I hope that we will be spared the sermons from an authoritarian leadership about the spiritually dead, the soulless, secular uncaring, of a liberal Australia society violating the sacredness of life etc etc, as well as the repeat of the attacks on Islam and Muslim-Australians for undermining western civilization. The recent messages from Australian bishops and Benedict have been about an aggressive "new secularism" that aspires to deny religion by shrinking it to a strictly private affair.
Can I suggest a theme? Sermons on reconciliation with a liberal Australia and secular humanism instead of ones on a heartless and godless liberalism that the seeks to establish atheism as the de facto established religion. It is about time the Catholic Conservatives started some sort of reconciling process with liberal Australia, rather than seeing political liberalism as an attitude of rebellion against the confinements and restraints of the traditions and power of the established authorities.
The history of conservative Catholicism is that democracy is a challenge to be overcome, rather than a plausible form of politics for the City of Man; and that they saw fascism, as a necessary evil to save Catholicism from Communism. It was only in 1963 with Pacem in Terris that the Church finally acknowledged the plausibility of political democracy.
One way to begin this process is through the principles of subsidiarity, which is the Catholic Church's understanding of federalism. This principle is usually unpacked in term of the best government is that which is closest to the people---that is, central government should delegate as much power as possible to local authorities who are clearly more aware of local needs and conditions.
Therefore, the leviathan size and continual growth of the national government in Canberra should be decried by conservatives, because this is in direct contradiction with the principle of subsidiarity as taught by Catholic social teaching. We rarely hear that kind of argument from Catholic conservatives. What we get is a narrative about beleaguered Christian religion, which the very foundation of western civilization, being under siege from an intolerant new secularism.
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Gary,
Benedict XV1 says that young people today lack hope and are perplexed by the problems of a confusing world. Presumably the Catholic Church is there to give them guidance and restore their hope. To be happy we need God. We need God to create a better world.
A difficult message to sell, given the problems of sexual abuse in the Church and its tardiness in dealing with it, despite the Church's moral teaching being very clear that sexual abuse of children is wrong.