I had occasion to read a letter written by one Mr Ratzinger to some other chaps in his organisation who he holds responsible for the management of said organisation in the USA. But before I go further, I should point out that I mean no disrespect to the gentleman by referring to him as Mr Ratzinger. Bearing in mind that I don't believe there are any gods, let alone the one he not only claims to exist, but also claims to represent, it would be hypocritical of me if I was to use a title which implies that such an entity exists. However, I suspect that some people who hold him in awe will already have switched off their brains (quite possibly a long time before they began reading this).
But back to that letter. I hardly know where to start. There are so many things in it which could do with examination, but I'll just pick up on one or two. After all, you can read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions, if you feel so inclined.
Let's dive in at the third paragraph which ends with the following sentence: "When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society."
"Dimension of ultimate mystery"? He's been reading too much Deepak Chopra! And is he really suggesting that his organisation doesn't exhibit totalitarian tendencies? Or perhaps 'totalitarian readings' is something else?
Skipping forward to paragraph six, he writes of "grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism". I'm a tad confused. Is he saying that good old common or garden secularism is okay, but it's this pesky radical secularism which is the problem? And what exactly is the difference. Is it that the common or garden variety is okay because that's the kind which nobody defends, or, if they do, they say what they have to say very quietly? Does secularism only become radical when people say "Hey! I'm standing up for secularism and I wish to complain about your behaviour!"
But wait. In the very next paragraph he writes of "reductive secularism". Ah... you've got me there. I haven't a clue what he means by that. True, I could spend time trying to figure out what he might mean by it, but I get the feeling that he simply can't bring himself to write secularism as a word on its own. Mind you, he does write of the secular sphere a bit further on.
In the penultimate paragraph he writes of "the great moral issues of our time: respect for God’s gift of life, the protection of human dignity and the promotion of authentic human rights." Bugger me if he hasn't done the same thing with human rights! Why not just human rights? Are they somehow different from authentic ones?
I've heard of passive-aggressive, but I've never been absolutely certain I really know what it means. Maybe those are examples?
But fear not, my friends. It's all gonna be okay because we learn in the final paragraph that it's all about "the building of the civilization of love."
With apologies to the memory of Tommy Cooper
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Well, it is Sunday. And, as is my custom, I will share with you the song which was the first randomly selected track from my phone's music player this morning. To be honest, I'm a bit ambivalent about Cat Stevens, as he used to be known. I like this track but I can't get to grips with why he decided to get religion as he did. But then, I suppose he was a bit new-age-spiritual, and perhaps Moonshadow was a clue to his future path.
Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam home page
And, Posterous, if you are listening, I wish you would sort out your music player so it displays the tags properly. All the tracks I upload have ID3 v2.3 tags which ought to work! Grrrr!
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