At the root of this loss of hope is an
attempt to promote a vision of man apart from God and apart from Christ.
This sort of thinking has led to man being considered as “the absolute centre
of reality, a view which makes him occupy – falsely – the place of God and
which forgets that it is not man who creates God, but rather God who creates
man. Forgetfulness of God led to the abandonment of man”. It is therefore “no
wonder that in this context a vast field has opened for the unrestrained
development of nihilism in philosophy, of relativism in values and morality,
and of pragmatism – and even a cynical hedonism – in daily life”. European
culture gives the impression of “silent apostasy” on the part of people who
have all that they need and who live as if God does not exist. This is the
context for those attempts, including the most recent ones, to present European
culture with no reference to the contribution of the Christian religion which
marked its historical development and its universal diffusion. We are
witnessing the emergence of a new culture,
largely influenced by the mass media, whose content and character are often in
conflict with the Gospel and the dignity of the human person.
This culture is
also marked by a widespread and growing religious agnosticism, connected to a
more profound moral and legal relativism rooted in confusion regarding the
truth about man as the basis of the inalienable rights of all human beings. At
times the signs of a weakening of hope are evident in disturbing forms of what
might be called a “culture of death”.
John-Paul II, Apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Europa, n. 9 (2003).
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