Catholic Ping - Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 01/31/2006 3:44:11 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
VATICAN, January 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to the leaders of the Christian Associations of Italian Workers Friday, Pope Benedict XVI warned, "As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism." Benedict was in fact making his own the statement first uttered by his predecessor John Paul II, who made the statement in 2000. (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2000/feb/00022501.html )
Benedict XVI highlighted how, in our time, science and technology "present huge possibilities for improving everyone's lives," but warned that "the misguided use of such power can provoke grave and irreparable threats to the future of life itself."
"The defense of life - from conception to natural end - wherever it is threatened, offended or trampled underfoot, is the primary duty of an authentic ethic of responsibility, and this may be coherently extended to all other forms of poverty, injustice and exclusion," he said.
In addition to laws offending life, the Church sees the potential for totalitarianism wherever natural law is rejected, such as in the case of homosexual unions.
In a brief submitted to Parliament last year the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops presented their grave concerns over the proposal to legalize homosexual 'marriage'. When a society issues arbitrary laws that reject the primacy of natural law, the result is not only the risk of social chaos and disorder but, as the 20th century witnessed, a potential basis for state totalitarianism," said the brief.
Well known Canadian Catholic author Michael O'Brien warned last year in a commentary exclusive to LifeSiteNews.com that Canada was indeed rapidly heading toward a totalitarian state.
In the essay, "Same-Sex 'Marriage,' 'Hate Crimes,' and the New Totalitarianism," O'Brien noted that hundreds of new laws are proliferating a climate of legalism that is "directed not at criminals but at the moral structure of private life." The new laws, far from protecting citizens against unjust discrimination, are to be "wielded as a cudgel to intimidate those who simply disagree with (the ideology) and to punish those who are outspoken about it."
O'Brien writes, "In just over one generation we have been shifted from a society in which homosexual acts were a crime under the then existing law, to a society in which homosexual acts have become a government-protected and fostered activity, while voicing criticism of it 'publicly' has become the crime. Call it by any name you like, but this is Thought Crime." (see O'Brien's full essay here: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/feb/050228a.html )
See Pope Benedict's full address (in Italian) here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006...
ping
Pope's got a point there.
Democracy run by the left would be valueless and totalitarian.
Catholic Ping - Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
In a brief submitted to Parliament last year the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops presented their grave concerns over the proposal to legalize homosexual 'marriage'. When a society issues arbitrary laws that reject the primacy of natural law, the result is not only the risk of social chaos and disorder but, as the 20th century witnessed, a potential basis for state totalitarianism," said the brief.
Ping!
goes along with "Truth is not determined by a majority vote".
Must read for everyone bump.
A Decline in Courage [. . .]may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
When will we find the courage to rid ourselves of our traitors and domestic enemies?
ping
Unfortunately, churches have their own history of totalitarianism. Churches have often tried to gain political control to promote their own agendas. Democracy and the US Constitution does not define "heresy", "blasphemy", "infidels", "pagans". These are words used by churches to suppress free thought.
Atheists never burned anyone at the stake for being "apostates" or "witches". Religious leaders are not elected, and their claim to authority is not from democracy.
History shows that religious myths and authorities have done little to promote freedom of belief. They only want "freedom for their own".
The topic is democracy without values -not democracy without religion...
To phrase Theodore Roosevelt: "Knowledge without morals is dangerious."
I pray along with you. I am not even Catholic, but I love this man! The world is blessed to have yet another Godly Pope! I pray for his health and safely!
His words need to be heard loudly, far and wide.
"When will we find the courage to rid ourselves of our traitors and domestic enemies? "
We had better find it and soon!. Parents are pulling their kids out of public schools, more need to follow. And we better get mobilized and vote the socialists/communists/ homosexuals and their agenda, OUT of office, wherever they hold office.
later read.
Amen. The worldwide abortion holocaust and homosexual "marriage" movement are prime examples.
Why is "free thought" good? Are all ideas of equal value? Or are some true and some false? Can bad ideas lead to world wars and genocide? If so, why should people be free to spread these ideas?
Actually, that's not the point.
He was discussing the sort of value-free "democracy" increasingly practiced in Western Europe, where a minority gets to impose their preferences on a people because of some vague idea of democratic "egalitarianism."
Spain has had gay marriage imposed on it by a democratically elected leader who then immediately did the bidding of the gay leftist pressure groups. Not only did he make it legal, he provided no conscience clause for civil servants who objected to it - and there was plenty of objection to it - and essentially imposed it.
This completely ignores the fact that "gay marriage" is a new invention, completely undreamed of in any Spanish law on marriage and family, and violating the moral and social standards of most of the people in the country. But under the pretext of democratic equality, he was able to impose it.
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