Precisely for this reason, the laws and institutions of a society cannot be
shaped in such a way as to ignore the religious dimension of its citizens or to
prescind completely from it. Through the democratic activity of citizens
conscious of their lofty calling, those laws and institutions must adequately
reflect the authentic nature of the person and support its religious dimension.
Since the latter is not a creation of the state, it cannot be manipulated by the
state, but must rather be acknowledged and respected by it.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
08 October 2013
States and the various human
communities must never forget that religious freedom is the condition for the
pursuit of truth, and truth does not impose itself by violence but “by the force
of its own truth”.[10]
In this sense, religion is a positive driving force for the building of
civil and political society.
Religious freedom expresses what is unique about the human person, for it allows
us to direct our personal and social life to God, in whose light the identity,
meaning and purpose of the person are fully understood. To deny or arbitrarily
restrict this freedom is to foster a reductive vision of the human person; to
eclipse the public role of religion is to create a society which is unjust,
inasmuch as it fails to take account of the true nature of the human person;
it is to stifle the growth of the authentic and lasting peace of the whole human
family [emphasis in the original].
01 March 2012
The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded
on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a
“language” which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being,
and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral
teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for
building a secure future.
The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to
convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate
separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be
silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be
engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which
will shape the future of the nation.
In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the
entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats
to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which
finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The
seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of
ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit
that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.
19 January 2012
30 October 2010
Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.
- Address, 17 September 2010
Society today needs clear voices which propose our right to live, not in a jungle of self-destructive and arbitrary freedoms, but in a society which works for the true welfare of its citizens and offers them guidance and protection in the face of their weakness and fragility. Do not be afraid to take up this service to your brothers and sisters, and to the future of your beloved nation.
- Homily, 16 September 2010
The evangelization of culture is all the more important in our times, when a “dictatorship of relativism” threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about man’s nature, his destiny and his ultimate good. There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatize it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty. Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or sister.
- Homily, 16 September 2010
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