The Real Enemy
- Political Humanism
In the name of
tolerance and freedom, speaking out against sin may become illegal.
By Richard
Paul Salbato
Everyone
has seen the moral change in the world.
Some have accepted it as social evolution. Others have fought against it as though beating their heads
against a brick wall. Catholic and
Protestant parents have opted out of the school systems of their countries and
even their churches and are teaching at home.
But even these seem to be so overwhelmed by the social environment,
everything seems out of control.
Television, radio, the people around their home, the coffee shops, the
very government are all influences that make one question what is true and
false, moral and immoral, right and wrong.
In most cases parents simply give up and go along with the times.
But
where is this social evolution taking us and who is behind it. In this new world there are no dogmas - no
truths except the dogma of relativism.
To say that there really is a truth, a binding and valid truth is a genuine attack against the modern
spirit and is a manifold threat against its supreme gods: tolerance and
freedom. Relativism considers all
opinions as true, even if they are contradictory and this is the greatest
problem of our time.
It is not unusual to meet people who think that it is a primary condition
required of citizens (in order to be tolerant of one another and to live in
peace with one another) to not hold to any truth, or to not to adhere firmly to
any assertion as unshakably true in itself.
But these people are in fact the most intolerant people, for they impose their
ideas of "no truth" on others as something unshakably true. They feel compelled to impose by force and
coercion their own belief of "No-truths" on their co-citizens.
Where is
Social Evolution taking us?
Up
until recent times sociologists were concerned about the questions of social
order and the common good. This involved maintaining that social stability as
founded on moral order. Integral to this concept of moral order is a shared
concept of "what is not acceptable" or "deviance", and a
willingness to identify the boundaries of appropriate behavior.
Deviance as a concept helps to define the framework within which a group
can develop a sense of its own cultural identity and social order. Now, however, deviance is being
redefined. Starting about 20 years
ago courses on deviance were deleted from the academic programs of many
sociology faculties, and most current sociology textbooks reject the idea of
defining any behavior as being deviant.
At the same time Catholic priests were being vilified for pedophilia
abuses, academic groups were busily engaged in promoting what is termed "intergenerational
intimacy." A 1991 collection of essays, "Male
Intergenerational Intimacy: Historical, Socio-Psychological and Legal
Perspectives," was penned by an international group of scholars, many
in important teaching positions. In works such as these, pedophiles are no
longer seen as deviants, but as "border crossers." Many of the essays
seek to normalize underage sexual practices by proposing a neutral terminology
that seeks to eliminate "the bias against pedophilia."
In 1994 the American Psychiatric Association revised its "Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual" so that neither pedophilia nor child molestation would
in itself necessarily be indicative of psychological disorder. To qualify as
disordered the molesters must feel "anxious" about their acts or be
"impaired" in their work or social relationships. Then in 1998 a
study released by the American Psychological Association argued that sexual
abuse of children does not cause emotional disorders or unusual psychological
problems in adulthood.
Heterosexual relations among teen-agers have also been redefined. The book
cites examples where sexual promiscuity among adolescents is now seen as
perfectly normal. According to this view, the real problem is with programs
that promote abstinence. Proponents of promiscuity allege that such programs
contribute to deviant behavior, intolerance and a dangerous failure to use
contraceptives.
Another area of behavior now being targeted for change is suicide.
Taking one's life has traditionally
been seen as a deviant act because it devalues human life. But euthanasia
campaigners are trying to change opinions by portraying suicide as an issue of
"choice" and talk about "the right to die."
And at the academic level it is increasingly common to talk about two types of
suicide: those that need to be prevented, and "rational" suicides
that should be respected and even helped. At the time the book was written,
there were about 100,000 sites on the Internet dedicated to the theme of
suicide.
No
wonder Cardinal Dias lumped psychiatrists in with "quacks," saying,
"Never before in the history of humankind has there been such a
proliferation of soothsayers and black magicians, of psychiatrists and quacks,
of esoteric theories and healers."
Changing
language
Redefining
language referring to human behavior is part of a larger campaign to change
perceptions. In the suicide debate, changing the terms from "disturbed"
or "crazy" to "dignity" or "autonomy" is an
important move. She notes that we are in the age of experts whose views are
promoted as being more reliable than those of traditional morality and the
churches. Combined with this is the influence of cultural relativists who
call for the rejection of the concepts of good and evil.
But a society that "refuses to
acknowledge and negatively sanction the deviant acts our common sense tells us
are destructive, is a society that has lost the capacity to confront evil
that has a capacity to dehumanize us all."
Veritatis
Splendor - the Splendor of Truth
John
Paul II in "Veritatis Splendor": "By acknowledging and
teaching the existence of intrinsic evil in given human acts, the Church
remains faithful to the integral truth about man; she thus respects and
promotes man in his dignity and vocation" (No. 83). Too often truth is not accepted,
"and freedom alone, uprooted from any objectivity, is left to decide by
itself what is good and what is evil" (No. 84).
"Veritatis Splendor" also deals with a common objection to moral
norms, namely, that defending objective precepts is often seen as intolerant or
not taking into account the complexity of an individual's particular situation.
But, explains John Paul II, upholding the truth does not mean the Church is
lacking in compassion. The Church is both a mother and teacher, and concealing
or weakening moral truth is not consistent with genuine understanding and
compassion.
Setting limits to what is acceptable behavior and maintaining the force of
negative moral norms that prohibit evil, continues the encyclical, is a
valuable service.
Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger on "Truth"
Is
it possible to pray jointly with members of other religions, whether
monotheist, polytheist, pantheist or transcendental? Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
responds to this question in his latest book.
"A distinction must be made between multi-religious and inter-religious
prayer," the cardinal says in "Fede, verità, tolleranza -- Il
cristianesimo e le religioni del mondo" (Faith, Truth, Tolerance --
Christianity and the World Religions), released by Cantagalli Publishers.
The prayers for peace in Assisi, called by John Paul II, are multi-religious,
as all participants pray at the same time but in different places.
In these cases, the participants "know that their way of understanding the
divinity and, therefore, their way of addressing it, is so different that a
common prayer would be a fiction, it would not be true," writes Cardinal
Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
On the contrary, in inter-religious prayers, people of diverse religious
traditions pray together, he explains. "Is
it possible to do so in a truthful and honest way?" the author asks. He
responds by saying that he seriously doubts it. If such inter-religious prayers are organized, however, they
require three conditions, Cardinal Ratzinger stresses.
First, he says, it must be made clear that one is praying to the one, personal
God; second, it must be established that what is being prayed for is not in
contradiction to the Our Father; and third, it must be stressed that for
Christians Jesus Christ is the sole redeemer of all people.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES
The
real problem is that of truth, (Faith, Truth, Tolerance -- Christianity and the
World Religions) - "whether
relativism is really the assumption necessary for tolerance; whether religions
are really all the same," or whether, in fact, "truth can be
known." "Tolerance and
respect for the other seem to have imposed the idea of the equivalence of all
religions,"
Catholic Democracy: The principles of heroic democracy are: respecting
each citizen as a person; rejecting a natural "anthropocentric"
humanism; promoting the common good; living a supernatural "integral"
humanism; cultivating prophets of the people; educating children for freedom;
facilitating faith-based and community initiatives; practicing the principle of
solidarity; protecting freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression;
engaging in divine contemplation; expecting and embracing persecution; seeking
international cooperation; and recognizing democratic evolution.
Anthropocentric Humanism = several categories of
natural humanist viewpoints, all of which share the feature of being
"emancipated from every metaphysics of transcendence. At one extreme rests
the idea of secular humanism, the idea that all religious thought should
be banned from expression in the public square. At the other extreme rests the
idea of ethical humanism, the idea that a full-bodied natural ethics should
govern all relations in the public square.
Political
Humanism: As society enters into the
third millennium, many politicians and social planners recognize that an empty
secular humanism is incapable of maintaining the global social fabric. However,
they likewise recognize that the global state is incapable of developing and
implementing a normative ethical humanism that can be understood and practiced
by all humanity.
Thus, these global agents are left with two alternatives: rely on the formative
and remedial capacities of traditional religions; or, construct and promote
what I refer to as "political humanism." It is against this
new political humanism that Christian humanism must compete in the third
millennium.
What are the
goals of Political Humanism?
Political
Humanism ia
relativist and utilitarian, and it is selective in that it protects and
promotes only those human rights that further the social and commercial agenda
of the international community. Therefore, political humanism is intolerant
of peaceful and particular religious beliefs that cannot be reconciled with
that agenda. It is also developed and promoted by international bodies and
their affiliated nongovernmental education and human rights organizations. Finally, political humanism is coercive in
that it relies on monopolistic school funding practices that handicap parents
who seek to educate their children in peace-loving and peace-promoting
religious schools. These last features
make it clear that the promoters of political humanism understand that children
must be indoctrinated in this new "religion of humanity."
This
indoctrination is being conducted under several names, including human
rights education, education for a culture of peace, education for democratic
citizenship and character education.
UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the United States Department of Education,
Amnesty International, George Soros' Open Society Foundation and university
human rights centers around the world develop the political humanism education
curriculum, train educators and coordinate the implementation of political
humanism in state-sponsored schools.
For example, UNESCO presently has posted on its Web site a job opening for
chief of its Section on Education for Peace and Human Rights. One of the listed
main responsibilities of this position is to "ensure the intellectual
coherence of a focused program on education for peace and human justice, which
reflects and builds a growing global consensus."
The global
consensus of political humanism dehumanizes the person by insisting on social
conformity, stifles education for freedom, discourages subsidiarity and the
formation of faith-based and community initiatives, denies freedom of thought,
conscience, religion, and expression, and makes a farce of international
efforts to promote a genuine common good.
These shortcomings of political humanism will be exacerbated if, as expected,
world leaders justify the expansion of the political humanist education of
youth as a means of addressing the root causes of international terrorism.
Many European political and social leaders have embraced political humanism to
the exclusion of Christian humanism. Pope John Paul II reminds Europe that, "The Gospel is not
against you, but for you." The
Gospel inspiration is the true living soul of democratic philosophy. But is all lost? Not if we fight back. First,
we must understand the nature and threat of political humanism. Then, we
need to examine whether state authorities in our respective nations are
imposing a political humanist agenda, particular in the schools. It is also
important to educate sympathetic lawyers, lawmakers and judges regarding the
reality of political humanism. And
finally, it is our duty to combat discrimination against the Christian humanist
viewpoint by those seeking a coercive monopoly for the political humanist
viewpoint.
Let me emphasize that state authorities are relying on two seemingly positive
values as justification for promoting political humanism: tolerance and
peace. Of course if we tolerate
pedophilia there is peace except for the child. If we tolerate theft there is peace except for the one who lost
goods. If we tolerate abortion, there
is peace except for the child. If we
tolerate sin, there is peace but not peace of soul.
Richard P. Salbato