timeimmortal

Most of the media coverage of the Pope’s visit to the U.S. seems to focus on his addressing the sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Church. And I for one am not going to complain that Pope Benedict XVI has chosen to address this issue as thoroughly as he has — it needed to be done, and Benedict himself is a great person to have in charge of handling the situation.

The folks at GetReligion, however, point out that the Pope also took time to speak out against the dangers of secularism and relativism — this, it seems, has been woefully underreported.

Pope Benedict XVI visited the White House on Wednesday, his 81st birthday, and praised America as a nation where strong religious belief can coexist with secular society.

But he later warned, in a speech to American bishops, of the “subtle influence of secularism” that can co-opt religious people and lead even Catholics to accept abortion, divorce and co-habitation outside of marriage.

“Is it consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs?” he asked in a lengthy address to the bishops. “Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death?”

“Any tendency to treat Religion as a private matter must be resisted,” he said.

What’s interesting is that the Pope approaches the issue from two directions; he confronts secularism directly and opposes it directly, but he also confronts and opposes the creeping influence of secularism — including the spread of moral relativism — that afflicts members of the body of the Church. He reminds us all that if one yokes oneself to the Catholic Church, one necessarily accepts Catholic teaching in matters pertaining to, among many other things, sex, marriage and abortion. And he then follows that up with an admonishment to the non-religious: religion cannot kept out of view.

I’ve always been offended by those who insist that religion is merely a private matter, because…well…because it isn’t. After all, if there is any truth to the religion I am a member of (Catholicism, natch), then what is at stake is not merely some temporary thing, but an immortal soul that resides within my being. If in fact we Catholics have it right, then it can only follow that the most important thing in our lives, above all other considerations (including family and friends, jobs and leisure activities) is our faith.

Simply put, we can no more be expected to set that aside than we can be expected to set aside our skin colour, because our religion is even more important than the biological realities at work in our bodies. Especially for Catholics — who experience Christ both directly, in the Eucharist, and in the context of community — religion cannot be relegated to the realm of “the private.”

And to suggest that it should be thusly relegated is laughable.

~ by Kenneth on April 18, 2008.