Holy Father Challenges the West to Respect Life in the Face of Relativism, Subjecticism, & Materialism

Vatican City, Oct. 26, 2006 (CNA) - Meeting this morning with Frank De Coninck, the new ambassador of Belgium to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI noted the challenge of western societies to respect human life in the face of relativism, subjectivism, and a superabundance of consumer goods.

The Holy Father said that there are certain challenges that “concern the future of human beings and their identity." Now that, "enormous technological progress has revolutionized many practices in the field of medical science,” certain ethical, “norms that once appeared untouchable have been relativized,” the Pope said.

“In Western societies, characterized by their superabundance of consumer goods and by their subjectivism, human beings find themselves facing a crisis of meaning," while, he continued, "laws are passed that put respect for human life into question."

"The Church, on the foundation of her long experience, and of the treasure of Revelation she received ... firmly underlines her convictions concerning human beings and their prodigious destiny," said the Pope. "When Belgian bishops speak in favor of the development of palliative care to enable people ... to die with dignity, or when they participate in the debates of society" in order to draw attention to that invisible moral frontier before which technological progress must bow: the dignity of man, "they seek to serve the whole of society by identifying the conditions for a real future of freedom and dignity for mankind. With them, I invite political leaders ... to give attentive consideration to their responsibilities and to the challenges these questions pose," the Holy Father said. [More]

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