ROME - Pope Benedict XVI warned Sunday that modern culture is pushing God out of people's lives, causing nations once rich in religious faith to lose their identities.
Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.
"Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture," said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.
The meeting of 253 bishops, known as a synod of bishops, will run from Monday through Oct. 26. The Vatican said that despite Benedict's efforts to improve relations with Communist China, no bishops have come from the mainland, although there are prelates from Macau and Hong Kong.
"Surely they tried, I mean the Holy See tried but obviously they could not make agreement," Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen told AP Television News as he entered the basilica.
"Maybe the Holy See welcomes someone that they (the Chinese) would not allow," he said, adding that China might try to send a bishop who is not acceptable to the Holy See.
Chinese bishops have not been allowed to travel to similar meetings in the past.
Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government have long been strained. Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.
China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. In recent years, some of those bishops have received the Vatican's tacit approval.
Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church with bishops loyal to the pope.
A document prepared for the meeting rejects a fundamentalist approach to the Bible and said a key challenge was to clarify for the faithful the relationship of scripture to science. A rabbi will address the conference on Monday in what is believed to be the first time a Jew has participated in such a meeting.
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I meant to say does not acknowledge Him(big "H").Forgive me,Lord!!
Your maths in spot on of course my friend, or we could say that of my thumbs up and down, one of them is a prime number..at this time
Or the square root of your thumbs up is equal to the sum of your thumbs down.Either way you want to say it.I don't really like the title of this either.I know what he is trying to say, but the God I worship isn't being pushed anywhere.He is still here.It's just that modern culture does not acknowledge him, which sound like Romans chapter one to me.
Hmm... as I write this, the square of my thumbs down is equal to the sum of my thumbs up.....
I agree with Steve. The failure on the part of modern religious leaders to identify the antichrist for what it really is - is for lack of a better word - sad. Also, why call it "relativism" or "secularism"? These words only give it legitimacy
Maybe a better title for this article would be..
Pope:Modern culture pushing "us" out
Its a thought
BW
Steve
"A standing up to the culture both by separating ourselves from it and defending the Faith through reason."
I completely understand and agree with the first part of this statement, but I am a bit confused about the last part. Seems to me if you could reason your way to God, you wouldn't need faith - would you?
If you want to prove Darwinism a fraud, that shouldn't be too hard - if it is. After all, in one hundred fifty years of digging, testing and cataloging, there should have been at least ONE fossil out of place - wouldn't you think?
Oh, one other thing: If there was any chance, any chance at all of overturning Darwin with a single minute piece of data that somehow didn't fit, the "experts" at the Institute of Creation Research would be trampled in the stampede of legitimate scientists eager for the Nobel prize awaiting anyone who could successfully overturn evolution.
Don't hold your breath!
Practice your religion, no one could or even wants to stop you. Why is it even important to you that Europe is post-Christian? As you said above, you always have the option of separating yourself from the culture.
Preach it Papa!! Relativism is a disease that seeks to undermine the Truth who is Christ. The secularists today seek to dismantle Traditional definitions like; life, marriage, death issues. The secular culture is winning only because not enough strong Catholic and Protestants who love the Lord will stand up for this Truth who is Christ.
The solution is 1) spiritual in nature, and 2) it's intellectual in nature. Neither is more important than the other to the degree that one can stand on either alone. Sin is the cause for the spiritual collapse of societies, but evolution and the constant bombardment on the Christian faith through media and godless academics have led to a degeneration of once God-fearing societies. It has been a slow "poison drip" effect over time as each generation becomes more and more removed from the Faith.
There must be a counter attack. A standing up to the culture both by separating ourselves from it and defending the Faith through reason. We must use the power of the media to not just sing songs about God, but use it to produce tools to present a side of our Faith that is most often hidden from public view and that's the rational, "Mars Hill-like" presentation of the Gospel. Academia is not the enemy of our Faith it is the vehicle by which we should defend our Faith and prove that Darwinism has at long last been exposed as the fraud that has caused millions to believe they are 1) accountable to no one and 2) are of no value to any one. Let's stop entertaining ourselves Church and start using the tools at our disposal for dismantling this Age's lies.