God Is Young by Pope Francis & Thomas Leoncini & Anne Milano Appel

Author:Pope Francis & Thomas Leoncini & Anne Milano Appel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

I THINK NUCLEAR weapons should be destroyed immediately.

The theologian Romano Guardini reflected on two forms of “inculturation.”*

An initial inculturation is that which the Creator gave us, so that we might transform inculturation into culture, thereby entrusting us with a great responsibility: to care for culture and make it prosper as if it were the land. I will call this inculturation “good,” because it can become culture.

The second inculturation, on the other hand, is quite different: It is man who does not respect his relationship with the land, with Creation, with human beings; man who does not care for it. Developing atomic energy is not in itself negative, but using it for evil is destructive inculturation, it destroys.

I want to give a practical example: Does the death of a homeless person out in the cold in Piazza Risorgimento make the news? I don’t think so. When certain bank shares fall by one percentage point, however, the news flies around the world, and everyone starts talking about how to find a solution. There you have man as the creator of inculturation and not of culture; man becomes the creator of inculturation because he does not care for the environment and those who are part of it, becoming instead a slave to his own creations. Once again: Man becomes the creator of inculturation if in the scale of values the objects created by man take the place of man himself. Think of the myth of Frankenstein: Who was Frankenstein? A creature—suddenly alive—who turned against the life of the very one who created him. Another myth that explains the concept of inculturation can be found in the story of the construction of the tower of Babel: It was a magnificent tower, but some people decided to overdo it, wanted to build a tower high enough to reach God, and that was the biggest mistake. When I think of the Tower of Babel, I also think about how much labor it cost: If a brick fell from the tower you could shriek at the calamity and whoever caused it was punished mercilessly; but if a worker fell and was severely injured or died, do you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. Drawing a parallel with what happens today, think about how little outrage is now created by frequent deaths on the job—at most a “temporary” outrage, one or two days, and people are very forbearing. But think how much talk, how much haggling, takes place just to even discuss the possible enactment of a law that would somehow reduce the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere.

We need to understand that when we risk ending up in inculturation, the boundary line is very unstable, but the future of the human being depends on it, especially if we are talking about issues like the nuclear threat.

The primary characteristic of culture is “to create harmony,” like nature. Inculturation, instead, is based precisely on the inability to construct harmony.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.