Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Editorial: Global moral bankruptcy
TRUE to his role as shepherd of God’s flock and guardian of the ethical values of God’s people, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his deep concern over the state of moral bankruptcy among people of many nations in the globe.
The Pope’s talk the other day before “some 350,000 Roman Catholic pilgrims” in Australia, pointed to a spreading global “spiritual desert.”
In the case of our republic, the Pope’s reference to a spreading spiritual desert should carry much deeper meaning and place an even heavier weight on the shoulders, not only of our men of the Church but also on our political leaders.
“In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair.”
This state of affair is not unlike a traveling people who drifted unaware into a desert where physical and spiritual survival has suddenly posed a challenge.
To the Pope, it is now up to the new generation of Christians to pick up the challenge and build a world “in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished, not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed.”
Local setting
When we consider the Pontiff’s words against the backdrop of the Philippine’s contemporary condition, there is sharpness in their edge, as they touch on our own sad basic realities.
Over the years, our youth has gone through what our Church and social scientists have grieved as an excruciating travail of social degradation that resulted in a distressing general weakening of their moral foundation.
In a survey of our high school teenage generation recently, it was reportedly found out that a good number of them have fallen victims to unplanned pregnancy, lending credence to the belief of moral bankruptcy.
The continuing controversy over suspected graft--tainted multi-million projects, the long-standing charge of election fraud and cheating, the blatant issues of over-pricing of government contracts, etc. may have tumbled into what the Pope has euphemistically termed a “spreading spiritual desert.”
Breaking free
The Pope, indeed, made a deeply perceptive commentary of the prevailing worrisome global spiritual dilemma as he urges the youth to embrace the power of God, and “let it break through the curse of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age.”
