Nikakršna skrivnost ni,
da je slovenski katoliški medijski prostor bolj ali manj zaprt in rigiden. Ta
rigidnost pa nima nič skupnega s »konservatizmom«. Ravno nasprotno, ugotovimo
lahko, da v osrednjih katoliških medijih prevladuje »liberalni« koncept. Če
lahko v njih veliko preberemo o potrebah po »pastoralni občutljivosti«, o tem,
da »mora iti Cerkev v korak s časom« ipd., pa bralec le redko dobi informacije,
ki bi segale na drugo, tradicionalistično stran. V slovenskih katoliških
medijih tako lahko komajda zasledimo ostre kritike, ki jih nekateri najvišji
cerkveni dostojanstveniki (npr. prefekt Kongregacije za nauk vere Gerhard
Müller ali prefekt Kongregacije za bogoslužje Robert Sarah) izrekajo pred prihajajočo
sinodo o družini. Prav tako slovenski bralci ne izvedo veliko o vztrajno
naraščajočem tradicionalističnem gibanju, o svežih pravovernih intelektualnih
tokovih itd.
Drznemo si trditi, da je
blog Ad Dominum na tem področju
prinesel veliko osvežitev. A pomembnih prispevkov je bistveno preveč, da bi jih
sodelavci zmogli vse prevesti v slovenščino. Zato smo se odločili, da v novi
rubriki bralcem redno ponudimo izbor branja vrednih svežih člankov iz tujega
katoliškega oziroma konservativno-tradicionalističnega medijskega prostora.
Objavljeni odlomki naj pri tem služijo samo kot nekakšen »aperitiv«: bralce namreč
vabimo, naj si izpostavljene članke tudi v celoti preberejo. Upamo, da bodo
tako prišli v stik s kakovostnim branjem, ki ga slovenska medijska krajina žal
ne omogoča.
John A. Azumah: Through African Eyes: Resisting America's
cultural imperialism
One important difference, however, has been the
enduring importance of traditional conceptions of family and morality. This
largely shields Africans from the cultural upheavals that America has suffered,
including redefinitions of male-female roles, chastity, holiness, and, of
course, the normalization of homosexual sex. Liberal American Christians judge
the African position on homosexuality as cruel to one set of human beings. But
Africans have no problem in naming homosexuality a sin and praying for the
redemption of all sinners. We heed the parable of the wheat and the weeds in
Matthew 13. We remember that the harvest and separation of the wheat from the
weeds is none of our business and belongs to the not yet, the final
consummation of the Kingdom of God. There should be no place for homophobia in
the African church. But there is also no place for redefining the Word of God.
As a result, Africans still believe in marriage as the
union of man and woman and view homosexuality as contrary to God’s design and
will, a reflection of the broken sinfulness of humanity. To hear mainstream
Western media and Western liberals dismiss African disapproval of same-sex
relations as the work of right-wing American Evangelical groups brings to mind
a long history of patronizing attitudes and contempt. The fact that the views
of the vast majority of African society on issues of sex and marriage align
with those of American Evangelicals does not mean Africans are mimicking or
acting as proxies of American anti-gay groups. African views, which are shared
by the overwhelming majority of non-Western societies, are based on sound
biblical interpretation that reinforces and is reinforced by the traditional
African view of life, family, community, and sexual ethics.
African societies also have a strong communal
dimension. Sin is not an individual, private, or merely interior reality. Life
is communal and holistic, natural and supernatural, and so sin has social,
political, environmental, and even cosmic consequences. This sense of the
wholeness and interconnectedness of life means individuals are accountable to
one another, for, as St. Paul writes, “if one member suffers, all suffer
together, and if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” Liberal American
theologians may regard the redefinition of marriage as a limited, contained
adjustment of doctrine. For Africans, to revise a part is to disrupt the whole.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/10/through-african-eyes
Dr. Maike Hickson: "Christ's New Homeland - Africa" -
Book review - Cardinal Sarah and other African Prelates demolish Pre-Synod
Documents
The prelate also makes clear that the crisis that
occupies the Church right now is especially a crisis in the West. The Cardinal
comments: “In fact, one guesses that the Relatio synodi is actually the
reflection of a malaise of the Church in the West – a Church stifled by a
secularized, godless society [...]” In the context of the question as to
whether the Church should allow “remarried” divorcees to receive Holy
Communion, as discussed in the West, Sarah wonders why, then, are we to stop
there: “why would we reject the lay faithful who had become polygamous? We
would also have to remove 'adultery' from the list of sins.”
Cardinal Sarah rightly criticizes the Final Report for
not giving any adequate moral support to those families who try to live
according to God's laws and who are now put at the margins of a secularized
society. He sees that the Church herself, “with documents like the Lineamenta,
seems to be pushing them [the loyal families] toward the exit. If the
Lineamenta are expressed in the language we have just seen, what sort of
Church, then, will take care of this 'little remnant'? [...] Have we not
reached here the real 'periphery' of our postmodern global village?”
Allen C. Brownfield: Demolishing Myths About Communism
Robert Conquest, a historian whose landmark studies of
the Stalinist purges and the Ukraine famine of the 1930s documented the horrors
perpetrated by the Soviet regime against its own citizens, has died at 98,
having outlived the Soviet Union—which came into being in the year of his
birth, 1917—and which he helped to bring down with information.
It is hard for many today to believe, but there was a
time when intellectuals in the West were enthralled with Communism and viewed
Lenin and Stalin in heroic terms.
Consider the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who created
the modern propaganda play. When he visited the apartment of American
philosopher Sidney Hook in 1935, Stalin’s purges were just beginning. Hook,
raising the cases of Zinoviev and Kamenev, asked Brecht how he could bear to
work with the American Communists who were trumpeting their guilt. Brect
replied that the only body which mattered was the Soviet party. During the
entire course of Stalin’s purges, Brecht never uttered a word of protest. When
Stalin died, Brecht declared: “The oppressed of all five continents…must have
felt their heartbeats stop when they heard that Stalin was dead. He was the
embodiment of their hopes.”
Paul Gottfried: Painting Catholicism with a Fascist Brush
Allow me to raise the question of why the fascist
state from its inception was so wicked that the papacy should never have made
any agreement with its representatives. Among the evil states of the last
hundred years, Mussolini’s government seems relatively benign, certainly up
until the late 1930s. Except for a few assassinations, mostly outside Italy; it
did not kill its enemy; except for its intermittent hectoring of church
organizations, it left the economy and civil society largely free; and it was
quite tolerant of the Jews up until the late 1930s. Up until then, moreover,
the fascist government enjoyed the effusive approval of Winston Churchill, FDR
and his Brain Trusters, the New Republic
magazine, and a multitude of Jewish organizations. The virtues ascribed to this
regime were mostly exaggerated, but so are its present demonization, which may
have to do the current political climate.
In comparison with Third World dictatorships that the
papacy now recognizes or negotiates with, the fascist Italy with which the
papacy cut a deal was a relatively civilized country. Is Kertzer similarly
outraged that the Papacy now makes overtures to Saudi Arabia, the People’s
Republic of China and a host of African kleptocracies? What about Communist
Cuba, a brutally anticlerical government to which the current pope is reaching
out? Are any of these negotiating partners any better than Mussolini’s
government was in 1929? To be provocative: I couldn’t imagine Mussolini
requiring Catholic or Protestant clergy to desist from criticizing gay marriage
lest they become subject to criminal prosecution. This now happens with
increasing frequency in ‘liberal democracies” like Canada.
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