IT’S NOT THE SAME
Pluralism is a done deal. You can even affirm that it’s one of the features most characteristic of today’s society. The monolithic world of years past has been broken apart into thousands of pieces. Today we live together with all kinds of positions, ideas and values.
This pluralism isn’t just a fact. It’s one of the few dogmas of our culture. Today everything can be argued. Everything except the right of each person to think what she seems to think and to be respected for what she thinks. Certainly this pluralism can stimulate us to seek responsibly, to dialogue and to confront postures. But it can also lead us to serious regression.
For example, more than a few are falling into a complete relativism. Everything is the same. As the French sociologist G. Lipovetsky says: «we live in the hour of ‘feelings’». Now neither the truth nor the lie exists, neither beauty nor ugliness. Nothing is good or bad. We live by impressions, and each one thinks what he wants and does what he feels like.
In this climate of relativism we’re coming to situations really decadent. We defend the most deviant beliefs with the least logic. We try to resolve the most vital questions about human beings with four talking points. This is something A. Finkielkraut wants to say when he affirms that «the barbarians are taking over the culture».
The question is inevitable. Can you call all this «progress»? Is it good for the person and for humanity to fill our minds with just any idea or fill our hearts with just any belief, renouncing an honest search for great truth, goodness and meaning in our existence?
The Christian is called today to live out her faith in an attitude of responsible and shared searching. It’s not the same to think just anything about our life. We must keep seeking the final truth of what it means to be human, which is very far from being explained satisfactorily based on scientific theories, psychological systems or ideological visions.
The Christian is called also to go about healing this culture. It’s not the same to earn money without any scruples than to honestly carry out a public service, nor is it the same to cry out in favor of terrorism as to defend the rights of each person. It’s not the same to abort life as to welcome it, nor is it the same to «make love» just any old way than to truly love the other. It’s not the same to ignore those in need as to work for their rights. The first is evil and damages the human being. The second is charged with hope and promise.
Even in the midst of today’s pluralism, Jesus’ words continue to resound: «Whoever loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him».
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
