Saturday, October 08, 2005
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NAZISM AND URI
Lee made a statement in email that has ruffled some feathers. I had hoped he would check back and address the matter, but he must be busy with other things, so I will quote a passage from his book which speaks to this. The quoted material concerns the "Global Ethic" of Hans Kung which B16 addressed in his conversation with Kung recently, and on which they apparently attempted to reach an agreement.
Quote:
The Catholic Church has warned strongly against such efforts to create a new, utopian "Global Ethic" divorced from Christian tradition and teaching.
In Mit Brennender Sorge, his 1937 encyclical against Nazism, Pope Pius XI warned that a New Morality without a basis on Christian faith couldn't succeed:
It is on faith in God, preserved pure and stainless, that man's morality is based. All efforts to remove from under morality and the moral order the granite foundation of faith and to substitute for it the shifting sands of human regulations, sooner or later lead these individuals or societies to moral degradation. The fool who has said in his heart 'there is no God' goes straight to moral corruption (Psalms xiii), and the number of these fools who today are out to sever morality from religion, is legion. They either do not see or refuse to see that the banishment of confessional Christianity, i.e., the clear and precise notion of Christianity, from teaching and education, from the organization of social and political life, spells spiritual spoliation and degradation....To hand over the moral law to man's subjective opinion, which changes with the times, instead of anchoring it in the holy will of the eternal God and His commandments, is to open wide every door to the forces of destruction. The resulting dereliction of the eternal principles of an objective morality, which educates conscience and ennobles every department and organization of life, is a sin against the destiny of a nation, a sin whose bitter fruit will poison future generations."
In his 1939 encyclical Summi Pontificatus, Pope Pius XII said,
Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases, which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they were before held; nor did they then forsee the bitter consequences of bartering the truth that sets free, for error which enslaves. They did not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ's love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor, fickle human wisdom; they spoke of progress, when they were going back; of being raised, when they groveled; of arriving at man's estate, when they stooped to servility. They did not perceive the inability of all human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it; 'they became vain in their thoughts' (Rom. 1:21).
Pius XII also warned that those who "divorce civil authority from every kind of dependence upon the Supreme Being" will
accord the civil authority an unrestricted field of action that is at the mercy of the changeful tide of human will, or of the dictates of casual historical claims, and of the interests of a few. Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in this way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian conscience.
This totalitarian peril remains, since prominent proponents of the Earth Charter say that "The protection of the Biosphere, as the Common Interst of Humanity, must not be subservient to the rules of state sovereignty, demands of the free market or individual rights. The idea of Global Sovereignty must be supported by a shift in values which recognize this Common Interest.
Unquote
That quoted passage appears on pp 209-210 in FALSE DAWN.
That is how Lee sees Hans Kung's "Global Ethics" idea, as a totalitarian peril because it departs from the foundation of the values and rules imposed by the Trinitarian God. That is how Popes have seen such an attempt. How is it that now Benedict is reversing the teaching of those popes by getting together with the creater of this Global Ethic to talk shop? Perhaps Benedict is hoping to bring Kung back into the Catholic fold so that he will exert his influence on this Global Ethics. If that is his goal, it's laudable. If, however, Benedict's goal is merely to suggest some minor revisions while going along with a Global Ethics that is founded on bits and pieces drawn from the world's religions, he is acting contrary to the Tradition of the Catholic Church which sees Christ as the salvation of mankind.
Does that mean that the Pope is a Nazi in Lee's opinion? No, it doesn't. But it does mean that the road he is traveling is a dangerous road. Perhaps he can negotiate it successfully while being true to Christ. But the possibility for failure, and thus the appearance of complicity with the overthrowing of the Church, is real.
What I suspect is that the person who raised objections has not read the book and so doesn't really understand why Lee would make that statement. In fact there are 24 references to Nazism in FALSE DAWN, and those who wish to take issue with what Lee has written owe it to him to read all that he has written before attacking his character.
