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TonyC
Posts: 29
Joined: Nov 2004
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February 26, 2005 9:22 PM
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Reading this article reminds me of Pope John Paul's analysis of Capitalism and Communism in his 1983 Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Concern for the Social Order). He spoke about Capitalism's economic ethic as one which subsumed the rights of the common good to individualism and noted Communism as a force which subsumed the dignity of the human person to the collective. I see little difference between Communism and Singer's philosophy. On paper, it is heartless, but in reality, no ideology can wipe out the fact that made in the Trinity's image and likeness, we find fulfillment in self-giving love. I do know that when the call went out to the world's bishops for submissions on issues to be addressed at the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Karol Wojtyla -who had witnessed the atrocities of the Communist and Nazi regimes- expressed his concern for humanity's failure to contemplate the face of Christ in the human person. For him, humanity was in desperate need of recovering this reverence for human dignity in each and every person. Without it, Western civilization cannot survive. When Pope John Paul returned to Poland after the fall of Communism, he was deeply pained to see his fellow Poles buying into Capitalism's empty promises of happiness based on self-centered consumerism that was suppplanting the deeply religious values of Poland's culture, and chastised them for it out of love, saying "you are my brothers, my sisters, my mother!" Clearly, here was someone who could identify deeply with each and every one, not just as fellow citizens, but as family. I pray that one day, Dr. Singer will wake up to recognize the law of love written by Love on his and on every human heart, and learn to see his brother, sister and mother in each and every person as well. As this article so well states, only a civilization of love, that grows in human hearts can truly counter the emptiness of this kind of Utilitarianism.
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