INSIDIOUS THREAT TO SENSE OF FATHERHOOD
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Warns against Dangers of Biotechnology
PALERMO, MAR 15 (ZENIT.org).- Yesterday, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
warned some 1,500 persons against what might well be the gravest danger
facing humanity at present: the destruction of the image of God, by
reducing fatherhood to a merely biological phenomenon. The Bavarian
Cardinal addressed a congregation gathered in the Cathedral of Palermo,
as well as students of the Theology Faculty of Sicily, during the
inauguration of the Third Diocesan Week of Faith.
Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, who was invited for the occasion by Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi
of Palermo, said that God himself "willed to manifest and describe
himself as Father." "Human fatherhood gives us an anticipation of what
He is. But when this fatherhood does not exist, when it is experienced
only as a biological phenomenon, without its human and spiritual
dimension, all statements about God the Father are empty. The crisis of
fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most
important, threatening man in his humanity. The dissolution of
fatherhood and motherhood is linked to the dissolution of our being sons
and daughters."
However, there are examples, like Maximilian Kolbe and Mother Teresa of
Calcutta, who demonstrate how it is possible to live fatherhood and
motherhood in the most real and profound sense, even without the
biological aspect. The risk the Cardinal is concerned about, is
intimately linked with our technological era. "At present, man has power
over the world and its laws. He is able to dismantle this world and
reassemble it."
Cardinal Ratzinger spent some time reflecting on the "name of God." "The
Apocalypse speaks about God's antagonist, the beast. This animal does
not have a name, but a number."
In order to understand what this means, he recalled the dramatic
experience of the concentration camps. "In their horror, they cancel
faces and history, transforming man into a number, reducing him to a cog
in an enormous machine. Man is no more than a function."
This is a risk being repeated today. "In our days, we should not forget
that they prefigured the destiny of a world that runs the risk of
adopting the same structure of the concentration camps, if the universal
law of the machine is accepted. The machines that have been constructed
impose the same law. According to this logic, man must be interpreted by
a computer and this is only possible if translated into numbers. The
beast is a number and transforms into numbers. God, however, has a name
and calls by name. He is a person and looks for the person."
To have a name means to have the possibility of being called, it means
communion. If through biotechnology man becomes a laboratory product,
along with the biological he will lose the human and spiritual relation
with his father and mother. Then the threat mentioned by Cardinal
Ratzinger will become a dramatic reality.
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