Word: secularism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Archbishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, lined up with the Roman Catholics. As he sees it, the argument in favor of birth control is based on the secular notion that society "must forever banish from the face of the earth hunger, misfortune, juvenile crime, social revolution and wars-since all these are a consequence of overpopulation." Said the archbishop: "This argument may be correct, but it is entirely negative." Childbirth, he added, is a "duty binding on all-not to avoid children, but to care for them in the nurture and admonition...
Further, men may violently repudiate "prudential reasons" when they are used to support secular ends. The promise that Grace will lead to "an enhancement of happiness, security, status, or the integrated personality," changes "an affirmation as big as life" into "a gimmick as old as Luther's bitter epigram: 'Man seeks himself in everything--even...
Moral Intelligence. For Catholics, switching to public schools is no answer, writes Jesuit McCluskey. U.S. public schools-partly, he says, because Catholics tried so hard to "de-Protestantize" them-have become secular institutions in which even the Bible is a prohibited document. To protect the rights of dissenters, the public schools no longer recognize extramundane authority; their ethos is a this-world "democratic humanism" that looks solely to society for its standards. "The public school," says McCluskey, "is less competent today to assume responsibility for moral and spiritual training than ever before...
When the church softened its policy to permit "Youth Dedication" to the state, participation in these strictly secular ersatz confirmations hit an 80%-go% high last spring, and some East German congregations celebrated no Christian confirmations at all. Fewer and fewer children are signing up for the voluntary school program of religious education. Economic discrimination against Christians has not abated, and Red bureaucrats systematically hinder efforts to build new churches and repair old ones. In Saxony alone, 50 churches were condemned as unsafe since the war while the state withheld permission for repairs...
Upside Down? In place of the worker-priests, the Holy Office recommended the formation of secular institutes composed of priests and laymen. Under the instruction and guidance of the priests, said the letter, the lay apostles could carry on the mission in the factories...