From The Pope

Pope Benedict has released an encyclical. I read: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2007/1201/1196375108232.html Pope says materialism and science are not the answer Saturday, December 1, 2007 ...Science "can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it," he says. "If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth, then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world," he writes. "Amid our growing knowledge of the structure of matter and in the light of ever more advanced inventions, we clearly see continuous progress towards an ever greater mastery of nature. Yet in the field of ethical awareness and moral decision-making, there is no similar possibility of accumulation for the simple reason that man's freedom is always new and he must always make his decisions anew," he says. These decisions "can never simply be made for us in advance by others - if that were the case, we would no longer be free. Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning." New generations may build on the moral treasury of the past "but they can also reject it, because it can never be self-evident in the same way as material inventions"... I was surprised, expecting the RC hierarchy to say something more along the lines that decisions may be made for us by others, particularly the hierarchy. I am in total agreement: Everything is always new...we create the future and we must be ready to create the best possible ones, no more thoughtless disasters.