Dr. Mart Laar, former prime minister of Estonia, discusses the relevance for the papal encyclical... Acton News & Commentar
Dr. Mart Laar, former prime minister of Estonia, discusses the relevance for the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus for Europe today. “The message of Centesimus Annus is not a message of left or right. It is a universal message of hope. We can see these same ideas in most groups working on the future of Europe. The only problem is in finding political leaders ready to implement them in reality,” he writes.
The first speaker was His Eminence Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Italy. His talk was called "The Family and Secularism." Most memorable quote from this presentation: "Real education must train people to be truly free and freely true."
In answer to the first question, same sex marriage is one logical outcome of the secular state. The first step is to declare that all understandings of one's own sexuality are equally valid. This is radical autonomy. The second step is to claim that no sexual practice can be preferred by the law. To do otherwise, would violate the impartiality of the law, and the principle of equality.
He outlined two assumptions of radical secularism. First, no concept of life is "true." There is no truth regarding the good of the person or society. Second, we must organize society without any reference to any particular idea of the good. These two ideas imply that all ideas about the goods of marriage have to be replaced by something neutral, or at least, something everyone would agree upon.
1. We are creating a society of strangers. No one is truly related to anyone else through permanent bonds. The law is a teacher: it forms the ideas that people share. Instead of forming the shared idea that marriage is about lifelong monogamous reproductive unions, the law will promote the idea that marriage is whatever each couple says it is. The shared idea about marriage is that there is not allowed to be a shared idea about marriage.
3. Normalizing same sex unions will create a completely contractual model of the family and marriage. this will marginalized the weakest members of society, who need the protections of family to sustain them.
Conclusion: Man is fascinated by Beauty and Holiness, which are the Splendor of Truth and Goodness. The splendor of married love shines in many couples. This give people a glimpse of Beauty. The struggle over same sex marriage is a struggle over Truth. We have an entire generation of parents who don't really know how to educate the young, because they are afraid of the idea of Truth. This is where he made his most memorable statement: "Real education must train people to be truly free and freely true."
This is cache, read story here