a guest in my blog (my) summary of the open letter to Pope Ratzinger Raffaele Carcano, secretary of the EU (Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics).
The full letter and 'quite long: who' party can 'find it on the site of Micromega, where and' was published, here:
Ateofobia or respect?
Dear Mr. Ratzinger, who writes
, secretary of the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics, listened with interest to the words spoken by her at the message to the Curia on 21 December. I am pleased by the attention she shows to people "who consider themselves agnostic or atheist 'people, the quote," must be profoundly important to us as believers. " It gave us great pleasure the invitation to the respect for them delivered by Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, at the last Christmas, not least because it accompanied by the admission that 'not all our words suggest this respect. "
[...]
Ateofobia or relative: what is your position towards non-believers?
I admit, I'm a little 'difficulty in understanding how we are at the heart: in recent years she has claimed in several occasions that without God man "loses its grandeur," "lose your dignity" "It is far from himself, alienated from himself." His fate "can not be that the desolation of anguish that leads to despair": the non-believer, was "without orientation" can therefore "only end up in blind alleys or with recipes for destruction." According to him "the man, both in its inner che nella sua esteriorità, non può essere pienamente compreso se non lo si riconosce aperto alla trascendenza».
[...]
Non sono posizioni estemporanee, le sue: si ritrovano anche nella sua seconda enciclica, la Spe salvi, dove ha scritto che «un mondo senza Dio è un mondo senza speranza». Mi permetta di dissentire: che «le più grandi crudeltà e violazioni della giustizia» siano scaturite dall’assenza di Dio è tutto da dimostrare: cosa che lei, nel resto di quel testo, si è comunque guardato bene dal fare. Sono passati già più di tre secoli da quando il protestante Pierre Bayle, nei Pensieri della cometa, sostenne che «l’ateismo non conduce necessariamente the corruption of morals ": Catholics may have remained so far behind?
But even in his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, she wrote that "the ideological rejection of God and atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and are likely to forget the human values, they are today between the major obstacles to development. Humanism excludes God is an inhuman humanism. " Yet, to deny it is an authoritative source as the Human Development Index compiled by the United Nations, the countries with the highest number of atheists are amongst the best, while those who are in the tail of the list all have a population size of disbelief laughable se non nulla.
Sembra quasi che, per lei, l’ateismo sia una sorta di "bad company" a cui attribuire ogni male: tutto ciò che è sbagliato nel mondo è ateo. Persino ciò che, secondo l’opinione pubblica, rappresenta il Male Assoluto, e cioè il nazismo, è stato secondo lei una dittatura atea. In visita in Israele, ha dichiarato che ad Auschwitz «così tanti ebrei, madri, padri, mariti, mogli, fratelli, sorelle, amici, furono brutalmente uccisi sotto un regime senza Dio». In un’altra occasione ha sostenuto l’antitesi «tra l’umanesimo ateo e l’umanesimo cristiano», «che attraversa tutta quanta la storia», e che avrebbe, sempre secondo she found her greatest fulfillment in Nazi concentration camps, which "can be considered as extreme symbols of evil, hell on earth that opens when man forgets God and to Him takes the place, usurping the right to decide what is good and what is evil, to give life and death. "
you, Mr. Ratzinger, the Nazis knew him personally, you know very well that the Catholic Church signed with it, only six months after the rise of Hitler, signed a concordat with authority from the future Pope Pius XII, she knows that the German Catholic Party The Zentrum, voted to grant full powers to Adolf Hitler, as he knows that the Vatican or endorse the subsequent dissolution, favoring the confluence of many of its senior figures in the Nazi party (beginning with Franz von Papen, vice-chancellor of the same Führer) you know that many pro-Nazi regimes were actively supported by the Catholic Church, and that one of them, the Slovak, was even driven by a lord. You, Mr.. Ratzinger, as a former Wehrmacht soldier wore a belt that reported on the metal buckle, the motto "Gott mit uns", "God is with us."
[...] I hope that includes, Mr. Ratzinger, the reason why its opening words leave us a little wary: as good empiricists, we prefer to adhere preferentially the facts. But we did not refractory to a dialogue, even in the "Court of the Gentiles" which she recently claimed. Provided it is a dialogue and not a moment of evangelization, as seems to have understood Vittorio Possenti, commenting on the future of his words: second Possenti, "like Paul in Athens, we must again proclaim the unknown God in the great planetary Areopagus." Of course, we know that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, just two years ago, insisted that Christ wills that "all may be one flock and one shepherd" (she, I suppose), but Lombardi's father had already wisely warned to hear non-believers "an object of the mission." It is also necessary that the dialogue is really this: a conversation between several parties, and not a monologue. A dialogue of equals. Moreover, non-believers are in the world, estimated at a billion: more or less as Catholics.
We believe: we'd love to share some talk with her. We know it's possible. Paul VI was able in 1965 to create a Secretariat for Non-Believers (hereinafter, for some reason, apart from John Paul II) during two decades of high-profile organized several meetings with the participation of scholars of global . You yourself, by visiting the Czech Republic, the nation's most secularized Europe had already supported the need for an 'intellectual dialogue' with the agnostics. It can be done. It would be nice to be in a secular court, a place where believers and non believers can deal calmly with full respect for each other. People discover that, far from a life spent anguished and desperate, they are satisfied with their lives. Those people would commit to building a better society: well aware that must be built with those who think like them.
Raffaele Carcano
UAAR Secretary (Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics)
(January 7, 2010)
