Social problems have theological roots, says Argentinean Archbishop

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 22, 2004 / 22:00 pm

The crisis in which society finds itself, “also has a theological aspect, because it sees man as a subject,” says Archbishop José María Arancedo of Santa Fe, Argentina, in his recently issued Lenten message.

“There is a social weakness has its roots in the hearts of the unconverted,” said the Archbishop, underscoring that “a new world is not possible without new men and women.”  He also recalled that “Lent is the time to prepare this uniqueness of God’s plan fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who seeks out and needs, nonetheless, the freedom and the decision of each one of us.”

Archbishop said, “We suffer the effects of a cynical society, which although it does not deny, and even preaches, the values of fraternity and equality, is content to live with high levels of poverty which indicate inequality in the distribution of wealth and is cause for the scandal of the growing breach between rich and poor.”  He added that “the greatest poverty of a society is when man has silenced the voice and moral demands of his conscience,” which should be nourished by truth, beauty and goodness.

“Conscience,” he went on, “as a work of God which seeks the good of His children, becomes for man the force that sustains him and orients him in his work.  But it needs to be nourished by the light of the values of truth, life, beauty and goodness, justice, solidarity, as well as by one’s witness and example, which are silent teachers of a unique and irreplaceable value for the moral life of a society.”

For the Archbishop, if one can speak of “an ever necessary ideological pluralism of opinions, one cannot conclude there is a “moral pluralism concerning the central issues related to truth and life, such as the rights and obligations which foster man’s dignity and social life.”