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HOLIDAY
MOVIES
Benedict XVI’s right-hand man Archbishop Georg Ganswein: Page 15
The good, the bad ... and the ugly - Pages 12 & 13
His birthplace still draws all to come and see
Muslim young women visit the grotto of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The grotto’s silver star – parts worn smooth by the veneration of pilgrims – marks the site of Christ’s birth. More coverage of Christmas in Perth parishes, Pages 4-5. PHOTO: CNS/DEBBIE HILL
Pope tells Curia ‘ false idea’ of human nature now a global threat to basis of the family
Crisis of human identity
By Francis Rocca POPE BENEDICT XVI said the family in Western society is undergoing a “crisis that threatens it to its foundations” owing to false ideas of human nature that equate freedom with selfishness and present Godgiven sexual identities as a matter of individual choice to the profound detriment of human dignity. But he said the Catholic Church, in its dialogue with states, secular society and other religions, can help restore a proper understanding of
human nature as a basis for justice and peace. The Pope made his remarks on December 21, in his annual Christmas address to officials of the Roman Curia, the Catholic Church’s central administrative offices at the Vatican. “The question of the family is not just about a particular social construct, but about man himself – about what he is and what it takes to be authentically human,” Pope Benedict said. “Only in self-giving does man
find himself,” he said, “only by letting himself be changed through suffering does he discover the breadth of his humanity.” As a consequence of an “increasingly widespread” refusal to make lifelong commitments to the family, the Pope said, “man remains closed in on himself ” and “essential elements of the experience of being human are lost”. Citing a study of same-sex marriage and parenting by Rabbi Gilles Bernheim, chief rabbi of France, Pope Benedict deplored what he
called a “new philosophy of sexuality” epitomised by the word “gender” which teaches that “sex is no longer a given element of nature” but a “social role we choose for ourselves.” “Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist,” he said. “Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will.” The consequences of this attitude, the Pope suggested, have included unethical biomedical
practices: “The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.” To reject the “pre-ordained duality of man and woman” is also to reject the family as a “reality established by creation”, he said, with particularly degrading consequences for children: “The child has become an object to which Please turn to Page 6 Pope’s speech - Pages 7-9