Taking the Catholic Church's Pulse: From Vatican II Forward

July 19, 2010

Continued from Page 2

The frontiers of morality now stand at a point that was mere science fiction at the time of Vatican II. Besides abortion, euthanasia, and suicide, the issues include surgically induced sex changes, artificial insemination, cloning, and the "creation" of life in laboratories. The crisis is metaphysical even more than moral, in that the very identity of humanity is being called into question by a seemingly irresistible, all-devouring technology and by human beings determined to deny any higher moral truth. Since the Enlightenment, secularists have accused the Church of being anti-humanist, because it subordinates man to God. But many secularists now reject humanism precisely because it places man at the summit of nature.

At its root, Benedict proclaims, the culture of death is nothing less than a refusal to accept the divine invitation to participate in the work of creation.

James Hitchcock is Professor of History at St. Louis University and a Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life. He lives with his wife, the editor and writer, Helen Hull Hitchcock, in Saint Louis, Missouri. They have four daughters.

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