There are countries threatened by death because children are not born anymore; there are developed countries where youth give way to despair, where self-indulgence is constantly being provoked by advertisements in the interests of consumption and production. In other developed countries human freedom and culture are curtailed because they are subjected to powerful egalitiarian ideologies. In some developed countries all the resources of science and wealth are employed for the production of death-dealing weapons. Who are we so afraid of, that we stockpile our resources in weapons of death instead of spending them in generous giving and sharing of all this wealth?
Those among you who are Christians will have recognized the words of Jesus Christ himself: ‘What will it profit if a man gain the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?” (Matt 16:26).
Time is running short. But perhaps it is not too late and our historical culture can still be saved from the deadly disease which is eating our heart away.
–Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, Dare to Live. trans. M.N.L. Couve de Murville (New York: Crossroad, 1988),82.
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