Cardinal Antonio Cañizares

Madrid, Spain, Aug 1, 2008 / 06:59 pm (CNA).- During the inauguration of a summer course on modernization in Spain, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares of Toledo denounced the existence in Spain and the Western world of a social revolution aimed directly at undermining the Christian roots of the West.

During his remarks, Cardinal Cañizares denounced the existence in Spain of a plan presented as a “modernization” movement, but that “in reality seeks to modify the social and cultural reality of Spain, transforming its identity.”

“This social and cultural project aims to construct a secular society without any moral or religious reference, attempting to impose nihilist thought and deliberately eliminating everything Catholic from public life,” the cardinal said.

While such a plan is present in the West in general, “it is especially intense in Spain,” he added, where it is supported by “powerful and sometimes dark forces, present everywhere from the media to schools.”

The promoters of this plan “have made the Catholic Church their target,” as they see her and the family as the main obstacles to their plans.  “Thus the Church is presented as the enemy of democracy and modernization, opposed to science and progress, against freedom, the enemy of happiness or the promoter of division, confrontation and violence…in an effort to isolate religion to private life,” the cardinal stated.

“The silencing of God is the fundamental event of our times,” he continued.  “There is nothing else that compares in terms of its radicalism and serious consequences.”

In the designing of this new society, Cardinal Cañizares explained, relativism plays an important role, since “nothing can be said to be definitive, it is at the center of a society that constantly doubts itself.  There is no law, only rights that are restricted or broadened according to the will of whoever is in power. In all of this is the concept of man as a being autonomous of the will of God, who counts for nothing.”

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