Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec 5, 2006 / 22:00 pm
In his weekly program, “Keys to a Better World,” Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata warned that indifference toward the truth and the spread of multiple and extravagant opinions “have also invaded the realm of faith.”
Archbishop Aguer focused his comments on what he said was one of the fundamental problems facing contemporary culture, which is “indifference towards the truth, or relativism,” that is, the decline of the truth and the rise of changing and inconsistent opinion: “I have my truth, you have yours.”
This problem has also begun to appear in the realm of faith, the archbishop noted. “The idea that faith is above all an emotion, an experience, a feeling, rather than a firm conviction in the truth of Divine Revelation” is becoming more prevalent, he explained. The problem is particularly acute in catechesis, which though improved in terms of methodology, is experiencing “a lack of doctrinal content.”
“Without a doubt, faith is the personal adherence to God through Christ our Savior, the great Revealer of the Father; but Christ is the Logos, the Word of God, and the truth of the faith that Christ has handed on to us is articulated in a set of doctrines, which the Church has developed and taught throughout the centuries. That is the content of our faith,” he explained.
Archbishop Aguer warned that Christians are often confused by “many disputable and even clearly erroneous theological opinions” that “are the work of well-known personalities, renowned theologians and writers whose books become the latest fad” and turn the minds of Catholics into “a storehouse of strange ideas which lack the clear, serene and joyful conviction of the truth of our faith.”
The Argentinean prelate said it was “urgent” that Catholics recover “a level of knowledge that is proper to the faith.” Faith is not only “personal adherence to Christ” motivated by divine grace, but also “the enlightenment of our intellects that affirm with conviction the truth revealed by God.”
“We must recover the sense of truth,” he continued. “If this sense of truth does not permeate our psychology, if it does not fill our lives with joy, how can we bear witness to the truth before a world that rejects it?”