La Plata, Argentina, Dec 2, 2008 / 21:39 pm
Archbishop Hector Aguer of the La Plata in Argentina said on Monday that the new book by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, “Nocturnal Conversations in Jerusalem,” “casts doubt on truths and practices” continuously taught by the Church.
During his program “Keys to a Better World,” the archbishop said that in his book, Cardinal Martini casts doubt on “truths and practices permanently upheld by the Church, such as the celibacy of priests, priestly ordination reserved to men and the immorality of homosexual relations.”
He also pointed out that the cardinal harshly criticizes Pope Paul VI and the encyclical Humane Vitae, which he claims “has caused great harm by prohibiting artificial contraception” and that it “has made many people leave the Church and the Church leave many people.”
“It is noteworthy that such an important, intelligent and outstanding cardinal such as Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, has echoed and made his own the criticisms that the secularized culture and those elements within the Church that have embraced dissent against the Magisterium have aimed at the Church for decades,” Archbishop Aguer said.