Church’s social teaching antidote to ideological brainwash, says Argentinean bishop

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 20, 2010 / 05:53 pm MT (CNA).-

Archbishop Hector Aguer of La Plata in Argentina remarked last week that the Church’s social teaching is the best antidote against the ideological brainwashing of young people, which has caused so much harm and suffering in the country.

The prelate also called for committed lay people to get involved in public life.

During the opening of the 1st Congress on the Social Doctrine of the Church, organized by the archdiocese’s social ministry office, the archbishop recalled that the task of the Church “is to serve in the formation of consciences, so that each generation may resume the fundamental task of building a just social order.”

He noted that the laity have the duty to participate in the building of a more just country in various professional fields, especially economics and politics. The archbishop emphasized that politics is an area “where we are missing the presence of upright Catholics well formed in their faith and in the Christian worldview.”

“It is precisely there, in a turbulent world sometimes suspect of politics where they need to make their contribution of piety to our country submerged in a process of decadence that at times seems irreparable.”

Thus the archbishop underscored the importance of the Church’s social doctrine. “The purpose of this teaching is to contribute to the purification of reason and to provide help so that what is just, here and now, can be recognized and later put into practice,” he said.

Benedict XVI, he noted, puts Catholic social teaching at the crossroads of faith and politics, “which has as its principal task the just order of society and of the state.