Madrid, Spain, Nov 6, 2008 / 20:55 pm
In a recent pastoral letter, Bishop Jose Ignacio Munilla of Palencia in Spain denounced the growing secularization and atheistic secular ideology that is persecuting young people to the point of making them feel “neurotic and ashamed” of their Christian faith.
In his letter, the bishop recalled the words of Pope Benedict XVI to the young people gathered for World Youth Day in Sydney, where he criticized the growing secularism in which young people have to live.
“Without reaching the point of physical persecution, in our days there exist very subtle and effective means of coercing a young person, so that in practice, his religious freedom is limited. The secularized concept of existence, united with secularist ideology, finds decisive support in those who promote public cultural initiatives, as well as wide diffusion by most of the mass media.”
“This contributes,” he said, “to making the Christian faith seem countercultural in our society.”