By Gudrun Schultz
TOLEDO, Spain, July 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Reflecting on the current state of the family in Spain, following the recent 5th World Meeting of Families held in Valencia, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares said secularism and moral relativism lead to family and social breakdown by emphasizing human freedom at the cost of morality, and ultimately lead to a totalitarian state.
“Human rights are no longer something that precedes man, the decision of the majority, the decision of power, but something that is indicated by power, whether this is the totalitarian power of one man, of the majority, or that generated through the manipulation of public opinion,” Cardinal Cañizares said in a lengthy interview with the Zenit News Agency.
“In this way, it is the human being who decides and who gives the absolute explanation of himself, so that there are no human rights.”Â
Cardinal Cañizares pointed out that true human freedom and democracy are only possible in a society that recognizes objective good or evil. Without respect for the natural created order of life, human power dictates morality and ultimately produces a totalitarian society, he warned.
“Human rights, in that new conception, are no longer those inscribed in human nature.
“What matters is what the majority or the supreme power defines, and if it defines something that is foreign to the natural created order, why not?
”[S]o that we move to a totalitarian regime and a false democracy, and also to an apparently absolute freedom. But it is the freedom of the fish in the fishbowl.”
Cardinal Cañizares identified the spread of false moral theology, which denies any objective morality or standard, as a source of great confusion for families and a contributing factor in the growth of secularism.
In the case of marriage, he said, “What was advocated…was that love is what is important, not openness to life. It has been taught that marriage—being in fact indissoluble—that indissolubility is founded only on a decision of the spouses.
“As can be seen, it is a morality that is based solely on a personal decision and not on what are objective realities, which are given to us in Revelation and in our created nature itself.”
The loss of a spiritual foundation has led to the inevitable loss of strong family life in Western society, the Cardinal said, which in turn has contributed to the growing power of secularist ideology.
“When there is want of God in the family, there is want of love, and the family then enters in crisis, because the family is either love or it is nothing. A reflection that the Pope has used on occasions is that a world without God is an infernal world, it is a hell. And that at times, under the appearance of good, man is being led to hell.”
See the full Zenit interview:
https://www.zenit.org/english/
See LifeSiteNews coverage of the 5th World Meeting of Families:
Benedict Attends Fifth World Meeting of Families in Valencia Spain
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06071008.htmlÂ