Here's the full text of Cardinal Pell's address at the Sydney Institute mentioned in this week's Potpourri.
Prospects for Peace & Rumours of War: Religion & Democracy In The Years Ahead. This from the opening is amusing:
Triumphalism is not in keeping with Christianity, and in some places in Western Europe there is very little reason for the Christian churches to be triumphalist. The situation continues to be hopeful for Christianity in Australia, despite recent census figures showing that the percentage of Christians has fallen from 68 per cent in 2001 to under 64 per cent in 2006. The percentage of people claiming no religion rose from 16 per cent to 19 per cent, perhaps in part because those identifying themselves as Jedi knights in the 2001 census have lapsed into unbelief.
The whole address is marvelous. Here's an observation I've never thought of in quite these terms:
True individuality is produced and sustained within the mesh of social relations. In the West, the two institutions that have been most fruitful in producing a hardy and resilient individuality are Christianity and the family.
That thesis is what I think of as the recurring theme of this blog, but I've never put it that starkly: individuals come from families & the Church; secular, atomistic societies, ironically, destroy the capacity for individuality. So the question becomes, how does a democracy replenish itself --and for his answer, you have to RTWT.
