Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and responsible for the Doctrine of Faith in the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM), offers readers of Exaudi his weekly article entitled “Anthropological Chaos”.
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LOOK
Many of us feel disconcerted by so much struggle by those who defend by all means, even violently, what they consider their rights, but which may be whims, external impositions, selfish interests, fashionable ideologies, or slogans of certain leaders or economic groups. For example, it is already law that if someone mistreats an animal, they must pay a fine and go to jail. But if a human being is killed in the womb, that is considered a right, which the Supreme Court of Justice itself supports and demands to be recognized in all local legislatures. They say that this is justice for women, that they can do whatever they want with their bodies, but they do not care about the right of the unborn human being to live, being that it is a victim, innocent, and defenseless. If they defend women, then, if an embryo or fetus is female, they would have to be consistent and defend them. This is anthropological chaos because some rights are defended and others are violated, equally or more worthy. And if we say something against it, they brand us as conservative, outdated, enemies of women.
How can it be explained that some prefer to have dogs, cats, parrots or exotic species, and do not want to have children? It is an anthropological chaos that indigenous people, peasants, the poor, Afro-Mexicans, migrants, the homeless, the disabled, prisoners, alcoholics, drug addicts are despised only for their external appearance, for their poverty. It is a human imbalance that there are those who defend tooth and nail species in the process of extinction, vegetation and ecology, and rightly so, but do not support with equal or greater force the defense of human life; do not promote development programs for the marginalized; do not do everything possible to stop wars that destroy human lives and defend the free sale of weapons.
Likewise, it is an anthropological chaos that being able to change sex is defended as a right, even if they are minors, without the consent and information of their parents, despite being genetically and biologically determined by our genitals. People with different sexual tendencies are worthy of respect and should not be underestimated in any way. Those who do otherwise should be legislated and punished; but that does not mean that being a man is the same as being a woman, or that a man who considers himself a woman wants to live and participate in society and in sports like a woman. What is, is, even if many say otherwise. If we do not respect human nature, we fall into chaos.
DISCERN
The Mexican bishops, in the Global Pastoral Project 2031+2033, affirm:
“Humanity is experiencing a true and profound change of era. This new culture blurs and mutilates the human figure. It is here where the fundamental cultural core is found: the denial of the primacy of the human being! We are facing a profound anthropological-cultural crisis” (20).
“The Church is not alien or strange to the society in which it is immersed. This new era demands that we accompany each person and courageously renew our evangelical prophecy, proclaiming with force the inestimable value of the person, denouncing everything that opposes his full realization and discerning in the light of the Gospel this new reality, in order to embody the experience of mercy, communion and solidarity in this new era” (24).
Recognizing all the good that we have accomplished in humanity, we also denounce the “signs of an anthropological-cultural crisis in cultural transformations, the economy, relativism, the reduction of ecology to material things, communication technologies, the arrival of new spiritualities, the crisis of meaning, forced migrations, new ideologies that affect the family, the role of women” (27 to 41).
“Contemplating Jesus Christ, true God and true man, we discover in every human being redeemed by Him, the beauty, the greatness and the dignity of his being. In the face of countless attacks to mutilate, distort, change and obscure the image of the human being, the Church is called to proclaim that every person has value in themselves, regardless of their social, economic, political or religious condition, and that by their nature they are free and transcendent, with the capacity to relate to others and to nature.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on his path of Redemption, has come so that man may have life and have it in abundance. There are many limitations and abuses committed against human life and there are painful situations in our country that make it impossible for many people to live with the minimum of human consideration and to have their dignity recognized, preventing that full life that Christ has come to bring from becoming a reality in them. At the center of this reality is the strength of the Kingdom of God, which as Christians leads us to build the foundations of a society where the dignity of the person is recognized, valued and built integrally (172 and 173).
ACT
In the same document, the bishops propose: “To emphasize, in the ecclesial spaces of evangelization and catechesis, a Christian anthropological formation in an integral and systematic way, clearly presenting the person of Jesus Christ, as a model of the human being, from a kerygmatic perspective. Generate spaces for encounter, dialogue and work with other actors in society, to collaborate in the reconstruction of the dignity of people and the social fabric of our country” (173, a and b).
