Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - March 6-8, 2008, the Pontifical Council for Culture will celebrate their Plenary Assembly, a meeting of Cardinals, Bishops, priests, and laity from the seven continents, on Via della Conciliazione, number 5. There will be three days of intense intercultural dialogue and debate, in efforts to respond to the questions regarding cultural globalisation and the post-modern culture. This year, they will address the problem of secularism, as it is present at the beginning of the third millenium, taking into account, above all, its cultural dimension. One of the tendencies of secularism is not only the explicit denial of God’s presence, but also the mentality that God is absent, whether it be totally or partially, from life and the human conscience. From there comes an existential emptiness in which the post-modern era becomes characterised by a paradoxical growth in two parallel realities: secularism and religion, practical atheism and surrogate religious, in a pluralist society in search of an ethic whose values can be accepted by those who claim to be “absolutely different” and make relativism the absolute. (S.L. (Agenzia Fides 12/2/2008; righe 14, parole 179)
