ROME, APRIL 13, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Camillo Ruini has published a book analyzing the signs of the times which, he says, range from the threat of terrorism to a prevailing culture opposed to Christianity.
The brief, 83-page volume, published at the end of March, is entitled «Nuovi segni dei Tempi. La sorte della fede nell’età dei mutamenti» (New Signs of the Times: Faith in the Age of Change) and published by Mondadori.
The text of the bishop vicar of the Diocese of Rome begins with the «New Evangelization,» the challenge posed by John Paul II to the Church, to recover for the Christian faith «an effective impetus in the path to the future.»
This objective, the cardinal acknowledges, meets with many difficulties, both because of the residue of old ideologies as well as the secularization of modern times.
According to the author, in Europe and the whole of the West there is a «transformation and redefinition» under way «of the models of life, of diffused behavior patterns and of reference values, of legislative, administrative and judicial decisions, which are based on a conception that is opposed to the Christian vision.»
Cardinal Ruini is opposed to a «merely naturalist conception of the human being, where there is no room for his transcendence, and much less for a life after death.»
«With these foundations, it is extremely difficult to ground rationally that central role and specific dignity of the human individual, who must always be considered as an end and never as a means,» he writes.
The cardinal recalls that the Christian’s «way to peace» and to «the building of a new humanism» is found in Christ himself, who is «a living message of unbounded love,» including love for one’s enemies.
