The need for God is no longer felt.
The Pontiff mentioned Australia at the top of a list of secularized countries during an impromptu question-and-answer session with priests of the Italian Diocese of Aosta in 2005.
He said a secularized society is one that is "tired of its own culture, a world that has arrived at a moment in which the need for God is no longer felt, and much less so of Christ, and in which, consequently, it seems that man might construct himself."
"In this climate of a rationalism shut-in on itself, which considers the model of the sciences as the only model of knowledge, everything else is subjective," Benedict XVI continued. "Naturally, Christian life also becomes a subjective option and, therefore, arbitrary. It is no longer the way of life."
"This happens especially in Australia," he added, "also in Europe, somewhat less so in the United States."
The Pope's comment about "rationalism which considers the model of the sciences as the only model of knowledge" ties in with what I have been reading recently. Peter Kreeft's Socrates Meets Descartes, discusses how Descartes wanted to bolster philosophic thought, advance it and remove disagreement. He so sought to do this by applying the scientific method, which had helped to make leaps and bounds in the material sciences to philosophy. More on this in my review when I finish the book.
Catholic Australia
The Central Statistical Office of the Church announced last week that Catholicism is the largest religion in Australia, with 27.56% of the total population belonging to the Church.
Nonetheless, the office noted that while the Catholic population grew by 125,260 between 2001 and 2006, it failed to grow in proportion to the country's total population.
A national survey conducted in May 2006 revealed that the total number of people at Mass on a typical weekend was 708,600, or about 14% of the census Catholic population. That low number was already down a bit from 2001's count of 15%.
[Quotes via Zenit]
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