Ratzinger: Christians must fight "an aggressive secular ideology."

VATICAN CITY, November 19, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview published today in the Italian newspaper "La Reppublica" and re-distributed world-wide via the Vatican Information Service, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issues a serious warning to Christians to defend against, "an aggressive secular ideology."

The Cardinal recalled, "In Sweden, a Protestant pastor who had preached about homosexuality, based on a line from Scriptures, went to jail for one month." He noted that the state should "not impose religion," but "allows these religions to be factors in building up society". However some states are now giving way to "an ideology which is imposed through politics and which does not give public space to the Catholic or Christian vision."

Urging Christians to fight the dangerous trend, he said: "In this sense, a struggle exists and we must defend religious freedom against the imposition of an ideology which is presented as if it were the only voice of rationality, when it is only the expression of a 'certain' rationalism."

Cardinal Ratzinger recognized in the advent of 'the pill', the seed for the warping of human sexuality and thus the eventual societal acceptance of homosexuality. "It is true that the pill has given rise to an anthropological revolution of great dimensions. It has . . . changed the vision of sexuality, the human being and the body itself. Sexuality has been separated from fecundity and in this way it has profoundly changed the concept of the human life. The sexual act has lost its purpose and finality which before was clear and specific, so that all forms of sexuality have become equivalent. Above all, from this revolution comes the equalization between homosexuality and heterosexuality."

Moreover, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith explained why the Catholic Church opposes not only homosexual 'marriage' but any kind of legal recognition of homosexual spouses. Speaking of recognition of spousal agreements between homosexuals, the Cardinal said, "But to institutionalize an agreement of this type - whether the lawmaker wants it or not - would necessarily appear in public opinion like another type of marriage that would inevitably assume a relative value." Concluding the point, Cardinal Ratzinger said, "Let us not forget that with these choices, to which Europe tends today - shall we say - in decline, we make a break from all the great cultures of humanity that have always recognized the very meaning of sexuality: that is, that men and the women were created to be jointly the guarantee of the future of the humanity. Not only a physical guarantee but also a moral one."

Source: "Top Vatican Cardinal Says It's Time to Fight for Christian Freedom" LifeSiteNews.com. Nov. 19, 2004.

More excerpts from the Ratzinger interview with La Reppublica can be read here (Zenit.org).