Sunday, November 14, 2010

Hope - the expectation of "future good things".

Last week the Justice Minister, Dermot Ahern, said he leaves his religion outside the door when he is legislating. Religion, he said "clouds" a person's judgment. I wonder what his religion is?

True religion enlightens the mind and heart. According to Pope John Paul II, the Church, is the custodian of fundamental truths and values. These fundamental truths and values have given hope to people for the last 2000 years, to young and old, to the sick and the dying.

In effect, by leaving religion outside the door, he's leaving God outside the door, while he makes decisions that will affect future generations.

In 1985, Pope John Paul addressed the Youth of the World:
In you there is hope, for you belong to the future, just as the future belongs to you. For hope is always linked to the future; it is the expectation of "future good things".

What "good things" is the Minister offering to the future generations?
....only God is the ultimate basis of all values; only he gives the definitive meaning to our human existence.

Pope John Paul II.

Pope John Paul also said:
Only God is good, which means this: in him and him alone all values have their first source and final completion; he is "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end". Without him-without the reference to God-the whole world of created values remains as it were suspended in an absolute vacuum. It also loses its transparency, its expressiveness. Evil is put forward as a good and good itself is rejected. Are we not shown this by the very experience of our own time, wherever God has been removed beyond the limits of evaluations, estimations and actions?

So what is the Minister of Justice offering to the Youth of the World - a vacuum, where evil is put forward as a good, and good itself is rejected. Shame on him.
(June 2010)

3 comments:

  1. Religion 'clouds' a person's judgment as morality clouds a person's actions I guess.

    Poor Mr Ahern!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, poor Mr Ahern, TD, Minister for Justice, Equility & Law Reform. I've just read re Corrib Gas project that he was Minister for Natural Resources when the Planning Board did its first damning report on the project. What did he say? He said he “regretted” the decision of An Bord Pleanála to refuse permission for the terminal. His party colleague and junior minister Frank Fahey – the genius behind the terminal in the bog – asked his fellow TDs from the West of Ireland to meet with the managing director of Shell E&P Ireland, Andy Pyle. Twelve months after a landmark report from a courageous and conscientious public servant,Kevin Moore, the Board gave the project the go-ahead.

    Obviously he left his conscience outside the door. Good people have been jailed for standing up for their rights. I hope they are stopped. And now he's the Minister for Justice!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this post. So many "religious" forget how they're supposed to be living their faith at all times. In the same vain, many atheists/agnostics/non-religious people say they "tolerate" religious people as long as they're not preaching/evangelizing or being loud about their faith. Sorry, that's the whole idea.

    Right on!

    ReplyDelete