Special to saccoservices.com

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PINE BLUFFS - Pope Benedict’s 5-day Brazilian trip in May 2007, his first pilgrimage to Latin America as Pontiff, signaled the Vatican’s initial move in bringing renewal to Mexico, Central and South America, home to roughly a quarter of the world’s Catholics.

His official purpose for the journey? To kick off the 5^th General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM); unofficially it was to address the Church’s challenges in that part of the world; the steady secularization of Mexico and Central and South American nations, and massive inroads into Roman Catholic ranks by Evangelical Protestant churches. Benedict is no stranger to Brazil. He visited there in 1990 as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

POPE PULLS NO PUNCHES

Prior to leaving Rome, Benedict reportedly said that the exodus of Catholics for Evangelical Protestant Churches was “our biggest worry,” because they have enticed millions away from Catholicism recently. Believing that this exodus shows “a thirst for God,” he said he expects to develop a strategy to answer that call; guidelines for the faithful in combating this trend.

In a press conference high above the African continent 4,500 miles from Sao Paulo, he fired an opening salvo, laying down church law on abortion and suggesting he agreed with Mexican Cardinal Norberto Rivera’s recent pronouncement that Catholic politicians in Mexico City excommunicated themselves by legalizing abortion there.
       Addressing an enthusiastic throng of Brazilian youth the day after his arrival, he challenged them to forego premarital sex and instead adopt a celibate lifestyle until marriage, and to remain faithful to their spouses thereafter. The next day, he called for a more forceful evangelization throughout Latin America to counter defections from Catholic ranks, punctuating that call by canonizing Brazil’s first native born saint, Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao, an 18^th-Century Franciscan monk credited with 5,000 miracle cures. Later, while visiting a drug rehab center, he spoke about poverty and other social problems, and warned drug dealers that God will punish them.

The Aparecido Conference

Opening the conference in Aparecida, Benedict set a torrid schedule for the Bishops while noting his “affection for your beloved people and my shared concern to help them be disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ, so they might have life in him.”

In July 2007, The Vatican released a 130-page summary of the Bishop’s Conference, which Pope Benedict said “contained numerous pastoral indications, motivated by thoughtful reflections in light of the faith and current social context.” He expressed pleasure at “the priority given, in pastoral programs, to the Eucharist and the sanctification of the day of the Lord,” and to “Christian formation of the faithful in general and of pastoral workers in particular.”

Also in July 2007, as a happy follow-up, Archbishop Raymundo Assis, newly-elected president of the Latin American Bishop’s Council, stated that during his term he’ll concentrate the Council’s efforts on implementing the Aparecida Conference directives.

VACATION ENERGIZES BENEDICT

Pope Benedict XVI has just returned from a much-needed 17-day vacation at a cottage in Lorenzo Di Cadore, Italy, where he spent much time in prayer, study and contemplation. Although his straight talk is disliked by a secular media and tends to make certain elements uneasy, he is immensely popular with the laity worldwide. On July 11, the Feast of his namesake, Saint Benedict, the Alpine population of the Veneto region of northern Italy hosted a concert in his honor.

Refreshed, the Pope immediately threw himself into his work on numerous thorny issues. He’s addressing the breach of Eucharistic communion between Eastern and Western Catholics, which, an Eastern orthodox bishop recently said, “is a common tragedy and the quest for unity should be of equal importance to both.”

He’s also focusing on the Vatican’s emerging relationship with China. Earlier this year, he named Hong Kong Bishop Joseph Zen, outspoken advocate for the needs of Chinese Roman Catholics, as one of 15 new Cardinals. In May, he signed a letter to Chinese Catholics, part of which addressed Chinese authorities in a non-accusatory tone, citing a future reciprocal understanding that distinguishes political and religious responsibilities.

Amid all this, the Vatican will finalize plans for World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia, where 5 million turned-on-to-their-faith youth will congregate next year.

Whether Benedict’s Brazil visit had the desired affect - lighting a fire under the Episcopate as they attempt to end the slide away from God by Mexico, Central and South American nations - remains to be seen. But one thing is crystal clear; if it does not, the countries of that region may follow France and Spain into a vortex of relativism and secularization in which the voice of the Roman Catholic Church cannot be heard.

I’m familiar with Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy. One of these novels was enough for me. I haven't seen the movie, and do not intend to. As a writer myself, I know something about fantasy literature, so I can tell you that this author is an outspoken atheist, and the movie is blatantly, militantly atheistic. The book, although interesting and well-written, is anti-God, and anti-church. It’s dark fantasy at its best. Or rather, at its worst.

          There’s a bigger problem here. Most of the time, our modern media, many unthinking secularists, and even ordinary people, including some Christians, act as if God didn't exist (except for the so frequent, "Oh, my God!" expression, which spews from the mouths of mindless “valley girl” types). News reports and newspapers stories inform us about terrible disasters, but seldom say a word about praying for the victims. The accomplishments of athletes are praised, but the source of their God-given abilities is seldom mentioned, and athletes who call attention to their Christianity are often shunned. Current popular rap music? Well, we all know it’s a crude moral wasteland full of references to “cop killing,” and other violent mentions, “ho’s, “hookin’ up,” “shackin’ up, “momma’s back,” and other vulgar sexual references. Dramatic TV programs and movies tell us about what's important in fictional people's lives, but they seldom portray a character with a genuine belief in God, unless it’s to subject that character to ridicule. Recently, I saw a movie which I found hilarious and enjoyable, and it was so inoffensive that it is rated PG-13. Christianity Today said that it was a family-oriented movie, and it is. But I don't remember a single character who said a word about religious belief of any kind, or about going to church, or about accountability to a higher power for one’s actions.

It seems to me that this pervasive ignoring of the things of God is much more dangerous than occasional blatant atheism. We usually see blatant atheism, recognize it, and react to it. But if we aren't careful, we can absorb from the secular world around us, including, of course, the media, the attitude that God is non-existent or irrelevant. In effect, we might become practicing atheists.

Read what one misguided but perhaps well-intentioned book reviewer had to say about Pullman’s so-called Grand Trilogy:

“I just finished reading this grand trilogy to my kids, aged 8, 10, and 12. My wife ended up sitting in on almost the entire series, and all of us were riveted from Oxford to the World of the Dead and back again. These books are incredibly ambitious: they set out to stitch together a religio-political history of the multiverse with deep, informed reference to physics, religious history, adolescent psychology, Nietzschean heroism, etc. etc. etc. The result, as I read it, is one of the most compelling indictments of church and state ever written for a broad audience. Author Philip Pullman concludes, without didactic hamfistedness, that the first purpose of churches and governments is self-perpetuation through maintaining the ignorance of their adherents and citizens. The greatest wisdom and joy, in Pullman's worlds, comes of full, mortal, bodily engagement with the physical world per se: with domestic comforts, food, sex, art, aesthetic involvement, work well done, craft, cleverness, etc. The well-earned consciousness of a human adult, earned through Blakean experience, is the crowning moment of all creation. Antithetical to this wisdom and consciousness is dogmatic narrowness, asceticism, monasticism, self-denial, narrowness of experience.”
       Many have already noticed the offensive and destructive nature of Pullman’s work. On November 23, 2007, a Catholic District School Board in England pulled this and his other books from the shelves, pending a review and evaluation of the literary, not religious, merits of the books. A good thing? Well, yes and no.

   Pulling these books from the shelves of a religious school’s library raises the obvious question, “Why were they there to begin with? And any review of “the literary, not religious, merits” of Pullman’s work will be a mere exercise in futility, since it is precisely the anti-religious, anti-moral, anti-church aspects of this writer’s work product that is so offensive to Christians, and so destructive to Pullman’s readers, especially the  impressionable youth at which they’re aimed.

   Of course, although those in charge of public education today may not agree, I do not believe that youngsters of any age should be exposed to and indoctrinated by anyone who thinks that “there is no evidence for the existence of God.” And that’s one of the things so objectionable about today’s public schools; something which has created a nationwide movement to home school our kids in order to instill in them a knowledge of their religion, and a faith in God and Jesus Christ.

        It’s time for us Christians to counter attack for God and Jesus. Where Hollywood is concerned, one of the best ways to force them to stop attacking us is to hit them in the pocketbook. So, I urge you to refrain from reading Pullman’s books and seeing this movie. To refuse to allow your children to do so, also seems a prudent action to take, after explaining to them the reasons for your decision. For Christian kids, a far better and more spiritually healthy choice would be C.S. Lewis’s celebrated space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Peralandra, and That Hideous Strength, so firmly grounded in Biblical truths and solid Christian dogma.

Anthony J. Sacco, a writer, licensed private investigator, author of two novels; The China Connection, and Little Sister Lost, and a biography, Echoes in the Wind, holds degrees from Loyola College of Maryland and the University of Maryland Law School. His articles have appeared in the Washington Times, Baltimore Sun, Voices for the Unborn, the Catholic Review, WREN Magazine and the Wyoming Catholic Register. E-mail him at anthonyjsacco@hotmail.com and visit his website at www.saccoservices.com. To read an exerpt from his latest book, Echoes in the Wind, go to http://www.saccoservices.com/echoesinthewind.php.