The relativization of the Bible, which denies the value of Word of God, constitutes a genuine crisis that is both external and internal to the Church, says Cardinal Marc Ouellet. The prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who served as relator of the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, stated this Monday in the opening address of a congress on “Sacred Scripture in the Church.”
The congress, closing on Wednesday, has gathered 800 people in Madrid.
“In the last decades, a profound crisis is shaking the foundations of European culture,” said the cardinal. He continued: “A new raison d’etat imposes its law and tries to relegate the Christian roots of Europe to a secondary plane. It would seem that, in the name of secularism, the Bible must be relativized, to be dissolved in a religious pluralism and disappear as a normative cultural reference.”
However, the prelate affirmed, “the crisis has also penetrated the interior of the Church, given that a certain rationalist exegesis has seized the Bible to dissect the different stages and forms of its human composition, eliminating the prodigies and miracles, multiplying the theories and, not infrequently, sowing confusion among the faithful.” Thus, he explained, disturbing questions arise: Is Sacred Scripture no more than a human word? Isn’t it true that the results of the historical sciences invalidate the biblical testimony and, hence, the credibility of the Church? How can we continue to believe? And, finally, whom should we listen to?
MADRID, Spain, FEB. 8, 2011 (Zenit.org)