From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2013
I have never seen strong faith like this of an Italian Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi of Trieste. He revealed recently that when he was confined to his home, forced to remain inside his “besieged” residence, when homosexual activists staged a protest there earlier this month, and warned that gay-rights campaigners aim to prosecute all who oppose their agenda, a book by American sociologist helped him to remain firm.
Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi told the diocesan newspaper Vita Nuova (New Life) by the time he was confronted by gay activists ready to kill him he was reading a book by American sociologist, Rodney Stark, titled The Triumph of Christianity, “which analyzes, among other things, the many persecutions suffered by Christians in two thousand years of history”.
The book, he said, “demonstrates…that in the end, the persecutors pass and Christians continue, because the persecutions purify them and make them stronger. It’s a book that he recommends.
One thing I have learnt from Archbishop Crepaldi and has challenged my faith as well is that he remained firm and was ready to die but never to betray his church he so loves very much. He publicly defended the Catholic Church’s teaching on the nature of marriage in the diocesan newspaper.
The activists outside his door January 12th accused Crepaldi of reviving the “classic racist campaign against gay, lesbian and transgender people” and announced they intend to “prosecute” anyone who opposed their agenda, including churchmen.
Local news reported that two members of the Trieste city council were part of the crowd. Councilors Peter Faraguna and Paul Menis signed a petition “to fight discrimination” against homosexuals and the “promotion of non-discriminatory policies”.
David Zotti, an organizer of the protest and president of the Rainbow Club, indicated that the bishop should not be allowed to speak on Catholic teaching outside the confines of his church.
The demonstration, he added, was also in response to the homily of Pope Benedict XVI on December 21st in which he identified “gender theory” and the global homosexualist movement as a “threat to the foundations” of western society.
It was supported by provincial councilors – Štefan ?ok, Gianluca Balbi, Nadja Debenjak, Sandy Klun, Matthew Puppi, Sabrina Morena, Marcello Bergamini, Elena Legiša and Majda Canziani and an extreme-left environmentalist political party Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà.
Bishop Crepaldi responded that the accusations made against him are “false and serious,” particularly since he has dedicated his life “to fighting racism and has contributed a great pool of international jurists to rewrite the document of the Holy See against racism”.
Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, who is also the president of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory for the Social Doctrine of the Church, wrote this in an article to appear Thursday in the weekly magazine Tempi. The article, titled “The Pope Knows Where We Have to Go,” was posted recently on the observatory’s Web site.
Archbishop Crepaldi said that the protest was organized against him because of “the false and very grave accusation of being intolerant and racist.” The press quoted him saying that gay-rights activists are determined to gain approval for same-sex marriage, and toward that end will accuse all opponents of “homophobia.”
Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi is one of the people who best know the pope’s encyclical “Charity in Truth”. “Caritas in veritate” – Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Benedict XVI- He states that Christian doctrine has always drawn a distinction between “free will” and “freedom”. The former is the faculty to make a choice. The latter is the concrete choice for good. In fact, whosoever chooses evil is no longer free, even if his free will remains the same.
In ant interview in 2009 the archbishop explained that this encyclical cannot be perceived simply as a document aimed at solving the economic crisis. That’s why he emphasizes Benedict XVI’s message about the environment in which the pope seeks to merge respect for life with respect for nature. Caritas in Veritate: man as the engine of the economy
The choice of good, that being the exercise of true freedom, can be made in the light of reason. Pertaining to Revelation is the idea that man has this faculty: in his rational conscience he finds the light of good and evil.
This light, however, often wanes, and in the wake of the fall of our distant forefathers it falls into error and leaves the straight road. Without the Christian faith it is lost. In other words, reason on its own is not able to give man that freedom he has by virtue of his selfsame nature. Needed in order for this to take place are revelation and the faith.
As we see, it isn’t possible for religions to be equivalent in their ability to confirm and bolster true human freedom. Preserved in the choice of one religion over another is the exercise of free will, but not true freedom. This is because not all religions are equally true, and only one of them is “true”. And this alone truly permits man to be free. In fact, we are free only according to truth.
Freedom of religion does not mean the choice of just any religion confirms and validates the freedom of religion. This would be tantamount to the religious relativism clearly decried by Benedict XVI also in “Ecclesia in Medio Oriente”.
It means that freedom of religion is a natural right and hence no one religion can be imposed upon people by the force of might. But that natural right is not merely free will and does not exist irregardless of truth; it draws nourishment from truth and good, with respect to which only the true religion may respond in full. It alone renders man truly free.
While on one hand it is right and just to acknowledge freedom of religion, it must be recognized on the other hand how, once chosen, there are religions that are detrimental to freedom of religion.
If freedom is considered only as the exercise of free will, freedom can be exercised even without any relationship with truth. If, however, freedom is considered as a right whose exercise is linked to good, then freedom does not exist outside the relationship with truth.
If freedom does not exist outside the relationship with truth this means it has to do with truth from the very outset and not at a hypothetical later stage, and hence also has to do with God and therefore religion. The truth-religion link exists from the very outset and with it the bond between freedom and true religion.
His Holiness Benedict XVI focused attention anew on the theme of freedom of religion in the recent Apostolic Exhortation “Ecclesia in Medio Oriente”, especially dedicating paragraphs 25 and 27 to it, with which we must also consider paragraphs 29 and 30 dealing with laicity and fundamentalism. On the basis of these teachings of the Holy Father and his predecessors I would like to offer some food for thought and discussion.
Crepaldi is close to Pope Benedict and was granted the personal rank of archbishop, though Trieste is not an archdiocese. He is the founder and president of the International Observatory Cardinal Van Thuan, a think tank that provides “reasoned information” and “reflections, evaluations and in-depth studies” on the Church’s social doctrine.
In a paper for the Observatory, Archbishop Crepaldi warned of a “colonization of human nature” by an ideology that is spreading from Europe around the world, “gender,” an expression of “a nihilistic culture that intends to overcome completely the concept of human nature.”
Catholics, he said, are not asked to take refuge in a small enclave to “cultivate traditional values,” but to compete in the world with a vision of the nature of the human being. “There is a huge cultural work to be done to educate this sense of nature and of human nature. And I’m sorry to see that within the Church and among the Christian communities themselves the importance of this point is often overlooked.”
Archbishop Crepaldi continued: “Without denying the diverse levels of truth and competence, and hence without denying its own limits, the Church knows it announces the definitive Word and that this Word is not sort of added on from the outside like an opinion, but professes to be the response to human expectations.
“If God is only useful, then Christianity is nothing more than ethics. God is indispensable and therefore the faith purifies reason and charity purifies justice. Purify means making them reason and charity in the full and effective sense of the words. It is like saying that reason without faith is unable to be reason, and justice without charity is unable to be justice.”
He has recommended very strongly that faith schools could also be “compelled” to teach a definition of marriage which goes against Church teachings and individual teachers could see their freedom of expression curbed. He believes such teachings will enable children as they grow up that marriage is between man and woman.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.