Dives in Misericordia: “Mercy . . . from Generation to Generation” (10, continued)

Chapter 6 of “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) is entitled “Mercy . . . from Generation to Generation.” It continues as follows:

“10. . . . Towards the end of the introductory exposition we read: ‘. . .in the face of modern developments there is a growing body of men who are asking the most fundamental of all questions or are glimpsing them with a keener insight: What is man? What is the meaning of suffering, evil, death, which have not been eliminated by all this progress? What is the purpose of these achievements, purchased at so high a price?’¹¹⁰

“In the span of the fifteen years since the end of the Second Vatican Council, has this picture of tensions and threats that mark our epoch become less disquieting? It seems not. On the contrary, the tensions and threats that in the Council document seem only to be outlined and not to manifest in depth all the dangers hidden within them have revealed themselves more clearly in the space of these years; they have in a different way confirmed that danger, and do not permit us to cherish the illusions of the past.”

110. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes, no. 10: AAS 58 (1966), p. 1032.

 

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Pope John Paul II: “Dives in Misericordia”