Here's the paragraph that started the lights flashing and bells and sirens going off in my head:
18. The continued acceleration of changes affecting humanity and the planet is coupled today with a more intensified pace of life and work which might be called “rapidification”. Although change is part of the working of complex systems, the speed with which human activity has developed contrasts with the naturally slow pace of biological evolution. Moreover, the goals of this rapid and constant change are not necessarily geared to the common good or to integral and sustainable human development. Change is something desirable, yet it becomes a source of anxiety when it causes harm to the world and to the quality of life of much of humanity."Rapidification?" Is that even a word? I suppose one could talk about the term in the sense of "future shock," too much change in too short a period of time. I pretty much agree with that as being a problem of modern life. But what are we to make of the pope talking about the "slow pace of biological evolution." I have to assume he accepts evolution as a fact rather than a theory and dismisses fiat creation which all the Fathers of the Church accepted. So already the encyclical is beginning from assumptions that aren't necessarily true.
And I can't agree with the blanket statement that "Change is something desirable." Is it? If I'm healthy is a change to sickness "desirable?" Is a change from virtue to vice desirable?
Some changes are desirable, but certainly not all, as the pope himself points out in the second part of the sentence. So why make that blanket statement at all? It seems to me to be a distinctively liberal idea.
But I've only just begun and there are pages and pages and pages to wade through. Want to join the journey? Find the encyclical here.
