Vatican City, Jun 26, 2017 / 04:34 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s top personality on social justice issues has voiced his concern for the increased demand for drugs, including recreational marijuana, saying debate on the plant’s usage doesn’t take ethical concerns into account.
In a June 26 letter on the occasion of the U.N. International Day against Abuse and Illicit Trafficking of Drugs, Cardinal Peter Turkson lamented the fact that narcotics “continue to rage in impressive forms and dimensions” throughout the world.
“It is a phenomenon that is fueled – not without concessions and compromises on the part of institutions – by a shameful market that crosses national and continental borders, intertwined with mafias and drug trafficking,” he said.
Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Turkson noted that compared to the recent past, drugs have now become “a consumer product made compatible with everyday life, with leisure activity and even with the pursuit of well-being.”
Pointing specifically to cocaine, he noted that the drug is linked to the spread of heroin, which at 80 percent represents the highest number of new requests for opioid-related treatments in Europe.
However, despite the high numbers for heroin and opioid treatment requests, the cardinal noted that “the most commonly consumed recreational drug is cannabis.”
The current, raging international debate on the use of the drug “tends to overlook the ethical judgment of the substance, by definition negative as with any other drug,” he said, pointing to the current focus on its possible therapeutic uses.
This, he stressed, is “a field in which we await scientific data to be validated by monitoring periods, as for any experiment worthy of public consideration.”
According to September 2016 report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which compared marijuana-related statistics from previous years in Colorado to data from 2013-2015, the first years after the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state, the prospects of the drug’s increased use are grim.
Not only have the number of marijuana-related deaths, hospitalizations and traffic accidents increased since the drug’s recreational use was legalized, there has also been growing concern over marijuana-related crime and a decrease in the IQ of youths who use it.
But before making a firm decision on the issue that is perhaps based on various prejudices, Cardinal Turkson said it would be better to first “understand trends in the use of cannabis, related damages and the consequences of regulatory policies in the various countries.”
It’s especially important to recognize the factors “which push the illegal market to develop products intended to affect patterns of consumption and to reaffirm the primacy of the desire that is compulsively satisfied by the substance.”
On this point, concern has grown for many that the recreational use of marijuana is often a gateway for youth to become addicted, and eventually move on to other drugs such as cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, or meth.
In addition to voicing his concerns on marijuana, heroin, and the dangers of using them to improve one’s “wellbeing,” Cardinal Turkson also pointed to the risks of other addictive behaviors such as gambling, saying its legalization, even in cases aimed at unmasking its criminal managers, “exponentially increases the number of pathological players.”
“Moreover, taxation by the state is to be considered incompatible from an ethical standpoint and contradictory in terms of prevention,” he said, adding that the development of “models of intervention and adequate monitoring systems, associated with the allocation of funds, is highly desirable to tackle the phenomenon.”
The cardinal noted that as the array of addictions continues to diversify, “indifference and at times indirect complicity in this phenomenon contributes to diverting the attention of public opinion and governments, focused on other emergencies.”
Plans to fight the increasing demand for drugs often collapse, he said, explaining that the present-day state of addictions shows “gaps in planning, policies and prospects,” which in turn is a sign of “sluggish progress” in the face of the drug market, “which is highly competitive and flexible to demand, and always open to novelties such as recently-created, extremely powerful synthetic opiates, ecstasy and amphetamines.”
“It is precisely the growing and widespread consumption of ecstasy that may serve as an indicator of how the use of illicit substances has now spread into everyday areas of life,” he said, adding that it could also be an indication of how the ecstasy user no longer identifies with the heroin addict, but “with the new profile of the user of multiple substances and alcohol.”
Because of this, strategies of intervention can’t depend solely on reduced damage, “nor can drugs still be considered as a phenomenon that is collusive with social disorder and deviance.”
Rather, damage reduction “must necessarily involve taking on board both the toxicological aspect and integration with personalized therapeutic programs of a psycho-social nature, without giving rise to forms of chronic use, which are harmful to the person and ethically reprehensible,” the cardinal said.
Cardinal Turkson stressed the importance of not seeing the addict as a problem to be solved or as being beyond the hope of rehabilitation.
To consider people as irrecoverable, he said, “is an act of capitulation that denies the psychological dynamics of change and offers an alibi for disengagement from the addict and the institutions that have the task of preventing and treating.”
“It cannot be accepted that society metabolizes drug use as a chronic epochal trait, similar to alcoholism and tobacco, withdrawing from exchange on the margins of freedom of the state and the citizen in relation to substance use,” he said.
The cardinal recognized that there is no singular cause of drug use, but rather a panorama of causes including the absence of a family, various social pressures, the propaganda of drug dealers, and even the desire to have new experiences.
“Every drug addict has a unique personal story and must be listened to, understood, loved, and, insofar as possible, healed and purified,” he said.
“We cannot stoop to the injustice of categorizing drug addicts as if they were mere objects or broken machines; each person must be valued and appreciated in his or her dignity in order to enable them to be healed.”
For the cardinal, part of this process means finding effective means of prevention, beginning with education.
“The scenario which we must all face is marked by the loss of the ancient primacy of the family and the school, the emptying of authority of adult figures and the difficulties that arise in terms of parenting,” he said, stressing that this is not time for “protagonism,” but rather for “networks” that are capable of “reactivating social educational synergies by overcoming unnecessary competition, delegation and forms of dereliction.”
“To prevent young people from growing up without care, bred rather than educated, attracted by ‘healing prosthetics,’ as drugs appear to them, all social actors must connect and invest in the shared ground of basic and indispensable education values aiming at the integral formation of the person.”
In this regard, educational aspects “are crucial,” he said, especially during adolescence, when youth are more vulnerable, and at the same time curious and prone to periods of depression and apathy.
Youth look for the “vertigo that makes them feel alive,” he said, quoting Pope Francis. “So, let us give it to them! Let us stimulate all that which helps them transform their dreams into plans, and that can reveal that all the potential they have is a bridge, a passage towards a vocation.”
“Let us propose broad aims to them, great challenges, and let us help them achieve them, to reach their targets. Let us not leave them alone.”
In order to combat the ephemeral happiness of addictions, a “creative love” is needed, Cardinal Turkson said, as well as the presence of adults capable of both teaching and practicing healthy self-care.
“A spiritual vision of existence, projected towards the search for meaning, open to the encounter with others, constitutes the greatest educational legacy that must be handed down between generations, today more than ever,” he said.
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Interesting. Bergoglio is all about progressivism.
But no mention of truth.
That’s because humanist progressivism is his religion, rather than Christianity. This has been obvious from day one, when he stepped out onto that balcony to proclaim a false gospel of “a church for the poor”. It’s been a long time since we have had an out-and-out pagan for a pope, and we don’t know what to make of it. Cognitive dissonance, and all that.
“Church of the poor” is “false gospel”? have you read the Bible at all? Or do you fringe fruitcakes have your own gospel? It sounds like you have your own religion. Maybe come up with a catchy name for it and start your own service.
The Church, containing the Spirit of God and the Presence of Christ’s Body and Blood, is RICH. Did those points get lost in a penurious reading of the gospel?
Back-stepping to the ’70s, say?
We read: “The pope was referring to St. Vincent of Lerins, who wrote about the development of Church teaching, saying that it ‘is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age.’”
Based on St. Vincent of Lerins, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (the “Father of the Second Vatican Council”) gave the Church his “Development of Christian Doctrine,” not much of which seems to be respected today under the tradition (!) of Jesuitical nepotism.
From Newman:
“I venture to set down seven notes of varying cogency, independence, and applicability to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay, as follows: There is no corruption IF IT RETAINS”:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment”?],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy v. neo-Hegelianism?],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter v. all religions equivalently (?) “the will of God”?];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. normalization of homosexual activity, etc.?], and
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [Veritatis Splendor/Familiarus Consortio v. the bogus social-science “arc of history”?];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Neww Evangelization v. Amazonia/ Germania?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [steadfastness because also fully engaging new challenges v. photo-op signaling and double-speak, or the tactics of silence?].
Someone should ask him for an example. Not that he’d answer them lol.
I cannot think of anything positive to say in response to this pope, other than may Almighty God have mercy and remember him when he lies among all of the dead traditions he so callously despised.
Taking one step forward and two steps backward cannot be our way of proceeding. Wise elderly citizens of the Planet say, rigidity in thought, word, and action needs to be replaced with a healthy dose of flexibility. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” – says the Gospel according to John.
Folks out in the West Coast, woke [it seems wokeness is more prevalent out there] before us East Coasters unfairly get to these articles hours before us stealing whatever thunder we possess. At any I’ll give a tardy try.
Noted in comments previously much of what Francis commends as renewal is, if examined “is solidified over the years, extended with time, and refined with age” is viable, except when assessed in context of outcome. What the Church [many of its clerical members] has practiced privately for centuries, praxis of discernment in hardship cases of dispensing the Eucharist while avoiding scandal is now openly propagated in Amoris Laetitia as universal policy. It would be beneficial and marvelous if that were limited, and scandal were avoided as the pontiff and supporters frequently claim. But it’s not. The practice of giving the benefit of the doubt to the penitent living in manifest sin has become widespread, so widespread that in many regions the difference between the elements for worthy reception and continuing to live in sin is lost. The reason is the principles for discernment in AL inviolability of personal conscience devoid of doctrinal formation, the conflated principle of mitigation, contention that universal principles are not universal [misinterpreting Aquinas in ST 1a2ae 94, 4] opened the floodgates leaving reception of the Eucharist to one’s private judgment.
Lerins never suggested that refinement of doctrine meant its morphose from a butterfly into a caterpillar. That a sacramental marriage is invalid [by simply discerning that a previous sacramental marriage was invalid, or may be set aside due to circumstances for the benefit of the divorced and remarried outside the Church].
What is most apparent is that the indiscriminate dispensing of the Eucharist will and does inevitably give the impression that we receive a God who really isn’t interested in our behavior, that doing as we wish contrary to his revealed life modifies our image of a God who doesn’t appear to be God. Human nature, as when a parent permits a child to do as they wish, absent of discipline perceives an absence of love and with that an unfatherly father. Which is why so many Catholic laity and priests disbelieve in the real presence.
I should modify,”It would be beneficial and marvelous if that were limited, and scandal were avoided as the pontiff and supporters frequently claim” – not on the basis of hardship alone, rather when there’s indication of evidence for annulment that is no longer available for submission to a tribunal. There are exceptions in this context when leniency may be in order. Although the only viable evidence is written or given testimony. I haven’t had that experience during my priesthood, others have. Fr Thomas Weinandy referred to such instances. So conceivably it could be a good. That is the theoretical premise Pope Francis submits in Amoris Laetitia, although he undergirds it with the dissolution of principles necessary to protect the sanctity of marriage. This is where AL fails to be compassionate since it is detrimental to valid marriages especially those with children. That’s what’s occurring now with many simply leaving their valid commitment for another relationship assuming marriages are more than likely dissoluble. That, supported by clergy who give them the benefit of the doubt based on principles contained in Amoris Laetitia.
This Pope doesn’t seem to realize there is nothing deader and more useless than the hippie 1970’s “Spirit of Vatican II” garbage his ilk have shoved down the throats of the laity for the bast fifty years.
Folly and doctrine that injures the church, seems to be in vogue. However, do they know Jesus and His message to the church?
So much gobbledygook, and physical metaphors. But that what you get when you mix papal infallibility with an ignorance of actual Catholic praxis.
As usual, the most charitable thing to be said about the Pope is that, assuming he is not heretical, no one has any idea what the heck he is talking about.
When someone doesn’t have a shread of anything intelligent to say, he always talks about going beyond or going forward. He will never tell you what or where this magical mystery place of forward is or what it is or where it is located.
Consider. Would Francis recognize a living tradition if it woke him from the dead?