A Sense of God & the Sense of Man, Evanglium Vitae Sect 21 & 22

“At the heart of the tragic struggle between the culture of life and the culture of death is the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism…..when the sense of God is lost there is a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life; in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and it’s dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence.”

When the sense of God is lost … Man is no longer able to see himself as ‘mysteriously different’ from the other earthly creatures. Life itself becomes a mere “thing” which man claims as his exclusive property, completely subject to his control and manipulation… By living ‘as if God did not exist’, man not only loses sight of the mystery of God , but also the mystery of the world and the mystery of his own being.