“Religion Is Implicated in Our Great Moral Breakdown”

THIS headline in El Heraldo of Barranquilla, Colombia, was startling in itself. But the one who said it made it even more significant​—Catholic Jesuit priest Alberto Múnera, doctor of theology at the Gregorian University of Rome. He was commenting on the moral breakdown in Colombia.

He stated: “All of Colombia is Catholic. We cannot ignore the fact that religion is implicated in our great moral breakdown. As a theologian, one asks oneself: What is the matter with our Catholic religion when it seems not to have sufficient elements to sustain the morality of a body [of people] or to permit it to face up to a change of epoch in a decent way, to pass from a former situation to a new one without the whole structure of society breaking down?”

After detailing evidence of the political and moral breakdown, including drug trafficking, political assassinations, and armed violence, he asked: “Who are doing these things? People who belong to the Islamic religion or to Buddhism . . . or people without a religion? Or are they people whom you have seen in the religious ceremonies participating piously in the Eucharist and praying to Our Lord that he help them to prosper in their work?”

Instead of paying due attention to Bible education and the Christian new personality, the Catholic Church over the centuries has contented itself with praying with the rosary, attendance at Mass, and confession to a priest. (Ephesians 4:17-24) The end result today is the consequent moral breakdown and dwindling support for the church. Jesuit Múnera commented on the state of the Catholic Church in Colombia: “With a religion like that, evidently we cannot respond to situations in which we are living. It is one of the fundamental causes for which our Christianity seems so broken down . . . that [Catholics] do not seem to be Christians in any respect today.”