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Article: Pope's cultural critique lacks perspective: deriding the West as a 'culture of death.' (Poe John Paul II in his 1995 'Evangelium Vitae')(Column)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- September 19, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A "culture of death" has taken root in Europe and America -- so we are told by Pope John Paul II, in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae and elsewhere. He feels that the many "signs of death" in Western culture today, in contrast to the "pro-life" view on abortion, euthanasia and other matters, are a new development or at least a disturbing trend.
This has gotten me thinking about this Western civilization of ours, where it came from and where death fits into it; and to thinking, in turn, about my own Euro-American origins. By coincidence, my profession of paleontology has taken me fossil-collecting in recent years to Austria and France, and heightened my ...