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Australian Cardinal Pell Calls For "whole new form" of Democracy

"Does democracy need abortion, euthanasia and pornography to be democratic?"

GRAND RAPIDS, November 16, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to the Acton Institute in October on the eve of the US election, Australia's George Cardinal Pell proposed a complete re-visioning of the direction of western democracies. The Cardinal said that the challenge was to establish a democracy based on, "the transcendent dignity of the human person."

Pell criticized the narrow, rigidly secularized form of democracy that has taken hold in the west. He asks if the inclusion of traditional values cannot be included in a modern democratic state.

"Does democracy need a burgeoning billion-dollar pornography industry to be truly democratic? Does it need an abortion rate in the tens of millions? Does it need high levels of marriage breakdown, with the growing rates of family dysfunction that come with them?"

Cardinal Pell questioned the idea that democracy must support the "pursuit of the individual's absolute autonomy." He asked if it must include legalized euthanasia, assisted reproductive technology, and embryonic stem cell research. He asks rhetorically, "What would democracy look like if you took some of these things out of the picture? Would it cease to be democracy? Or would it actually become more democratic?"

"The alarm with which many treat people in public life who are opposed to these things often implies that that they are a danger to democracy. This over-reaction is of course a bluff, an attempt to silence opposition almost suggesting that these practices are essential to democracy."

Pell shocked editorialists familiar only with the political philosophy of the New York Times editorial pages, when he said, "Democracy is not a good in itself. Its value is instrumental and depends on the vision it serves."

But this idea will not surprise those versed in classical political theory in which any political system is only pursued if it supports the common good. Pell, in reiterating this idea has been accused of proposing a 'theocracy,' but the idea is based on Natural Law philosophy and is not restricted to any particular religion.

Pell proposes the idea of 'Democratic Personalism." He says, "To re-found democracy on our need for others, and our need to make a gift of ourselves to them, is to bring a whole new form of democracy into being. Democratic personalism is perhaps the last alternative to secular democracy still possible within Western culture as it is presently configured."

To read an edited version of Pell's address:
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=222

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