Season of creation September 2020. Week 3

What we can learn from the Corona crisis
The End of many (collective) Illusions

The tremendous developments in science and technology over the last centuries have enticed us to believe in unlimited progress and to imagine that through science and technology all problems can be solved. This belief gave us a feeling of security. The uncontrollable, tiny virus that ignores all social and political boundaries can be life-threatening for anyone anywhere and at any time. Corona has brought to light many social upheavals and shattered our belief in endless economic growth. We are gradually becoming aware that an excessive exploitation of nature in the name of progress is slowly but inexorably destroying our livelihoods. Many dogmas of modernity prove to be an illusion.The Corona crisis is a call for conversion, for rethinking. We must rethink our relationship with nature, our wasteful lifestyle and our entire economic system. Corona is a foretaste of greater catastrophes in the future.

Citations

Before our eyes the system that makes our modern way of life possible… collapses suddenly. The crisis uncovers, what in our world was not in accordance.  We do not know yet, how long this crisis will last. But what we should know, is that we must not return to the old normality after the crisis.  George Augustine  

The consequences of the Corona crisis are probably best comparable to those of the devastating earthquake in Lisbon in 1755…but we know that the devastating quake deeply shocked and changed the whole culture and enlightened philosophy of that time. The quake meant the end of the Enlightenment’s optimism and belief in progress… The Corona crisis will also cause shock waves to our civilizational, societal, social and cultural certainties, consequences that even today hardly anyone can foresee in detail. Cardinal Walter Kaspar

The corona pandemic is not only a medical problem, but a huge landmark in the history of the modern world. The coordinate system that determines the present, the entire structure of politics, economy, society, culture, religion and personal existence is being shaken. Holger Zaborowski

The gravity of the ecological crisis demands that we all look to the common good, embarking on a path of dialogue which demands patience, self-discipline and generosity, always keeping in mind that “realities are greater than ideas”. Pope Francis (LS, 201)

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together,…. Look, your house is left to you desolate. 
Mt. 23,37-38

Document in Pdf _Season of Creation .2020 EN 1.-4. Week 3

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