Third time luckiest

The third visitor of Discern, the Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times of the Curia, will be Cardinal Paul Poupard. Discern was lucky, as we are, to have him deliver the Discern Annual Lecture.

Cardinal Poupard will be speaking tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Radisson SAS Bay Point Resort, St Julian's, on how to discern the signs of the times. The lecture is open to the general public.

Cardinal Poupard is the third in a series of foreign lecturers that were invited to Malta by Discern. The previous guests were Professor Nicholas Lash and the world-known economist Professor Zamagni.

A Christian Outlook had commented at some length on the speech by Professor Lash. His speech was as interesting as it was provocative. A bit of fresh air by several standards.

Unfortunately we could not cover that by Professor Zamagni. This colleague of Romano Prodi at the Bocconi University had been invited before by the Jesuits and by AZAD. On both occasions his speeches proved to be very enlightening. The fact that Discern is bringing to Malta people of such calibre is a credit to the executive director, Rev Dr Joe Inguanez.

A detailed curriculum vitae of Cardinal Poupard is beyond the scope of this page. Suffice it to say here that he is a scholar of international repute and promoter of dialogue with contemporary culture.

Born in Anjou, France, on August 30, 1930, after completing his studies he was ordained on December 18, 1954. In 1971 he was appointed rector of the Catholic Institute in Paris, one of the foremost universities in France. He occupied this prestigious post until he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Paris in 1979.

In 1980 he was appointed Pro-President of the Secretariat for Non-believers with the title of Archbishop. On March 25, 1993, John Paul II merged the Secretariat for Non-Believers with the Pontifical Council of Culture under the presidency of Cardinal Poupard.

Cardinal Poupard is a speaker of international repute. We refer to a recent interview he gave Vatican Radio to give a foretaste of his ideas. While discussing the role of religion and values in society he said that: "Many of the so-called values of present Western civilization are anything but values. Rather, they are anti-values that in no way are Christian, but, instead, are the rejection and negation of these values."

Cardinal Poupard referred, for example, to "the destruction of the family, the exaltation of homosexuality, the spread of pornography, growing immorality, abortion, gratuitous violence, the exclusion of God in the edification of society."

He continued: "After speaking of the globalisation of terrorism, today it seems there is a desire to globalise war, or at least there is success in globalising hatred, and not the civilisation of love."

An examination of conscience should lead the West to an apprec-iation of the civilisation of love, he added.