THE SITUATION IN REGARD TO RELIGIOUS FEELING

5 That form of civilisation which is called scientific, technical, industrial, and urban not infrequently diverts the attention of men from matters divine and makes their inner concerns with regard 10 religion more difficult. Many feel that God is less present, and less needed, and God seems to them Less able to explain things in both personal and social life. Hence a religious crisis can easily arise (cf. GS, 5, 7).

The Christian faith, as are the other religious confessions, is experiencing a crisis of this sort among its followers. It has an urgent duty, therefore, to manifest its true nature, by virtue of which it transcends every advancement of culture, and 10 show forth its newness in cultures which have been secularised and desacralized.

Its a function of the ministry of the word to uncover, purify, and develop the authentic values which are found in the spiritual heritage of those human cultures wherein a religious sense remains alive and operative and is all-pervasive in human life.

In times past, faulty opinions and errors about the faith and the Christian way of life generally reached a comparatively small number of people, and were to a greater extent than is so today confined within groups of intellectuals. Now, however, human progress and the instruments of social communication are having this effect: faulty opinions are being spread abroad with greater speed and are exerting an ever-wider influence among the faithful, young adults especially, who suffer grave crises and are not infrequently driven to adopt ways of acting and thinking that are hostile to religion. This situation calls for pastoral remedies that are truly adapted to the circumstances.