Pope Francis on Monday criticized the “cancel culture”, condemning “one-sided thinking” that he said tries to deny or rewrite history according to current standards.
Francis made those comments in a speech to diplomats, in which he condemned “baseless ideological misinformation” about Covid-19 vaccines, voiced his support for national immunization campaigns and said health care is a moral obligation.
Last month, Vatican number two, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, expressed concern about a draft of the European Union’s communication manual that suggested not using the term Christmas.
The manual, which the Vatican saw as an attempt to “cancel” Europe’s Christian roots, was later withdrawn for revision.
On Monday, the pope warned of “a form of ideological colonization, which curtails freedom of expression and is now taking the form of ‘cancel culture’ invading many circles and public institutions.”
He used the English expression –’cancel culture’– in the middle of the speech in Italian, stating that there is a risk of “annulling identity under the pretext of defending diversity” and adding that a kind of “unique thought” is forming, denying history or forcing it to be rewritten in terms of the present.
The “cancel culture” controversy is particularly acute in English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
In the United States, there have been conflicts over the removal or beheading of statues of historical figures such as Christopher Columbus or the renaming of institutions such as schools and hospitals that honor personalities who played a role in the destruction of Native American peoples.
While the pope didn’t mention any specific examples of cancel culture, he said any historical situation should be interpreted in the context of its time, not by today’s standards.
Francis also spoke of the crisis of confidence in multilateral diplomacy, which he says has led to “agendas increasingly dictated by a mentality that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples.”
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