Cardinal Husar: Only Intellectuals Can Save Our Nation
According to Cardinal Lubomyr (Husar), only intellectuals, people who are able to work selflessly and seek good can lead the Ukrainian nation out of the present moral crises. Only such people can heal the nation and lay a reliable foundation for generations to come, the cardinal stated today at the session of the National Roundtable “World Challenges and Status of Development of Ukraine” in Kyiv which was initiated by the First December Group.
As he addressed approximately a hundred participants from all over Ukraine, the cardinal stressed that the present situation in Ukraine is not exceptional. Similar situations occurred in Ukraine's history and that of humankind.
“We are in a serious difficult situation today. Perhaps, there were even more difficult situations in the past. And it is necessary to find some way out of this situation,” he noted.
The former head of the UGCC said that there are different ways to overcome the crises. The first one is when people are led by an individual.
“There are approaches of what I would call an individual character. There were August, Tiberius, Nero and others in the old Roman state. And in our recent memory: Hitler, Mussolini. These people wanted to establish a special system where each citizen of their state was supposed to have a good life.”
According to Cardinal Husar, the second way is when people are led to their goal by a group of people united by an idea. Such collective attempts to bring happiness to people usually resulted in bloody revolutions, such as the French and October ones.
“We know that both those individual and those well-prepared or criminal group solutions yielded no positive result,” stressed the cardinal.
According to the ex-head of UGCC, only intellectuals “who know what man is, what his purpose, objectives and rights are” can lead the people out of the crises.
In his opinion, the intellectuals should therefore “elaborate very diligently and wisely the so-called values. And when these values become the asset of the whole nation in everyday life, we will then have the solution not for a year but for half a century and longer. And not only the present generation will benefit from it but also the next generation to which we should also pay attention.”
“I would like to say: People need you and people like you, who are many in Ukraine. There will be no solution without you. Therefore, I am very glad that this action has begun. That you understood this call and responded. Let God enable people like you, who are able to work selflessly, to respond duly to your calling, for it will serve for God’s glory and the good of our people,” added Cardinal Lubomyr (Husar).
According to the press service of the organizers, the present roundtable is to become a new institute starting a democratic process of expression of the free opinion of the people of Ukraine through conscious communication and cooperation. The participants and speakers of the event included also spiritual persons, Cardinal Lubomyr (Husar), Archbishop Yevstratii (Zoria) of Chernihiv and Nizhyn of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University Fr. Borys Gudziak, Ph.D.
