Sekilas hubungan ini disebut dalam sebuah paper yang disiapkan Cardinal Ratzinger (Paus Benediktus XVI) untuk pertemuan antara Kongregasi Ajaran Iman dengan Konferensi Waligereja negara-negara dari Amerika Latin, 1996 di Guadalajara, Mexico.
"Thus, all in all, we are facing a remarkable situation: liberation theology had tried to give a new practice to a Christendom that was tired of dogma, a practice by means of which redemption was finally to become an actual event. This practice, however, instead of bringing freedom, left destruction in its wake. What was left was relativism and the attempt to come to terms with it. Yet what that offers is in its turn so empty that the relativist theories look for help from the liberation theology, so as thus to become of more practical use. Finally, New Age says, "Let's just leave Christianity as a failed experiment and go back to the gods--it's better that way."
[Truth and Tolerance: Christian Beliefs and World Religions. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Ignatius Press, 2004. pp.130-131]
Kita perlu elaborasi sedikit analisa mengenai New Age yang beliau berikan di buku yang sama, apa yang dimaksud beliau dengan "go back to the gods."
Relativisme melahirkan sebuah situasi dimana kebenaran obyektif tidak lagi dipercaya, atau bahkan dinyatakan ketinggalan zaman dan ditentang. Ini memberikan dilema dalam hal "praksis" di lapangan dalam berbagai hal. Kalau tidak ada lagi "kebenaran" secara obyektif, apa yang menjadi panduan aplikasi?
Lahirlah "ortopraksis" yang diabsolutkan, dan dalam ranah politik meminjam pandangan Marx melahirkan Marxisme praktis dimana semua orang dibawa pada satu cara, satu cetakan, satu suara, kalau perlu secara paksa. Runtuhnya komunisme Eropa memperlihatkan pada dunia kebobrokan dan kegagalan metode ini, yang hanya menghasilkan penderitaan di mana-mana.
Lelah dengan relativisme, lahirlah gerakan zaman baru, New Age, yang merupakan fenomena yang kompleks dan beragam. Tetapi ada satu filosofi yang mendasari, bahwa untuk keluar dari dilema relativisme perlu kembali kepada pengalaman diluar kategori, merasakan, berjumpa kembali dengan ekstasi kosmik, untuk merasakan dan menjumpai "kebenaran." Kebenaran bukan sesuatu yang rasional untuk dipercaya, tetapi kebenaran adalah sesuatu untuk dialami, melewati berbagai perbedaan.
"Redemption lies in breaking down the limits of the self, in going back home to the universe. Ecstasy is being sought for, the intoxication of infinity, which can happen to people en masse in ecstatic music, in rhythm, in dance, in a mad whirl of lights and darkness. Here it is not merely the modern way of domination by the self that is renounced and abolished; here man -in order to be free- must let himself be abolished. The gods are returning. They have become more credible than God. Aboriginal rites must be renewed in which the self is initiated into the mysteries of the universe and freed from its own self.
...If what takes place in the sacraments is not the encounter with the one living God of all men, then they are empty rituals that mean nothing and give us nothing and, at best, allow us to sense the numinous element that is actively present in all religions.
...But above all, if the 'rational intoxication' of the Christian mystery cannot make us intoxicated with God, then we just have to conjure up the real, concrete intoxication of effective ecstasies, the passionate power of which catches us up and turns us, at least for a moment, into gods, helps us for a moment to sense the pleasure of infinity and to forget the misery of finite existence."
[Truth and Tolerance: Christian Beliefs and World Religions. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Ignatius Press, 2004. pp.128-129]
Bagaimana hal ini meresap dan mempengaruhi Gereja? Secara spesifik di bidang liturgi, beliau mengatakan demikian:
"The various phases of liturgical reform have allowed people to gain the impression that liturgy can be changed as and how you wish. If there is any unchanging element, people think, then this would in no instance be anything other than the words of consecrations: everything else might be done differently. The next idea is quite logical: If a central authority can do that, then why not local decision-making bodies? And if local bodies, then why not the congregation itself? It ought to be expressing itself in the liturgy and should be able to see its own style recognizably present there. After the rationalist and puritan trend of the seventies, and even the eighties, people are tired of liturgies that are just words and would like liturgies they can experience; and these soon get close to New Age styles: a search for intoxication and ectasy..."
[Truth and Tolerance: Christian Beliefs and World Religions. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Ignatius Press, 2004. pp.130]
Dengan demikian di dalam Gereja terjadi inovasi liturgi, yang dalam usaha menjadikannya lebih "aplikatif", "pastoral" ataupun "relevan" dilakukan perubahan-perubahan supaya orang yang berpartisipasi di dalamnya mengalami "ekstasi, mabuk, senang" dengan "style" dari mereka untuk mereka. Kalau liturgi bisa diubah oleh bos di atas, kenapa kita tidak bisa? Kita ubah supaya lebih "memuaskan" untuk kita, yang penting kata-kata konsekrasinya tetap...
