The Dramatic Clash Between the Culture of Life and Culture of Death

Fr. James Tab Charoa is the Head of the Department of St. Paul's Major Seminary Theologicum, Juba-South Sudan. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Khartoum in 2003. He has pastoral experience in the Archdiocese of Khartoum in Kosti Pastoral Religion. He was appointed by the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference as Vice-Rector of St. Paul's Major Seminary Theologicum as from 2010-2014. He was sent to the Catholic University of East Africa as from 2014-2016 where he earned a licentiate in Sacred Theology with a specialization in moral Theology. He is the author of Ethics of Human Sexuality: A Call for Chastity in Christian Families, Nairobi, CUEA Press, 2017, Key Principles of the Catholic Social Teaching: Their Relevance to the African World View, Nairobi, CUEA Press, 2019 and other books. Fr. James Tab comes out now with a new book entitled "The Dramatic Clash between the Culture of Life and the Culture of Death Its Relevant to the African Context. The outline of the book and its methodology are typical of the author. They are quite painful, a pondered review with additional reflections is in order. According to this perspective, the culture of life is the culture of the good, which promotes the full readily of life. The culture of death is the deprivation of good, distortion of reality, lack of perfection, full ignorance of the "Gospel of Life." Namely of the truth that makes us free (cf. Jn 8:32). The incapability to see the full picture of reality, of the good, of perfection, is due to the poison of the so-called "original sin" that creates myopic towards the good. "Original sin distorts our sight so that we cannot see things as they are and, therefore, act accordingly. Contemporary theologians say that this is not due so much to a biologically inherited propensity towards concupiscence (which would devalue sex God's creation) as St. Augustine held it, but due to an inherited historical, cultural, and socially distorted context which affects people living in one.