These words about "the world" from 1965
are still true in 2013:
true of "the world" of 2013
....and of the Church of 2013!
The Church is in a "crisis of growth" situation/time
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"Some of the main features of the modern world can be sketched as follows.

Today, the human race is involved in a new stage of history.
Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world.
Triggered by our intelligence and creative energies,
these changes recoil upon us, upon our decisions and desires,
both individual and collective,
and upon our manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people.
Hence we can already speak of a true cultural and social transformation,
one which has repercussions on religious religious life as well.

As happens in any crisis of growth,
this transformation has brought serious difficulties in its wake.
Thus while we extends our power in every direction,
we does not always succeed in subjecting it to our own welfare.
Striving to probe more profoundly into the deeper recesses of our own mind,
we frequently appears more unsure of ourselves.
Gradually and more precisely we lay bare the laws of society,
only to be paralyzed by uncertainty about the direction to give it.

Never has the human race enjoyed such an abundance of wealth, resources and economic power,
and yet a huge proportion of the worlds citizens are still tormented by hunger and poverty,
while countless numbers suffer from total illiteracy.
Never before have we had so keen an understanding of freedom,
yet at the same time new forms of social and psychological slavery make their appearance.
Although the world of today has a very vivid awareness of its unity
and of how one person depends on another in needful solidarity,
it is most grievously torn into opposing camps by conflicting forces.
For political, social, economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly,
and with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes.
True, there is a growing exchange of ideas,
but the very words by which key concepts are expressed
take on quite different meanings in diverse ideological systems.
We painstakingly search for a better world, without a corresponding spiritual advancement.

Influenced by such a variety of complexities,
many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying
permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries.
As a result, buffeted between hope and anxiety
and pressing one another with questions about the present course of events,
they are burdened down with uneasiness.
This same course of events leads us to look for answers;
indeed, it forces us to do so."

Jesus, please help your Church to keep afloat
in this time of strong winds and heavy seas

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