The Trivialization of death

Euthanasia not only concerns the Church because it contradicts its theological vision. The concrete threat is cultural and social: suffering will become a problem to eliminate, which limits the possibility of compassionate accompaniment and the experience of completeness with the cycle of life.

Here, the Church’s critique becomes not only legitimate but necessary: the dignity of dying well is also a support against the loss of meaning in life, forgiveness, and refuge for what has been lived.

Social support network

The Pending Self-Criticism: What Have We Offered as a Church?

Real accompaniment for terminally ill patients and their families has been insufficient. Access to palliative care in Chile remains limited, and many times the Church’s discourse has been perceived as moralistic rather than compassionate consider: 70% of Chilean citizens are in favor of the euthanasia law, with support concentrated in the central region, where there is greater access to innovation and a plurality of experiences. In other regions, the position is different: the influence of the Church is greater, as is the relevance of indigenous traditions that hold a different worldview on death.

First action: support public health policies that ensure universal access to palliative care, the creation of community support networks, and, above all, show that suffering is never faced alone.

Looking to the Future: An Ethical Laboratory

The approval of euthanasia will not be the last disputed issue. Chile is heading toward increasingly complex debates: assisted suicide, assisted reproduction, genetic manipulation, artificial intelligence applied to health. Each of these challenges will test the Church’s ability to engage in dialogue from a position that is both firm and open this global ethical laboratory, the classical categories of morality will be challenged. If the Church remains in a position of mere resistance, it risks becoming irrelevant in a debate that will shape the coming decades.A perpetual “no” could result in an inability to influence decision-making in urgent matters. Laws modify the institutional culture of a country, and this will force the entire Catholic ecosystem to transform. Active listening will be necessary.

Second action: to be a critical and lucid voice capable of opening ethical horizons in the face of new social issues. There is an opportunity to place at the center once again the fundamental questions of what it means to live and die humanly.

A Church in Tune with New Generations

This is not about abandoning principles but about rediscovering how they are proclaimed within a country that, in recent decades, has been in crisis with institutions, especially those that uphold probity, transparency, and tradition.

Third action: integrate fundamental values with the needs of the world, without losing identity.

📌 How would you define your life experience? Do you think accepting death is a matter of mindset or a long spiritual journey? Tell us at @fundaciondracma — your opinion could change the way we see the world.

📻 Z: THE GENERATION OF NOSTALGIA

In a world saturated with screens, young people are rediscovering the pleasure of reading on paper, writing in notebooks, listening to vinyl records, or cooking family recipes. Retro becomes a refuge: an act of resistance against digital immediacy and a bridge to the memory of their ancestors. This recovery of “outdated” practices is not only about aesthetics—it is also a search for more human life rhythms, less driven by consumption and the accelerated pace of progress.

Among siblings, we don’t understand each other

But what happens when innovation surpasses the biological clock? The gap between generations widens. Family members no longer share the language of their siblings or their parents. A family that demands quick adaptation abandons the table for lack of understanding. Integration between grandchildren and grandparents decreases: among the elderly, approaching younger generations is experienced with anxiety and shame. Older groups are stripped of the possibility of communicating fluidly within a society that spins with vertigo between tradition and modernity: exile begins to be felt through almost imperceptible transformations, such as the extinction of analog devices in everyday life. The expropriation of the social ground is not geographical, it is spiritual.

In reaction to this phenomenon, several generations begin to feel disconnected from current culture and look to the past as an authentic and safe space. One angle of this shift is Generation Z’s perception of millennials: the generation most immersed in technology consumption, the generation with the highest alcohol consumption issues, the generation of anxiety. For Generation Z, millennials reflect a period where cultural changes were profound and radical—and in that process, they are seen as a generation deprived of the educational guidance for tomorrow.

New generations view a return to conservatism as a solution, for better or worse: forgotten values are rescued to uphold the spirit of culture, but there is also a conservative hardening against essential social changes for the integrity of all human beings. Zooming in, the media conflict is lived between two main fears: uncertainty about the future and cultural shifts on issues of gender.

Religion and spirituality: between criticism and longing

Within this context, the relationship with religion becomes ambiguous. Generation Z distrusts the Catholic Church because of historical scandals within the institution, yet at the same time, some young people seek in spirituality a sense of community and meaning. This nostalgia for the sacred is expressed in small rituals, in personal meditations, in philosophical readings. But how do we bring this into Sunday masses, catechism teachings, and classrooms?

It is a phenomenon that combines rupture and continuity: religious authority is questioned, but the communal rootedness it offers is missed.

What is urgent is not to question the aim of nostalgia, but to provide it with an emancipatory horizon. A space not yet explored that could become an opportunity to create more diverse and inclusive spaces led by the Church, and to represent a new generation of young Catholics seeking meaning in this uncertain, future-nostalgic world.

📌 The challenge is to understand these youths not as contradictory, but as an expression of a complex time: a generation that, while rescuing the past with a certain harshness, also demands a more just, plural, and ethical country.

Educating in equality is not enough

In Chile, various studies and educational experiences confirm the rise—or regression—of sexist cultural attitudes among younger generations: from the trivialization of violence in dating relationships (pololeo) to the widespread consumption of misogynistic content (everywhere, every time).

📢 In schools: mockery, harassment, resistance to gender protocols, and even male-led protests that ridicule reports of violence. In universities, an alarming normalization of antifeminist discourse has emerged, disguised as counterculture. Early work experiences continue to reveal wage gaps. This phenomenon is not marginal.

The institutional and media response has generally been to create superficial campaigns: “more sex education,” “more protocols,” “more awareness.” But educating without questioning the very model of humanity is not enough. This is an ethical issue, a philosophical issue.

The deeper question: What do we mean by forming an ethical subject?

It’s about disputing the deepest meanings of desire, power, masculinity, love. Schools must critically review the frameworks through which they teach relationships, as well as the language that perpetuates the symbolic subjugation of women from childhood.

🌐 The resurgence of machismo among new generations has been institutionalized within a comfortable yet intoxicating cultural context: becoming an influencer at any cost; the rise of the algorithm that sees everything and censors some things, but turns a blind eye to mocking and humiliating content; the eroticization of violence as entertainment; and the nostalgia for a strong, “promising” masculinity extracted from an already stale imaginary. All of this is presented as a response to social unrest, to a world of unfulfilled prophecy.

So, what alternative models are we offering? Where are the narratives of desire without domination? Chilean culture remains deeply conservative, with a strong rejection of diversity and non-normativity. That is why it is urgent to promote cultural policies with a gender focus: to fund new narratives, new bodies, new voices.

The question is not only “How do we educate for equality?” but rather: How do we dismantle the symbols behind desire? How do we look back at history and choose another path?

I dare to answer: by walking a path where control, domination, and fear do not govern all the world’s politics.

📌 Creating debate around these issues is also an essential step toward change. Let’s talk about it at @fundaciondracma.