Pope Benedict XVI Blog

Profound Friendship with Christ is only Defense Against Cultural Relativism

Date: 2005-04-30

The Risks of Relativism

Fallacies That Confront Benedict XVI

ROME, APRIL 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Upholding the value of moral principles against the modern tendency to relativism could be among the priorities of Benedict XVI. In a homily April 18, during the Mass celebrated before the start of the conclave, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to the ever-changing trends in contemporary thought.

"How many winds of doctrine we have known in these last decades, how many ideological currents, how many fashions of thought?" he asked. "Every day new sects are born and we see realized what St. Paul says on the deception of men, on the cunning that tends to lead into error."

At the same time, for believers to uphold the values of their faith "is often labeled as fundamentalism," he noted. As a result, "relativism, that is, allowing oneself to be carried about with every wind of 'doctrine,' seems to be the only attitude that is fashionable."

Against what Cardinal Ratzinger termed "a dictatorship of relativism that recognizes nothing as absolute and which only leaves the 'I' and its whims as the ultimate measure," the Church offers Christ as the true measure. Moreover, the Church offers its followers an adult faith that does not follow the latest trend and is, instead "profoundly rooted in friendship with Christ." And on the basis of this friendship we have "the measure to discern between what is true and what is false, between deceit and truth."

For more go to article "The Risks of Relativism" in the "Weekly News Analysis April 30, 2005"...

posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 11:15 AM