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Relativism has become the great question of debate in philosophy and politics. Linked to this is the question of the limits of parliaments to pass laws that go against the natural law. If everything is relative, nothing should be able to rein in the majority. Given this possibility, fearful, are voices warning of the danger of the emergence of new dictatorships. One of those voices is that of Pope Benedict XVI. |
| In his homily on 18 April, during the Mass celebrated before the beginning of the conclave, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was referring to the ever-changing trends of contemporary thought. “How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking?” he asked. At the same time, the believers to maintain the values of their faith “are often labelled as fundamentalists,” he noted. As a result, “relativism, that is to say, the allowing of oneself to be carried away by every ‘doctrinal’ wind, seems to be the only attitude that is in fashion.”
Against what Cardinal Ratzinger called “a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as absolute and that leaves only the ‘i’ and its whims as a measure of last resort,” the Church offers Christ as the true measure. In addition, the Church offers to his followers an adult faith that does not follow the latest trend and that is, on the contrary, “deeply rooted in friendship with Christ.” And on the basis of this friendship we have “the means to discern between what is true and what is false, between deceit and truth.” This criticism of relativism found hostility in some circles. Writing in the British newspaper “The Guardian” on April 20, Julian Baggini stated: “The choice between the black and the white that Ratzinger offers us is, therefore, false. The absolute moral certainty that he holds that the Church offers is hollow.” And on April 19, The New York Times described the homily of the pre-conclave as “inflexible,” and the Cardinal himself as “an ultraconservative” that “is in favor of a smaller church, but purer ideologically.” However, the importance of preserving the truths and perennial values was defended by others. In a commentary written for the Scotsman, John Haldane, professor of philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, noted that a key element in the thought of the Cardinal Ratzinger has been the conviction that the revealed truths of Christianity “Free us on the earth and save us in eternity.” The fallacy of modern thought as the Cardinal warns us, explains Haldane, is the idea that “the truth is more made up than discovered.” In part, he observed, this arises from the reaction that modern man feels when confronted with the idea that we are sinners and that this can lead us to eternal punishment. In these circumstances, the teacher was saying, “It is more comfortable to deny that there is sin than to repent and reform.” Benedict XVI also received support in an interview with the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, published on 25 April in the newspaper “La Repubblica.” Amato, an advocate of secular principles, noted that the homily of Cardinal Ratzinger had prompted many to comment that the church now has a conservative or even reactionary Pope. But, he continued, the critique of relativism is firmly in line with what Pope John Paul II has taught on many occasions when warned of the dangers of a society without ideals. The former prime minister also stated that the society cannot be based merely on an empty procedural basis to leave aside values in the name of freedom. The 1 of April, Cardinal Ratzinger was the monastery of St. Scholastica in Subiaco to receive the San Benito prize for the promotion of life and the family in Europe. During the conference, Cardinal Ratzinger noted that scientific advances have given us the power to alter even our own genetic code and now we see the world and ourselves not as a gift that comes from God, but as a product of our own making. However, our ability to make moral decisions has not kept pace with technical progress, he warned. Rather, it has decreased, because the scientific and technical mentality that now dominates the thinking in contemporary society confines the morality to the realm of the purely personal and subjective. The divorce between our technical capabilities and any moral norm that may limit the choices that we make upon using this power, however, puts us in a situation of serious risk, given the destructive potential of modern technologies. The world today, indicated Cardinal Ratzinger, needs, more than ever, the help of a morality that influences the public sphere, that helps us to cope with the grave risks and challenges facing society. In the final analysis, he observed, the safe conditions that are a necessary precondition for the exercise of our freedom does not depend on a number of technical means, but of moral forces. And in the absence of morality, the power of man is transformed into a destructive force. We now have the ability to clone humans, using persons as organ banks for others, and make military weapons of mass destruction. And the prevailing philosophy of rationalism and positivism, which rejects any moral or religious belief, rejects the attempts to put any limits on our freedom to put into practice what our technical capacity allows us to do. Cardinal Ratzinger also noted that even though the ideas such as peace and justice are common in the public discourse of today, they are not based on moral values, but on a vague conception that is reduced to the level of party politics. Too often these terms are left on the level of discourse, and are not moved to a personal commitment to these values in our daily life. In his lecture at Subiaco, the Cardinal acknowledged the importance of the contributions of modern thought to today’s society. But the secular mentality that often accompanies it should not ignore the deep Christian roots in society, he defended. The real cultural shock in the world today, he said, is not between different religious cultures, but between those who seek a radical emancipation of man from God and the major religions. To remove any reference to God or to religion in public life is not an expression of tolerance that is a protection for the non-believers, but rather the expression of a point of view that you want to see God permanently out of public life and set aside as some kind of cultural residue of the past. Relativism, which is the point of departure of this secular mentality, becomes a kind of dogmatism which believes that it has reached the final stage of knowledge of what human reason really is. But, he warned, if God is eradicated, human dignity also disappears. |
