The dictatorship of relativism

The day before he was elected Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave a homily calling on his fellow cardinals to counter forces sweeping the world toward what he called a "dictatorship of relativism".

These words were interpreted by several media commentators as a sign of intransigence and conservatism on the part of the cardinal. This was a very unjust assessment. People close to the church knew that the phrase was a call for the Church to hold fast to its values amid the turbulence of political and social pressures.

As Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago said Pope John Paul in his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor "showed that just as there was a fault line in the Soviet empire that eventually brought it down ... there is a fault line in our society, in our culture, between concern for personal freedom and abandonment of objective truth."

There is no doubt that Pope Benedict shares the same conviction of his predecessor. His phrase was a reference to a tendency for a government or society to abandon moral principles in an effort to satisfy a diverse constituency.

While Pope John Paul supported the democracy movement in countries like his native Poland, he later feared that policies were no longer being based on moral principles, the official said. After his experience under totalitarian rule, the Pope worried that if a democratic society cannot reach consensus about truth then power takes over. Pope Benedict shares this concern, and any Catholic who sits down and thinks about it is troubled by it.

In his April 18 homily, then-Cardinal Ratzinger said that standing up for Catholic principles in political debates is often derided as fundamentalism. In Spain, for example, "anyone who takes a stand against the government on the homosexual marriage law takes a lot of abuse. They're called backward or fundamentalists."

The Buttiglione case can be considered as a good example of intolerance towards Catholics by many today. The same tendency forms the basis of France's refusal to allow Muslim girls to wear head scarves in school and the French government's opposition to any mention of Christianity in the European Constitution.

It should be noted that in taking a stand, the Church differentiates between the moral issue and the people involved. For example, the question of whether two homosexual people can adopt children is completely separate from the fact that they are entitled to all social and labour rights granted to any other member of society.

Cardinal Ratzinger's attack on relativism does not mean that there is no room for dialogue on critical issues; particularly in rapidly changing fields like medicine, church officials consult extensively before taking a stand.

A diversity of opinions should not be confused with relativism. Debate and dialogue occur when people hold different views, and each believes that his or her position is the truth. The problem of relativism occurs when the issue is one of dogma or morals, and it is said that contrary or even contradictory opinions are equally good.

In fields such as science and medicine there are new areas, about which there may be diverse opinions. The Church does not make an official statement until there is certainty. The fact that some things have changed doesn't mean that everything will change.

Some people who heard Cardinal Ratzinger's pre-conclave homily worried that the reference to the "dictatorship of relativism" would put a damper on dialogue with people of other faiths. Those worries subsided after the election, however, when Pope Benedict repeatedly spoke in favour of ecumenism and dialogue with world religions.

The first message the Pope delivered to the cardinals after the election, when he pledged to lead the Church on the path of unity, dialogue and evangelization in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, was thoroughly positive. And, as we commented last Sunday, his subsequent homily at the inauguration was very positive.

The enemy of real dialogue is the relativistic mentality which tries to impose itself on everything and everyone.