Question 6.105

6.105 On Monday, April 18, 2005, during the Missa pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, a few hours before his election to the throne of Peter, Cardinal Ratzinger had decided to denounce the dictatorship of relativism. You seem to think that the insights of this speech are still quite relevant today.

Yes, and I would like first to cite a long passage from this homily. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger then declared: “How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves-flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what Saint Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4:14) comes true. Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires. We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An ‘adult’ faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth. We must develop this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith-only faith-that creates unity and is fulfilled in love. On this theme, Saint Paul offers us as a fundamental formula for Christian existence some beautiful words, in contrast to the continual vicissitudes of those who, like children, are tossed about by the waves: make truth in love. Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like ‘a clanging cymbal’ (1 Cor 13:1).”

Today relativism appears to be the philosophical basis for Western democracies that refuse to consider that Christian truth might be superior to any other. They altogether take for granted their denial of Christ’s words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6).

In a relativistic system, all ways are possible, like fragmentary components of the march of progress. The common good, from this perspective, is the product of a continual dialogue of everyone, a meeting of different private opinions, a fraternal Tower of Babel in which everybody has a particle of the truth. Modern relativism goes so far as to claim that it is the embodiment of liberty. In this sense, liberty becomes the aggressive obligation to believe that there is no higher truth; in this new Eden, if man rejects the truth revealed by Christ, he becomes free. Life together in society assumes the form of an impassable horizon within which each individual can control his own moral, philosophical, and religious views. Consequently, relativism drives man to create his own religion, populated by multiple more or less pathetic deities, which are born and die in response to impulses, in a world that is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient pagan religions.

In this totalitarian yoke, the Church loses her absolute character; her dogmas, her teaching, and her sacraments are practically prohibited or else diminished in their rigor and their demands. The Bride of the Son of God is marginalized, in a disdain that engenders hatred of Christianity, because it is a permanent obstacle. The Church becomes one among others, and the final objective of philosophical relativism still is her death by gradual dilution; relativists, along with the prince of this world, impatiently await that great dusk. They work for the coming of the kingdom of darkness.

John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had grasped the importance of the lethal danger of relativistic theories. The declaration Dominus Iesus is largely a response to relativism. In the introduction, which has lost none of its insightful relevance, Joseph Ratzinger correctly wrote: “The Church’s constant missionary proclamation is endangered today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle). As a consequence, it is held that certain truths have been superseded; for example, the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the nature of Christian faith as compared with that of belief in other religions, the inspired nature of the books of Sacred Scripture, the personal unity between the Eternal Word and Jesus of Nazareth, the unity of the economy of the Incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit, the unicity and salvific universality of the mystery of Jesus Christ, the universal salvific mediation of the Church, the inseparability-while recognizing the distinction-of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, and the Church, and the subsistence of the one Church of Christ in the Catholic Church. The roots of these problems are to be found in certain presuppositions of both a philosophical and theological nature, which hinder the understanding and acceptance of the revealed truth. Some of these can be mentioned: the conviction of the elusiveness and inexpressibility of divine truth, even by Christian revelation; relativistic attitudes toward truth itself, according to which what is true for some would not be true for others; the radical opposition posited between the logical mentality of the West and the symbolic mentality of the East; the subjectivism which, by regarding reason as the only source of knowledge, becomes incapable of raising its ‘gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being’; the difficulty in understanding and accepting the presence of definitive and eschatological events in history; the metaphysical emptying of the historical incarnation of the Eternal Logos, reduced to a mere appearing of God in history; the eclecticism of those who, in theological research, uncritically absorb ideas from a variety of philosophical and theological contexts without regard for consistency, systematic connection, or compatibility with Christian truth; finally, the tendency to read and to interpret Sacred Scripture outside the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church. On the basis of such presuppositions, which may evince different nuances, certain theological proposals are developed -at times presented as assertions, and at times as hypotheses-in which Christian revelation and the mystery of Jesus Christ and the Church lose their character of absolute truth and salvific universality, or at least shadows of doubt and uncertainty are cast upon them” (DI 4).

Relativism is a widespread evil, and it is not easy to combat it. The task becomes more complex inasmuch as it arbitrarily serves as a sort of charter for a way of communal life. Relativism attempts to complete the process of the social disappearance of God. It guides mankind with an attractive logic that proves to be a perverse totalitarian system. The Church continues today the battle of Benedict XVI against the liquidation of God. And this is a battle on behalf of mankind.