"Against a dictatorship of relativism"

Black smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel stovepipe early this evening signaled that the cardinals meeting in secret inside had not yet chosen the next pope, reports FOXNews.

"In his homily Monday morning, [Cardinal] Ratzinger -- powerful Vatican official from Germany often mentioned as a leading candidate to become the next pope -- spoke in unusually blunt terms against 'a dictatorship of relativism' -- the ideology that there are no absolute truths," reports FOXNews:

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism," Ratzinger said. "Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

Ratzinger drew applause as he asked God to give the church "a pastor according to his own heart, a pastor who guides us to knowledge in Christ, to his love and to true joy."

Whether or not you're a Catholic, the Cardinal's words ring true on a fundamental human level. "True joy" can come only from striving towards a goal higher than "one's own ego and one's own desires."

Comments

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All civilizations need guiding principles for the society to function in a rational manner. At various times all the world's great religions have been abused and used abusively by kings, dictators and even elected governments. Cardinal Ratzinger's words are those of hope for religion guiding us in a sane manner. As I have said before, whether God created man or man created God in the image of what man would like to be is not the important question for those who are not believers. What is necessary is for the kind, caring side of humans to be the goal of all. It is not acceptable to think that any selfish dictatorial standard is relativaly as good as what man has learned through the ages and expressed in non aggressive religions.