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Absolute Relativism WELCOME TO THE STEFANICK NEW TYRANNY “IF IT FEELS GOOD, DO IT.” “THAT’S YOUR OPINION, AND THIS IS MINE.” “I DON’T WANT TO IMPOSE MY BELIEFS ON OTHERS. ” “WHAT’S TRUE FOR ONE PERSON MAY NOT BE TRUE FOR ANOTHER.” And thus the Dictator of Relativism speaks—as he has always spoken— to seduce humanity into a false sense of freedom. A In Absolute Relativism: The New Dictatorship and What to Do about It, BSOLUTE Chris Stefanick tackles all the tough questions about relativism by showing how bankrupt and impractical it is. Using a down-to-earth, easily accessible question-and-answer format, Absolute Relativism shows that far from being the answer to world peace— R or even personal peace of mind—relativism suffers from a self-destructive rot. ELATIVISM “In his 2010 book Light of the World, Benedict XVI stresses that ‘in the name of tolerance, tolerance is being abolished; this is the real threat we face.’ That threat to human dignity has a name—relativism—and Chris Stefanick explains and refutes it with energy, imagination, clarity, and force. Stefanick is one of the most engaging young defenders of the Christian faith on the scene today, and his booklet Absolute Relativism is an excellent resource for anyone seeking to understand the spirit of our times and the challenges we face in a world increasingly without a moral compass.” + Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. Archbishop of Philadelphia Chris Stefanick speaks to over 50,000 teens, young adults, and parents every year. This 14-year youth ministry veteran P.O. Box 199000 served at a parish in the East L.A. area San Diego, CA 92159-9000 and as Director of Youth and Young Adult 619-387-7200 phone Ministry for the Archdiocese of Denver. 888-291-8000 orders Chris has authored or co-authored several books and is a regular in Catholic media. He is most proud of his wife and their six children. catholic.com 9 781933 919461 Absolute Relativism The New Dictatorship and What to Do about It Chris Stefanick Absolute Relativism Chris Stefanick © 2011 by Catholic Answers, Inc. 15 14 13 4 5 6 7 All rights reserved. Except for quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, uploading to the Internet, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Published by Catholic Answers, Inc. 2020 Gillespie Way El Cajon, California 92020 1-888-291-8000 orders 619-387-0042 fax catholic.com Cover by Devin Schadt Interior design by Russell Design ISBN 978-1-933919-46-1 For my wife, Natalie, whose life is a pursuit of Beauty and Truth. Without you I could do none of what I do and I’d be half the man I am. FOREWORD In his 2010 Christmas address to the College of Cardi- nals, the Roman Curia, and the Governorate of Vatican City State, Pope Benedict XVI spoke clearly and strong- ly about the profoundly disordered moral state in which our world nds itself. Speaking about the grave evils of our time—for example, the sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, the marketing of child pornography, sexual tourism, and the deadly abuse of drugs—he observed that they are all signs of “the tyranny of mammon which perverts mankind” and that they result from “a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually un- dermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it.”1 His words are redolent of the powerful pastoral concern that he expressed in his homily during the Mass for the Election of the Roman Ponti, celebrated before the conclave during which he was elected to the See of Peter. He spoke of how the “the thought of many Christians” has been tossed about, in our time, by various “ideological currents,” observing that we are witnesses to the “human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error,” about which St. Paul wrote in his Letter to the Ephesians.2 He noted that, in our time, those who live according to “a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church” are viewed as extremists, while relativism—that is, “letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’”—is extolled.3 Regarding the source of the grave moral evils of our time, he concluded: “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not rec- ognize anything as denitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”4 Reecting once again, in his 2010 Christmas ad- dress, on the grave evils that are destroying us as in- dividuals and as a society and have le us with a cul- ture marked by violence and death, the Holy Father reminded us that, if we, with the help of God’s grace, are to overcome these grave evils, “we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations.”5 He then identied directly and unequivocally the ideology that fosters these evils: a perversion of ethos, the norm of life or moral norm, which has even entered into the thinking of some theologians in the Church. Referring to one of the more shocking manifestations of the ideology—namely, the so-called moral position that the sexual abuse of children by adults is actually good for the children and for the adults—he declared: It was maintained—even within the realm of Catholic theology—that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. ere is only a “better than” and a “worse than.” Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circum- stances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist.6 Pope Benedict XVI describes a moral relativ- ism—called proportionalism or consequentialism in contemporary moral theology—that has generated profound confusion and outright error regarding the most fundamental truths of the moral law. 7 It has led to a situation in which morality itself “ceases to exist.” One thinks, for instance, of the plague of procured abortion in our society, which justies the wholesale murder of the unborn in the womb as the exercise of the so-called right of the mother to choose whether to bring to term the baby she has conceived; of the arti- cial generation of human life and its destruction at the embryonic stage of development, which are justied as the means to nd cures for crippling or deadly diseas- es; and of the so-called “mercy killing” of those who have the rst title to our care—our brothers and sisters who have grown weak through advanced years, grave illness, or special needs—which is justied as care for the quality of their lives. One also thinks of the ever-advancing agenda of those who want to redene marriage to include the unnatural sexual union of two persons of the same sex, which is justied as tolerance of so-called alternative forms of human sexuality, as if there were a true form of human sexuality other than that intended by God, our Creator and Redeemer. To confront the ideology, Pope Benedict XVI has urged us to study anew the teaching of his predeces- sor, the Venerable (soon to be Blessed) Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor, “On the Fundamentals of the Church’s Moral Teaching,” in which he, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “indi- cated with prophetic force, in the great rational tradi- tion of Christian ethos, the essential and permanent foundations of moral action.”8 Reminding us of the need to form our consciences in accord with the moral teaching of the Church, our Holy Father also reminds us of “our responsibility to make these criteria audible and intelligible once more for people today as paths of true humanity, in the context of our paramount con- cern for mankind.”9 In the exhortation of Pope Bene- dict XVI, we see the expression of the deepest pastoral charity of the Vicar of Christ on earth: charity, which like that of the Christ the Good Shepherd, knows no boundary and is unceasing. e book that you now hold in your hands is pre- cisely a tool by which to respond to Pope Benedict XVI’s exhortation that we must address the ideology that underlies so many and grave evils in our time. rough his writing, Christopher Stefanick—draw- ing upon his studies of the Church’s moral teaching and his many years of working with the pastors of the Church, especially in their care of youth—helps us to reect more deeply on “the concept of ethos,” the mor- al norm, and its relationship to the unchanging truth about God, ourselves, and our world. Our author leads us to an ever deeper reection upon our own moral thinking and its coherence with the moral truth that our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us in the Church. In a particular and most important way, he helps us to ad- dress a false notion of tolerance, which is nothing less than an expression of the “dictatorship of relativism,” which threatens to destroy us and our society and through which morality “ceases to exist.” In the end, as our author reminds us, we discover the truth, the true concept of ethos, in Jesus Christ in a personal relationship with him as he comes to meet us and to make us ever more one with him in his Mystical Body, the Church.
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