121. We need to develop a new synthesis capable of overcoming the false arguments of recent
centuries. Christianity, in fidelity to its own identity and the rich deposit of truthwhich it has received
from Jesus Christ, continues to reflect on these issues in fruitful dialogue with changing historical
situations. In doing so, it reveals its eternal newness.
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Practical relativism
122. A misguided anthropocentrism leads to a misguided lifestyle. In the Apostolic Exhortation
Evangelii Gaudium,
I noted that the practical relativism typical of our age is “even more dangerous
than doctrinal relativism”.
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When human beings place themselves at the centre, they give absolute
priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative. Hence we should not be surprised to
find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human
power, the rise of a relativismwhich sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one’s own immediate
interests. There is a logic in all this whereby different attitudes can feed on one another, leading to
environmental degradation and social decay.
123. The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of
another, to treat others asmere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their
debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the
elderly who no longer serve our interests. It is also the mindset of those who say: Let us allow the
invisible forces of themarket to regulate the economy, and consider their impact on society and nature
as collateral damage. In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction
of our own desires and immediate needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking, organized
crime, the drug trade, commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of endangered species? Is it not the
same relativistic logic which justifies buying the organs of the poor for resale or use in
experimentation, or eliminating children because they are not what their parents wanted? This same
“use and throw away” logic generates so much waste, because of the disordered desire to consume
more thanwhat is reallynecessary. We should not think that political efforts or the force of lawwill be
sufficient to prevent actions which affect the environment because, when the culture itself is corrupt
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Cf. VINCENT OF LERINS,
Commonitorium Primum
, ch. 23: PL 50, 688: “Ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur
tempore, sublimetur aetate”.
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No. 80:AAS105 (2013), 1053.
