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Pope Sees Clergy Sex Abuse As Product of Moral Relativism

By Howard M. Friedman

Pope Benedict XVI yesterday delivered an address (full text) during his traditional pre-Christmas meeting with the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and members of the Roman Curia and of the Governorate of Vatican City State.  A significant portion of his remarks were an analysis of the clergy sex abuse scandal. He said in part:

In the vision of Saint Hildegard, the face of the Church is stained with dust.... We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal.... We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred. We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen....  

We are well aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our corresponding responsibility. But neither can we remain silent regarding the context of these times in which these events have come to light. There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society. The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times. From Bishops of developing countries I hear again and again how sexual tourism threatens an entire generation and damages its freedom and its human dignity.... In this context, the problem of drugs also rears its head, and with increasing force extends its octopus tentacles around the entire world ? an eloquent expression of the tyranny of mammon which perverts mankind.....

In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations. In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was maintained ? even within the realm of Catholic theology ? that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a "better than" and a "worse than"..... Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view.... Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist. The effects of such theories are evident today. Against them, Pope John Paul II, in his 1993 Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, indicated with prophetic force in the great rational tradition of Christian ethos the essential and permanent foundations of moral action. Today, attention must be focussed anew on this text as a path in the formation of conscience.... 

Full post as published by Religion Clause on December 21, 2010 (boomark / email).