MORAL RELATIVISM

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MORAL RELATIVISM CONTEMPORARY CONSECRATED LIFE
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The Da Vinci Code

• Dan Brown based himself on a non-canonical
  Gnostic gospel and on a fiction The Holy Blood
  and the Holy Grail
• This story of Jesus was according to Browns
  sheer imagination.and so, is very far from the
  recognized four canonical gospels!
• Such fictitious efforts make the objective truth
  about Jesus get distorted in the long run

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Relativism

• Often, in todays world the objective truth about
  things have been diluted or even completely
  distorted by the subjective opinions of
  individuals and groups
• This, in fact, is a direct result of personal
  experiences acquiring the status of a source of
  knowledge
• Of course, personal experience has its own place
  in the acquiring of knowledge, but it surely does
  not give the entire picture of things, the whole
  truth
• Unfortunately, today, all such individual-personal
  relationships are granted an equal status of
  truth. Your opinion is true, and so, also is my
  opinion!

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Relativism

• When each and every opinion is granted equal
  status, then, relativism simply follows!
• Relativism is when all points of view are
  accorded equal status and value.
• It is when a point of view lacks a common
  reference point. It is exclusive subjectivism. It
  excludes any link with other views
• Giuseppe di Rosa The individual becomes the
  measure, the standard of everything

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Relativism

• When each and every exclusive individual point of
  view that is cut off from a common reference to
  reality is assigned an equal value, then, each
  and every such individual point of view
  automatically acquires a relative, true
  representation of reality.
• Thus, all points of view become relatively
  true!
• Every opinion acquires the status of truth!

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Moral Relativism

• Every community/society has its own accumulated
  wisdom eg., fire will burn better to store
  food for the off-season,etc.
• Every community/society has also its own
  accumulated moral wisdom, i.e., of what is
  right and what is wrong eg.,respecting elders is
  praiseworthy killing is wrong,.etc
• But if and when the individual person/group
  becomes the unique arbiter/judge of what is right
  and what is wrong without any reference to the
  accumulated moral wisdom of the
  community/society, then, we have moral
  relativism.

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Moral Relativism

• We as human persons, do not live in isolated
  monads! We live in society with other persons.
  Thus, morality or moral truths cannot be reached
  except in and through others and with others.
• The individual person is not the creator of what
  is right and what is wrong, or of moral truth.
• What is right and what is wrong exist independent
  of human subjects, and so, we need those others
  in reaching those moral truths. For simply as
  individuals cut off from others, we just cannot
  reach them at all!

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Moral Relativism

• Moral and immoral acts three criteria for
  judging the act-in-itself, the circumstances and
  the intention. All three criteria are essential
  in order not to fall into moral extremisms
  Thomas Aquinas
• Those who judge the morality using only the
  act-in-itself, fall into the error of objective
  absolutism!
• Those who judge the morality using only the
  intention, fall into the error of subjective
  relativism!

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Moral Relativism CL

• Along with materialism and hedonism, another
  serious ism which the CL has been attacked with
  today is surely moral relativism. In fact, the
  latter can be held responsible for the former
  two, also!
• In what follows, I will try to highlight just
  eight concrete areas of CL where moral relativism
  has had negative effects

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1.The Meaning of a life-long Commitment

• Is it humanly possible to make life-long
  commitments?
• How can we make a commitment for life when we do
  not know what is to come tomorrow?
• They forget our human history and also the life
  of Jesus Christ who never wavered in his
  commitment in spite of the ever-changing
  circumstances!

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2. Individual over/above the Community

• For a relativist community and others are of
  least importance, because only what he/she holds
  and does, matters.
• In this way of thinking, the individual person is
  said to have individual rights over and above the
  community and community obligations.
• The main error here is to forget that whether in
  CL or anywhere, we, human beings, live with
  others, in society/community

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2. Individual over/above the Community

• Some even go to the extent of invoking the sacred
  Catholic principle of conscience, to justify
  their relativistic positions!
• But the cherished Catholic teaching on conscience
  has always upheld the right of every human person
  to uphold, follow and live according to his/her
  conscience that is properly formed GS 16 DH
  2,3,14 VS 54,58,59,64.
• It is surely not an individualistic, isolated
  conscience that the Church upholds as sacred the
  Latin etymology con scientia, together
  would mean to know with

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2. Individual over/above the Community

• Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg
• Some religious even daring to talk of individual,
  personal rights! Timothy Radcliffe on the day
  of his/her profession, a religious relativizes
  his/her individual rights in order to absolutize
  the institutes common projects
• Legitimate authority of a superior, too, is often
  diluted, as a result of relativism! VC 43

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3. Commitment VS Job

• Since a life-long commitment is perceived as
  impossible, any task is seen as a job lack of
  job satisfaction for some religious!
• Tasks of Religious Life are often paralleled with
  secular jobs talk of retirement even before a
  person gets old or incapable!
• Sandra Schneiders tasks of CL are seen as just
  one aspect of life CL itself becomes just
  relative to their other commitments, which at
  times may have priority!

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4. Being VS Doing

• A necessary logical consequence of regarding CL
  as a mere job, is the prevalent craze to be
  work-oholics, to be achievers, to be doers
  of things!
• Doing becomes more important than being
• Activity has become so important that being or
  spirituality for doing those acts become
  irrelevant T.S. Elliot to do the right thing
  for the wrong reasons!

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5. The Meaning of Religious Vows

• The 3 vows of CL are counter-signs to the
  prevailing secular trends.
• They imply a swimming against the secular
  currents of Hedonism, Materialism and a
  Distortion of the concept of Freedom VC 87. The
  vows relativize these currents and absolutize God
  and his Kingdom.
• But, today, Relativism, has reversed this order
  in most of our CL!

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6. The Interpretation of Charisms

• Relativism goes by each and every individual
  whims and fancies!
• In its legitimate evolution, CL has gone through
  many changes, but there are also certain
  essential elements like the basic charism and
  other essential traditions which are peculiar to
  a congregation/order VC 3, 37
• The recent lament of a Superior General of a
  well-known male clerical Congregation

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7. Erroneous Comparisons of CL with Marriage

• CL has a special place in the Church and the
  world.
• Both Marriage and CL have their own unique
  dignity, and so, they cannot be compared and
  contrasted, whenever it suits us!
• CL is not natural, CL is an abnormal
  life,.etc.!!!

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8. Aberrations in Formation

• Haphazard programs of formation, influenced not
  by a spirit of CL, but purely by individual whims
  fancies of formators, based mostly on modern
  psychology, sociology,etc.
• Some formators subjectively interpreting the
  charism of a congregation, and passing it on to
  future generations!
• The importance of the ratio of formation for
  every congregation an anti-dote to relativistic
  tendencies of some formators VC 68

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Conclusion

• Today, moral relativism is a given, and it has
  come to stay!
• The Churchs remedy to this is to emphasize the
  need to put our individual subjective moral
  judgments into an on-going dialogue with the
  objective moral norms/practices a common
  reference point of the Church and the
  Congregation.
• The Church invites us in CL to follow a via media
  between the two dangerous extremes of subjective
  Relativism and Objective absolutism in CL. In
  fact, CL has a duty to lead the way in this
  respect for the other followers of Christ.