The Holy Father Pope Benedict, has issued his statement for World Peace Day. I thought a couple of excerpts from it would be interesting. He begins by referring to the recent massacre of priests and parishioners at a Baghdad church (not sure it made the American news). He asks for prayers, praised the governments who are trying to support religious freedom, and then notes:

"At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account if its faith. Many Christians experience daily affronts and often live in fear because of their pursuit of truth, their faith in Jesus Christ, and their heartfelt plea for respect for religious freedom. This situation is unacceptable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity; furthermore, it is a threat to security and peace, and an obstacle to the development of authentic and integral human development."

He goes on to note that "It could be said that among the fundamental rights and freedom rooted in the dignity of the person, religious freedom enjoys an special status... It is essential good; each person must be able freely to exercise the right to profess and manifest, individually or in community, his or her own religion or faith, in public and private, in teaching, in practice, in publication, in worship and in ritual observances. There should be no obstacles should he or she eventually wish to belong to another religion, or profess nothing at all."

Here, he is condemning a religion that would seek to kill converts, but not naming the specific religion.

He addresses moral relativism: "A freedom which is hostile or indifferent to God becomes self-negating and does not guarantee full respect for others. A will which believes itself radically incapable of seeking truth and goodness has no objective reasons or motives for acting, save those imposed by its fleeting and contingent interests; it does not have an "identity" to safeguard and build up through truly free and conscious decisions."

We are so steeped in moral relativism that even sophisticated college students can't see it. He says: "As a result, it cannot demand respect fro other "wills," which are themselves detached from their own deepest being and thus incapable of imporing other "reasons," or for that matter, not reason at all. The illusion that moral relativism provides the key for peaceful co-existance is actually the origin of divisions and the denial of the dignity of human beings."

In a recent class, I tried to get the students to see that without a grounding in any sense of truth, they were unable to evaluate the claims of a student regarding "new age" religion. "Hey, if its true for you, it is true; if it is true for me, it is true" does not represent a sincere search for the Truth.

But searching for the Truth is a difficult process. It's much more simple to say: "What ever you believe is OK by me." Well, in a sense it is "OK by me." But it doesn't work for me. I need to at least look for the Truth.