New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | April 26, 2005

The new pope compares relativism—which he associates with liberalism—to dictatorship. Matt Welch has a different, though equally valid, perspective.

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|4.26.05 @ 4:17PM|#

Der Pope also says that conversions are Job One. And I ain't talkin' 'bout Econoline vans.

You can take the pope out of the Hitler Youth, but you can't... oh, never mind.

|4.26.05 @ 4:33PM|#

I'm imagining a scene from Star Trek VI: The Voyage Home if it had been made just last year....

---------------------------

Scene opens on Kirk And Spock riding a bus to find two talk radio hosts to save the 23rd century from crippling civility.

SPOCK: Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It is currently laced with, shall we say, more colorful metaphors, "you're a stinking moral relativist" and so forth.

KIRK: Oh, you mean the accusations of liberalism?

SPOCK: Yes.

KIRK: Well that's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you unless you accuse people who don't agree with you of heresy or treason every other sentence. You'll find it in the litereature of the time...Jonah Goldberg, Sean Hannity, Pope Benedict XVI...

SPOCK: Ah...the giants.

-------------------------------------

Basically, this stuff is getting way tedious.

I miss the good ole' days when the only thing they could chirp was "secular humanism".

|4.26.05 @ 4:43PM|#

Liberal: You're intolerant!

Conservative: You're intolerant of my intolerance!

Libertarian: Will you two knuckleheads knock it off? I'm trying to party!

|4.26.05 @ 4:45PM|#

Communist: Your party is decadent and exploits the workers who provide you and your fat bourgeois guests with food and drink.

|4.26.05 @ 5:01PM|#

Well, double dumb-ass on you!

|4.26.05 @ 5:07PM|#

I am optimistic about the new Pope in one sense: that he may take a much tougher stance on the sexual abuse phenomenon within the Church. JPII simply didn't get rough enough with the perverted priests and the bishops and cardinals who ignored or glossed over their sins.

I am certainly not on par with Pope Benedict XVI in cultural regards, but I sincerely hope he takes the action desperately needed.

|4.26.05 @ 5:14PM|#

Does the Pope's concern with our relativism and our lack of respect for moral absolutes extend to the First, Second and Fourth Commandments?

...or will he be happy if Catholics everywhere continue to follow the abridged version rather than the version God wrote with his own hand?

|4.26.05 @ 5:17PM|#

Oh?. Ratzinger was clearly one of the forces behind the Vatican attempts at coverup.

|4.26.05 @ 5:29PM|#

panurge,

Check Serafina on this one. Ratzinger has paid some lip service to solving the problem while trying to sweep it under the rug.

I don't look for him to do anything but whine about how it's just a "relativist plot to undermine the authority of the church."

|4.26.05 @ 5:35PM|#

Serafina and madpad-

Damn! And I hoped we had a good one.

Oh well. After he was initiated into the job, the new Pope admitted to his cardinals that his reign would most likely be very short. He's already 78 years old. So there's bright hope for the future.

|4.26.05 @ 5:38PM|#

I know there was a lot of hubbub about the misuse of 'relativism' that offends the philosophical purists out there, but it was really the 'dictatorship' part that struck me as inappropriate. I'm not even sure I know what he's getting at.

I have heard religious types gripe that they are being pushed out of public life by a 'secular hegemony'. Is 'dictatorship' trying to convey that same idea?

|4.26.05 @ 5:48PM|#

Oh my dear fellow - it is Star Trek IV you speak of... (and "double dumb-ass on you" is a phrase that ought to see more use.)

|4.26.05 @ 6:00PM|#

Don't mind my friend here. He was in the free-speech movement at Berkeley during the 1960s ... took a little too much LDS.

Tim Cavanaugh|4.26.05 @ 6:09PM|#

I think we can all make an effort to use the phrase "double dumbass on you" more often in our own lives.

|4.26.05 @ 6:48PM|#

panurge - I wouldn't want the new pope to get rough with the pervert priests...they might like it.

|4.26.05 @ 7:31PM|#

Lowdog-

True. Then again, there was an 18-year-old Pope hundreds of years ago who basically turned the Vatican into a brothel, so it would be nothing new.

|4.26.05 @ 8:01PM|#

Here�re my thoughts on Il Papa. It is virtually impossible to follow up PJPII with a liberal* pope because it would be seen as a refutation of his beliefs. And even when you include the negative (and I�m someone that disagrees with most Catholic dogma) he�s a damn good pope and you wouldn�t want to refute his good. However, selecting a pope without PJPII�s greatness, is even more hardline, etc. for a short period of time, a shift to a more liberal pope will not be seen as a refutation of PJPII, but rather PBXVI (or the skinny pope to follow the fat one if you prefer). Granted, I�m speaking ex rectum and IANAC, but from my understanding of the traditions, it seems like a plausible explanation.

* With the caveat that even a liberal pope will be conservative by almost any absolute standard. We�re not going to see a pope giving the ok to premarital sex or abortion anytime in my lifetime, that�s for sure

J. Goard|4.26.05 @ 8:33PM|#

Ya gotta wonder what Leonard Peikoff thinks of the Holy Father cribbing his "Ominous Parallels" argument...

|4.26.05 @ 8:36PM|#

Matt is especially on target with this one:
"Nothing like a WASP country lecturing the Catholic Old World on, er, anti-Catholicism."

Ah, but you can always count on certain elements of the right for knee jerk anti-Europe sentiment.

The best example may have been Peggy Noonan:

"The faith is dead in Europe, everyone knows that. So why did they come?" (to see who was the new pope)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006584

Well gee, maybe they were people for whom the faith isn't dead? So nice of her to make speak for everyone in Europe ...

And you have a feeling that all these conservatives would be quite happy to ignore, at least for a period of time, Europe's alleged slide into relativism if only they had been more supportive of the war.

|4.26.05 @ 10:42PM|#

The old-school state churches are dying in Germany, but many Germans are being drawn in by American protestant churches, such as the American Baptist Church. Believe it or not!

|4.26.05 @ 11:09PM|#

Peachy,

Thanks...It would appear the recent spate of Roman numerology caused me to reverse my Vs & Is.

And IV was always one of my favorites.

Nice to see Tim was able to squeeze off a "double dumbass on you" on a later thread.

|4.26.05 @ 11:12PM|#

If faith is so dead in Europe, why is the next World Youth Day in Germany next month?

|4.26.05 @ 11:25PM|#

I think they're trying to reinvigorate faith in Germany.

fyodor|4.27.05 @ 2:00AM|#

Was Hamlet the first moral relativist?

BTW, kudos to Julian's "equally valid" shtick!!

|4.27.05 @ 11:25AM|#

fyodor,

Try Protagoras. "Man is the measure of all things", etc.

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