The Word From Rome is up

Via Godspy.

John Allen offers his usual fair assessment of the Vatican. Get the story here

Among his observations:

*The media continue to get hung up with sex.
*People see and hear what they want when the Holy Father addresses the principles of authentic living and Truth.
*Nothing less than total honesty will due for Archbishop Chatput.

In particular, I found this thought of the Holy Father encouraging:

In his address, Benedict XVI links the core intellectual concern of his pontificate, the struggle against philosophical and moral relativism, with explicit political engagement in defense of the family. He said:

"Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to our educational work is constituted by the massive presence in our society and culture by that relativism which, not recognizing anything as definitive, treats as the final measure only the self and its own desires, and under the appearance of liberty, becomes for everyone a prison," the pope said.

"Within such a relativistic horizon, therefore, true education isn't possible: without the light of truth, sooner or later every person is in fact condemned to doubt the goodness of his or her own life and the relations that make it up, as well as the validity of his or her commitment to construct something in common with others."

"It's clear, therefore, that we have to seek to overcome relativism not only in our work of formation of persons, but we are also called to resist its dominance in society and in culture," the pope said. "Therefore, alongside the words of the church, it's important that we offer testimony and a public commitment of Christian families, especially in order to reaffirm the inviolability of human life from conception to natural end, the unique and irreplaceable value of the family based on marriage, and the necessity of legislative and administrative measures that support families in their duties of generating and educating children, a duty that is essential for our common future."

We live in a reality that we did not make. If we continue to insist, as the reasonable appear to, that I am the Only True Thing, then none of us will understand that reality for all. If Truth is entirely self-referential, then it is quicksand, not bedrock. For whose interpretation of the truth gets to stand as authoritative? Yours? Mine? His? Hers? Who decides this?

For the preservation of society, only the State will. Individual subjectivism, upon which relativism rests, leads to the gulags and detention centers of totalitarianism. Individualism eats itself until there is no room for the individual. The reasonable pursue those policies and metaphysics that ultimately rob them of what they hold most dear.

And that's just this side of the cemetary. Imagine the eternal consequences of denying God and living only for Self. Hint: God will not force on any one an eternal choice he refused to make all his life. Instead, he allows all to reap what all sow. In tears. For his mercy is there for the asking. Is he to blame if we do not ask for it?