Pope John Paul II: A Reader Book

I am not a Catholic or Ratzinger fan but I share his dislike of relativism. Of course, Christianity doesn't praise relativism in general, but Ratzinger has been especially adamant against it unlike his successor Francis I. Francis I is universally praised by many liberals as the most progressive pope. Being progressive is nice, yet it doesn't necessarily translate into being right. Ratzinger has a point when he emphasizes that relativism undermines the common Ground in society. His diagnosis is right.

On April 13, 2018, while I was reading this book, the US launched airstrikes against the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad under the dubious accusations that he had used chemical weapons. It didn't make sense, especially because he was winning the war and killing 40 civilians with chemical weapons was too stupid and ineffective. Radical Islamist rebels flaunted the victims by sharing their videos. There was not a single proof that Assad did it despite the ready availability of technology on rebels' hands to document it.

Years ago, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was accused of having weapons of mass destruction, and the US invaded the country using that lie as a pretext and never found a single weapon of mass destruction. Similarly, the US took the action in Syria without waiting for the investigation to produce a preliminary report. The New York Times supported the airstrikes and didn't mention that there was not a single solid proof against Assad. Even the comments by readers they cherry-pick supported the airstrikes. This is the insidious result of relativism. Everything can matter therefore you can obfuscate truths you don't like. One of the most trusted news sources in the world easily censors a simple truth without repercussions. A lie is no less valuable than truth.

The Enlightenment sought truth in turbulent seas. It made mistakes, it blundered a lot, but it was earnest. It pursued truth. Today's liberals stare at waves and think that's all that matters. Therefore the papacy of Benedict XVI was a breath of fresh air. He stood against The New York Times and their ilk.

Nichols writes, "He [Ratzinger] finds the illuminating comparison he is seeking in the history of philosophy where such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, 'remain the originating figures of an enduring approach to the Ground of what is.'" A search for a common ground is important because "Pluralist democracy has not shown itself capable of uniting citizens in a deep-rooted adhesion to a common form of life. Economic crises bring it to a precipice, shifts in the life of the spirit threaten to remove the ground from beneath its feet." (p. 187)

Pope Benedict XVI dared to do an extraordinary thing for our age. His quest was to weaken diseased relativism. That is why he always looked like an angry circus clown. Toward the end of the book, Nichols notes Kierkegaard's celebrated analogy for the Christian preacher, an apt description of Benedict XVI:

"A circus clown was desperately trying to deliver a deadly serious message. When he found that people took his warning about a forest fire as knock-about, he got even more worked up - which only made his hearers laugh the more until in the end their village and they themselves were engulfed in flames."