Login 
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna providing a visual demonstration that what is latest is not always best.
Irony of Ironies
It is one of life's strongest ironies that, for all their claims to the contrary, moral relativists often turn out to be the biggest absolutists going.
Just to give an example from my own experience, I remember arriving at a high-school about 14 years ago to give a pro-life presentation to a large gathering of students in the hall. A few minutes before I was due to begin, a woman of retirement age came over and suggested, ''you can't go around telling young people what to do!'' The fact that this was exactly what she was doing seemed to have been wasted on her...
I've already mentioned here how a Modernistic nun I worked for also ''preached'' at me that I could not go around ''preaching'' to people. And we have all heard Pope Francis' consistent proselytism of his unique message that it is somehow a sin to proselytize...
I can see pretty much where the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft was going when he punned along the lines that we moral absolutists sometimes apply our absolutes relatively, whilst moral relativists always apply their relativism absolutely!
Meltdown in Austria
We see this general trend emerging once again with Cardinal Christoph Schonborn's little tizzy that was reported three days ago in the French Riposte catholique.
In a seeming state of agitated excitement, His Eminence exclaimed that the 4 cardinals'Â Dubia was an ''attack against the Pope''. He also stated that the 4 cardinals ''must be obedient to the Pope!''
An English translation of Riposte catholique's article depicts Cardinal Schonborn's position as, ''to ask to be enlightened, therefore, is to disobey now...''
And it further concludes, ''for Cardinal Schonborn, Amoris Laetitia without any Magisterial character, even of the lowest degree, becomes a super-dogma''.
This French outlet's suggestion that Amoris Laetitia has no Magisterial character echoes Cardinal Raymond Burke's recent contention that the document could not be part of the infallible Magisterium, ''because it contains serious ambiguities that confuse people and can lead them into error and grave sin.''
The real irony is that Cardinal Schonborn is demanding, in the most absolutist of terms, that the 4 cardinals - and by extension all the rest of us! - must unquestioningly and absolutely obey a document which makes it appear that nothing in the moral order can be understood or obeyed in absolute terms!
Such irony can only be compounded when it is remembered that the 4 cardinals, having politely asked for such inconsistency to be clarified, are now being ordered to obey absolutely and without question.
Dictatorship of Relativism
It seems to us that Schonborn forgets that it is the Catholic Church that we are speaking of and not some fanatical ideology run along the lines of the Third Reich!
But, as we have acknowledged above, this is the very nature of so-called moral relativism. This is why Pope Benedict XVI could speak with such clarity against the dictatorship of relativism; and by extension it is why his present conformity with just such a dictatorship makes no logical or theological sense.
And as we have said at this web-site a number of times in recent years, once the divine and natural law ceases to be the guiding principle, both for societies and individuals, then whatever ideology replaces these has always to be imposed from outside by dictatorship and tyranny.
If people will not police themselves and their own behaviours by forming their consciences and wills in accordance with objective truth, then they have to be coerced by whoever gains power in a given social situation to follow the prevailing ideology which supplants that truth.
This is the dynamic at work throughout Western civilization in these times. It has also been a driving force in the spreading hegemony of Communism.
In relation to our own country, the author Peter Hitchens has done a particularly good job of exploring this trajectory in his books, The Abolition of Britain and The Abolition of Liberty. To give just one example from his writings, Hitchens outlines how Britain's religious and moral collapse has been accompanied by a transition from decentralised government and small police forces to a culture of big-government and intensive surveillance of the populace.
Anyone with their eyes wide open can see how, in such a situation, government and policing morph from a culture which upheld the objective moral law into one which merely enforces ideology.
A state wherein everything that was not officially forbidden was permitted, is rapidly devolving into one where nothing will be permitted until it has been officially allowed.
The fact that various British town councils, police forces and fire service personnel now march in ''Gay Pride'' events in full regalia and uniform gives public expression to the kind of phenomenon we are discussing here.
History Repeating Itself...
To get back to Cardinal Schonborn's little outburst, it is remarkable to observe just how much the present attack on the 4 cardinals resembles - and indeed represents a present-day continuation of - the treatment that was meted out to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre a few decades ago.
In his writings on ''The Problem of Obedience'' the Archbishop reflected: ''The Church is destroying herself by the path of obedience... The masterstroke of Satan is thus to spread the principles of revolution from within the Church, and under the authority of the Church itself... he has succeeded in getting those whose duty it is to defend and propagate the Church, to condemn those who are defending the Catholic Faith.''
Such treatment was applied to the 45 priests and theologians who also wrote in to seek ''clarification'' over Amoris Laetitia, when their names were passed on to their bishops and religious superiors by the Holy See; the levers of power in the latter having been so obviously subverted by the very enemies of Christ and His Holy Church.
And that sounds a lot more like Communism than anything genuinely Catholic. I mean, seriously, men are now getting reported from the very heart of the Church just for being orthodox!
Fly From This Relativism!
The catechetical lesson that we can learn from Schonborn's demand for blind obedience to a vague document, which is itself being used by so many to deny Christ's Truth and to deconstruct the entire moral and sacramental edifice of the Church, was already clearly enunciated in Fides et Ratio.
This marvellous encyclical letter recalled in its introduction that, ''Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth - in a word, to know Himself - so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may come to the fullness of truth about themselves.''
Cardinal Schonborn's demand for blind obedience from orthodox Catholics also stands in sharp contrast to his sinister suggestion that all manner of active homosexuals, adulterers and sacrilegious communicants be set free from the requirements of the moral law and obedience to it.
Given half a chance, like so many oppressors in history, Schonborn would thus have our wings clipped for us.
But our hearts desire will not accede to this; because God Himself has put that desire for His truth in us.Â
May we never forget the true Catholic teaching, which is that we obey our religious superiors in all things except for sin.
Let these absolute relativists try to imprison the Church, and even our bodies if they will, but they will never lock our consciences in their little cage!
