"Ratzinger in forceful call for conservative path" See below.

[Southsideirish]

Posted April 18, 2005 at 12:15 p.m. CDT

Ratzinger in forceful call for conservative path

By Stacy Meichtry
Rome

In a sermon intended to set the tone for the next papal election, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered a stinging critique of modern culture, calling upon the church to wield Jesus Christ as a shield against a “dictatorship of relativism.”

Standing before a semicircle of his peers and a massive audience of rank and file faithful, Ratzinger asked: “How many winds of doctrine have we known in the last ten years? How many ideological currents, how many fashions of thought?”

“Having a clear faith based on the creed of the church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Meanwhile relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to modern standards."
See full article below from The National Catholic Reporter:
http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/conclave/pt041805c.htm

[Inland]

1. Pope Ratzie smacks down that straw man with strong buzzwords.

Good start.

[sui generis]

2. eh - well this orgy of fundamentalism only has one outcome

it will burn itself out. You see, while choosing to live your life according to medieval edicts is a lifestyle choice, living in the modern world is not.

This is the last gasp of the fire and brimstone crowd, and it's going to be an ugly war. I am very disappointed in Ratzinger's selection, and in what it says about the future of catholicism for catholics who aren't fundamentalists.

[Southsideirish]

4. Good post. You can only drag your heels skidding along to stop progress

so long before you collapse.

[BrewerJohn]

3. "dictatorship of relativism"

Nice Orwellian language there.

[ooglymoogly]

5. it is the age of right wing rats living in the past

insuring the irrelevancy of the vatican.