This is very rich. I extracted the following quote from Hugh Hewitt's blog. He printed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's homily in its entirety.
Ratzinger's term "Dictatorship of Relativism" is particularly "sticky" (see "The Stickiness Factor" at Tipping Point Net Version)
"How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking... The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching," looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."
Bingo!
One's own ego -- one's own desires -- "it is all about me"-ism. All that matters is me, myself and I. Truth is whatever I say truth is -- whatever works for me.
Friends, Ratzinger's assessment is spot on. Man as the measure of all things is not a new wave of thought, but it is the one that has a grip on our culture currently. Unfortunately, it also has a grip on the church. See Greg Koukl's challenging post on the impact of relativism on the church -- both implicitly and explicity.
The status of truth is the number one challenge we face in our generation. It surfaces in a number of different ways -- from ethical relativism, to judicial relativism, to theological relativism to the myth of tolerance. Make no mistake, relativism is standing in the field like a nine foot Philistine and yelling challenges to us. How will you respond?
Here is why truth matters.
Here is where to go to learn how to get started in your training on how to defend truth.
(HT: STR )