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Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI

An assault upon relativism

Tracey Rowland
OUP, 214pp, £12.99,

Edward Norman

Tuesday, 8th April 2008

The materialist humanists are winning — or have, perhaps, already won — the battle for possession of the moral conscience of the modern western world. The issues involved should have been brought into focus by public debate over the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, but in reality all the debate has done is to demonstrate how little understanding there is, how insensitive the modern world has become to attitudes to human life that posit the existence of external standards of judgment or of non-material values.

Ratzinger exhorts liberal élites to recognise that the rule of law must itself be based on solid foundations, not on the will of the people’. Modern society, however, is moving at a frightening speed in the opposite direction. Electronic technology has enabled a push-button instant populism which is at its most scaring in the area of moral perception. The people want welfare and security, and politicians assist them in defining those ends without recourse to serious moral purpose.

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