On Good Friday we hear Pontius Pilate ask Jesus "What is Truth?" In many ways Pilate is the patron saint of relativists and many political candidates today.
One of the most commonly held convictions today is that there is no real right or wrong, nothing is true or right. The prevailing attitude is that one idea is just as good as another and none are better or worse than another. (The irony is, of course, if you challenge this belief the person is likely to say you are wrong, hence destroying their very idea that all ideas are equally true). However, if we carry this idea out and hold that all moral systems are equal and there is no hierarchy of values, then perhaps Republicanism is no better than Nazism as a form of government. If one set of ideas is no better or worse than another, then being an American would be no better than being a Nazi. As it is, we do believe that some moralities are better than others. Yet if there is no such thing as truth, then how can anyone claim that as a true statement? If the universe is devoid of objective truth, then how can we know that objectively? If freedom is to be regarded as a complete break with tradition and objective truth, then good and evil are determined only by variable opinions among individuals.
Without any fixed morality for social and political existence, truth becomes a relative term and the dignity of the human person and the right to life and liberty becomes subject to political power or dominant philosophical thought. Again, if there is no truth to the innate dignity of human beings, then the concept of human dignity has collapsed.
Many people have grown up believing that the universe has no meaning. And if the universe has no meaning, then neither do they have meaning. And if there is no purpose to existence, then why bother with anything? Therefore, pursuing a life of pleasure (i.e. addiction) may well become the end of all things.
We are mortified to learn that some students have not learned of the horrors of Auschwitz or the Nazi regime; still other children now question whether it was right for the world to criticize Nazi beliefs. To show the effects of relativism upon education, (and putting aside the whole question of the morality of war), one recent poll indicated that a disturbingly high percentage of American students called into question the Allies’ declaration of war against Germany, Italy, and Japan in World War II. Some of the students asked: “Who were we to tell the Nazis they were wrong?” This might be summed up in the common mantra: “We all have our own truths. What’s true for you may not be true for me.” If this philosophy is true, then why should we prefer democracy over totalitarianism?
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, days before his election as Pope Benedict XVI, declared that we live in an era of a “tyranny of relativism.” Such a “dictatorship of relativism does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” Today these questions are being raised: “What exactly qualifies for human personality? What constitutes human personhood? What does it mean to be human?” There are college professors who now advocate that human personhood must be earned by a human being meeting certain criteria determined by the intellectually and physically fit. Perhaps a child has earned personhood by the time she is two years of age. Some say as late as seven years of age. The argument is that a human being is not necessarily a human person.
Yet recall the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life…” Unfortunately, slavery was justified by denying the human personhood of human beings of African descent. The Nazis justified the death camps and anti-Semitism by claiming that the Jewish humans were not fully human.
This proclivity to deny human dignity is made especially clear now in the popular movement to create human beings in laboratories in order to harvest their valuable biological material, i.e., stem cells, in hopes of treating diseases afflicting human persons. The argument goes that they – the unborn, the embryonic humans – are not human persons, but merely potential humans, and as such they have no rights. The unborn are treated as disposable biological material with the argument that they are not fully human because they are not human persons. The objective truth of the humanity of human beings has been displaced with subjective norms. Yet if there is no objective truth regarding the humanity of human beings, then the objective truth of the dignity of each and every human person is lost.
A society that affirms the dignity of the person but then also permits fetal experimentation, abortion, or euthanasia is denying equality before the law. Showing respect for human life may also require the exercise of conscientious objection not only in relation to war, but also to procured fetal experimentation and abortion. Medical research, which has great potential for human progress and service, must also respect the integrity of the human person from the first moment of conception. Therefore all human experimentation or research that disregards the inviolable dignity of the human being must be avoided. When a law denies an entire category of human beings the status as human persons, the very foundations of law and civilization are weakened. It is impossible to advance the cause of human dignity without recognizing and defending the right to life. All other rights are founded on and flow from this most basic of rights.
Democracy is false when it fails to recognize and affirm every person’s dignity and his or her subsequent rights. Violence toward others and self is not life giving, but death dealing. Nothing but an unconditional respect for human life can be the foundation of a truly renewed culture and civilization.
Pope John Paul repeatedly warned of anti-life forces and movements, and called upon all peoples of good will to build a culture of life based on a civilization of truth and love. Charity calls us to love one another as God has loved us. In a sense we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We are responsible for the welfare of others. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be neighbor to everyone, especially those who are most in need: the poor and lonely. In helping the disenfranchised, the hungry, the foreigner, the sick and imprisoned, we serve Christ Jesus. “Whatsoever you did to the least of my people, that you did to me.”
The Christian is called to live out the love God has already given us in Jesus, for He first loved us. The Christian leads a moral life not to earn God’s Grace or favor; rather, a Christian leads a moral life in response to the Grace of God already given.
For the Christian, Jesus challenges us to action. “When I was hungry you gave me to eat; when I was a stranger, you welcomed me; when I was sick you cared for me; and when I was in prison, you visited me.” He did not say: “When I was hungry you starved me; when I was a stranger you exiled me; when I was sick you euthanized me; when I was in prison you executed me, when I was an embryo you harvested me, or when I was unborn you aborted me.”
Human civilization has its roots in marriage and family. Human dignity is rooted in the Revelation that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. To truly understand the nature of married love, one must understand the nature of human personhood. God instituted marriage in the beginning when he created the first man and the first woman. Marriage is a pillar of civilization and married love is a covenantal bond, a life-long sacramental union of a man and a woman sustained by the fidelity of conjugal friendship and the procreation and education of children. Such a covenant and communion cannot be closed in upon itself; rather it is fruitful in its love and service to the communion of society.
However, a society is only as good as its individual domestic society, the family. The procreation and education of children is a participation in God’s creative act. The family as the domestic church is called to proclaim the gospel of Christ through the example of charity. The family is where a child first learns the virtues of life and love and truth. Parents are their children’s first teachers. The family is called to serve human life through a stable environment. The work of parenting and educating children is not an option for spouses. If parents fail their children in this responsibility, then the family fails society; if the family fails in this responsibility, then the entire human family fails and with it all of society. Indeed, married love’s great work is parenthood. For this reason, the future of humanity hinges upon marriage and family.
The institution of Marriage cannot be reduced to nothing more than a disposable contract with conditions and pre-nuptial agreements or be redefined by the parties involved as a mere transitory union of two persons. The choice to enter into the marital covenant is a choice to remain faithful and united as husband and wife through sorrow and joy and sickness and health. The spouses can endure in the valleys of emotional dryness and celebrate on the mountaintops of exhilarating happiness; it is to be open to new life; and the spouses promise to remain faithful to one another all the days of their lives together.
Marriage builds up society through love and service to one another within the family. The sacrament of marriage can be a visible sign of invisible grace because God’s love can be experienced through each other. Therefore Marriage is a cooperation with and participation in God’s grace, and as such it will endure, for “With God all things are possible.”34
The future of marriage, the family, and respect for human life will determine the future of our culture and civilization; the pursuit of social justice, protecting the rights and the dignity of the human person, and fostering the common good of the human family must be the concern of every person and every human institution.
With the ever increasing bombardment of mass communication and powerful media conglomerates, how can the integrity and value of the human person be defended and reaffirmed? Or is it too late to ask the question?
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