30. Freedom is a marvelous gift from God. Even when God draws us to him with his grace, he does so in a way that never violates our freedom. Thus, it would be a grave error to think that by distancing ourselves from God and his assistance, we could somehow be freer and thus feel more dignified. Instead, detached from the Creator, our freedom can only weaken and become obscured.
What is the Gospel story that illustrates this as well as any? The misadventures of the younger brother in Luke 15:11-17. What seems at first a glorious adventure in freedom with a full purse and a ready libido evolves into enslavement.
The same happens if freedom imagines itself to be independent of any external reference and perceives any relationship with a prior truth as a threat; as a result, respect for the freedom and dignity of others would also diminish.
The point here, once again, is that the mature human person (believer or not) recognizes that rights and responsibilities are linked, and that neither really comes to fulfillment without the other.
B16 takes us out:
As Pope Benedict XVI explained, “A will which believes itself radically incapable of seeking truth and goodness has no objective reasons or motives for acting save those imposed by its fleeting and contingent interests; it does not have an ‘identity’ to safeguard and build up through truly free and conscious decisions. As a result, it cannot demand respect from other ‘wills,’ which are themselves detached from their own deepest being and thus capable of imposing other ‘reasons’ or, for that matter, no ‘reason’ at all. The illusion that moral relativism provides the key for peaceful coexistence is actually the origin of divisions and the denial of the dignity of human beings.”[Benedict XVI, Message for the Celebration of the 44th World Day of Peace (1 January 2011)]
I know “moral relativism” was a particular bugaboo of the late pope. I think the term is too widely applied. Even if Pope Benedict had a clear notion, I’m not sure his acolytes are as clear. I think there are people who are indeed incapable of seeking truth and goodness. I also believe that many people who embrace a non-conformity with Catholic morality are not always as depraved.
Click this link to read the DDDF document on the Vatican site.
Catholic Sensibility 