Dr. Edward Sri discusses how moral relativism may be gradually entering the minds of even devout Catholics in a hidden way.
Transcript:
Host: Let’s go to Amy now in Radford, Virginia watching us on Facebook Live. Thanks for watching on Facebook Live, Amy. You are on with Dr. Edward Sri.
Caller: Hey, gentlemen, thanks for taking my question. It’s actually a two-part question. So from what I’m understanding is that this book has seven tips to respond to relativism. However, with the two-part is that, with these seven tips is it possible, for people who may be struggling with some things in their own life, could they apply these seven tips to their own life? And the second part is, should they apply it to their own life before they use it in someone else’s life? With your book?
Dr. Sri: Ah, great. I think, you know, in our culture a lot of people—a lot of good people—have struggled with relativism. I mean people that are working in parishes, I mean even people that go to daily Mass, that sometimes are afraid—you know, “I’m afraid to actually say this is definitively right or wrong, I’ve got, like, my brother’s living a homosexual lifestyle and afraid to say it’s right or wrong.” And so there’s a bit of that relativism that’s kind of crept in.
Really, I mean, these are good people, they believe in God, they believe in the Church and all, but because of the pressures of our culture, they start to waffle a little bit. They start qualifying some of their moral statements. “Well for me, marriage is between a man and woman, but for other people…” You know. And I think the book is meant to—first and foremost, it’s meant to equip people to talk about relativism with their friends, to talk about moral truth.
But I can tell you, I’ve had people who have had some of that relativism in them. There was a guy I just met this last January who told me, you know, after hearing a presentation I gave where I walked through these seven keys and all, he said, “I never realized how much relativism had taken shape in my own heart and mind, and I didn’t realize the problem it was causing. And you’ve helped me to see there really is moral truth, and I want to I want to be better at standing up for that, and first in my own life and then sharing it with others.” And I’ve met other people—I just shared that one example—where it is having that kind of impact, it is doing something in their own hearts getting them to conform more moral truth in their own lives.