The Spiritual Poverty of our Time

If Catholicism is true, that means a lot of other stuff is false. Relativism is the belief that there is no truth, as if Catholicism, Buddhism, Protestantism, Wicca, and any other religion were equal because different people prefer them. The problem with this belief is the existence of the martyrs: if all religions were equally valid, then why would anyone choose one that demanded hardship?  Why would anyone die for their faith if there were easier faiths? Indeed, such questions clearly show that relativism is insane. Our preference for something does not make something true. Either Jesus rose from the dead or he did not. Either the Eucharist is Jesus or not. Either Jesus is the one true God or he is not. Either abortion is evil or it is not. Catholicism never chose these doctrines because people liked them; it chose them because they are true. 

Relativism is a great ailment, “the spiritual poverty of our time,” as Pope Francis has said. It gets its support from the promise of promoting harmony, as if everyone will get along better if everyone is somehow “right.” But what ends up happening is that everyone is just equally wrong: there are no morals and no truths. Vague religion and spirituality essentially means whatever anyone wants it to mean, and that frequently translates to some individual thinking himself more enlightened than thousands of martyrs and deep spiritual thinkers who lived and died under the commands and unique lordship of Christ. We tend to not do this leap of self-faith with science and other things that are complicated, but when it comes to the delicate eternal realities of the soul, many are surprisingly ready to jump. 

Online, I see this relativistic sentiment most prevalent online cleverly disguised: “Religion is a guy in a church thinking about fishing. Relationship is a guy out fishing thinking about God.” The problem with this saying is that it assumes religion is not a relationship. Couples understand this: there are rules to love. A man cannot just love a woman how he wants, but how she wants, and vice versa. Chores need to be done, bills are paid, and diapers need to be changed. If selfish passions just dominated the day, there would be no house to live in! The same is true with God, and there are rules to love, and it is “Thy will be done.” Hell is “my will be done” and it is lonely. Therefore, when helping people struggling with relativism, we must communicate that loving God is on his terms, not ours. Religion is a relationship, and relationships are not simply about preference, but they are about “Thy will be done.”