Moral anarchy.

[Xeno.of.athens]

You live in a culture increasingly shaped by moral relativism, where truth is no longer received from divine or natural law but constructed according to personal preference. From a Catholic standpoint, this is moral anarchy—a rejection of objective moral norms that undermines both spiritual integrity and social cohesion. The Catechism reminds you that “freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary” (CCC §1734), but this freedom must be ordered toward the good. Pope Benedict XVI warned against the “dictatorship of relativism,” which enthrones the self as the ultimate measure and corrodes the foundations of communion and justice.

Within the Church, you witness the corrosive effects of moral anarchy in doctrinal confusion, sacramental trivialisation, and ecclesial division. When moral teaching is treated as negotiable, the Church’s prophetic voice is muted. The sacraments, especially Confession and Eucharist, lose their transformative power if sin is redefined or denied. Factionalism arises when bishops, theologians, and laity interpret doctrine through ideological lenses rather than the deposit of faith. You are called to resist this fragmentation by reclaiming the moral clarity rooted in Scripture and Tradition.

In society, moral anarchy erodes the common good, destabilises law, and fractures the family. Without shared moral foundations, governance becomes arbitrary and justice unmoored. The family suffers when fidelity and parental authority are undermined. Cultural nihilism follows, breeding despair and violence. Your Catholic response must be evangelistic, not accommodating—proclaiming moral truth as liberation, not repression. As Fr Kevin Azubuike Iwuoha puts it, Christian ethics asks not “What can I do?” but “What ought I do?”—a question that presupposes objective truth and moral responsibility.

 

[FireDragon76]

Benedict XVI was making an obtuse point and was tone deaf to the wider culture he was addressing. I would argue instead that what he calls "moral relativism" is simply a byproduct of deeper problems in the failure to address meaning or significance, ones which the Roman Catholic Church itself increasingly grapples with, as exemplified in the epistemology crises that happened with 19th century Manualism, where Rome itself bought into the logic of modernity.


The manualist tradition essentially said "Mother Church knows best. So just obey these rules or burn." It reduced the rich mystery of Christian moral reasoning into procedural frameworks while demanding institutional obedience. This flattened approach sidelined the Church's greatest asset—mystery itself. Voices like Tolkien and Chesterton, who could speak to genuine spiritual hunger, were treated as apologetic tools rather than serious theologians.


There's no compassion here for people in the modern world who find the Church to be hollow authoritarianism with pretty vestments, and whose turn toward the "subjective" is often a quest for depth, even if through a cracked lens. When you've already evacuated transcendent mystery into institutional procedures, you've made it much easier for people to see it as just another human construction.


Benedict spoke a lot about relativism, but rarely made the bolder claim of a risen Lord who calls all people into a life of meaning and purpose that can't be commodified. Instead of proclaiming the most radical, world-shattering reality Christianity offers, he got bogged down in cultural criticism.


Francis wisely backed away from that toxic rhetoric, understanding that leading with condemnation is pastorally counterproductive. His approach of accompaniment—walking with people and showing how the Gospel speaks to their search—returns to something much closer to early Christian evangelization, which was about encounter with the living Christ rather than submission to institutional authority.