Doctrinal relativism is the attitude that holds the content of the Christian faith to be relative: relative to the age that receives it, to the culture that expresses it, to the conscience that welcomes it. The formulas would remain, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Incarnation, Redemption, but their meaning would change with time, like a garment each generation re-tailors to its own measure[1]. The Church, for her part, has always affirmed the opposite: faith can be expressed in a thousand ways, but what it says of God, of Christ and of salvation remains true and identical to itself, yesterday, today and tomorrow[2].
This is no quarrel for specialists. When the meaning of dogmas becomes elastic, it is the certainty of the believer that collapses: if the Resurrection can mean something other than the Resurrection, if "Jesus is Lord" can mean anything and its contrary, then nothing is certain anymore, and faith is only one opinion among others. That is why the popes, from Vatican I to Benedict XVI, have called this attitude by its name and refuted it with constancy: not to humiliate those who go astray in it, but to keep intact the treasure entrusted to the apostles[3].
What doctrinal relativism claims
A simple thesis with immense consequences
The thesis holds in one sentence: no truth of faith would be definitive, because every truth would be the prisoner of its age. The dogma of Nicaea on the divinity of Christ would belong to the 4th century and its Greek philosophy; the dogma of Chalcedon on the two natures, to the 5th century; transubstantiation, to the scholastic Middle Ages. Each of these statements would have had "its" truth for "its" time, and our time would have the right to its own, even at the cost of contradicting the previous ones[4].
Two images return constantly under the relativist pen. The first is that of the river: faith would flow like water that is never the same, and to want to fix dogma would be to want to stop the current. The second is that of language: words would change meaning with the centuries, so ancient formulas could no longer mean anything determinate for us[5]. In both cases the conclusion is the same: what is true for some would not be true for others, and the Church would be wrong to present her dogmas as valid for all, everywhere and always[6].
The decisive point is that this thesis never attacks the words, only their meaning. People go on reciting the Creed, go on speaking of Christ, of the Church, of salvation, but each of these words is gently emptied of what the Church has always put into it. That is what makes doctrinal relativism so hard to spot: it does not slam the door, it changes the locks from the inside[7]. Saint Pius X had already noted it in 1907 about the Modernists: the formulas remain, and it is their meaning that is furtively transformed[8].
What doctrinal relativism is not
Four confusions must be set aside from the start, for relativism often passes itself off as what it is not, and its adversaries sometimes accuse it of what it is not either.
First confusion: the development of doctrine. That faith deepens with the centuries, the Church has always taught: today we understand more distinctly what the apostles already believed confusedly, as a child of twenty understands what his parents told him at five, without the truth having changed[9]. Development illuminates the same meaning; relativism replaces it with another. The whole difference lies there, and it is immense[10].
Second confusion: the legitimate plurality of theologies. That there are several schools, Thomist, Augustinian, Franciscan, and several rites to say the one faith, is a richness, not a disease[11]. John Paul II carefully distinguishes this legitimate plurality from "undifferentiated pluralism", founded on the claim that all positions are of equal value: the one is the fruitfulness of the true, the other its dissolution[12].
Third confusion: the inculturation of the Gospel. That the Gospel is expressed in Greek, Latin, Chinese or Wolof, with the images and music of each people, is its universal vocation since Pentecost[13]. But to translate is not to betray: a faithful translation renders the same meaning in other words, while relativism changes the meaning while keeping the same words[14].
Fourth confusion: religious freedom and dialogue. Vatican II teaches that no one may be coerced in matters of faith and that the Church dialogues with all[15]. Relativism wrongly concludes from this that all religions are equal and that missionary proclamation would be violence: that is exactly the "indifferentism" which Dominus Iesus "radically" excludes[16].
Where this temptation comes from
Antiquity: Protagoras and Pilate
Relativism is as old as philosophy. In the 5th century before Jesus Christ, the sophist Protagoras taught that "man is the measure of all things: of those that are, that they are, and of those that are not, that they are not"[17]. There would therefore be no true in itself, only true-for-me and true-for-you. Plato answered him at length in the Theaetetus, and Aristotle made the refutation of relativism one of the foundations of logic: if everything is relative, then the sentence "everything is relative" is itself relative, and proves nothing[18].
The Gospel keeps a striking scene of it. Before Jesus, who has just said: "I was born and I came into the world to bear witness to the truth", Pilate answers: "What is truth?" and goes out at once, without waiting for the answer[19]. This "What is truth?" is not a question, it is a shrug: the scepticism of the Roman official for whom the true is only a matter of opinion, while power is a serious matter[20]. Two thousand years later, the gesture of Pilate remains the inaugural gesture of all relativism: to walk out before the Truth has finished speaking.
The modern turn: truth put out of reach
For centuries, Christendom held it evident that human intelligence can know reality, including God, through reason and Revelation[21]. The turn came when modern philosophy declared this ambition out of reach. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) maintained that we know only phenomena, never things in themselves: God, the soul and the world as a whole would become objects of moral belief, not of knowledge[22]. His successors went further: in the 19th century, historicism affirmed that all thought is the product of its age and valid only for it, including, fatally, that very affirmation[23].
It is on this ground that doctrinal relativism properly so called was born. Once reason can no longer reach the absolute, faith has only to fall back on feeling, experience or praxis, and its statements no longer describe God as he is, only the way believers live him[24]. 19th-century Fideism, which opposed faith to reason instead of uniting them, and Philosophical Traditionalism, which made primitive revelation the sole foundation of the true, each prepared this divorce in its own way, and the Church set both aside to keep the alliance of faith and reason[25].
The Modernist crisis (1907): the first assault called by its name
At the turn of the 20th century, these philosophies entered Catholic exegesis and theology: this was the Modernist crisis. The authors targeted by Saint Pius X taught that dogmas are only symbols of religious experience, valid for a time then out of date; that revelation is not a word of God completed with the apostles, but a religious consciousness evolving with humanity[26]. The decree Lamentabili (3 July 1907) condemned sixty-five of these propositions, and the encyclical Pascendi (8 September 1907) dismantled the system piece by piece[27]. The anti-modernist oath, imposed on the clergy on 1 September 1910, bound them to hold the faith "in the same sense" and to reject "the evolution of dogmas"[28].
The full story of this crisis will be found in the articles Modernism and The Modernist Crisis (1893-1914): it is enough to retain here that Modernism was the first systematic, and solemnly condemned, form of doctrinal relativism in the Church[29]. 19th-century Condemned Catholic Liberalism, Americanism at the end of the same century and Le Sillon at the start of the next were its cousins: adapting doctrine to the age until it dissolves, each in its own way[30].
After the Council and Neo-Modernism: the return
After the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which some interpreted as a rupture authorizing every revision, the principles condemned in 1907 resurfaced: historicism, eucharistic symbolism, the magisterium reduced to one opinion among others[31]. Pius XII had warned as early as 1946 and 1950 (Humani generis); Paul VI answered with the Creed of the People of God (1968) and Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973); John Paul II and Benedict XVI completed the work[32]. The detailed history of this return belongs to the article Neo-Modernism: the present article retains its lesson, that doctrinal relativism never dies of its condemnations, it changes vocabulary and starts again[33].
The faces of doctrinal relativism today
Dogmatic relativism: when formulas no longer mean anything determinate
This is the most direct form, and Rome has named it without circumlocution: in 1973, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote that those who hold dogmatic formulas incapable of signifying truth determinately "would not escape dogmatic relativism"[34]. Concretely, this yields sentences every Catholic has already heard: "the Resurrection is true for those who believe in it"; "hell exists, but empty, because God can condemn no one"; "the dogma says this, but its meaning has evolved"[35].
The mechanism is always the same, described as early as 1950 by Pius XII: one begins by "weakening as much as possible the meaning of dogmas", stripping them of their traditional formulation in the name of a return to the sources, then re-expressing them in fashionable notions, immanentism, existentialism, psychology, sociology, until divine truth is "indicated no doubt to a certain point, but fatally deformed"[36]. The Church answers that her formulas, "remaining unchanged, will always communicate" revealed truth to whoever interprets them well, and that their meaning "remains ever true and identical to itself", even when made clearer[37].
"As for the meaning of dogmatic formulas, it remains ever true and constant in the Church, even when it is made clearer and more fully understood.", Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5 (24 June 1973)[38]
Undifferentiated religious pluralism: "all religions are equal"
The second form is the most widespread in public opinion: since God wills the salvation of all, all religions would be equal as paths of salvation, and to claim that Christ and his Church are the unique way would be arrogance[39]. The declaration Dominus Iesus (6 August 2000) answers in two steps. First it describes the root: "relativistic theories" which justify religious pluralism not only as a fact but as a principle, and which declare "superseded" such truths as the definitive character of the revelation of Christ or the salvific uniqueness of the Church[40]. Then it decides: the revelation of Jesus Christ is "definitive and complete", for in him "dwells the whole fullness of deity bodily"[41].
"The fullness of the truth of divine revelation must be firmly believed to have been realized in the mystery of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who is 'the way, and the truth, and the life'.", Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus, § 5 (6 August 2000)[42]
Far from despising other religions, which the Church regards "with sincere respect", this firmness honours them: it would be contempt for them to proclaim to them a diminished, relative, optional Christ[43]. And mission is not violence done to consciences, but "a requirement of love for all men": one does not keep for oneself the path of life once one has found it[44].
Moral and exegetical relativism: the two neighbouring provinces
Relativism has two bordering provinces, treated in their own dossiers but to be pointed out here. Moral relativism dissolves the commandments by making them relative to situations, cultures and intentions: John Paul II devoted the encyclical Veritatis splendor (6 August 1993) to it, recalling that there are "intrinsically evil" acts which no circumstance can make good[45]. Exegetical relativism dissolves the meaning of Scripture by handing it over to historical-critical reconstructions alone, until denying what the text affirms: Moses, Jonah, Johannine authorship become "symbols", and the modern reader finds himself sole judge of what God meant to say[46].
In both cases the rule of reading is the same as for dogma: the Church reads Scripture and the moral law in the living Tradition and under the guidance of the Magisterium, not "apart from Tradition and the Magisterium" as do the relativist readings which Dominus Iesus ranks among the presuppositions of the error[47].
Practical relativism: the soft pressure of "everyone thinks this way"
There remains the most insidious form, because it is stated in no book: the practical relativism of Catholic circles themselves. People go on going to Mass, but smile when the priest recalls a dogma "that disturbs"; they say "the Church teaches that..." instead of "it is true that...", as if faith were only a group custom; they almost apologize for believing, for fear of passing for "fundamentalists"[48]. John Paul II already noted that, "through false modesty, people are satisfied with partial and provisional truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions" about God and the meaning of life[49]. It is this silent, worldly relativism that Cardinal Ratzinger targeted when he spoke of dictatorship: not thought police, but a cultural pressure that makes certainty suspect and doubt obligatory[50].
How the Church answers
Vatican I: the meaning of dogmas is unchangeable
The First Vatican Council (1869-1870) had foreseen everything. Its constitution Dei Filius (24 April 1870) teaches that the meaning of dogmas "must always be retained" and that one may never depart from it "under the pretext of a deeper understanding"[51]. And it strikes with anathema the opinion that, "in view of the progress of science, a sense different from that which the Church has understood and understands" should one day be given to dogmas[52]. In other words: science progresses, words are refined, understanding deepens, but the meaning proposed by the Church does not change sides[53].
"The meaning of the sacred dogmas which Holy Mother Church has once declared must always be retained, and there must never be a departure from that meaning under the pretext of a deeper understanding.", First Vatican Council, constitution Dei Filius, ch. 4 (24 April 1870)[54]
The rule of Vincent of Lerins: profectus, not permutatio
Four centuries before the word "dogma" took its technical meaning, a monk of Lerins had given the Church her compass. Saint Vincent of Lerins (d. c. 445), in his Commonitorium (c. 434), defines the Catholic by fidelity to "what has been believed everywhere, always and by all", quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est[55]. And he distinguishes two growths: profectus, which makes each reality grow in itself, and permutatio, which changes it into something else[56].
"Let there be growth, and great growth [...], but only in its own kind, in the same doctrine, in the same sense and in the same meaning: in the same doctrine, the same sense and the same meaning.", Saint Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 23[57]
This rule, eodem sensu eademque sententia, "in the same sense and the same meaning", was taken up word for word by Vatican I, by the anti-modernist oath of 1910 and by John XXIII opening Vatican II[58]. It is the decisive test: whatever grows without changing meaning is legitimate development; whatever changes meaning while keeping the words is relativism[59].
John XXIII: the deposit is one thing, its formulation another
The opening address of the Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (11 October 1962), is one of the most quoted, and most distorted, texts of the 20th century. John XXIII does distinguish there "the deposit of faith, that is, the truths contained in sacred doctrine", from "the manner of expressing these truths, while keeping the same meaning and scope"[60]. Relativists retain only the first half, "we must reformulate!", and forget the second: "keeping the same meaning"[61]. Yet the pope spoke of a doctrine "certain and unchangeable, to which faithful obedience is due": the newness he recommends concerns the manner of studying and presenting, never the meaning itself[62]. Paul VI would say it again in his own way: keeping for doctrine "the fullness of its meaning and its whole scope, while expressing it in a manner that speaks to the mind and heart of men"[63].
Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973): Rome names "dogmatic relativism"
The declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (24 June 1973) is the most precise text ever published on our subject, and it is from it that this article borrows its vocabulary[64]. Its § 5 proceeds in three steps: first it loyally acknowledges all that is true in attention to history, that statements depend in part on the language of their age, that truths can at first be expressed incompletely, that formulas sometimes bear "traces" of the conceptions of their time[65]. Then it sets the boundary: dogmatic formulas, "remaining unchanged", will always communicate revealed truth; their meaning "remains ever true and identical to itself"[66]. Lastly it names the error: reducing dogmas to changing "approximations" that deform the truth is to fall into "dogmatic relativism" and to "corrupt the concept of the infallibility of the Church"[67].
Dominus Iesus (2000) and Fides et ratio (1998): truth exists and can be known
Two texts of John Paul II close the dossier at the level of principles. Fides et ratio (14 September 1998) attacks the philosophical root: the "distrust of truth" by which "the legitimate plurality of positions has given way to undifferentiated pluralism, based on the claim that all positions are of equal value"[68]. Against scepticism, the encyclical recalls that "faith and reason are like two wings" carrying the mind toward the contemplation of truth, and that God himself "has placed in the human heart the desire to know the truth"[69]. Dominus Iesus (6 August 2000) draws the christological consequence: if truth can be known, it is because it has a face, Jesus Christ, "the way, and the truth, and the life", in whom the fullness of divine truth is revealed "definitively and completely"[70].
The following table sums up the distinction that governs the whole dossier.
| Question to ask | Homogeneous development (Catholic faith) | Doctrinal relativism (error) |
|---|---|---|
| The meaning of dogmas | Made clearer and deeper, never changed[71] | Replaced according to ages and cultures[72] |
| Ancient formulas | Living, completed by new statements[73] | Out of date, good for their time only[74] |
| Truth | One, knowable, definitive in Christ[75] | Unseizable, plural, ever provisional[76] |
| Other religions | Sincere respect and missionary proclamation[77] | Indifferentism: "all are equal"[78] |
| The magisterium | Infallible guardian of the deposit[79] | One opinion among others[80] |
Reading the table: the left column grows without changing meaning (profectus); the right column changes meaning while keeping the words (permutatio). This is the criterion of Vincent of Lerins applied to the debates of today.
- 24 April 1870Vatican I: Dei Filius
The meaning of dogmas must always be retained; anathema on whoever would one day give them a different meaning.
- 3 July and 8 September 1907Lamentabili and Pascendi
Saint Pius X condemns sixty-five Modernist propositions, then dismantles the system that reduces dogmas to out-of-date symbols.
- 1 September 1910The anti-modernist oath
The clergy swear to hold the faith "in the same sense" and to reject "the evolution of dogmas".
- 12 August 1950Humani generis
Pius XII denounces false historicism, irenicism and the "dogmatic relativism" that makes dogma a reed shaken by the wind.
- 11 October 1962Gaudet Mater Ecclesia
John XXIII distinguishes the deposit of faith from its formulation, "keeping the same meaning and scope".
- 24 June 1973Mysterium Ecclesiae
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith names "dogmatic relativism" and defends the identical meaning of formulas.
- 6 August 1993Veritatis splendor
John Paul II refutes moral relativism: there are intrinsically evil acts.
- 14 September 1998Fides et ratio
Against distrust of truth, faith and reason are the two wings toward truth.
- 6 August 2000Dominus Iesus
The revelation of Christ is definitive and complete; religious indifferentism is radically excluded.
- 18 April 2005The 'dictatorship of relativism'
Cardinal Ratzinger, on the eve of his election, names the cultural pressure that makes certainty suspect.
The "dictatorship of relativism" (18 April 2005)
On the eve of his election, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger celebrated the Mass pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, commenting on the Letter to the Ephesians: no longer to be "tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine"[81]. His homily describes with clinical precision the climate analyzed in the previous sections: how many currents, Marxism, liberalism, atheism, vague mysticism, agnosticism, syncretism, have tossed the boat of so many Christians about in a few decades[82].
"Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.", Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, homily pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, 18 April 2005[83]
But the homily does not stop at the diagnosis: it proposes the remedy, which is not retrenchment but friendship. "An 'adult' faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ", for "it is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and which gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth"[84]. The criterion of the true is therefore not a system, it is a Person: "the Son of God, the true man: he is the measure of true humanism"[85].
Discerning day by day
Three test questions
Faced with a book, a sermon, a video or a catechist smelling of relativism, three simple questions sort things out; they require no theological training, only attention[86].
First question: does what I hear change the meaning, or only the words? A good teacher changes the words to keep the meaning: he explains transubstantiation with new images without touching the dogma[87]. A relativist does the reverse: he keeps the words, "resurrection", "real presence", "Church", and discreetly changes what they designate[88].
Second question: is truth presented as knowable, or as inaccessible? Formulas such as "no one can know", "the Church will have to evolve", "it was true for them, not for us" signal the presupposition Dominus Iesus denounces: the conviction that the truth about God would be "ungraspable and inexpressible, even by Christian revelation"[89]. The Catholic answers with Saint John: the only Son "has made him known", and this knowledge is certain[90].
Third question: can I still say "it is true"? If the teaching heard never again permits affirming, only "journeying", "questioning", "letting oneself be displaced", then faith has been replaced by a quest without term, exactly what Pius XII reproached the "new theology" for: being "always on the march, without ever arriving"[91]. Yet faith, Paul VI told the first synod, "is not only seeking: it is above all certainty"[92].
Charity toward persons, firmness on the truth
Last point, and a capital one: refuting relativism never authorizes despising relativists. Most Christians tempted by these theses are not enemies of the faith, but sheep tossed about by "every wind of doctrine", often with real sincerity and generosity[93]. The Church welcomes them: God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"[94]. It is even in the name of love that she refuses to let them go astray: one does not love someone by letting him drink from a poisoned spring under pretext of respecting his thirst[95].
Conversely, charity toward persons never obliges watering down doctrine: a dogma affirmed gently remains a dogma affirmed[96]. The model is Christ before Pilate: he does not keep silent, "I was born to bear witness to the truth", and he does no violence: he lets Pilate go out[97]. Truth proposed, never imposed; but proposed whole, never diminished[98].
To go further
- The crisis that put relativism into a system: Modernism and The Modernist Crisis (1893-1914).
- The return of the same principles after 1946: Neo-Modernism.
- The adaptation of doctrine to the age in the 19th century: Condemned Catholic Liberalism.
- The Council set back in continuity: Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
- When feeling replaces reason in faith: Fideism.
- When philosophy does without reason: Philosophical Traditionalism.
Notes and References
Pius XII, encyclical Humani generis, 12 August 1950 (French text, vatican.va): replacing proven notions with "conjectural notions and the floating, vague expressions of a new philosophy" is making dogma itself "something like a reed shaken by the wind".
1Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae, 24 June 1973, § 5 (French text, vatican.va): "As for the meaning of dogmatic formulas, it remains ever true and constant in the Church, even when it is made clearer and more fully understood."
2Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declaration Dominus Iesus, 6 August 2000, § 4 (French text, vatican.va): "The missionary proclamation of the Church is today put at risk by relativistic theories, which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure."
3 40 72Pius XII, Humani generis (French text, vatican.va): some maintain that "the history of dogmas consists in expressing the various forms successively taken by truth according to the diverse doctrines and systems that arose over the centuries".
4 74Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: the risky opinion holds that formulas "would signify only changing approximations, bringing deformation and alteration to it", or "would signify truth only in an indeterminate manner, as a goal ever to be sought".
5Saint John Paul II, encyclical Fides et ratio, 14 September 1998, § 5 (French text, vatican.va): "The legitimate plurality of positions has given way to undifferentiated pluralism, based on the claim that all positions are of equal value."
6 12 68 76Saint Pius X, encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis, 8 September 1907 (French text, vatican.va): the Modernists keep the formulas while changing their meaning. See the article Modernism.
7 88Same encyclical, § 21: the Modernist believer uses traditional formulas "insofar as they can serve him", subject to a mere "social respect". Text taken up in the article Neo-Modernism.
8Saint Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 23, Patrologia Latina 50, col. 667-668. Original text: "Crescat igitur oportet [...] intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in suo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia."
9 56See the comparative table in the section "How the Church answers" and the rule profectus, non permutatio of Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 23.
10Fides et ratio, § 5: the "legitimate plurality" of philosophical and theological positions remains a richness; it is "undifferentiated pluralism" that is the error.
11Dominus Iesus, § 1: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mk 16:15-16) and "make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28:18-20).
13Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: old formulas "have given way to new ways of expressing which, proposed or approved by the Magisterium, presented the same meaning more clearly or more completely".
14Second Vatican Council, declaration Dignitatis humanae, 7 December 1965, § 2: no one may be coerced to act against his conscience in religious matters. See Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
15Dominus Iesus, § 22: this truth of faith "radically excludes the indifferentist mentality imbued with a religious relativism that leads to considering that 'all religions are equal'", quoting Saint John Paul II, Redemptoris missio, 7 December 1990, § 36.
16 43 77Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490-c. 420 BC), fragment DK 80 B1, handed down by Plato, Theaetetus, 152a, and Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, VII, 60.
17Aristotle, Metaphysics, book Gamma (IV), ch. 4-5: the refutation of those who deny the principle of non-contradiction, foundation of all demonstration.
18Gospel according to Saint John, 18:37-38 (liturgical translation): "I was born and I came into the world to bear witness to the truth"; "Pilate said to him: 'What is truth?' With these words, he went out again."
19Jn 18:37: "Whoever is of the truth hears my voice."
20 97Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 27: "The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God."
21Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Critique of Pure Reason, Riga, Hartknoch, 1781 (A) / 1787 (B): distinction between phenomena and things in themselves; God, the soul and the world belong to the ideas of reason, not to knowledge.
22See the warning of Pius XII, Humani generis: "a false historicism which, attending only to the events of human life, overturns the foundations of all truth and absolute law [...] in that of Christian dogmas".
23See the article Fideism: faith cut off from reason falls back on feeling and prepares relativism.
24First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, ch. 4: there is a twofold order of knowledge, by reason and by faith, which cannot contradict each other since God is the author of both.
25Holy Office, decree Lamentabili sane exitu, 3 July 1907: 65 condemned propositions on revelation, inspiration, dogmas and the Church. See The Modernist Crisis (1893-1914).
26Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici gregis, 8 September 1907.
27Saint Pius X, motu proprio Sacrorum antistitum, 1 September 1910: the anti-modernist oath (DH 3537-3550) binds to belief "in the same sense" (eodem sensu) and rejects the evolution of dogmas.
28See the articles Modernism and The Modernist Crisis (1893-1914) for the full story.
29See Condemned Catholic Liberalism, Americanism and Le Sillon.
30See the article Neo-Modernism: address of Pius XII to the Jesuits (17 September 1946), Humani generis (1950), post-conciliar crisis.
31Creed of the People of God (30 June 1968), Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), Donum veritatis (1990), Veritatis splendor (1993), Fides et ratio (1998), Dominus Iesus (2000). See Neo-Modernism.
32Formula taken from the central lesson of the article Neo-Modernism.
33Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: "Those who would adopt this opinion would not escape dogmatic relativism, and they would corrupt the concept of the infallibility of the Church, which refers to the truth taught and held in a determinate manner."
34 67Typical formulations found in contemporary Catholic preaching and publishing; they illustrate the mechanism without targeting any living person.
35Pius XII, Humani generis (French text, vatican.va): "As regards theology, the aim of some is to weaken as much as possible the meaning of dogmas"; mysteries would be signified only by "approximate and ever changeable notions".
36Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: "the dogmatic formulas of the Magisterium were capable from the start of communicating revealed truth and [...], remaining unchanged, they will always communicate it to those who interpret them well"; "the old dogmatic formulas [...] generally remain alive".
37 66 73Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5 (French text, vatican.va).
38Dominus Iesus, § 4: relativistic theories "hold as superseded such truths as, for example, the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ [...] the uniqueness and salvific universality of the mystery of Jesus Christ".
39Dominus Iesus, § 5, quoting Col 2:9: "In him dwells bodily the whole fullness of deity."
41 70Dominus Iesus, § 5 (French text, vatican.va).
42Dominus Iesus, § 22: the Church "proclaims, and is bound to proclaim unceasingly, Christ who is 'the way, and the truth, and the life' (Jn 14:6)", following the command of the Lord (Mt 28:19-20) and "as a requirement of love for all men".
44 95Saint John Paul II, encyclical Veritatis splendor, 6 August 1993, §§ 75-83: there are "intrinsically evil" acts (intrinsece malum) which no intention or circumstance can make good.
45Fides et ratio, §§ 53-55 and 66-69: Scripture read apart from living Tradition and the Magisterium becomes the prey of reconstructions. See also Dominus Iesus, § 4, on the tendency "to read and interpret Sacred Scripture apart from the Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church".
46Dominus Iesus, § 4: among the presuppositions of relativistic theories, "the conviction that the truth about God is ungraspable and inexpressible, even by Christian revelation" and "the relativist attitude toward truth, entailing that what is true for some would not be true for others".
47 89Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, homily pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, 18 April 2005: "Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as fundamentalism."
48Fides et ratio, § 5: "Through false modesty, people are satisfied with partial and provisional truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions about the meaning and ultimate foundation of human life."
49Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, homily of 18 April 2005 (see the section "The dictatorship of relativism").
50First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, ch. 4 (DH 3020): "Is sensus sacrorum dogmatum perpetuo retinendus est" ("this meaning of the sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained").
51Same constitution, canon 4 on faith and reason (DH 3043): "If anyone says that it can happen that, in view of the progress of science, a meaning different from that which the Church has taught be given one day to the dogmas taught by the Church [...], let him be anathema."
52 79Ignispedia reading formula from DH 3020 and 3043.
53First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, ch. 4 (DH 3020), French trans. (Denzinger): "The meaning of the dogmas which our Mother Holy Church has proposed once for all must always be retained."
54Saint Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 2, 5, Patrologia Latina 50, col. 640. Original text: "ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est".
55Same work, ch. 23, Patrologia Latina 50, col. 667-668; trans. P. de Labriolle, Paris, Bloud, 1906. Original text: "Sed ita tamen ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio. [...] Crescat igitur oportet [...] intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in suo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia."
57Vatican I (Dei Filius, DH 3020); anti-modernist oath (1910, DH 3541); John XXIII, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, 11 October 1962 (AAS 54, p. 792): "eodem sensu eademque sententia".
58Ignispedia criterion drawn from Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, ch. 23: profectus (to grow in oneself) against permutatio (to be changed into something else).
59 71John XXIII, address Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, 11 October 1962, AAS 54 (1962), p. 792. Original text: "oportet ut haec doctrina certa et immutabilis, cui fidele obsequium est praestandum, ea ratione pervestigetur et exponatur, quam tempora postulant nostra [...] : aliud est enim depositum ipsum fidei, seu veritates quae doctrina nostra veneranda continentur, aliud modus quo eaedem enuntiantur, eodem tamen sensu eademque sententia."
60Ignispedia reading: relativist uses of the address systematically omit the clause "eodem sensu eademque sententia".
61Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5, quoting John XXIII: "Since the successor of Peter speaks here of certain and unchangeable Christian doctrine [...] it is clear that he acknowledges a meaning of dogmas, discernible by us, true and unchangeable."
62Saint Paul VI, general audience of 19 July 1967 (and Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5, note 42): keeping for doctrine "the fullness of its meaning and its whole scope, while expressing it in a manner that speaks to the mind and heart of men".
63Ignispedia editorial judgment: no other Roman act names and refutes "dogmatic relativism" with this dogmatic precision.
64Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: the meaning of statements "depends in part on the semantic scope of the language used", a truth can be "at first expressed incompletely, yet not falsely", and formulas can bear "traces" of the conceptions of their time.
65Fides et ratio, introduction: "Faith and reason are like two wings by which the human mind rises to the contemplation of truth"; § 5: God "has placed in the human heart the desire to know the truth".
69 75Dominus Iesus, § 22 and note 91, quoting Redemptoris missio, § 36.
78Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: dogmatic relativism "corrupts the concept of the infallibility of the Church, which refers to the truth taught and held in a determinate manner".
80Letter to the Ephesians, 4:14 (liturgical translation): "Let us no longer be children tossed about, carried off course by every wind of doctrine, amid men who use cunning to lead us into error."
81 93Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, homily of 18 April 2005: "from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism" (Ignispedia translation from the verified English text; Italian original spoken at Saint Peter's).
82Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals, homily of the Mass pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, Saint Peter's Basilica, 18 April 2005 (standard French translation; verified English text in the transcript of the homily). Original Italian text: "Si va costituendo una dittatura del relativismo che non riconosce nulla come definitivo e che lascia come ultima misura solo il proprio io e le proprie voglie." English text: "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."
83Same homily (verified English text of the transcript): "An 'adult' faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ".
84Same homily (verified English text): "the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism".
85Ignispedia method drawn from the texts quoted in this section.
86From Mysterium Ecclesiae, § 5: "new presentations and statements which keep and illuminate the original meaning" of the old formulas.
87Jn 1:18 (liturgical translation): "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known."
90Pius XII, address to the Jesuits, 17 September 1946, AAS 38 (1946), p. 385: warning against a theology "always on the march, without ever arriving" (formula taken up in the article Neo-Modernism).
91Saint Paul VI, address to the first Synod of Bishops, 1967: "faith is not only seeking: it is above all certainty" (quoted in the article Neo-Modernism).
92First Letter to Timothy, 2:4 (liturgical translation): God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth".
94Ignispedia editorial line: "charity toward persons, firmness on the truth".
96From Dignitatis humanae, § 1 and Dominus Iesus, § 22: truth imposes itself by itself, without constraint, and is proclaimed unceasingly.
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