Pope Francis to diplomats: Moral relativism endangers peace



Moral relativism "endangers the coexistence of peoples," Pope Francis told diplomats March 22, and said a common ethics based on human nature is an indispensable condition for world peace.

The pope made his remarks to the Vatican diplomatic corps in the Apostolic Palace's Sala Regia, the vast "royal hall" where popes traditionally received Catholic monarchs.

Recalling the love of the poor practiced by his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the pope lamented both material poverty and the "spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the 'dictatorship of relativism,' which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples."

"Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace," Pope Francis said. "But there is no peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth." Read the entire article.

Read the full papal address to diplomats here.


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