Dr. Edward Sri - A Catholic Moral Worldview - 2016 Defending the Faith

you and I'm so excited to get into our particular topic this evening because it's a it's a very important one for our day and age and I want to begin by sharing a story it's a true story and it's one that I think really sheds light on what we're up against if we try to talk about morality in our culture today what we're up against especially what the younger generation is up against true story there's a young young woman who was from a good Catholic home she was involved in her faith involved at her parish youth group and then she went off to college to a big state university and while she was there she went and sought out the Newman Center and was practicing her faith on campus going to Mass on Sunday there and she was taking a political science class her freshman year and in the class the professor one day gave a survey he had us the students to a survey about political beliefs and moral and religious beliefs and how they interact and after class she was leaving class and a friend of hers came up to her and said hey what did you put about what did you put for that question about gay marriage and she said all I said I was against it he kind of smiled and chuckled and said well I said I was for it but he smiled and he said well to each his own and are you going to the party tonight yeah okay I'll see you there all right bye-bye and it didn't seem to be a big deal until she showed up at that party and as soon as she walked into the door all of a sudden her friend so called friends stood up pointed at her and said hey everybody everybody guess what she said about gay marriage in class today she said she was against it can you believe that and then all of a sudden all these people at the social event came started coming up to her and saying why do you think that who are you to say what marriage is for everybody else why are you being so judgmental how come you're so intolerant Christians are always this way and they kept asking her questions she tried to defend and give some explanations and and she just found herself just digging her deeper and herself deeper and deeper and and by the end of the evening she just felt beat up and she walked out the door at the end of the night and she was changed you see she told herself this this is this is too hard it is too hard to stand up for what I believe it's too hard to stand up for my faith that comes at too much of a price and so what she did that night is she started to become what I like to call a relativist in her heart a relativist in her heart no she wasn't a really hardcore relevant to this she still wanted to hold on to some of her her beliefs that she grew up with about important moral issues but she started doing something when she was in social settings and a moral topic would come up with her friends instead of just coming right out and saying something's wrong you know what she said she would say oh abortion is wrong and then she'd add two little words two little words for me but if somebody else wants to have an abortion I guess that's okay for them marriage is between a man and a woman I think for me but if others want to look at it differently I guess you know that's okay for them just two very small simple words but it was changing her and you see what what happens you know you can understand where she's coming from by the way you know she we want to fit in we want to have friends we want to get along who wants to be called judgemental mean and bigoted nobody wants that right so she can understand maybe what she was going through but by adding those two little words in her conversations about moral matters something was changing in her and over time you see she when she was starting to face temptations in her own life on a college campus she no longer had a moral structure to cling on to there was no longer the conviction that there is a right and a wrong not just for me and not just for someone else but but in reality that there no longer is a moral truth out there and once one that confidence that there is a real might right or wrong then you know what starts to happen when they're faced with their own temptations in life they don't have anything to guide them a moral compass to guide them a moral structure to cling on to and so what happened with this young woman is that over time she started compromising in her own moral life and started doing things that she never imagined herself doing and by the end of her freshman year she was no longer practicing her Catholic faith she was no longer even going to church on Sunday she left it all behind to become a relativist now when I share this story I do a lot of talks at parishes and at conferences whenever I give this the story many young people will come up to me afterwards and say that happened to me maybe not the exact same thing maybe not the same kind of intensity but the fear of standing out and saying this is right this is wrong this is real for where young people are at today and we need to help them and we need to honor our own understand the Catholic moral vision better so we can articulate it in a relativistic world you know I've had many young adults tell me this they say you know it's a slippery slope once you become a relativist in your heart once you start saying just for me I remember one young adult telling me this after a conference he said you know once you start doing that all of a sudden you wake up three years later and you realize you're not the same person you used to be this is really what Pope Benedict was talking about when he talked about the dictatorship of relativism remember when he said that he talked about how today having a clear faith based on the Creed is often labeled fundamentalism whereas relativism seems the only attitude that is acceptable in modern times in other words if you dare to stand out and say abortion is wrong not just for me but it's just wrong in reality you're gonna get a slap on my hand don't be so fundamentalist or if you dare to say premarital sex is wrong boom you get a slap on the hand don't be so judgmental don't see don't be so puritanical a few dare to say I think marriage is between a man and a woman oh don't do that you are being so intolerant it's hard to talk about morality in a relativistic age right what's relativism it's the idea that there's no truth no right or wrong truth is relative so you can have your truth I can have my truth but there's no the truth to which were all accountable I remember when I first heard the word relativism I was at Indiana University is doing my undergraduate degree and one of my housemates was taking an ethics class at the secular University and I thought oh I wonder what he's learning about ethics and I hadn't studied any theology I hadn't studied any philosophy I didn't really didn't have much background and and he was explaining to me the idea of relativism that his professor was teaching and how much he liked this idea of relativism it made sense and he explained it to me as well yeah there's no truth there's no right or wrong there's no absolute truth for everyone everyone makes up their own truth they make up their own reality that make up their own morality and I you know I didn't really study that much at the time and I thought well that just seems strange you know I didn't know that much but I just started asking questions you know a little junior apologist here I said so do you mean to say that you you there's no truth at all no there's no truth at all there's no universal truth for everybody no there's no universal truth for everybody and so can I ask you this is it true for everybody that there's no truth for everybody gotcha I was all excited to kind of Pat myself on the back I'm doing pretty good here and then he comes he just kind of chuckled he said oh yeah I guess that's I guess that's not logically consistent is it it kind of just laughed I was like oh cool I got him but I didn't get him because even though he admitted it wasn't logically consistent he didn't change he didn't change his mind he didn't change his heart he just went on being a relativist and I think that's the case where so many people today you know they're espousing relativism not because it's a well-thought-out philosophy it's just something assumed it's just ingrained in the culture it's just a well of course relativism there's no truth everyone makes up their own morality it's just those crazy wackos out there that think that there's right and wrong for everybody that that's just assumed and so there's no real quick answer to to respond to moral relativism I know a lot of people are looking for that you know it's not like you know when you're talking to your Protestant friend you want to explain the eucharist that's easy John six okay or you want to explain you know Peter and the papacy oh great Matthew sixteen that's easy there's not a quick fix to this problem there's no quick elevator speech no quick three points that are gonna do it every time because it's so ingrained not just in a worldview but in people's own lifestyles today so what I want to do instead I want to offer you a number of keys a number of keys that you can have in your pocket that you can use practically for your own conversations with your relativistic friends but these aren't this isn't like a silver bullet here this isn't gonna solve the problem right away what I'm hoping is that if you know these keys and you have them in your pocket then you can use them over the long period of a time of a relationship that you have with your family member with your son with your friend with your coworker with your fellow parishioner but you can start sprinkling the bigger picture of morale Catholic truth to the person you're accompanying hopefully in a lifelong relationship of discipleship so that's what I hope we're gonna do here tonight then that's what I want to start with but if we can say a Hail Mary to call on Our Lady as we begin that would be great in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen hail mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen all right the first key I want to give you law equals love law equals love in our culture today when people talk about moral law people just get uncomfortable moral law is like a bad word just sounds very rigid it sounds it sounds like I'll some rule from some religion being imposed upon us we need to reframe the conversations were having whether we're talking about some sexual sin and we're talking about some human life issue or we're talking about care for the poor whatever the moral issue we may be talking about we want to frame it in the context of love and we want to do it as quick as possible so the people don't think that we're just imposing some religious rule from our church upon them so we have to understand why law comes from love see why does God give a moral law so there are many Christians to think well the moral law is given there to test us to test our obedience will we submit to God and jump through this hoop so we can be good and get to heaven I think that's the essence of the moral law they think it's just something we have to do something we just have to go through but what I want us to see is that God gives the moral law from his heart why does any good father give law in the home is it there to control is that there just to test obedience no it comes from from the father's heart as a dad I want what's best for my kids I don't want them to get hurt I don't want them to hurt themselves I want them to be happy and to thrive you know I remember years ago when we first moved to Colorado we had our first Colorado baby it was my son Carl and little Carl he was the climber he was the big climber he would just climb on chairs climb on sofas he was 13 months old he'd pushed chairs climb up on the chair then he climb up on a table you know then he could climb up on a counter get himself snacks I mean this kid I think was the altitude in Colorado you know he's just like just always wanted to climb and this particular summer is a 13 month old he was outside in the summer me to always watch his siblings playing on the little monkey bars he'd see them climbing up and then going to cross the monkey bars and then jumping down and climbing back up going across the monkey bars and you could tell he was thinking about it and that would look really cool to do and sure enough one day he did it my 13 month old did it I was inside reading of books my daughter's came running in dad Karl's stuck on the monkey bars my heart sank I dropped my book I ran out there and sure enough he's standing up there like this and his older brother was holding him up like this to keep him from falling down so I had to rescue Karl from dying on the monkey bars but but but then I had to give him a new rule a new law I had to discipline him and train him don't go up on the monkey bars now why did I give that law is it again just because I just want you to submit to my fatherly authority because I'm on a power trip with my toddlers you know you know that's not what's going on it came from my heart I love Karl and I know if he does that he could get really hurt and the same is true with God's law you know God's law we should think about it is like an instruction manual the instruction man you know when you get your your phone you buy your buy your smart phone and it comes with an instruction manual it probably says something like you know do not use in really cold temperatures really hot temperatures do not go swimming with your smart phone you know cuz some loser will go swimming and try to sue the company you know but they know that if that's that the phone doesn't work if it goes into water and so the so that the instruction man was there to help you to use the phone well it reminds me true story about one of my colleagues she had bought one of those fisher-price place officers you know what those are those little extra saucers you put the little baby in there and the baby can bounce around there's all these little gadgets for them to play with you know talking about well she was reading the instruction manual in this fisher-price x-ray saucer and she was saying Ted can you believe it it says it says do not use on water that's that funny key picture little Johnny going waterskiing I'm the fisher-price play saucer right yeah my favorite one was what there was one that said do not use for sledding you imagine Johnny coming down the slope sledding there you know it's good but what would you think if I was reading those instruction manuals and I got all upset and I said fisher-price who are you to tell me what to do with my exersaucer this is my exercising I could do whatever I want with my ex Austen saucer do not impose your views of exersaucer z-- on me am i free to take my kids waterskiing on my little place officer sure and I could kill him in the process and the same is true with God's moral law are we free to break God's moral law sure but we'll break ourselves and we'll hurt other people in the process see God's moral law is like the instruction manual he's the divine manufacturer so to speak he made us he knows how we work he knows what we do certain things we're gonna be happy if we do other things we're not gonna be happy and so the law is like what psalm 119 says the law is a lamp to my feet a light on my path it's something therefore good God gave it to us He loves us so much he doesn't just put us here on earth and let us just figure it out on our own he's revealed to us the pathway to happiness that's what the moral law is all about and we've got to remind people of this I remember I was flying back from the East Coast this past year and I was sitting in the plane and they're boarding and somebody was walking in and just stopped and then backed up and put his face down in mine he said excuse me are you Edward sorry I said yes and he goes oh wow I've been watching the show symbol on and on the Catholic cable channel EWTN and I just love the show I can't wait for it to come on every week I'm learning so much and I'm not even Catholic I'm a Methodist and and I'm just so fascinated and I've been wanting to talk to a Catholic - to learn more and I've got a bunch of questions could we talk after we get up in the air and I said oh sure and you know he goes back and sits down I'm thinking oh wow this will be fun you know he's a fan of the show this will be really easy you know maybe something about Mary in the Bible or confession just something really easy you know and so we get up to 38,000 feet we level off and he comes up and taps me on the shoulder and I'm Stan in the aisle with him and there's all these other people all around there kind of looking at their newspapers they got their tablets out there just you know looking down like this and oblivious to our theological conversation until my friend said this he said oh I'm so I'm so glad to meet you and to you know get to ask some questions I've been really wanting to ask some questions about the Catholic Church here's my big question when is the Catholic Church gonna update all of its teachings on sexuality all those businessmen were like this they put down their laptops they put down the reading and now I'm not just talking to my new Methodist friend I've got an audience here at 38,000 feet and I wasn't so sure how to answer and but he just kept going on and he kept saying you know all the other Christian denominations they've gotten with the modern times they've updated the teaching you know this is all archaic beliefs and yeah and it's just very restrictive it's very repressive people should be able to express themselves you know this is this is we shouldn't be doing theology in the bedroom he just kept going on and on he was friendly but intense and finally I realized I just got it I just got a breakthrough and so I just said excuse me sir excuse me do you know why the Catholic Church teaches what it teaches about sexuality and you know why it's always going to teach what it teaches about sexuality it's because the Catholic Church loves people and he kind of went like that wasn't expecting that kind of an answer I said do you work with young people because I do I work with thousands of college students and young adults all around the country and the idea is you're talking about here those are ideas of the sexual revolution that's actually kind of the mainstream of the culture today that's what they're growing up with that's what they're being fed that's what they're experiencing on their campuses and in their young adult life and you know what they tell me when I get time with them and they're honest they open up and they tell me it's not working for me it's not working for them but there's a lot of pain and heartache that they're experiencing in their dating relationships in their own sexual lives the hook-up culture free-flowing relationships casual sex is not hurting it's not helping them in fact they're experiencing great inner turmoil great inner pain and I went on and I share with them about you know things that I'm sure you know about how you know marriage in the country is on great decline may original countries on great decline less and less people are even bothering getting married today you know you ask a young adult you know you know they're just living together and you think getting married or marriage why bother I mean we both have good jobs you know we you know we like each other you know why do we need to get some certificate from some church and so they're very cynical about marriage fewer and fewer people especially in the younger generation are bothering getting married and yeah and here's fat this is what's fascinating if you ask the average American adult 18 years and older if you ask them what are some of their major goals in life you know what well over 90 percent of them say they list as well over 90% of Americans list as one of their major goals in life to have a happy marriage is that fascinating there's a desire for a happy marriage and then at the same time the younger generation has a cynical attitude why lie and why do I even bother getting married what's going on there I think what's happening is that as crazy as the culture is we're still human persons made with the desire for love a desire to be loved to be loved for who I am to be known and then to love someone of a lasting love we're made this way we've long all of us longed for this but yet we don't think it's possible anymore at least that's where the younger generation is because they've looked at their own parents they see it didn't work or it's not working right now or they they look around in the generation before them and you see all these train wrecks and then they go out and they experiment in dating relationships and in the hook-up culture and that's just doesn't really feel like that's working well so they just don't think real love is possible but yet we have to do what Pope Benedict and Pope Francis has said and that is we need to present the good news of marriage the gospel of marriage because marriage itself is good news today in other words the longings you have on your heart I would say to young people the longings you have on your heart for a lasting love that that is good and God wants to give it to you and you can experience that lasting love if you follow God's plan for love and marriage and sexuality not what the world is offering you but as long as we continue feeding them the ideas of the sexual revolution they're gonna continue to feel devastated now these are some of the ideas I shared with my methodist friend a 38 thousand feet and I got to be honest I can't say I convinced him at that moment and he said will you please baptize me no nothing like that happened but it certainly slowed him down it certainly got him thinking more and so the god I'm asking real questions now and sometimes that's all we can do in an initial conversation but I share that as an example but we want to do we want to frame it in terms of love if we love people and we want them to experience happiness we have to see that the all the plural teachings whatever they may be are all about love in this case the Church's teachings on sexuality are they're not to just control our sexual lives that's not what it's about it's because God wants us to love he wants just to experience true lasting love he doesn't want us walking away from dating from hookups from even broken marriages feeling used and feeling completely let down let's follow God's plan not what the world is offering so the first point law equals love is most fundamental second point we have to make a distinction between making a judgment and judging someone's soul there's a big difference between making a judgement and judging someone's soul Rick Warren once said this I think is very important he says our culture has accepted two lies the first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle you must fear or hate them the second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do both are nonsense you don't have to compromise conviction to be compassionate isn't that true that first point if you disagree with someone it's immediately assumed well you must you know you must hate me you must be some very mean person isn't that this is not how things are today and then on the flip side of it you know we think that well if you're gonna really love someone then you just accept everything about them but that's not love real love is - will the good of another to seek what's best for someone else my wife Beth she loves me and she has to put up with a lot there's a lot of things I do that she shouldn't accept and I wouldn't want her to accept when I lose my temper when I'm not Bothell when I'm not as kind as I should be when I'm not as generous as I should be I don't want her to accept that about me if she really loves me she's gonna call me on it in a gentle way a compassionate way a patient way surely but I want to be called on these things that's real love we don't have to compromise conviction to be compassionate now let's talk about this a little more what's the difference between making a judgement and judging someone's soul I want to make sure you really get this give me the best of your attention right now take get a little intellectual caffeine this is a very important point so work with me for the next 3-4 minutes here okay so first of all making a judgment God gave us a mind and we make judgments all the time don't we don't we may is there anything wrong with making a judgment using your mind to make a judgment like if I see it's raining outside and I go get an umbrella I'm baking the judgment or if I see it so it's a winter Blizzard outside I'm gonna go get my winter coat on is it okay to make a judgment like that am i a mean judgmental bigoted person if I do that oh we make judgments all the time right God gave us a mind he wants us to use it now the same is true I couldn't kind of make a judgment about people's actions so for example if I see my little daughter tiara my two year old about to touch a hot burning stove can I use my mind and make a judgment that's not good for her she's gonna get hurt or if I see her about to run out into a busy street can I use my mind and make a judgment that's not good for her if she could get run over by a car I can do that right I'm not judging her soul when I do that if I make that judgment am i saying oh you're gonna go to hell I can't believe you're doing that no I'm just using my mind right now I'm gonna go a step further can I use my mind and make a judgment about someone's moral actions if I see some let's say there's a young gal on a university campus who's sleeping around she's sleeping with one man after another after another after another can I use my mind and make a judgment that's not good for her she's not gonna be happy she's hurting herself and she's never gonna find the love that she's looking for can I use my mind to make that judgment yes am i judging her soul when I do that I'm not making a statement about her soul I don't know what's going on between her and God that's between her and God but I can use my mind to say this is objectively wrong this isn't good for her she's not gonna be happy but can I judge her soul can i I don't know her background I don't know what's going on in her life I don't know what her motivations are what her intentions are her circumstance I don't know all that's happening in her life I can't judge her spiritual status before God so how does she stand before God Who am I to judge Pope Francis would say and rightly so because someone's spiritual condition their spiritual situation before God is between that person and God alone now here's the key I want to make sure you get this next move you ready so I make a judgement this isn't good for her I'm not judging her soul that's between her and God I don't know her background you know I don't know you know maybe this poor woman never experienced authentic love her whole life from her parents from her siblings from her community maybe she never experienced authentic love maybe she was abused maybe she was just trained from a very young age this is what it means to be a liberated woman I don't know her background I can't judge that I don't know what's going on let's say that woman suffered all those things that kind of a woman needs my compassion she needs my love she needs to know God's love more first before I start getting in any kind of moral lesson right so we're not judging the person's soul but at the same time here's the key should I ever say something to her about it if I care about her at all if I love her should I ever say something to her or should I just sit back and say oh no I well I wouldn't do that but I don't want to be judgmental what's the loving thing to do now I'm not saying like if you're some complete stranger just walking up and saying hey I've noticed you've been coming home late every night but let's say you're a trusted friend you're a family member you've got some close relationship with her gods put her in your life is it the loving thing to ever say something to her absolutely no we have to do it with great prudence of course in the right time and the right way with a lot of gentleness and patience but if I love her and I know she's doing something that's gonna hurt her I I don't want her to get hurt I mean what would you think if I came running outside that day when my son Carl was hanging on the monkey bars like that what would you think if I came running out and I said well that works for you I mean I wouldn't do that if I were a 13 month old but I want to impose my views of being a 13 month old on you I don't want to be judgmental so I'm just gonna be very tolerant and we'll just coexist until you fall and die I mean is that really like is that love what would you think if I saw my little daughter tiara about to run out into the street as oh I don't want to be judgmental is that loving yet this is exactly what our relativistic culture gets us to do it gets us to it divides us it gets us to act like Cain who said am I my brother's keeper and we don't live in solidarity with the people closest to us the people God has put into our lives and we say nothing Alcoholics Anonymous one of the best organizations to help families that have a family member struggling with alcoholism what do they advise if you go to them and say yeah we can uncle Billy struggling with alcoholism do they say oh just never bring it up then just never talk about it no they talk about intervention you get the family the closest friends together and you go to uncle bub uncle Billy we love you and we see what you're doing we see how it's hurting you and we see what's hurting in aunt sally and we see how what you're doing is hurting us you talk about it because you love them so we got to make a clear distinction there's nothing wrong with making a judgement we don't want to judge people's souls but if we make a judgement we see they're off out of love we want to talk about it with them so law equals love's second point making judgments is different from judging someone's soul I disagree doesn't mean I hate you a third point we have to see relativism is not value neutral relativism is not value neutral it is not moral Switzerland you know what people often do is they the relativism sounds like oh we're the neutral position you know we don't know what there's right or wrong wait you don't believe there's right or wrong so we accept everybody everyone could come under the wonderful hospital tent of relativism but that's just not true relativism itself is a point of view it is a certain way of looking at the world and it's being imposed upon us and we're all being forced to play by the standards of this game called relativism Pope Benedict once said the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking the more it tends toward intolerance thereby becoming a new dogmatism it prescribes itself as the only way to think and speak if that is one wishes to stay in fashion being faithful to traditional values and then to the knowledge that upholds them is labeled intolerance and relativism becomes the required norm so it's just assumed everyone has to play by the games of relativism and it's not a neutral position it is a certain way of looking at the world a belief a faith if you will that there is no truth there is no right or wrong you know what Pope Benedict went on to say he said I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion he called relativism a new kind of denomination that places restrictions on religious convictions and seeks to subordinate all religions to the super dogma of relativism so basically Pope enactus was encouraging us to push back lovingly but firmly to resist the imposition of the relativistic world view so here's something I want you to think about you know even you find yourself in that conversation you know with your aunt to Thanksgiving dinner or that coworker over the lunch break and some moral issue comes up and then they start saying you know why are you guys so judgmental we should just be loving and we shouldn't be so intolerant you know that you know when you're in those conversations we just we our stomach hurts we don't know what to do we wait sometimes they'll get angry and just you know let the emotions come out or we just many times just say nothing cuz we don't know what to say because we don't want to be labeled a bigot or an intolerant person so we just feel paralyzed here's what you do the next time they bring that up and they start saying why are you being so intolerant you know what you do you just come right back and say excuse me are you judging me I'm feeling a little judged are you saying I'm a mean and tolerant person you know and you'll see that they're just not used to the Christian playing the that don't judge me card you know but really just do that and they'll probably they'll probably go well I'm not I'm not quite saying that well no I just heard you say that you thought I was intolerant it I feel like you're judging me and then was they'll probably come on go well but you just said something is right and you should you shouldn't you know tell other people what to do and then right now you got them now you make the move and you say what will hold on am I free to think that something's right or wrong you know look I know maybe you are a relativist maybe you don't believe in moral truth and that's fine you're free to believe whatever you want if you want to believe that there's no right or wrong I mean I'll disagree with you but I still respect you that's fine you can have faith that there's no moral right and wrong in the universe that's fine but I don't want you to impose your faith in relativism on me do not impose your belief that there's no right or wrong there's no moral structure in the universe on me and when we do this what this does is you know it starts it's highlighting again that relativism isn't this neutral position it is a certain point of view it's a faith that there's no moral structure and you just got to highlight that now you can start talking about the more substantive issues now you can start getting off of what usually when you talk about morality it's very highly emotionally charged it gets very personal what are you saying about me who do you think you are and you just want to get away from that now you could have a rational conversation and say let's start talking about truth is there is there truth and even ask him you know I'm going to listen to you and help me explain why you think there's no truth why there's no morality and just let them start talking and most people are gonna all of a sudden get they they're gonna feel very uncomfortable cuz it doesn't make sense and say do you really think there's nothing that's right or wrong in the universe really I mean you think like rape is okay if you know for me or do you think you know terrorism is okay for me and do you really think that you start pressing and now you can start advancing the balls again you're not gonna change them overnight but you're gonna start to get them to think at a deeper level on this issue all right so we see law equals love we've seen that there's a difference between making a rational judgment and judging someone's soul we've seen that relativism is not value neutral I'm gonna go to a fourth point relativism is often a mask it's often a mask what do I mean by that years ago years ago I was giving a talk in the New York City area was actually in Newark but it was in this big hotel conference center has these big windows that overlooked the the the river and then you could see to the other side to Manhattan it was a beautiful conference center and I gave a talk at this conference on relativism and there were people of all ages at this conference but there was one young adult that came up to me after the talk I was leaving the area and I'm walking by those glass windows and you know people are coming up and asking questions but this young man came he had a notebook he was talk to Sheree touch me I'll thank you so much for your talk yeah I never really heard about this idea of relativism and here's all the notes I took it this is really fascinating and I've got a question for you okay what's your question you guys do you think I'm a relativist I said I don't know I'm just getting to know you there's I I didn't think I was but maybe you said some things that made me think maybe I am I go really I mean come on you're the big Catholic conferences are you your faith important you oh yeah you're Catholic oh yeah I go to church you're involved in your faith away I go to adoration I'll avoid adoration late at night oh you're probably not a relativist and then I just asked I go so you support the church's moral teaching so sure that goes so like abortion right do you think abortion is wrong cuz oh yeah yeah abortion is wrong for me there were those two words again for me and and that was a red flag Oh what do you mean for you he says well I mean for me it's horrible it's a baby and you shouldn't be killing babies but if someone else thinks that it's not a baby then for them what they're doing is okay and I said yep you're a relativist I said really come on I mean either is really human life or it's not you know my views on the matter doesn't change what this really is in reality but he kept just persisting no no but for me and for other people and then I I couldn't believe this and so I went to another topic I said so what about the Eucharist you mentioned you love adoration you believe you believe in the Eucharist all I loved Jesus and body and blood oh that's correct so what would you think and there was a little chapel that they set up in this hotel conference center you know in one of the rooms where there was adoration going on it said so if some person came in here broke in and desecrated the Eucharist would that be a bad thing he was that would be really bad for me those two words again for me I said what do you mean for you yeah well I mean if someone doesn't a theist or the religion they don't believe it's Jesus body of blood so for them it's just bread and so it doesn't mean anything but it really it really is Jesus's body and blood and so this is Ruby a horrendous thing if this happened well no not for the other person I couldn't believe he was saying this and now there's a whole crowd of all these people listening in this in this intense conversation and finally I just said I want you to look out this window right now because just a few years ago there used to be two towers standing there and in September 11 2001 terrorist hijacked airplanes crash them into those buildings and thousands of people died and a lot of children lost their moms and dads on that day could you look the little children in the eye and tell them that what happened on September 11th 2001 was not bad for the terrorists because for them what they thought they were doing they thought it was good could you look children in the eye and say that it's all man that's hard that's really personal I lost friends on that day this would be really hard but I guess I'd have to tell them that it wasn't bad for them because the terrorists thought they were doing something good can you believe that I very rarely meet a relativist that would go that far I was just shocked stunned and I just said I need Plan B so I just said no I said you know let's yeah I don't think there's anything more I can say to you but there's one thing you said to me that I remember and that is that you said you loved Jesus in the Eucharist for you but let's go inside will you come inside the chapel with me and let's just say a short prayer and I'm gonna leave you there and I want you to ask Jesus ask Jesus if he thinks relativism is right okay so we went in instead of short prayer we shook hands and then I left him there and I just went to bed that night I just I couldn't my stomach gooster and I just couldn't believe someone would say this the next morning there was an early mass and then everyone departed and I was leaving out of my bag and all of a sudden he came chasing me down so dr. enstein the chapel till 2:00 in the morning I took all these notes I thought about a lot with what you were saying and I got to tell you something should we stop he looks mean I says I realized I'm not a relativist oh really because I realized I've been just wanting to say I'm a relativist and then he looked down then he looked up at me I've been wanting to say I'm a relativist so that I could say premarital sex is okay and then he looked down again and then he looked up and he said I've been wanting to say it be a relativist I've been want to be a relativist so that I could say premarital sex is okay for me what a humble honest young man to come seek me out and admit that to me to admit that the whole reason he was gravitating toward relativism was to justify his own behavior his own sin problem and I think we just have to realize that not in every case but in a lot of cases this may be what's going on when Pope Benedict talked about the dictatorship of relativism you know who he said The Dictator was one's own ego and one's own desires in other words if there's if if there's something I'm doing and I sense oh maybe I shouldn't do it or I don't know if this is the right thing relativism is a very attractive philosophy that helps to ease my conscience a bit so I don't have to feel so bad when I'm doing this and I could say oh well there is no right or wrong for anybody notice how you'll see you'll have friends who will support the craziest things out there and they'll be defending and they they don't they themselves don't live those lifestyles but they'll support them because they have their own issue that they might be struggling with and it's kind of it reminds me of you know my friends that our psychologists talk about the theory of cognitive dissonance it's the idea that we want to have internal consistency internal consistency between our beliefs and our actions right and so if I believe something and my actions don't go by it you know I just don't I don't feel like I feel it I don't feel at ease I'm not comfortable and so I have to either change my beliefs to conform to my actions or I have to change my actions to conform to my beliefs and what's easier to change your beliefs or change your actions to change your beliefs and that's what most people do you know it's like this you know you tell yourself you know I'm gonna eat healthier food I'm gonna avoid fried foods so you just know that you know eating a lot of fried foods is bad you just make this commitment I'm gonna just avoid fried foods and you're really good at this until one day you're out with all your friends at a restaurant they bring out those big onion rings and all of a sudden you find yourself eating them but you but you know you made that commitment you know and you're telling well what do you do you have to you have to rationalize it right you got to change your beliefs you got to put some good ideas in there to justify what you say oh well it's just this one time you know I haven't had fried foods and five days you know so I really you know I've really done a lot of good job of fasting for five foods you know or or I tell myself well you know it isn't that bad for you or we say you know what if I eat a salad later today that'll just balance it out somehow right so so we would change our beliefs to justify our actions just realize that that is oftentimes what's going on when people are hardcore about relativism and you need to pray for them you need to offer sacrifices for them but you can also bring up I you know I've done this before I say you know I wonder sometimes I just throw that out to a friend I go you know kind of this relativistic thing but I just wonder sometimes I think I've met people who've hold that because they're just trying to justify something there wouldn't be like anything like that going on would there I kind of say it with a smile and just kind of throw it out there but just as you want people to think about that relativism is a mask covering up our own sin problem our own selfishness our own our own not following of God's will alright last last point number five freedom freedom we have to understand the two different views of freedom that are out there you know the classical view of freedom the biblical Catholic view of freedom is not known today it's what a great scholar survey Pinker's calls freedom for excellence it's the idea that it's it's the ability to perform actions of high quality to perform actions of high quality so for example am i free according to this classical understanding of freedom am I free to speak Russian I don't have the skills of the language so I'm actually not free to speak Russian I'm not free to speak it well so to speak it with excellence am I free to play the violin I mean the cops won't come in you might get mad cuz it'll be really screechie but you know but but I don't I don't have the skills to be able to play the violin I by Vivaldi concerto with excellence I just don't have that skill right so in the Catholic sense I'm not really free you know and I'll go a step further am I free to love my wife am i free to love my kids am i free in America to be a good friend to you our young people free to be good boyfriends and girlfriends to each other well that's actually a bigger question do they have the skills it takes the skills of a language to speak Russian it takes the skills of a violinist to play the violin well and you know what it takes really crucial life skills to live marriage to the family life to the friendship to live dating well you know what those life skills are called the virtues the habitual dispositions to do the good to the I need generosity I need patience I need kindness I need self-control to the extent I lack generosity I'm gonna do selfish things they're gonna hurt my wife it hurt my kids and hurt my friends to extent I lack patience I'm gonna do impatient things that hurt other people to the extent that I lack self-control I'll do out-of-control things to satisfy my own pleasure my own comfort and I'll end up hurting others in the process what's so sad is that we've never given the next generation this vision of freedom that they need the virtues to live the art of living life well so they can be prepared to be the best husbands and wives they can be the best mothers and fathers they can be the best friends they could be the best citizens they could be you know in our modern world views freedom freedom's just what pink airs calls freedom of indifference it's just the ability to choose between two things you know it's just it's just I I'm free from any outside force or influence I'm free from my church my government my family telling me what to do the modern view of freedom is I'm free to do whatever I want with my life it's my life and no one's gonna tell me what to do that's the modern understanding of freedom and so I'm free to just do whatever I want with my life but you know what John Paul the second called this kind of freedom he called it a self-centered concept of freedom notice that I'm free to do whatever I want with my life Catholic understanding do I have the virtue so I'm free to give the best of myself to my wife to my kids to my friends and ultimately to my god but the modern notion is just let me do whatever I want with my life it's about me and that freedom is actually slavery it's slavery because if I'm always doing what I want what I want how often I want it's not easy for me to make a sacrifice to serve others because I'm always doing and training myself to always do what I want to do all the time and I'm not free to love that's the key virtue virtue gives us the freedom to love I can't wake up one morning and say I'm just gonna be the best husband ever and then just will it or I can't wake up and just say hey I'm gonna be dad of the year now you know no I can't just will it no matter what Nike tells you you can't just do it you've got to work at it and practice and and learn about the virtuous life and practice the virtues and most of all call on God's grace through the sacraments and prayer to help us to love beyond what we could do beyond our own we need the virtue so we can be free to love now in closing I want to tell you a story all right I want to encourage you in the overall tone that we have to have is to always make sure we're leading with mercy yes we want to go out and challenge the relativistic worldview yes we want to proclaim the truth but I want to make sure that in closing what when you take these five keys you have them in your pocket whenever you bring those keys out make sure you've got mercy in your other hand I want you to make sure you're always seeing the person not just the particular issue you're debating Pope Francis has highlighted that in this world this modern relativistic world that has turned away from God traditional values he said quote Humanity is wounded deeply wounded he says relativism wounds people we don't give people a moral compass on how to live life well they're gonna do a lot of things that hurt themselves and hurt other people they're deeply wounded they need more than just moral truth they also need mercy they need to know that they'll be forgiven and that they need to also know that God's grace can help them do what they think is impossible you know you all know the challenge in our culture with pornography or not the pornography industry is making more money than all major sports combined NFL NHL NBA MLB MLS all the sports combine pornography so many men are addicted to this especially young men if I go on a college campus to talk to the men about pornography do you think this approach is gonna work if I just bring out the one key of moral law and just say hey guys what are you doing you know you should be looking at the stuff this is serious same you got to get some self-control and when you follow did go you got to get a confession because this is just serious sin stop looking at those dirty images is that gonna be that helpful what would be more helpful if I we got to bring out truth but with mercy gentleman God knows how much you're struggling with porn he knows and he loves you he wants to help you he wants to free you and he wants to forgive you you already know what you're doing is wrong all you gotta do is turn to him turned him and tell him you're sorry go to the sacrament of confession no matter how many times you fall no matter how long you've been struggling with this Jesus is waiting for you there in the sacrament because he forgives you and he loves you just wants a relationship with you he wants you to just to keep trying and he wants to give you the grace to help you and there been many other men who've been transformed by God's grace in this matter and they've overcome this addiction it didn't happen overnight necessarily may have taken many months many years but God has given them this freedom and the same Jesus that raised the dead the same Jesus that made the paralyzed man walk he can do the same miracle in you that he's doing in all these other men through his grace he can free you from this addiction and transform you by his love isn't that message gonna be more inspiring because one of the roadblocks for people following the moral path is that they just fear that they're not forgivable they just done so many horrendous things they're not lovable but also they just fear I can't do this there's no way I can do this and that score the last point there right on their own none of us can do it but with God's grace everything is possible and we have to bring out grace and mercy not just the truth amen you you

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

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Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

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Length: 54min 8sec (3248 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2016