At the risk of being called “touchy” and “judgemental,” I would like to respectfully disagree with Mr. Rory Mattson’s letter that was in Thursday’s Tribune in which he accused me of being a “fundamentalist.” Just to let you know sir, if I am accused of something that is not true, I will respond. And no, I am not always right. Just ask my wife and children!

Mr. Mattson’s letter convinced me that moral relativism (the belief that there are no moral absolutes) is alive and well in our time. No less than Pope Benedict XVI warned against this dangerous trend when he was elected in 2005. He stated, “Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, that is, letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine,’ seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times.  We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of ones’s own ego and desires.”

Whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or dare I say “fundamentalist,” we all need to carefully ponder these words from Benedict and guard against the error of moral relativism, an error that caused our Lord’s “judge” Pontius Pilate, to utter that memorable and haunting phrase, “What is truth?”

    

Scott Bute

Albert Lea