 And I'm so excited to get into our particular topic this evening because 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 was a young woman who was from a good Catholic home. She was involved in her faith, involved in 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 the students do 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 for that question about gay marriage? And she said, Oh, I said I was against it. And 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 friend, 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 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 she just found herself just digging her deeper and herself deeper and deeper. 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 is too hard. It is too hard to stand up for what I believe. It's too hard to stand up for my faith. It 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. Now, she wasn't a really hardcore relativist. She still wanted to hold on to some of 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 happens, you know, you can understand where she's coming from, by the way. You know, we want to fit in, we want to have friends, we want to get along. Who wants to be called judgmental, mean and bigoted? Nobody wants that, right? So you 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, 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 in reality, that there no longer is a moral truth out there. Once one loses that confidence that there is a real 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 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 on 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 going to get a slap on the 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 be so puritanical. Or if you 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 we're all accountable. I remember when I first heard the word relativism, I was at Indiana University 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 have much background. 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, oh, 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. They 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, and I didn't know that much, but I just started asking questions. You know, little junior apologist here. I said, so, do you mean to say that there's no truth at all? No, there's no truth at all. There's no universal truth for everybody. You know, 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. I kind of pat myself on the back. I'm doing pretty good here. Yeah. And then he comes, he just kind of chuckled. He said, oh, yeah, I guess that's not logically consistent, is it? And kind of just laughed. And 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, 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's just assumed. And so there's no real quick answer 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, that's easy. John 6, too easy. Or you want to explain, you know, Peter in the paper, oh great, Matthew 16, that's easy. There's not a quick fix to this problem. There's no quick elevator speech, no quick three points that are going to 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 going to 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. That you can start sprinkling the bigger picture of moral Catholic truth to the person you're accompanying, hopefully in a lifelong relationship of discipleship. So that's what I hope we're going to do here tonight, and 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, 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. It just sounds very rigid. It sounds like some rule from some religion being imposed upon us. We need to reframe the conversations we're having, whether we're talking about some sexual sin, or 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 that 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? There are many Christians that 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? And they 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 it there just to test obedience? No, it comes 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 would push chairs, climb up on the chair. Then he would climb up on a table. Then he could climb up on a counter, get himself snacks. I think it was the altitude in Colorado. He was always wanting to climb. This particular summer, as a 13-month-old, he was outside in the summer. He would always watch his siblings playing on the little monkey bars. He would see them climbing up and then going across the monkey bars and jumping down and climbing back up. Going across the monkey bars. And sure enough, one day, he did it. My 13-month-old did it. I was inside reading a book. My daughters came running in. Dad! Dad! Carl's stuck on the monkey bar! 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 Carl from dying on the monkey bars. 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? No, that's not what's going on. It came from my heart. I love Carl. I don't 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. An instruction manual. You know when you get your phone, you buy your smartphone, and it comes with an instruction manual. It probably says something like, do not use in really cold temperatures, really hot temperatures. Do not go swimming with your smartphone because some loser will go swimming and try to sue the company. But they know that the phone doesn't work if it goes into water. So the instruction manual is there to help you to use the phone well. It reminds me a true story about one of my colleagues. She had bought one of those Fisher Price play saucers. Those little extra saucers. You put the little baby in there and the baby can bounce around. There's all these gadgets for them to play with. She was reading the instruction manual in this Fisher Price extra saucer and she was saying, Ted, can you believe it? It says, do not use on water. That's Fisher Little Johnny going water skiing on the Fisher Price play saucer. My favorite one was there was one that said, do not use for sledding. Can you imagine Johnny coming down the slope sledding there? 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 extra saucer? This is my extra saucer and I could do whatever I want with my extra saucer. Do not impose your views of extra saucers on me. Am I free to take my kids water skiing on my little play saucer? Sure and I could kill them in the process. And the same is true with God's moral law. Are we free to break God's moral law? Sure. We're free to break God's moral laws and we're 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 if we do certain things, we're going to be happy. If we do other things, we're not going to 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. We're 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 were 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 III? Yes. And he goes, oh wow. I've been watching the show Symbolon 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 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. Can we talk after we get up in the air? And I said, oh sure. He goes back and sits down and 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 standing in the aisle with him and there's all these other people all around. They're kind of looking at their newspapers. They got their tablets out. They're just, you know, all looking down like this and oblivious to our theological conversation until my friend said this. He said, oh, 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 going to update all of its teachings on sexuality? All those businessmen were like this. They put down their laptops. They put down their 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. 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 it's just very restrictive. It's very repressive. People should be able to express themselves. You know, 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 to break through and so I just said, excuse me, sir, excuse me. Do you know why the Catholic Church teaches what it teaches about sexuality Do 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. I wasn't expecting that kind of an answer. But 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 ideas 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. 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 them. It's not working for them. That there's a lot of pain and a heartache that they're experiencing in their dating relationships, in their own sexual lives. The hookup culture, free flowing relationships, casual sex is not hurting, is not helping them. In fact, they're experiencing great inner turmoil, great inner pain. And I went on and I share with them about things that I'm sure you know about marriage in the country is on great decline. Marriage in the country is on great decline. Less and less people are even bothering getting married today. You ask a young adult that they're just living together and you're thinking of getting married? I mean, we both have good jobs. We like each other. 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 yet, and 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% of them say? Well over 90% of Americans list as one of their major goals in life to have a happy marriage. Isn't that fascinating? There's a desire for a happy marriage and then at the same time the younger generation has this cynical attitude 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 a 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 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 look around and the generation before them and they just see all these train wrecks. And then they go out and they experiment and that 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 is good and God wants to give it to you. Give 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 going to continue to feel devastated. Now these are some of the ideas I shared with my Methodist friend at 38,000 feet. And I've got to be honest I can't say I convinced him at that moment and he said please baptize me. Nothing like that happened. But it certainly slowed them down. It certainly got them thinking more and it certainly got them 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 all the moral teachings whatever they may be are all about love. In this case the church's teachings on sexuality are there not to just control that God wants us to love. He wants us to experience true lasting love. He doesn't want us walking away from dating, from cookups 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 judgment and judging someone's soul. Rick Warren once said this I think it's 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 and compromise conviction to be compassionate. Isn't that true? That first point if you disagree with someone it's immediately assumed you must hate me. You must be some very mean person. Isn't that how things are today? And then on the flip side of it we think that well if you're going to really love someone then you just accept everything about them but that's not love. Real love is to 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 thoughtful 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 going to call me on it in a gentle way, a compassionate way a patient way surely 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 judgment and judging someone's soul? I want to make sure you really get this. Give me the best of your attention right now. Get a little intellectual caffeine. This is a very important point so work with me for the next three, four minutes here. So first of all making a judgment. God gave us a mind making judgments all the time, don't we? 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 making a judgment or if I see it's a winter blizzard outside I'm going to 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? No, we make judgments all the time, right? God gave us a mind. He wants us to use it. Now the same is true but can I make a judgment about people's actions? So for example if I see my little daughter Kiara, my two year old about to touch a hot burning stove can I use my mind to make a judgment? That's not good for her. She's going to get hurt. Or if I see her about to run out into a busy street can I use my mind to make a judgment? That's not good for her. 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 going to go to hell. I can't believe you're doing it. No! I'm just using my mind, right? Now I'm going to 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 she's not good for her? She's not going to be happy. She's hurting herself. And she's never going to 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? No. 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 going to 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 circumstances. 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 that person and God alone. Now here's the key. I want to make sure you get this next move. Are you ready? So I make a judgment. This isn't good for her. I'm not judging her soul. That's between her and God. I don't know her background. Maybe this poor woman never experienced authentic love her whole life. From her parents, from her siblings, from her community. 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 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? 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, I wouldn't do that, but I don't want to be judgmental? What's the loving thing to do? I'm not saying if you're some complete stranger just walking up and saying, 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. God's put her in your life. Is it the loving thing to ever say something to her? Absolutely! Now, we have to do it with great prudence, of course, in the right time, in the right way, with a lot of gentleness and patience. But if I love her, and I know she's doing something that's going to hurt her, I don't want her to get hurt. What would you think? If I had 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, if that works for you? I mean, I wouldn't do that if I were a 13-month-old, but I don't want to impose my views of being a 13-month-old on you, so I don't want to be judgmental. So I'm just going to be very tolerant and we'll just coexist until you fall and die. I mean, is that really? Is that love? What would you think if I saw my little daughter, and I said, well, I don't want to be judgmental? Is that loving? Yet this is exactly what our relativist to culture gets us to do. 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, and 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 Billy, we love you, and we see what you're doing. We see how it's hurting you and we see how it's hurting Aunt Sally and we see how what you're doing is hurting us. You talk about it because you love him. So we've got to make a clear distinction. There's nothing wrong with making a judgment. We don't want to judge people's souls, but if we make a judgment and we see they're off out of love, we want to talk about it with them. So law equals love. Second point, making judgments is different from judging someone's soul. I disagree. It doesn't mean I hate you. 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 the relativism sounds like, oh, we're the neutral position. We don't know if there's right or wrong. We actually don't believe there's right or wrong. So we accept everybody. Everyone can 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 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 Benedict was encouraging us to push back lovingly but firmly to resist the imposition of the relativistic worldview. So here's something I want you to think about. When you find yourself in that conversation with your aunt at Thanksgiving dinner or that co-worker over at the lunch break and some moral issue comes up and then they start saying, why are you guys so judgmental? We should just be loving and we shouldn't be so intolerant. You know when you're in those conversations, our stomach hurts, we don't know what to do, sometimes we'll get angry and just let the emotions come out or many times just say nothing because 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? Excuse me, are you judging me? I'm feeling a little judged. Are you saying I'm a mean and tolerant person? They're just not used to the Christian playing the don't judge me card. But really just do that. They'll probably go, well, I'm not quite saying that. No, I just heard you say that you thought I was intolerant. I feel like you're judging me. They'll probably come on and go, well, but you just said something is right and you shouldn't tell other people what to do and then right now you got them. Now you make the move and you say, well, hold on. Well, hold on. Am I free to think that something's right or wrong? 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 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 to, 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 can have a rational conversation and say let's start talking about truth. Is there truth? And even ask them, you know, I'm willing 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 going to all of a sudden get, they're going to feel very uncomfortable because they really think there's nothing that's right or wrong in the universe. Really? I mean, you think like rape is okay for me? Or do you think, you know, terrorism is okay for me? Do you really think that? You start pressing and now you can start advancing the ball. Again, you're not going to change them overnight, but you're going to start to get them to think at a deeper level on this issue. All right, so we've seen 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 going to 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. I was actually in Newark, but it was in this big hotel conference center. It had these big windows that overlooked 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 people were coming up and asking questions, but this young man came, he had a notebook, he was, Dr. Sri, Dr. Sri, I'll thank you so much for your talk. I never really heard about this idea of relativism. Here's all the notes I took and this is really fascinating and I've got a question for you. I said, okay, what's your question? He goes, do you think I'm a relativist? I said, I don't know, I'm just getting to know you. I didn't think I was, but maybe you said some things and maybe I am. I go, really? I mean, come on, you're at a big Catholic conference. Is your faith important to you? Oh, yeah, you're Catholic. Oh, yeah. I go to church. You're involved in your faith? Oh, yeah, I go to adoration. I love going to adoration late at night. Oh, you're probably not a relativist. And then I just asked him, so do you support the church's moral teaching? Oh, sure. I go, so like abortion, right? Do you think abortion is wrong? Oh, yeah, yeah, abortion is wrong for me. There were those two words again, for me. There was a red flag. I go, 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, it 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 couldn't believe this. I went to another topic. I said, so what about the Eucharist? You mentioned you love adoration. You believe in the Eucharist. Oh, I love it. It's Jesus and body and blood. Oh, that's great. So what would you think, and there was a little chapel that they set up in this hotel conference center in one of the rooms where there was adoration going on. I said, so if some person came in here, broke in and desecrated the Eucharist, would that be a bad thing? He goes, oh, oh, yeah, that would be really bad. For me. Those two words again, for me. I said, what do you mean for you? Well, I mean, if someone doesn't, they're an atheist or they're in another religion, they don't believe it's Jesus and body and blood, so for them it's just bread, so it doesn't mean anything. But it really is Jesus's body and blood, and so this would be 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 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 on September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked airplanes, crashed 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 11, 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? Oh, 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. 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, you know, let's... 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 going to leave you there, and I want you to ask Jesus. Ask Jesus if he thinks relativism is right. Oh, okay. So we went in. We said a short prayer. We shook hands, and then I left him there, and I just went to bed that night. My stomach just couldn't believe someone would say this. The next morning there was an early mass, and then everyone departed, and I was leaving ahead of my bag, and all of a sudden he came chasing me down. He said, Doctor, should I stay in the chapel till 2 in the morning? I took all these notes. I thought about a lot of what you were saying, and I got to tell you something. So we stopped, and he looks at me, and then he says, I realized I'm not a relativist. Oh, really? He says, I realized I've been just wanting to say I'm a relativist. And then he looked down, and 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 I'd be a relativist. I've been wanting 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 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's 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 themselves don't live those lifestyles, but they'll support them because they have their own issue that they might be struggling with. It reminds me of my friends that are 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, 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. It's like this, you tell yourself, I'm going to eat healthier food, I'm going to avoid fried foods. So you just know that eating a lot of fried foods is bad, you just make this commitment, I'm going to just avoid fried foods, and you're really good at this until one day you're out with all your friends at a restaurant and they bring out those big onion rings. And you find yourself eating them. But you know, you made that commitment, and you're kind of like, well, what do you do? You have to rationalize it, right? You've got to change your beliefs, you've got to put some good ideas in there to justify what you're doing. So you say, oh, well, it's just this one time. I haven't had fried foods in five days. So I've really done a lot of good job of fasting from fried foods. Or I tell myself, well, 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 we 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, 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 gently, you know, you hold 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 because you want people to think about that. Relativism is a mask covering up our own sin problem, our own selfishness, our own not following of God's will. All right, last point. Number five, 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, Cervé Pincair, calls freedom for excellence. It's the idea that 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, to speak it with excellence. Am I free to play the violin? I mean, the cops won't come in. You might get mad because it'll be really screechy, but I don't have the skills to be able to play the violin, a Vivaldi concerto with excellence. I just don't have that skill. So, in the Catholic sense, I'm not really free. 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? Are 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 live family life, to live friendship, to live dating well. You know what those life skills are called? The virtues. The habitual dispositions to do the good. I need generosity. I need patience. I need kindness. I need self-control. To the extent I lack generosity, I'm going to do selfish things that are going to hurt my wife, it hurt my kids, it hurt my friends. To the extent I lack patience, I'm going to do impatient things that hurt other people. To the extent that I lack self-control, I'll do autocontrol 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 can be, the best citizens they can be. You know what our modern world views? Freedom, freedom is just what Pink Airs calls freedom of indifference. It's just the ability to choose between two things. You know, 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 going to 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 II 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 virtues? So I'm free to give the best to 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, when 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 going to be the best husband ever. And then just will it. Or I can't wake up and just say, hey, I'm going to be dad of the year now. 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 and practice 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 can do beyond our own. We need the virtues so we can be free to love. Now in closing, I want to tell you a story. 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, 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 is turned away from God, traditional values. He said, quote, humanity is wounded, deeply wounded. He says, relativism wounds people. If we don't give people a moral compass on how to live life well, they're going to 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 all know the challenge in our culture with pornography. The pornography industry is making more money than all major sports combined. NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS, all the sports combined pornography. So many men are addicted to this, especially young men. If I go on a college campus and talk to the men about pornography, do you think this approach is going to work if I just bring out the one key of moral law and just say, hey, guys, what are you doing? You shouldn't be looking at this stuff. This is serious sin. You've got to get some self-control. And when you fall, you've got to get a confession because this is just serious sin. Stop looking at those dirty images. Is that going to be that helpful? What would be more helpful? We've got to bring out truth, but with mercy. Gentlemen, God knows how much you're struggling with porn. He knows, and He loves you. He loves you, and 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've got to do is turn to Him. Turn to 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. He just wants a relationship with you. He wants you to just keep trying, and He wants to give you the grace to help you. And there have been many other men who have been transformed by God's grace in this matter. And they've overcome this addiction. It didn't happen overnight necessarily. It 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 going to 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've 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 on that score, the last point, they're 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, just to truth, amen.