Cardinal Ratzinger on Religious Pluralism

Abstract

In September 1996, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Holy Inquisition), addressed a group of 80 Catholic bishops about the central threat to the Christian faith today. He said that whereas ten years earlier this had been (in his view) Liberation Theology, it was now Relativism. The original text of the Cardinal’s address is in German, and the English translation was published in the Catholic Origins, CNS Documentary Service (Vol. 26, no. 20, 31 October 1996). The following section deals with my own particular version of religious pluralism. (The footnotes do not all have the same numbers as in the original text because sections on other topics are omitted here.) After criticizing Liberation Theology again, Cardinal Ratzinger continued:

Relativism has thus become the central problem for the faith at the present time. No doubt it is not presented only with its aspects of resignation before the immensity of the truth. It is also presented as a position defined positively by the concepts of tolerance and knowledge through dialogue and freedom, concepts which would be limited if the existence of one valid truth for all were affirmed.