Second Talk
The first talk was, naturally, followed by the second talk (duh!) The topic of the second talk was the challenge confronting religious life in the face of moral relativism. The speaker was Fr Vimal Tirimanna, CSSR. Fr Vimal began by underlining the fact that he would be focusing on the negative points of moral relativism, thank God!

Often in today’s world, the objective truth about things have been diluted or even completely distorted by the subjective opinions of individuals and groups. This, in fact, is a direct result of personal experiences acquiring the status of a source of knowledge. When each and every opinion is granted equal status, then relativism simply follows.

When experience lacks a common reference point, it is exclusive subjectivism which excludes any link with other views. The individual then becomes the measure, the standard of everything (“the truth depends on me”). The individual is not the arbiter of what is right or wrong. Rightness and wrongness exist apart from the individual.

The speaker then moved on to also highlight the three criteria as expounded by St Thomas Aquinas on how to avoid falling into moral extremism. The three criteria were: i) the act itself; ii) the intention; and iii) the circumstances.

Fr Vimal, along with materialism and hedonism, that another serious “ism” which posed serious attack on consecrated life today was surely moral relativism. He highlighted eight areas in which consecrated life was under attack in the light of such moral relativism. Moral relativism might have led to:

1. Religious being unsure about the sustainability of life-long commitment;
2. Religious placing the Individual over / above the community;
3. Religious perceiving their vocation as jobs rather than vocation;
4. Religious emphasising doing rather than being;
5. Religious becoming unsure of the meaning of religious vows;
6. Religious interpreting the charisms of their congregations / orders subjectively;
7. Religious had erroneously compared consecrated life with marriage, as if the former was abnormal;
8. Religious had now been given haphazard programmes of formation according to the whims and fancies of formators.

Fr Vimal concluded by noting that moral relativism had come to stay. Every individual needed to engage their subjective moral judgements in ongoing dialogue with the objective moral standards of the Church.

I personally have nothing much to say about this talk except that it was a superb and timely response to what many of us today need to hear.