Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Receiving in Audience in the Vatican in the late morning of 5 October the Members of the International Theological Commission on the occasion of the Commission's plenary session, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI dwelt on the theme of natural moral law. At the invitation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, various university centres and associations are promoting symposiums or study days “to identify lines and convergence in view of a better constructive and effective understanding of the doctrine of natural moral law”. As the Holy Father explained, “this is not an exclusively or prevailingly a confessional matter, although the doctrine of moral natural law is illuminated and fully developed in the light of Christian revelation and the realisation of man in the mystery of Christ.”
After citing the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” with regard to the central contents of the doctrine of natural law, the Holy Father underlined that “with this doctrine two essential finalities are reached: on the one hand, we understand that the moral content of the Christian faith does not constitute an imposition dictated from outside the human conscience, instead it is a norm which has its foundation in human nature itself; on the other, starting with natural law in itself accessible to all rational creatures, we can lay the basis for entering into dialogue with all people of goodwill and, more in general, with secular civil society.” Nevertheless civil society today appears prey to “a situation of dismay and confusion: the original evidence of the foundations of the human being and human moral behaviour as been lost and the doctrine of natural moral law clashes with other ideas which are the exact negation of it … no few thinkers today appear to be dominated by a positivist idea of law. They think that the ultimate source of civil law is humanity, or society, or the majority. The problem is not therefore the quest for good, but rather the quest for power, or better, for the balance of power. At the root of this tendency is moral relativism, in which some see even one of the principal conditions of democracy, because relativism is thought to guarantee tolerance and reciprocal respect among people. However if this were so the majority of a movement would become the ultimate source of law”. And history has shown that majorities also can be mistaken.
The Holy Father continued: “When at stake there are the fundamental demands of the dignity of the human person, of human life, of the institution of the family, the equity of social order, in other words fundamental human rights, no man made law can overturn the norms the Creator inscribed on the human heart without society itself being dramatically affected in what constitutes its basis which cannot be renounced. Natural law in this way becomes the real guarantee offered to every person to live freely and respected in his dignity and protected from all ideological manipulation and from any abuse or bullying on the part of the stronger. No one can ignore this warning. If due to a tragic darkening of the collective conscience, scepticism and ethic relativism succeed in cancelling the founding principles of natural moral law, democratic order itself would be radically wounded at its roots”.
Concluding his address, Benedict XVI called for a mobilisation of consciences of men and women of good will, Christians and members of other religions, “that together and concretely they may work to create in culture, in civil society and in politics, the necessary conditions for full awareness of the inalienable value of natural moral law. On respect for this law depends in fact the advance of individuals and society in conformity with proper reasoning which is participation in the eternal Reason of God.” (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 8/10/2007; righe 44, parole 622)
