Papst Benedikt XVI. hat in seiner öffentlichen Ansprache vor Kardinälen und führende Entscheidungsträgern im Erziehungswesen der Katholischen Kirche über eine Welt gesprochen, die in eine Diktatorschaft des Relativismus reinschlittert. Es war am 6. Juni 2005, unmittelbar vor der Zusammenkunft der Konklave, in der er zum Papst gewählt wurde.

• Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own 'ego'. Pope Benedict XVI. [LoC 570+], 6. June 2005

• Observe also that moral neutrality necessitates a progressive sympathy for vice and a progressive antagonism to virtue. A man who struggles not to acknowledge that evil is evil, finds it interestingly dangerous to acknowledge that the good is the good. To him, a person of virtue is a threat that can topple all of his evasions – particularly when an issue of justice is involved, which demands that he take sides. It is then that such formulas as “Nobody is ever fully right or fully wrong” and “Who am I to judge?” take their lethal effect. The man who begins by saying: “There is some good in the worst of us,” goes on to say: “There is some bad in the best of us” – then: “There’s got to be some bad in the best of us” – and then: “It’s the best of us who make life difficult – why don’t they keep silent?—who are they to judge?” Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, 1962

• A general dissolution of Principles and Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. [...] If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security. Samuel Adams (1722-1803) statesman, political philosopher, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism, cited in Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library, Lenox, MA; excerpted from a letter to James Warren, 12. February 1779

• Moral relativism usually includes three claims:

• I think the addict is closer to the deepest truth than the mere moralist. He is looking for the very best thing in some of the very worst places. His demand for a state in which he transcends morality is very wrong, but it's also very right. For we are designed for something beyond morality, something in which morality will be transformed. Mystical union with God. Sex is a sign and appetizer of that. Moral absolutists must never forget that morality, though absolute, is not ultimate. It is not our Summum Bonum. Sinai is not the Promised Land; Jerusalem is. And in the New Jerusalem, what finally happens as the last chapter of human history is a wedding between the Lamb and His bride. Deprived of this Jerusalem, we must buy into Babylon. If we do not worship God, we will worship idols, for we are by nature worshippers. Audio presentation by Peter Kreeft, Catholic professor of philosophy, Boston College and The King's College, A Refutation of Moral Relativism, transcription by Peterkreeft.com, 24. February 2003

• Everything I have said and done is these last years is relativism, by intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism. Benito Mussolini