Reviewing the life story of Pope Benedict XVI, a couple of things stand out. First, there are his views on relativism and dictatorship:

As cardinal dean, Benedict was the principal celebrant and homilist at both John Paul's funeral and at the special Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on the opening day of the conclave.

It was at the latter that he warned his brother cardinals against the "dictatorship of relativism" and urged them to "resist the trends and novelties" sweeping the increasingly secularized West.

His choice of the word dictatorship is revealing: As a young man growing up in Nazi Germany, he has said he was profoundly repelled by Hitler's ruinous corruptions of truth and morality.

According to his autobiography, Milestone: Memoirs: 1927-1977, he served in the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party, during World War II when membership was compulsory. But he was never a member of the Nazi Party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler's regime, biographers have said.

"Neither Ratzinger nor any member of his family was a National Socialist," John Allen, a Vatican expert, wrote in the biography Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith.

In his autobiography, Ratzinger described the Nazis as "fanatical ideologues who tyrannized us without respite." He came to view the Catholic Church as the institution uniquely equipped to counter what he saw as forces that mocked or distorted traditional morals.

"Having seen fascism in action, Ratzinger today believes the best antidote to political totalitarianism is ecclesial totalitarianism," Allen has written.

As to relativism, it's one of those words like "liberal" and "conservative" which obfuscate more than they illuminate. It's difficult to debate with someone who calls you a "relativist" when the very definition of the term is impossible without resort to, well, relativism! The way some people use it, it's hurled as a borderline ad hominem label indicating the futility of debate. Like being called "Satanistic", "Paganistic", or "nihilistic." These and other such words cut off rather than invite debate, because, in the absence of specific arguments, they substitute ad hominem labels for logic. It's one thing to point out the fact that someone is a Republican or a Democrat (or a "Bush supporter" or "Kerry supporter"), but how is it helpful in assessing the validity of an argument for government health care?

What is a relativist? What is relativism? According to dictionaries (at least, this dictionary history), these are modern, philosophical terms:

The word relativism is defined as "any theory holding that criteria of judgment are relative, varying with individuals and their environments" (2). It is thought that this philosophy officially entered American dictionaries and/or texts around 1860-65(2). Indeed, Noah Webster's first American Dictionary of the English language, published in 1828, provided a definition only for "relative" and did not contain a definition for relativity or relativism (3). However, more recent versions of Webster's dictionary define both relative and relativity.

Interestingly enough, although the words "relative", "relativity" and "relativism" are nearly identical, they have entirely different meanings with no perceivable relationship to each other. "Relative" is defined as "related to, referring to, having connection with; relevant, pertinent," and "resulting from, dependent on, existing in relation to, connection with something else; proportionate, comparative; not absolute" (4). It is intriguing to note that the definitions of relativity and relativism ignore the precise context of the definition of "relative" and focus only on the "not absolute" component of the definition. In philosophy, relativity is defined as "the doctrine that knowledge is not absolute or positive, but depends on the relations in which things stand to each other, that it can be concerned only with such relations, and is limited by the changing conditions in of our perceptual faculties" (4). Relativism is defined as the "doctrine of those who maintain the relativity of knowledge"

Here's one organization's view:

'Relativism' is a philosophical theory asserting that there is no absolute truth, only truth relative to the individual, or to a particular time or culture, or both. To put it another way, relativism may be defined as the radical denial of objectivity.

Philosophically, the confusion is not over the existence of the moral judgments, but over the appropriateness of judging the moral judgments. What's most frequently referred to as "moral relativism" is the approach of saying, "Well polygamy is fine for Muslims, but not for Catholics."

The fact is, that's not an emotionally satisfying result for many people. They want answers, damn it. And who can blame them? What the hell is wrong with saying it's wrong to have more than one wife? Why should that be impermissible? (And who gets to be permitted to be the tyrants of what is considered to be permissible and impermissible? The relativists?) Might that mindset be the "dictatorship" of which the new Pope complains? Well, I have no problem with saying and believing polygamy is wrong. There is an absolute right to hold and maintain one's beliefs, and I think there's something weak and wimpy about not doing so. What I do have a problem with (and where I draw the line) is resorting to force to impose that view on others who have done nothing to harm me. Does that make me a moral relativist? I don't see how, but others do.

Tough to debate these things. I have touched on the subject earlier in my discussion of whether being conservative morally makes one a "moral conservative," and concluded that it often does not!

Amazingly, one can be very conservative morally (even a total prude), yet not be considered a moral conservative. By today's standards, "moral conservatism" has little to do with personal morality. Unless one wishes the government to dictate moral standards (including, if necessary, by the use of force), it is unlikely that the dominant moral conservative ideologists will allow one to make a claim of being a "moral conservative." (You can be, for example, personally opposed to pornography, and even hate it, but unless you believe that the government should imprison people for it, you'll be called "pro-pornography" and a "moral relativist." On the other hand, you can be a drug-taking hedonist, and as long as you insist that these activities be criminalized, you're a moral conservative. You're judged not by what you do, but by what you'd force others to do.)

More remarkably, according to the Inquirer, the new pope has a fascinating history of "heresy".

In 1951, Ratzinger and his brother Georg were ordained priests, and in 1953 he earned his doctorate in theology from the University of Munich.

In 1959, he became a full professor of theology at the University of Bonn. He served from 1962 to 1965 as the chief theological adviser to Cologne Cardinal Josef Frings at the Second Vatican Council, where he was regarded as one of the council's more progressive thinkers.

In 1966, he was hired at the University of Tubingen at the encouragement of the liberal Hans Kung - whose theology he would later attack from his Vatican post.

Ratzinger's turn to conservatism was fueled in large part by the violent student protests that swept much of Europe, including Germany, in 1968. He later left Tubingen, became a theological adviser to the German bishops' conference, and in 1972 founded the magazine Communio, which offered a more traditional interpretation of the Second Vatican Council.

He was made archbishop of Munich by Pope Paul VI in 1977, and was elevated to cardinal the same year.

And if this New York Times analysis is correct, Ratzinger's about-face was precipitated by his horror over what he considered a "neo-Marxist power grab." As someone who was also horrified by Marxist tactics, I can't help feeling some sympathy here. But the doctrinal differences still beg the question of what is relativism.

If Ratzinger can change his mind so dramatically, all is not absolute -- even within the Catholic Church. His old mentor Hans Kung (whose History of the Catholic Church I highly recommend) was never excommunicated as he would have been in the old days.... To this day there remains substantial disagreement over his legacy within the Church heirarchy.

Relativism is relative, I suppose. . .

DEFINITIONAL NOTE: My Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1957), which I consider the Rolls Royce of dictionaries, is not terribly helpful in defining relativism:

relativism n. a doctrine of relationism or of relativity, esp. relativity of knowledge. Cf. RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

The doctrine that knowledge is relative to the limited nature of the mind and the condition of knowing and hence not true to the nature of independent reality. The doctrine has three forms which distinguish the schools of philosophy which accept it: (1) absolutely true knowledge is impossible because of the limitation and variability of sense perceptions; (2) reality as it is cannot be known by mind whose modes of thinking is and perception are essentially subjective; (3) thinking and perception seize relations (of one thing to another) only, and not the intrinsic nature of an object, and hence, are merely symbolic.

Now unless "dictatorship" is relative..... (I think that's a good place to end this relatively useless debate with my relatively irrelevant self.)