Relativism and agnosticism have led to crisis in marriage and the family, Madrid cardinal says

Madrid, Spain, Feb 19, 2007 / 09:29 am

During a day of study and reflection for the priests in his archdiocese, Cardinal Antonio Rouco of Madrid offered his analysis of the current status of marriage and the family in Spain and the whole of Europe.  The Cardinal told his priests that relativism, agnosticism, and “laicism” have led to “the biggest crisis in the entire history of Europe” regarding the concept of man and of marriage and the family.

During his remarks, the cardinal said that this crisis leads to another of a demographic nature, because “if marriage fails, the family fails and the physical existence of a nation is jeopardized.”  

The Cardinal said that throughout Europe there is a serious opposition between faith and reason, which leads “Europeans to massively declare themselves agnostics and to live as such.”

Democracy threatened

Thus, he continued, people are only interested in “whatever can give them power,” and the “dictatorship of relativism” is taking place, in which “the claim that there is no truth is defended.”  

This produces, Rouco said, a “crisis of social and juridical order” that affects “the fundamental principles of the existence of the person.”

This relativism, he added, ends with the dominance of the strongest and “threatens the existence of democracy.”  The right to life is endangered under such circumstances, he said, with those in power claiming they can “define when a human being is a human being.”