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	Your View: Real Truth Isn't Relative By Peter Machado Standard-Times May 1, 2008 http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080501/OPINION/805010376 I would like to commend the Rev. Martin Buote's courage in submitting his views in the 24 April issue of The Standard-Times. I found it most disappointing that The Standard-Times would publish Sandy Huffaker's misguided cartoon and as well as Jack Spillane's beguiled column (April 17). The Rev. Martin Buote was correct in that there were many distortions presented in Mr. Spillane's column. I would like to shine more light on one other and on Mr. Spillane's apparent ideology. The method in which Mr. Spillane inserted in his column the reference to Pope John XXIII's 1962 Crimen Sollicitationis leaves the reader with the impression that the sole purpose of this document was to muzzle priests and bishops in speaking to the civil authorities about child abuse, when in fact its intent was to deal with homosexual priests who made advancements to confessors during the sacrament of penance. Canon scholars have stated that Crimen Sollicitationis was not prepared by the Vatican to "cover up" sexual abuses by priests. In a matter of fact, the document states that anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional must step forward, and if they do not, they could potentially be excommunicated. As reported by the National Catholic Reporter, one of the more liberal Catholic news outlets: "Canon lawyers told NCR that secrecy in canonical cases serves three purposes. First, it is designed to allow witnesses and other parties to speak freely, knowing that their responses will be confidential. Second, it allows the accused party to protect his good name until guilt is established. Third, it allows victims to come forward without exposing themselves to publicity. The high degree of secrecy in Crimen Sollicitationis was also related to the fact that it dealt with the confessional." If a neophyte like me can find these facts about the intent and reason for the Vatican issuing Crimen Sollicitationis, then why couldn't a professional journalist like Mr. Spillane dig them out? Is Mr. Spillane a deceptive type of reporter, one who tells half truths to shape the story for one's own benefit, or he is just incompetent at his craft? Maybe it has to do with his philosophy and his ill-formed dogmas. Hence, to answer these questions, let's take a look into Mr. Spillane's world of reason or lack thereof. Even though the majority of Mr. Spillane's column was irrelevant due to the standard anti-Catholicism hostilities, there were two philosophical statements worthy of comment. The first is his statement that Catholicism does not realize "the important role relativism sometimes plays in a complex world." This proposition epitomizes the thinking of today. Transcendent truths are not dependent upon time or form. Real truth transcends materialistic things such as time and space. Since the complexity of our modern age is materialistic in nature, it could not have any affect on truth. The degree of complexity of our age does not affect what is moral or immoral. If one shall not kill in a simple world, one shall not kill in a complex one. The second statement by Mr. Spillane is his comment that Catholic Church doctrine lacks common sense, but with that sentiment we all should be questioning Mr. Spillane's common sense. In Mr. Spillane's world of relativism, how can common sense exist in a culture that professes that there are no transcendent truths? How can there be anything held in common in a society that holds no universal beliefs to guide one in what is right and wrong? How can a relativist speak of common sense? One could simply conclude that Mr. Spillane's common sense of relativism is incongruous thought, but I believe that it goes much deeper than that. In reality, common sense can only exist in a culture that holds universal transcendent truths. Apparently this philosophical subtlety is negated in Mr. Spillane's own sense of thought. I believe Mr. Spillane is affected by scepticism which leads him to believe that there is something odd about the Catholic Church's doctrines. It seems what Mr. Spillane does not recognize is the paradox of Christianity which Mr. G. K. Chesterton stumbled upon, which is — when we feel there is something odd in Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd in the truth." When Chesterton speaks of Christian theology, he is speaking about the Catholic Church. What is most troubling is the negation of reason among individuals like Mr. Spillane and Mr. Huffaker. For who, as Mr. Huffaker's cartoon implies, believes that a married priest could not be disposed toward pedophilia? Does anyone believe that only unmarried men are capable of succumbing to pedophilia and that marriage would cure this pathogen? It is this negation of reason that is suspect. Either such men like Mr. Spillane and Mr. Huffaker have a mission to discredit the Catholic Church by knowingly disseminating falsehoods, or they have fallen under the narcotic spell of relativism, which is an ideology that will evenly lead them into a culture of death.
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