Pope Leo Dictatorship of Relativism?
Title: Has the Holy See succumbed to the dictatorship of relativism?
Author: Kieran Tapsell
Publisher: UCA News
Date: 13 JAN 2026
No one will ever know if it does not publish reasons behind the inconsistency in punishments meted out to child abusers.
Pope Benedict XVI often warned about the “dictatorship of relativism” in Western secular society. He meant by this the rejection of any objective standard of good and evil, which is then determined by personal whims or particular cultures.
There is evidence that the Holy See may have succumbed to this dictatorship in its dealings with child sexual abuse.
During his pontificate, Pope Francis publicly claimed eight times that the Church practices “zero tolerance” of child sexual abuse by clergy. He also claimed that he was following the line established by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Merriam-Webster defines zero tolerance as “a policy of giving the most severe punishment possible to every person who commits a crime.”
Zero tolerance in the context of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church seems to be one of those Humpty Dumpty terms that can mean whatever you want it to mean. It could mean that every allegation of child sexual abuse should be investigated (Canon 1717). It could mean no more than that the punishment must fit the crime. It could meanthat those found guilty of it by a canonical court must be permanently removed from ministry while still remaining priests. It could also mean that they should be dismissed from the priesthood.
In an address in 2002, Pope John Paul II said, “There is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young.”
The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, in its 2017 Final Report, quoted these words when it said that the appropriate punishment for child sexual abuse was dismissal from the priesthood and expulsion from a religious institute. That is true zero tolerance.
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