Following is a letter from Dr. James Likoudis, president emeritus of Catholics United for the Faith, writing to the Buffalo News concerning the increasingly moral relativism permeating society.

February 2,1994

Everybody's Column
BUFFALO NEWS
One News Plaza
Buffalo, NY 14240

Dear Editor:

The letter by ex-priest Kenneth H. Rummenie (1/22/94) refutes the nonsense that marriage would prevent child molestation or pedophilia by priests or psycho-therapists or doctors or lawyers or anyone else.

However, he's quite off the mark in claiming that no absolute moral principles can be found in the Scriptures. Pope John Paul II, no ordinary philosopher and theologian, recently devoted 140 pages in his encyclical "Splendor of Truth" to demonstrate exactly the opposite. Reason can discover that there are certain actions which are intrinsically immoral. A natural moral law does exist. The Christian Scriptures become unintelligible if not understood as presenting an ethical teaching with precise rules of behavior.

As to the doctrine of the Catholic Church respecting contraception, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and women's ordination, such teachings cannot be relativized by an appeal to other Christian communities which have long capitulated to the pressures of secular Ideologies embodying the "spirit of the world". If, indeed, there are no absolute moral principles, one wonders how liberals who dominate American culture can continue logically to rail against the evils of racism, sexism, militarism, homophobia, rape, pedophilia, and Nazi genocide. Perhaps the question to pose a society falling apart at the seams IS whether morality is possible without God.

About Dr. James Likoudis
James Likoudis is an expert in Catholic apologetics. He is the author of several books dealing with Catholic-Eastern Orthodox relations, including his most recent "The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church." He has written many articles published by various religious papers and magazines.
He can be reached at:  jameslikoudis1@gmail.com, or visit  Dr. James Likoudis' Homepage