Will the Holy Spirit Choose the Next Pope?

The question as to whether the Holy Spirit will choose the next pope cannot be answered as simply as either yes or no. To paraphrase St. Thomas (Summa Theologica I Q. 22 aa. 3-4.) God wills contingent things to happen contingently. This means that the Holy Spirit can and in fact will choose the next pope, but will do so in such a way that fully respects the deliberations of the conclave. If the Cardinals are open to the Holy Spirit they will concur in that choice. If not, they will choose someone else and the Church will suffer, and yet it will survive. All of human history follows the pattern of God commanding or proposing the best course of action in every situation, with humans sometimes saying yes to God and sometimes saying no. Why should this situation be any different? I invite everyone to pray that like Mary the Cardinals say YES to God.

Moral Relativism

A common misunderstanding is that a moral relativist rejects morality. However, just because someone is a moral relativist does not mean that he or she cannot have strongly held moral values. A moral relativist believes that any society can create and enforce whatever  moral laws it needs in order to function and survive. So if  some people feel the need for a right to abortion, pornography, divorce, contraception, same sex marriage, etc. in order  to pursue life and happiness as they see it, without the inconvenience and unpleasantness of having to deal with criticism and restrictions from those who disagree with them, then they also believe it is their right to silence their critics by any means necessary to achieve their goals.

A nation that no longer respects Divine Law nor Natural Law is a nation in which there is no basis for any consensus as to what constitutes a good life or a good  person. So it is that in a relativistic society there is no basis for any agreement between left and right, progressive and conservative, or secular and religious. There is only power politics and the principle that in a relativistic society might makes right.

This is what Pope Benedict meant by the “dictatorship of relativism”.