This talk was given at WYD2008 in Sydney, Australia, and presented by Creston College.
An hour and a half presentation at World Youth Day. It's a bit slow, but has some reasonable parts, especially beyond the hour mark and towards the end.
- 05-28min -- "Positivism: Old Age and the Value of Life" by Kirsty McKillop? Further reading: "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom
- 28-32min -- Questions given to Kirsty
- 32-49min -- "Relativism" by Katrina George, a lecturer in law at the University of Western Sydney and a director of Women's Forum Australia, an independent think tank that conducts research, education and public policy on women's issues.
- 49-56min -- Questions to Katrina: Basic needs vs basic goods. Recommended reading Robert George (books on natural law), Q: Catholic Church "holds the fullness of Truth". Institutional structure give the splendor of truth? ie. slavery. Q: Freedom of religion and law, A: More trust in reason, basic goods
- 56-1:26min -- "Freedom and Truth" by Patricia AUT management commerce law northland ethics. Free will, happiness (to be loved and to love properly), love requires freedom, erroneous views of freedom, tolerance and truth, relativism and truth.
- "Truth is God. Truth is a Person and someone we can choose to trust and to love. Authentic freedom is choosing God and allowing ourselves to be taught by God and to follow His Will." -- Pope Benedict XVI
- Tolerance is compatible with an absolute truth.
- Intellect and reason should be used in searching for that truth.
- Freedom is to choose and love the truth.
See also:
Theology on Tap: Sydney
And.....
"Have you noticed how often the call for freedom is made without ever referring to the truth of the human person? Some today argue that respect for freedom of the individual makes it wrong to seek truth, including the truth about what is good. In some circles to speak of truth is seen as controversial or divisive, and consequently best kept in the private sphere. And in truth's place -- or better said its absence -- an idea has spread which, in giving value to everything indiscriminately, claims to assure freedom and to liberate conscience. This we call relativism. But what purpose has a "freedom" which, in disregarding truth, pursues what is false or wrong? How many young people have been offered a hand which in the name of freedom or experience has led them to addiction, to moral or intellectual confusion, to hurt, to a loss of self-respect, even to despair and so tragically and sadly to the taking of their own life? Dear friends, truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ's very being for others (cf.
Spe Salvi, 28)." -- [
Pope Benedict XVI Meeting with Seminarians and Youth at St Joseph's Seminary; Dunwoodie, New York; April 19, 2008]
