Pope Francis to diplomats: Moral relativism endangers peace

Moral relativism “endangers the coexistence of peoples,” Pope Francis told diplomats March 22, and said a common ethics based on human nature is an indispensable condition for world peace. The pope made his remarks to the Vatican diplomatic corps in the Apostolic Palace’s Sala Regia, the vast “royal hall” where popes traditionally received Catholic monarchs. Recalling the love of the poor practiced by his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, the pope lamented both material poverty and the “spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously.