The new Pope, before he was elected Pope, warned the world against the "tyranny of relativism".

It must have been a very unpopular remark, especially in the European and North American worlds, as well as those parts of the rest of the world that have been invaded by the notions of modernity - or as is so often claimed, the notions of post-modernity.

We all know the drill. The relativist credo is that there is no absolute Truth, with a capital T. There are only small relative truths. Truths are relative to the individuals who hold them, and to the spatial-temporal-historical-cultural circumstances under which such truths are uttered and acted upon.

I could point out that the assertion "there is no absolute truth" itself is meant to be the absolute truth, and so absolute relativism is a self-contradiction in terms. There is something strange in the act of making a linguistic proposition. To say that "everything I say is a lie" is self-defeating logically. It makes no sense.