If Christianity, on the one hand, has found its most effective form in Europe, on the other hand we must also say that Europe has developed a culture that constitutes the most radical contradiction not only of Christianity, but religious and moral traditions of humanity. The real opposition that characterizes the world today is not between different religious cultures, but that between the radical emancipation of man from God, from the roots of life, on the one hand, and the great religious cultures on the other. If it comes to a clash of cultures, not for the clash of the great religions - to be always fighting against each other but in the end, they have also always known how to live with each other - but it will be for the clash between this radical emancipation of man and the great historical cultures. Thus, even rejection of the reference to God, not an expression of tolerance which seeks to protect non-theistic religions and the dignity of atheists and agnostics, but rather the expression of a consciousness that God would like to see removed permanently from public life and humanity aside under subjective residual cultures of the past. Relativism, which is the starting point of all this, becomes a dogmatism which is believed to have definitive knowledge of reason and the right to consider everything else merely as a stage of humanity at the bottom that can be overcome and proper perspective. In reality this means that we need of roots to survive and that we must not lose sight of God, if we want the human dignity disappears . (From the lecture by Joseph Ratzinger on the evening of Friday, April 1, 2005 in Subiaco, the Monastery of St. Scholastica).
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