” ” ” “After recalling "those pioneering Priests, Sisters and Brothers who came to these shores" and who by their witness became "the humble but tenacious builders of so much of the social and spiritual heritage" today and inspired "another generation", Benedict XVI emphasized in particular the witness of the Blessed Mary MacKillop and the Blessed Peter To Rot. Turning his thoughts to the beauty of the creation, the Pope then underlined the threats to which it is exposed: "there are he said also scars which mark the surface of our earth, erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption". But "the scars" he continued are also to be found in society. Today, he said, there is "a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are, and distort the purpose for which we have been created". Citing "alcohol and drug abuse, and the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation", he added: "There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth", in "the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made ‘experience’ all-important. Yet the Pope insisted experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair".
