Ratzinger warns about dangers to Catholic Church

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, considered a top contender to be the next Pope, made his final stump speech before being sequestered in the Sistine Chapel today, lashing out at the trends he said were taking root in the Roman Catholic Church.

Ratzinger, the powerful dean of the College of Cardinals, used his homily at the Mass dedicated to electing the next Pope to warn cardinals and the faithful about tendencies that he considered dangers to the faith: sects, ideologies like Marxism, liberalism, atheism, agnosticism and relativism – the ideology that there are no absolute truths.