Category Archives: Church and State

Sign of Contradiction

January 3, 2018Church, Church and State, Church Authority, Holy Orders, marriage, Sin, Theology of the BodyAbuse Scandal, Priestly Celibacy, Royal Commision Child Abusetwowingstogod@gmail.com

In what has been labeled as a landmark study into various institutional responses to child sex abuse, the Australian Royal Commission targeted two particular practices of the Catholic Church; deeming them as directly contributing to abuse. There is a certain familiar ring to them with the Commission recommending that the Church remove the canonical seal of Confession as pertains to sexual abuse and make clerical celibacy voluntary. Many in the media, both Down Under and abroad, have criticized the Church for being too quick to dismiss the recommendations of the Commission. Of course, the Church has been listening to these “recommendations” for many years now and so has good reason for rejecting them out of hand. Nevertheless, it is always instructive for us to look at why, particularly the recommendation to change the practice of celibacy, is not a real solution.

To be fair, the Commission was quick to point out that clerical celibacy was not a direct cause of abuse but instead called it “a contributing factor,” especially since it “is implicated in emotional isolation, loneliness, depression and mental illness. Compulsory celibacy may also have contributed to various forms of psychosexual dysfunction, including psychosexual immaturity, which pose an ongoing risk to the safety of children.” Furthermore, “for many clergy and religious, celibacy is an unattainable ideal that leads to clergy and religious living double lives, and contributes to a culture of secrecy and hypocrisy” (p. 71).

Statistics Don’t Lie but People Sometimes Use Them Wrong

Because we live in a world that increasingly relies on empirical observation, it is always helpful to begin by examining exactly how they came to their conclusions. There can be no doubt that the Church in Australia, like the Church in the United States and the rest of the world, fostered a culture of abuse in the past. There have been many effective safeguards put in place in the last decade but there is always room for improvement. Still, there is some extreme speculation in what the Commission is saying. To say that celibacy is a contributing factor with any degree of statistical confidence, you must be able to compare the incidence with non-celibates, with all other risk and institutional factors (including size) being equal. To simply report raw numbers and unadjusted proportions comparing the Catholic Church (964 institutions) with Hinduism (less than 4 institutions) is highly misleading and can lead to spurious conclusions (see pp. 45-46). They mention that the Church had the highest percentage of the total abuse cases, but there is no adjustment in that percentage for the fact that it is by far the largest institution. It is like comparing the number of murders in Billings, Montana, with those in New York City without making any adjustment for the population size. Per capita the incidence of abuse within the Church is no higher than other religious institutions, making any claim that celibacy is a contributing factor spurious at best. In a peer reviewed setting, what they reported in their numbers of victims would have never passed even the most cursory of scrutiny.

They may have data to support this claim, but it would have been remarkable since no other group has found the incidence among priests to be any higher than other religious denominations and some have even found it to be lower. If you really want to know the truth as to the incidence of abuse, follow the money. Since the 80s insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance and they have found that the Catholic Church is not at any additional risk than other congregations. In fact, because most abuse claims involve children, the only risk factor they do include is the number of children’s programs they have (for more on this, see this Newsweek article).

The Unattainable Ideal

There is also a familiar tone to their contention that compulsory clerical celibacy is an “unattainable ideal” for many of the clergy. In fact, it is similar to the response that Our Lord gave to the Apostles when they questioned Him regarding “becoming a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom of God” (Mt 19:12). It is a calling based on a very high ideal, an ideal that can never be attained unless there is a particular call—”Whoever can accept this ought to accept it” (Mt 19:12). It is both a free choice and a calling to a high ideal, but God always equips when He calls.

The point is that it is an unattainable ideal for all of the clergy without the necessary graces attached to the call. But it is still a fallen man who accepts the call and thus the possibility for infidelity always remains real. But just because some men fail, does not mean that the Church should throw away the ideal.

What this really betrays is a hidden assumption that everyone is making. Priests are human just like everyone else and when they itch they must scratch. We do not understand what celibacy is and therefore assume the solution to the problem is an orgasm. If we can set it so that this orgasm occurs in a licit situation then we will rid the priesthood of this problem. But again, if that were the case no married men would do something like this.

This is where JPII’s elixir of Theology of the Body comes in. In man who has been redeemed by Christ, sexual desire is meant to be the power to love as God loves. Nuptial love is the love of a total giving of self. It is in the body’s “capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift—and by means of this gift—fulfills the very meaning of being and existence” (JPII General Audience 16 January 1980). Marriage and Procreation aren’t the only ways to love as God loves. These are simply the original models that God gave us “in the beginning”. Anytime we image Christ in giving up our bodies for others we express the nuptial meaning of the body.

With this in mind we can begin to understand celibacy. Celibate life can only flow from a profound knowledge of the nuptial meaning of the body. Anyone who chooses this vocation out of fear of sex or some deep sexual wound would not be responding to an authentic call from Christ (JPII General Audience 28 April 1982). Celibacy is meant to be an anticipation of Heaven where we are neither married nor given in marriage. It is a witness to the resurrection of the glorified body. In other words, those who forego marriage in this life do so in anticipation of the “marriage of the Lamb”.

The Commission simply sees no value in celibacy and therefore is quick to dismiss it. It is a sign of contradiction and therefore “has to be the problem” even if there is no way to prove it. They rightly call it an ideal, but then fail to grasp the value of that ideal. It is an ideal because it is also a sign—a sign that is valuable to the rest of society as a whole. It serves a complimentary role to marriage and helps to show its true meaning. It is an anticipation of our future life where our union with Love itself will be more intimate than marriage. But it also shows the great worth of marriage itself because it is a sacrifice of great worth.

The Political Animal

October 25, 2017Catholic Social Teaching, Church, Church and State, Devils, Natural Law, Politics, Pope FrancisLeft-Right Fallacy, Leviathon, Plato, Politcal Animaltwowingstogod@gmail.com

Man is, according to Aristotle, a political animal. Politics, on the other hand, is fast becoming a ravenous beast devouring every social interaction and institution. The NFL and Hollywood, hurricanes and mass shootings, bedrooms, bathrooms, and classrooms are all being swallowed whole as we stand impotently by. The Right complains that the Left politicizes everything, overlooking the irony that even lobbing the accusation against “the Left” is to play the game. They do have a point however. Everything is in danger (yes danger) of becoming a political issue and unless we step in, civilization as we have known it will be relegated to the dustbin of history, politicization’s last victim. It is only by understanding this tendency that we can hope to turn the tide.

Plato and Christopher Dawson on the Democratic Ethos

It is Plato that can help us explain the ubiquitous nature of this behavior. Putting his obvious personal biases towards democracy as the system responsible for the death of his teacher Socrates, his insight into the democratic ethos is particularly relevant to our current conditions. The spirit of democracy is animated by a single principle—freedom. In order for this to happen, a second principle needs to arise—equality. Equality exists so as to maximize the number of options upon which a man may exercise his freedom. This equality is not merely the belief that “all men are created equal,” but an absolute equality, even in areas where equality does not actually exist. The democratic ethos then sees equality everywhere.

In a democracy, the political realm exists to maximize freedom for the individual and, since any threat to equality becomes a threat to freedom, the polis must enforce equality. In other words, in the democratic ethos there is a pretense that all views and ways of life in society must be regarded as worthy of equal treatment. It is the threat to equality, equality enforced by the polis, that forces all debate about views and ways of life, into the political arena. In short, democracies, especially those in which the populace has become a law unto themselves (i.e. only able to make arguments in terms of “Constitutionality” without reference to a higher law), always tend towards a totalitarian mob rule in which everything becomes a political issue.

It is the totalitarianistic tendency that brings us to another important point, one that was made by the great 20^th Century historian Christopher Dawson. Dawson points out that the Left-Right distinction, at least historically speaking, is a relatively new phenomenon, arising with the French Revolution. Not only is it relatively new, but it is ultimately based upon what he calls the Left-Right Fallacy. The terms left/right, progressive/conservative, etc. are relative terms. They attempt to grade men according to their relation to a central point. The problem is that this central point does not actually exist. What exactly is the Progressive left of or the Conservative right of? What is their central point? Dawson thinks this is what makes the whole system irrational and ultimately a trap designed to create division. As he says, the “tactics of totalitarianism are to weld every difference of opinion and tradition and every conflict of economic interests into an absolute ideological opposition which disintegrates society into hostile factions bent on destroying one another.”

Changing Our Way of Seeing

We speak so much about division—division in our country, division in the Church–and the reason is quite simple. We continue to think from within the left-right distinction rather than thinking about it. We cannot transcend it while we are trapped within it. The fact that it makes its first appearance in the French Revolution ought to give us a hint as to who we have in mind as its designer. Diabolos, one of the name’s we give the devil, literally means one who tears apart. The Left-Right distinction is one of his greatest inventions for tearing men apart. This is not to over-spiritualize things to point out something that should be obvious. Any time we regularly speak of They without actually being able to name who They are, it is usually an indication that it has a preternatural cause. Any time we find ourselves demonizing other people (evidence this 2014 Pew Survey that found 1/3 of Americans think the other side is out to destroy the country), you can be sure there is more than a fully human explanation. There are always willing human instruments involved, but when its origin and its subtle irrationality are unmasked we should need to change our own pattern of thinking.

It is particularly disconcerting to have seen the Left-Right distinction enter the Church as well. On the heels of the French Revolution, in 19^th Century France, liberal Catholicism was born as an attempt to find some sort of accommodation with liberal theory and practice. This yeast has spoiled the whole lump, infiltrating the hierarchy and rank and file Catholics alike. The danger using these terms here is that there is a middle term around which the liberal/conservative filter could be applied—divinely revealed truth. It makes it seem as if the truth is somehow open to interpretation like it is in the democratic ethos. So not only does it divide members of Christ’s Mystical Body, but it also destroys faith in Divine Revelation.

The Church among all human (even if it is not merely human) institutions should transcend these labels and the fact that it can’t does not bode well for the rest of humanity. The Church must lead the way. Not just because a more united body of believers will spill over into the world, but because it is vital for the health of the Body itself. The current division within the Church is a work of the Devil and we only feed it when we allow our thinking to pass through the Left\Right Sieve. Think you’re immune? Who you are closer to—if you identify as a liberal are you closer to your liberal agnostic neighbor or the conservative Catholic who annoys you because of his false piety at Mass? If you are conservative, are you closer to the conservative Jewish man down the street or the liberal Catholic who has the coexist bumper sticker? If it is not the fellow believer, with whom you have an ontological connection within the Mystical Body, then you may only be able to see through the liberal/conservative paradigm. The Church is the only truly liberal society—extending love and mercy to all mankind and teaching man to govern his use of freedom (the true meaning of liberal) by her conservative clinging to God’s revealed truth.

If you are sick and tired of everything being politicized then refuse to play the game and transcend the Left-Right Fallacy. It is the only way to restore any sense of unity in the Church and in Society.

American Barbarism

August 16, 2017Church and State, Culture, Virtuetwowingstogod@gmail.com

Perhaps it is the apocalyptic mood brought on by the impending visual collision of the sun and the moon, but after the events this weekend in Charlottesville, I can’t help but wonder whether we are witnessing the end of civilization. That is, I am not looking up to the sky for the end of the world, but up north to Charlottesville as the definitive sign that Americans have made the final leap away from civility and into barbarism. A protest that was met by a counter-protest (was there another protest in there somewhere?) turned deadly and no amount of outrage will stop the barbarian invasion that is already underway. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. As Lincoln once prophetically uttered, “… Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!–All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

While many of those men and women who populated the White Supremacist “protesters” resemble the savage Germanic invaders that sacked Rome, barbarians were found in both camps. It is not savage behavior that marks the barbarian per se, but the unwillingness to engage the other in a reasonable conversation according to reasonable principles. In short, the barbarian is the one who kills civility by rejecting the role of human reason in human affairs

We Are All Barbarians Now

It is easy to see how the white supremacists fit the barbarian bill—there is no reasonable argument that can ever justify their position. It is evil through and through. But how can we say the other side, in protesting against this evil is also barbaric?

In his book, The American Cause, Russell Kirk says that for any people to remain civilized, they must have a defined body of principles upon which they all agree. That is, there are always two ways to compel a man—by argument and by force. Compelling by argument means that there are a set of foundational principles, those that brought the people together, that can be applied to compel another person as to why a thing should be a certain way. This is why Fr. John Courtney Murray said that “civilization is formed by men locked together in argument.” That is, the disagreement is over the application of the principles. Once the principles themselves are called into question then there is no way to argue and force must be used. A nation without principles is one that is uncivilized.

Kirk says that these principles fall into three main bodies, two of which are moral and political. The moral principles have to do with what they think of God and human nature. The political have to do with their ideas of justice and injustice. That is, American civilization has always been bound by “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Take away this self-evident creed and you take away any basis for civilization.

The Roots of American Barbarism

And herein lies the root of American barbarism. America is a Christian nation and we have rejected that. The debate over whether the Founders themselves were Christian or not is inconsequential. The point is that they were so informed by Christian morality, that even if they may have actively undermined it at times, they still framed with a Christian mentality.

“All men created equal.” Where would such an idea come from except from Christianity? At no time was this ever believed until Christianity took hold of the world. Personal sovereignty? Only because Christianity teaches that authority itself comes from God and man is free so that only with the consent of the governed can one rule over another. Right to the “pursuit of happiness?” Human nature is a fixed entity by God such that only certain activities lead to genuine thriving.

What Charlottesville represents is the civilizational suicide that Lincoln warned against. The irony is not lost on me that his memorial statue is the latest to be defaced. We can reject our slaveholding past without rejecting the Founding altogether. Instead we have rejected the great principles that this country was founded upon and now find ourselves unable to engage in an argument. We forget that it was the proper application of the Founding principles that put an end to slavery. As if this wasn’t destructive enough, we are all barbarians now because we have rejected God and made human nature whatever we want it to be.

The point is that the counter-protesters had no ground to stand upon to say that the White Supremacists were wrong. If human nature is malleable then we aren’t created equal. If this is the case, then who is to say that whites aren’t better than African Americans or Jews? With no Big Daddy in the sky watching over us and judging us, we cry out when Big Brother Donald Trump sits on the fence pointing fingers at both sides. What we saw in Charlottesville is just a harbinger of things to come. There will be more and more protests and with no other way to engage, more tragic endings like we saw.

Aquinas and Tyrannicide

August 12, 2017Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Moralilty, Natural Law, ScriptureDonald Trump, Hitler's Pope, Tyrannicidetwowingstogod@gmail.com

In a recent interview with Fox News, Dr. Robert Jeffress, an Evangelical adviser to President Trump, claimed that “the Bible gives President Trump the moral authority to use whatever force necessary, including assassination” to remove threats to humanity like Kim Jong-un. Justifying his views by citing Romans 13:3-4, he contends that “most Christians understand that.” Some however have taken exception to Pastor Jeffress’ comments, questioning whether one verse of the Bible can be used to justify the removal of a leader of a foreign nation. In truth whether or not assassination is morally permissible or not is far from self-evident and would require more justification than a single line from Sacred Scripture.

A Not-so Careful Citation

A quick gloss on the cited passage is in order because it is unclear that it even applies. In this section of the letter, St. Paul is addressing the question of social justice and these particular lines refer to the reasons why the citizen is subjected to authority in the first place. In short, St Paul says that it is by God given authority that the ruler, as custodian of the common good, is given the power to punish evildoers. The ruler is God’s minister by inflicting punishment on the evildoer. Pastor Jeffress is most certainly going beyond what is being said here. This particular verse might be applicable if President Trump was King of the World, but as President of the United States it is a giant leap to suggest that God has given him the authority to punish any evildoers in North Korea, let alone their leader. President Trump’s authority simply does not extend that far. This line of reasoning will ultimately lead the President and his adviser down a rabbit hole that only serves to discredit both.

There is another line of reasoning, one with a historical precedent that could be used to support a similar conclusion. During the Second World War, there were a group of patriotic, anti-Nazi German men who plotted to assassinate Hitler. Although these men were helped by the British, most of their outside help came from Fr. Robert Leiber, who was acting as an intermediary for Pope Pius XII. This remarkable story is told by an intelligence specialist named Mark Riebling in his recent book, Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler.

Not only does Riebling’s book ring the death knell for the myth of Hitler’s Pope, but, relevant to the discussion at hand, it shows the great difficulty the plotters had in getting German buy-in. What little they did receive was mostly along confessional lines. The Catholics, schooled by St. Thomas Aquinas could morally defend the assassination of the tyrant Hitler. The Protestants (mainly Lutheran) schooled in a distorted view of state authority and found themselves in a moral quandary not unlike what Pastor Jeffress has found. In short, the argument based strictly on the authority of the ruler cuts both ways.

In examining the question of assassination, President Trump might be better served expanding his advisory group to include Catholics who have sat at the feet of St. Thomas. It is Aquinas who gives the best argument in favor of tyrannicide; the same argument that convinced Pius XII to help those Germans opposed to Hitler. It is this argument, rather than the one put forth by Jeffress, that might be used to justify the removal of the North Korean leader.

Aquinas on Tyrannicide

St. Thomas did not rule out tyrannicide, but instead thought it to be a laudable act if the conditions warranted it– “He who kills a tyrant to free his country is praised and rewarded”(Commentary on the Sentences 1,d44,q2,a2). What exactly were those conditions? The first has to do with how the tyrant came to power. If he was legitimately elected, then it is the community that must remove him (assuming they can). If he is a usurper and therefore a criminal, then an individual (or group of individuals) may act to depose the tyrant even by assassination. Secondly, the tyrant must pose an actual threat to the well-being and the morality of his subjects by ignoring divine and natural law. Third, that there is no other reasonable recourse. Finally, that his death would lead to a better situation and not create a vacuum such that the citizens were likely to become subject to a worse leader.

Applied to the situation in North Korea, there is no doubt about whether Kim Jong-un is a tyrant. Nor is it really questionable whether he is a usurper or not. Since becoming “eternal President” he has become a self-appointed leader in more and more areas in order to consolidate power both politically and militarily and has murdered anyone who he has viewed as a challenge to his power grab. Likewise, there is no doubt that he is a threat to the well-being of the people both physically and morally through his blatant disregard for natural law.

It is the third and fourth condition that ought to lead President Trump to ponder his actions carefully. It is not entirely clear that every reasonable remedy has been tried nor is it clear that his killing would lead to a better state of affairs. In a militarily bureaucratic system like North Korea, the killing of one tyrant can easily pave the way for another.

While St. Thomas is clear that tyrannicide can be jusitified, he is rather silent about whether it is morally acceptable for someone outside of that particular country to orchestrate such an action. In the example cited above, Pius XII (and the British) did not orchestrate but only provided material and strategic support. The deposition of a tyrant should always occur from within. The US and its allies might aid those from within North Korea, but they should not be leading the charge.

Stirring the Pot

July 22, 2017Bioethics, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Moralilty, Natural LawAlcohol, Catholicism and Marijuana Usetwowingstogod@gmail.com

As laws legalizing the recreational use of marijuana use continue to spread like, well, like a weed across the country, there seems to be little hope in stopping its momentum. According to NORML, a lobbying group dedicated “to move public opinion sufficiently to legalize the responsible use of marijuana by adults, and to serve as an advocate for consumers to assure they have access to high quality marijuana that is safe, convenient and affordable,” the “era of marijuana legalization is upon us.” Perhaps it is a sign that its use is more prevalent than we think, but the push back from American Catholics (with the exception of Cardinal O’Malley in Boston) has been uninspired at best. It is with that response in mind, that this author attempts to clear the haze surrounding the issue of marijuana use.

Why Sin is Wrong

In a world where the only real sin is to call something a sin, it is important for us to frame what it is that makes marijuana use wrong. Otherwise, it appears that Christians are always on the prowl looking for people who might actually be having some fun in the valley of tears. Sin is an offense against God, but only in the sense that it tries to usurp His role as Creator. As Creator of our human nature, He is the judge as to what constitutes the best use of that nature so that we can truly thrive and fulfill what we were made for. As creatures who have exercise of their own freedom, we can, in a sense, choose those things that ultimately harm us. But just as violating the law of gravity has dire consequences, so too does choosing against the law of freedom. We will ultimately not thrive. So while sin is an offense against God, it ultimately means doing something that is harmful to us. This is why St. Thomas said “God is offended by us only because we act contrary to our own good” (SCG, 3, 122).

This particular way of looking at sin is particularly important in today’s culture where there is such an emphasis on freedom such that it trumps law. Put simply, some acts are in accord with the proper use of man’s nature, which we call good, and some are not, which we call evil. Reason recognizes these goods as true goods and commands that they be protected and preserved. Thus the moral Law is not a bunch of arbitrary rules but dictates of reason that keep us on the path to happiness, both natural and supernatural.

It is with this view of sin in mind, that we can examine marijuana use. To use a common idiom, marijuana use is wrong because you get stoned. That is you lose, even though temporarily, the use of our distinctly human capacity to reason. We become, as it were, like stones. In other words, marijuana turns us into something less than human by depriving us of our use of reason.

There are, some might object, other things that cause the temporary loss of our reason that we would not classify as wrong: things like painkillers, laughing gas, even sleep. What makes marijuana and other recreational drugs like it different? In each of the other examples conscious experience is not treated as an evil, as something to be avoided (and if it was as in the case where someone sleeps too much just to avoid life then it would be wrong). To deliberately pursue a chemically-altered state of mind is always immoral because it does direct harm to the good of our reason.

Alcohol and Marijuana Use

I have deliberately avoided mentioning the use of alcohol up to this point in order to make the principles clear, but no discussion of marijuana use and its legalization can avoid this topic. Drunkenness, like “getting stoned”, is always objectively wrong. But alcohol is different in that it can be used “responsibly.” By temperately approaching alcohol, it can have its intended effect of raising one’s spirits (which is where we get the name Spirits from) without altering one’s level of consciousness. This is why Catholics have never shied away from imbibing strong drinks. It may represent a temptation to abuse, but with temperance it is one of the goods of this life. I like to think that one of the reasons why the Bride and Groom at Cana ran out of wine was because Our Lord and His followers had showed up unexpectedly. If nothing else, He clearly had some on hand at the Last Supper.

This connection between alcohol and pot is worth examining a little further because the two are often conflated in public discourse. The argument goes that because “alcohol is a drug and legal, therefore, marijuana, which is a somewhat harmless recreational drug ought to be legal as well.” Recalling that a good law is one that helps people to be good, we can say that the reasoning here is faulty. In the social realm, temperate use of alcohol can be seen as a good in that it stimulates social interaction and appears to have positive physiological health benefits. Therefore any laws governing its use ought to promote temperance (such as penalties for drunkenness, age restrictions, limiting places and times of purchase, etc.). Pot, on the other hand cannot be used moderately. There is no such thing as “responsible” use of pot since its mind-altering effects are felt immediately

The fact that we even have to get into the “why” using pot is wrong shows us the reason why a libertarian approach would not work. “If someone wants to smoke a little weed, who are we to stop them?” While it may seem like a benign, personal vice, we can never forget that the law is a great moral teacher. Most, especially those divorced from Christian morality, equate morality and legality. By criminalizing its use, the law remains connected to the truth. The fact that most people cannot see why it is wrong is an argument for keeping it legal, especially when the best argument for de-criminalizing is license masquerading as liberty. Freedom does not mean to do whatever you want as long as no one else is harmed by it, but to exercise our ability to reach our God-given potential. Far from being an exercise in freedom (which requires the use of reason), marijuana use actually makes us slaves to a less than human craving. Given this and the “substantial adverse effects” of marijuana use, it is hard to fathom why anyone would promote its legalization.

The Economic Third Way

June 28, 2017Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Economics, Money, VirtueCapitalism, Distributism, Pope Francis, Socialismtwowingstogod@gmail.com

When Pope Francis visited with a group of workers and business people in Genoa last month, he praised their entrepreneurial spirit. Praises flowing from the mouth of someone who has been so critical of Capitalism came as a shock for many people, including those in the media. Someone who criticizes Capitalism must be a Socialist, or so the reasoning goes. The Holy Father must be a closeted Capitalist or a secret Socialist. While his criticisms of Capitalism receive more airtime in the West because it the predominant economic model, that he might be neither a Socialist nor a Capitalist is a priori eliminated. The problem of hearing the Pope is that many of us are stuck in what I would call an either/or fallacy. We assume that there are only two mutually exclusive players in the economic game and we must choose one or the other.

The Church for her part has chosen neither Socialism nor Capitalism. Pope Leo XII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum is considered the foundational document for the modern day corpus of what would become the Church’s Social teaching. In it condemns Socialism for its exploitation of the “poor man’s envy of the rich” and says it is clear that socialism “must be utterly rejected” (RN, 15). Expanding on the same thing, forty years later, after Socialism had bound its test subjects, Pius XI said Socialism “cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church” (Quadragesimo Anno, 117). This criticism has continued down to our own time with St. John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus, his encyclical marking the 100^th Anniversary of Rerum Novarum, says Socialism in all its forms is doomed to fail because it makes a fundamental error in anthropology by denying that man is a free being that exercises his freedom in the world through the acquisition and use of private property (CA, 13).

With such a clear condemnation of Socialism, many would conclude that the Church is pro-Capitalism. Scouring the Magisterial documents however, one would be hard pressed to find a single endorsement of Capitalism in the form that it takes in the West. At best the Church is cautiously Capitalistic, a stance which best finds expression in Pope St. John Paul’s aforementioned encyclical Centesimus Annus:

“If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by ‘capitalism’ is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.” (John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 42)

This short history lesson is not so much meant to trace the development of the Church’s teachings on modern economic models, but to show that the Church supports neither Socialism nor Capitalism directly. John Paul II’s definition quoted above is a far cry from what most of us would label as true capitalism and explains why he is tempted to give it a different name. He will not fall into the either/or trap and is inviting us to do the same. But in order to see that there might be a third option, we must look more closely at the two in terms of strengths and weaknesses.

The Centrality of Private Property

Notice that the condemnation of Socialism and the caution of Capitalism both make reference to the central moral ideal of all valid economic models, private property. Grasping this concept and its importance helps us to more objectively evaluate the competing economic models. This term remains elusive for many of us, stymying any real discussion. Private property does not refer so much to having a lot of money (just a medium of exchange) or to owning your own home, but has to do with the control of wealth.

When we speak of “property” we are referring to those things that have economic value attached to them. Property is the collection of things that can be used and exchanged for other things of economic value. Of critical importance on the question of property is who controls that property. Private property simply means that wealth is in the hands of private individuals.

The Church praises those models that protect and promote private property and condemns those that don’t because private property is bound up closely with man as a free creature. In fact, private property is how man exercises his freedom in the economic realm. Private property keeps man free from the control of others and enables him to do those things that are both needed and wanted for his and his family’s fulfillment. But freedom in the economic realm is not just freedom from restriction, but the best system would be one in which his economic activity contributes to his freedom for his own perfection. Freedom actually increases when virtue grows. With this in mind we should not just look at the system that has the least amount of restrictions but also that which is best suited to increase the man’s virtue.

A concrete example might help to see why private property is pivotal. Suppose a man needs food for his family. In which of these three systems is the man best able to exercise his own personal freedom?

The Three Economic Ways

First we have the system in which the man waits in a bread line so that those in authority can give it to him. The State, or more accurately a group of men acting in the name of the State, determine how and how much bread the man will consume because they own all the means of making the bread. The man is assigned some task to contribute to society, although there is no proportion in the amount of work or energy the man himself expends to obtain that bread. Each person receives strictly according to need. Lacking such an incentive, he will do the minimum amount of work. In this system, which is called Socialism, man is obviously not free to accumulate wealth, but he also has no incentive to grow in virtue and thus his growth in freedom. The man trades security for freedom.

Second, we have the system in which the man works for another man or, as is usually the case, group of men, who give him a wage in exchange for his labor on the capital they provide. He can exchange some portion of this wage in a grocery store for the food he needs. The man is free in the sense that he is not compelled to work for another. He is compensated for his work and thus has an incentive to work well. But he also works at the service of another man’s capital and lives perpetually under the fear of losing his job and his family starving. Without any capital of his own to generate wealth, this fear greatly limits his freedom and he will submit to greater and greater demands from the capitalist, who acts solely based on the profit motive. We call this system Capitalism.

Certainly if one had to choose between the first and the second, the second is far superior. But is there another option, perhaps a middle-ground of sorts? Imagine the system in which the man has sufficient private property and capital where he is able to work as say a craftsman of some sort and trades some of the wealth he generates from the fruit of his labor (either directly or through the exchange of money) for food. This man is not merely a “small business owner” in the second system, but works within a system of nothing but “small business owners.” He lives more freely than in the second system as well. He no longer depends on the Capitalist for an allowance, but depends only (or at least mostly) on his own hard work and use of his allotment of capital. This will motivate him towards excellence, increasing his freedom, especially knowing that those “who don’t work, don’t eat.” He is also more secure than in the first case without any tradeoff of his freedom. This system has been dubbed Distributism because it assures the diffusion of private property into the greatest number of hands.

Notice how this third option closely parallels what John Paul II described as the ideal, although he does not use the term “Distributism.” When people first hear this name, they assume it is essentially like Socialism, which properly understood is Re-distributism. Distributism consists in a free market and does not involuntarily take from the rich to give to the poor. The State owns no property and produces nothing (except where necessary for public works, defense, etc.) but does help to limit the amount of private property an individual might own, especially when it encroaches on the ownership and use of others.

For example, suppose a town might not have a butcher and the people must visit the butcher in the town over. Sam the Butcher could open a second butcher shop in that town or he could help train a new butcher (or help an existing butcher) so that he might meet the demand and make a profit. The State could heavily tax Sam for the new butcher shop to the point where it does not make it worth it and it could incentivize Sam to help by way of tax cuts. Notice that the State in such a system actually helps to form the virtue of its citizens by punishing vice (greed) and rewarding virtue (love of neighbor). Just like a good government is one in which the people are (morally good), so too a good economic system is one in which the people are good.

By its fruit, you shall know it—this is at the heart of the current Pope’s criticism of Capitalism. He looks at the fruit and questions the tree. Does this mean he is a Socialist? I don’t know. But I do know that it doesn’t mean he has to be. There is a Third Way.

Our Lady of Fatima and Gay Marriage

March 22, 2017Church and State, Contraception, Homosexuality, marriageErrors of Communism, Marriage, Marxism, Our Lady of Fatimatwowingstogod@gmail.com

When Our Lady appeared to the children of Fatima, she warned that without conversion, Russia would continue to spreads its errors throughout the world. The “errors” to which she was referring were mainly those of Communism, rooted in the philosophy of Karl Marx. More than an economic theory, Marxism views all of history as the conflict between oppressors and oppressed and seeks to do away with all division, natural or not. Marx himself presented it as a conflict between capital and labor, but those categories can readily be adapted to any two groups including gender, race or sexual orientation. While the fruit of the Marxist tree that is Communism may be dying, the Marxist roots are alive and thriving within our own liberal democracy, a society that is deeply (and deliberately) divided. This makes Our Lady’s words all the more prescient and ought to give us pause as we mark the 100^th anniversary of her appearance at Fatima.

All of the prior Marxist attempts to remake human nature and society have met one almost insurmountable obstacle—the Family. Marx himself envisioned this obstacle and called for the abolition of the family in the Communist Manifesto saying, “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.”

As long as the foundation of society remained strong and in place, any attempt to change society as a whole would ultimately fail. But weaken the foundation and society will fall with it.

Not surprisingly, the Communist Party USA has been one of the most vocal supporters of the push for gay marriage. They knew that by subverting marriage, the Family would ultimately be laid waste. Ultimately this is why those who oppose Gay Marriage cannot give up the fight. By removing one of the means by which the Marxist spread their errors, we are hastening the reign of the Immaculate Heart.

Thinking Clearly about Marriage

Pascal said that our first moral obligation is to think clearly so that before we do anything we must understand why Marriage and the Family are intrinsically linked. Without marriage, the Family ceases to exist.

Amidst all the debate in the past decade about redefining marriage, neither side could actually define either the classical definition or the revisionist version. In order to see why the family and marriage are linked, we must begin by offering a definition of marriage. Marriage is the complete union of two persons. It is the total union of their persons at every level of their temporal being—spiritual, emotional and bodily. The conjugal bond is what makes marriage unique in comparison to any other relationship or community of persons.

What revisionists have tried to do is to remove one of the elements. They would almost certainly call it an emotional and spiritual bond. Although it may seem surprising it is the bodily union that they must remove; not because it isn’t a sexual relationship but because it is not a conjugal relationship.

Men and women are capable of performing all biological processes on their own, save one, procreation. To perform this process they need a complementary other. In other words, in performing acts that may lead to procreation, they become a single “organism.” It is not just any sexual activity that unites them, but only sexual activity that is intrinsically ordered to procreation. In order to be unitive, sexual activity must also be the kind that is procreative. Any other sexual activity (including contracepted) simply becomes the exchange of pleasure and does not unite the two people physically any more than a handshake, a back rub, or putting one’s finger in another’s ear. Only in the marital embrace can two spouses be physically united, an act that same-sex couples cannot perform. Marriage, under the revisionists’ definition must therefore no longer be a complete union of two persons since the couple is unable to become one flesh.

A word of explanation as to why I have been careful about calling them acts that are “ordered to procreation.” As a biological process, procreation has aspects that are under control of the person and aspects that are not. One may choose to breathe, but one cannot choose to get oxygen into the blood. Provided the conditions are right, that happens “automatically” and is outside the direct control of the person. So too with acts ordered to procreation. A couple can engage in the marital embrace, but whether conception occurs or not, happens after the fact and is outside of their direct control. In other words, it is not the actual conception of the child that causes the act to be unitive. It is unitive because it is a procreative act. Grasping this helps us to see why an infertile couple may still be married (because they are capable of procreative acts even if they do not lead to conception) and a same-sex couple may not.

Marriage and the Family

It also helps us to understand what it means when we say that children are the end of marriage. They are not the purpose of marriage—the purpose is the total union or communion of the persons—but they are the fruit of marriage. In short, they are a natural result of the communion of persons in marriage.

With all that has been said, we can understand that the Church is not being old-fashioned when she defines the family as “born of the intimate communion of life and love founded on the marriage between one man and one woman” (Gaudium et Spes, 48). The family as the first society a person belongs to forms that person in his vision of reality. Each child learns that he or she was generated from an act of love and was quite literally loved into existence. It is the school of love where the child learns both how to love and be loved. In short, “a society built on a family scale is the best guarantee against drifting off course into individualism or collectivism, because within the family the person is always at the center of attention as an end and never as a means” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 213).

Joining the Battle

If the goal is to destroy the family, then get rid of marriage. Erotic love is too powerful to destroy it altogether, but modifying it to the point that it becomes unrecognizable is sufficient to destroy the family. Not surprisingly with a change in marriage we are seeing a change in what people call a family. A “family” that is not founded upon marriage as the communion of persons is built on sand. It is only the complete bond of the spouses to each other that keeps the family together.

Since the Obergefell decision almost two years ago, many Catholics have disengaged from the battle for marriage. It is time to pick up the battle once again, especially considering what Sr. Lucia, the Fatima visionary once said. “The final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Don’t be afraid because anyone who operates for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be contended and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. However, Our Lady has already crushed its head.” Let us re-engage and fight for marriage and the family!

Separation of Church and State?

February 15, 2017Church, Church and State, Church AuthorityHugo Black, Paganism, Render Unto Caesar, Separation of Church and State, Thomas Jeffersontwowingstogod@gmail.com

In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association written on New Year’s Day in 1802, President Jefferson wrote what, especially in recent times, has become his most often quoted words. In offering an interpretation of the First Amendment he said,

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State” (emphasis added).

The Catholic Church invents the Separation of Church and State

Jefferson was offering nothing novel. Christians have been preaching the separation of Church and State for millennia. If we look at the great cultures throughout history, the idea of a separation between the State and Religious powers was anathema. Whether it was Egypt or Rome, the Emperors were believed to be gods themselves and religious veneration was due to them. When Christ uttered His famous “render unto Caesar,” He did so in a culture in which Caesar thought himself divine and the High Priest or Pontifex Maximus of the official Roman pagan religion. This was the norm throughout the ancient world, except for a single country—Israel. In Israel, the role of king was distinct from either the priests or the prophets. The first king, Saul, was anointed by the Prophet Samuel (1Samuel 10) and even King David himself was beholden to the Prophet Nathan who accused him of murder.

Christians have always interpreted Christ’s admonition to “render unto Caesar” as a call to keep this Jewish tradition of separating the governance of the State from the governance of the Church. On the one hand, we can see why Our Lord thought this necessary simply by looking at man’s nature as both spirit and body. We live two distinct, although related lives—temporal and eternal. His utterance baptizes these two distinct powers to govern each of the lives. Like the body and soul, there is a certain precedence of the spiritual governance over the temporal governance, but still the two should work in a complementary fashion.

Why We Need the Separation

Why the Church and State should remain distinct is not entirely clear until we add into the mix man’s fallen nature. As an effect of man’s prodigious fall, the body tends to drag the soul down and corrupt it. When the Church and the State are essentially one, it is the Church bears the brunt of it. History reveals this repeatedly, especially if we look to the Middle Ages, culminating in Henry VIII’s foundation of the Church of England. The circumstances may change but the Church always becomes corrupt when it gets too closely tied to the temporal power.

To use an American parlance, the Church/State distinction is a form of checks and balances. The temporal authority, because he is first and foremost is trying to save his own soul in addition to his subjects, is always subservient to the Church. The Church would, in turn, make itself the servant of the Imperium in her conduct of temporal affairs. Each serves to keep the other in line—when the Church oversteps her bounds and gets too caught up in temporal affairs, the State is there to remind her of her mission to souls. When the State oversteps its bounds and puts the souls of its residents at stake, the Church is there to remind it of its proper place. While this practice may have been abused, the power of the Pope to excommunicate a rogue Christian King was very effective in bringing about conditions that were good for the soul.

When the two function in this way the citizens of the State thrive and are holy. The culture becomes Christian, rather than a mere State that happens to have a majority of Christians in it. The Church recognized the importance of building a Christian society—one in which being a Christian is made easier by the culture—and therefore worked out her understanding of Church/State relations shortly after the time of Constantine. Pope St. Gelasius I (492-496) who is often credited with “inventing” the separation of Church and State said:

“Christ, mindful of human fragility had discerned between the functions of each power… His reason for so doing was twofold. On the one hand, it is written that no one warring for God should be entangled with secular things. The raison d’être of the royal power was to relieve the clerics of the burden of having to care for their carnal and material wants. For the temporal necessities the pontiffs indeed need the emperors, so that they can devote themselves to their functions properly and are not distracted by the pursuit of these carnal matters, but the emperors, Christian as they are, need the pontiffs for the achievement of eternal salvation.”

The Jefersonian Distinction

Even if Jefferson did not invent the notion of the Separation of Church and State, he did endorse an important twist to it. What was new about Jefferson’s position—which was subsequently read into the Constitution by Justice Hugo Black—was his belief that a wall of separation had to be erected. In other words, he thought Church and State should remain completely separate.

Returning to the analogy of the human person, you can no more put a wall of separation between the Church and State than you can between the soul and the body. To sever the one from the other leads to death—be it the death of the person or of society as a whole.

When the complementary role of Church and State is denied, the State will go unchecked in its power. When the State finds no authority above it then it simply does as it sees fit without any regard to the moral law or the eternal salvation of its citizens. In order to pull this off though the State needs to promote “bread and circuses” to keep the populace from focusing on their souls. The “bread and circuses” can take various forms, but the form of choice today is sexual license. It is not as if the Church merely disappears in this setting. The State sets up a new Church, one that is merged with the State. In other words, when you set up a “wall of separation” it will always end up merging the two.

Return of the Church-State of Paganism

Much of the West is returning to paganism in the form of liberalism, worshipping the god of freedom. Like all pagan gods, it demands child sacrifice, even if is cleaner this time because it is done in utero. Its churches are universities (really all public schools) and its high priests are the judges. The State will “tolerate” other religions and grant “freedom of worship” but any public expression, especially when it comes in conflict with the State Religion, will not be tolerated. The Little Sisters of the Poor may have ultimately won their lawsuit, but that is only a harbinger of things to come. The next battle will likely come for not complying with the demands of the law for gay marriage. You must be willing to profess the new pagan creed which many Catholics, even bishops and priests, have shown themselves willing to do.

This is really a project of the Enlightenment, it simply took a few centuries for the Christian roots of Western society to actually die out. Those roots are now, for all intents and purposes, dead. We are living in Rome in reverse and the only way we can act redemptively is the way of the Church—martyrdom or an appearance by Our Lady. Throughout history those are the only two ways that a society has been saved from the clutches of paganism. Let us pray that as we ready ourselves for the 100^th Anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima that it is the latter.

Memic Sophistry

February 1, 2017Abortion, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and StateMemes, Sophistry, Straw Mantwowingstogod@gmail.com

A picture, the saying goes, is worth a thousand words. Now, whether those discounted thousand words are worth anything or not is a different question. The irony is not lost that the most literate society in the history of the world has become an image culture. Rather than long, well thought out arguments, we argue via the Meme; a medium whose sole criteria is not truth, but cleverness.

But it is not just cleverness that makes them so popular but their convenience. With artistic flair, they can “yada, yada, yada” the important details away. With only 1000 words to spare, most of the energy must be devoted to toppling the Straw Men they have constructed. Straw men may easily fall, but they have an uncanny ability to destroy any healthy debate.

Take a recent example posted to The People for Bernie Sanders Facebook page. It has two panels, one with a child in the womb with the caption “Every Life is Precious” and the second has the washed up body of an immigrant child featuring the caption “Not my problem.” The statement is obvious: Pro-life people only care about life in the womb. Life outside the womb, not so much.

Of course this is a common accusation leveled at Pro-lifers. But truth be told, no actual Pro-Lifer actually thinks this way. Step one, complete, Straw Man constructed.

They also fall victim to the hidden logic of their Meme. They are essentially saying that Pro-lifers are really pro-life if and only if they care equally for those outside the womb as they do inside. It doesn’t take a professional logician to realize that this goes both ways. In other words, why do The People for Bernie Sanders and their ilk assume that this logic does not apply to themselves? They have compartmentalized the two issues and then attempt to call the Pro-lifers out on (allegedly) doing the same. Either they should be separate issues or not. But if you choose to separate them then you can’t call someone out for doing the same.

As I mentioned this is a variation on a common accusation—Pro-lifers cannot speak out against abortion unless they are willing to take care of the babies once they are born. Straw Men are notoriously limp and can’t really hold newborns. This argument ignores the actual work that does go on to help single moms, adoption and adoption services, etc. by many Pro-lifers. But, and this is important, even if they aren’t willing to lift a finger to help, this doesn’t justify the act of abortion. Abortion is wrong because it takes an innocent person’s life, not because somebody wanted the child. No sane person would say to a single Mom who is struggling to make ends meet with two kids and can’t find any help that she should kill one of those kids. Yet, that is what Bernie Sanders and his friends are saying.

This is what I like to call the either/or fallacy. It is assumed that just because you work hard to stop one injustice that you don’t care about other injustices going on. What if both abortion and the death of child immigrants are great tragedies? What if both represent a failure of the human family to protect their most vulnerable members? What if a person is moved to action by the plight of one suffering group more than another? Is this a denial of the misery of the second group or is it an admission that I am not superman and can’t help everyone? There may be more emphasis by Pro-lifers on abortion because you must first help your own before helping others. Our obligations to our fellow American citizens are much clearer than our obligations to citizens of other nations–not because they are worth any less but because we can only help so many people. Charity begins at home. What would you think of a man who ignored his family and only helped other people’s families?

I think this is why this is usually more a liberal tendency than a conservative one. The liberal tends to think that big government can help everyone. But even our huge government is limited in the amount of help it can offer overseas. Sometimes there are battles that are worth fighting, but they may not be our particular fights. While we should do all that we can to help immigrants, there is nothing wrong with it taking a back seat to some issues here at home. The common good of the homeland takes precedence.

It is a gigantic leap from panel 1 to panel 2 in the Meme. In fact it may be an uncrossable chasm. The truth that abortion is wrong has nothing to do with immigration. It is a red herring that attempts to undermine the credibility of those with whom they disagree. It may be clever, but it bears no relation to an actual argument.

Just because you can draw does not absolve you from doing some actual thinking through of what you draw. The truth is more subtle than the artist is willing to admit or sort through. An analogy will help. I know of no one who does not have a lock on the door of their house to keep themselves and family safe. No one I know has an open door policy where a doorbell unlocks the door automatically. We all have an obligation to vet each person that comes into our homes. In other words, we have a policy in which we discriminate who should enter and who should not. Dad may not let any teenage girl visit his son Elroy until he vets them, but this does not make him sexist. Elroy may protest, but until he convinces his dad that this is not the most prudent way to handle the situation, his protests will look more like hissy fits especially if he accuses him of misogyny.

The government too has an obligation to vet who visits the country. An open door policy is not possible. Prudence dictates how this would best be accomplished. It may be that an entire class of people is turned away until a proper vetting process is put in place. Perhaps this is not the most prudent measure, but the debate should center on that and not calling people Islamaphobes.

Memes and their twin sisters, the protest sign, have become the new Sophistry because of this glossing over of significant facts. The bad elements of Islam are a threat. Islam itself is extremely divided and it is very hard to separate the threats from the non-threats. It is reasonable then to make sure you are able to do so. Any alternative to the recent Executive Order has to deal with these facts. One could decide to be like Elroy’s dad and keep all the Muslims from troubled regions out. That may not be the most prudent measure, but even if someone chooses this approach that does not make them Islamaphobes.

The problem is not the memes per se, but the fact that we now have adopted memic thinking patterns. I will admit to being one of those annoying people who actually asks someone to explain their meme to me. Usually I find that the person posting is either non-responsive or can’t really explain them because the ever-present intellectual gap.

To all but the oblivious, it is obvious that we are more divided as a country than ever. There are many reasons why this is the case, but in truth they all boil down to one thing—we have lost the ability to sustain an argument.

One who is familiar with the details of our founding cannot help but be struck by the peacefulness with which George Washington and then his successor John Adams took power. This is not because all the Founding Fathers were on the same page, but because they were men who could sustain an argument without resorting to violence. This fostering of arguments in many ways in written into the relatively short Constitution. In this way they were much like the Medieval philosophers like St Thomas who saw the great practical value in intellectual argument.

A good debater is one who can repeat back to the person their argument and understands it. Many of St. Thomas’ contemporaries were struck by the profundity of the Objections to the questions in the Summa. He was able to succinctly and often more convincingly put forth his opponents’ arguments than they could themselves. The point is that a good debater can find the specific place in their opponents’ argument where they went off the rails and put them back on track. We call this “common ground” but it is really common sense—if you want to argue with someone, you must start at the place where you agree. When debate occurs through memes like The People for Bernie Sanders’ post that obviously does not happen. If we have any hope to survive as a country this part of the American heritage must be restored. There are only two ways to win men over to your side, by appeals to reason through argument or by force. I am afraid that only one of those paths is open to us right now.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

Tearing at the Seamless Garment

November 7, 2016Abortion, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and Statetwowingstogod@gmail.com

In the 1980’s Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago used image of the seamless garment of Jesus for which the soldiers drew lots to portray a “consistent ethic of life” that “argues for a continuum of life which must be sustained in the face of diverse and distinct threats.” This “seamless garment” implied opposition to abortion and to capital punishment; opposition to the threat of using nuclear arms and the support of a vast social welfare state as means to a preferential option for the poor. This approach was to be tempered by the fact that a “consistent ethic does not say everyone in the Church must do all things, but it does say that as individuals and groups pursue one issue, whether it is opposing abortion or capital punishment, the way we oppose one threat should be related to support for a systemic vision of life.”

Unfortunately, this seamless garment approach to social issues has become a tool in the hands of those who wish to rationalize their support for legislation and office holders that support intrinsic evils. This election season has been no different. It is high time that we pull at one of those threads and unravel the seamless garment once and for all.

When those garbed in the seamless garment refer to a “consistent ethic of life,” they equivocate on the term “life.” When someone who is Pro-Life uses the term life, they are not referring to life in the merely temporal and corporal sense. Instead they mean something more, which Pope St. John Paul II aptly captures in the opening paragraphs of Evangelium Vitae. The Holy Father emphasizes that when we use the term life we are referring to that

“which far exceeds the dimensions of man’s earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase. Life in time, in fact, is the fundamental condition, the initial stage and an integral part of the entire unified process of human existence. It is a process which, unexpectedly and undeservedly, is enlightened by the promise and renewed by the gift of divine life, which will reach its full realization in eternity (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2). At the same time, it is precisely this supernatural calling which highlights the relative character of each individual’s earthly life. After all, life on earth is not an “ultimate” but a “penultimate” reality; even so, it remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters.” (EV, 2)

Practically speaking what this means is that when we seek to protect and promote the sacredness of life in opposing something such as abortion, we not only care about the child in the womb, but also the eternal destiny of his mother, the abortionist, and even the annoying “escorts” whose sole job it appears is to mock those praying outside the abortion clinic. On the other hand, life, according to the seamless garment approach, merely refers to not being dead and to have some sufficient means to “eat, drink and be merry.”

Cardinal Bernardin and his friends might object to this characterization, but their conclusion follows directly from this premise. On the temporal plane it could be argued that things like abortion, capital punishment, poverty and denying harbor to refugees equally put earthly lives at risk. But once we move to the plane of the eternal, some of those things are more likely to put eternal souls as risk. We as Christians do not ignore the temporal welfare of our neighbors, but we must always put their spiritual well-being first. The life of the body may be a seamless garment, but the soul is naked before God.

Because they are only concerned with the temporal, the supporters of the seamless garment approach are unable to make the necessary distinctions between evils. There are certain acts that are intrinsically evil and cannot be ordered to the good no matter what the intention of the person. Our Lord told us that we will always have the poor with us, not as justification to avoid helping the poor, but because like St. Paul found in Thessaloniki, some people refuse to work. Poverty will never be completely eradicated and is not always an intrinsic social evil. To aid us in discerning how these evils present themselves in social life, the Church for her part has listed the so-called five non-negotiables. The first four are related to the protection of life at its most vulnerable stages including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning and the fifth is support for so called “same-sex marriage.” These are non-negotiable not because we are stubborn but because they are aligned so closely to the true human goods that they can never be ordered to the good.

Those who call themselves Pro-Life bear some of the blame in this. They too tend to focus only on the temporal. They may oppose abortion, but then support making contraception more readily available so as to limit the number of abortions. Setting aside that contraception and abortion are, as St. John Paul II said, “fruits of the same tree. …The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception” (EV, 13), contraception has the potential to kill the soul just as much as abortion does. The tree they are both fruits of is the culture of death, a culture that is designed to lead to spiritual death.

Those who are Pro-Life must also avoid defining themselves as being in opposition to abortion, or euthanasia, etc. Following the lead of St John Paul II they must define themselves in a positive manner as having “respect for nature and protection of God’s work of creation. In a special way, it means respect for human life from the first moment of conception until its natural end” (St John Paul II, Closing Address World Youth Day 1993). The semantical gymnastics of the Pro-Choice movement to label Pro-Lifers as “Anti-Abortion” is sometimes more accurate because of the negative way in which they tend to define themselves.

In closing a word about what I would call the statistical argument, namely that under a regime that actively promotes abortion, that somehow the number of abortions decreased because of its emphasis on helping the poor and making contraception more readily available. As a statistician, I can readily see this flaw as one that wannabe statisticians often make—confusing correlation with causation. Just because two things seem to be related does not mean that one causes the other. There could be a third (or fourth) variable that is actually the cause of both. In logic we call this the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (“after this, therefore because of this”). It may be that more readily available contraception is the reason why abortions decreased, but you cannot do something that is evil to bring about a good.

A Primer on Poverty

August 2, 2016Catholic Social Teaching, Church and Statetwowingstogod@gmail.com

Although Jesus met a great deal of opposition during His earthly ministry, we know of only one place in which He was actually laughed at. In response to a stern warning regarding the dangers of earthly riches “the Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and laughed at Him” (Lk 16:14). Christians likewise receive a similar response when they speak of riches and poverty. Especially considering the great material wealth many Christians possess. Even the Church herself has been accused of being a “big business” with access to tremendous amount of money. So when the Church speaks on poverty and helping the poor, it comes across as little more than hypocrisy. But the accusation really comes from ambiguity surrounding the Church’s teaching on poverty and aid to the poor. It seems therefore that a primer of sorts is needed, especially because the topic of poverty will also likely be one that is discussed in the coming election season.

From the outset it is important to recall an important principle that follows from the anthropological truth that man is a body-spirit composite. Therefore he has needs in both realms. Therefore any discussion regarding poverty must always start with the truth that man can have poverty in both the spiritual and material realm. This is why the accusation that the Church should sell all her artwork and build only functional churches is patently false. The Church may have enough material riches to feed all the poor for a short time, but then what? By selling all the artwork and stripping the churches, the world is now that much poorer because beauty has been lost. Man does not live on bread alone and therefore there always needs to be a balance between spiritual and material riches. Both are necessary for man to be truly rich and this is the reason the Church has always promoted both the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy among the faithful.

When Blessed Theresa of Calcutta visited the United States she was asked what it was like coming from a country where she worked with the poorest of the poor to a rich country like ours. She responded that “Any country that accepts abortion is the poorest of the poor. It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you live as you wish.” Her point was that spiritual poverty is often the worst of the two. While we may be relatively affluent in the United States, we do not need to go far to work with the spiritually poor (as distinct from the “poor in spirit” that Our Lord declared blessed).

St. Thomas Aquinas does say that there is a certain priority in the material realm because without meeting the absolute necessity for survival, a man cannot appreciate any spiritual goods. This point hinges on another important distinction, namely the distinction between poverty and destitution. The latter refers to those who lack the necessaries of life and therefore are in need of help from others. Poverty, properly understood, refers to those who have only what is necessary for life with no superfluity.

The distinction is important because there are those groups such as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development whose mission it is to eradicate poverty. Certainly the eradication of destitution should be the goal of all Christians, but with poverty it is different. Poverty is a Christian value. As Solomon says in the Book of Proverbs, “Give me neither beggary, nor riches, give me only the necessaries of this life” (Prov 30:8). As the fulfillment of all the Scriptures, Jesus by His life and example gave poverty a sacred character. This cannot be overlooked.

The former head of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum for Human and Christian Development, Robert Cardinal Sarah cautions that “we do not have the right to confuse destitution and poverty, because in doing so we would seriously be going against the gospel. Recall what Christ told us: ‘The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me’ (Jn 12:8). Those who want to eradicate poverty make the son of God a liar. They are mistaken and lying….The Church must not fight against poverty but, rather, wage a battle against destitution, especially material and spiritual destitution. It is critical to make a commitment so that all men might have the minimum they require in order to live.”

A man who grew up in one of the poorest regions in Guinea, Cardinal Sarah knows that poverty is a Christian value because the poor person is “someone who knows that by himself he cannot live. He needs God and other people in order to be, flourish and grow.”

There of course is always the danger of seeing poverty as an end in itself, but it is meant to be a means to holiness and perfection. This leads to a further distinction between affective and effective poverty. All men are called to affective poverty with is the detachment of the heart from whatever wealth one may possess. On the other hand, effective poverty, which consists in an actual lack of material goods, is not a commandment but only a counsel.

Despite being a Gospel value, this does not mean the poor should be left alone. Instead those who have the experience of gaining wealth should aid those who are poor to alleviate their poverty. This principle follows once again from the truth that man is both body and spirit. A man is better off when he works for his milk than when someone merely gives it to him. In working for the milk he achieves his dignity and grows in virtue. Work is a good for man. In receiving things merely as a handout, it actually diminishes his dignity as he grows in dependence. He may have a full belly but his heart begins to empty.

This of course assumes that the man is actually capable of stepping out of poverty. There are those who through some disability cannot care for themselves. We have to distinguish between them, even though all too often we treat them as the same. Those who are incapable need our charity but again in a way that accords with their situation and their dignity.

Regardless of how we aid the poor, it is not enough to simply pay your taxes or make a donation. Very often aid to the poor becomes a means by which the State gains control over its citizens. While a donation to a charitable organization is a good because the group is often familiar with what is needed, it should not exhaust our charity to the poor. The problem is that in giving money we often give too little of ourselves and deprive the person of what they need most—face to face love. As Pius XII reminded us, “Your charity must resemble God’s who came in person to bring us help.”

There is one further point that bears reflection and that is the notion of inequality. The terms rich and poor are really only relative terms. The poor in our country would be considered rich in other countries. That is why when we speak of inequality it is often misleading. There may be a great deal of inequality between a rich man with $1 billion and a poor man with $1 million dollars, but neither would be living in poverty. Very often the use of the term inequality is meant to imply that somehow the poor are being exploited by the rich. That may very well be the case, but it is not all inequality is unjust. It is best to simply leave this term out of the discussion and to examine things from the lens of distributive justice which examines the distribution of the benefits and burdens of society on different groups of people.

In nearly every culture prior to the rise of Christianity, the poor were despised. Once Our Lord came under the guise of a poor man, the world began to see the dignity and nobility of the poor. Christians therefore have an obligation to see poverty in its proper light. This can only happen when we cut through jargon and ideology to see both the value and dangers associated with it.

What Americans Hold

July 19, 2016Church and State, Virtuetwowingstogod@gmail.com

Anyone who has studied American history knows that keeping Americans united has been the greatest challenge. The necessity of a “more perfect union” led to the abolishing of the Articles of Confederation and to the delaying of a remedy for slavery by the Constitutional Convention. America is unique in the history of the world because it succeeded in bringing together men and women from different countries, cultures and even races. Every other country is united insofar as they share a certain character. Italy became a nation because all the smaller principalities were Italian, Greece because the city states were Greek, and France, French. It is the reason why Scotland always fought becoming part of England and why, in modern times, the EU is ultimately doomed to fail. But the United States is different because what actually unites its citizens is, as Chesterton observed, a creed. It is the proposition that all men are “endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” that unites us as Americans. To use another Chestertonian image, America may be a melting pot, but the pot itself is what holds it altogether.

This “unity in diversity” is precarious and the danger of dissolution is always around the corner. But the danger does not come not from any external enemy but from within. Lincoln, the Great Restorer of the Union, said this, rather prophetically in an 1837 speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield:

“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!–All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

As Lincoln entered office, the country was divided precisely because one of the fundamental elements of the American Creed, namely the equality of all men, was rejected by a large portion of the population. Those who were trying to reform the melting pot were in danger of breaking it.

Without any danger of hyperbole, we could easily say that we are facing a similar danger today. We are a country that is clearly divided and no longer merely along political lines. This is obvious to all but the most myopic of our citizens (namely politicians), but no solution can be found until we treat the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence as more than quaint historical facts. It is the self-evident truths, and only these, that has kept our country united for 240 years. If it is to survive the next 20, we will need to return to these with greater clarity.

I have written in other places about the elements of the American Creed, but I would like to take this essay to a more foundational level. No amount of clarity will help us if we continue to deny the roots of the tree from which the fruits of freedom and equality flow. One can argue all day long whether or not the Founders were Christian or Deist or just children of the Enlightenment, but that ignores the fact that what they built was built on a Christian understanding of reality. They were breathing Christian air.

Equality of mankind?

Entirely unknown in the world until Christ came to save all mankind without distinction—“ There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile all came together as one body to receive the one bread (1 Cor ). We are so used to this idea that we forget how revolutionary this idea was at the time.

Self-government?

Self-government rests upon the Christian understanding of the uniqueness of each individual person created by God and he is “the only creature that God has wanted for its own sake” (GS 24). This power of self-government that is received from God can be transmitted to the governing party and taken away in dire situations. As an aside, this was a foundational argument of Jefferson’s in the Declaration of Independence—“ But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

The point is that we cannot continue to take of the fruit of the tree while simultaneously digging up the roots. This is why John Adams in reflecting on the Constitution said that it is “made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” His point is that any attempt at self-government requires the ability for each person to govern himself. It requires virtue (i.e. a moral people). Only those who are virtuous can use their freedom well and in the manner it was intended, namely “the pursuit of happiness.” But as history bears out (including the failed attempt of the French Revolution based on the similar founding principles), virtue is not enough. Virtue requires religion. While there may be individual exceptions in a given society, the beginning of virtue is the fear of the Lord. Fear of judgment is not the end of virtue, but it is certainly the beginning. One must believe that he will eventually have to answer for his deeds (i.e. a religious people).

While some of the Founders may have seen religion only from a utilitarian viewpoint, this will not do. Our country needs not just “religion” but Christianity to survive. It is instructive to reflect on Jefferson’s use of the term “Church” when he speaks about the “wall of separation between Church and State.” Only Christianity has Churches. Despite his own religious leanings he knew that America needed Christianity. That means all of us need to be more Christian and not less. The peace of our society and the salvation of souls depends upon it.

A society like ours that has become indifferent and even hostile in some ways to Christianity is cutting off its nose to spite its face. The argument over which color lives matter presupposes the question as to why any lives matter at all—and only a Christian has an adequate response. All lives matter because God has definitively said so in giving the life of His Son. Why are we all dissatisfied with our choices for President? Because we inherently know that character matters more than competence, another tenant Christianity has taught us. In this great moment of division, who will lead? It must be Christians willing to sacrifice themselves holding the pot together for a love a God and neighbor.

On Patriotism

July 4, 2016Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Virtuetwowingstogod@gmail.com

Summers in the United States have a rhythm all their own thanks to the three National Holidays that we celebrate. For Americans Independence Day marks the midway point of Summer which ends “officially” on Labor Day. Most will celebrate the day with a cookout and fireworks, but despite the all the planning that goes on very few people will actually enjoy it. As Nietzsche said, “the trick is not to arrange a festival but to find people who can enjoy it.” For most of us, with the exception of the fireworks, July 4^this like an extra weekend day rather than a true festival. We may have some vague idea about the Declaration of Independence and the work of the Founding Fathers, but that is history—and because of our treatment of the Native Americans and the slave trade, it is history we would rather forget. Why would we celebrate that?

Independence Day was never meant to be merely a celebration of what happened in the past, but instead a re-presentation of the spirit of the Founders. In other words it was meant to be a day that was marked by patriotism. Unfortunately this has become impossible because, like most civic virtues (except tolerance), it is no longer seen as a necessary good. Most people don’t even know that it is a virtue or that Pope Leo XIII said that love of country is part of the natural law and thus an obligation for all of us. Therefore a restoration of the practice of this virtue is vital and not just so we can celebrate July 4^th.

Properly speaking, patriotism is defined as “love of country” but there is certain ambiguity attached to both love and country. For the latter, a better term might be nation or fatherland (from which we derive the word patriot). In a country where the government is becoming the Leviathan, it is important that we see the nation as different from the State or Government. One can certainly love one’s country and despise its government. The object of the patriotic love is the families and individuals composing the nation. But it is also a love that is directed towards those things that make it home—its unique national characteristics that differentiate it from other countries and the natural ties that bind the citizens together. As Chesterton says, a man would not want his country to fall into the hands of foreigners for the same reason that he would not want his house to be burned down; he could not even begin to enumerate all the things he would miss.

This love also includes the entire heritage transmitted to us by our countrymen who have gone before us. It is this particular aspect that we celebrate on July 4^th; those things that come to us by virtue of simply being a citizen of this great country. It is a time to recognize those things that we take for granted that are unparalleled in the history of the world—equality, freedom, and self- government. Although foundational to the American Experiment, these three values will always be in jeopardy of being lost if we do not cherish them and protect them.

When St. Thomas presents patriotism in the Summa, he couples it with piety towards one’s parents. Both piety and patriotism incline us to render due honor and service to those who are the source of one’s being and the agents of one’s upbringing. Love of country means a love of benevolence for one’s countrymen and implies a desire to promote their interests along the lines of the national characteristics.

It is coupled with the family for another reason as well, a reason which CS Lewis articulates in the The Four Loves. Lewis says that Patriotism is the concrete way in which we extend love of neighbor beyond our immediate family. If the family shows us the first step beyond self-love then Patriotism offers us the first step beyond our family selfishness. We cannot love our neighbor in the sense the Lord means if we do not love our neighbors locally. In other words, Patriotism is simply the habit of loving your neighbor in the concrete sense. Just as love for one’s family does not exclude love for others so too patriotism does not exclude love of people in other countries. But we must first love the neighbor we can see before we can love the neighbor we can’t.

The duties of patriotism involve honor and actual service. It can become militant when we are forced to protect what we love, but the last thing we want is to the last thing we want is to make everywhere else like our home because then it would cease to be uniquely our home. As Chesterton says the patriot “demands a particular relation to some homogeneous community of manageable and imaginable size, large enough to inspire his reverence by its hold on history, small enough to inspire his affection by its hold on himself.” Still patriotism is more than just a willingness to put on war paint. It must be matched by a willingness to perform the ordinary (and non-heroic) civic duties.

The connection to the love of family also is illuminating in another regard, especially for us as Americans living in a time of great cultural turmoil. There is a tendency to look at all of the evils that our country tolerates and develop, maybe not hatred, but indifference. But when we compare it analogously to our love of family, it becomes clearer how patriotism works. We love our family, not primarily because of its greatness, but because it is ours. We may see the faults of its members or even the ways it is dysfunctional, but we still love it and strive to make it approach the ideal. So it is with love of country. We love our country not because it is great but because it is ours. We can still love it despite all the evil it tolerates without loving those evils. We can “hate the sin, but love the sinner” to use an old Catholic adage. We can look at the sins of our country, even those of the founding, and still love it. We can repent of them knowing that we failed to live up to our standards and our founding principles.

One of the best ways to fight present day evils is to inculcate the virtue of patriotism—one would not want to see the country they love betray its foundational principles. One would not want to see the blood that was spilled by men and women in our past and still today precisely because they wanted to protect those principles be in vain. It is precisely because we love our country and its national principles that we can see evils like state-supported abortion for what they are and for what they do to our country. Rather than growing discouraged, we instead fight those evils precisely because we love our fellow countrymen, including the ones in the womb.

On the 150^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge spoke eloquently on our founding. In closing, I would like to quote his concluding paragraph because it is a clarion call for the virtue of patriotism; a call that we as Americans need to respond to if we are to see this great country become all that God intended.

“It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”

A Right to Privacy?

July 1, 2016Abortion, Church and State, Church Authoritytwowingstogod@gmail.com

During an interview on Meet the Press this past Sunday, Democratic Senator and possible Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Kaine, admitted to being a “Traditional Catholic” who “personally opposes Abortion.” Despite his personal opposition however he has “taken the position, which is quite common among Catholics — I have got a personal feeling about abortion, but the right rule for government is to let women make their own decisions.”

The Senator is right that his is a position that is “quite common among Catholics,” especially politicians. But what never gets said is why they are “personally opposed.” That would seem to be the next logical question that gets asked anytime a seemingly reasonable person says they are opposed to something that other people accept. Part of the reason why it never gets asked is because the answer is implied when they identify themselves as Catholic. They are opposed because that is what the Church teaches. In other words, it is a matter of dogma that Catholics should oppose abortion. As a “traditional Catholic,” Senator Kaine knows that the Church (and American constitutional law) says that religious dogma should not legitimately be enforced by the coercive power of the state. It is also politically convenient because by suggesting that abortion belongs only in the confessional realm, Senator Kaine is able to play both sides of the field. He can be personally opposed (and thus satisfying those who are also opposed) while appearing to be very tolerant of other people’s beliefs.

Surely as a “traditional Catholic” who is personally opposed to abortion he would know that the Church does not teach that abortion and contraception are matters of revealed faith. Just as surely a Catholic who is involved in public life would have read St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae. If he had he would have known that “[T]his doctrine is based upon the natural law” ( EV, 62) and like all the precepts of the natural law, binding on Catholics and non-Catholics. In other words, being Catholic has nothing to do per se with whether you think abortion and contraception are wrong. Pro-life Catholic politicians are just as guilty in this regard of allowing the debate to center around their Catholicism and would do a great service to the movement if they avoided making that connection.

While the “personally opposed, but…” defense has been worn out, it is the second half of the Senator’s response that bears a closer look because it betrays a profound philosophical difference from what the Church has taught us:

“I deeply believe — and not just as a matter of politics, but even as a matter of morality, that matters about reproduction and intimacy and relationships and contraception are in the personal realm. They’re moral decisions for individuals to make for themselves. And the last thing we need is government intruding into those personal decisions.”

Again as a Catholic, the Senator could again turn to Evangelium Vitae and find that the Holy Father anticipated his response when he said:

“Finally, the more radical views go so far as to maintain that in a modern and pluralistic society people should be allowed complete freedom to dispose of their own lives as well as of the lives of the unborn: it is asserted that it is not the task of the law to choose between different moral opinions, and still less can the law claim to impose one particular opinion to the detriment of others.” (EV, 68)

If it is not from the Church that the Senator gets his “radical view” then where does it come from? It comes from a distorted view of the human person that permeates the modern American landscape. It has even found its way into our laws through the so-called “right to privacy.”

Man by nature is a social being. He depends upon others for his fulfillment. Operating under this paradigm, the role of government is to aid in the development of the total person. A good government is one that helps to create morally good people. Laws not only protect freedom from the outside but also from the inside by promoting virtuous behavior. Certainly it is always preferable to foster virtue by non-legislative means since virtue requires voluntary rather than coerced actions, nevertheless law cannot remain indifferent to moral actions because of its pedagogical power.

Operating under this view, there is an emphasis on the freedom to fulfill one’s obligations. The obligation to protect innocent human life leads to the outlawing of all offenses against human life. Each man sees himself as his brother’s keeper to a limited extent.

This understanding of man as social by nature is rejected in modern-day America. Instead man is an individual with absolute autonomy. He only enters into social relationships by an agreement or contract. Each man enters civil society and gives up only so much of his personal liberty as to facilitate comfortable self-preservation. Under this view, the role of government becomes protective—protecting freedom from outside interference and from infringement by others. Anything is legal provided it doesn’t limit the freedom of others. The emphasis now shifts towards rights rather than obligations. When two rights claims such as the right to choose and the right to life clash, the government must step in with positive law. It is always the louder (or stronger) asserter of rights that wins.

Within this atmosphere of radical individualism enters the right to privacy. This becomes a fundamental right because one must be able to do what one pleases without any outside interference. This right has been elevated within the annals of the Supreme Court to an unalienable right. Although it remains rather elusive as to what exactly it means, the Court ruled that the right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion.

It is “deeply held belief” in the right to privacy that trumps anything else that the Senator might “feel about abortion.” Accordingly while he thinks that an individual’s private choices regarding intimate and personal matters (like whether or not to bear a child) must have no government interference, this cannot be done without reference to the moral law. In no other aspect of life do we treat the right to privacy as an absolute right except in contraception, abortion, and homosexual activity. This suggests that it is merely a smokescreen for judicial (and in the case at hand Senatorial) fiat.

Can the Senator explain why the private use of recreational drugs is a problem? What about prostitution? The “right to privacy” remains unprincipled. This is why the right to non-interference for abortion (Roe v Wade) quickly turned into a right to abortion (PP vs Casey). The government now interferes by supplying the abortion. This is why a “personally opposed but” stance does nothing except reveal a lack of personal integrity. The Senator is far from the neutral observer that he pretends to be.

We need only look to Monday’s Supreme Court ruling as proof of its arbitrary nature and its impossibility to overturn. Abortion may be a personal decision, but it is certainly not private and no amount of judicial gymnastics can make it so.

Voting and Conscience

June 7, 2016Church and State, Conscience, Natural Lawtwowingstogod@gmail.com

As the primary season comes to a close and clear candidates begin to emerge, we should expect to hear more and more about how to vote as Catholics. The discussion will center on “voting according to conscience.” If we are not careful however, we will fall prey to the vague notion of conscience that has plagued the Church in the last 50 years. Instead we should strive to vote according to an informed conscience. In an age in which fact is often equated with truth it is necessary to speak of what we mean when we say that a conscience is informed. We don’t mean that it is full of information or data, but instead it is alive in the way that a soul informs or brings life to the body. An informed conscience is a conscience which is fully alive.

An informed conscience is able to recognize that not all goods and evils are equal. An informed conscience has no room for a seamless garment approach to morality. Instead it recognizes that there are certain acts that are intrinsically evil and cannot be ordered to the good no matter what the intention of the person.

To aid us in discerning how these evils present themselves in political life, the Church for her part has listed the so-called five non-negotiables. The first four are related to the protection of life at its most vulnerable stages including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning and the fifth is support for so called “same-sex marriage.” These are non-negotiable not because we are stubborn but because they are aligned so closely to the intrinsic goods of man that form the basis of the natural law.

It is grave matter to vote for candidates that support policies that promote these. When we vote for these candidates, even when it is not our intention to support those particular policies, we still cooperate in the evil. Certainly our level of cooperation may be remote, it is still true that without our votes these evils could not be promoted by civil law.

It would seem based on this then that the Catholic position is that we should be single issue voters. The response to this is rather nuanced so that an example should make the distinction clear.

Suppose I take you in my time machine parked outside to Berlin in 1932 and ask you to cast a vote for or against Hitler. How would you vote and why?

Despite all the robust economic policies that brought Germany out of the ashes of World War I and the restoration of German military might, you would hopefully vote no. Why? The reason is simple—no matter how much good he may do in those other realms you would not vote for him because his platform advocated mass murder of innocent people. This means a single issue would cause you to withhold your vote.

It is the same with us today. We should not vote for a particular candidate based on their stance on a single issue, but their stance could be a reason to disqualify a candidate from consideration. Even if a candidate is pro-life for example, this does not mean that we should vote for them. That just means they can be in the running. We must then also look at his other policies and see how they promote and protect the common good. In this way we are not single issue voters.

This principle is summarized well in a document that then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that deals with when Catholics may receive Communion:

“Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia”

What about voting for candidates that may be in favor of one of these non-negotiables but whose office has no effect on policies related to these non-negotiables? Even though these issues may seem tangential, they are still important indicators. The first virtue we should look for in a candidate for any office is prudence. A person who cannot identify something that is intrinsically evil shows a lack of prudence. Secondly, these offices are often stepping-stones into higher and more influential offices. It is better to stop their ambitions before they get any steam going.

An informed conscience is an uncompromising conscience. All too often someone will say something like “since there is no hope of overturning Roe v Wade we should not even worry about whether someone is pro-choice or pro-life but instead focus on the candidate whose social programs will also reduce the number of abortions.” This position however amounts to a compromise with evil and in fact is untenable upon closer inspection.

Pope John Paul II spoke of what he termed the “art of the possible” in Evangelium Vitae. He said that in some societies it may not be possible to completely overturn laws that support intrinsic evils such as abortion in one fell swoop. Instead we might need to enact legislation in pieces that seek to limit the number of abortions while moving the social consciousness towards laws that abolish it altogether. This sounds similar to the position of “social programs to reduce abortions” with an important exception. The legislation that the Holy Father speaks of must have the intention of reducing the number of abortions and not just as a mere side effect. Social programs that may reduce poverty may also have the side effect of reducing the number of abortions, but that is only accidental, especially when the overall policy is to promote and even provide them.

An uncompromising conscience is one in which the Catholic will call an evil for what it is and not simply attempt to make the evil “safe and legal.” Still an uncompromising conscience may have recourse to the “art of the possible” and fight intrinsic evils piecemeal if necessary.

During the Vice Presidential debate in 2012, Congressman Ryan gave us an example of how an uncompromising conscience uses “the art of the possible.” He was even criticized for it—but he has been very clear from the outset that abortion is always gravely evil. Still he was part of a ticket which would not make the so-called abortion “hard cases”—rape and incest—illegal. This is not because he was capitulating but because he recognizes that making abortion illegal in 99.9% of the cases will not only significantly reduce the number of abortions but lead to a greater awareness that abortion is always wrong even in the cases where the mother was a victim of a violent crime.

There are many who will argue that the best approach when confronted with two candidates, both of whom support an intrinsic evil, is to refrain from voting at all. This ignores the fact however that one of those candidates will in fact win the election. One should vote then consistent with their judgment as to which candidate will do the least amount of moral harm.

Imagine if you can, an America in which the nearly 70 million Catholics voted as a single block. Imagine how far candidates would be willing to go to cater to 22% of the voters. This is why we must understand these principles and be able to clearly articulate them and present them to our friends. It starts now, not in October and November when everyone has made up their minds. St. Thomas More, pray for us!

Religious Liberty and the Common Good

April 15, 2016Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Politicstwowingstogod@gmail.com

One of the treasures of Catholic Social Doctrine is its emphasis on the common good. Discourse centering on the common good offers a counterbalance to “rights talk” that dominates cultural discourse today. For many however, the notion of the common good remains vague and therefore misunderstood. In its broadest sense the common good is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily” (The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 164). The Catechism of the Catholic Church points to three elements of the common good which help to illuminate the twofold focus in the definition that is placed on both the individual and the community. The common good, first and foremost, must recognize the dignity of the person. This means creating societal “conditions for the exercise of the natural freedoms indispensable for the development of the human vocation, such as “the right to act according to a sound norm of conscience and to safeguard. . . privacy, and rightful freedom also in matters of religion” (CCC 1907). Second, the common good requires “the social well-being and development of the group itself” (CCC 1908). However, this must never be done at the expense of the dignity of the person. Finally, the common good requires an atmosphere of peace founded upon a just order in which the mutual fulfillment of members may occur (CCC 1909).

Despite its inherent richness and relative simplicity, the notion of the common good is rarely referenced in civil discourse. This is because of some underlying assumptions about man and society cause some grave misunderstandings.

Much of western political thought is built upon the assumption that man is not by nature a social being but instead enters into a social contract in order to have his needs met. This is contrary to not only the classical understanding of man but also the Christian understanding of man-made in the image and likeness of God, Who is a society unto Himself. The rugged individualist understanding of man reduces the common good to simply the sum of individual goods. What emerges is a sort of utilitarian understanding of the common good as the “great good for the greatest number.” Goods however, if they are truly common goods, ought to flow back over the individual. Two important points follow from this.

First, civil life is an ultimate end, but an ultimate end in a relative sense to the transcendent good of man. Second, because each man shares in the common good it is superior to individual goods. Specifically one might have to forego an individual good for the sake of the higher, common good.

A materialist understanding of man also leads to errors in applying the notion of the common good. It leads to two equally dangerous errors. First, if all that exists is material then there can truly be no common good. Life becomes a zero sum game in which everyone is clamoring for his piece of the pie. Although the common good ought to lead to individual fulfillment, this fulfillment is not merely on a material level. Seeking the common good is not just about a flourishing economy, protection of rights, etc. but requires special attention to truth, justice, love, virtue and duty in the social order.

Second, it can lead to the view that the whole of society is simply a biological organism and the individual is a cell within that organism. The common good becomes something like a public good that bees enjoy with a good functioning hive. But the common good common good is one that is both received and communicated in the person. A communicable good would be one that enables the individual to perfect his life and liberty.

The Catechism (1908) suggests there is an intrinsic link between the common good and religious liberty. Given the gross misunderstandings that plague our society regarding religious freedom, it might be helpful to apply the concept of the common good to the question of religious liberty. In particular there should be a special emphasis on the principle that one might have to forego an individual good for the sake of the higher, common good. For the sake of the common good, each person must forego the good of not being annoyed, inconvenienced or even persuaded about certain truth claims by religious believers and the manner in which they discharge their beliefs . Even those they deem false or even find ridiculous. Out of respect for their own religious liberty they should be free from coercion and from any other behavior in which religious freedom has been coopted to threaten the common good.

Religious practice is a true human good that is common to all mankind and therefore is part of the common good. One must never lose sight of this truth—that religion is ordered to the transcendent nature of man. There is a danger when speaking of the common good to think only in terms of the temporal common good and not the common good of whole man who is a person on pilgrimage to God. One must protect religion from being viewed as “basically just instruments for advocating freedom, peace, and the conservation of creation, so that they would have to justify their existence through political success and political goals” (Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth).

Despite this, religion can still contribute positively to the common weal. Everyone is familiar with the works of charity that are done by religious groups who are animated by their religious beliefs but there are some other not so obvious contributions that religion makes to the common good that need to be examined.

There are some very specific ways in which religion contributes to the common good in a democratic republic such as we have in the United States. Because democracy requires virtuous citizenry in order to survive, it requires something from the moral order that transcends itself. That is why John Adams said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Christianity in particular contributes to the common good as well because of what Jacques Maritain termed “hidden work” of the evangelical inspiration on the secular conscience. In particular the three main philosophical principles underlying a democracy are promulgated by the Christian faith; the equality of all mankind, the principle that although man is a part of the State, he also transcends the State and because authority itself comes from God and man is free it is only with the consent of the governed that one can rule over another.

Tocqueville thought the role of religion in the United States was one of the great checks against tyranny. He thought that “among the various sects of Christians, Catholicism seems… to be one of the most favorable to equality of condition among men” (Democracy in America, Volume I, Chapter 17). Pope Benedict saw that the Church also contributes to the common good by “contributing to the purification of reason” especially when it comes to who man is and what is his just due. In the words of the Pope Emeritus, “the whole Church, in all her being and acting — when she proclaims, when she celebrates, when she performs works of charity — is engaged in promoting integral human development” (Caritas in Veritate, 11).

If history is to teach us anything it is that the attacks against religious freedom will only get worse and not better. Perhaps the only way to stem the tide is to keep its connection to the common good always in the forefront of civil discourse.

Death to Capital Punishment?

August 28, 2015Catholic Social Teaching, Church and Statetwowingstogod@gmail.com

Earlier this year in an address to the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, Pope Francis told the Commission that, “[T]oday capital punishment is unacceptable, however serious the condemned’s crime may have been.” He went on to quote Dostoyevsky who said that , “[T]o kill a murderer is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by a criminal.” The Pope added by way of comment that “[J]ustice is never reached by killing a human being.” Given Dostoyevsky’s last second commutation of a death sentence by Czar Nicholas I, his position is not surprising. What is surprising is that the Holy Father appears to be equating all capital punishment with state-sanctioned murder. If this is true then capital punishment would represent an intrinsic evil that could never be used by the State. If that is in fact what he was saying then this would represent a significant change in the Church’s Tradition with respect to the death penalty. Little wonder then why his recent episcopal appointment in Chicago, Archbishop Cupich, deemed abortion and capital punishment morally equivalent in an Op-ed piece for the Chicago Tribune. As with many things the Holy Father has said, we need to examine the context in order to avoid any confusion. Once we do this a certain amount of clarity emerges.

To begin, it is important to mention the magisterial “weight” that applies to an address made by the Pope. In general, the Pope as the Universal Teacher has a unique charism related to teaching on faith and moral. His office affords him an abundance of the gift of prophecy and so we ought to take everything he says very seriously. But this does not mean that everything that comes out of his mouth is a reflection of this gift or that it is correct, especially when it is counter to the Ordinary Magisterial teaching of the Church (which we call Tradition—more on this in a moment). The audience he is addressing also matters. In this case if he was attempting to further refine Tradition he would be addressing the entire Church and not simply the Commission Against the Death Penalty. In short, while these addresses can help us see the direction the Holy Father is looking to take his teachings in a particular area, this does not mean that we need hold them as binding, especially when they constitute extended development of doctrine.

Francis concedes that “[I]n certain circumstances, when hostilities are underway, a measured reaction is necessary in order to prevent the aggressor from causing harm, and the need to neutralize the aggressor may result in his elimination; it is a case of legitimate defense (cf.Evangelium Vitae, n. 55),” but then says that “when the death penalty is applied, people are killed not for current acts of aggression, but for offences committed in the past. Moreover, it is applied to people whose capacity to cause harm is not current, but has already been neutralized, and who are deprived of their freedom.”

In citing John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, he is re-affirming what the former Holy Father said regarding seeing the Death Penalty as a legitimate form of self-defense applied by the State. He says that at times it is necessary to “render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason.” (EV, 55). Furthermore, the Saintly Pontiff says the State “ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (EV, 56). He then goes on to conclude the section on the death penalty by saying that “[I]n any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: ‘If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person’(CCC 2267)” (EV, 56).

Summarizing then the Holy Father’s position in Evangelium Vitae (later adopted by the Catechism) we would say that when the State cannot reasonably neutralize the threat that a violent offender poses to society as a whole, then they may execute a prisoner. Given the current security of most penal systems, it is rare that someone still poses a threat to society. The emphasis is on the word rare which means that in principle, the death penalty may be used.

Returning now to Francis’ statement, he seems to be removing the exception clause that John Paul II included in his discussion. He says that when the death penalty is applied, “people are killed not for current acts of aggression, but for offences committed in the past. Moreover, it is applied to people whose capacity to cause harm is not current, but has already been neutralized, and who are deprived of their freedom.” The Church has always taught that the Death Penalty may be used as a licit means of punishment by the State and then left it up to the State to decide when it is to be used(more on this another time). I think the Holy Father is greatly misunderstanding both the current situation and the reason why the death penality is a morally licit option when employed justly by the State to begin with.

What Pope Francis is advocating is an unqualified abolition of the death penalty. The Church is very far from supporting that and quite frankly will never do so. Assuming we are not operating under a totalitarian regime and the State justly tries the condemned, the justification for the death penalty is one, primarily based on punishment and, only secondarily, on self-defense. Certainly if the threat of a given offender can be fully neutralized then one may prudentially decide not to employ the death penalty. But there are many cases in which (even today) where even the latter is not the case. Prisoners can still have access to the outside world and still harm society through others. Think of the recent prison escape in Mexico. A drug kingpin escaped from Mexico’s most secure prison in July and now represents a great threat to society. He had already escaped in 2001 and resumed his activity. One would be hard-pressed to argue that the death penalty should not have been used. How many people did he order to be killed while in prison and how many will die while he is out?

Second, you cannot speak of the dignity of the convicted murderer without also speaking of the dignity of the other convicts imprisoned with them. Do they have right to a safe environment that does not include other violent offenders who are likely to kill again? In the United States there is a relatively high incidence of “lifers” who kill in prison because there is no fear of punishment (because there is none). They may also attempt to make a name for themselves by attacking unarmed prison employees.

Pope Francis also mentions an often used Christian argument against the Death penalty namely, “[W]ith the application of capital punishment, the person sentenced is denied the possibility…of contrition, the means of repentance and atonement…” This argument could go either way. There is nothing like staring your own mortality in the face to trigger conversion. To know your time of death can also be a great grace because it brings clarity that might not have otherwise been available for someone in a prison environment. For those of us who have done prison ministry in Maximum Security Prisons and know that it is quite possibly the closest place to hell on earth, we all wonder what kind of people that environment might turn us into. Again, I am not saying this is an argument for the Death penalty, only that to say they are denied the possibility of conversion is to somehow pigeon hole God’s grace to some sort of slow evolutionary standard.

The reason why the death penalty is applied, even if only in rare cases, is because of the great dignity of the human person (c.f. Gen 9:6). Not because it does or does not give them time for conversion. St Thomas thought this argument frivolous asking how many innocent people should have to suffer death while waiting for the guilty to repent. He thought you could never justify the death penalty as an act of personal or political vengeance but it could be applied as an act of justice.

Finally, violent offenders may never actually kill again, but they can find “trigger” men to do it for them. This is especially the case with radical Islam. The number of Islamic converts in the prison system is greatly on the rise and upon release many men become “radicalized.” A recent FBI bulletin warned that “[P]risons literally provide a captive audience of disaffected young men easily influenced by charismatic extremist leaders.” So while these leaders may remain behind bars, their spirit extends outside the prison walls. Can we justly take the Death penalty off the table for terrorists when they may help to form new ones?

To be clear, I am not saying that there are cases (and there will be more of them) where the death penalty is applied unjustly. But this does not mean we should remove it as a form of punishment altogether. Any form of punishment risks being abused or wrongly applied but this does not mean we should cease punishing. The point is that we must work to apply the Death penalty only when absolutely necessary and to take extra precautions to make sure no mistakes are made (this is why biblically speaking 3 witnesses were needed before the Death penalty was applied).

Seize the Moment

August 26, 2015Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Contraceptiontwowingstogod@gmail.com

Pope John Paul II often said that when it comes to her moral teachings, the Catholic “Church proposes: she imposes nothing.” One of the things that he meant by this was that the Church has a complete respect for human freedom in choosing to follow her teachings or not. However the American Church has often shown too much respect for this freedom to the point of not actually proposing the saving truths of the faith. This has led to a culture in which the teachings have been severed from the Church’s pastoral practice. This has become very obvious in the past few years in the Church’s fight against the Obama Administration’s HHS mandate on contraception. The American Bishops now find themselves not only opposed by the unjust HHS mandate, but also an overwhelming majority of those who profess to be Catholic. Although this has placed the Bishops’ Conference on the defensive, the situation presented a tremendous opportunity to go on the offensive and to present the reasonableness of the Church’s teachings to an attentive public. Much of the damage that was done to the Church since 1968 could be undone if this opportunity is seized. The crisis that had been created by the HHS mandate has brought to the forefront two important areas of Catholic teachings that have been ignored. They have been ignored not so much because no one believes them but because no one actually teaches them. The first is not so obvious, while the second is more obvious.

The Forgotten Principle

For many Catholics, Social Justice is a rallying point. However, most would be hard pressed to name the four principles which “constitute the very heart of Catholic social teaching.” They may be able to name three of them—the dignity of the human person, the common good, and solidarity—but would be at a loss to come up with the fourth, subsidiarity.

The Catechism defines subsidiarity as the principle by which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.” It serves as a guard against collectivism by setting limits on state intervention. It is certainly the case that government has many necessary and indispensable functions to play roles that cannot be accomplished by individuals acting alone or even by smaller groups in society. Nevertheless, governments often exceed their legitimate role by absorbing individuals and groups in society in order to control them. This leads to what John Paul II referred to in Centesimus Annus as “a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.”

Because of man’s social nature and his vocation to holiness, he needs moral space within society to “to work out his salvation in fear and trembling.” Part of respecting the dignity of the human person means respecting this moral space by allowing men to perform those duties themselves that help them grow in virtue. For example, a man who works to provide for his family is given the opportunity to grow in virtue (thereby increasing his dignity) while the man who receives government subsidies for an indeterminate period of time does not. Pius XI had this in mind when he introduced the principle of subsidiarity into the corpus of Catholic Social Teaching in Quadragesimo Anno. He summarized it as:

“Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them. The supreme authority of the State ought, therefore, to let subordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, which would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly. Thereby the State will more freely, powerfully, and effectively do all those things that belong to it alone because it alone can do them: directing, watching, urging, restraining, as occasion requires and necessity demands.” (Quadragesimo Anno, 79-80)

Because subsidiarity guards against collectivist tendencies, it is an important principle to emphasize in a time when there appears to be a trend towards a more Socialistic state. However this principle is rarely ever taught or emphasized. While individual bishops often appeal to the principle of subsidiarity, the Bishops’ Conference as a whole rarely makes reference to it. In fact it is not even listed as one of the “Themes of Catholic Teaching” on the Justice, Peace and Development section of the USCCB’s website. Had a greater emphasis been placed on this principle, we may not have seen the initial widespread support by the Bishops of President Obama’s Health Care Plan of which the HHS mandate is an offshoot.

There is a more subtle danger however that is in play here as well. When the principle of subsidiarity is ignored, the people slowly grow accustomed to surrendering exercise of their free will. They become so dependent upon the Centralized State that even when they are called upon to exercise their free choice, they no longer have the desire or the even the ability. In this case, many people simply don’t care about the larger implications of the mandate’s attack on freedom of conscience and religious liberty.

While the Church is garnering so much attention, this is an excellent time to emphasize this principle once again. Because the Church is viewed as “out of touch” by many, emphasis upon this very practical principle may help to open many Americans’ eyes to see the Church as a source of great wisdom in other areas too.

A Hidden Danger Reveals the Truth We Are Hiding

As the Church combats the mandate, much of the emphasis has been placed upon the assault on conscience and religious freedom. While this may present a clearer legal path clearer legal path to fight it in the Court there needs to be a second point of emphasis.

To say that we are opposed to the mandate because it violates our conscience is not the whole story. To only label it as against a Catholic conscience is to imply that it is only wrong because it violates our conscience. One quickly concludes if they do not feel it violates their conscience then it is not wrong for them. This is why the overwhelming majority of Catholics do not care about this issue. The fact is that the Church is not opposed to the mandate primarily because it represents a violation of our conscience, but because it is intrinsically wrong. And because it is wrong, it violates our conscience. This is a very important distinction that needs to be emphasized in a time when we hear so much about the “primacy of conscience.”

Likewise it may be politically expedient to emphasize the HHS mandate as an attack on religious liberty, but this can also serve to confuse. First of all, religious liberty only extends to the point where public safety is threatened. Once it goes beyond this point, the government, as protector of the common good, must intervene. If contraception is merely a matter of Catholic dogma then the government can argue that the Church is a threat to the common good by withholding the so called “benefits” of contraception. In truth however, the Church’s teaching on contraception should not be viewed as a religious belief in the sense that it belongs to divine revelation, but as one that is rooted in human nature itself.

That is why the Church must seize the opportunity to present her teachings on the reasons why contraception represents a grave evil. Contraception is wrong not primarily because the Church says so, but because we can use human reason to come to this conclusion. Rather than present the issue as something unique to Catholics, we must be able to put forth anew the natural law arguments for the intrinsic evil of contraception. Despite the fact that moral relativism appears to have won the day, as Americans there is still an awareness that there are certain self-evident truths about man that bind our country together. Therefore natural law language resonates in our hearts even if we cannot articulate what the natural law is.

The Natural Law tradition is based on the idea that using our reason we can look to human nature to decide what is intrinsically good for us. Anything that we do to harm one of these intrinsic goods would be morally wrong. This is because it thwarts true human thriving and thus ultimately harmful to us. One of these intrinsic goods is marriage and procreation. Natural law tells us that contraception, because it directly harms the good of marriage and procreation, is wrong. Contraception does not merely stop procreation from happening, but because the procreative power is the only thing that unites the spouses as one physical organism, it harms the conjugal meaning as well. It should be emphasized repeatedly that this argument does not directly invoke God directly (even though as the author of the Natural Law He remains hidden so to speak) or the authority of the Church. The Church is simply passing on the wisdom attached to the Natural Law tradition faithfully.

For our fellow Christians who have been duped into believing that contraception represents a great good one can also look to Divine Revelation to illumine Natural Law. This remains an important function of the Church. In so doing we find that marriage is to be analogous to the relationship of Christ with His Church. This is a relationship that is based on Christ’s free, total and faithful gift of Himself. Once again we find that contraception distorts this analogy because the gift of the spouses to each other in the marital embrace is no longer total.

Conclusion

Pope Benedict often said that a misunderstanding of the meaning of pastoral has done untold damage to the Church. The “pastoral approach” does not mean that you in any way adjust the truth to a person’s life so as to “meet them where they’re at.” Instead, to be pastoral means to present the truth and then help the person adjust their lives to it. This approach still means meeting the other where they are, but it means picking up the burden of helping God move them into the light of the truth. We are now reaping the fruits of the first approach and the only way out is to adopt the second. This means we must embrace this opportunity while we have everyone’s attention and trust the saving power of the truth. After all the Truth is not merely a set of ideas, but a divine Person.

The Church and the Lodge

August 19, 2015Church and State, New Age, Politicstwowingstogod@gmail.com

With all of the tenacity of Sherman’s March to the Sea, all traces of the Confederacy in the United States are being wiped out. Flags are being removed from state capitol buildings, statues are being torn down and there has even been a call to rename the Dixie Classic Fair. There is however one confederate monument that will survive the scorched earth policy. In Judiciary Square in our nation’s capital sits a Statue of Albert Pike. Pike is the only Confederate military officer or figure to be honored with a statue in Washington, D.C. What makes this statue virtually untouchable? Mr. Pike was also the most influential Freemason of his time, if not in the history of the United States. To remove the statue would be to raise the ire of the Masons, who prowl about like lions ready to devour our country.

President Roosevelt was an ardent Mason and one can easily surmise that he attempted some court-packing beginning in 1937. Between him and President Truman (also a Mason) ten Masons were appointed between 1937-1949 (you can see a list of other famous Freemasons here). What this led to was a mere figure of speech by Thomas Jefferson, namely “a wall of separation between Church and State,” becoming enshrined as law. Prior to the 1947 Everson decision there is absolutely no precedent suggesting that the Constitution ought to be interpreted as espousing a “wall” separating Church and State. Thanks to stare decisis (which holds that a principle of law is established by the one judicial decision) and Masonic domination of the Supreme Court from 1937-1971 that allowed this decision and many others traditional Judeo-Christian values were permanently removed. This is why Pope Leo XII in his encyclical On Freemasonry cautioned that the Masons “ultimate purpose forces itself in view—namely, the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world that Christian teaching has produced.” It is also one of the reasons why the Church has always forbade the Faithful to be members of the Masonic Lodge.

For a great number of Catholics the fact that they cannot both be Masons and a Catholic is a surprise, but it is the constant teaching of the Church. In the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 2335), Catholics who enjoyed membership in a Masonic organization or any other similar group that plotted against the Church or civil authority incurred the penalty of excommunication. Unfortunately this wording only led to confusion since there is no single governing body for Masons throughout the world and many lodges were not actively engaged in plotting against the Church and civil authority. Pastorally many interpreted this to mean that they could join certain lodges. Some even received ecclesial approval from their local bishop to do so. When the 1983 code of Canon Law was promulgated it only added to the confusion by not mentioning Freemasonry at all, saying “[A] person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; however, a person who promotes or directs an association of this kind is to be punished with an interdict” (CCL, 1374). It seemed as if the prohibition against Freemasonry had been lifted.

In order to avoid any further confusion, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) issued its Declaration on Masonic Associations, shortly after the release of the new Canon Law. He removed any ambiguity by issuing a four-point declaration. First he declared that Canon 1374 has the same essential import as old Canon 2334. The fact that the term “Masonic sect” was not mentioned is irrelevant. Second, the canonical penalties are in no way abrogated because the Church’s negative judgment against Masonry is based on the fact that their principles are irreconcilable with Church teaching. The main problem is not that Masons conspire against the Church (this is secondary) but the content of its teachings (of which the conspiring is its fruit).

Third, Catholics who join are in grave sin and may not receive Communion. Finally to avoid any confusion with individual priests and bishops saying it is okay, he said that no local authority has competence to derogate from these judgments.

It is easy to overlook just how irregular the third point is. “[T]he faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.” Normally the Church will speak of an action being objectively grave matter and leave the question of subjective guilt (e.g. “in a state of grave sin”) to the individual and his confessor. However what he is saying is that this is so grievous an act and the teachings of the Craft so contrary to all that is Christian, that the person who joins a Lodge is immediately guilty of a grave offense.

If you were to ask most Masons, they would describe Freemasonry as a fraternal organization. They would deny that it has any religious content or teaches a belief system. Their only requirement is each member believe in God in order to join. They would cite all of the great good they do in society, especially towards sick children (the Shriners are Masonic organization). The general public also would be perplexed as to why if animated by a Post-Vatican II ecumenical spirit, the Church would persist in condemning such an organization.

To begin, it is disingenuous at best to say that Freemasonry is not a religion. The letter “G” in its symbol stands for “Geometry” as the gateway to the “Grand Architect of the Universe” or “whatever your name for the Supreme Being is.” But this is not the only religious reference found in Freemasonry. In fact many of its rites are perversions of the sacraments (i.e. “sacrileges). They have a “baptismal” rite by which a father renews his promises and promises that the child will be under the protection of the lodge. Likewise they mimic the Eucharist in a Holy Thursday “liturgy” in which they never mention Jesus by name and candles being snuffed out one by one (the last one representing Jesus) in a form of black mass.

The “Grand Commander,” Albert Pike wrote Morals and Dogma as a compilation of the teachings of Freemasonry that are necessary for the initiation to higher degrees of membership in the Lodge. In many ways it serves as a “catechism” of freemasonry. Pike himself says that the Craft is “[E]very Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion” (p.213). In a somewhat schizophrenic manner he earlier claimed that “Masonry is not a religion. He who makes of it a religious belief, falsifies and denaturalizes it. The Brahmin, the Jew, the Mahometan, the Catholic, the Protestant, each professing his peculiar religion, sanctioned by the laws, by time, and by climate, must needs retain it, and cannot have two religions; for the social and sacred laws adapted to the usages, manners, and prejudices of particular countries, are the work of men. But Masonry teaches, and has preserved in their purity, the cardinal tenets of the old primitive faith, which underlie and are the foundation of all religions.” (p.161)

The point is that they avoid the claim to be a religion by portending to be the foundation of all religions upon which the man is to build his personal creed. As foundation, it is of course superior to all others. Some of the basic Freemason religious doctrines include that religion can hope to attract the masses only by deliberately teaching error, God deliberately leads most people away from the truth, Christ is not divine and Satan is not evil.

Pope Leo XIII labeled the masonic teachings under the religion of naturalism. Naturalism denies “any dogma of religion or truth which cannot be understood by human intelligence.” It is appealing to Christians because it uses Christian terminology. There is no need for divine revelation because all can be known through human reason. In fact even if there was divine revelation it could not be put into words much less into hard and fast dogma. Masonry as a “religion of reason” is clearly antithetical to Catholicism as a revealed religion. The symbol of the cornerstone is meant to convey that Masons have within them the “sure foundation of eternal life.” This means they have no need for Christ or the Church. In essence they have made an idol out of reason and set it up as their god.

Not only is Freemasonry a violation of the First Commandment, but it is also a violation of the Second as well. As the member grows in the degrees of Freemasonry, he takes numerous oaths at each stage. These oaths are gravely harmful because they call upon God to witness against Himself as He as revealed Himself through the Church or He is being called to witness to a farce (at best). It is not so much the secret nature of these oaths (with the internet and some strategic googling it is hardly a secret anymore) but the oaths that is the problem.

One may be tempted to merely agree that Christians should not be Masons, but in and of themselves Masons are harmless. Leo XIII reminds us that much of the work of the Masons remains veiled. He cautions that although the City of God and the City of Man have been at all times at war with each other “although not always with equal ardor and assault…the partisans of evil seem to be combining together…led on or assisted by …Freemasons.” In a prophetic manner, Leo XIII summarized their teachings as:

They attempt to teach a “civil” morality
They reject doctrine of Original Sin and fail to see man as more disposed to vice as to virtue
With respect to marriage it is a commercial contract that can be rightly revoked by the will of those who made it and the State has power over the matrimonial bond
Youth should not be taught religion but follow what they want when they come of age
They teach the heresy of indifferentism (the belief that all religions are the same)

Who could dispute that the Masonic influence is felt greatly today in this summary of American religious convictions? In an age of Co-existence, the Church and the Lodge remain at irreconcilable odds.

Removing the Liberal/Conservative Filter

August 12, 2015Abortion, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Culture of Life, Politicstwowingstogod@gmail.com

When he called the Second Vatican Council, Blessed John XXIII hoped that one of the fruits of the Council would be “to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in.” While he envisioned a gentle, refreshing breeze, what resulted instead was a hurricane. When the dust finally settled, the storm which became known as the “Spirit of Vatican II,” left in its wake the world’s debris obscuring much of the Church’s divine deposit. Catchphrases emerged which acted as substitutes for actual understanding of the sacred treasury and have served as great threats to the unity of the Church. “Ecumenism” became synonymous with religious syncretism, “full, active participation” opened the door to liturgical innovation, and the “primacy of conscience” was invoked to justify a “right to dissent.” One in particular bears specific mention and investigation: what George Weigel calls the “liberal/conservative filter.” There are innumerable ways in which this filter creates division, but one common theme is the divide between the so-called “Social Justice Catholics” and the “Pro-life Catholics.” Rather than creating straw men that demonize one side or the other, it will be shown that both are animated by the same fundamental errors.

The Liberal/Conservative Filter

After 200 years living under western liberalism, we are all liberals. The question only becomes whether one is a liberal liberal or a conservative liberal. Thoroughly swimming in liberal democracy, we tend to view everything through that lens. We all believe that individual freedoms trump the interests of the community. When confronted moral questions, we believe that they cannot be settled objectively but instead are left up to individual choice.

It is perhaps easy to see how a so-called liberal Catholic might believe this, but is this really a fair criticism of a “conservative” Catholic who is faithful to the Magisterium? Those who label themselves as conservative tend to believe that they must surrender their freedom and simply obey. This leads to a moral minimalism which asks “how far can I go until this is considered sinful?” Freedom and genuine authority ought to go hand in hand so that what is proposed by that authority is not done so by external fiat but as a means of man finding those internal values which are true to his nature. This is why the Church views her role not as law-maker but instead as being at “the service of conscience, helping it to avoid being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine proposed by human deceit, and helping it not to swerve from the truth about the good of man, but rather, especially in more difficult questions, to attain the truth with certainty and to abide in it”(Veritatis Splendor, 64). She does not impose from the outside the truths regarding the proper use of our nature, but instead proposes those truths to man’s reason so that he may make recognize them as true internal values.

The point is that freedom is first and foremost a theological issue and only secondarily a political one. This is the point that the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council made when they said that “[A]uthentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man.” (Gaudium et Spes, 17). Therefore the distinction between liberal and conservative Catholics has no place in the Church. If a distinction needs to be made it should be the classical distinction between orthodox and heterodox. One either believes that the Church is truly an “expert in humanity” because of her divine origins and proposes authentically true human goods or she does not.

Pulling the Thread of the Seamless Garment

In the 1980’s Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago used image of the seamless garment of Jesus for which the soldiers drew lots to portray a “consistent ethic of life” that “argues for a continuum of life which must be sustained in the face of diverse and distinct threats.” This “seamless garment” implied opposition to abortion and to capital punishment; opposition to the threat of using nuclear arms and the support of a vast social welfare state as means to a preferential option for the poor. This approach was to be tempered by the fact that a “consistent ethic does not say everyone in the Church must do all things, but it does say that as individuals and groups pursue one issue, whether it is opposing abortion or capital punishment, the way we oppose one threat should be related to support for a systemic vision of life.”

This approach to social issues has done profound damage and it is time that we deconstruct the seamless garment. This “consistent ethic of life” equivocates on the term “life.” When a Christian uses the term life he does not refer to life merely as the corporal existence prior to death. But the seamless garment approach does. Instead the Christian means something more, something that Blessed John Paul II captures well at the opening of Evangelium Vitae. The Holy Father emphasizes that when we use the term life we are referring to that

“which far exceeds the dimensions of man’s earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase. Life in time, in fact, is the fundamental condition, the initial stage and an integral part of the entire unified process of human existence. It is a process which, unexpectedly and undeservedly, is enlightened by the promise and renewed by the gift of divine life, which will reach its full realization in eternity (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2). At the same time, it is precisely this supernatural calling which highlights the relative character of each individual’s earthly life. After all, life on earth is not an “ultimate” but a “penultimate” reality; even so, it remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters.”

Practically speaking what this means is that when we seek to protect and promote the sacredness of life in opposing something such as abortion, we not only care about the child in the womb, but also the eternal destiny of his mother, the abortionist, and even the annoying “escorts” whose sole job it appears is to mock those praying outside the abortion clinic. It is an acknowledgement that the child is not the only one who “dies” by abortion and in fact might be the one who is in the least danger of dying an eternal death.

On the other hand, the culture of death is often defined by its fruits in society such as abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, and genocide. But even if these things were outlawed tomorrow the culture of death would still go on. That is because at the heart of the culture of death is the fact that it is designed to lead to spiritual death.

Those who are Pro-Life must also avoid defining themselves as being in opposition to abortion, or euthanasia, etc. Following the lead of John Paul II they must define themselves in a positive manner as having “respect for nature and protection of God’s work of creation. In a special way, it means respect for human life from the first moment of conception until its natural end” (Closing Address World Youth Day 1993).

The “seamless garment” does not make the necessary distinction between evils as well. There are certain acts that are intrinsically evil and cannot be ordered to the good no matter what the intention of the person. Our Lord told us that we will always have the poor with us (Mt 26:11), not as justification to avoid helping the poor, but because like St. Paul found in Thessaloniki, some people refuse to work. Poverty will never be completely eradicated and is not always an intrinsic social evil. To aid us in discerning how these evils present themselves in social life, the Church for her part has listed the so-called five non-negotiables. The first four are related to the protection of life at its most vulnerable stages including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and human cloning and the fifth is support for so called “same-sex marriage.” These are non-negotiable not because we are stubborn but because they are aligned so closely to the true human goods that they can never be ordered to the good.

The Preferential Option for the Poor

Both Pro-Life and Social Justice Catholics also show a profound misunderstanding regarding the Church’s social doctrine. Both view it primarily through economic lenses. The social doctrine of the Church is first and foremost concerned with the dignity of the human person and economic issues only insofar as they affect this dignity.

Evidence of this is found when the Church’s teaching on the “preferential option for the poor” is invoked in defense of actions against life. This misunderstanding is based once again upon the view of man only in his temporal existence. One can read that the “love of preference for the poor, and the decisions which it inspires in us, cannot but embrace the immense multitudes of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without medical care and, above all, those without hope of a better future,” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42) through an economic paradigm and miss the fact that the unborn and those who are dying are crying out the loudest for preferential treatment, especially because they have no voice of their own. It calls for special preference especially in those places where the attacks against their dignity enjoy legal sanction (EV, 11).

If this is true then Pro-Life Catholics cannot treat the preferential option for the poor as a secondary issue as they tend to do. A true consistent ethic of life is one in which the dignity of the human person is protected and promoted. Certainly the defenseless and need special attention, but this does not absolve us from responsibility from advocating for those that live in abject poverty (both physical and spiritual) because there may be some personal culpability on their part.

What exactly is the Magisterium’s role in the misunderstanding? One problem is that Catholic Social Teaching very rarely presents abortion and euthanasia as social justice considerations. Instead they are nearly always presented as bioethical issues. To be clear, what is being said is that abortion and euthanasia do not appear as part of the social Magisterium of the Church, but this does not mean that the Church has been silent on these issues.

In Loss and Gain, Blessed John Henry Newman’s fictional account of the conversion of a man from Anglicanism to the Roman Catholic Church, the protagonist Redding was drawn to the Church by its consistency. He could ask ten Anglican Priests to explain a particular dogma and would get ten different answers. If he posed the same question to ten different Catholic priests he would get the same answer from all of them. Redding would be hard pressed to find this same ecclesial consistency today thanks to the liberal/conservative filter that was carried in by the Spirit of Vatican II. It is time we remove this filter.

Two Wings to God

"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth"Pope St. John Paul II