A recent campaign ad that Democrats have been running shows a Republican congressman interrupting a man in his bedroom watching porn threatening to make it illegal. I would not suggest that you subject yourself to the ad because it is disgusting, but it is at least worth mentioning it because it is a sign of just how decadent our culture has become. The problem isn’t just that the Democrats are unfaltering promoters of perversion, but also the fact that Republicans’ response was a denial that they wanted to restrict access to pornography to adults.
If there is one thing that both sides agree on, it is the fact that tolerance is a positive good rather than a necessary evil. In order to live in society and get along with everyone, we need to tolerate certain things. True enough, provided that it doesn’t become a masquerade for neutrality. And in truth, it has become just that. Some of the more Scholastically minded among us will even say that St Thomas supports this position. It is useful to go directly to the Angelic Doctor to shine some light on the issue of tolerance especially because it touches close to the issue at hand.
St. Thomas on Tolerance
In ST II-II q. 10, a. 11, St Thomas says “…those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii.4): ‘If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.’” His point is that the governing authority will tolerate certain things because outlawing them will create more disorder than the order that will come about by leaving them in place. Citing Augustine’s tract on order, he says that some societies will tolerate prostitutes because it will lead to greater evils than outlawing it altogether.
In his Treatise on Law, Aquinas explains further that “The purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly, but gradually. Wherefore it does not lay upon the multitude of imperfect men the burdens of those who are already virtuous, that they should abstain from all evil. Otherwise these imperfect ones, being unable to bear such precepts, would break out into yet greater evils…” Laws in a certain sense then ought to be catered to the character of the populace and bear a certain proportionality. To demand too high a level of virtue creates a certain impossibility of living up to it and increases criminality.
It would seem then that St. Thomas would look at our sexual libertine culture and advocate for tolerating pornography because outlawing it would go far beyond our collective virtue. The problem with this is that it is only reading half of what he said. You don’t just look at the level of virtue, but also “the greater evils” that will come about when you make demands beyond the average virtue level. It wasn’t too long ago in the “Wild West” that greed, rage and a lust for revenge led to murder rates that were more than twice the most violent cities of today. Does that mean they should not have had laws against murder because it was beyond the virtue of the average person? Because law is an ordinance of reason for the common good of the society, tolerance must always refer back to the common good.
The Primary Question for Tolerance
The question of virtue of the citizenry is secondary. What is primary is enumerating the “greater evils” that are to be brought about by choosing to outlaw a given evil. There are a plethora of evils attached to it: related to the common good there is the harm done to marriage and the family, and the fact that it is linked to sexual aggression . It also constitutes a growing public health crisis because of its addictive nature and its neuroplastic effects on the brain. There is a great paper summarizing all the scientific findings of the damage porn does to society and individuals here. What exactly are the evils that we are avoiding in tolerating it and how do they pass the proportionality test?
Tolerating evil never works for very long. Social evils always move from tolerance to acceptance to promotion. It is far easier to head it off while it is in the tolerance stage than to wait until it gets to the later stages. God has baked this principle into our social reality so that we must make a stand on our convictions. That is why tolerance, according to Chesteron, “ is the virtue of the man without convictions.” If we are convicted that pornography is wrong, then we cannot merely tolerate it but must take a stand both personally and politically. Abusing the principles of St Thomas will only lead to more self-abuse. We must lobby to outlaw it.
In his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper comments that the battle against sophistry is a perennial problem. Satan’s primordial sophistry escaped the gates of Eden and has plagued mankind ever since. Progress, especially when it is not matched by moral progress, only causes sophistry to grow. Sophistication, Pieper says, usually entails greater degrees of sophistry. What the sophist seeks to do is to shut down all pursuit of the truth by playing with words, usually by inventing catch-phrases that slide off a forked tongue and convey some half-truth that is cleverly dressed up as the whole truth. It is most certainly an abuse of language; for the proper use of language is to convey ideas and tell the truth. But sophistry uses language in order to manipulate people.
The Sophistry of Today
The problem of sophistry in our own age is particularly acute. You might say that we are living under the tyranny of sophistry in which any objection to a sophist shibboleth is met by stupefied hostility. “Pro-choice”: how could you not be in favor of a woman’s right to choose? “Black lives matter”: so, you think Black lives don’t matter? The objection is not with the half-truth, but with the half-falsehood that is dressed up by the slogan. In other words, the objection is with the sophistry that manipulates language to hide what is really going on.
In general, we should all be pro-choice, but in particular it totally depends on what the object of choice is. If you are choosing to kill an innocent baby, then no, in fact we should not “Pro-choice”. Of course, Black lives matter. But what the honest person objects to is dressing up the Marxist aims of the further destruction of Black lives and society as a whole in this truth. It is sophistry plain and simple. And anyone who insists otherwise is a language tyrant.
Following the Science
There is a new slogan that is being peddled by the tyrant—“follow the science”. Science is a great weapon in the hand of the sophisticated tyrant because it can be made to say anything you want it to say. It is presented as somehow being about objective truth gathered by running controlled experiments in an unbiased setting. The method may be reliable, but the scientist himself is a fallen human being. He is prone to biases, lapses in attention, ignorance, faulty design and even outright lying. It does not help that his so-called peers who review his work also suffer from the same inherent problems. It is also not immune to the “Cancel Culture” with many scientists handcuffed by a cultural confirmation bias. All of this leads to what scientist Stuart Ritchie in his book Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth calls a “replication crisis” in modern science. Experiments are run all the time. But the true test is when an experiment is replicated. Almost none of the so-called “science” has been replicated and very often is exposed as flawed when honest scientists attempt to do so. Like Ritchie we should not be anti-science but instead to use it in a manner that discovers the truth without succumbing to the sophist’s tactic of inventing it.
As I said, science is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the sophisticated tyrant because it can be used to say whatever they want it to say. Herein lies the half-falsehood found within “following the science”. Science itself can never lead to certainty. To assert otherwise is to turn science into a religion that must be governed by faith. “Follow the science” is a credal statement.
Why is it that science can never lead to certainty? In short, science, because it deals in material being, always deals with contingencies and therefore only leads to contingent truth. The truth of what is being asserted always depends on certain conditions also being true. The point is that when “Science” is presented as certain, without any discussion upon the conditions in which the thing also depends, it is a manipulation.
Take, for example, the contention that “masks work”. This is most certainly not an absolute. What are the conditions under which they work? To mandate mask wearing without any reference to the conditions under which they work, is not about safety but control. If you want to keep people safe, then you will school them in the art of wearing the mask. If you want to control them then any mask will do. Likewise, the push for vaccination. What are the conditions under which the vaccines “work”? What are the conditions under which they don’t, or might even be harmful? Are we to believe that a vaccine was developed at warp speed that covers every contingency? To say they are “safe and effective” without observing a multitude of contingencies is not science but scientism. To even mention those contingencies is sacrosanct and will likely get you censored.
Science can say whatever I want it to say simply by playing with those contingencies. I simply design my experiment so that it leads to a positive result. Then I get peers to agree with the way it was run—never mind that these peers also have a vested interest in toeing the party line. If it leads to a negative result anyway, I simply put it in the file cabinet. Whenever you hear some scientific “fact” presented in some absolute manner, always seek the contingencies. Who or what does this apply to? When doesn’t it apply? When someone tells you that it applies across the board, they are presenting something that has some degree of uncertainty as certain. We may be willing to accept that degree of uncertainty and treat the proposition as true, but it is not anti-science to demand further uncertainty be removed. But either way, certainty will never be achieved.
In classical Greece, the sophists threatened to take over society until the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle stepped in. They were unafraid to call sophistry what it was. But that was not enough for them. They also rescued the victims of sophistry by teaching them how to reason. Perhaps in our own sophisticated age, we could do the same.
Virtuous men are rarely, if ever, prone to propaganda. That is because they can ascertain when to “fight the good fight”. Vicious men, on the other hand, are extremely prone to it. They have no idea which are the good fights and so they must be told. But simply telling them is not enough. Lacking any real control over their anger, they need someone else to stir it up for them by turning events that fit the narratives catastrophes. Having no way to turn it off, they are absolutely unforgiving and must find offense around every corner. Discerning ears will recognize this scenario for what it is—our modern society and its incessant need to cancel other people.
In truth then, at the heart of cancel culture, is the inability to discern the difference between wrath and anger. These terms, even if they are often used synonymously, are not truly referring to the same thing. Anger is, first and foremost, a passion or an emotion built into human nature to deal with the presence of evil. More specifically, it is the emotion that provides an interior motor to fight against a specific evil that acts as an obstacle to achieving some good thing. When a man discerns some good thing is being blocked, he wills to be angry in order energize him to fight the good fight.
Fighting the Good Fight
The virtuous man knows the good fight when he sees it because he has the virtue of justice. He is habitually desiring that each person receives what is due to him. When some obstacle is placed in the way of that being achieved, he grows angry in order to move him to fight to restore justice. This is why St. John Chrysostom thought that: “He who does not get angry, when there is just cause for being so, commits sin. In effect, irrational patience sows vices, maintains negligence, and encourages not only bad men to do wrong, but good men as well.”
Not only does the virtuous man grow angry when he should, he also directs his anger at the source of the injustice and does not just “vent”. Likewise, he also filters it through the virtues of clemency and meekness to avoid becoming excessively angry and aim it at the injustice first and then the cause of it. He truly knows how to “hate the sin, but not the sinner” because he is just.
Our Lord, Who referred to Himself as “meek and humble of heart” is the example par excellence. When He cleaned the Temple, it was because His Father was not being rendered what was due to Him. So, fueled by anger, the Just Man removed the obstacle. With meekness He whipped the tables but with clemency avoided whipping the money changers.
The reason why anger is such a strong emotion is because it must often supply enough fuel for us to fight for justice for other people. When that fuel turns inward and ignites a fire in us because of how we perceive we are being treated then it is truly wrath. This is why wrath has been considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins—it turns what should be an outward-facing passion into a selfish one. The wrathful man sees red, not because of an offense against justice, but because he has been slighted in some way. To use modern parlance, he has been offended by the words or actions of another person. Because anger must always be justified, he must also search for a reason why his own personal offense is really unjust. In essence wrath turns anger off of justice onto my feelings and directs it not towards rectifying an injustice, but mercilessly punishing the offender.
A simple example might help us discern the difference. A man is getting on to a crowded bus and he steps on your foot. You feel anger arise, but look at him and realize he had tripped over someone else’s foot a few feet ahead of you and it was merely an accident. In that case the just response is clemency because it was an accident. Now suppose that same man enters the bus looks you in the eye, smiles and stomps on your foot. Now the anger is justified, but the meek man would temper his response such that it did not include punching him in the face. But the anger would be directed towards the action and not just the fact that it was done to you. The way to know the difference is by imagining after stepping on your foot he goes and steps on an old lady’s foot. If you are just as angry (or more) about that as you are about your own foot being stepped on, then you know the anger is justified.
This scenario also highlights an important point that is often a source of confusion regarding anger. The Christian in imitation of Our Lord, when He is the sole victim of the injustice, will often suffer it in silence and not be angry. But when there are other victims, including those who might be scandalized by you not confronting the evil, then zealous anger will confront the wrong directly. The “others” include the offender because he needs to know that he has done evil in order to repent—and will need to be justly punished as part of that repentance.
Back to the Cancel Culture
Every passion, when not properly wedded to virtue, needs increased stimuli in order to get an equivalent response. Related to the question at hand, wrath needs to be constantly fed, especially when it is being used to keep the vicious fighting. It no longer becomes about justice, but about keeping them angry. There is no need to discern whether something is actually unjust or not, because the anger will make it “feel” that way. There is no need to make the distinction between victim and perpetrator because the object of that anger will tell which is which. There can be no forgiveness until the perpetrator is “cancelled” and is no longer exists, either literally or figuratively.
Thankfully, history has many examples of cancel cultures that always end with the cancellers eating their own. When there is no one left to be angry at, when there is no one left to cancel, wrath demands that you execute the executioner. For those who are trapped in this vicious circle the only option is for the virtuous to step up and restore justice. Fear, masquerading as prudence, is never the solution. Neither is the ersatz anger that we call “outrage.” Nor is any attempt at cancelling the cancellers. Only true zealous anger for justice can repair our decadent culture.
When Our Lord and His Apostles came to the great rock of Caesarea Philippi, He asked a poignant question about His personality: “Who do you say that I am?”. Only Simon, enlightened by Divine grace, saw Our Lord for Who He really was: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). Once Peter identified Our Lord, Our Lord in turn gave him his true identity as the Great Rock upon which the Church herself would be identified. Peter was not alone in this regard. Our Lord came to bestow our identity upon each one of us. He identified with us in order that we might come to share in His identity as “sons in the Son.” Modern man, perhaps more than any other ailment, suffers from a great identity crisis that makes this moment in Our Lord’s Life particularly important.
The First Identity Crisis
Lucifer had the greatest natural endowment of all creatures. In this way he was entirely unique and, created in a state of grace, he was the most like God. This was his true identity. Rather than receive this identity as a gift, he instead chose to create his own. Lucifer became Satan and lost his true identity forever. He became, in the words of then-Cardinal Ratzinger an “Un-person”, corrupted beyond any personal recognition. Out of envy, Scripture says, Satan then became an Identity Thief attempting to steal everyone else’s identity. He began by coaxing a third of the angels to follow him in asserting their own identity.
Misery loves company and so Satan set his sights upon mankind. Ultimately his temptation of Eve amounts to questioning her true identity as a beloved daughter of God. He tells her that she will become like God. The problem, of course, is that she already was like God. God had gifted her with sanctifying grace which already made her “like God”. Satan tempts her to see her identity as something she must grasp, rather than receive and so simultaneously attacks her femininity. Likewise, with Adam, both his identity as being like God and being a man. It was the man who was commanded to protect and till the Garden.
Our identity crisis has its roots in the Fall then. Original Sin removed sanctifying grace, which forms our true identity, our God-likeness if you will. But it also wounded us in our sexual identity, the manner in which we individually image God. Not only does the distinctly feminine power of childbirth become labor for the woman, but, because man will be tempted to lord over her, she will be tempted to seize masculinity. Likewise, for man, the uniquely masculine way of working also becomes labor and he will be tempted to seize the feminine. Not only was God-likeness lost, both forgot what it meant to image God in their masculinity and femininity.
The crisis would grow until the New Adam and his suitable helpmate, the New Eve came. Satan could not steal either of their identities. He tried to steal Our Lord’s when He went into the desert. The enmity between him and Our Lady made her immune to Satan’s wiles. Our Lord and Our Lady then, each in their proper way, cooperated in restoring us not just as children of God, but sons and daughters.
Our Identity Crisis
Satan may have lost the war, but he is still engaging in the Battle across the centuries, trying to keep us from our true identity. He has had varying degrees of success but has been particularly successful in our own age. His battle plan remains the same as always by destroying the image and suppressing our desire for the true likeness of God that lies at the root of our real identity.
Rather than accepting God-likeness as a free gift that comes only through Baptism, we chase immortality through technology. The Covid crisis has been particularly eye-opening in this regard in that we are all expecting a technocratic Messiah to save us. Technology can make us like gods.
The Church has not been immune to this attack either, putting bodily health before spiritual health. One soul, dying in a state of grace, is far greater than 1000 people “safely” locked in their houses without any access to the gift of true God-likeness in the Sacraments. Christ instituted the Church, so that, throughout all-time, His unique power to bestow our true identity might be made available to all. When the Church forgets her true identity, then a mass identity crisis is sure to follow.
While technology is the weapon of choice to suppress our desire for true God-likeness, intersectionality, rooted in identity politics, is the weapon of choice to suppress our identity as being made in the image of God. Intersectionality attempts to root our identity in victimhood. Christ became a victim so that we could overcome this temptation and clear the way for our real identity. Sex, masquerading as gender, rather than being a way in which we individually image God, is simply a social construct made malleable (through technology) according to personal whims. This Great Lie destroys our identity rather than restoring it. It sits at the heart of today’s mass identity crisis and is nothing more than a ploy of the Evil One.
Genesis tells us that the Serpent, in attacking Adam and Eve’s identity was the most subtle of all the wild animals (Gn 3:1). What makes our age unique is that he has thrown subtlety out the window and has chosen to unmask himself. That is why we must be prepared to fight the identity crisis by refusing to be a party to any of the lies that have enabled the crisis to become so deep. Too often we simply go along to get along. The Devil has been hard at work stealing people’s identities, we need to be equally hard at work helping them find their true one.
In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, St. Thomas makes the observation that when Aristotle reckons that “art imitates nature,” he means that man, because he is an intellectual creature, can make things that help him fulfill his nature. For example, a beaver builds a dam by instinct, while man uses his reason to fashion a house. But it doesn’t just pertain to servile arts like building a house, but fine arts like making a movie or writing a book. But because man is also fallen, he can also use those same arts to distort and do harm to his nature. In this way we might say that, in addition to imitating nature, “art forms nature.”
Examples abound on how this uniquely human capacity is abused, but there is one way that has a profound effect in our age. The aforementioned storytelling arts use the inherent power of storytelling to activate wonder and convey important truths about what it means to be human. One way in which this art abuses our nature has been covered previously regarding “Drag Queen Story Hour.” While this is still somewhat rare, thee is a more common abuse of story that may not even be on our radar at first—it wasn’t on mine until a friend of mine pointed it out.
Tolerating Plot Holes
We have all seen movies in which there are both subtle and gigantic plot holes. Sometimes they are too much and we turn off the movie, but most of the time we simply tolerate them for the sake of moving the plot along. We might think that the producers of the movies are simply lazy in not tying up loose ends, but in truth we should expect them when the story presents a falsehood about human life. The problem is that if we watch enough movies, then we eventually learn to overlook them. We become, in a very real sense, conditioned to overlook them—not just in the movies but in the rest of life as well. Point of evidence is the current Covid crisis which is riddled with plot holes that the majority of people of good will simply accept.
More on this particular example in a moment, but there is something further here that needs to be pointed out. We accept the plot holes for the sake of the plot and to move the story along. But if we look at it from the perspective of the producer, he has a plot in mind and includes the plot holes in order to make his story fit together. In a certain sense then we can say that the plot holes actually reveal the plot and the intention of the producer.
This principle is important because it is applies to the incongruous in real life as well. We will usually have one of two tendencies; to overlook the plot hole completely or to point out that it makes no sense and then, like the fist tendency, simply move on. The point though is that it makes perfect sense because it moves the story along. In other words, if we pay close attention to the incongruities rather than dismissing or mocking them, the plot that the artist is advancing will come into relief.
Focusing on the plot holes themselves then will enable us to see through the agenda of those who insert them into reality. These holes may look different in the various arenas of public life, but the principle is always the same. If we consider three examples from the fields of morality, science and politics then we can learn how to see the plot holes for what they really are.
Plot Holes in the Moral Realm
Any number of examples could have been chosen to demonstrate moral plot holes, but a recent one from Pope Francis is particularly helpful here. In a documentary that aired in October, the Holy Father was quoted as saying that “we have to create a civil union law.” While not a tacit acceptance of gay marriage (few things, unfortunately, are tacit with Pope Francis), the comment caused an uproar because he was suggesting that the civil realm should create space for gay couples.
Let us assume that the Holy Father’s “plot” is promotion of the Gospel and true human thriving in this world so as to be residents of the next. From within that context we would say marriage is a fundamental human good that helps to fulfill human nature. But not any “union” between two people will do, but only one that is in accord with nature. In short, as Catholics, we know that only monogamous marriage between a man and a woman leads to authentic happiness. Any other domestic arrangement leads away from this. The laws and the practices of the Church herself are reflective of this awareness. The Church teaches what she does about marriage because she knows that it is a good thing for those involved to act according to nature.
To suggest that this is just a “Church law” or only binding on Catholics with no effect in the civil realm creates a giant plot hole. No law should be made to protect or promote something that we know will ultimately lead to unhappiness. By suggesting that there should be some civil law, the Holy Father is really expressing that he doesn’t believe that marriage is a true human good.
Pope Francis in choosing the name Francis has seen his role as one who would reform the Church. He has been open about this from the beginning of his pontificate. Applying our principle of looking along the plot hole (at this and many of his other ones), we can discern what that reform consists in. The Holy Father is attempting to reform the Church, not according the Holy Spirit, but the spirit of the age. The plot holes reveal the plot.
Plot Holes in the Scientific Realm
Plot holes in the scientific realm are usually more difficult to discern for the layman, but usually become apparent once you check assumptions. When a scientific theory is full of unsubstantiated claims that are labeled as “assumptions” the plot of the Scientists are unmistakable.
A good example of this is what we is commonly referred to as the Big Bang Theory. This theory claims that the universe began as a dense ball of primordial matter that exploded and over billions of years organized into the universe that we observe today. This cosmology is accepted as scientific fact, but once we pull back the curtain we find that it rests on many untested and untestable assumptions. There is a growing gap between observation and theory and in order to advance the plot, several plot holes needed to be introduced. According to Big Bang Cosmologists, ~95% of the universe is composed of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The problem is that these hypothetical entities have never been observed and they can’t be measured. Instead they are theoretical constructs that hold the Big Bang Universe and its accompanying theory together. You can read more about these two things elsewhere, but the point is that in order to use the theory to explain what we observe in the universe, physicists had to make up an unobservable “force”. As one physicist observed,
Big bang theory relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities – things that we have never observed. Inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent. Without them, there would be fatal contradictions between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory…the big bang theory can’t survive without these fudge factors.
Eric Lerner, “Bucking the Big Bang”, New Scientist
The point is that we hold as scientific fact a theory that only explains 5% of what we observe in the universe.
Viewed as plot holes, these assumptions reveal that Big Bang Cosmology is not about the science but about scientism and the ability to explain natural phenomena using only natural causes. It is an attempt to discredit the Genesis account of creation and theology and create an atheology that is completely devoid of God. It is essentially the theory of Evolution on a cosmic scale. The plot holes reveal the plot.
Plot Holes in the Political Realm
As is becoming increasingly obvious, the political realm is not devoid of plot holes either. In fact one could say that the plot holes in this arena of life will be the way in which 2020 is best remembered. Covid-19 itself is not a plot hole, but the way in which it has been managed has revealed the plot holes in reality. If we examine them carefully then we can come to see the plot more clearly.
We will discuss the vaccine some time in the near future, but the manner in which masks, social distancing and closures have been implemented have represented serious plot holes because of their lack of consistency and scientific justification. I already discussed this with relation to masks, but it also applies to social distancing. This has never been tried before and it is based on a simulation. Yes, you read that right, not an experiment, but a simulation. Drs. Jay Richards and William Briggs cover this in their book Price of Panicin detail, but in short the CDC went with recommendations from this paper in which found that social distancing would “yield local defenses against a highly virulent strain” in the absence of effective treatment. The “science” behind it was simple; you create a model to simulate an environment in which closing schools and implementing social distance measures lower the rate of infection and then you test to see if the rate is in fact lower. Besides proving that you are a good programmer, this also, surprisingly proved that social distancing worked. The fact that it is a simulated environment and not a real one should have no bearing on our decisions, right? This is, after all, Science. No matter anyway because we now have effective treatment and thus no more need for social distancing, right?
Once we view these inconsistencies as plot holes related to the plot, we can see that there are powers that be that have chosen not to waste a good crisis and to implement their grand plot—The Great Reset—which we will discuss in the coming weeks. The plot holes reveal the plot.
In conclusion, we might be willing to tolerate plot holes in our movies, but we should never overlook them in real life. If we do, we may find that we are caught up in someone else’s story for how the world should be. The plot holes reveal the plot.
We have been hearing for decades that we are living in a post-Christian society. This has mostly been a way to describe the fact that Christian values have been in decline. But Christianity has still been the dominant religion; dominant, that is, until the Covid-19 crisis hit. The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in our society marked the official changing of the guard. While we have been hearing about the emergence of a post-Christian society for decades, Christianity was still the dominant religion. No longer is this true, however. Christianity has been toppled and replaced by a new Gnosticism that we call Science.
To be clear, the issue is not against science per se, but what is more accurately described as religion masquerading as science. After all, as Aquinas says “He who neglects the experimental order in natural science falls into error” in all aspects of knowledge. To solve the Covid-19 crisis, natural science plays a necessary, although not sufficient, role. The peddlers of the new religion, would have us believe that it is sufficient because all we need to do is “trust the science.” We are saved by faith, not in Christ, but in Science.
The New Priesthood
Nor should we be quick to dismiss expert opinion. But expert opinion is not fact, it still must be based on solid reasoning. The problem is that expert opinion is often treated like dogmatic truth because the Scientific Elite are the new priests. Based on their secret knowledge that only “experts” such as themselves can understand, they dictate religious dogma. Spoken word becomes fact. Thus says the Scientist—“Masks don’t work” and it is so. Thus says the Scientist two months later—“Masks do work” and it is so. The Shepherds have spoken and the Sheeple must follow suit. Laws are made to punish heretics who dare to question the spoken word.
This, by the way, is why masks have elicited such a strong response. The High Priest initially said that they don’t work. Then he spoke again saying they did and that the Priests lied because they were worried about a shortage. But if a person unapologetically lies once, how do you know they are telling the truth now? Actually, a leading Priest at Johns Hopkins says, it wasn’t lying but that “[A]t first, researchers and scientists did not know how necessary mask wearing would be among the general public. Now we are aware that wearing masks is an effective way to help prevent spread of this coronavirus” (Emphasis added). Given the timeframe and the rather dramatic shift from no-mask to mask, where did this awareness come from? Changing your mind is fine. But changing your mind without a change in the data is based not on science, but fiat. If you search prior to the dogmatic declaration, scientific opinion for the most part deemed them ineffective. The fact is that the Priests exercised their hidden knowledge (because there was no new data) and declared them so. I would probably be clothed in a scarlet mask for this statement alone, but let me go a little further as a statistician and speak about what a reasonable approach to this question would look like.
The Statistician Speaks
First, proving a negative is extremely difficult. To conclusively say “masks don’t work” is a practical impossibility. Having said that, there is little data to suggest that they do work (a complete summary that is thoroughly documented can be found here). There have been studies in the last few months that have suggested they might, but these are inconclusive at best. They are all very poorly done because they are being done in the midst of the crisis. To study the problem properly you need to set up what would be something akin to a clinical trial in which you had a placebo group to compare it to. But you also have the problem that mask usage is almost certainly confounded with social distancing. Is social distancing the thing that helps, or is it masks, or is it both? You’d have to set up a study to separate them. Secondly, not all masks are created the same or are equally effective.
Carnegie Mellon tracks (among many other things) mask compliance here. Notice that many places are in the high 80ish% for compliance and yet “cases” continue to increase in all of those areas. If any intervention works, then you should expect the slope of the line of increase to decrease (“flatten the curve”). But the data suggests that the lines are actually steeper. For example, see the plot below of my home state of North Carolina which instituted a Mask Mandate on June 26th and has had above an 85% mask compliance rate (currently 91%). North Carolina is far from unique in this regard and you can find similar data for all your favorite states.
If we were true to “Science” we would look at this medical intervention and determine that it does not work. A drug company running a clinical trial (where they are using their own money) would stop the trial and might even decide that the intervention is actually making it worse.
This might mean that…wait for it…masks are making it worse. You would again need to study this, but it is a reasonable supposition given the data. It also makes sense in that it could easily be creating a false sense of security or become a petri dish of germs just waiting to be deposited on someone else or an aritficial barrier suppresses the body’s natural barrier of the immune system. To be sure though, if we were testing a drug and the data looked like this, we would stop giving it to people.
This tangent was necessary because it speaks to the reasonableness of mask mandates. Law, according to St. Thomas, is “an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community and is promulgated.” Any law that does not fulfill those four requirements—reasonable, aimed at the common good, proper authority, and made known—is not, properly speaking, a law. Therefore, because they are not reasonable (or at least can not be proven to be at this point reasonable) we have no obligation to obey them. As true Shepherds of the Flock, Bishops and Priests need to stop being so deferential to mask mandates precisely for this reason.
The New Sacrament
The revolt against masks then is really a revulsion to what they symbolize. They have been made into sacraments through the words of the New Priests. They are said to protect and so therefore they do. Those who do not want to subscribe to this religion therefore will not want to wear them. It seems like a small thing to do, but it plays a key role in the overall narrative that Science can save us. As a sacrament it symbolizes the fact that the Coronavirus is a serious threat to our overall well-being. If you are tempted to think “well 99.99% of people that get this will survive”, then you only have to look around at everyone wearing a mask to tell you that you should be scared anyway. The smiling face of your neighbor, which would normally comfort you, is now hidden from your sight. The masks will permanently disfigure us because when the next virus comes along, and it will, they will tell us “this is more serious than the Coronavirus (which it likely will be) you must put the mask back on.”
By blessing the mask, the Priest also makes it into a Secular Scapular. Through the words of Mary to St. Simon Stock, we know that the Brown Scapular helps to save you eternally. Through the words of the Scientist, the mask saves us from Covidoom. The Brown Scapular is an aid to our growth in virtue, the Covid Scapular signals that we have virtue.
One of the things that the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century was their exaltation of Science as the new religion. Lenin, Stalin, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Hitler all committed their atrocities using “Science” as their justification. Had someone stood up to them early on, one has to wonder whether things would have been different.
At the beginning of 1931, the German Bishops collectively excommunicated members of the Nazi party and barred all Catholics in Germany from joining. The excommunication did not extend to those who voted for Nazis, but only those who joined the party. This ban was put in place even though not all the party platform was evil. In fact, there were certain policies that were in accord with the Common Good. Nevertheless, the party protected and promoted certain intrinsic evils that could never be overlooked and washed away in the political give and take that is inevitable in a party system. Although the ban was walked back slightly after the election of 1933, the German Bishops demonstrated a long-standing Catholic belief that political party affiliation can put one’s soul in jeopardy.
Party Affiliation and Formal Cooperation
Why this is the case can be seen once we examine the principle of formal cooperation. Recall that the principle of cooperation acknowledges that a number of people often participate in bringing about some evil action. Moral philosophy makes the distinction between formal and material cooperation. Formal cooperation means that a person aligns their will with the intention of the principal moral agent. Material cooperation means that a person offers some material support in the carrying out of an action, even if, they may not be willing participants in the evil itself.
The act of abortion offers an illustrative and relevant example. Suppose a woman is pondering an abortion so she seeks counsel with a friend. The friend says she should do it but says she cannot help her get one. The friend has formally cooperated in the abortion and thus bears the guilt of the act itself in uniting her will to the will of the woman. She did not, however, offer material support and thus her material cooperation is minimal if non-existent. When the woman gets to the abortion mill, she is greeted by the janitor outside who is emptying mop water. He hates abortion but only works here because he needs to feed his family and is unable to find another job currently. His cooperation too is material, he provides a clean environment for the abortion, but it is remote since it is not vital to the carrying out of the abortion (which is truer than most people would like to admit). Finally, she enters the abortion mill and is greeted by the nurse. The nurse too hates abortion (thus no formal cooperation) but her material cooperation is so proximate and vital to the act that she is guilty of cooperation with the evil of abortion.
In summary, because guilt lies in the will, a person is always guilty of sin when they formally cooperate with evil. A person who formally cooperates with a grave evil bears a proportionate level of guilt for that evil. They may or may not be guilty when they cooperate materially, depending on their role and their proximity to the act itself. Related to the topic at hand, a person who is Pro-Choice, even if they never directly assist or counsel a person to get an abortion, simply by making their position known, has formally cooperated with that evil and bear culpability.
The Democratic Party platform, in no uncertain terms, promotes and protects the evil of abortion: “Democrats…believe unequivocally…that every woman should be able to access…safe and legal abortion.” And because political party affiliation is a free association, any person who joins the party consents to all of the party’s platform. There is no “I am personally opposed, but …” type logic because of the principle of formal cooperation. A member of the Democratic Party is aligning their will with that of the other members of the Party. Why else would they join? If they did not believe in any of the tenets, they simply need not join. This was the logic of the German Bishops in 1931, a logic that can likewise be applied to members of the Democratic Party today.
An All-Important Distinction
Please note what has been said and what hasn’t. The contention is that because joining the Democratic Party constitutes formal cooperation, it is gravely sinful. This does not mean that voting for a Democrat is always and everywhere gravely sinful. To extend the arm of sin beyond formal cooperation is a bridge too far. This was the point that Cardinal Ratzinger made when in 2004 he said,
“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
The key word related to material cooperation is proportionate. There must be not only a good reason to vote, but a proportionate reason. On this level this means that if Candidate A is in favor of one intrinsically evil action and Candidate B supports a different intrinsically evil action, then we might vote so as to limit the amount of overall evil present in society. For example, suppose Candidate A supported abortion but was against Euthanasia and Candidate B supported Euthanasia but was against abortion, you might vote for B because abortion constitutes a greater evil on society as a whole. The point is that you cannot simply perform moral calculus adding up the evil on each side, but instead the proportionately is related to the presence of intrinsically evil actions, or as the Church has put it, “non-negotiables”.
But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. In fact, it is really a natural outlook that would motivate a Catholic to vote for a Democrat. A supernatural outlook of the world would never allow us to vote for someone who we know to be in an objective state of grave sin. The reason for this is simple—a person in a state of mortal sin is the Devil’s pawn. Mortal sin places a person under his dominion and they are very likely to commit further evil. If Christ is not King of their heart, then most assuredly they will be working against making Him King of our Country. This principle really goes for any politician. If the person is known to be in a state of grave sin then you should never vote for them.
This sounds “judgmental” to modern ears, but it is simply a statement of fact. A person who directly wills that abortions be provided remains in a gravely sinful state until such time as they repent. Because the support of abortion was public, true repentance would have to be public, causing the person to separate themselves from the sinful Party. A person who remains in the Party has thus remained in their sinful state.
As the November election is fast approaching, we must as Catholics, come to understand that voting is not just a political action, but a moral one and thus we must shine the light of Catholic morality on our voting decisions.
While we are about the project of reforming the civil police force, we are allowing the Thought Police to run amok. The Thinkpol are slowly rendering certain ideas unutterable simply because they do not conform to the Ochlocratic Orthodoxy. Not only do they have ritual humiliation at hand, they have co-opted corporations so that private views now have become fireable offenses. The mob silences dissenters by threatening livelihood and so most people simply conform. Free speech has come under attack in America in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson blush. Like the previously discussed freedom of conscience, freedom of speech also needs defending. And like freedom of conscience, only Catholics who have a proper understanding of it, are in a position to lead the charge.
On the one hand, it is not wholly unexpected that free speech in our country has taken such a sharp left turn into a ditch. The Founders had an absolute faith in the power of the popular mind. Individuals might err, but the entire society could not. Free speech, coupled with democracy, serves as a recipe for finding the truth. All debate, they thought, would eventually lead to the truth. All ideas, even bad ones, then must be protected in order to keep the debate moving. In Gertz vs Welch, the Supreme Court declared that “”Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea … (it) requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters.”
Captivity to the Mob
Any freedom that is directly linked to democracy is always susceptible to becoming captive to the mob. If debate over an issue ceases then it is assumed that the truth has been reached. Now those who do not accept the orthodoxy become a threat to the well-being of society and need to be shut up. Thus we have things such as “hate speech” becoming punishable offenses.
A vicious circle is formed so that truth as a democratic matter always ends in an assault upon true liberty including free speech. It is as if they must saw off the limb they are sitting on. Liberty can only be connected to purpose and the purpose of speech is to utter truth. Therefore, there is such thing as liberty to speak falsehood. Freedom of speech is not unlimited but instead is not then a justification to say anything.
Truth is not democratic but is strictly governed by the dictatorship of reality. Truth, that is, the accordance of mind with reality, is necessary for liberty. Summarizing, Leo XIII says that the right to free speech “is a moral power which – as We have before said and must again and again repeat – it is absurd to suppose that nature has accorded indifferently to truth and falsehood, to justice and injustice. Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them; but lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State” (Libertas, 23).
This abuse of free speech eventually leads to its destruction as ironic as that seems. The problem is that there is no set of public truths that are immune to criticism, no intellectual foundation upon which debate may be carried out. Leaving everything open to debate actually closes it, a situation that Leo XIII anticipated when he said “The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak. And this all the more surely, because by far the greater part of the community is either absolutely unable, or able only with great difficulty, to escape from illusions and deceitful subtleties, especially such as flatter the passions” (ibid).
Americanism and the Fallout
Eventually, “nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of natures, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. Thus, too, license will gain what liberty loses; for liberty will ever be more free and secure in proportion as license is kept in fuller restraint” (ibid). This is exactly where we find ourselves.
Because many prelates in the Church in the United States are infected with the Americanist heresy, they often confuse the authentic Catholic (i.e. true) understanding of free speech with the American model. The former leads to peace and justice while the latter leads to further division. One prelate recently said that our religious principles demand that we “defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.” Such a statement is misleading at best. What we are disagreeing about absolutely matters. Some topics are still open to debate, or as Leo XIII said, “In regard, however, to all matter of opinion which God leaves to man’s free discussion, full liberty of thought and of speech is naturally within the right of everyone; for such liberty never leads men to suppress the truth, but often to discover it and make it known” (ibid). Others, such as the right to religious liberty and the immorality of racism God has not “left to man’s free discussion”. Both sins against God cry out for justice. Therefore, it is neither “baffling nor reprehensible” that a Catholic institution, faced with playing a role in rectifying either, would seize the opportunity; unless, that is, you think the Thinkpol, rather than God, has closed the discussion.
A study recently released by the US Census Bureau found that in the past two decades, the number of couples that cohabitate had nearly tripled from 6 million to 17 million. The study found that the increase was due to the fact that “cohabitation has become increasingly accepted by a broad swath of social and demographic groups.” Most people view this as a sign of “progress”, no longer bound to the Victorian restraints imposed by marriage. It is most certainly progress, but it is likely not progress in the direction of anything other than cultural decay and collapse. The institution of marriage is vital to the life of every society such that without it, the society is sure to crumble.
All of us sort of intuit why this might be the case but having plummeted into the morass created by the Sexual Revolution, we may not be able to articulate why this is the case. Nevertheless, if we are to turn back to a society built upon marriage, then we ought to grasp the logic as to why this is so. Thankfully, the great Counter-revolutionary to the Sexual Revolution, Pope St. John Paul II, has already done the intellectual heavy lifting for us in his book Love and Responsibility. Written just prior to the “Salacious Sixties”, the then Fr. Wojtyla provided an intellectual basis for why the institution of marriage matters. We would do well to examine his argument in order to apply the tonic to our decadent culture.
The future Pope set out to examine how erotic love develops and matures between members of the opposite sex. In order to mature, the strong feelings that govern the relationships must always be subordinate to the true value of the person as a person. When we fall in love with the feelings that the other person stimulates in us, rather than the person who stimulates those feelings, then love can never mature. In fact, rather than being the basis for love, it becomes its exact opposite—use. Once this foundation is laid, Fr. Wojtyla then seeks to set up the conditions by which love can truly mature, and one of which is the Institution of Marriage.
Marriage as an Institution
As the word institution suggests, Marriage is something that is established or instituted in accord with the concept of justice. Marriage justifies, that is makes just, sexual relations between two people. It does this by ordering them to their proper ends. In other words, Marriage ensures that sexual relations between a man and a woman are governed both by commutative justice and social justice.
With respect to commutative justice, that is, the justice that governs the relationship between two people as equals, Marriage protects conjugal love from the threat of use. There is a vast difference between a concubine or a mistress and a wife—the former implies a relationship of use while the latter one of love. Likewise, love is always attached to the value of the person as a whole and not just their sexual value. Therefore, because the value of the person never changes, love must last forever. This is why Marriage, as an expression of this love, is naturally indissoluble. By committing one’s life to loving the other person, Marriage justifies sexual relations between the spouses.
This is also why sexual relations between deeply committed people, even if they are engaged say, is always wrong. “Pre-ceremonial” sex ignores the fact that a Wedding is no mere convention or ceremony, but an entering into the institution of Marriage. A new reality comes into being when vows are exchanged and it is this new reality that justifies sexual intimacy between the spouses. Prior to the wedding there was no permanence, afterwards there is. The permanence of the relationship rests upon the free choice of the spouses. And because sexual relations always carry with them the possibility of becoming permanently parents, there must be a permanent commitment which justifies their sexual expression. It is just that a child be conceived from within a marriage because only the institution of marriage forms the proper foundation for the institution of the family.
There might be a tendency to think that love between two people is a completely private affair between “two consenting adults”, but, according to John Paul II, the couple soon “realize that without this [social] acceptance their love lacks something very important. They will begin to feel that it must ripen sufficiently to be revealed to society.” There is a need to both keep private the sexual relations deriving from love and on the other hand a need for there to be a social recognition of this love that comes only through marriage.
Why Marriage Matters for Society
This felt need directs them to fulfill the requirements of social justice. This may not be immediately obvious, especially when we live in such an individualistic society, but it becomes clearer when we recognize that society itself is built upon the foundation of the family. The institution of marriage is necessary to signal a mature union exists between two people, a mature union that is based upon a permanent love. Thus, society can be built upon that foundation.
One need not imagine too hard what a society would look like when its foundations were unstable or constantly being swapped out, especially given our current plight. It looks like a society in which cohabitation numbers are tripling and marriage rates are falling. It looks like a society that is committing cultural suicide. There cannot be a society without stable families and there cannot be stable families without permanent marriages. A sane society would enact legislation that protects families and legislates justly regarding the family by recognizing the rights and duties of marriage since the family is an institution based on marriage.
Instead, the inmates are running the asylum. We feed a “divorce industry” with lawyers, social workers, and judges to name a few whose economic sustenance comes from the breakdown of marriage. We make divorce “no-fault” and make single parenting “easy” with day-care, public schools, welfare and WIC (why isn’t there a FIC by the way?). The family is then replaced by an elaborate bureaucratic machine that seeks to control the formation of children so that they grow up to see this as “normal”. Meanwhile we all accept this as an accident rather than as a planned attack to seize the power of the family. The sexual revolution was never about liberation but about control and the totalitarians will win unless we begin to think and act like our saintly Counter-revolutionary is instructing us.
In an address given during his return to Germany in 2011, Pope Benedict XVI called upon the legislators who had gathered not to neglect what he called the “ecology of man.” The ecology of man, that is, the realization that “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will” is at the heart of environmental ecology. Although this was a recurring theme of the Pope, but his repeated call fell mainly on deaf ears because the care of the environment, like nearly all social issues, has been politicized. There is little interest in solving the problem, only using it to exert political control over other people. But for those who are interested in solving the problem, the Church has offered a true path forward with her emphasis on human ecology.
Although this used to go without saying, any discussion of the environment must first point out that man is different from all of the other visible creatures in the environment. He is not just one creature among many, but he is nature’s steward. Both sides of the debate recognize this fact, even if they loathe to admit it. Any discussion of environmental policy is predicated on the fact that only man is responsible for the environment. It would be absurd to speak of curbing man’s actions if he did not have the freedom to do so. In laying the responsibility for the environment at the feet of men, you are, at least implicitly, saying that he is different than the other animals and that he alone can offer a solution. This admission matters because it implies that man, as governor of creation, also transcends it.
Avoiding the Extremes
As awesome as it is then, we cannot worship nature as something divine. We reverence creation because it reveals the Creator, but it is not divine. It is, like all material things, passing away. We, made of matter and spirit, are above it, pilgrims as it were, just passing through. But just because it isn’t divine doesn’t mean that we can use it as we see fit. Nature is made up of natures, all of which must be respected, if they are going to actually serve mankind.
Like all issues that become political footballs, the environment is prey to the either/or fallacy. Either it must be divinized or it must be raped. Politics has no room for qualifications and the blame must always rest squarely on the other side. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church summarizes what might be called a “Catholic Environmentalism” when it says:
“A correct understanding of the environment prevents the utilitarian reduction of nature to a mere object to be manipulated and exploited. At the same time, it must not absolutize nature and place it above the dignity of the human person himself. In this latter case, one can go so far as to divinize nature or the earth, as can readily be seen in certain ecological movements that seek to gain an internationally guaranteed institutional status for their beliefs.”
CSD, 463
Fixing the Problem
But even with a correct understanding of the environment, we cannot fix the environmental problems without first practicing the “human ecology” proposed by Pope Benedict. Until we acknowledge that certain types of activities fulfill our nature and others don’t, the problem of the ecology of the environment will never be solved. These activities are known as virtues and it begins with the virtue of prudence. Prudence is the habit of governing our actions such that we only use things in a manner in which we truly thrive. Justice is the habit of taking responsibility for the effects our actions have on other people and not just being motivated by self-interest. Temperance is the habit of living with sufficiency and not hoarding resources because we can. Fortitude is the habit of remaining committed to the right use of the environment in the face of wide scale abuse where each person is trying to hoard as much as possible.
The environmental movement lacks any real teeth because they systematically ignore, what Pope Benedict called, “the inner pollution” of which the environmental pollution is just a consequence. They speak of what we ought to do, but still exalt license as if it was true freedom. You cannot promote license, especially in the sexual realm, while simultaneously demanding that people act temperately in their use of the environment. If you will (ab)use other people then you will most certainly abuse the environment. It will never gain any moral authority until it acknowledges a moral law. Without a true respect for human freedom and the conditions in which it thrives, it will have to resort to the hammer of power to beat all non-compliants into submission.
It is the inner pollution of overconsumption that causes untold damage to the environment. But until this is framed as fundamentally a moral problem, it will never get better. As John Paul II put it in his Message for the World Day of Peace in 1990:
“Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its life style. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these cause. As I have already stated, the seriousness of the ecological issue lays bare the depth of man’s moral crisis. If an appreciation of the value of the human person and of human life is lacking, we will also lose interest in others and in the earth itself. Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become a part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.”
Environmental ecology then is a fruitless endeavor without first emphasizing a moral ecology. The crisis in the environment is first and foremost a catastrophic crisis in the moral environment of mankind. Until we solve that problem, we should only expect the environmental crisis to get worse. A Catholic Environmentalism then would be one that emphasizing the proper use of the environment by inculcating the necessary virtues.
In response to the President’s order temporarily halting all immigration into the United States, several US Bishops issued a statement condemning his decision. This is not the first time that the Bishops have come to loggerheads with the President over his immigration policies, and rightfully so at times, but this particular statement leaves Catholics wondering whether the shepherds might be moonlighting as lobbyists for the Democratic Party.
To be clear, the problem is not that they are aligning themselves with the Democratic Party’s position regarding immigration, but that they so closely aligning themselves with a political party at all. Trapped in what has been called the “left-right fallacy”, American political parties have succumbed to either/or thinking. The Church on the other hand, is animated by both/and type thinking, especially with respect to her social doctrine. When a group of prelates comes out with a statement that sounds like it was drawn up by a Party member, you can almost always be sure that they are failing to embrace and teach the full Catholic understanding of the issue.
The Church on Immigration
With respect to immigration, the Church’s teaching is quite clear that there is a right to emigrate “when there are just reasons in favor of it” (Pacem in Terris, 25). The right is not absolute, conditioned not only to just reasons on the part of the emigrant, but also depending upon the Common Good of the nation they seek to enter. A State must accept immigrants “so far as the good of their own community, rightly understood, permits” (ibid, 106). As custodian of the “good of the community” or the Common Good, the State must exercise its office by enacting policies that first and foremost look to the Common Good and only then to the good of the individual immigrants.
This precedence of the Common Good over the right of the individual is not merely evidence of, as the Bishops insist, “the indifference of a throw-away mentality” but instead flows from the right to emigrate. The immigrant has an obligation to contribute to the Common Good if he is to become a member of the society in which he seeks to emigrate. From this responsibility flows the right to emigrate. If he does harm to the Common Good, then the right disappears.
There is a flip side to this as well, one that is not often discussed, but his highlighted by Cardinal Robert Sarah in his book The Night is Far Spent. The Cardinal says that “without a precise plan for their integration, it is criminal to offer hospitality to migrants.” The Cardinal speaks of the necessity of a welcoming State to have a “precise plan for giving them all the guarantees of dignified life.” This “dignified life” means not just that they have food and housing, but that they have the means for securing these things themselves. To come to another country and live off of the host is not dignified at all, but instead actually does great harm to both the individual person and the Common Good.
Democratic Party Talking Points?
It seems that the US Bishops have ignored the convergence of these very important principles and instead decided to regurgitate Democratic Party talking points. With 30 million Americans currently unemployed, it would be contrary to the Common Good to allow more people into the country and create additional competition for work. The Bishops obviously have fallen into the “immigrants do jobs Americans won’t do” fallacy. Immigrants don’t do jobs Americans won’t do, they do jobs at far lower wages than Americans will do them. They drive down wages for lower-skilled jobs by flooding the market with more workers. In a 2016 article in Politico, George J. Borjas, Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, reported that,
[W]hen the supply of workers goes up, the price that firms have to pay to hire workers goes down. Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants.
Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable. The typical high school dropout earns about $25,000 annually. According to census data, immigrants admitted in the past two decades lacking a high school diploma have increased the size of the low-skilled workforce by roughly 25 percent. As a result, the earnings of this particularly vulnerable group dropped by between $800 and $1,500 each year.
Contrary to the Bishops’ insistence that “There is little evidence that immigrants take away jobs from citizens,” it is clear Americans do lose jobs as a result of the influx of immigrants. This Democratic Party taking point, on the lips of Catholic Bishops ought to concern all of us, especially because there are two especially relevant Catholic principles upon which they are silent.
If you search “just wage” “immigration” on the USCCB website, you will find a single mention of just wage in the context of immigration (and that is a 2003 document quoting John Paul II). Why are the Bishops not defending this clear abuse of immigrant workers? The Church has long insisted that the dignity of the human person demands that he receive a just wage that is “sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children” (Rerum Novarum, 46). Of course, neither the Democrats or the Republicans ever speak of just wage either (and no “minimum wage” is not the same thing as a just wage).
The reason that politicians never speak of it is because immigration is a hidden way in which a redistribution of wealth occurs. Thus, the Bishops make the unsubstantiated claim that “Immigrants and citizens together are partners in reviving the nation’s economy.” A closer examination however reveals the exact opposite to be the case. Returning to Professor Borjas’ article, he pointed out that
somebody’s lower wage is always somebody else’s higher profit. In this case, immigration redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants—from the employee to the employer…I estimate the current “immigration surplus”—the net increase in the total wealth of the native population—to be about$50 billion annually. But behind that calculation is a much larger shift from one group of Americans to another: The total wealth redistribution from the native losers to the native winners is enormous, roughly a half-trillion dollars a year.
Thus we can see how indiscriminately allowing immigrants into the country, even to fill jobs supposedly “Americans won’t do” can do great harm to the Common Good.
There is nothing in the President’s order that is contrary to the Church’s teaching on immigration and thus they have nothing to add to the conversation as Catholic prelates. Their personal opinions, even when stamped with an imprimatur, only serve to damage their credibility as teachers of the truth. Given the great moral crisis we are facing, especially in the United States, it would be great if Catholic Bishops would not waste their moral capital taking what are clearly political positions.
As has been written here on many occasions, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America remains a vital resource for understanding the American mindset. What makes Tocqueville so valuable is that he was not necessarily an advocate of democracy. He saw in it great possibilities, but also was very much aware of the dangerous pitfalls that loomed in the background especially as the society around it rejected both religion and morality. In that way it has an almost prophetic quality about it, especially when it comes to the despotic and totalitarian temptations that all members of a democratic society ought to fear. Particularly prescient and especially relevant to today is a passage in which he cautions against totalitarianism that is smuggled in through a Nanny State:
“Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?”
Democracy in America Vol. II, Sect IV Ch. VI
Although this ought to be obvious, Tocqueville’s criticism rests upon an abuse of authority. What makes this type of abuse so pernicious is that it is so subtle that it is easy to miss at first because it is smuggled in as a form of paternal authority. As the name suggests, paternal authority serves a legitimate and vital function because it secures the survival and development of an immature person. But this type of authority has a pedagogical aim such that it assures its own disappearance. The goal is to discipline the person such that self-discipline comes about; govern them so that self-government is easy. Only when that happens can the person truly be free. Paternal authority then provides security so that freedom develops. Once the full flourishing occurs, this authority has outlived its usefulness and fades away.
Freedom and Security
The subtlety then comes in the relationship between security and freedom. The proper use of paternal authority is that it is ordered towards freedom while providing security. In its proper form there is no tradeoff between the two. Once the person has reached maturity and able to properly govern their own freedom, paternal security is no longer necessary. Able to properly discipline themselves the children have the liberty to secure for themselves what they need to thrive. In having true freedom, they have security, a security that minimally depends upon others. This is not to advocate for a rugged individualism, but to see security in its proper light. There are still aspects such as policing and military protection for example that will require society, but belonging to the common good, they never take away liberty but expand it.
Tocqueville’s point is that one of the sure signs that authority has outlived its usefulness, or has become an outright abuse, is that it takes away freedom. And in so doing it creates and encourages a “perpetual childhood.” Authority becomes “absolute and minute” because it becomes a form of control. It does all of this in the name of security and the people willingly trade their freedom, because, lacking the necessary virtue to govern themselves, they must have security.
If you wanted to create a populace that willingly made this tradeoff, you would start by attacking the legitimate exercise of paternal authority. Paint the paterfamilias as a dufus and ensure that he acts irresponsibly. Break up the school of freedom the family by making divorce easy. Separate children from their parents as much as and as early as possible. Teach them “values”, mostly economic and political, and not virtues. Mock virtue as repression and substitute license for true liberty. Once license replaces liberty, there appears to be no tradeoff between security and liberty (which is really license) because those in power still, to use Tocqueville’s terms, “facilitate their pleasures.”
All of this might have a libertarian ring to it, but that it to miss the fact that freedom is wedded to virtue. Libertarians tend to treat freedom as an end rather than a means. They demand liberty to do what pleases them provided they do not infringe upon others. This too becomes license and the trap is laid in reverse. Lacking the virtue necessary for self-control, they must look elsewhere for security. We cannot turn a blind eye to vice nor can we enthrone it as a “right”. There may be times when we tolerate it, but it can never seen as a true exercise of freedom.
Tocqueville the Prophet
Tocqueville’s words are particularly relevant today because they illumine the path we are currently on towards totalitarianism. In the midst of a plague, the government has taken away the natural rights of its citizens all in the name of security. Notice that the “liberties of vice” are still available as “essential businesses”, a literal bread and ciruses approach in which Liquor stores, recreational marijuana dispensaries, unlimited and free access to Pornhub, and so forth. Heck, even the occasional encounter facilitated by Tinder is, according to Health Czar Anthony Fauci, an option “if you want to take the risk.” But you can’t take the risk to go to Mass, the one place where both security and freedom grow.
By creating an atmosphere of fear, we have been sold the bill of security. We are living on the cusp of tyranny, even if we believe it to be a “benevolent” tyranny. Those are the worst kind because they admit of no limits. As CS Lewis put it, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
We would be wise to listen to both Lewis’ words and Tocqueville’s. Trading freedom for security is the surest path to tyranny and results in the loss of both freedom and security.
When he instituted the Feast
of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI went to great lengths to remind Christians of
the fact that Christ not only reigns in the hearts and minds of individual men,
but He is also ruler of all temporal kingdoms as well. As the Pope put it, “it would be a grave
error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil
affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed
to him by the Father, all things are in his power” (Quas Primas). Writing nearly a century ago, the Pope’s
words remain especially forceful today when we find many Christians trapped by
this “grave error.” Many prefer to
disengage from civil affairs completely or treat them as if they are wholly
divorced from religion. It is this
attitude that has gotten us into this mess and it is only through a renewed
awareness of our duties toward Christ the King that things will get better.
In an age where almost all the cultural chatter focuses on individual rights, we would be well served to recall that Christ too has rights especially since “all power in Heaven and Earth has been given by His Father”. No society will be just without rendering to Christ His due. As Pope Leo XIII put it, “the people have heard quite enough about what are called the ‘rights of man’. Let them hear about the rights of God for once” (Tamesti). So while we might agree that Christ is King of Heaven and Earth, it is difficult to grasp what that might look like here and now.
Christ’s Kingship Explained
The
Church’s understanding of Christ’s Kingship is just an extension of what Our
Lord said to Pilate when the Roman Governor tried to pull rank on Him: “My
kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world,
my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the
Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here” (John 18:36).
A
cursory reading of Our Lord’s words leads towards two opposite errors. The first is to see His kingdom as completely
other worldly, merely spiritual if you will. They read it as “My kingdom does
not belong in this world.” This is the “what happens on earth, stays on
earth” type mentality that Christians are often accused of by which they show
little concern or engagement in civil affairs and simply try to avoid getting
caught up in the cultural claptrap so as to remain as unsullied as possible. It is also the mistake that leads us to
willingly go along with the model of “Separation of Church and State” that
animates most Western societies.
The
second error adds to Christ’s words and says, “although my Kingdom is not here,
we must bring it here.” These are the
Christians who fall into the “Social Justice trap” and ultimately substitute
humanitarianism for the Gospel. This
approach flattens out Christ’s Kingdom and robs it of its supernatural
content. Christ was no utopist nor was
He instructing His followers to create some earthly bliss. Even Eden was not the Kingdom of Christ. Men remain fallen and any attempts to build
God’s Kingdom on Earth ultimately go the way of the Tower of Babel. His Kingdom must come to us.
If
both of these viewpoints twist Christ’s words, then what is the properly
Catholic way of viewing the kingship of Christ?
Obviously, Christ’s Kingship is total and found in its full integrity only in the Kingdom that is to come. Still it is a spiritual kingdom that is in, not of, this world that derives its principles from heaven. Its exercise in the here and now is split, a point that Pope Gelasius made in his 4th Treatise to the Emperor Anastasius on the roles of Church and State: “He, indeed because of human weakness, separated the two ministries for the following reason, so that no one might become proud.” Because of man’s fallen nature, Christ has divided His kingdom between the spiritual and temporal.
We might think of the two realms as two concentric circles. The outer circle that pertains to His spiritual kingship is exercised in the Church through the Pope and Bishops who are in union with him. The inner circle represents His temporal kingship that is shared by the rulers of nations. The inner circle, while always with us in essence, grows or shrinks in size according to how much the leaven of the Gospel permeates it. It will always be lacking in some way but its fullest integrity is found when its laws and institutions make it easiest for the Church to fulfill her mission of saving souls. In other words, the best secular regime is that in which both Church and State, while remaining wholly distinct from each other, are pulling in the same direction. Historically we find this as the basis of Christendom and see it most operative in the 13th Century.
A Kingdom Divided Will Not Stand
One immediately grasps why a “Wall
of Separation of Church and State” can never be acceptable for Catholics. You can no more separate Church and State
than you can separate soul and body. The
latter leads to individual death, while the former clears the way for a Culture
of Death. You literally cannot separate
them because the State will always take the place of the Church when the Church
is absent, demanding religious obedience to all its precepts. Absent the Church, Caesar will always demand
his pinches of incense, a phenomenon we are witnessing first hand in our own
day as political correctness demands more and more religious obedience from
both individuals and corporations.
It
is not enough then to seek freedom to operate.
The Church must be free to inform the State so that all of its
moral precepts work toward the salvation of souls. As Pope Leo XIII said, “…it
would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought
the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be
universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered
and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is
even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the
fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men
or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself;
but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she
enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority”(On Catholicity in America, 26).
This
is ultimately why Catholics cannot stand idly by and watch the political realm
from a disinterested perspective. There
must be active engagement in order that men and women would recognize Christ on
His throne. But not only that, souls are
being lost specifically because of the laws and institutions in our country. This will not change without us.
We
can do no better to summarize the urgency with which we ought to act than to
echo the words of Cardinal Pie, the 19th Century prelate who fought
so judiciously for the rights of Christ the King:
“If we suppose Catholic social institutions, with Our Lord no longer living in the hearts of the individual members of society, then religion is merely a signboard which will soon disappear. But, on the other hand, try to convert individuals without Catholicizing the social institutions and your work is without stability. The structure you erect in the morning others will tear down in the evening. Is not the strategy of the enemies of God there to teach us a lesson? They want to destroy the faith in the hearts of individuals, it is true, but they direct still more vigorous efforts to the extirpation of religion from social institutions. Even one defeat of God in this domain means the weakening, if not the ruin, of the faith in the souls of many.”
In his new Post-Synodal
Apostolic Exhortation, Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis mentioned the process of
inculturation as a starting point for the conversion of the region. The Holy Father most certainly had the Pachamama
controversy in mind when he exhorted the Faithful to “not be quick to
describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise
spontaneously from the life of peoples. Rather, we ought to know how to
distinguish the wheat growing alongside the tares, for ‘popular piety can
enable us to see how the faith, once received, becomes embodied in a culture and
is constantly passed on.’ It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in
some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry. A myth charged with
spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan
error. Some religious festivals have a sacred meaning and are occasions for
gathering and fraternity, albeit in need of a gradual process of purification
or maturation” (QA 78-79). Setting aside
the fact that all false religions are by definition superstitions, the Holy
Father’s remarks call for a deeper understanding of what the Church means when
she uses the term Inculturation.
Understanding authentic
inculturation begins by grasping what we mean when we use the term culture.
Culture is the soil in which the human person grows. As the Second Vatican Council put it, “Man
comes to a true and full humanity only through culture, that is through the
cultivation of the goods and values of nature…. The word ‘culture’ in its
general sense indicates everything whereby man develops and perfects his many
bodily and spiritual qualities” (GS, 53).
Against Cultural Relativism
When viewed in relation to
“goods and values of nature,” it becomes evident that cultures are not ends in
themselves, but instead means for human growth.
Likewise because there are objective “goods and values of nature,” we
can also evaluate cultures objectively in terms of good and bad. Good cultures are those that cultivate
authentic human flourishing and bad cultures are those that do harm to true
human goods. Authentic culture must
always be, according to the International Theological Commission, that which
“reveals and strengthens the nature of man.”
In short, there is no such
thing as a neutral culture nor can anything like cultural relativism be
tolerated. We must evaluate and judge
cultures by the objective criterion of whether true human goods are protected
and promoted. It is the Church’s role to
be judgmental towards cultures in three specific ways. Those values that are true human values, even
if expressed in “local” terms are adopted as part of the vernacular of the
Church and are the means by which the Gospel takes root. If they point to true human values, but are
deficient in some way then the Church purifies them. Finally, if they are irreconcilable then the
Church condemns them. This process of promoting,
purifying and purging is what the Church calls inculturation.
The point of reference for
the Church is not the culture itself, but as in all things, the transmission of
the Gospel. The culture is simply the
means by which the message takes root.
This is why it is disingenuous to speak of inculturation as a two-way
street. The Church has the fullness of
truth and thus has no new facts to learn from the various cultures. The culture gives to the Church what is for
its own benefit—a language that speaks the truths of salvation. What she does gain is a fuller manifestation
of her catholicity. It becomes proof
positive that the Gospel can be put in terms that are intelligible to men of
every age and place and answer the deepest longings of all human hearts.
Because he was the most traveled
Pope in the history of the Church, St. John Paul II constantly emphasized the
connection between inculturation and evangelization. In an address to the People of Asia while he
was visiting the Philippines he reminded the Church that “Wherever she is,
the Church must sink her roots deeply into the spiritual and cultural soil of
the country, assimilate all genuine values, enriching them also with the
insights that she has received from Jesus. Given the mission entrusted to it by
our Lord, the Church’s priority is always the evangelization of all peoples and
therefore of all cultures. Inculturation is a means of evangelization, being at
the same time its consequence.”
With all of this laid as a
foundation, we can see what role, if any, Pachamama would play in legitimate
inculturation. Those who defended it
treated it as something that could simply be taken up (literally) as an
authentic human value. But worship of a
false god, however seemingly benign or how “spontaneously” it arises (how do we
know if something arises spontaneously or at the prompting of demons?), is not
a true human value. Nor is that
something that can be purified but instead must be something that is
rejected. Pachamama may have crossed the
Tiber after it was tossed in the Tiber, but it was only because certain
churchmen lacked both the faith and charity towards the Amazonian people to
give them the saving truth of Jesus Christ.
As St. John Paul II, who was not immune to failures in authentic
inculturation, told the people of Cameroon, “the Gospel message does not come
simply to consolidate human things, just as they are; it takes on a prophetic
and critical role. Everywhere, in Europe as in Africa, it comes to overturn
criteria of judgment and modes of life; it is a call to conversion.” Never once was the call to conversion issued to
the worshipper of Pachamama.
The great missionary saints,
whether it was St. Paul, St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, or St. Isaac Jogues,
were all masters of inculturation not because they were clever but because
theirs was a call to conversion even if they translated them into
colloquialisms. It was because they were
holy men that they were up to the task.
As John Paul II put it, “Only those who truly know Christ, and truly
know their own cultural inheritance, can discern how the divine Word may be
fittingly presented through the medium of that culture. It follows that there
can be no authentic inculturation which does not proceed from contemplating the
Word of God and from growing in likeness to him through holiness of life”.
Our country was founded upon a
rather strange amalgamation of principles.
A perusal of the writings of the Founders will uncover both references
to Catholic Natural Law and principles of the Enlightenments. One can imagine
that there are some pretty stark contradictions. One such contradiction is found in the
question of why we need government at all.
In the midst of defending the need for a government that includes checks
and balances in Federalist
Paper no. 51, James Madison makes what seems like at first to be a very
Catholic statement saying that government is “the greatest of all reflections
on human nature.” Rather than remaining
on that train of thought, Madison diverts to another track claiming that “If
men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Understanding both of his statements will
help us go a long way in understanding why our country seems to be plagued by
moral decay.
If Men Were Angels…
Obviously one of the important
questions that the Founders sought to address was how authority was to be exercised
by the State. Trying to emerge from the
shadow of Divine Right Theory, the Founders thought authority came from the
individual. Men would form a society
like the State by bartering freedom for security. The individuals would bestow authority upon a
Governor in order to ensure that his rights would be secured against encroachments
from other men who had all entered the society via a social contract.
When Madison says that
government is the “greatest reflection upon human nature”, he has this view of
human nature in mind—man as the individual who enters society via the social
contract. This principle of the
Enlightenment treats government then as a necessary evil that must be tolerated
because man is fallen. In his own words,
“anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the
weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger.” If men were not fallen, like the angels, then
government would not be necessary. So
commonplace is this idea today, that hardly anyone questions whether Madison
has greatly misunderstood human nature.
Madison’s anthropological
error comes into relief if we challenge his theological assertion that “if men
were angels, no government would be necessary.”
Angels do, in fact, live within a hierarchy, a hierarchical structure
that includes authority. Scripture
provides us with an example in Chapter 10 of the Book of Daniel. Daniel calls upon the help of Gabriel, but
the angel does not immediately respond because the Guardian Angel of the
Kingdom of Persia would not allow him to act.
After Michael intervenes, the lower angel is allowed to help Daniel (Dn
10:11-21). What this reveals is that
angels, even unfallen ones, do have a government, one that is based upon a
clear authoritative structure.
The Greatest of All Reflections on Human Nature
So, if men were angels then
government might be necessary rather than being a necessary evil. Contra Locke, Rousseau and their intellectual
progeny, including the Founders, man is not a solitary being, but is naturally a
social creature. In order to fulfill his
nature, man has need of other men. This
is not just a matter of convenience but part of his natural instinct. There are two natural societies in which man’s
needs are supplied, the Family and the State.
Because men naturally form
these two societies, they must have an authoritative structure. As Pope Leo XIII put it, “no society can hold
together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the
common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this
authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has,
consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must
proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world.
Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so
that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single
source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. ‘There is no power but from
God.’” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 3).
St. Thomas says that the act
of authority would be applied in four ways.
First, the ruler must direct the members of society towards what they
should do to contribute to and achieve the common good. Second, the ruler should supply for
difficulties such as protection against an enemy. Third, the ruler should correct morals via
punishment and (four) he should coerce the members to virtuous acts.
Now it becomes obvious that
the first two would apply whether or not men were fallen or not. Virtuous men might agree about some common
good, but because it is possible to achieve a good in multiple ways, they disagree
as to means. Without a ruler, that is
one without authority, there would be no one to make the final decision. Because men, even in a state of innocence
would not be equal with respect to virtue, it is the most virtuous who would govern.
St. Thomas describes this
virtuous ruler in the Summa:
“But a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or to the common good. Such a kind of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons. First, because man is naturally a social being, and so in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the presidency of one to look after the common good; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one…Secondly, if one man surpassed another in knowledge and virtue, this would not have been fitting unless these gifts conduced to the benefit of others…Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 14): ‘Just men command not by the love of domineering, but by the service of counsel”: and (De Civ. Dei xix, 15): ‘The natural order of things requires this; and thus did God make man.’”
(ST I q.96, a.4)
Madison, because he thinks
government a necessary evil, would have us tolerate evil in our rulers. But when we see the State as something
natural, we begin to identify its purpose of making men better. It is necessary for men to fulfill their
nature by becoming more virtuous. The
virtuous ruler will create virtuous subjects.
St. Thomas thinks we can, and must, do better. The transition may be rocky, but if our society
is to turn around and become morally sound, we must not settle for moral
degenerates in our leaders. With Primary
Season upon us, especially with a total lack of emphasis on the character of
our leaders, this is an important message.
GK Chesterton once said that
America was the only country built upon a creed. He thought the American Founders had united
the country around certain self-evident truths.
The founding credo has been replaced by a more modern one that is aptly
captured by the Supreme Court in their 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood vs
Casey. Writing for the majority in
defense of abortion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote “At the heart of liberty is
the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe,
and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define
the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” Freedom to choose trumps even reality itself,
and relativism in all its forms was enshrined as dogma. The only self-evident truth is that there is
no objective truth. Such an exaltation
of freedom gives society no foundation upon which men and women may be
united. All that is left to bind the
people is force, either through the coercion of political correctness or “the
compulsion of the State”.
Quite obviously it is not
enough to merely identify the problem.
We must do something about it.
But unless we are going to meet force with force, the only way to
correct the problem is to correct the bad ideas that caused it. Some errors are like weeds. It is not enough
to merely pluck the leaves of consequences, but we must attack the roots of the
ideas that caused the consequences.
Relativism is the weed that threatens society so that if we are to give
society room to flower, then we must tear out its roots.
The Three Words
Three words was all it took to
start the avalanche that would overthrow the Christian World Order. Unwilling to face the Scientistic Zeitgeist
head on by restating the higher metaphysical truths of reality, Rene Descartes
decided to play the skeptic’s game.
Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”, set the
tenor for modern thought and paved the way for the coronation of Relativism.
Good intentions never cover
for bad ideas, even if those ideas are “clear and distinct”. Descartes sought to defend philosophy against
the full frontal attack of empirical science.
When you have physics, why do you need metaphysics? But rather than fixing the problem, he
created a crisis in knowledge. All this
because he rejected Scholastic realism, that is, the epistemological position
that all knowledge comes in and through the senses. We come to form ideas based on the
perceptions we receive from our encounter with reality. Our ideas are true only insofar as they
conform to reality. In short, our ideas are
means by which we come to knowledge of the highest and lowest things.
Rather than being measured by
reality, Descartes thought man was the measure of reality. Knowledge of reality is an
impossibility. Instead we can only have
knowledge of our own ideas. And not just
any ideas, but only those are clear and distinct, the first of which was that
he is thinking. In his own words, “I
think therefore I am…In this first knowledge doubtless, there is nothing that
gives me assurance of its truth except the clear and distinct perception of
what I affirm…and accordingly it seems to me that I may now take as a general
rule, that all that is very clearly and distinctly apprehended (conceived) is
true” (Descartes,First Meditation).
The Scholastics thought that
existence was self-evident and could not be proven. Our senses drew data only from those things
that existed. This could not be doubted
and this was the starting point for all knowledge. Descartes, rather than starting with the
senses, began with the one thing he could not doubt, namely his own
thought. And this formed the basis for
his discovering the truth; having a clear and distinct idea. But because ideas are subjective, truth is no
longer objective. Truth reveals not the
outside world, but the state of the mind of the thinker.
Connecting the Dots
It may not yet be clear how
Descartes connects to Casey until we trace out the consequences of Descartes’
thoughts. We encounter reality in and
through our senses and then form ideas about it. Those ideas are called true which correspond
to reality as it really is. Truth, then, is the correspondence of reality and
idea. For Descartes and his intellectual
progeny (Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hume and so on), truth consists only in having
clear ideas. Rather than measuring ideas
against reality, they are measured by the mind itself and judged true if they
are “clear and distinct”. True comes to
mean “true for me” and “true for you.”
All ideas are equally true, so long as they are sincerely held. This leads to a contradiction because if
every opinion is equally true, then the following opinion is also equally true,
namely that not every opinion is equally true.
We have grown accustomed to
the cognitive dissonance and navigate it the best we can. We learn to “tolerate” different opinions
about reality. The problem though is
that if each of us is living in a world he has constructed on his own, then
there is no means by which a society can be formed. There may be small pockets of “like-minded”
people but no real unity. The seemingly
esoteric philosophical problem becomes the source of a gigantic social problem.
That is why the solution must
also be a social one. There must be a reintroduction
of Medieval Philosophy. We must go back
to just before the train went off the rails and set it back on the tracks. It starts by properly training the young to
think clearly about reality as it really is.
We cannot, like Descartes, pick up the scraps of truth on the hems of
the Zeitgeist and expect to build anything solid. Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have
bad consequences. We must go back to St.
Thomas and learn from him truly how to think.
We must teach our children to go back to St. Thomas. Catholic schools need to be true houses of
intellectual formation and not merely alternatives to the public schools. St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
In a commentary in
Chicago Catholic posted last week, Cardinal Cupich weighed in on the
Pachamama controversy. The Cardinal decried
the removal and disposal of the statues into the Tiber River of calling it an
act of “vandalism”. He defended the inclusion
of the “artwork from the Amazon region depicted a pregnant woman, a symbol of
motherhood and the sacredness of life” during the Amazonian Synod as an example
of the necessary “two way street of inculturation” in which “both the cultures
and the church are enhanced in coming to know God.” In truth however, the Cardinal is defending idolatrous
syncretism, a position that is indefensible for a Catholic.
Artwork
or Idol?
In an act of sophistry that
would make even Protagoras blush, the Cardinal depicted the statues as “artwork”. One has to wonder why Aaron didn’t think of
that when Moses confronted him over the Golden Calf. His description defies logic and is a great
distortion of the truth. Pachamama is no
mere symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life, but a benevolent goddess
of motherhood and fertility that is still worshipped among the indigenous
peoples of the Andes. The peoples, as
evidenced by the opening ceremony in the Vatican Garden, still offer worship to
the goddess through the statue.
Each August,
the people of the Peru dedicate the month to making offerings and sacrifices to
Pachamama. It is believed that it is
necessary to satisfy her hunger and thirst with food offerings. These offerings are burnt, carrying the
prayers of the people in the smoke. The Pachamama
is no mere symbol, but instead a goddess.
The Cardinal is either lying or a fool or both.
Even Pope Francis admits that
it was an idol, although not directly of course. In his apology for the theft and submersion
of the statues, he said that the statues were displayed “without any idolatrous
intentions”. No one would question the idolatrous
intentions of someone unless the items in question were, in fact, idols. The Pope’s comment, rather than exonerating
him however actually makes what happened even worse. Worse, that is, if you believe St. Thomas
Aquinas.
As an offense against the First Commandment, he thought that idolatry, next to heresy is the gravest sin. It is an offense directly against God Himself. Aquinas thought that not all idolatry was equal. He said that the worst kind of idolatry is, using the Pope’s words, idolatry “without any idolatrous intentions.” The Angelic Doctor said “since outward worship is a sign of the inward worship, just as it is a wicked lie to affirm the contrary of what one holds inwardly of the true faith so too is it a wicked falsehood to pay outward worship to anything counter to the sentiments of one’s heart” (ST II-II q.94, a.2). To set up idols without any idolatrous intentions is not only to commit idolatry but to lie as well. Citing St. Augustine’s condemnation of Seneca for setting up idols that he did not believe in, Aquinas condemned the Pope’s position.
St. Thomas makes another
interesting connection in his treatment of idolatry. Citing St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he
mentions how God turns men over to sins against nature as punishment for
idolatry. He says that it is a fitting punishment of the sin of idolatry which
abuses the order of divine honor that man would sin against nature as a way of
suffering from the confusion from abuse of his own nature. Might it be that the refusal of the Church to
stand against all of the idolatrous elements of New Age spirituality has been
met by gross sins of nature, especially among the clergy? In other words, perhaps the homosexuality
that plagues the Church is an effect of idolatry that won’t be rooted out until
its cause is also rooted out.
Inculturation?
The Cardinal mentions that
this event is simply an attempt at inculturation. He errs however is describing inculturation as
a two-way street. The Church needs no
outside help as She has been given the fullness of truth. Instead she brings the truth to those who
have yet to accept it and explains the truth on terms that are readily
understood by her audience. When
evangelizing new cultures she may find elements that can be baptized such that
they will make the Gospel intelligible.
She brings nothing back to the Church except the souls she is
saving. Our Lady’s approach (detailed
here) to St. Juan Diego and the people of Mexico is a prime example of
this. She borrowed elements that were
familiar to them, modified them, and used them to point to the true God in her
womb. The Church learned nothing from
the Aztecs.
A two-way street approach to
inculturation is just another word for syncretism. Often masquerading as “ecumenism”, this practice
ultimately is about finding creative ways to blend the Church’s doctrines with
those of other religions. It thrives on
ambiguity and teeters on heresy. The
problem is that you end up far away from the truth in a way similar to what
Chesterton described when he described syncretism as analogous to a man who
says that the world is a rhomboid because some people believe that the world is
flat and others round.
It signals a loss of faith,
thinking we must compromise to get people to come over to our side. But the truth has a power all its own such
that when it is spoken, especially with charity, it is immediately compelling. It is also a loss in faith in anything supernatural. The fact that idols have demons behind them
is totally foreign to those of Cardinal Cupich’s ilk.
This is why they find it so incomprehensible that someone would go to the lengths the “vandal” did in attempting to destroy the idol. It is an act of zeal; zeal for God and hatred of demons. As St. John Henry Newman puts it, “zeal consists in a strict attention to His commands—a scrupulousness, vigilance, heartiness, and punctuality, which bears with no reasoning or questioning about them—an intense thirst for the advancement of His glory—a shrinking from the pollution of sin and sinners—an indignation, nay impatience, at witnessing His honor insulted—a quickness of feeling when His name is mentioned, and a jealousy how it is mentioned—a fulness of purpose, an heroic determination to yield Him service at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling—an energetic resolve to push through all difficulties, were they as mountains, when His eye or hand but gives the sign—a carelessness of obloquy, or reproach, or persecution, a forgetfulness of friend and relative, nay, a hatred (so to say) of all that is naturally dear to us, when He says, ‘Follow me.’” It is zeal that destroys idols without destroying the idolaters. It is zeal that seeks to set the idolaters free.
Carl Linnaeus was an Eighteenth-Century
Swedish Biologist who first adopted the binomial nomenclature for naming organisms. In so doing, he dubbed man has homo sapiens
or “wise man”. If Linnaeus was to have
witnessed mankind’s evolution, not through random mutation, but through
political correctness, he might dub him homo insapiens instead. Modern man is a lot of things, but wise is
most certainly not one of them. For all
of the supposed progress that modernity has offered, the threat of a new Dark
Ages remains a real possibility.
Linnaeus’ choice of the
participle sapiens to describe man was a recognition of the fact that
among all of the species, only man has the capacity for wisdom. It is, in a very real sense, his specific
difference. But it is only a capacity
and not a biologically determined inevitability. It is his destiny, but only if he accepts it
as his vocation. He must both value it,
pursue it and come to love it.
Wisdom
and Philosophy?
In order to do this, we must
first admit that most of us don’t know what wisdom is. The wise man knows the right ordering of
things; not just some things, but all things.
He knows what the first things are so he can put them first, what the
second things are so you can put them second, and so on. It is only by acknowledging and choosing
according to this order right order that he can be truly fulfilled. Wisdom isn’t “no” but “instead of”. To put it in philosophical terms, wisdom is
to judge all things according to their final causes or purposes.
Accepting his sapiential vocation means that man strives to become a lover of wisdom. He becomes a philosopher, not because he enjoys esoterica, but because he is a man. Man can no more avoid being a philosopher than he can avoid thinking. He will see the world according to his own first principles. The choice then is not about whether he will be a philosopher but about his philosophy. Will it be as Chesterton puts it, “thought that has been thought out” or will it be the “unconscious acceptance of broken bits of some incomplete philosophy” that comes in “nothing but phrases that are, at their best, prejudices”?
The
Antidote to PC Culture
Ultimately then, Political
Correctness in all its forms is perhaps the greatest threat to mankind today. I say this without any danger of succumbing to
hyperbole. By serving as a substitution for
thought, it threatens to make us into something less than human. At the heart of wisdom, and therefore of any
philosophy, is the question why.
We cannot order anything without investigating causes. When a philosophy forbids, or at the very
least, avoids that question, it becomes a danger to us all. Usually very reserved in his language, GK
Chesterton, playing the role of prophet warns of dire consequences:
The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above. Those things are simply substitutes for thoughts. In some cases they are the tags and tail-ends of somebody else’s thinking. That means that a man who refuses to have his own philosophy will not even have the advantages of a brute beast, and be left to his own instincts. He will only have the used-up scraps of somebody else’s philosophy; which the beasts do not have to inherit; hence their happiness.
The Revival of Philosophy–Why?
So many Catholics feel
helpless in the face of modernity, especially as the detritus of secular
philosophy continues to overflow into the Church. Whatever the solution, it is clear that no
solution will be viable without a cadre of right-thinking Catholics. Only the Scholasticism of St. Thomas offers a
complete and coherent explanation of reality that is able to refute political correctness
in all its subtle forms. Our enemies,
much quicker than us to realize this, have successfully suppressed his thought
for several generations. Chesterton thought
there needed to be a revival of philosophy, I am saying there needs to be a
revival of a specific philosophy. It is
time that the Church and all in it sit and the feet of St. Thomas and learn how
to be truly wise.
Only the wise man is truly free. He moves about unhindered within the range of
reality, seeing and using everything in its specific place. This is why the attack on perennial
philosophy is actually an attack against man’s freedom. Controlling a man’s thoughts, controls the
man’s actions. Political correctness is
enslavement to groupthink. A man who is
truly a freethinker, that is one who thinks freely about how to use his
freedom, is impossible to control. He
sets his sights on the highest things and pursues them with love and zeal. He is a philosopher in the truest sense of the
word and enjoys the freedom of right action that always flows from right thought. The future of mankind very much depends upon
our decision to be homo sapiens.
When Our Lord issued the Great Commission to the Apostles, He was telling them, and by extension us, to be bigmouths. The Lord of all knew that the Enemy of man would never cease telling lies and that the only way to confront those lies is by never ceasing to tell the truth. The Church has been, throughout her history, the Great Truth Teller. Until recently that is. No longer does she breathe truth upon the ideological lies that the World tells but plays the part of the mute. As proof of this, let’s compare the number of Papal Encyclicals dealing directly with the Socialist/Communist Revolution. Nearly every Pope from Leo XIII to John Paul II addressed this ideological lie directly, never growing weary of repeating themselves. Now compare that with the number of Papal Encyclicals against Sexual Revolution—one. That one, Humanae Vitae, landed with a great thud and has been unceremoniously dismissed. Whatever work John Paul II did in this area has been caught up in the whirlwind of ambiguity that is the current pontificate (i.e. Amoris Laetitia). The point is that the Church attacked Socialism and all its incarnations directly while they have left gender ideology unscathed despite John Paul II calling it the “new ideology of evil”. As the silence mounts, more and more Catholics fall in line with the ideological spirit, especially during the latest manifestation, Transgenderism. This should not be read as a complaint or a rebuke of clergy, but an undeniable statement of fact. Ideologies have a way of silencing dissenters, so I am more interested in mobilizing and arming those willing to speak truth against the lies, than to blame anyone for not speaking out.
Because of the relative silence on this issue, there are no authoritative statements regarding Transgenderism. Clarity is not a habit normally associated with this lie, but for the sake of clarity we will distinguish between gender dysphoria as the internal struggle that one has with their sexual identity and Transgenderism as the act of attempting to alter one’s sexual identity. The former is a psychological condition and the latter is a physical action that is said to solve the conflict. It is relatively easy to show via Catholic moral principles why Transgenderism is wrong. It can never be a real solution to the problem and ultimately does great harm to the person. Nevertheless, because it is cloaked in a medical solution it is important that we understand the principles.
The moral principles involve the
recently discussed Principle of
Totality. To summarize and review,
this bioethical principle says that “except to save life itself, the
fundamental functional capacities which constitute the human person should not
be destroyed, but preserved, developed, and used for the good of the whole
person and of the community.” Whether
it is a surgical intervention or hormonal replacement, the “treatment”
modalities involved always seek to destroy the biological sex characteristics
and replace them with simulated versions of the opposite sex. The use of the term “simulated” is deliberate
because “sex reassignment surgery” simply is not possible. The person may resemble the opposite sex, but
they can never actually be the opposite sex.
No matter how much plastic surgery you perform, you cannot artificially manufacture
a sex organ. It will always fail in its primary
purpose.
The Harm Done
These principles are masked
because the harm that is done to these people is often hidden. It is a pernicious lie that, rather than
solving the problem, puts the person into a sexual void. They will have mutilated the bodily capacity
that identifies one’s true sex and they will never be their “new” sex. To solve the problem of confusion by causing them
to truly identify as neither sex is, self-evidentally, not a real solution. But anyone who questions this, including
doctors and psychiatrists are ostracized and vilified, although never refuted.
Rather than acknowledge this
they cover it with an ambiguous term gender. It is labeled as a “social construct” because
of the inherent failure to construct sex themselves. This is probably why many gender dysphoric people
choose not to have surgery. It is also
why one of the few (semi-)reputable studies done found that those
who had surgery were 19 times more likely to commit suicide (and this was a
study done in “tolerant” Sweden).
Hormone intervention likewise
have lasting effects and often constitute a chemical mutilation of sort because
they render the person sterile. Included
in this are so called “puberty blockers” which permanently stunt the growth and
development of children. When a child
presents with gender dysphoria, this is the standard treatment modality. We do not let children under 16 vote, drink,
smoke or choose not to go to school because of their intellectual and physical immaturity. We will however allow them to decide what gender
they will be and to begin permanent steps in making that a reality. There is a built-in mechanism to clear up confusion
related to sexual identity called puberty.
That is why the reputable studies of gender dysphoria all show that
between 80-95% of children who express discordant gender identity come to
identify with their biological sex over time (a statistic cited in Ryan
Anderson’s excellent book When Harry
Became Sally). Those two sets of
numbers, the 80-95% and the 19 times more likely to commit suicide would
suggest that any medical intervention should be delayed until the person has
reached full maturity. The fact that these
are never mentioned is because the best interest of the person is trumped by
ideology.
The
Intersex Exception
There is another aspect of
this that is important to grasp. Abortion
supporters often argue from “the rape and
incest and mother’s
life in jeopardy exception” in favor of abortion on demand. Transgender ideologues do something similar
with their Intersex exception. The argument
goes something like “because intersex are biologically neither sex, therefore there
are more than two sexes.” Even if this
was true, it is an example of the exception proving the rule. Intersex individuals have a genetic defect,
that is, they have a deviation from the normal condition. Transgender ideologues, like the abortion advocates,
would have us think the exception should be the rule and therefore a person
should be able to decide on his own what sex he will be.
Second, the intersex condition
is based upon direct observation. Transgenderism is based upon a subjective
belief not rooted in any external condition.
The intersex individual is not changing their sex characteristics but
attempting to repair them. Quite frankly,
it is surprising that the Intersex
Society of North America (ISNA) is so ambiguous in their language and allow
the Transgender idealogues to co-opt what is a true medical, as opposed to
psychological condition. The ISNA says
that persons with disorders in sexual development are not a third gender, but
male or female. Those are the only two
options, even if may not always be easy to decipher.
In order not to appear to be “obsessed”
with all of the issues of the Sexual Revolution, the Church has chosen to be
silent. It isn’t the Church that is
obsessed but the culture. In order to
break that obsession the Church cannot be silent. Millions of people are becoming ideological and
there won’t be a culture to save unless we speak out. We must arm ourselves with the truth and a willingness
to engage. We must be the bigmouths that
Our Lord calls us to be.
The former Chief Exorcist of
Rome, of pious memory, Fr. Gabriele Amorth is well known in Catholic circles
for his books on the demonic. He is well
known outside of Catholic circles for his repeated criticism of the Harry
Potter series. Speaking mainly from the
experience of casting out thousands of demons, he once said, “behind Harry
Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil.” This was met by mockery outside the Church
and deaf ears within. Many Catholics,
clergy included, see “nothing wrong with Harry Potter” and thus allow and
encourage children to read the series, see the movies, visit amusement parks
and play video games. Fr. Amorth is not
the only exorcist who has warned against the series and even Pope Benedict
cautioned against it during his time as Prefect of the Congregation of the
Faith. Deaf ears can often lead to blind
eyes and thus it is imperative that we have a coherent explanation and not
merely scare tactics of why Harry Potter is dangerous.
To begin, we must concede that
for a parent to offer an “it is harmless” defense of anything is not good
parenting. Even if there is such thing
as a “harmless” story (as opposed to helpful or harmful), it is questionable
parenting to use that as a criteria for what you expose your children to. Junk food for the body might be permitted,
junk food for the mind ought not to be.
But in truth it is an attempt to feign neutrality when in fact there is
really no such thing as a neutral story.
Inundated by television and movies, which condition us to accept views
of the world uncritically, we can easily forget how powerful a story is to
convey a world view. We tend to equate
entertainment and goodness.
Why
Stories Matter
Stories are, to borrow a
phrase from JRR Tolkien, a sub-creation.
The author creates a world of his own imagining and then animates that
world. But it is not a creation ex-nihilio,
but a sub-creation. To be
intelligible it must rest upon reality as it really is. A good story should also
be entertaining, but to be good it must wrap a narrative around a particular
aspect of reality so as to let the light of truth shine upon it. A bad
story may also be entertaining, especially if we are uncritical of what we are
reading or seeing. In fact, it often is
in order to mask the ugliness of the story.
Ultimately what makes it a bad story is that it distorts reality. It puts forth a false idea of truth and
goodness, redefining them in subtle ways.
Stories have such a powerful
effect on children because of their unbridled capacity for wonder. Wonder gives them a much more expansive view
of reality which makes them particularly apt to see the message attached to the
narrative. They don’t just read a book
or watch a movie, they insert themselves into the world created by the author
and move about. This is why a whole
generation of now adults grew up playing Star Wars and why another generation
is growing up playing Harry Potter. If
you don’t want your children pretending to be magicians, using magic for good
or ill, then you would not want them to read these books. Children will play in the stories they hear
and read.
There is also a bit of a mixed
message that is being sent. Magic,
sorcery and divination are all presented as intrinsically evil by the Church
(c.f. CCC 2117) but presented as something that can be used for good by the
Harry Potter books. Since “intrinsically
evil” implies one can never use it for good, this sends a rather mixed message. In short, on the one hand we have a story
where the hero uses it and on the other we have stories in Scripture where it
is strongly condemned regardless of how it is used. Deuteronomy 18:9-12 describes magic as an
abomination before God and tells how a believer should respond in the face of
it. One need not wonder what would
happen if Harry met St. Paul given the latter’s interaction with the magician
in Acts 13:6-12. The point though is
that a child will not naturally allow a contradiction to exist and thus will
reject one story and accept the other.
One can hardly imagine that, without proper guidance and formation, the
child will almost always choose the more entertaining story.
What
is Magic, anyway?
A fuller understanding of magic itself will help us better grasp the inherent danger; a danger that is growing daily as our culture is re-paganized. There are about 20,000 books on Amazon that describe different Wiccan spells so we are talking about more than just mere sleight of hand or some fringe movement if we merely follow the market. Magic is not a sub-creation created in the mind of the author, but something that exists in the real world. Magic is about harnessing superhuman power and using it to overcome our natural limitations. So, when we speak about magic what we are really talking about is angelic power. Angels by their nature can act upon material creation simply by willing it. They can manipulate pre-existing matter in any matter that they wish. This is exactly what those schooled in magic and the occult are trying to do.
The problem is that evil
angels, demons that is, are willing to share this power with human beings. Not in order to help them but to entrap
them. They give them superhuman powers
through spells and the like in exchange for control of them. By grasping at a power beyond them, they
submit their own human strength to the demons.
The demons are only too happy to comply because it makes them “like God”
because it is a cheap imitation of God’s power of miracles. Ultimately it is an attack on God and the
humans are simply pawns who end up bearing the brunt of it.
The Harry Potter books never
say where the magic comes from, but it comes from the place that all magic
comes from hell. It can seemingly be
repurposed for good, or else it would lack appeal, but ultimately this good is
a mere smokescreen for the evil that lurks behind its power. This repurposing of magic for the good is the
theme behind another fantasy story, one that acts like the magic elephant in
the room anytime Harry Potter is discussed–TheLord of the Rings.
Magic is a key element in the
Lord of the Rings as well, and yet, most would say these would be categorized
as good stories. To grasp how it is
different from Harry Potter we must return to what was said earlier about the
source of magic. If magic, at its core
is angelic power, then there is nothing wrong with angels using it. It is their natural power. Those who naturally use magic in the story,
namely the Elves and Gandalf, are not human.
Gandalf is not a man but an angelic being called a Maiar who had taken
human form. He and the Elves are, in
Tolkien’s sub-creation, angels. It is natural
for them to use “magic” and thus they are not seizing something that does not
belong to them, but applying their given powers in pursuit of the good. The story makes clear that all those lesser
creatures who ultimately try to harness that power, even if for good use,
ultimately come to ruin. It is a story
ultimately against magic and not for it.
And in that way it is vastly different than Harry Potter which celebrates
its use by men and women.
