Category Archives: Culture of Life

Better Off Dead?

December 7, 2024Culture of Life, Defending the FaithAugustine, City of God, Dignity of the Human Person, England, euthanasiatwowingstogod@gmail.com

One of the greatest challenges confronting the Church today is embracing the realization that the majority of people, including most Christians, think with a post-Christian mindset. The opposition to the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill in England comes to mind as the most recent example. The Catholic Bishops of England vociferously opposed the bill, even though the passage of the bill was fully expected. Yet their reasoning would really only be convincing to someone deeply rooted in a Christian culture. That is why they are forced to keep saying “The Catholic Church teaches…” To use language that speaks of the dignity of the human person, while true, falls rather flat in a culture of death. In fact, you could argue that it is really at the crux of the issue. When people no longer practically believe in God, there is little interest in protecting His image in man. My proposal then is to update our approach by going backwards.

In many ways St. Augustine is a perfect model for our times. He lived in an era when Christianity was mostly tolerated but the Christian mindset was nowhere to be found. What he did was to address social evils using the examples and thought patterns of the day. He would then show how they fit with the understanding of the Church. In fact he was so good at it, that he wrote a thousand+ page book that has remained intact for nearly 1500 years that uses this technique throughout called The City of God.

Augustine on Suicide

What makes his approach especially relevant is that he tackles the question of suicide in Book I. The Romans tended to view suicide as something noble. Augustine examines two famous examples to make his point. The first was Lucretia who was a Roman noblewoman who had been raped. After her brother and husband exacted revenge on the offender, she killed herself to avoid the shame. The second was Marcus Cato who strongly opposed Julius Caesar so that once Caesar came into power, he killed himself rather than submitting. The Romans looked to both of them as models of nobility.

Rather than leading with the dignity of the human person or the Commandments, Augustine first attacks the value the Romans found in suicide, namely its nobility. He shows how it is anything but noble. He calls Lucretia weak and a coward: “it is not even right to call it greatness of soul when someone kills himself because he is not strong enough to endure hardships or other people’s sins.” Because he is questioning whether or not it is truly noble to run away from hardship, he now has the Romans’ ears. They value nobility and Augustine has called into question what is truly noble.

Likewise, he calls Cato a coward especially because he and his friends admitted that when his son killed himself it “was an act showing weakness unable to bear adversity rather than honor on guard against disgrace.” He then goes on to say he prefers a different Marcus, one surnamed Regulus, whom the Romans “offer none better for their outstanding virtue”. He, rather taking his own life after losing to the Carthaginians, remained patient and bore the shame and bad fortune. Only then does he offer up the example of Job asking the reader whether he would prefer to be Job or Cato.

Challenging on Their Terms

All of this is pertinent because one of the arguments in favor of assisted suicide is that, just as in the propaganda ad above, there is something noble in taking one’s life. In order to meet the anti-lifers on their terms we must call it out for what it is; it is most decidedly an act of cowardice on the part of the person and those who surround him. We all know this, but very few are willing to say it and call it out. We may think we are being kind by not pointing out the obvious, but it is a false compassion. There is true nobility in bearing suffering well and facing it head on. There is true nobility in being Simon of Cyrene and courageously allowing another’s suffering to spill over onto you. The false compassion that leads to silence is not much better than the false compassion that leads to support of deadly bills like this.

Imagine the difference between offering a person facing suffering and death a pill versus offering them support to lean into it. When given the choice, wouldn’t any one of us rather be St. Paul than King Saul? We cannot be afraid to challenge people directly, especially when they have suffering in front of them. Ask them how they want to be remembered: as someone who went out on their own terms or someone who fought to the very end? Telling the stories of great saints who endured suffering, especially modern day examples like St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. John Paul II and St. Teresa Benedicta, can be sources of inspiration. It is a natural transition from them as sources of inspiration to their Source of inspiration.

Part of the dignity of the human person and a sign of man’s greatness is the fact that he can see suffering coming and can plow right into, and Lord willing, through it. The reason many will choose to end their lives is because they have not met Christ crucified. We must not be afraid to preach the truth that because He suffered, suffering now has eternal value. The Lord suffered so that no suffering is ever meaningless, and the only real “sweet death” is the one that He has set aside for each of us.

Out of Voting Options?

October 23, 2024Abortion, American Founding, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Conscience, Contraception, Culture of LifeCommon Good, Election, IVFtwowingstogod@gmail.com

With the usual turmoil that comes with a Presidential election it is easy to miss an overall cultural movement that has occurred: it has become increasingly harder for Christians to participate in the political process without compromising their principles. It seems that during this Presidential election cycle we are out of options. The candidate on the Left is radically pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ “rights”, and has been part of an administration that has repeatedly used lawfare, especially against Catholics. The candidate on the Right during his last administration did much to help the pro-life cause, favors the rule of law, and, as his record shows, favors peace both home and abroad. The choice seems rather easy, except the latter also has recently Donned himself “the Father of IVF” and promises, through his party’s platform, “to promote policies that advance Prenatal Care, access to Birth Control, and IVF (fertility treatments).” Can a Catholic, in good conscience, still vote for the Republican candidate?

Voting and the Common Good

As with any moral examination, it is important to begin by looking at the act in question and to frame it in its context. Since voting is a social action, its moral evaluation must always be in relation to the common good. Admittedly in our atomistic, “are you better off than four years ago?” culture this is a very un-American way of looking at it. Still, voting is a duty because we each have a duty to contribute to the common good. Voting is the means by which the individual chooses a representative whom he thinks will best protect and promote the common good (which is the overarching purpose of the State).

In an ideal world (and assuming our two-party system), any harm done to the common good by a chosen representative would be merely accidental in the sense that the implementation of a policy failed or had unintended consequences. In other words, the ends would be good even if the means were not; a failure in political prudence. Put another way, neither candidate would support what is intrinsically evil and any evil that does arise would be accidental. In that setting, an honest, non-partisan evaluation can occur in which the voter essentially comes up with a pros and cons list for each candidate.

This is why the Church has often spoken as if support for an intrinsic evil is an automatic disqualification. To that end the CDF, under the guidance of Cardinal Ratzinger in 2002, said:

A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals… When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility… This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia… Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death. In the same way, it is necessary to recall the duty to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo. Analogously, the family needs to be safeguarded and promoted, based on monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.

Because the candidate is openly advocating for a policy that can never be ordered towards advancing the common good, he or she is eliminated as an option. As an important aside, it is necessary to note that there is a distinction between toleration and active promotion. Sometimes the common good dictates that some evils be tolerated because of the moral condition of the polity. You cannot make laws that will eradicate every evil and sometimes the best you can do is contain it or limit it (e.g. John Paul II’s “Art of the Possible” in Evangelium Vitae) .

But what can we do when both candidates are advocating for policies that promote intrinsic evils? “Birth control” and IVF may be of a different moral quality than abortion, nevertheless they cannot be ordered to the common good. The Republican has moved from merely tolerating these things to actively promoting them. It could certainly be argued that because of the sheer number of children killed by both IVF and the Pill (because of its abortifacient properties) that it represents a greater threat to justice in our society than abortion. While it is impossible to quantify the effects, the movement in this direction is certainly a betrayal of those social conservatives who rightly place a premium on the foundations of society in life and the family. It is noteworthy that, in an attempt to avoid being outdone in evil, the Democratic candidate also promises unfettered access to both birth control and IVF as detailed in her party’s platform.

Voting and the Catch-22

There seems to be then a moral justification for not voting for either candidate or, at least, writing in some other worthy candidate. This would be in hopes of sending a message to President Trump that he has lost pro-lifers and he will reverse course. Edward Feser, among others has made a compelling case for that here. The problem with that approach is that, while it may be a political solution, it does not fulfill one’s duty to the common good which is relative to the here and now. The potential harm to the common good should Vice-President Harris win far outweighs the harm President Trump will do to it (this is a point Feser concedes). You must vote to limit the evil as it presents itself here and now; “Sufficient for a day is its own evil” (Mt 6:34). Cardinal Burke made a similar point when he was Archbishop of St. Louis in 2004:

A Catholic may vote for a candidate who, while he supports an evil action, also supports the limitation of the evil involved, if there is no better candidate. For example, a candidate may support procured abortion in a limited number of cases but be opposed to it otherwise. In such a case, the Catholic who recognizes the immorality of all procured abortions may rightly vote for this candidate over another, more unsuitable candidate in an effort to limit the circumstances in which procured abortions would be considered legal. Here the intention of the Catholic voter, unable to find a viable candidate who would stop the evil of procured abortion by making it illegal, is to reduce the number of abortions by limiting the circumstances in which it is legal. This is not a question of choosing the lesser evil, but of limiting all the evil one is able to limit at the time.

Despite the seemingly desperate situation, the only way forward morally is to vote for former President Trump. His policies in many ways advance the common good and he seems protective of the Church. He also seems committed to limiting abortion, although not as strongly as he once was. His pro-IVF and pro-contraception stance is unacceptable, but may actually be limited relative to the Democratic position. Because you cannot remain neutral with respect to your obligation towards the common good, it would be wrong to not cast a vote or to write-in another candidate even if it sends an important political message. That political message needs to be sent more directly and more vociferously by directly and clearly stating our objections to his stances on IVF and contraception.

The Social Cost of Greed

May 5, 2021Catholic Social Teaching, Culture of Life, Economics, Freedom, Human Dignity, Marxism, Politics, WorkGreed, Gregory the Great, Oligarchy, Original Sin, Seven Deadly Sins, St. Paul, St. Thomastwowingstogod@gmail.com

It is axiomatic that those who can’t control themselves will always be controlled by someone else. This axiom is on display in our own day as we continue to see democracy be overthrown by oligarchy. A virtuous populace can thrive under a democratic system. Any system of self-government requires a people who are capable of governing their own desires. Once that power is lost individually and vice takes over, mobs are sure to follow. The problem with mobs however is that they really can never organize and so an oligarch must step in to incite and organize the mob. Thus, democracy moves from mob rule to oligarchy very quickly. Our own day bears witness to these principles in action as democracy dies and oligarchy takes over. If we are to arrest this development, then we must examine its causes. Every social ill has as its root cause personal vice and there is one vice that seems to be baked into our society—avarice. We should not be surprised at this fact given that St. Paul matter-of-factly proclaims that “love of money is the root of all evil” (c.f. 1 Timothy 6:10) and the Christian Tradition since Gregory the Great has considered it as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Despite tradition’s testimony to the contrary, our own culture insists there is no sin in avarice. That is because it is baked into the American Experiment. Founded on a class-less basis, class became something that was earned and prosperity was the first form of virtue signaling. As Tocqueville said public fortune became synonymous with greed. To condemn greed is to suffer the label of Socialist. For those who are willing to wear that label proudly, they always do so while hiding their 10,000 square-foot houses behind hedges and gates. These modern-day hypocrites make the Pharisees seem tame.

What is Avarice?

What then is greed and why does it cause such social evil? St. Thomas says that, “avarice is taken generally for an inordinate love of having anything whatsoever, and in another way particularly for love of having possessions all of which are comprehended under the name of money because their value is measured by money…avarice signifies a certain defect in regard to the dispensing of wealth and a certain excess in regard to its acquisition and retention because of an excessive love of money” (De Malo, XIII). Mere desire for possessions and money is not evil, but instead an inordinate love of them is. This inordinate love occurs when the desire to possess a thing or thing goes beyond need (this includes the “need” for saving and reasonable luxury). Rather than getting caught up as to where the line between reasonable and inordinate is, we should instead look to the interior of what it is that actually motivates us in our greed.

What makes greed particularly deadly is the fact that it kills our recognition of our creaturely status. All of us crave security. Rightly ordered, we know that this security is limited and so we must trust and hope in God and His promises. This is why the Dollar Bill has the motto In God We Trust on it. But given enough material prosperity, and more importantly, enough money, we begin to think our security is founded upon the ability to monetarily weather any storm. This craving for security leads to an insatiable desire for money because money gives us the appearance of having control. Greed then become all about control and grasping at a God-likeness that is rooted in Original Sin.

Personal greed also spills over to other people because it is opposed to both generosity and justice. It really is more blessed to give than to receive (c.f. Acts 20:35) because it keeps us from falling into the greed trap. The virtue of generosity conditions us to draw pleasure from giving rather than getting. One can hardly imagine God allowing a person to outdo Him in generosity so that they give away too much.

Likewise with justice. The tight-fistedness of greed always keeps us from ensuring that our neighbor receives what is due to him. For the avaricious man, relationships are fundamentally competitive rather than complimentary. Each slice of the pie that you receive is one less that I can have. In this way avarice also becomes deadly for other people. Accustomed to measuring everything in terms of costs, there is an emphasis on having over being. Utilitarianism, rooted in greed is, as Pope St. John Paul II, at the heart of the Culture of Death—”“This culture [the Culture of Death] is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency…only goal . . . the pursuit of one’s own material well-being” (Evangelium Vitae, 12).

Extending Control

It is also deadly to others in a less obvious way. Buoyed by unbridled Capitalism and fed by insatiable greed, the avaricious man, accustomed to thinking he has absolute control over his life, now sets his sights on other people. Having many zeroes in their bank accounts, they now decide they will play the hero for others. But this playing of hero is just that, mere play, even if they label it as philanthropic. This philanthropy however is always motivated by a desire to control other people. It is literally a Messiah-complex thinking that they can save the world on their own terms. America seems to breed these “philanthropists” throughout the ages, be it Carnegie and Rockefeller or Gates and Bezos.

Greed creates the oligarchs and greed is what makes the mob malleable to their manipulation. Convinced that the only way to be free from the grasp of the oligarchs is by having their own resources, they remain under their thumbs. Greed generates “class” warfare and Socialism becomes the weapon to pit the greedy plebs against each other. In truth however the only way to be free is the same way it has always been—become men and women of virtue. The virtuous always remain free because they are immune to such manipulation. Armed with generosity and justice, they are not only counter-cultural, but culture changers.

The Religion of the Antichrist

November 11, 2020Abortion, Church, Church and State, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, End Times, Marxism, Spiritual WarfareAntichrist, Communism, Devil, First Saturday Devotion, Intersectionality, Karl Marx, Our Lady of Fatima, Pro-Choice, Sexual Revolution, Vatican IItwowingstogod@gmail.com

When the wall separating east from west in Berlin fell, millions of people were freed from the shackles of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia. The man who was instrumental in this happening, St. John Paul II, saw it as part of his divine mandate to facilitate this monumental event. But as a Catholic who had a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, he knew that was not the end of the story. Russia had spread her errors practically unabated for 75 years; reaching even into our own country. These errors were not Communism itself, but instead the ideology that underlies it—Marxism. Marxism is alive and well and is poised to become a global religion through the likes of not just China’s hegemonic aspirations, but the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, WHO’s universal healthcare plan (led by Marxist Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus), Black Lives Matter and a whole host of other organizations.

A Global Religion?

To call Marxism a global religion, may, at first glance, seem to be an exaggeration. Of course, properly speaking, it is not a religion at all. Religion is always ordered to God which means that there can be only one true global religion. It is the one founded by God Himself in the Catholic Church. But the Devil is always on the prowl to ape Christ including by forming his own global religion. Marxism is the “religion” of choice and should properly be seen as the religion of the Antichrist.

That Marx himself was under demonic influence can hardly be disputed. Several of his biographers, many of whom are sympathetic to his cause, have mentioned this. Paul Kengor, in his new book The Devil and Karl Marx, does a thorough job of compiling the case for Marx’s diabolical connections. Viewed in this way, it also helps to understand the beguiling effect that Marxism has on a lot of people because of its inherent power of mass Demonic Oppression. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council were aware of this as they included several schemas on “The Care of Souls with Regard to Christians Infected with Communism” in their preparatory documents. Unfortunately, these schemas never saw the light of day and would have been a great aid in fighting an “invention so full of errors and delusions.”

The Great Imitation

Besides the global aspirations of Marxism, there are other, more insidious ways in which it will imitate the true religion. In taking on human flesh in the Incarnation, Christ sought to both repair and elevate human nature making it capable of sharing in the Divine Nature. In simplest terms, Marxism is an attempt to fundamentally transform human nature through the instruments of politics and culture. It may have failed to control economics, but that was not the end of it. Using the Sexual Revolution, Cultural Marxists have been wildly successful in “transforming” human nature in the sexual realm. No longer does human nature thrive through monogamous marriage, the family, and private property. Parents are not uniquely suited to mold their children according to their nature, but instead human nature is malleable and should be molded into the image deemed useful by the State. Free will, the mark of the Divine image in man (c.f. CCC 1704-1705), is an illusion and replaced through conditioning according to their social structure (or through the correction of “Unconscious Bias” as the remains from obsolete social structures and implemented through “Corporate Training”).

Christianity worships Christ Who made Himself a victim for our sins (c.f. 2 Cor 5:21) while Marxism worships the Victim Class. Man’s nature is not social and marked by complementarity but instead is competitive. It is to be informed by the narrative of oppressor versus oppressed. There is a never-ending search of the new victim class in order to keep the worship going. Virtuous men and women, those who are most like God are scorned and those who have been intersected by the most “axes of oppression” are exalted.

Finally, just as Catholics offer the blood of the Innocent Lamb of God to the Father, Marxists offer the blood of innocent children through abortion to the Devil. Marxism and abortion are always a package deal because Marxism, like all religions, needs to offer sacrifice. The Devil throughout history has always demanded the blood of the innocent in sacrifice. Marxism in all its instantiations always includes abortion. It was Russia that became the first country to legalize abortion in 1920 and thanks to the Marxist feminists of the 1960s, the United States followed suit. You can often identify a Marxist by how insistent they are that abortion is a “right”.

The Spirit of Christ animates the Christian religion and so the spirit of the antichrist animates the religion of Marxism. The globalists who seek a One World Order are Marxists at heart. Once a critical mass is met, then the world will be ready for the antichrist. This is not an inevitability however and so Catholics must fight against Marxism in all its manifestations. The Church was once instrumental in fighting Communism, but now it too has been infected with Marxists. We need to pray that Christ will once again cleanse the Temple by setting his sights not on the money changers but the Marxists. We have Our Lady of Fatima on our side and we can fight its spread through the First Saturday Devotion. We can also zealously combat the errors where we see them and educate ourselves on this most pernicious enemy because there is one other thing the religion of the antichrist does—seeks to wipe out the believers of the True Faith.

Politcal Parties and Cooperation with Evil

September 12, 2020Abortion, Conscience, Culture, Culture of LifeCommon Good, Democratic Party, euthanasia, Excommunication, Hitler, Nazis, Political Parties, Principle of Cooperation, Republican Partytwowingstogod@gmail.com

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.

War and Peace

August 5, 2020American Founding, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Crusades, Culture of Life, MoraliltyForce, Just War, Letter to the Romans, Non-violence, Pacifism, Pearl Harbor, St. Augustine, St. Paul, St. Thomas, United States History, Violence, World War IItwowingstogod@gmail.com

There are certain oxymorons in life that are almost universally dismissed. One such example is “war is an instrument of peace.” Even Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.” He may have believed that until it came time to address the great evils being committed upon Americans by the Barbary Pirates when he declared war for the first time in United States history. It seems that when push comes to shove, even the most ardent Pacifist must lay down his intellectual arms and pick up his physical ones and admit that the oxymoron is perhaps true.

In order to see how the oxymoron that war can be an instrument of peace could be true, we must first ask exactly what we mean by peace. Peace, according to St. Augustine, is the “tranquility of order.” He goes further and says that “order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place” (City of God, Book XIX, Ch. 13). In short, peace is a side effect, or a consequence of the just ordering of relations between people and nations. It is not, as many pacifists would maintain, a lack of conflict but a byproduct of justice. War then can only be an instrument of peace when it is entered into for just reasons and fought in a just manner. The Church has always been so insistent upon maintaining its Just War Doctrine for this reason.

War as an Instrument of Justice

War, if it is to be an instrument of peace then, can only do so when it is an instrument of justice. Some would argue however that the use of violence is never a just response. But, to characterize war as violence stacks the deck against it and is a subtle form of question begging. In We Hold These Truths, Fr. John Courtney Murray makes a useful distinction between force and violence that enables us to avoid being trapped by a mere turn of phrase. “Force,” he says, “is the measure of power necessary and sufficient to uphold…law and politics…As an instrument force is morally neutral in itself.” Force can be applied in a violent manner that is intended to hurt, maim or kill. But force can also be justified (e.g. applied justly), mainly of four principal grounds: (1) to protect the innocent (2) to recover something unjustly taken (3) to defend against a wrongful attack and (4) to punish evil. A moral obligation exists then to use force only to the extent necessary to accomplish these four aims. Not to act against the will of an evildoer is to “nourish and strengthen them” according to Augustine. History bears out far too many examples of the traps of appeasement to ignore the fact that force is sometimes necessary to avoid the multiplication of evils and injustices.

All of what has been said seems to coincide with reality as we experience it. Doing the good for a person or persons means that you must stop those who intend harm to those persons, even to the point of using physical force against the aggressor. There can be no doubt that in a world of fallen men and women, force is necessary to redress wrongs. Pacifism then can only be based on some utopic vision of reality in which evils do not really happen. This utopia usually finds it supposed justification in the teachings of Jesus so that no discussion of pacifism would be complete without examining the teachings of Our Lord.

Christian Pacifism

The Christian Pacifist usually turns to the Sermon on the Mount to justify their position. Our Lord famously told His disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well” (Mt 5:38-39). The pacifist would have us believe that this call to non-violence is absolute and applies to all men in all circumstances. The problem with this stance however is that when Our Lord Himself was struck on the cheek, rather than turning the other cheek, questioned why He was struck (c.f. John 18:22).

Our Lord’s response does not include physical force and so we must also examine His insistence that “All that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:52). To “take the sword,” according to the Angelic Doctor is “to arm oneself in order to take the life of anyone, without the command or permission of superior or lawful authority.’ On the other hand, to have recourse to the sword (as a private person) by the authority of the sovereign or judge, or (as a public person) through zeal for justice, and by the authority, so to speak, of God, is not to ‘take the sword,’ but to use it as commissioned by another, wherefore it does not deserve punishment” (ST II-II, q.40 a.1 ad.1).

To grasp the full meaning of Our Lord’s words we can turn to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans where he says:

“Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ Rather, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.’ Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good. Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear to good conduct, but to evil.Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval from it, for it is a servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer.”
Romans 12:19-13:3

The Apostle to the Gentiles is showing exactly how Our Lord’s words are to be applied. Individuals have no authority to use the sword as an instrument of justice (except in self-defense). The Civil Authority, as God’s instrument (c.f. John 19:11), however, is tasked with maintaining justice, even by the sword “for it does not bear the sword without purpose.” The Lord then counsels us not to respond with force when the injustice is committed against ourselves (and only ourselves), but by no means lifts the obligation to forcefully oppose aggressors when the injustice involves others.

Pacifism then finds no justification either in the moral sense or the evangelical counsels. Civil authority must act against aggressors and evildoers both at home and abroad even to the point of using force. Pacifists rarely, if ever, oppose the application of police force. Because of this contradiction, CS Lewis in his essay Why I am Not a Pacifist called into question whether the motivations of the Pacifist might be due “to the secret influence of any passion.” Not that he thinks Pacifists cowards but that he thinks they are blinded by fear.

For let us make no mistake. All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you from all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil—every evil except dishonor and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it. On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing.

Eliminating the Other Police Force

June 10, 2020American Founding, Church and State, Church Authority, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Ecumenism, FreedomFirst Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Libertytwowingstogod@gmail.com

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.

Catholic Environmentalism?

May 13, 2020Catholic Social Teaching, Creation, Culture, Culture of Life, Economics, Magisterium, MoraliltyEcology, Environment, John Paul II, Moral Ecology, Pollution, Pope Benedict XVItwowingstogod@gmail.com

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.

On Wasting Moral Capital

May 2, 2020Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Church Authority, Culture, Culture of Life, Economics, WorkBishop Gomez, Cardinal Sarah, Common Good, Democratic Party, Immigration, Just Wage, Redistribution, Republican Party, USCCBtwowingstogod@gmail.com

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.

Embracing Inequality

April 25, 2020American Founding, Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Culture of LifeEquality, Justice, Leo XIII, Lord Acton, Pius XII, Politics, Tocquevilletwowingstogod@gmail.com

Among all of the social phenomena that Alexis de Tocqueville noted during his stay in America, he found what he called “equality of conditions” to be the most striking. Everywhere he looked he found Americans who were literally obsessed with equality, fueled by the sacred truth that “all men are created equal.” Tocqueville was removed enough from American society however to see how dangerous an exaggerated insistence on equality could be. In fact, he thought that this insistence was really rooted not in justice, but in envy, explicitly saying so in a letter to a friend: “equality is a slogan based on envy. It signifies in the heart of every Republican ‘Nobody is going to occupy a place higher than I.’”

A simple glance at those around us will be sufficient for us to recognize that the tent of equality can only be stretched so far. So vastly different are the members of humanity in looks, physical prowess, intellectual skills, material wealth, personal character, spiritual gifts to name just a few, making only the most incredulous question whether personal equality is a real thing. That is because man is both naturally equal and naturally unequal. All men and women have a natural equality regarding their origin and destination. Having come from the hand of the Creator, made in His image, men and women are equal in their destiny to share in His likeness forever. It is from this natural equality that they derive their right to life and the liberty to pursue of happiness.

Natural Inequality

Equally each man will stand before God and be judged. But He will be judged according to how he used his talents (c.f. Matthew 25:14–30). This implies that man is not only naturally equal, but also naturally unequal. Echoing the sentiments of Our Lord, the Church has repeatedly affirmed this natural inequality. In his Encyclical Humanum Genus, Pope Leo XIII reminded the Faithful that inequality is natural and willed by God:

In like manner, no one doubts that all men are equal one to another, so far as regards their common origin and nature, or the last end which each one has to attain, or the rights and duties which are thence derived. But, as the abilities of all are not equal, as one differs from another in the powers of mind or body, and as there are very many dissimilarities of manner, disposition, and character, it is most repugnant to reason to endeavor to confine all within the same measure, and to extend complete equality to the institutions of civic life. Just as a perfect condition of the body results from the conjunction and composition of its various members, which, though differing in form and purpose, make, by their union and the distribution of each one to its proper place, a combination beautiful to behold, firm in strength, and necessary for use; so, in the commonwealth, there is an almost infinite dissimilarity of men, as parts of the whole. If they are to be all equal, and each is to follow his own will, the State will appear most deformed; but if, with a distinction of degrees of dignity, of pursuits and employments, all aptly conspire for the common good, they will present the image of a State both well constituted and conformable to nature.
Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, 26

The analogy (as opposed to a metaphor) of the body is particularly appropriate because it does away with Tocqueville’s concern of envy. Parts of the body always have a complementarity. It is only when the body is riddled with disease that they become competitive. This struggle between complementarity and competition is the battle that goes straight through the heart of each man’s fallen social nature. The devil, the diabolical one (literal meaning is the one who tears apart), wants to split mankind through envy. God is the Symbolon, the One Who Brings Mankind together in Christ. It is in this spirit that the Church has always sought to lead men and women to find their vocation and fulfillment through their station in life.

We call it the body politic then because it is like a living organism with a hierarchical nature. But this carries with it a serious temptation—to use politics to create equality where there naturally isn’t any. Democracy is the tool of choice for doing this because it rests upon an assumption of political equality among the citizenry. Whether or not this is a reasonable assumption we can visit another time, but that it is used to enforce equality where there is inequality is a great threat to freedom. This was the great flaw in the French Revolution as Lord Acton pointed out in his lectures on the French Revolution: “[T]he deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to liberty was its theory of equality. Liberty was the watchword of the middle class, equality of the lower.”

Equality as a Threat to Liberty

When we attempt to manufacture equality it is always at the cost of liberty. Recall that liberty an external condition by which we are unhampered in our use of our internal freedom. Equality can only be created from the crumbling fragments of liberty. In order to keep inequality in check the higher privileged must have their liberty taken away. Unable to raise the underprivileged up to the level of the privileged, the privileged must be taken down a few notches. It is animated by a mob mentality that is only possible from within a democratic mindset.

Some might object to the use of the term “privileged” to describe those who occupy the higher rungs of the social hierarchy. That is because of the poisoning of our minds through a democratic paradigm causes us to recoil at even the faintest whiff inequality. But there is such thing as just privilege that comes from natural inequality. All unjust privilege should be rooted out, but not all privilege is unjust.

Indiscriminately attacking inequality is harmful to the common good because, in leveling society out, it leads to a form of stagnation in which the mob exerts a gravitational force that orbits the lowest common denominator. But is also does great harm to the underprivileged, possibly more than the privileged, in that by bestowing certain rights on them, it demands responsibilities that are above the abilities. The democratic planners then must readjust not just the responsibilities of the underprivileged but lower those of the privileged as well.

This is not a condemnation of democracy per se, but instead a refusal to allow it to be exploited as a tool of creating equality. Instead, the Church looks to the protection of a “sound democracy” that is “based on the immutable principles of the natural law and revealed truth, will resolutely turn its back on such corruption as gives to the state legislature in unchecked and unlimited power, and moreover, makes of the democratic regime, notwithstanding an outward show to the contrary, purely and simply a form of absolutism” (Pope Pius XII, Democracy and a Lasting Peace).

On Divine Judgement and the Coronavirus

March 11, 2020Culture of Life, Sufferingabortion, Divine Judgement, euthanasia, Pachamama, Providence, Punishment, Sintwowingstogod@gmail.com

As punishment for their idolatrous worship of the Golden Calf, God sent a plague among the Israelites (c.f. Ex 32:30-35). Serving as a bookend to this event, St. John tells us that the fourth rider of the Apocalypse brings with him plague “by means of the beasts of the earth” to punish mankind. And between these two instances, Scripture is replete with many cases in which mankind suffers a plague in punishment for sin. The point is that it is a common means that God uses in order to punish wayward mankind and, we ought not be surprised that in our age of decadence that we are once again witnessing the rise of a new plague.

At the outset it must be admitted that the notion that anything that happens is associated with Divine retribution is hardly ever discussed. It is usually embarrassingly glossed over so that only those “fire and brimstone preachers” animated with a punitive view of God that speak of it. Nevertheless true Christians must see it and call it what it is.

Calling it what it is

It is helpful first to examine why we are so hesitant to call something like the Coronavirus a tool of Divine punishment. This reticence is rooted in a grave misunderstanding of punishment in general and God’s punishment in particular. For us, punishment is always viewed as an evil, a lack of some good that becomes a penal act inflicted on us when someone in authority is fed up. For God punishment is only a relative evil deprivation of some good.

For men, good comes in three forms—external goods, the good of the body and the good of the soul—that form a hierarchy in which a lesser good may be sacrificed for a higher good. The evil of punishment then is always relative because it contains a medicinal value. A man may give up his money (external good) in order to feed his body (a good of the body). That same man may later fast and deprive himself of food so as to grow in virtue (a good of the soul). Whenever God punishes then he will allow the deprivation of some lower good for the good of the soul.

Here again we bump into a profound conflict with the spirit of the world. All of this only makes sense if you believe in the hierarchy of the manifold goods of man such that every punishment has a specific meaning. It is never inflicted haphazardly or indiscriminately but always with some good in mind. Justice and mercy are never separated. The good includes not only a repayment of the debt to justice, but also contributes, when willingly accepted, to the healing of the person.

For each sin not only offends God, but also warps our souls in some way by turning us away from what we were made to be. Each time we sin, we do so by abusing some good, by taking pleasure in something the wrong way. To fix the damage that is done, we have to submit to the deprivation of some pleasure that would result from the correct use of some good. By accepting punishment as a means of repaying that stolen pleasure, it actually heals us as well.

In short if we do not call it what it is, then the only other option is to conclude that it is completely meaningless. If plagues like the Coronavirus are not punishment then they are just accidental occurrences without any real meaning. This ultimately makes life itself meaningless and thus suffering becomes an absolute, rather than a relative, evil. By not calling it a punishment we are depriving the world of its meaning and it becomes in a very real sense useless suffering.

Admittedly we are also reluctant to call it a punishment because it feels like we are being judgmental. And this is the unforgivable sin of our age. But again it is Christ who judges the living and the dead that is being judgmental. And His judgment is not definitive but instead a call to repentance and healing, a call to peace and joy. His judgment is that “you are going to wrong way, turn around now because you are headed into an abyss.” Or, using His own words, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). If no one echoes that call, then many souls will be lost, including those whom He has called to speak His truth.

What It Means

We should be slow to say how the punishment applies to each individual man, but quick to point out how it applies to mankind as a whole. It seems that the meaning of the Coronavirus as a punishment for all of mankind is relatively clear. For Rome, the Coronavirus appears to be a Divine Judgment upon the sin of the idolatrous attachment to Pachamama. They must receive their deprivation of the Eucharist and offer it in reparation for the sin of idolatry. Setting that unique situation aside, the Coronavirus also offers an opportunity of reparation for our treatment of the most vulnerable among us.

The full effect of the virus is still unknown, but what is clear is that it is particularly deadly for the most vulnerable among us. In this way, the Coronavirus is not much different than the sins of abortion and euthanasia which attack those same people. It is because of the most vulnerable that all of the rest of us must now suffer. This suffering may be as simple as remaining in isolation for a fortnight or as devastating as losing a fortune. The point is that we are being made to make sacrifices in order to keep those same people we want to throw away safe. All of us can accept those sufferings and offer them in reparation for those grave sins.

In a Twitter post a couple of days ago, Conservative pundit Ann Coulter said that Americans were being manipulated by stories of the deaths in Italy. She made a point to say that the average age of the victims was 81. In essence she was saying “you shouldn’t be scared because it is just a bunch of old people dying.” Now most people wouldn’t so callously say that, but many people are thinking along the same lines. We shouldn’t fear because it only attacks the vulnerable. This survival of the fittest mentality is exactly why we need to Coronavirus right now—as an opportunity to make reparation for so savagely treating the very ones we should be protecting as mere useless beings. Fear not the one who gives you the Coronavirus, but instead fear the one who can destroy both body and soul.

A Kingdom Divided?

February 22, 2020Catholic Social Teaching, Church and State, Church Authority, Culture, Culture of Life, Evangelization, HeavenKingship of Christ, Pius XI, Quas Primas, Separation of Church and State, Social Justice, Tower of Babeltwowingstogod@gmail.com

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 4^th 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 13^th 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 19^th 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.”

Augustine and the Culture of Euthanasia

December 22, 2019Bioethics, Culture of Life, End of Life, Human DignityAugustine, City of God, euthanasia, Sufferingtwowingstogod@gmail.com

Nearly sixteen centuries after its publication, St. Augustine’s City of God remains a seminal text in Christian political philosophy. With the Fall of Rome as his backdrop, the Doctor of Grace contrasts the forces at work that seek to claim men’s souls. History, from the Fall of the Angels to the Fall of Rome, has consisted of battle between the City of God and the City of Man. From the vantage point of over a millennium and a half, one can see how, using the Augustine’s principles, Christendom emerged as the City of God dominated the City of Man. But we seem to be living in a time where the transition is going in reverse and the weeds of secularism are choking out the wheat of Christendom so that Augustine’s text can serve as a blueprint of sorts for restoring the City of God and rebuilding a Christian society.

Without diving into all of the themes Augustine presents, the focus will be on his opening theme: suffering. Why, in introducing the two cities, would Augustine choose to focus on suffering? As he points out, the sack of Rome led to seemingly indiscriminate sufferings; both the good and the bad, the Christian and the Pagan suffered. Suffering doesn’t seem to distinguish them at all. But when we look not at the nature of the sufferings, but the response of the sufferer, we find great differences. He says, “though the sufferings are the same, the sufferers remain different. Virtue and vice are not the same even if they undergo the same treatment…What matters is the nature of the sufferer not the nature of the sufferings.” So then suffering becomes like a great identification card enabling us to determine residency in either of the two cities.

The Two Cities

Why this is so becomes apparent once we grasp that ultimately, the two cities are distinguished by their loves. The “two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point if contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self…The one city loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders; the other says to its God ‘I will love You, my Lord, my strength.” For Augustine suffering is brought about when men love the world more than God, the City of Man more than the City of God. The good and bad suffer together because even the good (even if to a much lesser degree) love this world rather than despising it.

Both the Christians and non-Christians were equally affected but the sufferings of the Christians have “tended to their moral improvement because they are viewed through the eyes of faith.” For the residents of the City of God suffering becomes an opportunity for growth in virtue and holiness. “Viewed through the eyes of faith,” sufferings become necessary because they are the most expedient (i.e. most gentle and most merciful) way that God naturalizes us as residents in the heavenly city. They may be free from criminal and godless wickedness they still see that they are not so far removed as to not to deserve to suffer temporal ills for them.

The residents of the City of Man see suffering as the greatest of all evils. Rather than viewing them as opportunities, they see them as something to be avoided at all costs, even to the point of self-inflicted death. From within this context Augustine visits the question of noble suicide within Roman culture. Drawing from two historical examples at key turning points in Roman history, Augustine shows why suicide is always wrong. His first case study is Lucretia. After becoming a victim of rape she killed herself and Rome celebrated the nobility in doing so. Augustine asks why should she, who was innocent, have suffered a worse punishment than the offender? “One does not take vengeance on oneself for another’s crime.” To suffer some injustice and then commit another injustice, even against oneself, is like killing the innocent.

His second example is Cato who killed himself as a political act, a steady refusal to live in a Rome led by Caesar. As the prototypical Stoic, he thought happiness was only to be found in escaping the body and not something that was achieved in the soul through the body.

The City of God and the Culture of Euthanasia

But he does more than simply prove the immorality of suicide. He also shows how one might argue against a suicide culture. In this way he provides us with a blueprint for overcoming a Culture of Euthanasia. In both of his case studies Augustine chose to focus on “cold-blooded” suicides. Both Lucretia and Cato were deliberate suicides, not merely acts of impassioned despair. Augustine thinks there is nothing noble about killing oneself and a culture that elevates it as such is a culture that bestows victimhood on its members. He wants to empower men and women so that they can be truly noble in facing their sufferings, even the final ones, head-on.

Augustine’s argument and ours as well depends upon strong Christian witness. If we are to overcome the Culture of Euthanasia we must preach that the only “sweet death” is one that opens wide the door to eternal life. We cannot “accompany” someone who chooses to kill themselves because it is accompanying a lie that says that God does not use the death He has chosen for us as a means to bring about life. Instead we should accompany them in their sufferings by encouraging them to dying with true nobility, the nobility of Christ. Dying with dignity is dying as conformed to Christ. We will never overcome the emerging Culture of Euthanasia until we suffer like true Christians and encourage others to do the same. This was Augustine’s way and it needs to be ours too.

Cardinal Cupich’s Two-Way Street

November 16, 2019Church, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, EcumenismAquinas, Augustine, Cardinal Cupich, Idolatry, Newman, Pachamama, St. Paultwowingstogod@gmail.com

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.

Bigmouths and Gender Ideology

July 31, 2019Bioethics, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Sexual EthicsGender, Gender Dysphoria, John Paul II, Leo XIII, Sex, Sexual Revolution, Transgendertwowingstogod@gmail.com

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 Principle of Totality

July 20, 2019Abortion, Bioethics, Catholic Social Teaching, Conscience, Contraception, Culture of LifeAmputation, Organ Donation, Principle of Bodily Integritytwowingstogod@gmail.com

During the 1920s, the practice of compulsory sterilization in the United States became commonplace. The Supreme Court even went so far as declaring the constitutionality of the sterilization laws in the 1927 decision in the case of Buck v. Bell. In the majority brief written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Court argued in favor of this practice by saying that “(It) is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” The Church for her part vehemently opposed the practice by appealing to the principle of totality. Because this principle is often cited in support of Catholic Moral teaching related to medical ethics it is instructive to examine it in some detail.

In its simplest form, the principle of totality holds that that under certain circumstances it is morally permissible to sacrifice the good of a part for the sake of the whole. However, this needs further qualification in order to see why something like the Eugenics program of the 1920s was morally wrong. Justice Holmes in his argument thought that for the sake of the whole of society, it would be better to sterilize some of the members.

Clearing Up Confusion

In a speech given to the “Leaders and Members of the Italian Association of Cornea Donors and Italian Association for the Blind,” Pope Pius XII hoped to clear up some of the confusion related to this principle. There were those who argued that the principle of totality justified the removal of vital organs from the dying in order to transplant them into the bodies of those who had a better chance of survival. While he lauds the intention to alleviate suffering he rejects this argument as erroneous by appealing to the “essential difference between a physical organism and a moral organism.” The organs of the body exist solely for the sake of the body while each human person does not exist for the sake of the whole of humanity. Instead each human person has intrinsic worth and thus cannot be coercively sacrificed for the sake of the whole (Pope Pius XII, “Speech to Leaders and Members of the Italian Association of Cornea Donors and Italian Association for the Blind”).

We see then just how important the distinction between a physical organism and a moral organism is in determining the application of this principle. A physical organism is one in which there is a unity on the level of essence. Thus, the relationship of part to whole exists if the part by its very nature has no finality outside the whole. A moral organism however is a group of individuals that are bound together in some unity of action. Each member of the group has a value that is intrinsically bound up with what (or more accurately who) they are rather than what they contribute to the community.

In this way then the Principle of Totality serves a limiting function on medical practice. For the sake of a physical whole, one may sacrifice a part of oneself assuming that the choice does not do harm to an authentic human good. However, if there is a moral unity then there is a limit on the activities of the individual at the service of the community.

It is also important to mention the fact that despite the fact that it applies to a physical organism, the principle is not merely physicalist in nature. It is meant to serve the integral good of the person by creating a harmonious relationship between the physical and spiritual elements. To emphasize this point some authors have referred to it as the principle of “Totality and Integrity.” Fr. Benedict Ashley, one such author, states the principle as follows: “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.”

An Example

If we examine one of the most common procedures that involve the principle of totality, organ donation and transplantation, we can further illuminate this principle and its use in medical ethics. In applying this principle, we are able to find justification for organ donation and transplantation. Provided that the functional integrity of the donor is maintained then living organ donation is morally justifiable. Ashley et al present four related principles that show how the principle of totality might be maintained. There should be a serious need faced by the patient, which can only be satisfied by organ donation. Although it might reduce “anatomical integrity” it should not diminish the “functional integrity” of the person. Thirdly the risk of donation should be viewed as “an act of charity proportionate to the good resulting for the recipient.” Finally there should be “free and informed consent” by the donor.

Many try to justify freely consented sterilization by appealing to the principle of totality. They argue that if a marriage is in general open to children then each act of sexual intercourse need not be. They argue that if the marriage would be harmed in some way by having children, the good of procreation may be sacrificed for the total good of the marriage itself.

The problem with this argument is that it violates the principle that one may never perform an intrinsically evil act (such as contraception) so that good may come about. However, there is a flaw in the logic as well. As was mentioned, the principle of totality actually applies to physical organisms (like organs) and not moral organisms (i.e. persons). The conjugal act has an intrinsic value in itself and it is not just as part of the whole that it gains its value (Pius XII, “Speech to the Twenty-Sixth Congress of the Italian Association of Urology”)..

The problem with appealing to the principle of totality in this manner is that it can lead to justifying nearly anything. For example, there is no reason why an act of infidelity, especially if it might “help” the marriage, would be wrong as long as the totality of the marriage is faithful.

In conclusion, the principle of totality is an important principle in medical ethics because it promotes authentic human good. This may require at times the sacrifice of a physical part for the integral good of the person, but it also serves to limit the activities that may be performed on a person.

The True Christian History of Abortion

June 26, 2019Abortion, Apologetics, Contraception, Culture, Culture of Life, HistoryAbortifacient, Bible, Didache, Exodus, Poverty, pro-life, St. Augustinetwowingstogod@gmail.com

As the battle over legalized abortion continues rage as specific states more clearly draw their battle lines, there is a growing number of Christians who are attempting to make a Christian argument in favor of abortion. In truth, there is no Christian defense of abortion and there never has been. Not surprisingly, the abortion apologist’s arguments fall flat, even though they continually recycle the same talking points irrespective of truth. Even if there are different variations on the propagandistic talking points, they seem never to grow weary of repeating them. Given the increased frequency in which we are seeing them, it is important that we have a ready defense.

In order to avoid toppling over a straw man, we will refer to an example that was printed in the Huffington Post last year entitled “The Truth About Christianity and Abortion”. We use this one not because it was a particularly convincing argument, but because it invokes almost all the common arguments for Christian support of abortion in one place.

Before diving into the exact arguments, it is a helpful to remember that there are plenty of arguments against abortion that don’t rely solely upon religious convictions. Instead you can use philosophical reasoning and science. Since that ground has already been covered, we will stick to the Christian-based arguments since that is terrain over which these abortion advocates like to stomp.

“There are no specific references to abortion in the Bible, either within Old Testament law or in Jesus’ teachings or the writings of Paul and other writers in the New Testament.”

This first argument, namely that the Bible doesn’t say anything about abortion is a bit of a red herring, at least as far as Catholics are concerned. Not everything we believe need to be mentioned in the Bible explicitly. If Scripture tells us that the pre-born being in the womb of Elizabeth (somewhere between 20-24 weeks) and the pre-born being in the womb of Mary (somewhere between 0-4 weeks) are both persons (Luke 1:26,41) and that directly killing an innocent person is always wrong (Exodus 20:13) then we could conclude that abortion, that is the direct and intentional killing of an infant in the womb of the mother, is wrong. The Bible need not, nor could it list out all the ways that a person might be murdered but can simply articulate the principle in what amounts to a blanket condemnation.

That being said, the premise that the Bible does not mention abortion is also false. In the ancient world, they were not nimble enough to play verbal gymnastics like us. We are fall more sophisticated in the true sense of the word. Even amongst the pagans, abortion was considered to be baby killing. In fact, the device that they used to perform the abortion was called embruosqakths, which means “the slayer of the infant, which was of course alive.” (Tertullian, On the Soul, Ch. 25).

They also used chemical potions to cause abortions, although they were far more dangerous to the mother than using the “slayer of the infant.” This type of abortion is mentioned in Scripture, even if only implicitly. We shall expound on this in a moment, but these potions fell under the broad Greek term pharmakeia, the same term St. Paul uses in Galatians 5:20 and we translate as “sorcery”.

“Likewise, throughout the history of the early church into the middle-ages, there is little to no mention of abortion as a topic of great alarm – from the days of the Old Testament until modern history. Hence, there is no case to be made for a definitive Christian stance throughout history on the spiritual or moral aspects of abortion.”

While it may have been convenient in supporting the point, the connection of pharmakeia to abortifacient drugs was not an exercise in originality, but something that the early Church did when they spoke against abortion. The Didache, written during the Apostolic Age (probably around 70 AD) of the Apostles in expounding on the commandment of love of neighbor it said, “You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions [pharmakeia). You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2:1–2). Likewise, the Letter of Barnabas (74 AD), which is a commentary on the Didache says, “thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born” (19).

We already heard from Tertullian in the 2^nd Century, but the list of Fathers who spoke against abortion down to the beginning of the 5^th Century reads like a who’s who of Patristic teachers: Athenagoras of Athens, Hippolytus, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and St. Jerome. It is also included in the twenty-first canon of the Council of Ancyra and among the Apostolic Constitutions. In other words, it is hard not to stumble upon a condemnation of abortion among the Early Church Fathers, unless of course you don’t actually look.

Given the unbroken teaching to Apostolic times, abortion was a settled issue and we should not expect to hear about it much unless it is challenged (that is why St. John Paul II included the infallible statement of the Ordinary Magisterium in Evangelium Vitae). The relative silence of the Middle Ages is a non-sequitur for that reason—it was a settled issue within Christendom and thus did not need to be defended or expounded upon much.

The Augustinian Exception?

Among those Church Fathers listed above there is one notable exception: St. Augustine. He is notable not because of his silence but because of the fact that he is often quoted out of context. The Huffington Post author does the same thing quoting him as saying: “The law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.” Not surprising she doesn’t cite the source of the quote which would enable us to establish context, but it comes from a commentary on Exodus 21. Taken in context Augustine is asking whether, given the primitive embryology of his time, whether abortion before the 40^th day after conception could be classified as homicide or not. In his mind abortion was still a grave evil no matter how old the infant, but he wasn’t sure whether it should be classified as murder.

To cite this is really disingenuous, for the author knows it is based upon an ancient understanding of human development. She knows that modern embryology has established that there is sensation long before the 40th day after conception. Anyone who has seen an ultrasound image (or has watched the movie Silent Scream) can easily attest to that truth. Unless the author of the article is willing to accept the primitive thinking of the 5^th Century, then this is actually an argument against abortion. If Augustine has access to modern technology, then he would have concluded that it was murder at any stage.

“I’m not saying abortion cannot be an important issue to a Christian, but there is no scriptural or historical backing for it to be the number one issue, at the expense of the ‘least of these’ who are suffering now.”

This line of reasoning really sets up a false dichotomy that pits poverty against abortion. This is recycled secular thinking. There are those who suffer because of destitution, and we ought to do what we can to alleviate that, but that does not mean you may alleviate it by reducing the number of mouths that need to be fed. Why couldn’t the same argument be applied to the already born children of the poor, or even the poor themselves? One definite way to end poverty would be to kill all the poor people.

As far as it being the “number one issue” is concerned, first we must admit that history is not a repeating cycle in which social ills always occur with the same frequency and intensity. Perhaps destitution was a greater threat to human thriving than abortion was in ancient Rome or in the Middle Ages, but that does not mean it is still a greater threat. In fact, we could argue that destitution (“poor” is a relative term and actually a Christian value, destitution is an objective measure) is at an all-time low. What is not at an all-time low however is the number of innocent lives being snuffed out through abortion every day to the tune of about 125,000 per day worldwide (and this doesn’t include the number of abortions caused by birth control pills which could double or even triple that total). Abortion, because it involves so many, all of which are the most vulnerable and voiceless, is by far the greatest injustice in the world today. They are “’the least of these’ who are suffering now.”

On Embryo Adoption

May 4, 2019Abortion, Bioethics, Conscience, Culture of Life, Fatherhood, Human Dignity, Theology of the BodyAdoption, Dignitatis Personae, Embryo Adoption, Infertility, IVF, JPII, Marriage, Surrogacytwowingstogod@gmail.com

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, there are over 620,000 cryo-preserved embryos in the United States. Even though the “vast majority” of them are still being considered for use for “family building efforts” and others have been “earmarked by the creating couples for use in research,” there are still as many as 60,000 unclaimed frozen embryos currently. With the growing popularity of IVF, we should expect these numbers to rise dramatically over the coming years. All this has left pro-lifers scrambling for ethical solutions that free these children from their cryogenic prison. One Evangelical Christian group called Snowflake Embryo Adoption matches the embryos with women who are willing to “adopt” them. In essence the embryos are implanted into the wombs of women who carry them to term and raise them as their own children. This solution, as we shall see, is not without moral controversy.

We must first admit that the plight of these cryogenically preserved children represents one of the greatest injustices of our age because of the sheer numbers alone. But because many of the “consumers” of IVF are couples struggling with infertility, very few people are willing to call it out. Instead it remains hidden away in laboratories and freezers. Despite intrinsic evil of IVF, we must never forget that the children themselves are not an evil but a good that came from the evil. They are members of the human community, regardless of how they were conceived, and thus are subject with rights, including the right to a safe environment in which they can thrive. These voiceless children are crying out for justice, a cry that we are obligated not to ignore. Therefore, it would seem that “embryo adoption” offers a compassionate solution. The adoptive parents did not bring the children into existence and are simply looking for a way to “right a wrong” by rescuing these children from a frozen existence.

Adoption?

When framed in this manner, it seems rather straightforward that this type of adoption is an irrefutable good. But this is a case where we must be careful with our terms. To label this an embryo adoption is really a form of begging the question. This is why many moral theologians prefer the term “embryo rescue”. For everyone know that adoption is praiseworthy, but it is questionable whether this should be classified as a type of adoption. Adoption has always referred to a legal process by which a child (usually although not exclusively) enters into a family and assumes all the rights and duties of a biological son or daughter. Nowhere among these rights and duties however would we find the right to gestation. That right is reserved only for biological children. The question is whether this difference carries any moral weight.

The Church defines surrogacy as when “a woman who carries in pregnancy an embryo implanted in her uterus and who is genetically a stranger to the embryo because it has been obtained through the union of the gametes of ‘donors’. She carries the pregnancy with a pledge to surrender the baby once it is born to the party who commissioned or made the agreement for the pregnancy” (Donum Vitae, A3). Based upon this definition, embryo rescue is more akin to surrogacy than to adoption. The only difference is in the intention of the pregnant woman—in one case she carries the child for another and in the other she carries it for herself. But surrogacy is not wrong because of the intention of the woman who is impregnated, but because of the nature of the act itself.

A hypothetical will help to see why this is the case. Suppose a woman and her husband go through the IVF procedure and find that the woman will never be able to carry a child to term. She approaches her sister and tells her that they still have three “extra” embryos that are destined for destruction and asks if she would be willing to rescue one of them by offering her womb to carry the child. She tells her that it would not be surrogacy, but “embryo fostering” because she is simply fostering the child for 9 months. Verbal gymnastics aside, this clearly fits the definition of surrogacy, an action that the Church has always condemned surrogacy as an intrinsically evil act because it is an offense “against the unity of marriage and the dignity of the procreation of the human person.” In other words, no matter how good the intention is, it can never be deemed morally licit. Likewise, embryo adoption suffers a similar fate.

Surrogacy and the Rights of Spouses

Understanding why surrogacy is wrong will help to see why embryo rescue is not a real moral solution. Notice that Donum Vitae said surrogacy was an offense, not against the procreative aspect of marriage, but the unitive. A woman should only become a mother through her husband. He has an exclusive right to her procreative powers and faculties. When those powers are exercised without him, then the unitive good of marriage has been harmed. She is a mother of the child, but her husband is in no way the father. He neither had a hand in creating the child nor in its gestation (both of which a biological father does even in utero). He may become the child’s adoptive father when it is born, but until then he is not a father.

The unitive good of marriage is maintained when husband and wife must become parents through each other. Even in the case of adoption, they become parents together and not independently of each other. This is why we should hesitate to call embryo rescue, adoption. This solution then introduces a new injustice, mainly against the husband’s exclusive rights to his wife’s procreative faculties. This is ultimately why the Church has said this is “a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved” (Dignitatis Personae, 19).

What can be done about this then? For the time being we have an obligation to keep the children already in existence alive until a solution can be found. This form of embryo adoption by which someone keeps the child from being terminated or subject to scientific testing would be laudable. When St. John Paul II spoke on the topic he made an “appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons”(quoted in Dignitatis Personae, 19). Putting an end to this sanitized barbarism then should be our primary goal.

The Danger of Playing House

April 10, 2019Abortion, Bioethics, Contraception, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Homosexuality, MoraliltyIVF, Procreation, Reproductive Rights, right to life, Surrogacytwowingstogod@gmail.com

“Playing house” is a common children’s make believe game where the children take on adult roles usually centering around family life. What happens when adults, armed with enough technology to make believe believable still like to play the game? Something along the lines of what happened in Nebraska recently where a “61-year-old Nebraska mom has become a grandmom after giving birth herself — acting as the surrogate for her adult son and his husband.” Even Aldous Huxley would find this truth stranger than fiction, despite being only half-way down the slippery slope into which our culture is descending.

Imagine little baby Uma, when she is much older Uma, looking at her birth certificate, the one that “looks really creepy for us.” On it, she will find the name of one of her fathers, Matthew Eledge. Under the heading of Mother, she will find the name of her grandmother. Now this permanent public record will look like a case of incest. Uma may know better, but is it better that she knows better? In truth she will know that she was pieced together in a laboratory from various interrelated parts. She will know she was a “product” of conception that originated with her father’s sperm and her other father’s sister’s egg.

Straight Out of A Brave New World?

As the origins of life grow to more closely resemble Huxley’s decanter than nature, it is increasingly difficult to point out this injustice. Justice requires that equals be treated as equals. When a child is conceived in a manner such as this, the relationship between parent and child is not truly a communion of persons but one of producer and product. In essence this is, as Donum Vitae points out, “equivalent to reducing the child to an object of scientific technology.”

No one can measure the psychological effects of knowing this upon the person, and, interestingly enough, no one has attempted to study it. Children of divorce often face an identity crisis even though they are told that their parents “love them very much.” That is because it is not enough to know you are loved, but you must also know that you came from love, that is, you are not an accident. Likewise children conceived in a laboratory could face a similar identity crisis.

If you doubt the person-product connection, re-read the linked article and notice the description of the process they went through, including a quality control measure called “preimplantation genetic testing which would help determine the embryos most likely to develop into a healthy baby.” If you are going to spend all the money (again described in detail in the interview) then you want to make sure you get the most bang for your buck. Meanwhile six other children, Uma’s brothers and sisters, were set aside as byproducts of conception. The article doesn’t say what happened to these six children but they were likely frozen or test subjects for human experimentation. At least there was some semblance of a human decency when the men decided that choosing the sex of the child was too much “like playing God.”

Procreation and the “Right to Make Life”

Perhaps the clearest indication of where this slippery slope leads is revealed in the form of a question. After laying out all of the specific costs of the procedure and a complaint from the two men that IVF is cost prohibitive for most “couples”, the author asks, “should citizens have a right to make life?” And this is, the battleground over which must fight if we are to rectify this injustice.

Humans do not reproduce, they procreate. This is more than a mere semantical distinction. Reproduction is a closed activity. It simply requires two material creatures to exchange their genetic matter to produce offspring. Human procreation is different however. Like other material creatures, humans exchange genetic matter. But they lack the capacity to exchange or create the spiritual element within their offspring. This must be created by Someone else and requires His intervention. Because procreation requires the intervention of a Third, the child must always be received as a gift and not as something that the couple is owed. Couples receive children rather than grasp at them.

The biological limitations that God has written into nature are there for our own good and for our own thriving. Seizing what should otherwise be a gift, perhaps the greatest gift that God can bestow on us in the natural realm, leads to spiritual ruin for the parents. But it need not be so for the children. Even though the children conceived in this manner face an existential crisis and appear to be a mere product of technology, in truth they are not. They are still persons of inestimable value because despite their immoral beginnings, God, as the ignored Third, still chose for this child to exist. He still loved them into existence, even if their parents chose to hide that love behind scientific techniques.

One way to put a halt to the skid down this slippery slope is to change our rights language. Even if the State grants them, there are no such thing as “reproductive rights” and not just because humans don’t, properly speaking, reproduce. As proof of this, notice how they have little connection to actual duties towards other people connected to these rights. In fact, they render children’s rights obsolete. What people do have are procreative rights. These natural rights are always in reference to their duties to children and ensure the dignity of children both born and unborn.

In closing, there is one more thing that needs to be said regarding giving up on gay marriage as a battle already lost. This is no mere “playing house” precisely because of stories like this. In order to keep the game up, six children had to be condemned to death or a frozen existence. This couple may be the first of its kind, but it won’t be the last. The demand for procedures like this (as well as the demand to develop lower cost alternatives) will continue to increase unless we do something to protect these children.

The Church and the Question of Slavery

February 6, 2019Church, Church and State, Church Authority, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the FaithMoses, Onesimus, Philemon, Slaverytwowingstogod@gmail.com

History, it is said, is written by the victors. Whether this dictum is absolutely true or not can be debated. What cannot be debated is that history is always rewritten by those seeking victory. Historical rationalization allows the combatants to demonize their enemies, therefore justifying the annihilation of the culture. Who can doubt that this has been a weapon in the arsenal of the Church’s enemies throughout the last few centuries? As of late the enemies of the Church have attempted to rewrite the annals of history in order to paint the Church as indifferent, if not positively in favor of slavery. In order to show this to be a lie, we must arm ourselves with the truth.

We must first set the stage by examining the world into which Our Lord took flesh. Christianity arose. Approximately 1/3 of the population of Ancient Rome were slaves. All manual labor was performed by them. In the fiefdom of the paterfamilias they were viewed as human property, essentially chattel, and held no rights. In this regard Rome was no different from any culture prior to the arrival of Christ, including those encountered by the Jews (more on this in a moment). Slavery was always viewed as acceptable and absolutely no one questioned the institution. The only places it wasn’t practiced were those places that could not support it economically because the cost of maintaining the slaves was greater than their output. This is an often overlooked, but nevertheless very important, point for two reasons.

Ending Slavery as a Practical Problem

First, given that slavery was ubiquitous, ending it as an institution would take power—either physical or moral. This is why when Moses gives the Law to ancient Israel it says nothing condemning slavery but only how slaves were to be treated (c.f. Exodus 21:26-27, Deut 23:15-16). And how they were to be treated was far greater than any other ancient culture. This does not make it right or whitewash the immorality of it, but it does see how God was setting the stage for a moral revolution that would eventually topple slavery in the Christian world. To condemn it would have been to shout into the wind. He chose not an ethic, but to form an ethos. And some of the different Jewish sects like the Essenes caught the ethos sooner than others and refused to practice slavery.

Those who often try to change history forget that Christianity is a historical religion. What this means is that God acts within specific cultures and in specific times. Without understanding the cultural context, we will fail to miss the principles upon which His commandments are founded. Any criticism of St. Paul for example must first include the cultural context in which he wrote. To label his household codes (c.f. Col 3:18—4:1; Eph 5:21—6:9) as anything other than revolutionary is to trivialize what he is saying. He demands that the slaves be treated justly (implying they are people with rights and not property) and that they will have to answer for how they treat their slaves. While it might be implied that just treatment would include freeing them, he does not explicitly call for this. This may insult our modern sensibilities towards anything other than absolute freedom, but it is because if the slaves were treated well by their masters, especially in the harsh Roman culture, then they might actually be better off remaining with their masters. Many of them would have had nowhere else to go.

There is one particular case in which St. Paul did call for the release of a slave because he did have a better place to go (see Philemon 8-14). Onesimus was a slave who stole money from his master, Philemon, and escaped to Rome. When he ran into hard times in Rome, he found Paul whom he met at his master’s home in Colossae. They developed a friendship and Onesimus was baptized. At this point, Paul tells him he must return to his master and gives him a letter to present to his master. This is the point where we must read the letter carefully to see what St. Paul was saying. He tells Philemon that “although I have the full right in Christ to order you to do what is proper, I rather urge you out of love”. Paul is saying that he could order Philemon to release Onesimus because it is “proper” (i.e. slavery is wrong). But instead he wants him to release him out of love for his Christian brother. The only reason he sends him back is so that “good you do might not be forced but voluntary.” He wants to give him the opportunity to do the right thing for the right reason based upon a fully Christian ethos.

And based upon the history of the Church, Philemon responded just as St. Paul had hoped. First, because the letter was saved for posteriority, that is, Philemon would not have saved a letter and distributed it if he did not comply with it. Secondly because we find in the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles that Onesimus was ordained by St. Paul as the bishop of Macedonia. Onesimus is the first beneficiary of the revolutionary view of mankind set in motion by the God made man.

The Impossibility of Judging Christianity by Its Own Principles

The second reason why we cannot overlook the fact that slavery was ubiquitous in the ancient world is that, in truth, without Christianity slavery would never end. If we flash forward 1000 years to the end of the first Christian millennium we find that slavery is non-existent in the Christian world. This condition continued through the Middle Ages so that by the 15^th Century all of Europe is slavery free except for the fringes in the Iberian peninsula (under Islamic control) and in certain areas of Russia. The Muslims were indiscriminate as to who they enslaved—black or white it did not matter. Once they were run out of Spain and Portugal they went to Africa and joined in the already indigenous slave trade, that is, Africans enslaving and selling into slavery other Africans. Again, another often overlooked fact that the African slave trade was already an institution long before the Europeans arrived in the late 15^th Century.

With slavery practically eradicated in Christendom, then how did slaves end up in the New World? The Spanish and Portuguese Christians, living under an Islamic regime for nearly 700 years, had grown accustomed to it. So when labor proved itself both lacking and necessary in the New World, the Spanish, Portuguese and eventually English turned to chattel slavery once again. They did this against the very clear and repeated condemnations from the Church. Beginning in 1435 with a bull Sicut Dudum, Pope Eugenius IV demanded that Christians free all enslaved natives of the Canary Islands within fifteen days or face automatic excommunication. Over the next 450 years, the Popes unequivocally prohibited the enslavement of any peoples (see this link for a complete list). With fists full of mammon covering their ears, many of the so-called Catholics simply ignored the Church’s teachings, especially because there was no real way of enforcement.

And herein lies the reason why the facts cannot be overlooked. The Church’s teaching on slavery as intrinsically evil has been and always will be unchanging. St. Paul’s Magna Charta of Christian brotherhood in Col 3:26 is forever established. In this regard Christianity cannot be judged because to judge it, is to judge it based on its own principles. Put another way, only Christianity taught the evil of slavery and so you cannot judge the principle by the principle itself. What you can judge and absolutely should judge is Christians themselves for failing to live up to these principles. For that, many Christians themselves have failed miserably to protect the dignity of their fellow men. Parents sometimes are blamed for the actions of their children when there is a bad upbringing, but the clarity and insistence of the Church on this issue makes it clear that it was the children themselves who went astray. What must be absolutely clear is that without the Catholic Church, millions, if not billions of people, would be in physical chains today. No matter how the usurpers of our post-Christian society may try to paint the issue of slavery, that is a truth they must ultimately contend with.

Two Wings to God

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