Category Archives: Politics

Abortion in the Hard Cases

Abortion, Politics

Over the last few years, there has been a flurry of activity at the individual state level to declare personhood at conception.  In every case, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, the measures have been voted down.  One of the reasons why voters turned it down was that it would force women to carry to term unwanted pregnancies including those that became pregnant as a result of rape or incest.  This exception is often brought up as a reason for keeping abortion legal.  In fact many who consider themselves Pro-Life will often argue for provisions in laws that keep abortion legal in these cases.  Because this argument is put forth so often, it is instructive to evaluate the merit of the argument to determine whether abortion should be allowable in these, rare, but real cases when pregnancy occurs.

It is important to mention at the outset that those women who become pregnant as a result of rape or incest are victims of the morally reprehensible actions of others.  There is no question as to whether they have suffered a great evil.  Our response must always be one of compassion.  Still, the question is whether as a result of the evil they have suffered, it gives moral justification to commit further evil by taking the life of the unborn child.  Furthermore, as was mentioned above, it is rare that someone becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest.  Some studies have shown that it occurs in as few as one in a thousand cases and accounts for approximately 2 percent of all abortions.  This is not to minimize the suffering and trauma associated with these cases but to put the frequency in context.  One case of rape or incest is too many.

One further clarification is necessary.  These so-called hard cases should not be relevant to the case for abortion on demand despite the fact that they are often invoked to defend that position.  Supporters of abortion on demand state that a woman has a right to have an abortion for any reason she prefers during the entire nine months of pregnancy and not just rape and incest.  Therefore to argue for abortion on demand from the hard cases is analogous to arguing for the elimination of all traffic laws from the fact that in rare emergencies one might need to violate them. This is important because laws are not made based upon exception.  Laws are meant to conform to normal behavior and nearly every law admits to exceptions.  Nevertheless as it shall be shown, these situations do not constitute valid exceptions to the absolute norm that abortion is always a grave evil.

Finally, it is important to mention as well that because a sexual assault like rape or incest is an act of aggression and cannot be ordered to the unitive and procreative meanings of the sexual act, “a woman who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault” (USCCB, Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 36). This means that she can have recourse to any contraceptive measure provided it is not abortifacient in nature.

With these necessary clarifications in place we can begin to look at the justification that is often offered to defend abortion in these so-called hard cases.  There are a number of arguments put forth why abortion is morally justifiable which are summarized succinctly by Bioethicist Andrew Varga.

It is argued that in these tragic cases the great value of the mental health of a woman who becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest can best be safe-guarded by abortion. It is also said that a pregnancy caused by rape or incest is the result of a grave injustice and that the victim should not be obliged to carry the fetus to viability. This would keep reminding her for nine months of the violence committed against her and would just increase her mental anguish. It is reasoned that the value of the woman’s mental health is greater than the value of the fetus. In addition, it is maintained that the fetus is an aggressor against the woman’s integrity and personal life; it is only just and morally defensible to repel an aggressor even by killing him if that is the only way to defend personal and human values. It is concluded, then, that abortion is justified in these cases (The Main Issues in Bioethics, pp. 67-68).

 

The underlying principle at play here is that evil may never be done so that good may come about.  Any argument related to these hard cases would amount to a utilitarian ethic.  Certainly the trauma that is associated with being a victim of rape or incest may cause great mental and emotional distress.  The child in the womb may serve as a reminder to the mother of the trauma in which she has undergone.  Nevertheless this cannot justify the taking of the life of the child in the womb.

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Each of these arguments begs the question that the child in the womb in fact is a person with an inherent dignity from the moment of conception.  Therefore it has a right to life that ought to be protected from the moment of conception.  The manner in which the child has been brought into being ought not to have any effect on its moral status.  The child may have been conceived as a result of a sexual assault or as a result of a loving union of husband and wife. The result of each of these methods is the same.  A new and complete human person has been brought into being with the full dignity of any human person.  Therefore because the children are the same regardless of the manner in which they were brought into being, the moral status ought to be identical.

Despite the fact that the child is the result of an act of aggression, the child himself is not the aggressor.  It is the perpetrator of the assault who is the aggressor. The unborn entity is just as much an innocent victim as its mother. Therefore, abortion cannot be justified on the basis that the unborn is an aggressor.

In arguing that abortion is justified because of the emotional and mental anguish that the child’s presence places on the mother also presents us with a slippery slope.  From this, one might extend the right to take the life of another person any time that they cause emotional and mental anguish upon the same principle.  For example, suppose a husband were to become disabled later in life and the disability would cause great emotional and mental stress on his wife as his caregiver.  Applying the same principle, the wife would be morally justified in taking the life of her husband.  Although this may seem absurd, it is simply an application of the same principle that a mother uses in justifying the killing of her child that was conceived as a result of a sexual assault.

In conclusion, it should go without saying that the pro-life advocate should not simply stop at protecting the life of the child in the womb.  Much help also needs to be given to the victim of the assault.  Stephen Krason in his book Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution reminds us that we all have an obligation “to make it as easy as possible for her to give up her baby for adoption, if she desires. Dealing with the woman pregnant from rape, then, can be an opportunity for us—both as individuals and society—to develop true understanding and charity. Is it not better to try to develop these virtues than to countenance an ethic of destruction as the solution?”

The Church and the Lodge

Church and State, New Age, Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

AlbertPikestatue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the Heart of Liberty

Freedom, Politics

As Americans gather this weekend to celebrate the Fourth of July, one can’t help but be nostalgic for the Founder’s vision for our country.  Each year I go back and read the Declaration of Independence and reflect on the great gift God has given us in our country.  What becomes obvious in reading this founding document is that the overall theme is one of liberty.  Americans are called a “free people” that has been endowed with liberty by their Creator.  This liberty was understood as not, what Lord Acton would write a century later, “the power to do what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.”  One has to wonder how the Founders would respond to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s most recent contention that the Bill of Rights guarantees “certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs.”  In other words, his belief is that freedom exists only for the sake of personal autonomy.  By equating freedom with autonomy there is a great danger that true freedom will be greatly compromised.

If freedom and autonomy are not the same thing, then how is freedom to be understood?  To answer this question we begin by looking at human nature itself, just as the Founders did in the Declaration of Independence.  They found it self-evident that man was created with the inalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  They thought man was made for a very particular end and that end was called “happiness.”  Although it was probably not in the sense that Jesus used it in the Beatitudes, but most assuredly they used happiness in the Aristotelian sense of a naturally virtuous life.  They listed the two rights only because they were indispensable means to the pursuit of happiness.

What made this self-evident to the Founders was that in looking at man, they knew he had the power both to reason and to will.  They also recognized that man’s will had two categories to it—the necessary and the free.  The necessary meant that no matter what, man must will the good in its universal aspect.  In other words, man cannot choose contrary to his own good.  He may be wrong as to what the good consists in, but universally man will always choose the good (i.e. happiness).  We are not free to choose our own end, it is written into our very nature.

The will is also free insofar as in this life we are not confronted with the universal good, but particular goods.  Our free will is given to us to choose the means by which we will achieve our fixed end.  In other words we have liberty in pursuing happiness and the Founders saw the role of government to protect and promote these “inalienable rights” by which man thrives.

Some may dispute the contention that we cannot choose contrary to our own good.  What about someone diving on a grenade to save his platoon?  One could argue that only someone who sees a good beyond this life that is obtained by selfless acts would do something like that.  Only someone who ultimately (even if they don’t explicitly say it) believes “he who loses his life will save it” would do that.  In fact even the person who commits suicide is acting a manner they think is beneficial to them.  They believe that what awaits them after their death is better than what they are enduring now.

Some of the confusion stems from equivocating on the terms surrounding freedom.  We tend to equate free will with freedom and freedom with liberty.  But these terms should remain distinct if we are to avoid falling into the pitfall that ensnared Justice Kennedy.  When we speak of free will, we are really referring to freedom of choice.  Freedom of choice is the mechanism by which we choose means to achieve our destiny.  This includes freedom from coercion so as not to be interfered with.  As we will see in a moment, this tends to be the current American understanding of liberty as well.

But liberty is something distinct.  It is freedom in its truest sense.  It is a conscious willing of the true end that fulfills our nature.  It is found only in the person who has completely mastered himself so he is not constrained by impulses from within (i.e. concupiscence) nor can he be coerced or forced from the outside to deviate from the good.  This is the truly free man.  It is the “liberty of the sons of God” (Romans 8:21) that St. Paul speaks of because he knows that only the man who is in Christ has liberty.  It also helps us understand how grace can never “force” us because it acts in cooperation with our liberty which is ordered to our true good.

The point is that Thomas Jefferson listed liberty among the inalienable rights not because he was looking for a catchy word but because he recognized this was the highest freedom in man.  He recognized only when man acted in liberty could he properly pursue his end or happiness.  He knew that when this liberty was not protected and promoted, both individual men and society would greatly suffer.  That is why they sought to be free from what they viewed as a tyranny when their liberty was threatened.

As proof of how far we have gotten from this understanding, read Justice Kennedy’s most famous quote from Planned Parenthood vs Casey in 1992, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”  If liberty truly means to determine one’s own concept of the meaning then freedom, liberty and autonomy are all the same thing.  These are not merely the ramblings of a single Supreme Court Justice, but instead a reflection of our culture as a whole.  Freedom of choice is a god in our culture.  It is an end rather than a means.  Personal freedom is the highest good and all things are subordinate to it.  This is nothing more than a recipe for slavery as we are blown to and fro by our whims and the incoherent ramblings of Supreme Court Justices.  Slowly but surely we are all becoming enslaved to personal freedom and in great need of a Declaration of Independence of our own.  On this Fourth of July, let liberty ring!