Category Archives: Pope Francis

On Inculturation

Anthropology, Church Authority, Culture, Defending the Faith, Devils, Natural Law, Pope Francis, , , , , , , ,

In his new Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis mentioned the process of inculturation as a starting point for the conversion of the region.  The Holy Father most certainly had the Pachamama controversy in mind when he exhorted the Faithful to “not be quick to describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise spontaneously from the life of peoples. Rather, we ought to know how to distinguish the wheat growing alongside the tares, for ‘popular piety can enable us to see how the faith, once received, becomes embodied in a culture and is constantly passed on.’ It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry. A myth charged with spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error. Some religious festivals have a sacred meaning and are occasions for gathering and fraternity, albeit in need of a gradual process of purification or maturation” (QA 78-79).  Setting aside the fact that all false religions are by definition superstitions, the Holy Father’s remarks call for a deeper understanding of what the Church means when she uses the term Inculturation. 

Understanding authentic inculturation begins by grasping what we mean when we use the term culture.  Culture is the soil in which the human person grows.  As the Second Vatican Council put it, “Man comes to a true and full humanity only through culture, that is through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature…. The word ‘culture’ in its general sense indicates everything whereby man develops and perfects his many bodily and spiritual qualities” (GS, 53).

Against Cultural Relativism

When viewed in relation to “goods and values of nature,” it becomes evident that cultures are not ends in themselves, but instead means for human growth.  Likewise because there are objective “goods and values of nature,” we can also evaluate cultures objectively in terms of good and bad.  Good cultures are those that cultivate authentic human flourishing and bad cultures are those that do harm to true human goods.  Authentic culture must always be, according to the International Theological Commission, that which “reveals and strengthens the nature of man.”

In short, there is no such thing as a neutral culture nor can anything like cultural relativism be tolerated.  We must evaluate and judge cultures by the objective criterion of whether true human goods are protected and promoted.  It is the Church’s role to be judgmental towards cultures in three specific ways.  Those values that are true human values, even if expressed in “local” terms are adopted as part of the vernacular of the Church and are the means by which the Gospel takes root.  If they point to true human values, but are deficient in some way then the Church purifies them.  Finally, if they are irreconcilable then the Church condemns them.  This process of promoting, purifying and purging is what the Church calls inculturation.

The point of reference for the Church is not the culture itself, but as in all things, the transmission of the Gospel.  The culture is simply the means by which the message takes root.  This is why it is disingenuous to speak of inculturation as a two-way street.  The Church has the fullness of truth and thus has no new facts to learn from the various cultures.  The culture gives to the Church what is for its own benefit—a language that speaks the truths of salvation.  What she does gain is a fuller manifestation of her catholicity.  It becomes proof positive that the Gospel can be put in terms that are intelligible to men of every age and place and answer the deepest longings of all human hearts.

Because he was the most traveled Pope in the history of the Church, St. John Paul II constantly emphasized the connection between inculturation and evangelization.  In an address to the People of Asia while he was visiting the Philippines he reminded the Church that  “Wherever she is, the Church must sink her roots deeply into the spiritual and cultural soil of the country, assimilate all genuine values, enriching them also with the insights that she has received from Jesus. Given the mission entrusted to it by our Lord, the Church’s priority is always the evangelization of all peoples and therefore of all cultures. Inculturation is a means of evangelization, being at the same time its consequence.”

With all of this laid as a foundation, we can see what role, if any, Pachamama would play in legitimate inculturation.  Those who defended it treated it as something that could simply be taken up (literally) as an authentic human value.  But worship of a false god, however seemingly benign or how “spontaneously” it arises (how do we know if something arises spontaneously or at the prompting of demons?), is not a true human value.  Nor is that something that can be purified but instead must be something that is rejected.  Pachamama may have crossed the Tiber after it was tossed in the Tiber, but it was only because certain churchmen lacked both the faith and charity towards the Amazonian people to give them the saving truth of Jesus Christ.  As St. John Paul II, who was not immune to failures in authentic inculturation, told the people of Cameroon, “the Gospel message does not come simply to consolidate human things, just as they are; it takes on a prophetic and critical role. Everywhere, in Europe as in Africa, it comes to overturn criteria of judgment and modes of life; it is a call to conversion.”  Never once was the call to conversion issued to the worshipper of Pachamama.

The great missionary saints, whether it was St. Paul, St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, or St. Isaac Jogues, were all masters of inculturation not because they were clever but because theirs was a call to conversion even if they translated them into colloquialisms.  It was because they were holy men that they were up to the task.  As John Paul II put it, “Only those who truly know Christ, and truly know their own cultural inheritance, can discern how the divine Word may be fittingly presented through the medium of that culture. It follows that there can be no authentic inculturation which does not proceed from contemplating the Word of God and from growing in likeness to him through holiness of life”.

Can God Suffer?

Defending the Faith, God's Love, Paganism, Passion of Christ, Pope Francis, Redemption, Suffering, The Life of Jesus, Theology, , , ,

In a recent homily on the Biblical narrative of the Flood, Pope Francis challenged those gathered to have a heart like God’s, especially in the face of human suffering.  The Holy Father said that “God the Father…is able to get angry and feel rage…suffering more than we do.”  So common has this assertion that God suffers become that it is practically becoming an assumption.  But upon closer inspection we come to find that there are a number of faith altering and faith destroying consequences that follow from this false view of God.  Therefore, it merits further reflection why it is that God does not suffer.

The Need for Analogy

We must first admit that our language inevitably fails us when we attempt to speak about God.  In fact, we can say nothing positive about Him.  This is not because we are pessimists, but because we can only speak definitively about what He is not.  He is omniscient because there is nothing He doesn’t know.  He is omnipotent because there is nothing He can do, etc.  To speak of what He is, is impossible because He transcends our categories.  This linguistic limitation can be partially overcome once we allow for the use of analogy.  For example, God reveals Himself as Father because His fatherhood is something like the human fatherhood that we are all familiar with.

The problem with this approach of analogy is that we often get it backwards.  Properly speaking it is human fatherhood that is like God’s fatherhood.   Keeping the primacy of God’s fatherhood in mind keeps us from assuming that it is just like human fatherhood and making God in our image instead of us in His.  Human fatherhood is only true fatherhood to the extent that it images God’s fatherhood as St. Paul is wont to remind the Ephesians (c.f. Eph 3:15). 

More closely related to the topic of God’s suffering is the dictum that God is love.  To say that God is love is to say that God loves fully and for all eternity.  He cannot love any more than He does because it is His nature to love.  We speak of different “kinds” of love from God such as mercy, compassion, kindness, etc. but in God there is no distinction.  He loves fully.  We, however, cannot receive His love fully.  “Whatever is received,” St. Thomas says, “is received according to the mode of the receiver.”  To the sinner, God’s love is received as mercy.  To the suffering His love is received as comfort.  Yet, from God’s perspective it is a completely active and full love.     

To say that God suffers with us reverses the analogy.  The assumption is that because compassionate human love includes suffering, then Divine love must also.  But the fact that it includes suffering does not mean that it must include suffering.  It is the love that is given that makes it love, not the suffering.  In fact you could remove the suffering, the love would still be love.  In fact, it would be a purer love because there would be no need on the lover’s part to succor his own suffering.  Instead it would be a completely free love with no compulsion towards self-interest.  Rather than being somehow cold and indifferent, it is complete and free.  So God, by not be able to suffer, actually loves us more than if He could suffer.  To insist otherwise makes God love us less, the very thing that they think they are avoiding by positing that He must suffer.  As Fr. Thomas Weinandy puts it, “what human beings cry out for in their suffering is not a God who suffers but a God who loves wholly and completely, something a suffering God could not do.”  God is compassionate not because He suffers with but because He is able to fully embrace those who are suffering

Further Consequences of the Suffering God

If reversing the analogy was the worst part about this, then we might simply chalk it up as a misunderstanding.  But the fact that it represents an attack on God’s nature eventually leads us into a theological pitfall that destroys our faith in God.  God, in order to suffer must be capable of change.  But we believe in a God who is immutable.  His immutability comes about not because He can’t change, but because as the fullness of being there is nothing for Him to change into.  No change would make Him more than He is because He is already “I AM WHO AM”, pure act.  He fully alive.  To posit that He can suffer is to posit that He can change and to posit that He can change is to say that He is not the one true God.

He must also be incapable of suffering, that is, impassible for a subtler reason as well.  Suffering is caused by a lack of some good that ought to be there.  If God, in Himself is lacking some good, then He is not All Good.  If the suffering comes about because of the lack of some good in creation, then He becomes a part of creation itself and is no longer transcendent.  As part of creation He is no longer Creator.  Evil and suffering must be seen as having real existence (rather than a lack of some good) since nothing is immune to it.  Our new God is the god of pantheism or process theology and an ontological dualism becomes the result.

The suffering God hypothesis ultimately means the destruction of the Christian God.  If God is not free from suffering, then no one is.  And if no one is, then there is no possibility of redemption.  God simply becomes one being among many striving for perfection.  If He cannot save Himself from evil, then how can He save anyone else?  The Incarnation becomes totally incomprehensible.  The God-Man cannot offer redemption, nor can He sanctify suffering.  In truth, a suffering God need not stoop to our level because He is already there.  The truth that He could love fully without suffering, yet still chose to add suffering carries the assurance of His total love for each one of us.  If He could already suffer, then it looks like little more than masochism.

In short, ideas have consequences. Serious ideas have serious consequences.  The idea of divine passibility has nothing but negative consequences.  Therefore, despite its present popularity, the assertion that Divine suffering is possible must be wholly rejected in favor of the Traditional teaching of the Church so that the Faith may remain intact.

God’s Choice?

Church, Church Authority, Divine Mercy, End of Life, Fasting, God's Will, History, Magisterium, Pope Francis, Prayer, Sin, Spiritual Warfare, , ,

As criticism continues to mount against Pope Francis amidst this time of ecclesiastical turmoil, a growing number of peacemakers have emerged, who, in an attempt to diffuse the situation, are quick to offer the reminder that “he was chosen by the Holy Spirit.”  One can certainly appreciate the attempt to maintain unity.  Especially because the Pope is the most visible sign of Catholic unity.  But this path to peace is a theological dead end.  The Pope is not “chosen by the Holy Spirit”, at least in the sense that the peacemaker means it.  Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI was once asked whether the Holy Spirit is responsible for the election of a pope to which he replied:

I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined…There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!

In his usual pedagogical succinctness, the Pope Emeritus gives us several important reminders, not only on the election of the Pope, but also on the nature of the Church, especially in times of crises such as we are currently facing.

The Holy Spirit and the Conclave

As Benedict is quick to point out, one need only study history to see that this hypothesis is highly questionable.  History is rife with scoundrels who came to occupy the Chair of Peter.  It is always a good idea to study Church history and remind ourselves of this, especially because most of us have lived under the reign of popes who became saints.  It is only with great intellectual dexterity that we could admit that the Holy Spirit “picked” both these saints and someone like, say, Pope Alexander VI.

One might object that, even if it is a highly informed one, Cardinal Ratzinger was just offering an opinion (“I would say so…”).  The tradition of the Church would suggest otherwise.  Lex orandi, lex credenda—as we worship, so we believe.  The Church, among her various liturgies, has a Mass for the Election of the Pope.   The Church Universal prays that the Conclave will be docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  This implies that they can also operate under the promptings of mixture of other spirits as well.

Free will of the Cardinal electorate then is operative and “anyone” can be chosen.   Yet we are also treading on the horizon of free will and Divine Providence.   The man chosen to be Pope will be God’s choice, but only in the sense that the papal election, like all things, falls under God’s Providence.  We may be certain that the Holy Spirit directly wills the election of a given man as Supreme Pontiff, but through the mystery of Providence will allow another to take his place.

Our Lord told St. Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church.  What He meant by this was that no matter what, the Church would not fail.  The Barque of Peter may take on water, but it will never sink.  The Holy Spirit will allow the Church to take on water, but will always keep her afloat.  That is the extent of His protection.

This however is not the end of the story because of God’s Providence.  Regardless of whether it is a good Pope or bad, the Church will always get the Pope it needs.  Providence dictates that God will always provide the People of God with what they need.

Reading the Times

There may be a mutiny on the Barque of Peter and the Holy Spirit will pick a strong captain to lead a counter-mutiny, stopping the flow of the water.  Or, He may allow another man who joins the mutiny and ignores the water that continues to flow onto the boat.  Eventually all the compartments are flooded, washing the mutineers overboard.  The end result is the same, the corruption has been washed away and the Church was given exactly what she needed.

In a very real sense then the Pope is always God’s choice but only as an instrument.  As a type of the Church, Israel shows us this.  History continually moved in the direction towards the coming of the Messiah, the only question was whether the king and the people would cooperate.  Israel would flourish, grow fat, play the harlot, be chastised, and continue through the remnant.  This pattern is revealed so that we will come to recognize and expect it in the Church.  Either way history will continue to move towards the Second Coming.

In turbulent times this ought to serve as a great comfort.  The infestation of corruption in the Church is finally coming to a head and God is going to root it out.  He will use Pope Francis as his instrument.  The only question seems to be which type of captain Pope Francis will be.  Either way these scandals should not push us towards despair, but should instill hope into us.  God will not be mocked for sure, but neither will He ever abandon His people. He is always on the lookout for co-redeemers—those people who will pick up the Cross with Jesus and lay down their lives for the Church.  Only acts of reparation will repair the Church and each of us has an obligation to do this.  Every man must come on deck, stem the mutiny and start bailing water or risk being carried overboard.  “Penance, penance, penance!” the Angel of Portugal told us through the children of Fatima.  The time is at hand.  Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

The End of the Death Penalty?

Church and State, Church Authority, Defending the Faith, Politics, Pope Francis, ,

Today the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had approved a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the use of the death penalty.  The specific paragraph in the Catechism, no. 2267, had included an important qualifier admitting that the State may validly have recourse to its use: “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty.”  The modified version has removed this important qualifier and now says the death penalty is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”  While this may seem like a relatively small change, at least doctrinally speaking, it is more important than one might think.

The Snowball Effect

First, it means that the preceding paragraph (no. 2266) also will need to be modified.  Legitimate public authority no longer has the right and duty to inflict proportionate punishment to the offense.  I have written about this in greater detail earlier this year, but to summarize, by saying that there are no crimes deserving of death, you ultimately invite injustice through arbitrary punishment.  As I put it back in March, “To say that a mass murderer deserves the same punishment (life imprisonment) as say a rapist is to ultimately destroy the principle of proportionality.  That a mass murderer gets only life imprisonment would suggest that a rapist who, “at least didn’t kill someone” should get less.  This leads to a sort of arbitrariness in punishment, including excess or even no punishment at all.”

This one change creates a snowball effect that can only become an avalanche of change.  The Church’s divinely inspired teachings can be likened to a seamless garment so that if you tug at the smallest string of doctrine the entire thing unravels.  Necessarily the Church’s teaching will then have to change regarding the rights and duties of the State, followed by the rights and duties of the individual and so on.  Before long we are left with a pile of string.

More importantly, the change also signals to the Faithful that the Pope is wrong.  Mind you, I am not saying this particular Pope is wrong (yet) but the Vicar of Christ is, in a very real way, one voice throughout the centuries.  Numerous Popes have taught that there are valid applications of Capital Punishment (including Pius V and his Catechism of the Council of Trent, Pius XII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and all the Popes who, as head of the Papal States, exercised their right and duty in executing criminals as a means of retributive justice), even if they exercised prudential judgment as to when it should be applied.  Now we begin to see why this is about more than just the death penalty.  Either all of these Popes taught error or this particular Pope is now teaching error by abolishing the death penalty.

In what now appears to have been a prophetic utterance, the future Pope Benedict XVI, as Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Faith under St. John Paul II, once said:

“[I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment… he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities… to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible… to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about… applying the death penalty…”

Given this and the fact that the new version appears to be literally wiping out tradition (recall the paragraph in question makes reference to “the traditional teaching of the Church”), we should be inclined to side with the litany of saints and previous Popes who thought that Capital Punishment could be a just, and therefore licit, means of punishment.  In short, by calling the death penalty “inadmissible” the Pope is contradicting Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.  Rarely used? Fine, that is a prudential matter.  Absolutely immoral or inadmissible?  This is too far, contradicting Tradition and leads to injustice.

It IS all about the Dignity of the Person

The Scriptural justification is particularly relevant in this case because it directly contradicts the wording of the new No. 2267.  While setting up His covenant with Noah, God says “Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed. For in the image of God have human beings been made” (Gn 9:6).  Obviously it is problematic (at best) to say that God has commanded something that the Pope is now calling immoral.  But that is not really the biggest problem with the now “inadmissible” nature of the death penalty.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke when speaking of the new wording said “the key point is really human dignity.”  But dignity is a two-edged sword of sorts.  Notice that the Lord tells Noah that it is because murder is an affront to man’s dignity as made in the image of God that men should have recourse to the death penalty.  In other words, rather than being an attack on the dignity of the person, the death penalty affirms it.  It affirms the dignity of the victim.  You cannot speak of the dignity of the offender while at the same time ignoring the dignity of the victim.  Eventually you do violence to the notion of human dignity until it becomes a term devoid of any real content.  To say that a human person is so valuable that the only proportionate punishment for killing him is to forfeit your own life (the most valuable thing you own) is a great testament to the dignity of the human person.

Perhaps not as obvious is the fact that the death penalty also affirms the dignity of the offender as well.  Edward Feser goes into more detail on this in his book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed, but his point is rather salient.  Capital punishment treats the offender not as a victim of his own rage, but as a free moral agent (i.e. made in the image of God).

Mr. Burke is right, the key point is human dignity, but not in the way he meant it.  To fully take the death penalty off the table ends up degrading the value of human life.  It is false then to deem the death penalty inadmissible in all cases and contrary to the Gospel—the power to take the life of a criminal comes from above (c.f. Jn 19:11).  Anyone who says otherwise is contradicting Sacred Scripture and Tradition.

On Finding Wayward Shepherds

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In the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul details his encounter with the first pope upon his visit to Antioch.  The Apostle to the Gentiles called St. Peter to task for withdrawing from the Gentiles and eating only with the Jews out of fear of offending the latter.  Knowing that their faith was weak, St. Peter did not want to scandalize them and so, out of a misguided sense of charity, he pretended to agree with them.  St. Paul was, of course, right.  St. Peter failed pastorally to shepherd his entire flock.  The truth can never be a source of scandal and it is no act of charity to water down the faith.

This event is favorite for non-Catholic apologists for arguing against the primacy of Peter.  After all, they reason, if Peter is the infallible head of the Church then how could Paul question him and find in him in error?  Therefore, the Apostles were all equals and the Catholic doctrines surrounding the papacy are false.  Of course, they read far beyond what happened.  Nowhere does St. Paul challenge St. Peter’s authority to rule, only his exercise of that authority.

Putting aside its apologetical value, this particular passage serves as a guiding light for Church management, especially in times when error is being propagated by those in authority.  One can see the great wisdom of the Holy Spirit in inspiring St. Paul to recount this event because it serves as an example for both prelates and their subjects.  From the perspective of the prelate, we are given an example of humility so as not to disdain correction from those who are “lower” than them.  From the perspective of the lay faithful it provides an example of both zeal and courage to correct those in the hierarchy.

What is Scandal?

First, a word about scandal.  In English this word tends to be understood as referring to an action that leads to public disgrace.  But in the theological sense the word has a more precise meaning.  The word comes from the Greek skándalon which means “a stumbling block.”  Specifically it refers to some action that creates a moral stumbling block for another person.  St. Thomas defines it as “something less rightly done or said, that occasions another’s spiritual downfall.”  The Angelic Doctor goes on to categorize scandal into two types: active and passive.  Active scandal, that which has as its reward a millstone, is “when a man either intends, by his evil word or deed, to lead another man into sin, or, if he does not so intend, when his deed is of such a nature as to lead another into sin: for instance, when a man publicly commits a sin or does something that has an appearance of sin.”  Passive scandal is when “one man’s word or deed is the accidental cause of another’s sin, when he neither intends to lead him into sin, nor does what is of a nature to lead him into sin, and yet this other one, through being ill-disposed, is led into sin” (ST II-II, q.43, a.1).

In short, scandal always pertains to an act that is in some way public in the sense that many people know about it.  One should never make public what was strictly done in private as the accuser would then be the cause of scandal rather than the perpetrator.  What happens in private should both remain and be corrected in private.  But in either case it is an obligation of charity to issue a correction.

The Obligation to Correct

Why is there an obligation?  By way of analogy, St. Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church helps to illuminate why this is:

“As it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he assaulted a man’s person, so it is lawful to resist him, if he assaulted souls, or troubled the state, and much more if he strove to destroy the Church.  It is lawful, I say, to resist him, by not doing what he commands, and hindering the execution of his will.”

While the saint mentions the Pope specifically, what he says applies to Bishops, Priests and Deacons.  If you saw a prelate beating a man physically you would stop it and you should do likewise if he is beating him spiritually.  St. Thomas Aquinas goes a step further saying that it is an act of charity not just towards the rest of the sheep but also towards the prelate as well because the scandalous behavior puts the prelate’s soul in great danger.  He, who has been given much, will have to answer for much.

St. Thomas says that “like all virtues, this act of fraternal charity is moderated by due circumstances.”  What he means by this is that we must not only be aware of our obligation, but also the manner in which we exercise that obligation.  While criticizing a prelate does not make you “more Catholic than the Pope” the manner in which you do it should make you just as Catholic as the Pope.  That is we should never forget that the operative word is charity.  This means that there are certain rules that ought to govern our interactions.

The Code of Canon Law (Canon 212) says that the faithful may legitimately criticize their pastors but that it must always be done “with reverence toward their pastors.”  This means that the criticism should first of all be done in private so that the pastor has an opportunity to correct himself.  This maintains the dignity of both their office and their person.

There are times however when the pastor does not correct himself or that meeting with him in private is not possible (not everyone can get a papal audience for example).  It may also be that the act or word poses such a danger to the faithful that a public rebuke is necessary.  In other words, it may be necessary like St. Paul to “withstand him to his face.”  St. Thomas says that if the faith were endangered a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly on account of the eminent danger of scandal (ST II-II q. 43 a. 1 obj.2).  This is why it is important to understand what constitutes scandal and what does not.  In any regard it may be necessary to “correct” the pastor in public out of, not just fraternal charity, but justice because the faithful have a right to the content of the faith in a clear and undiluted manner.  But still it must be done with gentleness and reverence for his office.

Before closing a word about the response of pastors.  Augustine says that Peter “gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects.”  Very often pastors think themselves above criticism from mere lay persons regardless of how qualified those lay persons are.  They remove the emphasis away from the truth as spoken onto the one speaking the truth.  Unfortunately the fraternal charity is not likewise met with pastoral humility.  It is this spirit that causes many lay people to remain quiet not confident enough that they could defend the Church’s position, especially when they are likely to be met with hostility.

In Loss and Gain, Blessed John Henry Newman’s fictional account of the conversion of a man from Anglicanism to the Roman Catholic Church, the protagonist Redding was drawn to the Church by its consistency.   While he could ask ten Anglican Priests to explain a particular dogma and  get ten different answers, he would get the same answer from ten Catholic pastors.  Those days of consistency are no longer among us, a phenomenon that can only be corrected when the entire Church, lay and clergy, take ownership of the Faith and fear not to correct wayward Shepherds.

The Slippery Heresy

Church, Creed, Defending the Faith, Mercy, Pope Francis, Theology

There is an innate pessimism in all of us that leads us to believe we are living in the worst of times.  So ingrained is this habit are we that we surround ourselves with prophets of gloom—paid professionals whose sole task is to point out how bad things are.   We can hardly imagine things getting worse and we simultaneously pine for the good ol’ days when things were so much better.  Paralyzed by nostalgia we feel the darkness of doom surrounding us; surrounding us, that is, until we ask “when exactly were the good ol’ days?”  History becomes the elixir of pessimism.  The more we examine it, the more convinced we become that we are living in neither the best of times nor the worst of times.  We find examples of when things were better certainly, but we also find times where things we far worse.

The Church, for her part, has no shortage of prognosticators of peril promising that the collapse of the Church is imminent.  But history, if we study it, tells us otherwise.  The Church survived far worse circumstances than our own and we are assured it will survive the worst.  Talk about optimism!  The worst is yet to come, but the best will follow shortly thereafter.

The Gates of Hell and the Church

The Church holds an insurance policy against the gates of hell will not prevail, underwritten by the Divine Son of God, but we also have plenty of historical examples giving the promise a certain amount of street cred.  Hardly a century has gone by in which the Church did not seem to be on the verge of destruction and yet rebounded.  Our time is likely to be no different—the Mystical Body may enter the tomb like its Head, but it will always be a sign of His resurrection as well.

No worries, right?  Well, not exactly.  When you love someone, you not only want them to live, but you want them to be healthy.  The Church most certainly will survive, but her health is another issue altogether.  The Church may have been in great peril in the first three centuries, but her health was never in question.  She may have been big and rotund 1000 years later, but her health was delicate.

It may seem odd to go to these lengths for the sake of making a proper distinction, until we carry out the implications of this.  The Church as she sits here in 2017 is not healthy.  If we love her then we ought to greatly desire her health.  This is not pessimism, but realism.  The disease may not be terminal, but many members, especially in the extremities may end up being amputated unless we can properly diagnose the problem and apply the remedy.

Diseases in the Mystical Body of Christ have a very specific name—we call them heresies.  Rather than being infected from without, these are like autoimmune diseases that attack the body from within.  To fight them, God injects saints as antibodies.  These saints witness in a particular way against the prevailing error in the Church and then attack those errors with truth and charity, that is, by their words and way of life.

What makes our time particularly unique, is that it would be very difficult to name the heresy plaguing the Church.  St. Athanasius could identify the pathology he was fighting—Arianism.  St. Dominic could name his—Albigensianism.  And St. Therese of Lisieux could name hers—Jansenism.  The list goes on and on.  God raised these men and women up and formed them to fight the diseases in the Church.  While there seem to be a lot of heretics, there is no great heresy.  Some will say modernism, but that, as dangerous as it is, is really a catch all and doesn’t quite capture it.  Some would say it has to do with the moral authority of the Church, but again that is not quite it either.  Try as you might, you would be hard pressed to name the one heresy.

The Mother of All Heresies

That is because the heresy we are facing is really the mother of all heresies—ambiguity.  Ambiguity is really a heresy of omission—it sows error not so much in being silent, but in not saying anything.  It is animated by the spirit of Pope Honorius, the 7th Century pope who was condemned for fanning the flames of heresy by remaining silent when he could have spoken clearly regarding the Monthelite heresy.

In this environment we should not be surprised to see the re-emergence of all the past heresies because all truth is now hidden under the veil of ambiguity.  It is a circumstance that Pope Pius VI anticipated in his 1794 papal bull Auctorem Fidei.

“[The Ancient Doctors] knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, they sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith which is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error.”

There is a demonic cleverness to the heresy of ambiguity that makes it difficult to grasp or even accuse someone of.  It says everything and nothing all at once.  It tells a different truth depending on where you are standing.  It is not either/or or even both/and, but both/or.  And like most heresies historically speaking they spread from the top down.  Nearly 80% of the Bishops in the mid-4th century were Arians as well as most of the Roman army, but it was the rank and file Catholics and faithful Bishops like Athanasius that stemmed the tide.

The Church may be a field hospital, but it is the unambiguity of divinely revealed truth that allows her to apply the salve of mercy.  There can be no mercy without justice, no mercy without acknowledging a truth that has been transgressed.  Take away the truth and mercy soon follows.  The Church is left defenseless and ineffective in her saving mission.  Eventually even her own children will be cut off with nothing to tether them to the Body.

Looked at through the lens of history, the saints of our age will be witnesses against ambiguity, fighting against the honorary Honoriuses of our age.  They will be marked by a clarity in their teaching that is matched by an unambiguous way of life.  They will be unambiguously joyful because they will be unambiguously holy.  They will accept unambiguous suffering at the hands of those afflicted with ambiguity and offer it for their sake (Col 1:24).  They will hold fast to the truth, but always in a way that speaks of love and mercy.  They will be true saints.

 

 

A Proper Reading of Islam?

Islam, Pope Francis

In a previous post, I showed that despite frequent protestations to the contrary, Islam was both by nature and necessarily a religion of violence.  The reader is referred to the full argument in that post, but the gist of it centers on the truth that there are two forces by which men can be compelled through law.  The first is through the power of reason while the second is by the sword.  Now in the Islamic conception of God, there is no room for reason because Allah is pure will.  Therefore, Islam because it rejects the notion that man can be compelled by reason to follow the commands of Allah, will always gravitate towards the sword.  This argument is a rather straight-forward application of reason.  But a disturbing trend within the Church has arisen by which the grounds of argument have risen to the level of Faith.  Even the Holy Father Francis has on a number of occasions called Islam a religion of peace, even mentioning in his first encyclical Evangelii Gaudium  that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” (EG, 253).

Those who study the life of Mohammad and read the Qur’an know that this assertion is patently false.  The debate over whether it is “opposed to every form of violence” is because the Qur’an is composed in a schizophrenic manner.  To clear up any contradictions, Mohammad was given the principle of abrogation (Surah 2:106—“Such of Our revelations as We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Know you not that God is Able to do all things?”) to guide his followers.  In essence, because Allah is pure will, he may capriciously change his mind.  Therefore any one of his commandments may be abrogated or replaced by a new one.  According to the Qur’an and Islamic teaching, Muslims should follow his most recent commandment.

Because there is a clear line of demarcation in the life of Mohammad and the tenor of the revelations, there is little debate as to which parts of the Qur’an came first.  While Mohammad was peacefully (for the most part) coexisting with Christians, Jews and pagans in Mecca the parts of the Qur’an revealed to him were reflective of this peace.  But when Mohammad was violently expelled from Mecca in 622 and escaped to Medina (called the Hijiri), the revelations became increasingly more violent.  Because they are revealed later, these are the surah that are binding upon Muslims.

It does not take a Muslim scholar to discover these simple truths and come to the realization that what the Pope has been saying is untrue.  One might understand that Pope Francis wants to avoid inflaming radical Muslims any further, but it is best to keep silent rather than passing on politically correct nonsense.  But the fact that he has spoken as he has is problematic for two reasons.

pope-koran

First, when such blatant ignorance is shown it destroys his credibility and by extension the Church.  First and foremost it does great harm to the Church’s primary mission of making Jesus known.  One is less likely to listen to the Church on matters of the Catholic Faith when its face is wrong about something that takes little effort to clear up.  One has to wonder what else that he says and teaches is wrong.  It also further perpetuates the sharp division between faith and reason.  Reason may tell us one thing, but faith says we must profess something that our reason knows is false.  The result is a weakening of the Magisterium in the eyes of both those outside the Church as well as those inside.  He risks further cementing a cafeteria environment among Christian believers.

The second issue is, in my mind, a bigger deal.  There are many in the Church who perpetuate the false claims about Islam, not by arguing from the Islamic teachings themselves, but by appealing to the authority of the Magisterium.  The fact is that for most people, if the Pope says it, then it is supposed to be binding on Catholics.  Couple that with what has in essence become a media Magisterium where sound bite replaces sound doctrine and the result is mass confusion.

In order to clear up this confusion, it is necessary to answer the question as to whether what is being said about Islam is somehow binding on Catholics.  Must we throw away common sense and the tradition of the Church and assent to the sanitized version of Islam that is being offered to us?

To address this, we can return to the teachings of the First Vatican Council (Dei Filius(DF), Session 3, Chapter 3).  The faithful are obligated to believe those things:

  • which are contained in the word of God (either through Scripture or Tradition)
  • which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed
  • whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal Magisterium

Once the principle is articulated we immediately see the problem with any argument that Islam is a religion of peace that is based on the authority of the Church.  According to the Church, she has no authority to speak on the question of Islam because it is neither “a matter concerning faith and morals” nor regarding “the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world” (DF, Session 4, Chapter 3).  Unless one is willing to concede that Islam is somehow divinely inspired, the Church has no competence to judge on the truth of statements regarding Islam.  So when Pope Francis speaks of Islam in the manner that he has, he is going beyond the competency of his office as Pope.  He might speak as to how an area of Islam is compatible or incompatible with the Christian faith, but he has no particular charism for speaking about the nature of Islam itself in a way that binds a Christian.

It is worth mentioning as well that even if we accept what Pope Francis has said as carrying some authority, it would contradict what previous Popes have said about Islam.  To take two examples:

 “… there is hope that very many from the abominable sect of Mohammad will be converted to the Catholic faith.” Pope Eugene IV, Council of Basel, 1434.

“I vow to… exalt the true Faith, and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mohammad in the East.” Pope Callixtus III.

To hear previous Popes call Islam abominable and diabolical and then Pope Francis to say it is a religion of peace certainly seems contradictory.  The essence of Islam has not changed since its inception so Francis’ position would certainly represent a rupture.

Scripture itself condemns Islam when it says “every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:3).

This is why a number of the saints, including St. John Damascene, have said that Mohammad was a type of the Antichrist.  In closing t is instructive then to read Mohammad’s own account of his experience of receiving the Qur’an:

“So I read it, and he departed from me. And I awoke from my sleep, and it was as though these words were written on my heart.

Now none of God’s creatures was more hateful to me than an (ecstatic) poet or a man possessed: I could not even look at them. I thought, Woe is me poet or possessed—Never shall Quraysh say this of me! I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest. So I went forth to do so and then when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘O Muhammad! thou art the apostle of God and I am Gabriel’” (A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad).

On Zika and the Lesser of Two Evils

Contraception, Natural Law, Pope Francis

For most Catholics, Pope Francis and plane-ride interview has become a time ripe for confusion.  His return home to the Vatican from his pastoral visit in Mexico was no different.  A reporter from Spain asked the Holy Father the following question:

Holy Father, for several weeks there’s been a lot of concern in many Latin American countries but also in Europe regarding the Zika virus. The greatest risk would be for pregnant women. There is anguish. Some authorities have proposed abortion, or else to avoiding pregnancy. As regards avoiding pregnancy, on this issue, can the Church take into consideration the concept of “the lesser of two evils?”

And Pope Francis replied that:

Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime. It is to throw someone out in order to save another. That’s what the Mafia does. It is a crime, an absolute evil. On the ‘lesser evil,’ avoiding pregnancy, we are speaking in terms of the conflict between the fifth and sixth commandment. Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape.

Don’t confuse the evil of avoiding pregnancy by itself, with abortion. Abortion is not a theological problem, it is a human problem, it is a medical problem. You kill one person to save another, in the best case scenario. Or to live comfortably, no?  It’s against the Hippocratic oaths doctors must take. It is an evil in and of itself, but it is not a religious evil in the beginning, no, it’s a human evil. Then obviously, as with every human evil, each killing is condemned.

On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one, or in the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these two mosquitoes that carry this disease. This needs to be worked on.

Unfortunately, these “off-the cuff” remarks were picked up by the media and led to headlines like “Pope suggests contraceptives could be used to slow spread of Zika” (CNN), “Zika Shows It’s Time For The Catholic Church To Rethink Its Stance On Birth Control” (Forbes), and “Pope Francis Condones Contraception With Zika Virus” (NPR).  An attempt by Fr. Lombardi, the Vatican Spokesman to clarify the Pope’s comments only served to further muddy the waters:

The contraceptive or condom, in particular cases of emergency or gravity, could be the object of discernment in a serious case of conscience. This is what the Pope said…the possibility of taking recourse to contraception or condoms in cases of emergency or special situations. He is not saying that this possibility is accepted without discernment, indeed, he said clearly that it can be considered in cases of special urgency.

These flying papal encounters often leave the faithful with an uncomfortable feeling that the question has not been adequately addressed or even incorrectly so.  Thanks be to God that because we have the great gift of Sacred Tradition we can often fill in the ellipsis that the Holy Father tends to insert in his responses.  While I will not be so bold as to speculate what the Holy Father meant, I can confidently offer what he could not mean.

Some preliminary background is necessary for understand a full response to the question.  The question itself really is “Is it permissible to use contraception to combat the effects of the Zika virus on children in the womb?”  In truth, to frame the question in terms of “the lesser of two evils” is to frame it incorrectly.  Nowhere within the Catholic moral tradition has it ever been believed that one may choose between the lesser of two evils.  In the case of two objectively evil actions, neither may be chosen for its own sake.  It may very well be that in choosing a good, we will have to tolerate an evil that is both a “side effect” of our decision and of less moral gravity than the good itself (see here for a discussion of the Principle of Double Effect which governs this idea).

There is also the danger when you speak in terms of evils of seeing the child that is conceived with a birth defect as an evil.  As any parent with a special needs child will emphatically tell you, the child is an inconceivable good, even if the condition that plagues them is an evil.

Pope_Francis_on_papal_flight

If we reframe the question of the goods involved a clear answer emerges that is both consistent with Tradition, Natural Law and even practical sense.  The good to be attained is the avoidance of the birth defects that are (or in truth only “maybe”) associated with the Zika virus.  One of the possible means of attaining this good would be to avoid pregnancy altogether.  Certainly to avoid becoming pregnant with a child who is likely to carry a serious birth defect is among the “grave reasons” for postponing (even indefinitely) pregnancy that Pope Paul VI spoke of in Humanae Vitae.  At this point it is not clear what the chances are of both contracting Zika and having a baby with microcephaly are, but let’s assume that they are significant enough to make it grave.

Pope Francis was clear in his condemnation of abortion as a solution to the issue.  A person is an objective good to which the only adequate response is love as St. John Paul II said.  This means that to do harm to the person so as to avoid their suffering with a birth defect is always a great evil and can never be a moral solution.  St. John Paul II affirmed this by invoking the Church’s charism of Infallibility through the Ordinary Magisterium in Evangelium Vitae saying “I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium” (EV 62).

The Saintly Pontiff also conceded that there are “differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion” (EV 13) but this does not mean that contraception too does not constitute an objective evil that cannot be chosen as an ends or a means.  In fact we know that Fr. Lombardi’s interpretation what the Pope said is wrong.  Assuming that when he made the distinction between “contraceptives and condoms” he was considering chemical contraception, then this falls into the first category of direct abortion.

According to the PDR (and the package inserts on birth control pills), “[C]ombination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus, which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus, and changes in the endometrium which reduce the likelihood of implantation.”  The third mechanism that prevents implantation of the fertilized egg (i.e the child) renders the Pill as an abortifacient.  In truth because all three mechanisms are at work, there is no way to know whether pregnancy has been avoided or an abortion has taken place.  Therefore because of their abortifacient nature, chemical contraceptives would not be an option.

What about condoms as a solution?  I have written elsewhere about why any contraceptive measure is always a grave evil, but there is a practical reason why condom usage should not be considered as a solution.  Although it often gets lumped into other “calendar methods” in efficacy studies, Natural Family Planning is at least as effective as most chemical methods and more effective than condom usage (one such study supports this can be found here).  In any regard it is disappointing to say the least that neither the Pope nor his representative mentioned this as an option.  Imagine the power of a response similar to “Yes, there might be reason to avoid pregnancy in the regions afflicted with Zika.  We must get those people trained in NFP and we will have the good of strengthening marriages as well.”

A comment also needs to be made about the exception that the Holy Father mentioned regarding the nuns who were in danger of being raped.  This is a red herring of sorts because there is no moral equivalency here at all.  Birth control as the Church has always taught is related to the conjugal act. By definition this act assumes not only the physical act but also the consent of both parties. Rape may have the same physical act, but lacks the consent. These are fundamentally different things and therefore it is morally licit to do everything that you can to avoid pregnancy after the act (or even during the act). However once pregnancy (i.e fertilization) occurs it is a different thing.

The ability of the Holy Father to act as Universal Pastor of the Church is truly enhanced by the speed at which he is able to travel.  What would be good though is if the Flying Magisterium could be avoided.  While the Pope himself only alluded to “birth control” in his comments, there was no real indication that he was making any distinction between morally licit means and those that are not.  Fr. Lombardi may or may not have accurately conveyed the Pope’s meaning but the fact of the matter is that ambiguity has plagued the papacy of Francis.  While Pope Francis is certainly not the only Papal “victim” of the media in this regard, the questions themselves tend to repeat themselves and truly call for a well thought out and nuanced response.  Let us all pray that when condoms and the next health crisis come up, the Holy Father will act as a clear prophet.

 

 

Mercy as the Last Word

Mercy, Pope Francis, Year of Mercy

In his book-length interview with Italian Journalist Andrea Tornielli entitled The Name of God is Mercy, Pope Francis offers what, is in essence, an extended commentary on his Bull of Indiction for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.  Like his three Papal predecessors he is convinced that we are living in an important time of mercy.  Because of this, one gets a sense of urgency in his words as he tries to move us from mercy as an abstract idea to a concrete reality—a reality that in many ways is the Church’s only reason of existence.  “Wherever the Church is present, the mercy of the Father must be evident” (Misericordiae Vultus, 12).  He speaks of his experience as a confessor where he looks for the slightest opening in which God’s mercy might enter.  The Holy Father ardently believes that “when you feel His [Jesus] merciful embrace, when you let yourself be embraced, when you are moved—that’s  when life can change.”   He even draws parallels between the Church’s approach and that of the fictional priest, Fr. Gaston, in Bruce Marshall’s novel To Every Man a Penny.  A young, dying soldier comes to the priest for confession.  The problem is that although he confesses to numerous amorous affairs, he is unrepentant and admittedly would do it all over again.  Distressed that he will be unable to offer him absolution, Fr. Gaston asks the soldier if he is sorry that he is not sorry.  The priest absolves him based on that sorrow.  The Holy Father comments that it is simply proof “His mercy is infinitely greater than our sins.”

This Year of Mercy is not just about indulgences and confession, but as the Pontiff says, the  main purpose for calling this Jubilee is for the Church “to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives” (MV, 3).  His point is that while the Sacraments of the Church are efficacious signs of God’s mercy, the entire Church needs to contemplate this same divine attribute so that we all become sacraments of His mercy.  “[W]herever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy” (MV, 12).

It is in this spirit of reflection and witness that the Holy Father expresses his “burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy” (MV, 15).

The Holy Father is inviting all the Faithful to participate in this great Jubilee of Mercy by actively practicing the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.  These particular acts of love, because they touch those in most need, act as chisels on the hard hearted so that God’s mercy may enter.  The Works of Mercy have fallen into disuse in recent decades and so Francis reminds us all during his interview that the works of mercy are “still valid, still current.  Perhaps some aspects could be better ‘translated’ but they remain the basis for self-examination.”  If what Our Lord told St. Faustina is true, namely that, “I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it” (Diary 742) then this is a grace filled time for us to re-introduce these practices to our spiritual lives.

Year of Mercy

It is helpful for us to reflect on two reasons why these practices may have slipped the minds of many in the Church.  The first is that we often fail to see God’s mercy as something personal and real for us.  Most of us don’t have great conversion stories or a real awareness of grave sin in our lives.  Sure we see places where we have drifted from God and He has led us back, but it is often so subtle that we do not even know it at the time.  That in and of itself is mercy.  To see into my own heart and no I am capable of just about anything at times and yet to never have fallen—that is mercy.  In fact to receive the mercy of preservation is one of the most beautiful gifts that God gives us.  He spares us so much pain.  This is why a favorite spiritual practice of St. Augustine when he did his Examen and could not find any sin that day was to thank God in His mercy for all the things that he kept the Saint from falling into.

The point is that we can never spread God’s mercy until we see how He has touched us personally with it.  The word mercy literally means “a heart moved by misery.”  If you do not know what misery “feels” like, it is very difficult to be moved by it in another.  This is why mercy and empathy go hand in hand.  Empathy, according to John Paul II, is “experiencing another person within ourselves as the other person experiences himself.”  It is a path to love and mercy because by seeing the other from the inside, we see them as a subject and not just an object.

A second reason why the Works of Mercy have fallen into disuse is because we set our goals to high.  We assume we must go somewhere to practice them.  We may not have time amidst our family life to volunteer at the Soup Kitchen.  But that misses the point.  How many of the Works of Mercy does a parent perform daily with their children?  Add the supernatural intention of showing them the love of God and all of family life becomes sanctifying.  Children grow up with an innate sense of the Merciful love of the Father.

Jesus addressed a similar obstacle to St. Faustina when he said,

“write this for the many souls who are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul. If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy.”

Pope Francis further attempted to simplify things by grouping the first four spiritual works of mercy (counsel the doubtful, teach the ignorant, forgive offenses, be patient with difficult people) are all part of the “apostolate of the ear.”  As proof that these are most needed at this time, look at all the money spent of therapists just because they listen to their patients!

There is one Spiritual Work of Mercy that ought to be of particular focus during this Year of Mercy and that is admonishing the sinner.  If there is one unforgivable sin today even among the most secular it is “being judgmental.”  While obviously this is an abuse of Jesus’ words to “judge not,” there is a truth to it.  Perhaps the greatest tragedy of a culture that is dominated by relativism is that it keeps so many from seeking God’s mercy (no absolute moral law, no sin, no need for mercy).  So it is extremely important that we all realize that to admonish the sinner without pointing them towards the mercy of God is no act of mercy.  It is simply a condemnation.  This is not because sin is inconsequential or because there is no such thing as mortal sin, but because sin can never have the last word.  God’s mercy is more powerful.  The Holy Father is quick to say that “The Church condemns sin because it has to relay the truth: ‘This is a sin.’ But at the same time, it embraces the sinner who recognizes himself as such, it welcomes him, it speaks to him of the infinite mercy of God.”

How different our approach to admonishing sinners is if we do so only with mercy in mind.  For those who have been truly touched by God’s mercy, they want nothing more than for that sinner to experience it too.  A good way to examine ourselves on how we are doing with this is to see our response when we encounter someone who is doing something gravely sinful.  Is my first response, almost visceral in that I despair that the person could be lost?  Or am I concerned only with the fact that they are breaking some rule?  Neither of the two downplays sin, but only the former allows mercy to have the final word.  In truth it might be that for those people who cannot point to specific instances of God’s mercy in their own lives, the greater Work of Mercy is not to admonish the sinner at all.  Blessed are the merciful, for mercy has been theirs!

The Pope, the President and Religious Freedom

Freedom, Pope Francis

Yesterday on the South Lawn of the White House, President Barack Obama and Pope Francis exchanged brief remarks.  To listen to the remarks one would think that there was near perfect agreement between the two.  They both spoke of the environment, immigration and religious liberty.  While they were using the same words, they each attach very different meanings to those words.  Once we begin to look at this more closely,  understood, we find that the apparent agreement is much less than initially thought, especially when it comes to religious freedom.

In his remarks, the Holy Father said that American Catholics “are likewise concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and their right to religious liberty. That freedom remains one of America’s most precious possessions.”  President Obama for his part said that “[H]ere in the United States, we cherish religious liberty…So we stand with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and free from intimidation.”  Although it seems they are in support of the same thing, there is a subtle difference in what they are saying that makes all the difference in the world.  It is as if Pope Francis is saying that American Catholics like religious liberty because it is good and President Obama is saying Americans think religious liberty is good because they like it.  One is rooted in the objective natural law, the other as a concession made by the government so that its citizens can worship if and how they want.

For all the discussion of religious liberty, very rarely is it examined for what it is.  Before we can address religious freedom, we must know what kind of freedom we are talking about.  In other words, what is religion?  Philosopher John Carlson defines religion as a “set of beliefs, relations and activities by which people are united, or regard themselves as being united to the realm of the transcendent.”    This definition has four fundamental characteristics of all religions.  First, since religion is a set of beliefs it assumes that man can somehow grasp and relate to this transcendent order through the use of reason.  Religion as a set of relations means that religion is something that people do in common and not merely as isolated individuals.  Because religion is a set of activities these beliefs are not only theoretical but require a response in the practical order.  Finally, and most importantly, religion concerns a relationship between man and some reality that is distinct from or above the empirical order.  It seems that this four-fold definition is consistent with the understanding of religion that informed our founding fathers.  The author of the Bill of Rights, James Madison, defined religion as “the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, being under the direction of reason and conviction only, not of violence or compulsion, all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise of it according to the dictates of Conscience” (James Madison, Amendments to the Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 1776).

Pope and Pres

While the fourth US President thought that religion was rooted in the nature of man as “the duty we owe to our Creator, ” the forty-fourth President thinks it merely one of “our core views as Americans” (Press Conference with President Obama and President Hu of the People’s Republic of China, January 19, 2011).  This leaves us with the need to answer the fundamental question of whether freedom of religion is something that is natural or given by the State.

Recall that St. Thomas thought that the natural law directly followed from the natural inclination of man towards four fundamental goods that perfect him—to preserve their life, to procreate and educate his children, to live in society, and to know the truth, especially about God (ST I-II, q.94, a.2). Because man is naturally inclined towards these goods he has a duty to obtain them and a corresponding right arises to pursue these goods.  Furthermore, whatever pertains to each of these goods directly would be considered a natural right.  Because life is an intrinsic good there is a right to life.  Because marriage and the rearing of children is a single intrinsic good, there is a natural right to marriage and children have a right to be raised by their biological parents.  Since man is by nature social, each person has a right to contribute to the common good.  Finally, from the duty to seek the truth the natural right to religious freedom follows.

Furthermore, the four intrinsic goods represent a hierarchy.  This hierarchy proceeds from the most basic, life, to the highest good of seeking the Ultimate Truth, Who is not just a concept or set of propositions, but a Person.  From this it follows that freedom of religion is, as the US Bishops have labeled it, “our first liberty.” This is because it is directly related to man’s end and ultimate Good, God Himself.  Furthermore, the lower goods often must be freely sacrificed for the sake of the higher ones.  Therefore we must be prepared to forgo the other goods—being a part of society, marriage, and even life—in defense of this ultimate good.  That is why Cardinal George could say “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square” if the assaults on religious liberty continue without being accused of suffering from delusions of paranoia.

The Second Vatican Council issued one of its most controversial documents, Dignitatis Humanae, to address the issue of religious freedom.  The Council Fathers enumerated three principles that can serve to illuminate true religious freedom from its counterfeits that are threatening it today.  These three principles concern its foundation, its purpose, and its limits.

Foundation of Religious Freedom

As was mentioned above the foundation for religious freedom is the dignity of the human person.  The Council put it this way:

“It is in accordance with their dignity as persons…that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth… Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature.” (DH, 2)

This bears repeating here because one of the imposters that threatens religious freedom today is the notion of religious tolerance.  Recall that religion is considered a human good that ought to be promoted.  Therefore it should not be treated as an evil to be tolerated.  In recognition of the fact that it is a true human good, rather than tolerate the religious life of its citizens, the State should “take account of the religious life of the citizenry and show it favor.” (DH, 3)

Tolerance was initially proposed as a concession that confessional states such as Anglican England and Catholic France would make towards other Christians.  It was based upon the assumption that the state had recognized a certain religion as true and the state would tolerate other practices and beliefs as a concession to those in error.  As the Enlightenment project took further root, the idea of tolerance was extended to religion in general especially in non-confessional states like the United States.  The danger that is ever looming is that if the state views itself as extending tolerance to religion, it can also cease toleration altogether.  Religious freedom becomes merely a civil right and is no longer viewed as a natural right.  This would be the view of the President.

The Purpose of Religious Freedom

The Council Fathers also addressed the purpose of religious liberty as well.   Religious freedom is necessary so that persons may fulfill their duty to seek the truth, to embrace it, and to live in conformity with the truth, once it has been discovered and accepted (DH, 1-2).  Like all liberties it should not be viewed as an end in itself but instead as a means to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to come to know the truth and live in its fullness.  A society that respects religious liberty is one that contributes to a spirit of openness to transcendent truth especially through education and respectful exchanges.  This mutual search for the truth can act as a cohesive force to bind a society together.

Modern man views freedom and objective truth as somehow in opposition to each other rather than truth being a condition for freedom’s fulfillment.  If truth and freedom are in opposition with each other then one must be rejected.  The modern tendency is to reject the existence of objective truth.  In the absence of truth then the will becomes primary and so choice becomes the greatest good.

In his ad Limina Visit with US Bishops in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI said that based upon this reduced anthropology there is a “tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.”  Once religion is no longer seen as a search for objective truth about the transcendent order but instead as a subjective preference then religion is a strictly private affair.  This creates a two-headed hydra of sorts in that freedom of worship is always accompanied by “freedom from religion” or, more accurately, “freedom from other people’s religion” in which people recoil from religious believers insist on “imposing their truth on others.”

Limits on Religious Freedom

The Council treats religious freedom as a two-edged sword with respect to limits.  First, religious liberty “means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others” but this freedom can only be exercised “within due limits.”

The right to use coercion is a defining characteristic of the state.  Not only is this power a means to protect the safety of people against evildoers, but it also serves a teaching function that helps the evildoer himself remove the obstacles to a life of virtue.  But this power also is limited in that it should not force anyone to act against the truth as he understands it.  This is the fundamental issue with things like the Gay Marriage SCOTUS decision.  The Church views this mandate as coercive in the manner in which it forces Catholics to act against the truth of what is truly good for the human person.

On the other hand, with the modern exaltation of liberty much of civil discourse centers around what Mary Ann Glendon terms “rights talk.”  This way of speaking of rights has led to the tendency to absolutize all rights without any reference to the limits of those rights.  Religious freedom is not an absolute right but instead is governed by “due limits.”  These due limits are based upon whether they inhibit the exercise of others’ duties and their effect on the common good.

There has been a great emphasis in the Church on the need to dialogue with those who do not understand or agree with the Church.  In fact, Pope Francis described his visit as “days of encounter and dialogue.”  While this is certainly necessary and laudable, this can never truly happen without first making sure we are speaking the same language.  Just because we are using the same words, doesn’t mean that we are talking about the same things.