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On Divine Judgement and the Coronavirus

Culture of Life, Suffering, , , , , ,

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

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

Calling it what it is

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

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

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

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

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

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

What It Means

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

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

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

St. Gianna Molla and the Principle of Double Effect

Abortion, Moralilty, ,

Since her canonization by Pope St. John Paul II on May 16, 2004, St. Gianna Beretta Molla has become the Patroness of the Unborn Child.  Faced with serious complications during the pregnancy of her fourth child, St. Gianna bravely put the needs of her child ahead of her own.  Pro-lifers often point to her heroic witness as a model to be followed.  They are right in doing so, but maybe not for the reason they often cite.  Most portray her situation as an all or nothing—they say she was faced with having life-saving treatment and an abortion or no treatment at all.  The problem is that this is not actually what happens.  The details of St. Gianna’s dilemma matter greatly in the retelling of her story, especially because it helps illustrate a moral solution for mothers who are faced with serious medical problems during pregnancy.

St. Gianna’s Story

While pregnant with her fourth child, St. Gianna developed a large fibroid; a benign tumor of the uterus.  In the normal course of events when these tumors are found during pregnancy they are unobtrusive enough that they may be left be.  In St. Gianna’s case, the tumor was large enough that it was likely to cause serious complications during the pregnancy that ultimately could threaten the development of the child and put her in considerable pain and risk for a serious infection.  There are additional medical details of her situation (detailed here) but for the sake of our discussion this should suffice.

When St. Gianna learned of the fibroid tumor, she was, according to her husband, presented with three options by her doctors.

  1. Terminate the pregnancy via direct abortion and remove the fibroid
  2. Have a hysterectomy that removed her uterus. This would also result in the death of the 2 month old preborn child.  For her personally this was a low-risk approach and was also the standard of care at the time given the lack of medical technologies (such as ultrasound machines) that we have today.
  3. Remove the fibroid and continue her pregnancy. This option could result in the spontaneous miscarriage of the child because of the irritation to the uterus.  It also carried with it serious risks for herself.  The blood loss from a pregnant uterus can be excessive and difficult to control.  It might also be that the wound could re-open during any point in the pregnancy.

Notice that not receiving any treatment was not one of the options as the story is often portrayed.  This was not a real option as to not do anything would have placed the child at great risk.

Examining the Moral Principles

Before examining her decision, it is helpful to make some distinctions and define some moral principles.  This is what makes knowing the details of her case very instructive.  It is a real-life, concrete example of what someone did and it contradicts the abortion or nothing approach that many people often assume.

The first point to look at is why (1) is morally problematic and (2) is morally permissible.  Looked at superficially, the two acts look to be the same—in both scenarios the child ends up dead and the mother lives.  But how we end up there matters, even if we end up in the same place.  Despite Machiavellian protestations to the contrary, one may never do evil so that good may come about.  The end does not justify the means.  Abortion, that is the direct killing of an innocent human being is always wrong regardless of whether the mother’s life is in jeopardy or not.

In scenario (2), the death of the child, although foreseen, is not directly willed even if it is permitted.  What is willed is the preservation of St. Gianna’s life.  Notice too that the preservation of her life does not come about as a result of the child’s death, but as a result of the removal of the uterus.  That same removal of the uterus also has the “side-effect” of killing the baby, even though it was not chosen for that reason.  Finally, there is a certain proportionality involved in the moral calculation in that both mother and child’s life are of equal value and by not acting you are placing one or both of their lives in jeopardy.

Option (2) demonstrates an important moral principle called The Principle of Double Effect.  This principle recognizes that none of our acts occur in a moral vacuum.  Each of our actions are complex with a mixture of goods and evil attached to them.  Thus, even if the will chooses some good, there can often be an evil associated with it.  This is why when we make our moral calculation, we must look not just to the external act but to the underlying choice of the will.  With this in mind, there has classically been the need for the distinction between two types of will—the direct will and the permitting will.  We may never, morally speaking, directly will an evil.  However, we may permit it.

The Principle of Double Effect

The Principle of Double Effect says that it is morally allowable to perform an act that has at least two effects provided all four of the following conditions are met.

  1. the object to be done must be good in itself
  2. the intent of the agent must be to achieve the good effect and to avoid the evil effect as much as possible. The evil effect must not be directly willed but only permitted.  This is the case even if the evil effect is foreseen.
  3. the good effect is proportional to the bad effect and there is no other way to achieve the effect.
  4. the good effect must follow directly from the action and not as a result of the harmful effect.

St. Gianna would have been morally justified in choosing option (2), but instead she chose option (3).  Although under no moral obligation to do so, this decision flowed from her desire to put the life of her child first.  She was a mother and a holy one at that, so this decision came somewhat second nature.  It is not the reason she is saint, but she made this decision because she was on her way to sainthood.

Most of us know that she eventually lost her life after delivering a healthy baby.  But there is not direct evidence that she died because of her decision.  The cause of her death was an infection in her abdomen that was brought about as a result of the Caesarian section that was performed.  Why this detail matters again speaks to how we present her as a witness.  She knew that her health was in jeopardy by choosing (3) but there was no reason for her (she was a doctor) to think it may end up leading to her death.  She made a courageous decision, but also one based on prudence.  It is her courage and prudence that made her a saint and makes her a great Pro-life witness.  It wasn’t her unwillingness to do something evil, but her willingness to love her children at great personal cost.  Saints are praised not because they didn’t choose evil, but because of their witness of heroic virtue.  Knowing the details enables us to let her witness speak clearly to a very confused age.