Introduction
Canon Law 750 states that “All that is contained in the written word of God or in tradition, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church and also proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium, must be believed with divine and catholic faith; it is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful under the leadership of the sacred magisterium; therefore, all are bound to avoid any doctrines whatever which are contrary to these truths.”
Canon Law 754 states “All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and proscribe erroneous opinions; this is especially true of the constitutions and decrees issued by the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops.”
Sister Angela teaches fourth grade at Blessed Sacrament Middle School. She wanted a way to interest her class in writing an essay, so she decided to show a video. She told the class that they should pay close attention to the video, because they were going to have to write an essay on its story. As she started the video, she heard one of her students say, as he leaned over to the boy next to him “Hurry, shut your eyes, if we don’t see the video, we won’t have to write the essay.”
Some Catholics think that if they are not aware of the Church’s moral theology, they will not be held accountable by God. Not so!
Pope John Paul II is not an alarmist; generally, he is optimistic where others become discouraged. However, in his recent encyclical entitled Veritatis Splendor or The Splendor of Truth, he says we are facing “a genuine crisis” in the understanding and teaching of basic principles of Christian morality.
What makes the present situation so critical is that the disagreement with the Church’s traditional teaching on morality is coming, not from outside the Church, but from within the Church itself.
The Pope makes it clear that the Church has a traditional moral teaching as well a dogmatic one. The Second Vatican Council did indeed call for a “perfecting of moral theology” as taught in seminaries.
[1] Often this has been taken to mean that traditional moral norms can now be discarded and we have to begin from scratch in setting up standards of morality. Not so, says the Pope. The Church’s traditional moral teaching as expressed in magisterial documents and in the writings of doctors like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori is still valid and binding.
The encyclical is addressed to the bishops of the Catholic Church, yet it is a public document clearly intended to be read by others than bishops. Obviously then, it is more than a reminder to bishops of their duty to teach their priests and people the right standards of morality. It is a reminder to the rest of the Catholic community – and all people – that the divinely established guide in these matters is not the opinions and teachings of theologians or instructors in religion. That guide is the teaching of the magisterium, which consists of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him. To them alone the promise of divine guidance has been assured.
In the past, popes and councils have addressed particular moral questions. The present crisis, however, prompts Pope John Paul II to deal with the very bases, the fundamental principles of moral teaching. “This is the first time, in fact, that the magisterium of the Church has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this teaching.”[2]
In this lecture I do not attempt to give an analysis of the encyclical or to comment on every point made by the Pope. Much of the letter consists of philosophical argumentation, which the Pope uses to counter the errors of professional theologians. Such language may deter people from reading the encyclical. Here I try to present important points made by Pope John Paul II which have a direct bearing upon the day-to-day moral decisions which each of us has to make.
Frequently in the encyclical the Pope quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church. All English-speaking Catholics have available the full text of the Catechism, which is normative for the whole Church both in faith and in morals.
Conscience [3]
“Let your conscience be your guide,” is a piece of advice we have all heard many times. Moral theologians, both ancient and modern, tell us the same thing when they say that conscience is the proximate norm of morality and that we are obliged to follow our conscience when faced with a situation that calls for a moral decision. So far, so good!
But what is conscience?
We have heard people say things like: “I feel that ending suffering by euthanasia is justified.” “I had good reason for having an abortion; my conscience doesn’t bother me.” “I feel that keeping animals in cages is wrong.” “I feel it is all right to have a live-in girlfriend (boyfriend); a lot of others are doing it, so it can’t be wrong.” On the other hand, many people feel just as strongly that the opposite opinions are the right ones.
How can such people ever agree on what is right and what is wrong? Feelings, we know from experience, are changeable and are not always under our control. They differ from person to person. If feelings constitute our conscience and serve as our guide in moral matters, then each person is a law unto himself. There can be no objective standard which can be imposed on all persons alike. Under such conditions no government could make laws obliging all citizens. Even parents would be unable to lay down rules for their children. It should be clear that our feelings do not constitute our conscience.
Likewise, conscience cannot be purely subjective. It must be objective and possess a standard that is shared with other people. The very word conscience is derived from two Latin words, cum +scientia [knowledge together with (other people)].[4]
Having a conscience distinguishes man from every other animal. Has a bull ever apologized for goring a person? Does a cat ever express remorse for having killed a mouse? Does a fox have regrets for having chased a terrified rabbit it wanted to have for supper? Of course not. The animal has instinct and a memory. Because it has a memory, you can train it to act in a certain way, even contrary to its instincts. But the animal has no guilt feelings or regrets, because it has no reason and no conscience.
Reason is what makes the difference between having a conscience and not having one. And what is the task of reason? It makes judgments, such as, “John is intelligent.” “Mary is kind.” “The sunset is beautiful.” These are judgments of fact.
It also makes moral judgments: “It is wrong to do this.” “I ought to do that.” “I should have helped my mother with the cleaning.” “I should have kept my mouth shut instead of saying the unkind things I did.” We all carry on a dialogue of this kind with ourselves, or rather with that small voice within us that goes by the name of conscience. In a similar fashion we judge the actions of others as praiseworthy or reprehensible. “How generous of Mary to care for her sick sister!” “How wrong of John to cheat on his wife!” (Note that we are judging the action rather than the person.)
It should not be difficult now to understand what Pope John Paul means when he writes: “(Conscience) is a moral judgment about man and his actions, a judgment either of acquittal or of condemnation, according as human acts are in conformity or not with the law of God written on the heart.” [5]
The Pope goes on to describe this moral judgment: “The judgment of conscience is a practical judgment, a judgment which makes known what man must do or not do, or which assesses an act already performed by him. It is a judgment which applies to a concrete situation the rational conviction that one must love and do good and avoid evil.”[6]
You may react to this statement of the Pope by saying, “I see no problem with that. I am a reasonable person. If I am supposed to follow my conscience, then all I have to do is act according to my reason and its judgments.”
That would be a valid conclusion if your reason were infallibly correct in making judgments. Unfortunately, we all make errors of judgment. They may be factual errors. If I phone George at his office, thinking that he is working today, only to find that he is in the hospital, I have made a wrong judgment of fact.
Likewise, we can make errors of judgment in moral matters, and most of us do at some time. Nobody’s reason is infallible. It is swayed by passion, by others’ opinions and example, and by the tendency we all have to justify our past actions, whether right or wrong. The Pope recalls the statement of Vatican II that conscience can even become “gradually…almost blind from being accustomed to sin.”[7]
We have no assurance that our reason, when left to itself, is going to make the correct judgment in moral matters. In the encyclical, Pope John Paul quotes the words of Jesus: in Mt 6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
The Pope goes on to explain this passage: “The words of Jesus just quoted also represent a call to form our conscience, to make it the object of a continuous conversion to what is true and to what is good.” Our fallible and sinful nature, including our reason, needs help and guidance in the formation of true and right moral judgments. If we need any proof of this, we need only consider people’s views on modern moral questions, such as abortion, euthanasia, contraception, and divorce. Even well-intentioned persons arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions about them. Someone is right, and someone is wrong; all cannot be right.
Where are we to find the necessary guidance to form a correct conscience? The Pope gives us the answer. Here, as elsewhere, the Pontiff recalls the traditional teaching of the Church. In this case it is enshrined in the Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican II, which he quotes: “In forming their consciences the Christian faithful must give careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church. For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of truth. Her charge is to announce and teach authentically that truth which is Christ, and at the same time with her authority to declare and confirm the principles of the moral order which derive from human nature itself.”[8]
What about those people who do not know the teaching of the Catholic Church, either because they do not belong to her communion or, as Catholics, they have not been properly instructed? The Pope answers that question by giving the traditional distinction between “culpable” (blameworthy) ignorance and “inculpable” (blameless) or invincible ignorance.
“Error of conscience can be the result of an invincible ignorance, an ignorance of which the subject is not aware and which he is unable to overcome by himself.” Such a person, the Pope adds, must follow his conscience, even if he is in error. Nevertheless, we must keep in mind the distinction between the objective morality of the act and the subjective innocence or guilt of the one who performs the act. Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to help the poor, may have had good intentions. Before God he may not have been guilty, nevertheless his stealing was wrong.
There is the other kind of ignorance which is not excusable; it is culpable or blameworthy. The person could know, and should know, what the proper course of action is, but he neglects to become informed.
Take for example, a Catholic student in a school that offers a course in Catholic doctrine. If such a student habitually skips those classes without a serious reason, he is blameworthy for his ignorance of the Church’s teaching. He is not excused from sin when he transgresses the commandments of God or the Church’s teaching on morality.
The same is true of a person who acts in doubt whether his action is good or bad. He should desist from acting until he has assured himself on proper authority that the act is morally permissible. If he acts in doubt, he shows he is prepared to offend God by the action, and therefore he is guilty.
Here I should add a word about proper authority. As the Pope states several times in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, there are priests and theologians who hold positions contrary to the clear and traditional teaching of the magisterium. Some Catholics seek out such priests and teachers precisely because they want support or authority for their sinful acts.ersons who deliberately seek out such teachers are not acting in good faith and cannot be excused from sin.
Sometimes people in authority who know what the morally right course of action is, will leave people in ignorance, on the excuse that they are invincibly ignorant and therefore do not sin. Such actions done in ignorance may be without sin, but as the Pope warns, “When…they disregard the law, or even are merely ignorant of it, .our acts damage the communion of persons, to the detriment of each.”[9]
We saw that conscience is reason making moral judgments. It judges whether an act we are considering is good or bad. The presupposition is that a standard exists by which we are measuring such an act. Too often people think conscience itself sets up the standard: “If I think a certain action is good, then for me it is good.” This kind of thinking has led even moral theologians to allow people to consider themselves exceptions to general rules of morality, to think their case is subject to rules of its own.
To this the Pope answers, “No.” He reminds us that conscience only tells us where our actions fall on the scale of moral values. The scale of right and wrong has been established by the Creator and made known to us through the natural law and positive laws, such as the Ten Commandments and their interpretation by the Church.
We might illustrate this point by analogy with a bathroom scale. You do not step on the scale, saying, “I am going to weigh 150 pounds.” The scale is set, and all you do is read the weight indicated on that scale. If the scale reads 225 pounds, you had better accept that reading and act accordingly. It may be advisable to go on a diet. You may misread the number and fail to see a need for dieting, but deliberately setting up your own scale would be foolish.
In similar fashion, the function of conscience is to tell you whether the act you plan to do (or the one you have already done) is good or bad by God’s scale.You may misread the scale through ignorance, but the scale nevertheless is fixed and firm. Conscience must respect that scale and read it clearly so that one’s actions can measure up to what is good.
Democratic morality?[10]
In the encyclical Pope John Paul II deals briefly with the subject of the renewal of political life, a topic he had addressed more fully in his previous encyclical Centesimus Annus marking the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s great encyclical on labor. Both popes emphasize the dignity of the human person, the need for the elimination of slavery in all its forms, and an understanding of true freedom.
The democratic process in the political order has the merit of being the best safeguard against abuse of power by persons in authority, because elected officials are answerable to the electorate and can be removed by them through the system of elections. However, it is not fail safe.
What corrupts any kind of government is the appetite for power, with the resultant trampling upon the rights, dignity and freedom of the governed. Pope John Paul quotes from his earlier encyclical, Centesimus Annus: “If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others.”[11]
We note that the Pope does not restrict this appetite for power to those in authority. It affects each of us. In the democratic system an individual or group can maneuver to win a majority to its view and impose that view upon everyone. Such power blocs attempt to impose, not merely political or economic views, but moral views as well. The present attempt of pro-choice forces to keep abortion legal is one example of such a power play.
The underlying philosophy of this way of acting is that the democratic system can be applied to morals in the same way it is applied to politics. The majority can decide what is morally good and what is morally bad. One evidence of this way of thinking is the proliferation of surveys to obtain people’s views on questions of morality as on other aspects of life. Many people are led to think that once a majority decides that a certain course of action is morally acceptable, the Church, and God himself, must agree to such a decision. Such thinking is moral relativism.
The Pope warns us that we must not become smug over the fact that Marxism and other totalitarian ideologies have fallen. Now we run “the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and… make the acknowledgement of truth impossible…As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”[12]
It has been well said that God and one make a majority. As the Pope pointed out earlier in the encyclical, “When it is a matter of the moral norms prohibiting intrinsic evil, there are no privileges or exceptions for anyone… Before the demands of morality we are all absolutely equal.”[13] It is only when all alike, authorities as well as those governed, acknowledge the supremacy of the moral law given by God and submit to it, that true equality and freedom can exist.
Good Intentions[14]
I once had a professor who had a habit of saying, “The worst thing you can say about anyone is that he meant well.” Saying someone meant well usually implies that what he actually did was stupid, imprudent, or simply poorly done. No amount of good intentions could make the action a wise one or a masterpiece.
Much the same is true in the moral order. Some people have come to think that good intentions make any act morally good, no matter what the nature of that act happens to be.
Others have concentrated on the circumstances of an act. Under certain circumstances, they say, a person might justifiably do something that would normally be forbidden. For example, circumstances such as the poverty of a mother or her need for time to pursue her education could justify an abortion. Some have argued that cohabitation of unmarried persons can be condoned when their economic situation warrants it; it’s cheaper for two to live together than to live separately. Others try to justify homosexuality and adultery in the same way in certain circumstances, of course.
Still others have tried to evaluate the morality of an act by weighing its consequences. If the good effects outweigh the bad effects, the act is morally good, they say. This kind of argumentation is very subjective. One person will give more weight to an argument than another will. There is really no way of arriving at an objective agreement by this method.
In face of these novel ways of estimating the goodness or evil of particular acts the Pope recalls the traditional criteria for determining the morality of any human act. There are three determinants, namely, the nature of the act itself, the intention of the one who acts, and finally the circumstances of the act.
As to the first, the Pope emphatically reiterates the constant teaching of the magisterium that certain actions are always evil and to be avoided. They are principally those forbidden by commandments expressed in negative form, such as: “You shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
One may never deliberately take the life of an innocent person, no matter what good intentions one has, and no matter what the circumstances are. One may never commit adultery or defame others, regardless of good intentions or circumstances.
In the words of the Pope himself, “Without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that ‘there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object.’”[15] Such actions are wrong, he says elsewhere, because they can never bring us nearer to God or serve the good of our neighbor or ourselves.
As examples of the intrinsically evil acts he has in mind, the Pope quotes St. Paul in 1 Cor 6:9-10: “Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God”.[16]
Quoting St. Paul in Romans 3:8, the Pope adds that we may never do evil that good may come from it.
Circumstances, we know can change the morality of an act. To remove one’s clothes in the privacy of one’s bedroom is one thing. To remove them in public is a circumstance that changes the morality of the act considerably.
The intention, as we know from Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees, influences the moral quality of an act. The act can be degraded by the wish to display one’s virtue. Giving gifts generally is an act of charity, but if one does it with the intention of persuading the recipient to do something sinful, the gift-giving becomes sinful. An evil intention can make a good act evil, but a good intention cannot make an intrinsically evil act good, as we saw.
The Reality of Sin
In his encyclical Pope John Paul II frequently refers to preceding papal documents, including his own. Among them is his apostolic exhortation On Reconciliation and Penance, written in 1984 after the Synod of Bishops. There he wrote: “When the conscience is weakened, the sense of God is also obscured, and as a result, with the loss of this decisive inner point of reference, the sense of sin is lost. This explains why my Predecessor Pius XII one day declared, in words that have almost become proverbial, that ‘the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin’.”[17]
The loss of a sense of sin is very evident today in the abandonment of the Sacrament of Reconciliation or confession. Why should one go to confession, if he has no sin?
That sin exists; we know from conditions in the world around us. Daily we read of crimes, of injustice, of dishonesty, of innocent people suffering because of the heartlessness of others. In other words, we see the effects of sin. Yet there are people–and we may be among them– who say they have committed no sin.
For such people there is “social sin” but no personal sin, at least on their part. They readily project their own sin onto that vague entity called “society”, as Pope John Paul stated in his exhortation On Reconciliation and Penance.[18] In this view, “practically every sin is a social sin, in the sense that blame for it is to be placed not so much on the moral conscience of an individual but rather on some vague entity or anonymous collectivity, such as the situation, the system, society, structures, or institutions.” The reality, he continues, is that “such cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins.”
Recognizing and acknowledging our sins is facing the truth about ourselves. The Pope never ceases emphasizing in the encyclical the intimate relationship between truth and goodness, between truth and good morality.
There is a human tendency to bend principles to fit our behavior rather than the other way around. The Pope comments on that propensity: “It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-justified, without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy.
“An attitude of this sort corrupts the morality of society as a whole, since it encourages doubt about the objectivity of the moral law in general and a rejection of the absoluteness of moral prohibitions regarding specific human acts, and it ends up by confusing all judgments about values.”[19]
So there are personal sins, and all of us commit them. St. John assures us of this in his first letter chapter 1, verses 8-10: “If we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth; but if we acknowledge our sins, then God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and purify us from everything that is wrong. To say that we have never sinned is to call God a liar and to show that his word is not in us.”
To deny our sinfulness is to deny the need for Christ’s redemptive work. If we have no sin, there was no need for Christ to die on the Cross, no need for his sacraments, especially those of baptism and reconciliation. Christ then becomes no more than Buddha, or Gandhi. He merely left us a good example to follow, and his grace is superfluous.
Then there is the matter of the gravity of sin. One of the novel theories of moralists in recent years has been that of the “fundamental option”. The only grave (mortal) sin is to turn away from God through atheism or agnosticism. As long as one maintains a basic orientation to God, any sin which would not change that basic orientation could not be accounted mortal sin.
Not so, says the Pope. The traditional teaching on the distinction between mortal and venial sin retains its validity. If one deliberately commits a grave sin, he severs his relationship with God and jeopardizes his eternal salvation. This can be done by a single act, for “the fundamental orientation can be radically changed by particular acts.” [20]
“You shall not….”
One of the complaints heard today about moral norms is that they are so negative. Even the Ten Commandments have more negative than positive precepts. For that reason, some would like to throw them out of the Bible. Didn’t Jesus change all that when he gave us the law of love, namely, to love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves?
The Pope answers this objection very nicely. He begins his encyclical with a reflection on the gospel story of the rich young man who came to Jesus with the question, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16-21) In his reply Jesus said, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Upon being asked by the young man, “Which ones?”, Jesus listed the following: “You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus, we notice, does not hesitate to list the negative commandments as well as the positive ones.
“These negative precepts express with particular force the ever urgent need to protect human life, the communion of persons in marriage, private property, truthfulness and people’s good name.”[21] Every negative commandment, therefore, has a positive side and is meant to safeguard a very positive good.
When the Pope reviews the traditional teaching that the negative commandments may never be broken for any reason, he adds that this does not mean they are more important than the positive commandments. The positive commandments to love God and neighbor have no upper limits. We can show all the love and devotion to God that we are capable of, and we can do good to our neighbor without limit. The negative commandments, on the other hand, indicate the lower limit. If we fall below that line, we break our relationship with God and jeopardize our eternal salvation.
The Social Sciences & Morality
The social sciences, which study human behavior, have had some valuable things to say about people and their ways of acting. Many findings of these scientists have been popularized and have filtered down to the man in the street, often oversimplified or distorted. Today we have pop psychology, which some people take as seriously as religion.
Other scientists, notably sociologists, engage in surveys of all kinds to study people’s behavior patterns and their opinions on moral as well as on political and social matters.
Such surveys not infrequently are misused. If the majority of those surveyed hold a certain opinion on a moral matter, such an opinion is considered to be right and normative, as we saw above in considering democracy and morality. It is simply a sophisticated version of the view that if everybody does it, it can’t be wrong.
Morality, says the Pope, is a religious matter, not a scientific one. It is concerned with the will of God for us, His creatures. God has often been compared to the manufacturer of an automobile or other machine. The manufacturer provides a manual with the machine, telling the user how to operate and service it, if he wants to get the most out of it. Our Manufacturer likewise has provided directions for our conduct. They are contained in the eternal law and its part for man called the natural law, as well as in the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes.
One characteristic of human nature is inconsistency. At the same time as we desire and cling to freedom, we are afraid of it. On the one hand, we maintain that we have free will and want to act without hindrance from others. On the other hand, we are ready to shift the blame for our actions onto other persons or situations outside ourselves. This tendency to shift blame not infrequently shows up in the social sciences.
While psychology has some valid observations on factors which influence our behavior, some psychologists put so much emphasis on these factors that they practically rule out human freedom. This shows up in the legal system, when criminals are exonerated because they contend they were not responsible for their actions. We also find a readiness in some sectors of the scientific community to blame genes or faulty upbringing for the crimes and sins of people.
Some practitioners in psychology and psychiatry are uncomfortable with guilt feelings in people. For them the only sin is having guilt feelings, and their aim is to rid their clients of such feelings so they feel good about themselves.
Guilt feelings are like the sensation of pain. If I didn’t feel pain when I touch a hot stove, I might not withdraw my hand and could end up with a charred stump at the end of my arm. Feeling pain is a blessing for me, for it prompts me to withdraw the hand and save it. In the same way, someone who does evil should feel guilty. One who vandalizes another’s property, one who embezzles money, one who lies, such people should have guilt feelings. If they don’t, they are morally crippled. Like the feeling of pain, guilt feelings hurt, but they are beneficial, for they prompt us to withdraw from evil and repent.
The Pope points out that many people see a conflict or tension between nature and freedom. For them “nature” consists of the material side of our being. They reason that, if a person is free, then he should be able to modify or change anything in his physical make-up that he chooses. The real “I”, you will notice, is something outside the body, and the body becomes raw material that can be manipulated at will. One can go so far as to mutilate that body by direct sterilization or abuse it to serve one’s pleasure by taking drugs, by autoeroticism (masturbation) or other immoral behavior.
From there it is a short step to thinking that one can treat the “nature” of others too as raw material to be manipulated. The gross uses made of fetal tissue are evidence enough of the extremes to which such a philosophy of life can lead.
Some Catholic moralists charge that the Church’s teaching on the natural law is “physicalist” or “naturalistic.” This was the charge made especially by dissident moralists against the teaching of Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), which reiterated the Church’s teaching that contraception is morally wrong. The charge of these moralists betrays a low esteem for the body, as if the soul alone is the subject of moral acts.
Throughout history we find a frequent emergence of dualism, the philosophy that views body and soul as independent entities which are united only accidentally. The soul is viewed like the driver in an automobile. It matters little whether the car is a Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota or Mercedes-Benz. The driver is the important thing, and he is not bound inseparably to any particular kind of car.
We see this kind of dualistic thinking at work in the debate over the ordination of women. Those in favor of it contend that the soul is asexual, so the bodily sex of the person holding the priesthood is of little consequence. In this view, a person’s soul could just as easily inhabit a body of the opposite sex. The Church, as we shall see, does not subscribe to such a dualistic philosophy of the human person.
To the charges of physicalism and naturalism Pope John Paul replies by explaining the Church’s understanding of the natural law as set forth in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and in papal and conciliar documents.
As a first step, the Pope points out that the Church’s understanding of the human person includes the body as well as the soul. The body is an integral part of the human person, not merely material to be manipulated. It participates intimately both in virtuous acts and in sinful acts. Consequently, what we do in the body and with the body is very much a personal act and therefore a moral act and subject to moral laws.
Natural Law
How is man to know how to act as a body-and-soul being? Twice in the encyclical (§ 12 & § 40) Pope John Paul quotes St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition of natural law: “nothing other than the light of understanding infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done and what must be avoided. God gave this light and this law to man at creation.” By quoting this definition twice within the same document, the Pontiff shows it is important and integral to Catholic doctrine.
As a background to St. Thomas’ definition of natural law, let us return to the analogy of God as the Manufacturer of his creation. St. Thomas says God laid down an eternal law for that creation. Sub-human creation obeys that law necessarily. Inert matter obeys the law of gravity, for example, without ever thinking of going contrary to it. Animals obey their instincts and do not reason about their actions.
Man, however, has reason and freedom. The Creator honors both when He puts man at the head of material creation and entrusts it to his care: “Fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). At the same time, the Pope emphasizes, God entrusted man himself to his own care and responsibility so that he might seek his Creator and freely attain perfection.
Man must use his reason, therefore, to attain his perfection. By reflecting on his own nature (body as well as soul) man can come to know the elementary principles of good conduct. “Good must be done and evil avoided” is one such. When he observes that every human being has a desire to live, man can arrive at the conclusion that every person has a right to life, and therefore all persons have a duty to respect that right. By reflecting on the need to work in order to produce the necessities of life, man can conclude that there exists a right to private property and that stealing is wrong.
The Church has always taught that original sin and actual sin have weakened man’s reason so that he will not arrive unaided at the secondary precepts of the natural law. He needs the assistance of divine revelation.
To illustrate this point, let us take the example of the human family. St. Thomas and the Scholastics say that unaided reason can see that a stable union between husband and wife is necessary, because human offspring require a much longer time to mature and become independent than do the offspring of animals, where mating is often random and temporary.
In the composition of the human family, unaided reason can conclude that a system in which one woman has several husbands is wrong, because the identity of the father would be uncertain, and consequently one could not know which husband is responsible for which children.
On the other hand, unaided reason could not easily arrive at the conclusion that polygamy, where one husband has several wives, is wrong. The parentage of the offspring is fairly certain. Children know who their parents are, and parents know who their children are and can be held responsible for them. We find this kind of polygamy frequently in human history, even among the Chosen People of God in the time of the patriarchs.
It took divine revelation to assist reason in coming to the conclusion that the proper design for a human family is one man and one woman in a life-long union. When questioned by the Pharisees about the morality of divorce, Jesus reminded them that Moses permitted divorce “because you were so unteachable, but it was not like this from the beginning” (Matt 19:8).
Divine revelation in Holy Scripture helps human reason to arrive at knowledge of secondary principles of the natural law. With the help of divine inspiration, the Church continues to clarify such secondary principles for the guidance of human reason in knowing what is morally good and what is morally evil.
Today we find that most people have little difficulty understanding the immorality of abortion and euthanasia, because the precept, “You shall not kill” is one of the primary principles of the natural law. Many more have difficulty seeing the immorality of contraception, which is a secondary principle of the natural law. Despite the clarification of that principle by Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae and despite repeated support and further clarification by the present Pope, many Catholics refuse to accept that teaching.
The trouble with offences against the natural law is that they have consequences which usually affect others as well as the sinner. Human freedom suffers in one form or another, and truth is obscured. The only remedy is to face the truth about ourselves and our relationship with God. That is often painful, but the pain is worthwhile, because “the truth will make you free.”
Martyrdom[22]
Certainly, one of the most painful ways of facing the truth and defending it is martyrdom. Whether the truth concerns doctrine or morals, to die for it requires more than mere human reason and determination. God’s grace is necessary, but it is given in the measure each person needs it. Christian martyrdom, the Pope writes, “has always accompanied and continues to accompany the life of the Church even today.”
He cites the example of Susanna in the Old Testament, who chose to fall into the hands of her judges rather than sin against God by committing adultery, as well as the example of St. John the Baptist and other martyrs in the New Testament. He comments, “Martyrdom…bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God’s law and to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man, created in God’s image and likeness.”[23]
Martyrdom is a witness to the personal dignity of man, because anyone who defends something dear to him to the point of giving up his life for it has complete possession of himself and acts in full freedom. Others become slaves to their fears, and deny the truth by their words or their actions.
“Finally, martyrdom is an outstanding sign of the holiness of the Church.”[24] It averts the danger of confusion between good and evil. By refusing to do evil, the martyr shows everyone, both those within the Church as well as those outside her communion, the clear line between good and evil.
“Although martyrdom represents the high point of the witness to moral truth, and one to which relatively few people are called, there is nonetheless a consistent witness which all Christians must daily be ready to make, even at the cost of suffering and grave sacrifice.”[25]
Abortion
History of abortion doctrine.
What is the position of the Catholic Church on abortion? Has it been consistent throughout history, or has it changed?
The best short answer to these questions is the Declaration on Procured Abortion issued be the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on November 18, 1974. Citing specific authors, councils, and canons of the Church throughout the centuries, the Declaration summarizes the Catholic Church’s constant teaching in these words:
“In the course of history, the fathers of the Church, her pastors and her doctors have taught the same doctrine–the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion. It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the sanctions. Excellent authors allowed for this first period more lenient case solutions, which however they rejected for the following periods of pregnancy. But it was never denied at that time that procured abortion, even during the first days, was objectively a grave fault. This condemnation was unanimous.” (Emphasis added)
A number of authors, including some Catholics, have contended that, because of the medieval notions of ensoulment some weeks after conception, the Church regarded abortion prior to ensoulment as licit. As the Declaration demonstrates by its references, the contention of these modern authors is based on a superficial and false reading of history. The Catholic Church has always regarded abortion together with infanticide as “abominable crimes.”[26]
The Catholic Church does not base its prohibition against abortion on the Bible, which non-Christians do not accept as divinely inspired. Nor does it base its prohibition on a special revelation granted to it alone. It bases its condemnation of procured abortion on natural law, a concept which inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America to write: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The assumption underlying this statement on the Declaration of Independence is that a person with intelligence and an unprejudiced mind, by considering the nature of human beings, can come to some valid conclusions about the way people should act about the rights which each individual has over against other individuals and society as a whole.
The same assumption underlies the Catholic Church’s understanding of natural law and its bearing upon abortion. The assumption is expressed in these words of the Declaration on Procured Abortion issued by the Congregation for the doctrine of the Faith:
“Respect for human life is not just a Christian obligation. Human reason is sufficient to impose it on the basis of the analysis of what the human person is and should be.” (§ 8)
In our day the idea of natural law is being abandoned and is being replaced by a positivistic philosophy of law, which holds that there are no immutable principles of morality. Consequently, laws can be changed at will by a majority within a society, regardless of the consequences for individuals.
Instead of reflecting the will of the Creator for human beings, laws are coming to reflect the whim of the more powerful and vociferous elements of society. Public opinion surveys, often tailored to obtain the response their authors desire, are one of the means employed to sway public opinion for the purpose of shaping laws such as those permitting abortion. The impression is created that laws which the majority want are always correct.
The Catholic Church’s moral teaching has never been determined by popular vote. The Church’s stand is that human laws are always to be judged by the higher standard of the natural law. In the words of the Declaration on Procured Abortion,
“The [civil] law is not obliged to punish everything, but it cannot act contrary to a law which is deeper and more majestic than any human law: the natural law engraved in men’s hearts by the Creator as a norm which reason clarifies and strives to formulate properly, and which one must always struggle to understand better, but which it is always wrong to contradict.” (§ 21)
The tragic part of abortion is that it is definitive, irreversible. When health or physical integrity is harmed, hope remains as long as life remains. If the damage cannot be completely reversed, it can often be stopped, slowed down, or at least alleviated, by modern medical technology. Not so with death. Whether it happens to an adult or the child in the womb, death is always final. There can be no partial abortion, for there is no intermediate state between life and death.
A mother can never bring back the child that has been aborted. How many women later wish they could somehow do so! The Catholic Church, in her far-seeing wisdom is concerned to spare women this agonizing regret. The Church proclaims that no sin is too great for God to forgive, but even that forgiveness does not turn back the clock.
Contraception
Conception is any method of preventing conception by unnatural means or by the use of artificial barriers such as condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, etc.
Sterilization involves procedures that render men or women “sterile” – that is incapable of conceiving a child while still capable of sexual relations. These practices are intended to be permanent.
Abortifacients are like human “pesticides” that cause the destruction of human life in the womb. Birth control pills, inter-uterine devices, and pharmaceutical products such as “morning after” pills, RU-486, DepoProvera, Norplant are abortion producing drugs and devices. Less than 1/4 of all abortions in the US are actually surgical abortions while an estimated 78% “quiet” abortions (almost 7 million a year) are caused by abortifacients.
Natural Methods of Birth Control are neither contraceptive nor abortifacient. They challenge the married couple to understand their own fertility and to make decisions together about their family life. Through natural methods, married couples can open their wills to God and not exclude His will from their marital relations.
Gn. 1:27-28 (Gen. 9:1; 35:11) – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it…”
Ps. 127:3-5 – Lo, sons are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one’s youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
1 Chr. 25:4-5 – Of Heman, the sons of Heman: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazi-oth. 5 All these were the sons of Heman the king’s seer, according to the promise of God to exalt him; for God had given Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.
1 Chr. 26:4-5 – And Obed-edom had sons: Shemaiah the first-born, Jehozabad the second, Joah the third, Sachar the fourth, Nethanel the fifth, 5 Ammi-el the sixth, Issachar the seventh, Pe-ullethai the eighth; for God blessed him.
Hos. 9:10-17 – Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree, in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to Baal, and became detestable like the thing they loved. 11 Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird–no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! 12 Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them! 13 Ephraim’s sons, as I have seen, are destined for a prey; Ephraim must lead forth his sons to slaughter. 14 Give them, O LORD–what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, I will slay their beloved children. 17 My God will cast them off, because they have not hearkened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations.
Ex. 23:25-26 – You shall serve the LORD your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 None shall cast her young or be barren in your land; I will fulfil the number of your days.
Gen. 38:9-10 – But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also.
Dt. 25:5-10 – “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside the family to a stranger; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. 7 And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak to him: and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ 9 then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot, and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ 10 And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, The house of him that had his sandal pulled off.
Lev. 20:13 – If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them. (wasting seed).
Lev. 20:15 – If a man lies with a beast, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the beast (sterile sex).
Lev. 20:16 – If a woman approaches any beast and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the beast; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them (sterile sex).
Lev. 20:18 – If a man lies with a woman having her sickness, and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood; both of them shall be cut off from among their people.
Lev. 21:18-20 – For no one who has a blemish shall draw near (the sanctuary), a man blind or lame,…or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles;
Dt. 23:1-“He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the LORD”.
Dt. 25:11-12 – “When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, 12 then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall have no pity”.
Rom. 1:26-27 – For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (natural function of woman = childbearing).
1 Tim 2:15 –Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.
Acts 5:1-11 – Ananias/Sapphira slain for withholding part of gift.
Gal. 6:7 – Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (accepting pleasure, denying fruit).
Mt. 21:19 – And seeing a fig tree by the wayside he went to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. (see also Mk 11:14).
Gal. 5:19-20 – Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery…
Note: The word sorcery as used above was translated from the original Greek word “Pharmakeia”, which, in general, was the mixing of various potions to prevent or stop a pregnancy (sorcery = pharmakeia = abortifacient potions).
Rev. 9:21 – nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts.
1 Cor. 6:19-20 – Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) [AD 70] “The second commandment of the teaching is: ‘You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery’; you shall not corrupt boys; you shall not be sexually promiscuous; ‘you shall not steal’; you shall not practice magic; you shall not engage in sorcery; you shall not abort a child or commit infanticide. (2)
St. Hippolytus of Rome [post AD 222] “For this reason women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excessive wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!”
Note: Up until 1930 every Christian denomination in the world condemned contraception.
(Adapted from The Pope and Morality) Written by Abbot Leander Dosch, OCSO, Abbey of the Holy Trinity, Huntsville, Utah
[1] Decree on the Training of Priests, Optatam totius, § 16: “Special care should be given to the perfecting of moral theology. Its scientific presentation should draw more fully on the teaching of Holy Scripture and should throw light upon the exalted vocation of the faithful in Christ and their obligation to bring forth fruit in charity for the life of the world.”
[2] VS, § 115
[3] Cf. VS, § 54-64
[4] Cf. Cardinal Ratzinger’s address to the College of Cardinals, April 4, 1991, quoted in Rice, 50 Questions on the Natural Law, p 280.
[5] VS, § 59.
[6] VS, § 59.
[7] VS, § 63. Cf. Gaudium et Spes, § 16.
[8] VS, § 64. Cf. Dignitatis Humanae, of Vatican Council II, § 14.
[9] VS, § 51.
[10] VS, § 98-101. Cf. Also Centesimus Annus, § 46.
[11] VS, § 99. Cf. Centesimus Annus, § 44.
[12] VS, § 101. Cf. Also Centesimus Annus, § 46.
[13] VS, § 96.
[14] VS, § 72-82.
[15] VS, § 80.
[16] The NAB translation reads: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, idolaters, or sodomites, thieves, misers, or drunkards, no slanderers, or robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God.”
[17] Reconciliatio et Pænitentia, § 18.
[18] Reconciliatio et Pænitentia, § 16.
[19] VS, § 104.
[20] VS, § 70.
[21] VS, § 13.
[22] VS, § 90-97.
[23] VS, § 91.
[24] VS, § 93.
[25] VS, § 93.
[26] Second Vatican Council, document on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, § 51.