Gift of Self

God bless America?

2009-07-03T22:26:00.001-05:00

Disclaimer: I do not here intend to make any political statements whatsoever. I am not all that interested in the conservative v. liberal polemic on the matter. Rather, I intend to attempt to make a theological point.

N.B.: I am grateful for the freedoms and rights which I enjoy as a citizen of this country, although I do not necessarily agree with the manner in which our freedoms have been won and protected throughout history, but that is a discussion for another post.

Around this time of year it is not uncommon to see flags, signs, facebook statuses, etc. which exclaim “God bless America!” It seems a nice enough sentiment and potentially a reflection of a valid and perhaps virtuous patriotism. Of course, it could also reflect an idolatrous nationalism. However, I do not intend to parse that distinction here. Rather, I want to ask whether it is theologically accurate or appropriate to utter this exclamation.

To my knowledge the only “nation” that God promises to bless is Israel (which does not refer to the modern nation-state of Israel or any nation-state for that matter), and we must remember that while His love is clearly unconditional, his blessing is not, not even for Israel. In the face of Israel’s idolatry and hard-heartedness God, on more than one occasion, withdrew his blessing and replaced it with the curse of exile and/or other natural consequences of the actions which expressed Israel’s will.

Additionally, Israel’s status as God’s people, while never revoked, has essentially been superseded by the one, holy, catholic (universal), apostolic Church. Thus no nation or state has a claim to be God’s own in the same sense that Israel could have made that claim in Old Testament times. Furthermore, we are a pilgrim people. Our home is the heavenly Jerusalem and our loyalty should go to all other members of the BODY before it goes to members of our nation.

Now, I see no problem with praying for God’s blessing upon our nation. However, it seems to me that that prayer should sound more like the prayer of the repentant publican. “Lord, we, as the body of America, have sinned against you and turned our backs to you. Have mercy on us. Forgive us. Do not turn your face from us, but in your mercy bless and guide us and our leaders to conform to your Truth and Love.” Rather, the tenor and tone of “God bless America” tends to reek of pride, the vicious type. “Thank God we are not like those other damnable nations. We stand for truth and goodness and freedom. Rejoice at our greatness. God bless America the beautiful, the proud, the good!”

Perhaps our country would be in a healthier spiritual condition if we repented and did penance for the sins of our country before asking for God’s blessing, rather than praising our alleged virtues and nearly demanding blessing in an act of praise, not of God, but of ourselves, our country.

On Keeping Holy the Sabbath Day

2009-06-22T12:39:00.002-05:00

Growing up, I never really contemplated the idea of keeping holy the Sabbath day. We went to Mass every Sunday, and normally we would spend the rest of the day at Grandma's, which included spending time with the extended family, football and/or swimming for us kids, and TV, cards, cooking, and cleaning for the adults. While there was nothing explicitly holy or religious about this, I think through family custom we did a decent job of fulfilling God's decree, keeping in mind that man was not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath for man.

However, as an adult who is a perpetual student and who has been a teacher, I now frequently procrastinate throughout the week and use Sunday to complete any remaining homework, grading, or lesson planning. Yesterday as we were to driving to see family for Father's day, I was reflecting on those who were working: truck drivers in particular, but also waiters and waitresses, cooks, cashiers, etc. How difficult it has now become to refrain from participating in the "social sin," for lack of a better term, of violating the sabbath!

What do you think it means to keep holy the Sabbath? How much are we/you willing to sacrifice (convenience stores, Monday deliveries, gas stations, etc.) to enable others to have the freedom to rest on the Lord's Day?

Sunday Snippets: a Catholic Carnival

2009-06-20T23:41:00.003-05:00

Greetings and Peace to all newcomers.

My wife AB and I are grad students in theology and new parents too an adorable 5month old boy. Most of our blogging focuses on Catholic theological or social issues.

We aren't able to post on a daily basis, but our most recent one, On Hobbies and Pursuing Holiness, has had some decent discussion, which was probably better than the post itself. I'd love to hear any further thoughts you may have.

Other older posts of interest include the following:

- A theologically dense post on the Anthropological Structure of Faith

- An interesting post by my wife on Going Green and the Pill

- The first of an 8-part series on Being a Faithful Catholic in America

- The conclusion to a long series entitled "Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love."

- Our baby boy

Enjoy and let us know you stopped by.

Peace.

For more Faith-Filled Posts please go to the Sunday Catholic Carnival over at This and That.

On Hobbies and Pursuing Holiness

2009-06-15T12:43:00.004-05:00

“Faith comes from what is heard”, says St. Paul (Rom 10:17)…The assertion “faith comes from what is heard” contains an abiding structural truth about what happens here. It illuminates the fundamental differences between faith and mere philosophy, a difference which does not prevent faith, in its core, from setting the philosophical search for truth in motion again…

“In faith the word takes precedence of the thought, a precedence that differentiates it structurally from the architecture of philosophy. In philosophy the thought precedes the word; it is after all a product of reflection that one then tries to put into words…Faith, on the other hand, comes to man from the outside, and this very fact is fundamental to it.” (Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, 90-92)

St. Anselm defined theology as “faith seeking understanding,” however, it ceases to be so when one ceases to listen, to receive that word which is the foundation of faith. This essentially turns theology into some sort of philosophy of religion. It makes it dead and private, rather than living and communal.

A danger which I have had to face as a student of theology is the temptation to turn theology into mere thought. Sometimes I find myself thinking about some theological precept, abstracting, attempting to figure it all out, and doing so without turning to prayer, without listening to the Logos. Sometimes I find myself abstracting about how to love in relationship rather than asking for the grace to love.

In this regard, as my wife and I are preparing for significant changes in our lives, we are attempting to re-evaluate some of our habits, choices, hobbies, leisure activities, etc. The questions we are posing to ourselves I now pose to you our readers, all four of you:

If every person is called to be a saint, to strive for holiness, and if I claim to place my faith in Christ as my savior, as the second-person of the Triune God who became man so that I may be divinized, what leisure activities are…permissible, nay, prudent, for a person striving to grow in holiness?

Perhaps specific examples would be helpful: Are video games merely a waste time? What virtue do they cultivate?

In this past I rationalized that when I played video games I was socializing with and occasionally even evangelizing those with whom I was in competition, but I can no longer make that claim. Can I still justify spending time on video games when I could be praying, playing with my son, studying, etc.?

What about television? Certainly some shows have more merit than others, but generally speaking can one make the claim that TV is a neutral media?

As someone who is more educated than most of my family (I do not say this with pride, it’s a mere fact), who is more interested in theology, and who, at the very least, at to appear to be living a life consistent with Catholic social doctrine and morality, I sometimes find it difficult to engage in small talk or other social activities that many of my loved ones engage in. I obviously have little to no interest in beer-pong or going to hooters, activities which in my opinion seem contrary to growth in holiness. However there may be more neutral activities in which I could have an interest in order to aid small talk which could hopefully turn to more meaningful conversations. Therefore, I have reasoned that television shows can offer some common ground about which to converse without my feeling uncomfortable or the other party feeling bored. On the other hand, now that we have a child, to what extent are we willing to expose him to television? How much should we shelter him? If we abstain from television are we not more likely to spend our time cultivating virtue and teaching our child to cultivate virtue? Or, if we are the virtue-cultivating type, we would do so regardless of whether or not we watch television?

What about sporting events as entertainment? Intramurals as hobbies or exercise routines?Etc. Etc.?

What hobbies or leisure activities do you find assist you in your slow journey to holiness? What hobbies have you resisted because you find they hinder your sainthood?

Final Thoughts: Notre Dame vs. Bishop D'Arcy and the USCCB

2009-05-21T13:40:00.004-05:00

Over the past couple of months, I have frequently flipped and flopped over the Obama-Notre Dame issue. At first glance, I saw no problem with him speaking at the commencement exercises of a Catholic institution, but as a man, a politician, whose policies on abortion fly directly in the face of Catholic teaching, he should not be honored by a Catholic institution.

Ultimately the difficulty in discerning my position on the issue boiled down to a tension: on the one hand I do not think Catholic institutions should honor in this way those who persist in promoting views and policies which are contrary to the Gospel. I believe bestowing an award on someone is a very different kind of honor than visiting their house (as Jesus visited tax collectors and the like). On the other hand, most of the "pro-life" response by Catholics has been well...unCatholic, and even when it has been reasoned, measured, and authentic - in the case of many of the bishops, it has been inconsistent. This inconsistency did not sit well with me.

It was not until I read an article by Fr. Emmanuel McCarthy that I was able to lucidly think through the problem. McCarthy's style of writing is always is bit more biting than I am comfortable with. In this article I believe his primary point is spot on, however at times I think he states it more harshly than is necessary, and several of his example are stretched outside of their proper context in order to make his point.

Nevertheless his point is correct. McCarthy is not concerned overly with Obama; he is concerned with the intra-Church squabble over the issue. McCarthy argues that Bishop D'Arcy and the other bishops are absolutely correct. A Catholic institution should not give this kind of honor to Mr. Obama. However, the reason their voice lacks authority for many Catholics, the reason that many Catholics are dismayed by the protests, rests in their inconsistency.

The beef with John D’Arcy is not with him as a person—he is a most decent human being— but with his permitting himself to become a symbol, a mouthpiece, and a puppet for the USCCB’s illogical, immoral, long-running, and blatant rigorism-laxism dance on behalf of the powerful and wealthy. Note the historical fantasy, and the spiritual, moral, theological, and factual absurdity, which Bishop D’Arcy employs to validate his present decision and to exculpate himself and his U.S. episcopal colleagues, past and present, for their support of 2 legalized mega-murder extra-utero: “[President Obama] has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.”

The bishops are absolutely correct in stating that an institution which is supposed to be guided by and reflecting Christ should not give honor of this sort to a man who supports the killing of innocent life in-utero. However, their voice lacks the authority it should carry because the bishops have given their support to other men whose policies support and put into action the killing of innocent life, that is murder, extra-utero.

That is the beef. If the Bishop and his episcopal peers had consistently stood up for what Jesus taught by word and deed about violence, and for what he and they were explicitly commissioned by Jesus to teach as successors to the Apostles ( Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you. Mt 28:20) about violence, and had acted publicly and consistently from day one of their episcopacies in accordance with this stand, no one could have the slightest criticism of Bishop D’Arcy’s course of action in response to President Obama being honored at Notre Dame...Instead, they have chosen to stand by something called “Natural Law Catholic Just Violence Theory"... This is why what is happening now is happening. Bishop John D’Arcy, the NCCB, and Notre Dame have all refused to stand with Jesus and His teaching of Nonviolent Love of friends and all enemies, in utero and extra-utero. Therefore each will “stand for” what Jesus would self-evidently never stand for from His Apostles and disciples. Simultaneously, the Bishop, the USCCB, and Notre Dame have each played the ostrich in relation to reality and rationality in their respective applications of this so-designated Catholic Just War Theory and Catholic Moral Theory. The present spiritually dis-graceful, anti-witness, antievangelical situation they all inhabit is the direct consequence of not following Jesus as He said to follow Him.

For McCarthy, the problem can be traced back to Constantine. Once the Church had worldly power, it was all too easy for members of the Church to reject portions of Jesus’ teaching and put their trust in violent power rather than in nonviolent love. Some members of the Church have recognized the evil of certain actions, like abortion, but have been unable to separate themselves from other evils like capital punishment and unjust killing, that is murder, in wars.

As Fr. McCarthy explains:

In Catholic theology there is no moral doubt that intentional abortion is murder…However, in Catholic theology there is equally no moral doubt that the unjust killing of the child in utero is no more, nor less, murder than is the unjust killing of a child or any human being extra-utero. All are the intrinsically grave evil of murder. The intentional, unjust killing of a human being in the womb in Baltimore, MD, is no more, nor less, murder than the intentional unjust killing of a human being, outside or inside the womb, in Iraq, or El Salvador, or Honduras, or Guatemala, or Nicaragua, or Panama, or Afghanistan, or Grenada, or Vietnam, or Nagasaki.[1]

In this regard, McCarthy quotes Pope John Paul II:

Better still, perhaps, a direct quotation from John Paul II is most appropriate here: Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act , either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action…We now need more than ever to have the courage to look truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception. In this regard the reproach of the Prophets is extremely straightforward: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

America, indeed the entire world, desperately needs Jesus right now. We desperately need prophetic voices, without compromising or denigrating, to speak the Truth in Love with authority and consistency. We need Christian witness with integrity.

I am glad the bishops have found a voice. I am glad they are speaking out against the evil of abortion, but if they wish to be taken seriously, if their words are to be efficacious, they must embrace a consistent ethic of life and denounce as unCatholic and unChristian all forms of violence. If Obama cannot be honored in this way, then neither should Bush or Cheney. The center must be Christ, which means remaining absolutely and unequivocally in the Truth, but doing so lovingly and patiently. While we ought not honor men and women whose policies and actions directly oppose truth and goodness, we must recognize that they remain sons and daughters of God. We must love them. Dialogue with them. Pray for them. Work with them where we agree and challenge them when they err. Only when the voice of the Church, episcopal, priestly and lay, speaks Truth in Love with consistency and integrity to the Gospel will that voice speak eloquently, prophetically, and convincingly.

[1] I do not wish here to dispute whether there is a difference in the gravity of voting for someone who supports abortion versus someone who supports unjust war. Both are murder. Both are evil. Neither should be supported or given honors by the Church.

Metaphysics of Peace/Nonviolence

2009-05-19T16:26:00.002-05:00

As many of you know, philosophy plays an incalculable role in directing the perspectives and worldviews of society. Several hundred years ago St. Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus developed two contradictory metaphysical outlooks on the relationship between God and the world. The prevalence of the Scotist worldview has led in part to many of the problems we face today in the Western world.

Duns Scotus proposed a univocal conception of being, existence. Accordingly he, and later on William of Occam, a fellow Franciscan, saw God and his infinite existence standing alongside all other beings which exists in finitude as different types, instances, of a broad, common category. Thus, God is merely the greatest of all beings. He is the Supreme Being. But, there is no necessary and ontological connection, relation between God and finite beings.

St. Thomas Aquinas, on the other, proposed a participation metaphysics. He saw God as the ipsum esse subsistens,the sheer act of to-be itself. God is Being; God is Existence. This parallels well the name by which God identifies Himself when speaking to Moses through the burning bush: I AM WHO AM; I am He who is, who always has been, who always will be; I am.

This perception of God as esse, being, has at several important implications. First, rather than defining God as one being (albeit the supreme one) among many, Aquinas’ view sees God as the ground of all finite existence. Thus God must be “in all things, by essence, presence, and power.”

This understanding moves us to our second important implication: “the connectedness of all created realities through God.”[2] Thus God is both radically different from all other beings, ecause He is existence Himself while other receive their existence from in, and intrinsically connected with all finite beings because they share in a limited way in His existence. “As fellow participants in God’s act of to-be, all things are related to one another in the most intimate way possible, for they are all ontological siblings.”[3]

Additionally, this has powerful implications for our we view the act of creation. “If God is ipsum esse subsistens, then whatever else comes to existence must be created ex nihilo, literally from nothing.”[4] The mythic creation stories of pagan religions all saw creation coming about through act of violence among the gods. However, if God is the sheer act of to-be, if God is existence, then from the “beginning” there is nothing else, no matter, no stuff, no other beings which exist with Him. He must create all other beings from nothing,and they can only exist by participation in His existence.

“This implies that the act of creation is thoroughly noninvasive, nonmanipulative. God’s creative act is one of utter generosity (since he needs nothing outside himself) and utterly nonviolent (since he shapes nothing outside of himself)…The implication of the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo is that nonviolence is the deepest truth of things, noncompetitiveness is the ground of being. And thus to live nonviolently is not simply to be ethically upright; it is to be cosmically correct,to go with the grain of creation.”[5]

If I can recognize in our hearts and minds the correctness and truth of this vision of creation, that all created things are most intimately connected by sharing deeply, ontologically, and virginally, in the esse, the to-be, of God, then any antagonism, competition, violence, between me and other nor between me and nature reduces to a nonsensical destruction of that by which I exist.

The being of God, as existence itself, logically requires the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and points toward the connectedness and relatedness of all finite beings as variegated instances of participation in the infinite being of God. Both creatio ex nihilo, as an utterly gratuitous and nonviolent act, and our inner-relatedness to all beings require that our lives bear evangelical witness to the Truth of God with daily lived attitudes of nonviolence, peace, brotherhood, and mutual concern for the other.

Consumerism, Abortion, Torture, Capital Punishment, War, etc. all deny our interrelatedness and reflect lives lived within the current of ways of men, but against the grain of creation and of the ways of God.

Part 2 to follow: Where our society is in direct contradiction, philosophy and metaphysically to God as ipsum esse substens, to creation ex nihilo, and to the nonviolence and peace with is the ground of our very existence.

[2] Robert Barron, Bridging the Great Divide, 201.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 202.

Cool Quotes 4

2009-05-06T13:10:00.002-05:00

Fr. Barron on the category- destroying vibrancy of Catholicism,Faith, lived with integrity,grounded in the Logos

In study after study, article after article, one finds the puzzled commentator scratching his head over the ‘contradiction’ of Dorothy Day, this woman who prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament, attended daily Mass, took frequent retreats, spoke in pious language and accepted the traditional dogmas of the Church, and who, at the same time, lived with the poor, opposed any and every way, sharply criticized the economic and political status quo, and advocated a ‘radical Catholicism.’ How could she have been, simultaneously, so conservative and so liberal? What this questions reveals, of course, is simply the gross inadequacy of those categories in the presence of a saint…She was a person who had made Jesus Christ in all of his concreteness the center of her life. Her ‘conservative’ piety is expressive of this continual act of centering, her ‘liberal’ social commitment is her living out the unambiguous message and style of Jesus…

Anchored in Christ and filled with a sense of mission, we can take what we need from any source and get up in any pulpit available to us…let us embrace the spicy,troublesome, fascinating, and culture-transforming person of Jesus Christ. And then let the Church of Christ thereby shape the world.

- Bridging the Great Divide, 20-21.

What say you, what say we, "Catholics" who trust in the power of money to save us, who trust in the power of arms to deliver us, who trust in the goodness of men to free us, who deny the dignity of the poor, the immigrant, the prisoner, the enemy, the other? What say we?

Cool Quotes 3

2009-05-03T08:47:00.001-05:00

Barron/Ratzinger on the subversive nature of the Christian Credo - I/We Believe

Barron writes:

"The opening statement of the credo -- I believe in one God, the Father the Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth-- is a reaffirmation of the Old Testament Shema ('Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is God alone'), a declaration that formed the people of Israel and provided the ethical foundation for their lives. Joseph Ratzinger has commented that this proclamation of monotheistic faith is subversive in nature, since it implies that no nation, state, political party, leader, ideology, or culture, indeed nothing in the created realm, can be of ultimate concern. The Credo therefore, like the Shema, relativizes and places in question all rival gods, all powers that would week, in a final sense, to order human life."

- Fr. Robert Barron, Bridging the Great Divine, 44-45, citing Ratzinger, Intro to Christianity, 73-76.

Ratzinger writes:

"For to believe as a Christian means in fact entrusting oneself to the meaning that upholds me and the world; taking it as the firm ground on which I can stand fearlessly....[It] means understanding our existence as a response to the world, the logos, that upholds and maintains all things...And further: Christian belief means opting for the view that what cannot be seen is more real than what can be seen. It is an avowal of the primacy of the invisible as the truly real, which upholds us and hence enables us to face the visible with calm composure -- knowing that we are responsible before the invisible as the true ground of all things. To that extent it is undeniable that Christianity belief is a double affront to the attitude that the present world situation seems to force us to adopt. ...[It] invites us to confine ourselves to the 'visible,' the 'apparent,' in the widest sense of the terms; to extend the basic methodology to which natural science is indebted for its success to the totality of our relationship with reality...The primacy of the invisible over the visible...runs directly counter to this basic situation. No doubt that is why it is so difficult for us today to make the leap of entrusting ourselves to what cannot be seen."

- Introduction to Christianity, 73-75.

Yet how many of us are more American than we are Christian? How many of us are more Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative, than we are Catholic? How many us listen to , reflect upon, and live out the Gospel truth, recognizing the suffering Christ in the suffering poor, in the war torn villages of our enemies, in the undocumented immigrants, in the prisoner, the homeless, the unborn?

What is the ground of our lives?

P.S. The next quote will examine what our lives might look like if we actually abandoned ourselves in the invisible, if we totally entrusted ourselves to the logos as the ultimate ground of reality.

Speeches and Honors at Catholic Universities

2009-04-27T17:28:00.009-05:00

[ Note: I apologize in advance for the length of this, but there is much to say. I hope the length will not discourage you from stating your thoughts]

In 2004, the USCCB released a document entitled Catholics in Political Life , in which they taught "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

When Notre Dame announced the President Obama would be their commencement speaker this year and would receive an honorary law degree, my reaction was similar to Policratus'. I stated that I believe dialogue is important. We must not demonize or alienate ourselves from our interlocutors, especially those in positions of power and those who want the same results as we do - in this case, a reduction in abortions - simply because their means of achieving said reduction differs, albeit drastically and egregiously, from our means. However, I stated that I thought that Notre Dame was going too far in honoring Obama. I could not recall Jesus honoring "sinners." At the time I did not have the bishops' statement quoted above in mind. However, it now seems an accurate reflection of my intuitions.

Upon expressing my thoughts to a few wise and trusted Catholic friends, I was advised that Jesus certainly honored sinners. He honored Zaccheus the tax collector with His presence. The whole Jewish/Middle Eastern culture was based upon "honor." Pilch apparently exemplifies this well. I was told that Jesus does honor the Pharisees for what they teach, but not how they act. Can we not honor Obama's achievements while challenging his problematic views? If we wish to change the culture we must dialogue with the culture. We must be in the world but not of it. We must hate the sin and love the sinner. We cannot simply blackball all pro-choice politicians from Catholic institutions. This is what I was told. I saw much truth in it. But I was not comfortable, not at peace with it.

Since then my own Archbishop Hughes has weighed in on the Obama-ND situation. He writes:

We cannot compromise our Church's clear and unflagging opposition to abortion and embryonic stem cell research by providing honors and a platform for those who deny the humanity and dignity of the most frail creature in our midst.... I respect the President of the United States. I pray for him. As Catholics we need to enter into civil debate with him on the fundamental issues on which we disagree. We work with him on those issues with which we agree. But we do not supply a platform or grant an honor to someone who not only is so wrong on such a fundamental issue but is aggressively pursuing policies which exclude the human rights of the unborn.

Shortly thereafter Xavier University's plans to honor Donna Brazile at their commencement became public. She is the first African American to have directed a presidential campaign, is Catholic, and has done much for the rights and respect of African Americans. She is also pro-choice and has stated as much publicly. Hughes chose to write to the president of XULA as well as to boycott their commencement, which he usually attends. To Dr. Francis, President of XULA, Hughes writes :

I recognize that Ms. Brazile is a Catholic Louisiana native who has worked effectively in service to the poor and African Americans in particular. However, her public statements on the abortion issue are not in keeping with Catholic moral teaching. She has supported President Obama’s decision to reverse the Mexico City policy allowing federal funds to organizations that provide abortions overseas by saying that this policy will “save lives.” She has also relativized the importance of the fundamental life issues on national television suggesting that there are more important things for the American people to discuss than abortion. She has supported and worked for the election of candidates who support contraceptive practices and abortion on the basis that this stance is pro-woman.

Additionally Hughes released the following statement entitled Recognition of Public Figures by Catholic Institutions , apparently in response to ...shall we say "social-justice" Catholics. In it he explains:

We recognize that abortion and embryonic stem cell research are not the only “life issues” of concern for the Catholic Church. Some point out that capital
punishment is also rejected by the Catholic Church and suggest that a proponent of it should be denied similar recognition.
It is important to distinguish an absolute moral principle from one that is subject to different applications according to varying conditions or circumstances. Direct abortion is always wrong, no matter what the circumstances. Capital punishment is accepted in the Church as one way in which innocent life can be protected. Over the years, as viable alternatives such as life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, have become more possible, the need for recourse to this has become
less necessary. This is what has led the Pope and Bishops to recommend that as a society we move away from it. It is not in itself wrong, if the crime is heinous, people are threatened and there is no alternative available.

Meanwhile, Fr. Louis Arceneaux, c.m. of Pax Christi has written a letter to Archbishop Hughes for apparent inconsistencies. I cannot find a link to the letter, which was emailed to me, therefore I shall post it in its entirety. It is not too long.

Dear Archbishop Hughes:
I am writing you regarding your decisions and public declarations regarding President Obama and Donna Brazile, receiving honorary degrees at Catholic universities. Let me be clear. I am as opposed to abortion as you are. I long for the day when few, if any, women and men choose to have abortions. Where you and I disagree is our approach to getting there.
For example, I do not think that your publicly stating that you will not attend Xavier’s graduation because someone who is being given an honorary degree and will speak at the graduation is pro-choice is going to help the cause of reducing and eliminating abortion. In my opinion, all you are doing is giving people who agree with your approach a reason to boast. You are also antagonizing many other people who might be open to dialogueabout ways to reduce abortions in the country. Did you read what Sarah Comiskey gave as an explanation for the reason President Obama was allowed to attend and speak at the Al Smith dinner in New York? She is quoted as saying “They are recognized as candidates, but not honored.” Do you not agree that this is yet another example of a distinction without a difference, so often used as an explanation, that most people will not find helpful?
I think that there are ways that you and other American bishops would better promote your goals. Why could you not have spoken positively about all the good that President Obama has done already and all the Catholic social values he shares with us and urge him to speak out more often on his specific proposals to reduce the number of abortions in the country since we are opposed to any abortions. You could have taken the same approach with Donna Brazile. I think that kind of approach will be more helpful in reducing the number of abortions than blanket statements against universities and politicians. There can be and ought to be a different way to deal with this issue in the political arena than the way we deal with it in Catholic schools and churches.
I also think you and other Catholic bishops would get a more positive response and greater respect if you spoke out more consistently for the human life and dignity of all persons. These distinctions that are made about “just wars” and the permissibility of the death penalty do not help the full pro-life cause of our Church. When I speak of pro-life in retreats and parish missions, I make it clear that we need to be for the life and dignity of every human being from conception to death. I have been criticized by a minority for that stand, and yet I truly believe it is the position we ought to take as true followers of Jesus Christ, despite the distinctions that Catholic theology has made over the years. Wouldn’t you agree that Jesus Christ would not support war the way it is waged today, not with bows and arrows, but with bombs that destroy innocent men, women and children. Don’t you also think that He would not support the death penalty when we can incarcerate criminals for life, without parole, if they are found guilty of heinous crimes? And yet, so many so-called “pro-life” Catholics and evangelicals hold that Jesus Christ would support modern warfare and the death penalty, including the governor of Louisiana, whom you will honor by your presence at the Loyola University graduation.
My point is that the narrow “pro-life” focus on the unborn is probably detrimental to the very cause of reducing and eliminating abortions and that we are not doing a very good job of helping Catholics to be truly pro-life from conception to the grave.
As we used to say in the seminary, those are my thoughts on the subject. I would be happy to have a fuller discussion with you on these thoughts.
Sincerely yours in St. Vincent DePaul,
Louis Arceneaux, c.m.

So, locally, Archbishop Hughes is boycotting Xavier's graduation because the university is inviting and honoring a Catholic who wholeheartedly supports and advocates for the Democratic Party Platform on abortion and ESCR, which are contrary to Catholic teachings. On the other hand, he is apparently not boycotting Loyola's graduation, although it is inviting and honoring Bobby Jindal, a Catholic and the Governor of Louisiana who has advocated for and signed legislation enacting the death penalty or chemical castration for child rapists. The Archbishop has, rightly I think, exhibited the difference between abortion/ESCR and captial punishment. However, in my understanding, there is no acceptable prudential reason which Jindal can cite in defense of his stance. That abortion and ESCR are intrinsically evil tells us that they can never be justified. Similarly, capital punishment cannot be justified in our circumstances, even if it is not intrinsically evil. Therefore, it is not clear to me why Archbishop Hughes must boycott Brazile but not Jindal. Certainly more are killed through abortion and ESCR than capital punishment, but if we are to propose a consistent ethic of life to this culture of death, can we afford to compromise?

The issue has been further complicated by Mary Ann Glendon , who is currently the first female President of the Roman Catholic Church's official Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and is has been nominated for Notre Dame's prestigious Laetare Medal. Despite being counseled by some of the US bishops, including Notre Dame's own Bishop D'Arcy who has not at all approved of Obama's invitation, to accept the award and attend the graduation, she has decided to reject the award and abstain from attending. This seems to be a complex and divisive issue as is evidenced by reading the comments on the previously linked post.

Several questions arise from all this, which I think are preliminary to any sound judgment on the matters as hand. I ask for your insight and discussion on these preliminary questions.

1. What is the role of Catholic universities in dialoging with and forming the culture?
2. How can we properly bear witness to a culture of life, which presupposes a consistent ethic of life, without being consistent?
3. What is the role of scandal in this? Would American Catholics be scandalized by Obama's presence at ND? By the Bishops' presence at the commencement? By Hughes' presence at Xavier? Should Catholics be more scandalized than are likely to be by Jindal's presence at Loyola? Why was Obama's presence and honor at Xavier in 2007 not worthy of Hughes' boycott? Did he slip under the radar? Was Senator Obama somehow less important then than Brazile is now?
4. How are we to dialogue with the culture while being in the world, without compromising ourselves or our own institutions, without being of the world? On the personal level this is difficult enough; how can we do it on the institutional level when so many of our Catholic institutions are becoming more and more secular and less Catholic?

Fr. Benedict Ashley on Science and the Fall

2009-04-24T21:15:00.002-05:00

I just returned from a talk given by Fr. Benedict Ashley, OP. It focused on science as an avenue leading us to a greater knowledge and understanding of God and the Trinity. The talk was pretty good, interesting if nothing else. However, I wish to focus on a brief comment he made in a Q&A session following the lecture.

He was asked to discuss the physical (as opposed to moral) evil of death and the like as it relates to the fall, and how that entrance of suffering into human life at the fall can be reconciled with evolution. Fr. Ashley explained that science now shows us that human life began in eastern Africa, in a garden-like place. He posited that had we not fallen, perhaps the intimacy of our relation to God would have enabled us to develop technology at an incredibly accelerated pace, sparing us from physical evils such as toil, painful childbirth, possibly even death (?), by cultivating the surrounding desert with technology for our use.

Thus he stated: science can help us overcome some of the effects of the fall.

I ask you, faithful readership (all 4 of you), could science have made the advances it has without the Incarnation? We know the important role Christian thinkers have had in the development of philosophy, anthropology, psychology, etc. Is it possible that only redeemed man, participating in He who is Truth, could have brought together all the various truths of the ancient world to develop the worldview(s) which have enabled us to build up to the modern depth and breadth of scientific thought ?

Cool Quotes 2

2009-04-23T15:15:00.001-05:00

Ratzinger on Holy Saturday and the apparent death of God in modernity

On Good Friday our gaze remains fixed on the "death of God," the day that expresses the unparalleled experience of our age, anticipating the fact that God no longer is simply absent, that the grave hides him, that he no longer awakes, no longer speaks, so that one no longer needs to gainsay him but can simply overlook him. "God is dead and we have killed him." This saying of Nietzsche's belongs linguistically to the tradition of Christian Passiontide piety; it expresses the content of Holy Saturday, "descended into hell."

This article of the Creed always reminds me of two scenes in the Bible. The first is that cruel story of the Old Testament in which Elijah challenges the priests of Baal to implore their God to give them fire for their sacrifice. They do so, and naturally nothing happens. He ridicules them, just as the 'enlightened rationalist' ridicules the pious person in response to his prayers. Elijah calls out to the priests that perhaps they had not prayed loud enough: 'Cry aloud, for he [Baal] is good, either he is musing, or has gone aside, or he is one journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened' (1 Kings 18:27). When one reads today this mockery of the devotees of Baal, one can begin to feel uncomfortable; one can get the feeling that we have now arrived in that situation and that the mockery must now fall on us. No calling seems to be able to awaken God. The rationalist seems entitled to say to us 'Pray louder, perhaps your God will them wake up.' 'Descended to hell'; how true this is of our time, the descent of God into muteness, into the dark silence of the absent.

But alongside the story of Elijah and its New Testament analogue, the story of the Lord sleeping in the midst of the storm on the lake (Mk 4:35-41), we must put the Emmaus story (Lk 24:13-35). The disturbed disciples are talking of the death of their hope. To them, something like that death of God has happened: the point at which God finally seemed to have spoken has disappeared. The One sent by God is dead, and so there is a complete void. Nothing replies anymore. But while they are speaking of the death of their hope and can no longer see God, they do not notice that this very hope stands alive in their midst; that 'God', or rather the image they had formed of his promise, had to die so that he could live on a larger scale. The image they had formed of God, and into which they sought to compress him, had to be destroyed, so that over the ruins of the demolished house, as it were, they could see the sky again and him who remains infinitely greater...

Thus the article about the Lord's descent into hell reminds us that not only God's speech but also his silence is part of Christian revelation. God is not only the comprehensible word that comes tous; he is also the silent, inaccessible, uncomprehended, and incomprehensible ground that eludes us. To be sure, in Christianity there is a primacy of the logos, of the word, over silence; God has spoken. God is word. But this does not entitle us to forget the truth of God's abiding concealment. Only when we have experienced him as silence may we hope to hear his speech, too, which proceeds in silence. Christology reaches out beyond the Cross, the moment when love is tangible, into death, the silence and eclipse of God. Can we wonder that the Church and the life of the individual are led again and again into this hour of silence, into the forgotten and almost discarded article, 'Descended into hell'?

Introduction to Christianity, 294-297.

Good stuff!

Cool Quotes 1: Ratzinger/Plato - Good Friday and the Just Man

2009-04-22T20:37:00.003-05:00

I read a few apropos sections from Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity to aid my Holy Week reflections. An except from Ratzinger reflecting on Jesus' Crucifixion:

The Cross is revelation. It reveals, not any particular thing, but God and man. It reveals who God is and in what way man is. There is a curious presentiment of this situation in Greek philosophy: Plato's image of the crucified 'just man.' In the Republic the great philosopher asks what is likely to be the position of a completely just man in this world. He comes to the conclusion that a man's righteousness is only complete and guaranteed when he takes on the appearance of unrighteousness, for only then is it clear that he does not follow the opinion of men but pursues justice only for its own sake. So according to Plato the truly just man must be misunderstood and persecuted in this world; indeed Plato goes so far as to write: "They will say that our just man will be scourged, racked, fettered, will have his eyes burned out, and at last, after all hte manner of suffering, will be crucified." This passage, writting four hundred years before Christ, is always bound to move a Christian deeply.
- pg 292, quoting Republic book 2, 361e - 362a.

Lenten Resources

2009-02-25T13:44:00.003-06:00

Last year I wrote a post summarizing the focus of Lent and providing a few links to resources. You can find my summary here, and I will provide several more links. I pray this helps you use this time as a time of conversion via prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Pax

Blog Reflections

Fr. Dwight Longenecker via Fr. Steve Leak
Lenten retreat with daily Scriptural reflections by Dominican priests over at Godzdogz
Lenten Meditations
Random Lenten Blog posts
Prayer

Daily Audio podcasts of Liturgy of the Hours
Lenten overview with prayers
Hymns for the Liturgical Year
Sacred and Classical Music

Church Links
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' resources and links

VATICAN/POPE
Lent 2009, including stations, music, and papal homilies
Lent 2008
Lent 2007
Lent 2006
Lent 2005, Pope John Paul II's last Lent
Lent 2004
Lent 2003
Lent 2002
Lent 2001

Have a blessed and holy Lent

Peace!

From around the web....

2009-02-20T22:22:00.003-06:00

1. Excellent Lenten Reflection

Jennifer at Conversion Diary has posted a reflection on her first reading of Pontius Pilate's role in the Passion of Christ which focuses on our tendency to rationalize sin out of fear of losing favor with the "Emperor," whomever that may be for us in our lives. She writes:

I knew that the threat of losing favor with the Emperor would be more than a person like Pilate could take. I knew it would be the last straw, the spark to ignite the rationalizing and denial that would clear the way for proceeding with evil. I knew it because, at that moment, I recognized somewhere within myself my own disturbingly strong desire to be "friends with the Emperor." My "Emperor" was something different than Pilate's, of course: his was an actual man who had the power to make all Pilate's wildest dreams of riches and success come true; mine was a symbolic Emperor comprised of all my desires for things like comfort and pleasure and money and control and success and acclaim, an Emperor whose friendship I sought over doing the right thing on at least a daily basis.
...
And, as I realized only later, Pilate's all-to-familiar actions 2,000 years ago are not as different in severity from mine as I might have liked to tell myself, because they both led directly to Jesus' death on the Cross.

It is always helpful and humbling to recognize ourselves so clearly in the sins and motivations of those whom we so often demonize. Pilate recognized Jesus was a good man and did not want to sentence him, but he placed his own well-being and desires above truth and goodness. Am I willing to take up my cross and follow Christ? Am I willing imitate Jesus' sacrifical love of Christ? Or am I merely a good guy with good intentions who tends to flake out when things get tough?

2. Benedict XVI and Nancy Pelosi

On Wednesday Pope Benedict met with pro-choice Catholic Nancy Pelosi.

His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.

H/T to Rocco Palmo

This has caused some interesting conversation. Some are citing the lack of photo-op and the Pope's using the meeting for a teachable moment as evidence of his stern condemnation of Pelosi. However there is no real evidence to support such a view. On the hand, some are criticizing the Pope and Pelosi's bishop for failing to discipline her by witholding the Eucharist from her.

In light of this there has been an interesting conversation in the comments over at Vox-Nova regarding Canon 915 which reads:

Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or the declaration of a penalty as well as others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to communion.

Should it be enforced by bishops and the Pope more frequently and forcefully for those Catholic politicians who persist in voting pro-choice? The argument may be summed up thusly:

St. Paul tells us that anyone who eats the body of the Lord unworthily eats condemnation upon himself.
A loving pastor would not want his sheep to engage in self-condemnation, desecration of the Blessed Sacrament, or scandal to the faithful.
Canon 915 tells that those who persist in grave sin should not be permitted to receive the Eucharist.
Catholic politicians who public support and vote for pro-choice policies are engaging, in objective, if not subjective, grave sin.
Therefore why would the successors of the Apostles choose not discipline Pelosi, Biden, and other pro-choice Catholics accordingly?

Do the Pope and Bishops disagree with canon law? Are they ignoring canon 915? Is it not mortally sinful to vote for pro-choice policies? If not, why is canon 915 in the canon law at all? What is the relationship between canon law and its application by the Church's pastors.

Others will argue that the Church's understanding of law is unlike that which most Americans have. We tend to view law and that which is to be interpreted literally and enforced in a black and white manner. On the hand, from the ecclesial perspective canon laws are more like guidelines which must and can only be properly interpreted by those ordained with the pastoral responsiblity and charism of doing so for their flocks.

What do you think?

3. Vulnerability

Veronica over at Making Gumbo has a great post on Jesus' vulnerability, which reminded me of Balthsar's concept of God's omnipotent powerlessness. The Father all-powerfully empties himself entirely into the Son in kenotic Love. In thanksgiving (eucharist) for the Father's gift of self, the Son wills to give himself to the Father's will. Thus the Son omnipotently becomes powerless in incarnation as an infant, as a criminal on the cross, and as a dead man in the descent.

Nevertheless, as a new dad my son's vulnerability reminded me of Jesus' vulnerability as an infant, but more than that, in choosing to conceive a child my wife have made a choice of sacrifical love to be powerless to our son. We are slaves to his will. When he is hungry, tired, gassy, or upset for whatever reason, we free and lovingly stop everything we are doing to attend to him.

Life is beautiful. I pray that my wife and child and our love may teach me to love and Christ loved so that i may be more willing to make myself vulnerable out of love to them and to my neighbor and even to my enemy. God knows I have a long way to go.

Peace to all.

Thesis Thoughts 4: RAHNER’S CHRISTOLOGY/SOTERIOLOGY

2009-02-04T23:42:00.002-06:00

Before we move on to directly examine what Rahner has to say about salvation for non-Christians, we must consider his Christology and Soteriology more generally speaking. As a Christian, and more specifically as a Jesuit priest, Rahner firmly believes that Jesus is the savior of the world, but, as Ratzinger explains, the problem is for Rahner that of “the dichotomy between the particularity of Christian history and its claim to the whole being man. Can a particular history justly claim to be salvation not just for a particular historical period but for man precisely qua man?”[1] Marshall identifies two possible approaches for answering this dichotomy. The first approach focuses on the Jesus’ life, passion, death, and resurrection as that which makes him meaningful and significant for salvation generally speaking. In other words it is an appeal to the particularity of Jesus in his historical situation rather than an appeal which demonstrates how Jesus fulfills some general criteria for universal salvific significance, which is precisely what the second approach attempts to exhibit. Proponents of the second approach believe that one must first show that anything can be significant for the salvation of all, and until that is shown to be credible, belief in Jesus as the savior must be in-credible.[2]
Rahner, following Kant, Schleiermacher and Transcendentalism, chooses the second approach. He believes that before one can reasonably believe in a universal savior one must determine the general criteria necessary for there to be an absolute savior and then must demonstrate that a particular person or entity, in this case Jesus Christ, fulfills the criteria. Rahner writes: “how can he [Jesus], the concrete one, in his historical-concrete reality, which is not at all generally valid, be a norm for me?”[3]
In addition to his philosophical allegiances, Rahner chooses the second approach because of his understanding of the problem of apologetics. He rightly believes that Christians have a responsibility to preach the gospel, that is, the Good News of Jesus’ salvation, to the world, but recognizes that the modern world, due to modernity and some of the developments of the Enlightenment, finds this message harder to believe than earlier generations did.[4] Rahner believed this was because the kinds of things said by Christians, specifically in the tradition of the Neo-scholasticism of his time, are found to be in-credible by modern people; the teachings of the faith were presented in way that modern people had difficulty relating to.
Kilby explains Rahner’s perspective: for Rahner “what we need is to get away from a propositionalist system of theology so that we can relate Christian doctrines to what we experience in the depths of our being.”[5] [6]Therefore, according to Rahner, the presentation of the doctrines of the Faith must be adapted to the philosophy and perspectives of the day, redolent of the anthropological turn following the Enlightenment. Here, it seems, Pope Benedict XVI would disagree with him. Rahner believes the problem is on the side of the presentation of the information, the content of the faith. However, in Spe Salvi Pope Benedict XVI explains that the faith must not be merely informative, but performative;[7] more important than the delivering of the information is the evangelical witness of performing, of living, the faith.[8]
Regardless of his reasons, Rahner chooses to follow Kant and Schleiermacher in Transcendental approach and Marechal by incorporating the thought of Aquinas in an attempt to solve the apparent paradox between Jesus’ particularity as a 1^st Century Jew from Nazareth and his supposed significance as the absolute savior. In following the second approach, the Transcendental approach, Rahner will make an anthropological turn; much of his system will thus start with man. Thus, Marshall elucidates Rahner’s goal:

If the goal of a transcendental Christology is to show how Jesus Christ can be significant for salvation, the method of transcendental Christology is to show that an absolute savior can be significant for salvation, can be that kind of reality. Once this established, it must indicate the way in which absolute savior can be asserted of Jesus, and the goal would then be achieved.[9]

As we have discussed above, for Rahner, all people, in their essence, anticipate the unsurpassable self-communication of God,[10] which is made possible by the supernatural existential, but for them to receive this very real self-revelation as communication, it must occur historically and categorically. This requires that the a priori transcendental experience of man be mediated historically as human freedom is mediated categorically. Thus, in Rahner’s system, the absolute savior must be a historical individual who freely and unconditionally accepts God’s self-offer, while not only pointing to, but actually being God’s self-communication. Thus, Rahner’s system demands a sort of Hypostatic Union in order for there to be an absolute savior, and, because the absolute savior is one of us, he must merely be the prime example of what we are oriented towards. He elucidates, “The incarnation of God is therefore the unique, supreme, case of the total actualization of human reality, which consists of the fact that man is in so far as he surrenders himself.”[11] Therefore, “The concrete human essence (wesen) is nothing other than a potential obedentialis for hypostatic union,”[12] and accordingly, Rahner can axiomatically claim, “anthropology is defective Christology.”[13] In light of this, Marshall rightly asks how any of us can be satisfied with anything less than hypostatic union is that is what we are ordered towards?[14]
Rahner has shown than man has an a priori orientation or dynamism toward transcendence. A transcendent openness can only open towards the Absolute Horizon of being. Therefore, the telos of the world, or mankind at the least, is in receiving God’s self-communication, in fulfilling this potential for reception of God’s grace.[15] Because man is not merely spiritual, but physical as well, this self-communication must take place historically and spatio-temporally. It must be a real event with a permanent beginning.[16] Thus, for Rahner, “we give the title of Savior simply to that historical person who, coming in space and time, signifies that beginning of God’s absolute communication of himself which inaugurates the self-communication for all men as something happening irrevocably and which shows this to be happening.”[17] It is not necessary that the historical advent of the Savior mark the beginning of God’s self-revelation, but it must be the irrevocable and absolute form and climax of the communication. However, in addition to the historical advent of God’s absolute self-communication in the Savior, in order for the Savior to be the universally significant for all men, he must be “the object of a radical orientation of our whole being, on account of which such a reality is capable of affecting [mankind] as a whole.”[18]
Perhaps we should summarize what we have thus far discussed. A being can only be absolute savior if mankind is dynamically oriented toward it. We see in the essence of man the supernatural existential, the preparation for the offer of God’s self-communication as grace, that transcendent openness to the Absolute Horizon. Thus, only God, the Horizon, can be our savior. The savior must be the real pledge of God, must actually be God’s self-communication, and this communication must be historical. In the absolute savior, God be must enter into history, and he must do so as one of us so that we can fully receive this communication.
We can now see how Rahner’s system has led to recognition of Jesus as the absolute savior of the world. Jesus is the divine Son of God. He is the eternal Logos, the Word of God, God’s self-communication, enfleshed. In the Hypostatic Union the Word of God has become one of us to fully reveal himself to us. Although he may only contact a portion of us in his historicity and particularity, because we are transcendentally a priori oriented to receive this self-communication as grace, all men, even those who have no contact with this “consummation of human reality at the hands of God, towards which all person are oriented in grace”[19], can receive this new salvific grace of Christ in their transcendence. He can be significant, efficacious for their salvation as the historical fulfillment of the pledge made by God in the supernatural existential, the openness to receiving him.
Marshall attempts to critique Rahner’s transcendental Christology. He is critical not of Rahner’s execution, which he finds to be masterful, but of the problem inherent in applying the transcendental method to Christ. Marshall believes that Rahner’s system forces him to make implications which result in the loss of particularity of Christ, which, Marshall admits, even Rahner says is unacceptable. In this regard, Marshall references Rahner as having said that the Catholic faith is indissolubly bound up with Jesus of Nazareth and that when Jesus becomes only one among several exemplary persons, we are no longer dealing with Christianity.[20] Nevertheless, Marshall describes Rahner’s definition of what is necessary for something to be an absolute savior, “any reality/person can be significant for salvation only because and in so far as we are oriented toward it by our very nature; only by falling within the scope of this transcendental orientation can any reality affect us as a whole and so be genuinely saving”[21], and adds that Jesus cannot possibly fulfill this criterion.

We are not and cannot be, oriented in this way toward Jesus Christ; he himself can in no we be derived or deduced from our transcendental orientation and its content. Therefore, Jesus is not and cannot be significant for salvation…Since he, as a particular person, cannot be significant for salvation, he cannot be the absolute savior, according to Rahner’s logic.[22]

Thus, Marshall believes that Rahner’s transcendental method forces into choosing between two alternatives. On the one hand, Marshall argues that Rahner can argue that Jesus fulfills the general criteria he has set forth for being generally significant for salvation, but this requires Rahner to let go of Jesus’ particular as emphasized by the Christian faith because it has nothing to do with significance for salvation. On the other hand, Marshall explains, Rahner can uphold the importance of Jesus’ particularity as the faith does, emphasizing his being a first century Jew who fulfills the specifically Jewish prophecies for the Messiah, his poverty, his miracles, his death, etc. while recognizing that Jesus, in his particularity, does not fulfill the general criteria for being the absolute savior. [23]
However, despite Marshall’s sharp intellect, we must conclude that his critique is flawed and incorrect. We could argue, as some critics do, that Rahner’s transcendental method puts Christianity on a slippery slope which may relativize Christ’s unicity, but we cannot say it is incompatible with Christianity. The deficiency in Marshall’s critique appears to be that he forgotten about the Hypostatic Union. Jesus is fully God and fully man. In his divinity he fulfills the general criteria for being significant for salvation. In his humanity we can honor his particular place in human history. Jesus of Nazareth is the divine Logos. He is the son of Mary and the Son of God. He is a man who lived near Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago, and he is the absolute savior of the world.

[1]Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 163.

[2] Marshall, 19.

[3] Karl Rahner, Schriften zur Theologie, Vol. 15, 234; emphasis added: “wie kann er, der Konkrete, in seiner gar nicht allgemeingültigen, sondern in seiner geschichtlich-konkreten Wirklichkeit für mich eine Norm sein?”

[4] Marshall, 19.

[5] Kilby, 263.

[6] Note that here Balthasar and Rahner differ as well. “For Balthasar, neo-scholasticism was inadequate because it was dry as dust and reductive, because it fialed to bring out, indeed it positively obscured, the reality and beauty of the thing presented, the object of revelation.” (Kilby, 263).

[7] Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, par. 2.

[8] Here Benedict is reminiscent of Balthasar and his emphasis on the Cross and martyrdom as witnessing to the faith.

[9] Marshall, 28.

[10] Ibid., 34.

[11] Ibid., 110; Rahner’s emphases; translation slightly altered.

[12] Ibid., 36

[13]Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations Volume I: God, Christ, Mary and Grace, (New York, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1973), 122.

[14] Marshall, 36.

[15] McCool, 167.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid., 168.

[18] Marshall, 33-34.

[19] Ibid., 34.

[20] Ibid.,53.

[21] Ibid., 56.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 57.

A blessing, a blessing from the Lord! or Unto us a child is born

2009-01-21T17:47:00.003-06:00

Announcing the birth of JB's and AB's first child, John Paul Joseph.

After a completely natural labor he was born via water-birth in a birth center at 4:40 Thursday morn. He weighed 7 lbs was 20 inches long.
Mom, Dad, and Baby are all tired, but doing well and celebrating the goodness of God.

Whose Church?

2009-01-10T22:07:00.004-06:00

Those of you not from the New Orleans area may not have heard, but there has been some serious drama in the Archdiocese of New Orleans lately.

In April of 08, Archbishop Hughes unveiled a plan to close some parishes and consolidate others in order to help the Archdiocese cope with millions of dollars in losses from Hurricance Katrina, fewer parishioners post-Katrina, and an aging and shinking clergy.

From the start people were not shy about expressing their unhappiness with the changes.

After churches which had been scheduled for closure (and consolidation with other parishes) were closed in October, parishioners immediately moved to occupy the churches in what they called vigils, although media coverage and parishioners interviewed made it seem more like a prolonged protest.

More than two months later the churches were still being illegally occupied by former parishioners, who had barred the doors closed and refused to allow representatives of the Archdiocese into the church.

As a result, police were eventually sent to the churches to clear out the trespassers. The Archdiocese had this to say about the incident (quote lengthy, but I felt obligated to post the whole thing, since no one in the media was) :

Around 10 am this morning, representatives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans entered the occupied buildings at both the former Our Lady of Good Counsel on Louisiana Ave. and the former St. Henry on General Pershing in Uptown New Orleans. They were accompanied by members of the New Orleans Police Department at the request of the Archbishop. The occupants were first asked to leave the buildings voluntarily. Then they were told that if they did not leave on their own, they would receive a summons and if they would not leave at that point would then be arrested.

It was necessary for the police to break-in to Our Lady of Good Counsel because those inside refused entrance to either archdiocesan representatives or the police. Two occupants at Our Lady of Good Counsel received a summons and two were formally arrested. At St. Henry Church, the occupants allowed representatives and police to enter. Only one parishioner received a summons. There were no arrests. In both instances, the buildings were then secured.

It has always been the intention of the archdiocese to bring these vigils to a peaceful conclusion. This forced closure involving the NOPD is the result of the actions of protestors at the former parishes. This decision was made reluctantly after exploring every possible alternative, including multiple attempts to persuade the people to leave the building on their own. These initiatives are unfortunate but made necessary now to ensure the safety of the people and security of the buildings.

As already reported, attempts were made at both the former Our Lady of Good Counsel and the former St. Henry buildings early morning on Saturday, January 3, 2009 to peacefully bring these occupations peacefully to a close. At St. Henry, those keeping vigil refused to leave despite multiple requests. At Our Lady of Good Counsel, the occupant left allowing officials first to search the building and then to move to secure the building. It was discovered later that day that protestors had regained access to the former church building and bolts placed in doors had been removed.

On Monday, January 5, 2009, archdiocesan representatives attempted to make a routine inspection at Our Lady of Good Counsel and were denied access to the buildings. Protestors refused archdiocesan personnel entry and barricaded the doors preventing entry. At the former church building at St. Henry, archdiocesan representatives entered for their inspections, but later that afternoon, it was discovered that occupants there had locked the doors to the church building to prevent entry to anyone beyond those allowed in from the inside. These actions forced the difficult decision to bring these occupations to a close to be made
It is our hope that the Catholic community may now heal and move forward together. Our prayers are withl those experiencing anger and sadness at losing their home parishes. We pray that they may find peace and a spiritual home in their new parish. As we begin the new year, we must all work to center our faith on the Eucharist and to move forward as one community in Christ.

My thoughts on the fiasco...

I am in no position to judge the prudence or correctness of Archbishop Hughes' decisions on which churches to close, which to merge, etc. Many of the parishioners of St. Henry's and Our Lady of Good Counsel did not give the Archbishop the benefit of the doubt. For months we have heard TV interviews, people on radio call-in shows, etc. condemning the decisions and actions of the Archbishop for unjustly or unfairly closing down "my church."

This is another example of Catholics being more American than Catholic. These people have been infected by individualism. Hello! We are "Catholic." The word means "universal." This is not your church. This is the Church of Jesus Christ. Archbishop Hughes is a successor of the apostles and the rightful authority over the property you claim to be "your church." You don't have to agree with his decision, but with a little humility and obedience, you should be able to respectfully submit to it.

Sigh. Sorry for the rant.

Edit: I should add that I am saddened that arrests were made, although no charges were pressed, but I am frustrated at the attitudes I've seen over the past few months.

Pope quotes

2009-01-09T23:11:00.002-06:00

Recent thoughts from Pope Benedict XVI

I. On the violence in Gaza

"Once again I would repeat that military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned. I express my hope that, with the decisive commitment of the international community, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will be re-established -- an indispensable condition for restoring acceptable living conditions to the population -- and that negotiations for peace will resume, with the rejection of hatred, acts of provocation and the use of arms."
[emphasis my own]

Seems pretty clear to me. Violence bad. Justince good. Peace requires mercy and forgiveness.

II. On the rights of Emigrants

"the needs of emigrants need to be taken into consideration by legislation which would make it easier to reunite families, reconciling the legitimate requirements of security with those of inviolable respect for the person."

III. Fighting Poverty to Build Peace

"It is towards the poor, the all too many poor people on our planet, that I would like to turn my attention today, taking up my Message for the World Day of Peace, devoted this year to the theme: "Fighting Poverty To Build Peace"...
To build peace, we need to give new hope to the poor. How can we not think of so many individuals and families hard pressed by the difficulties and uncertainties which the current financial and economic crisis has provoked on a global scale? How can we not mention the food crisis and global warming, which make it even more difficult for those living in some of the poorest parts of the planet to have access to nutrition and water? There is an urgent need to adopt an effective strategy to fight hunger and to promote local agricultural development, all the more so since the number of the poor is increasing even within the rich countries....
Acts of discrimination and the very grave attacks directed at thousands of Christians in this past year show to what extent it is not merely material poverty, but also moral poverty, which damages peace. Such abuses, in fact, are rooted in moral poverty....
I also express my hope that, in the Western world, prejudice or hostility against Christians will not be cultivated simply because, on certain questions, their voice causes disquiet. For their part, may the disciples of Christ, in the face of such adversity, not lose heart: witness to the Gospel is always a "sign of contradiction" vis-à-vis "the spirit of the world"! If the trials and tribulations are painful, the constant presence of Christ is a powerful source of strength. Christ’s Gospel is a saving message meant for all; that is why it cannot be confined to the private sphere, but must be proclaimed from the rooftops, to the ends of the earth."

Thesis Thoughts 3: Rahner's Theological Anthropology

2009-01-09T22:52:00.005-06:00

more thesis thoughts which are still somewhat rough, especially the footnotes, but have at it.

RAHNER’S THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

The Supernatural Existential

Rahner’s first two works were primarily philosophical in nature. Spirit of the World, his doctoral dissertation, is a philosophical conversation with Heidegger coming from the perspective of Kant’s transcendentalism accompanied by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Rahner’s other seminal philosophical work, Hearers of the Word, continues with groundwork he laid out in Spirit of the World and proposes new solutions to problems he perceived in the theological explanations and presentations of his time. This primarily had to do with his discomfort with the relationship between nature and grace as explicated by scholastic neo-Thomism.
All grace was seen as the grace of Christ, but was ontologically grounded in God’s redemptive will. In other words, there was no inherent relationship between the offer and reception of grace and the reception of God’s self-communication through the Incarnate Son.^¹ McCool explains, “[Rahner’s] theological anthropology enabled him to see that, contrary to the manuals' purely entitative understanding of grace, grace must have a perceptible effect on human consciousness,”^² all human consciousness regardless of whether a person had been exposed to the Gospel or not.

In this regard, we must keep in mind Rahner’s appreciation of and affiliation with Transcendental Thomism. He feels impelled to offer an explanation of how Christ can be the universal savior. Rahner proceeds to develop a system which will identify in man the possibility of receiving salvation and present Jesus as the realization of that possibility. For something to be universally salvific for mankind, man must be a priori oriented to it; it must be capable of affecting mankind as a whole.^³ As we have said above, following his Transcendental method, in order for Rahner to remain consistent with his system and hold that Christianity is true and that divine revelation has occurred, he must show that it is generally credible to believe in revelation; he must show that man has a capacity to receive revelation. Rahner explains,

If we start from ourselves, God’s revelation cannot be validated either in its actuality, or in its necessity, or in its inner nature. … It remains questionable (at least for the time being) whether and in what sense we can discover in ourselves something like a “power of hearing” for an eventual revelation of God, before we have in fact heard it, and have thus found out that we are capable of hearing it.^⁴

Nevertheless, Rahner argues that man is essentially a “hearer of the word” and develops a theological anthropology which views man ontologically and essentially as such. Ratzinger explains, “The paradox of the being man is that he can find the ‘universal’ in himself only in tension with the ‘particular’, with a history that comes from without, so that man can be described and postulated, as it were, a priori¸as the receiver of a revelation history, as a “hearer of the word.”^⁵ ^⁶

Thus, Rahner sees in man an ontological dynamism and openness towards the Ultimate Horizon of Being, God.^⁷ Knowing that God desires all men to be saved and therefore that He offers salvific grace to all men, Rahner reasons that God has created man with the capacity to receive grace and to perceive it precisely as grace.^⁸ Rahner proposes that God creates a creature, man, that he could love, that could “receive this Love which is God himself” and receive it for what it is, “the unexpected unexacted gift.”^⁹ This ability to receive God’s self-gift must be an intrinsic part of the makeup of man.

This 'potency' is what is inmost and most authentic in him, the centre and root of what he is absolutely. He must have it always: for even one of the damned, who has turned away from this Love and made himself incapable of receiving this Love, must still be really able to experience this Love (which being scorned now burns like fire) as that to which he is ordained in the ground of his concrete being; he must consequently always remain what he was created as: the burning longing for God himself in the immediacy of his own threefold life. The capacity for the God of self-bestowing personal Love is the central and abiding existential of man as he really is.^¹⁰

Rahner refer to this as the “supernatural existential.” McCool explains, “God's real offer of his grace produces a "supernatural existential" in the human soul. This "existential" is a permanent modification of the human spirit which transforms its natural dynamism into an ontological drive to the God of grace and glory.”^¹¹ Rahner intended his supernatural existential to unify nature and grace which had become too distinct and separate in neo-scholasticism. Thus on top of man’s theoretical pure nature is added the supernatural existential, this transcendent potential or openness to receiving grace prior to the actual offer of divine grace and revelation.^¹² Klaus Riesenhuber further clarifies, “This is only a way of saying that man’s nature must be spirit, in the sense of unlimited transcendental openness to unrestricted being. What is called man’s “obediential potency” to receive revelation is not some competence coordinated with various others, but is his spiritual nature itself.”^¹³ Riesenhuber explains that here Rahner follows Marechal by formulating in a new way Aquinas’ “natural desire of the beatific vision.”^¹⁴

We can now begin to see, with a preliminary and still blurry vision, how Rahner’s theological anthropology will attempt to posit Christ’s universal significance for salvation, for, following the Christ event, the grace of which also extent in to past times prior to Christ, the supernatural existential places all men, not merely those who have had historical contact with Jesus or his followers, in a new and improved condition.

[The unbaptized man] exists in a different situation because of the ‘objective redemption,’ which is a real and basic moment in the ‘subjective’ salvation situation of every man…because of the ‘supernatural existential,’ because of God’s continual offer of the grace for supernatural salvific acts, his situation is other than it would be if it were determined only by his ‘nature’ and by original sin.^¹⁵

But how is it that Jesus’ salvific grace is offered to and accepted by those who have had no contact with Christianity? What is the effect of this offer and acceptance? What of those who have had contact with Christianity? Can they accept the grace while rejecting the Christianity that has been offered to them?

Transcendental and Categorial

We shall explore Rahner’s answers to the above questions shortly, but before we do so, we must examine how his theological anthropology sets the stage for his response.

Having posited the supernatural existential in man, Rahner continues the development of his system by discussing his technical terms “transcendental” and “categorial.” Rahner explains what he means by “transcendental” fairly clearly. In “a ‘transcendental experience,’ that is an experience of the unlimited openness of the spirit to being as such, there is on the subjective side of all knowledge a knowledge of God that is real although implicit, that is, not necessarily objectified.”^¹⁶ In other words, the transcendental aspect of man is a realization of the supernatural existential. God gives man this openness to receive his revelation as grace. A transcendental experience is one in which man receives this grace and responds to it positively, but without consciously identifying it as God’s offer of Christ’s salvific grace.

Unfortunately, Rahner never explicitly clarifies the ontological status or precise meaning of his “categorial,” however, we can surmise it’s approximate meaning from its juxtapositions with the “transcendental.” Marshall attempts to approximate Rahner’s meaning as follows:

‘Categorial’ simply means ‘what can be put into categories.’ … More precisely (since for Rahner the transcendental too can, at least indirectly, be evoked in language), the ‘categorial’ is circumscribed in space and time; in this sense human words, the sacraments, the church and Scripture can all be called ‘something categorial.’ Rahner is especially given to contrasting transcendental with ‘historical,’ where ‘historical’ has the broad meaning of ‘spatio-temporal,’ and so is equivalent to categorial.”^¹⁷

The problem of determining the precise meaning and ontological status of the “categorial,” is compounded by the reality that the debates and difficulties over understanding how God’s grace can work to save non-Christians take place specifically in the categorical and historical circumstances of each generation. Thus, a man can transcendentally be in a positive relationship to God regardless of whether or not he has received and accepted the Gospel as communicated categorically in the historical categories of the Christian faith. This begs of the questions of the importance of the categorical presentation of the faith. Is it not relativized by the emphasis of the transcendental revelation?

Even with this rather long-winded explanation, the precise status and import of the categorical remains vague and elusive. It should become somewhat more clear once we apply it practically using Rahner’s system and theory of “anonymous” or implicit Christians or Christianity, for which the “transcendental” and “categorical” are vital.

1 McCool, Rahner Reader 173.

2 McCool, 174.

3 Marshall, Christology Conflict, 33.

4 Rahner, Hearers of the Word, 5; Rahner’s emphasis.

5 Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 163.

6 Hearers of the Word is the title of one of Rahner’s earliest philosophical works and, according to Balthasar, Marshall, Oakes, McCool, etc. lays the foundation for the rest of his thought……fill in with more detail!!!!!

7 McCool, 174. [SeeRahner (Theological Investigations, vol. IV, p166-69, 174-84 for more quotes and info]

8 Rahner, Theological investigations, vol 1, 300-302…quoted in McCool 185.

9 Rahner, Karl, Theological Investigations, vol I, p300-02, 310-315. (McCool 186)

10 Rahner, Karl, Theological Investigations, vol I, p300-02, 310-315. (McCool 187)

11 McCool, 185.

12 McCool 188 = Rahner, Karl, Theological Investigations, vol I, p300-02, 310-315. (McCool 188)

13 Riesenhuber, 165.

14 Riesenhuber, 166.

15 Rahner, Implicit Christianity, 44.

16 Rahner, Karl. "Implicit Christianity." Theology Digest. Sesquicentennial Issue (1968), 49-50.

17 Marshall, 17-18.

On the Bioethics Front...

2008-12-15T10:08:00.002-06:00

In the past week, two fairly noteworthy documents have been released...

1. Dignitas Personae

The CDF released an update to Donum Vitae entitled Dignitas Personae. A summary and a Q and A have also been released. The document focuses primarily on beginning of life issues and reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization. The document also addresses several new issues and technologies which had not yet been formally discussed by the Magisterium. The Q&A doc explains:

Some very new issues are discussed here for the first time. Some proposed methods for altering the technique for human cloning so it will produce embryonic stem cells but not an embryo (e.g., “altered nuclear transfer”) are judged to require more study and clarification before they could ethically be applied to humans, as one would have to be certain that a new human being is never created and then destroyed by the procedure. (These cautions do not apply to an even newer technique, using genetic or chemical factors to reprogram ordinary adult cells directly into “induced pluripotent stem cells” with the versatility of embryonic stem cells. This clearly does not use an egg or create an embryo, and has not raised objections from Catholic theologians.) Proposals for “adoption” of abandoned or unwanted frozen embryos are also found to pose problems, because the Church opposes use of the gametes or bodies of others who are outside the marital covenant for reproduction. The document raises cautions or problems about these new issues but does not formally make a definitive judgment against them. The document also goes into far more detail than past documents in raising moral concerns about use of “germ-line” genetic engineering in human beings, for treatments and especially for supposed “enhancement” or tailoring of human characteristics.

Despite all the cautions, the CDF attempts to emphasize that the Church's overall attitude toward bioethical research is a positive one, provided that the dignity of the human person is always respected and made a top priority of all research. The document explains:

Behind every “no” in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great “yes” to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence.

Interesting stuff. I only wish they had addressed end of life issues. Important and difficult questions remain, but an update to Donum Vitae was needed and is helpful.

2. The Dignity of Chimeras

For those of you who may not know, a chimera is some sort of hybrid animal, in this case, part-human part-something else. Chimeras have for the most part been creatures of fantasy and sci-fi... up until now. Crazy stuff!

The British Parliament has drafted a Human Tissue and Embryo Bill. One of the issues addressed in the bill is chimeras. If the bill is passed, "the cre ation of animal-human embryos - created by injecting animal cells or DNA into human embryos or human cells into animal eggs" - will now be legal. Wow! Another instance of scientists using the dangerous philosophical approach of "let's see what we can do" rather than asking "should we even be doing this." This could potentially be very dangerous stuff, which is why the bill mandates that if a scientist chooses to create chimeras, the part-human/part-animal hybrids must be destroyed within two weeks.

This is where the Scottish Catholic Bishops' Conference stepped in. Now if you read about the bishops' statement on a secular news site, you will probably only hear that the bishops said that the chimeras must be treated with dignity, their right-to-life must be respected, mothers whose eggs are used to create chimeras must be given the right to bring their child to term, etc. Predictably, that's not an entirely accurate representation of what the Scottish bishops had to say.

First they called for the bill to be rejected by Parliament saying that creating human hybrid creatures is horrific and breaks a moral boundary which is not to be crossed. Only after denouncing the bill in toto and calling the creation of chimeras alarming and horrific did they proceed to add that if a chimera were created, "it should not be a crime to transfer them, or other human embryos, to the body of the woman providing the ovum, in cases where a human ovum has been used to create them" and "Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term,
she should not be prevented from doing so." The bishops conclude "at very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings and should be treated accordingly."

This makes sense to me. The bishops are right to be alarmed to call for the denunciation of this "research." However, we cannot know whether or not these hybrids would be persons or not. In order to play it safe and prevent ourselves from murdering innocent persons with intrinsic dignity and an inherent right-to-life, we must allow (and demand!?) that they be taken to term and treated as any other person once they are created.

Sigh... God help us!

More coverage here and here.

From around the Blogosphere and such

2008-12-04T19:54:00.003-06:00

Greetings!

It's been too long since I've posted, and I still don't have the time or focus to put together anything original or intelligent. Nevertheless, what follows are some stories or thoughts which have caught my eye recently. Let me know what you think.

On the Peace and Nonviolence Front...

Catholic Lt Col at Gitmo chooses the Cross over the Flag

Darrel Vandeveld is a devout Catholic. Not so long ago he was also a military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. However, what he saw and experienced there struck him as immoral and un-American. His well-formed Catholic conscience was not comfortable. He emailed Fr. John Dear, a peace activist, and after much mental anguish chose to quit the US military. Watch the BBC's interview here and read more here

US Torture policies in Iraq have lead to the Deaths of countless Americans

Matthew Alexander was an interrogator for a special ops task force in Iraq in 2006. Other people in his position chose to torture alleged and/or known terrorists to attempt to get what they wanted. Alexander refused, and in an article titled "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq" for the Washington Post he writes:

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

Read the entire article here.

The FDA: What were they thinking?

This is Silly: Prescription Handguns!??

According to their website, the mission of the FDA is as follows:

The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. The FDA is also responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medicines and foods more effective, safer, and more affordable; and helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health.

If that's the case, why are they approving a miniaturized thumb-triggered handgun as something which can be prescribed? What!? Oh! In the near future it may be covered by Medicare. Ladies and Gentleman, your tax dollars hard at work!

More here.

This is dangerous and reprehensible: Gardasil - Bad for women (a shocker I know)

Remember how Gardasil was supposed to help prevent much of cervical cancer? Forgetting for a moment that you shouldn't have to be vaccinated for a disease caused by STDs, because... you know... your free will, chastity, abstinence, the moral life, etc. Forget about all that. Generally speaking a drug might be considered a good thing if it can prevent a large portion of the population from getting a deadly form of cancer. Well, as it turns out, Gardasil may actually make things worse.

Natural News reporter Mike Adams has uncovered some interesting facts about this vaccine. The FDA has been aware since 2003 that Human Papillloma Virus [1] does not cause cervical cancer. The Gardasil vaccine is unable to eradicate HPV virus from women who have been exposed to HPV (nearly all sexually active women). This makes vaccinating all young women in Texas against HPV virus a very questionable decision.

To make matters even worse it has now been learned that vaccinating women with Gardasil may actually increase the risk that those women harboring a benign cervical HPV viral infection have a 44.6 percent increased risk of having their benign HPV infection converted into a precancerous state by the HPV vaccine administration. Thus women vaccinated with Gardasil not only receive no benefit those who were sexually active before the vaccine administration have become at increased risk for developing cervical cancer.

Read the entire article here.
Hat tip to feminine-genius.

Anyone have any thoughts on any of this? Let me know.

Thesis Thoughts 2 - Rahner's Philosophical Background

2008-11-20T17:46:00.001-06:00

For my Master's thesis I will be researching and writing on the debate between Karl Rahner and Hans urs von Balthasar regarding their conceptions of Christology and the salvation of non-Christians. I shall attempt to post summaries of research, random quotes and the like on a somewhat regular basis. Please feel free to share your own thoughts, ideas, questions, sources, etc.

Before diving more directly into the thought of Karl Rahner or Hans Urs von Baltashar and their soteriologies, we would be imprudent to ignore the historical and philosophical situations to which they are responding and in which they are living. If Plato lived today the manner in which he communicated his genius would certainly be quite different that it actually was. The same could be said of Nietzsche have lived in pre-Christian times. Therefore we must consider Rahner’s philosophical sitz im leben before attempting to grasp his system.

For most of the middle ages and up until the 17^th Century most people in the Western world saw Jesus Christ as the universal redeemer. In other words, their world view suggested that whatever could be said to be universally or generally meaningful or significant for humanity must in way relate to Christ (Marshall 2). However, Deistic thought countered that Christian presumption, reasoning that for something to universally valid and meaningful, it must also be universally and generally available to everyone. At this time the world was realizing that knowledge of Jesus was not, or had not been, readily available to all people, specifically those living in the Americas. (Marshall 3-4)

Many Christians embraced this Deistic critique while attempting to maintain the universal meaningfulness of the historical Jesus. John Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity is a prime example of such an attempt. German Christians made the most profound attempts at finding a middle ground between these two assumptions: that of Jesus’ universal significance, and that of the necessity of universally availability of that which is said to be significant. They attempted to reinterpret the heart of Christianity, which saw Jesus as the unique historical redeemer, in such a way as to maintain the concrete notion of the Christian understanding of redemption while dissolving the “indissoluble bond to Jesus” (Marshall 4). [It is because of this new understanding of redemption that Marx can posit a world in which man is redeemed on his own merits with a Christ figure.]

Thus, Kant enters the scene with his transcendental approach and states that “the unique redeemer is an ideal of perfection, a moral archetype for which we need no empirical example, since the archetype ‘is to be sought nowhere but in our own reason.’”(Marshall 5), leading to Schleiermacher, who offers the most profound and powerful statement of the coalescence of the new deistic assumptions with redemption as posited by Christianity.

Schleiermacher develops a general criterion for redemption – the relative domination of a universal God-consciousness (‘feeling of absolute dependence’) in all experience. All people can experience the need for God in their dependence. (Marshall 6). He argues that the Christian concept of redemption exemplifies the most clear coherence with this criterion. Ever since, transcendentalists, Rahner included, have adopted Schleiermacher’s general approach and method while modifying the criterion necessary for a meaningful understand of redemption which generally available to all of humanity.

At this point, before jumping into Rahner we must consider a couple other thinkers who are especially relevant to any discussion of Rahner and Balthasar and who critiqued and revised some the thought of those mentioned above.

Joseph Marechal, a Jesuit priest from Belgium, critiqued Kant for failing to account for the dynamism of the human intellect since objective knowledge can only be obtained from categorical judgment of speculative reason. (McCool xiv). Marechal attempted to remedy Kant’s transcendental approach to make it cohere with the foundations of St. Thomas Aquinas’ thought. “Marechal believed that the transcendental method could be extended beyond epistemology and could be used to ground a general metaphysics whose form and structure would resemble the metaphysics of St. Thomas” (McCool xvi). Rahner, following Marechal, becomes the most influential proponent of Transcendental Thomism. However, he attempts to improve upon Marechal’s approach by developing a self-grounding metaphysics rather relying on epistemology and by putting more emphasis on the conscious of the human person.

Around the same time, a Protestant theologian by the name of Karl Barth is heavily critiquing Schleiermacher and his method. “Barth saw Schleiermacher as adapting to modernity where he should have resisted it, and distorting theology by moving its center from God and God’s revelation to man” (Kilby 257). Barth was especially critical of the anthropological turn taken by Schleiermacher and others as well as of the notion of having a anthropological or transcendent system on which to rely. Barth countered, “I have no Christological principle and no Christological method. Rather in each individual theological question I seek to orientate myself afresh…not on a Christological dogma but on Jesus Christ himself)” (quoted in Marshall 116).

To a certain extent, Balthasar will take a quasi-Barthian approach. His critique of Rahner vaguely parallels Barth’s critique of Schleiermacher, and his Christology attempted to be Christocentric, like Barth, rather than anthropocentric, like Rahner and the other transcendental Thomists.

In our next post we shall look explicitly at Rahner’s philosophical system and transcendental method.

Sources

Kilby, Karen. “Balthasar and Karl Rahner.” Cambridge Companion to Hans urs von Balthasar. Oakes, Moss, ed., Cambridge UP: 2004

Marshall, Bruce. Christology in Conflict: the identity of a Savior in Rahner and Barth. NY: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1987.

Rahner, Karl. Rahner Reader. Ed. McCool, Gerald. London: Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd, 1975.

Concerned Catholics for the Future of America - Open Letter to Obama

2008-11-17T07:39:00.004-06:00

November 14, 2008

Open Letter to President-elect Barack Obama

President-elect Barack Obama,

As American Catholics, we, the undersigned, would like to reiterate the congratulations given to you by Pope Benedict XVI. We will be praying for you as you undertake the office of President of the United States.

Wishing you much good will, we hope we will be able to work with you, your administration, and our fellow citizens to move beyond the gridlock which has often harmed our great nation in recent years. Too often, partisan politics has hampered our response to disaster and misfortune. As a result of this, many Americans have become resentful, blaming others for what happens instead of realizing our own responsibilities. We face serious problems as a people, and if we hope to overcome the crises we face in today's world, we should make a serious effort to set aside the bitterness in our hearts, to listen to one another, and to work with one another

One of the praiseworthy elements of your campaign has been the call to end such partisanship. You have stated a desire to engage others in dialogue. With you, we believe that real achievement comes not through the defamation of one's opponents, nor by amassing power and using it merely as a tool for one's own individual will. We also believe dialogue is essential. We too wish to appeal to the better nature of the nation. We want to encourage people to work together for the common good. Such action can and will engender trust. It may change the hearts of many, and it might alter the path of our nation, shifting to a road leading to a better America. We hope this theme of your campaign is realized in the years ahead.

One of the critical issues which currently divides our nation is abortion. As you have said, no one is for abortion, and you would agree to limit late-term abortions as long as any bill which comes your way allows for exceptions to those limits, such as when the health of the mother is in jeopardy. You have also said you would like to work on those social issues which cause women to feel as if they have a need for an abortion, so as to reduce the actual number of abortions being performed in the United States.

Indeed, you said in your third presidential debate, "But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, ‘We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby.'"

As men and women who oppose abortion and embrace a pro-life ethic, we want to commend your willingness to engage us in dialogue, and we ask that you live up to your promise, and engage us on this issue.

There is much we can do together. There is much that we can do to help women who find themselves in difficult situations so they will not see abortion as their only option. There is much which we can do to help eliminate those unwanted pregnancies which lead to abortion.

One of your campaign promises is of grave concern to many pro-life citizens.
On January 22, 2008, the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when speaking of the current right of women in America to have abortions, you said, "And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president."

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) might well undermine your engagement of pro-life Americans on the question of abortion. It might hamper any effort on your part to work with us to limit late-term abortions. We believe FOCA does more than allow for choice. It may force the choice of a woman upon others, and make them morally complicit in such choice.
One concern is that it would force doctors and hospitals which would otherwise choose not to perform abortions to do so, even if it went against their sacred beliefs. Such a law would undermine choice, and might begin the process by which abortion is enforced as a preferred option, instead of being one possible choice for a doctor to practice.

It is because of such concern we write. We urge you to engage us, and to dialogue with us, and to do so before you consider signing this legislation. Let us reason together and search out the implications of FOCA. Let us carefully review it and search for contradictions of those positions which we hold in common.

If FOCA can be postponed for the present, and serious dialogue begun with us, as well as with those who disagree with us, you will demonstrate that your administration will indeed be one that rises above partisanship, and will be one of change. This might well be the first step toward resolving an issue which tears at the fabric of our churches, our political process, our families, our very society, and that causes so much hardship and heartache in pregnant women.

Likewise, you have also recently stated you might over-ride some of President G.W. Bush's executive orders. This is also a concern to us. We believe doing so without having a dialogue with the American people would undermine the political environment you would like to establish. Among those issues which concern us are those which would use taxpayer money to support actions we find to be morally questionable, such as embryonic stem cell research, or to fund international organizations that would counsel women to have an abortion (this would make abortion to be more than a mere choice, but an encouraged activity).

Consider, sir, your general promise to the American people and set aside particular promises to a part of your constituency. This would indicate that you plan to reject politics as usual. This would indeed be a change we need.

Sincerely,

Deal W. Hudson
Christopher Blosser

Marjorie Campbell
Mark J. Coughlan
Rev. James A. Nowack
Craig D. Baker
Susan DeBoisblanc
Megan Stout
Joshua D. Brumfield
Ashley M. Brumfield
Michael J. Iafrate
Natalie Navarro
Matthew Talbot
Paul Mitchell
Henry C Karlson III
Darren Belajac
Adam P Verslype
Josiah Neeley
Michael J. Deem
Katerina M. Deem
Natalie Mixa
Henry Newman
Anthony M. Annett
Mickey Jackson
Veronica Greenwell
Thomas Greenwell, PhD
Robert C. Koerpel
Nate Wildermuth

New Online Signatures
William Simon
Deacon Keith Fournier
Mary Ruebelmann-Benavides
Jesus Benavides
Steve Dillard
Toby Danna
William Eunice
Mark Shea
Fr. Phil Bloom
Christopher Gant
Robert King, OP.
Peter Halabu
Kelly Clark
Eric Giunta
Mark Gordon
Linda Schuldt
Michael Mlekoday
Bryan McLaughlin
Victoria Hoffman
Jonathan Jones
Jim Janknegt
Marcel LeJeune
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Ken Hallenius III
Zach Gietl
Megan Bless
Kathy Myers
Timothy M. Mason
Kevin Koster
John Anthony D’Arpino
Brian Desmarais
Mary C. Borneman

Thesis Thoughts - Historical Background

2008-11-10T18:33:00.003-06:00

In our pluralistic society, what is the state of Christology and the Christian dogma that Jesus Christ is the universal savior of mankind and the cosmos? Before focus our efforts more directly on the above question and the specific theologians at hand, we would benefit from a brief historical overview of the topic.

From beginning of Christianity, throughout the New Testament we are confronted with seemingly contradictory passages on the universal or not so universal salvific will of God. Avery Cardinal Dulles, in his First Things article "Who can be Saved?" lists a series of Biblical texts which seem to indicate that salvation requires faith and belief in Jesus Christ. In this regard, he quotes St. Paul, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9) and St. Mark "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16), among others, and draws the
conclusion that "according to the primary Christian documents, salvation comes through personal faith in Jesus Christ, followed and signified by sacramental baptism."

On the other hand, in his book Dare We He 'That All Men Be Saved'? von Balthasar convincingly shows that this conclusion is not so clear. He contrasts Jesus' statement of condemnation with statements of Jesus' or God's universal salvific will. We can here cite St. Timothy who writes, "This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all" (1 Tim 2:3-6). Balthasar, quoting St. Peter, adds that "God does not wish ' that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Pet 3:9).

What are we to make of this? Certainly we cannot expect a just and loving God to
condemn to hell those who have never even had the opportunity to hear the Gospel preached. But how can they be saved with belief in Christ, without Baptism, without being the Body of He who is life?

Dulles shows that some of the early Church fathers held exceptions to the necessity of explicit faith in Jesus for some of the ancient philosophers who seem to have found Christ in the truth of natural
wisdom and philosophy. On the other hand Augustine taught that those who had never heard the Gospel would be denied salvation because salvation comes this faith, which they clearly could not have had. They would suffer eternal punishment for original sin and their own personal sins. Dulles informs us that this Augustinian view held sway "throughout the middle ages."

In his Papal Bull Unam Sanctam, Pope Boniface VIII writes clearly and forcefully, "Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human
creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff." Additionally,the Council of Florence mentions "pagans" (not merely heretics and schismatics) for the first time in this regard, teaching "The holy Roman Church…firmly, believes, professes and preaches that "no one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans", but also Jews, heretics, or schismatics, can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go to the eternal fire."

However, starting in the 19th Century the Church's understanding of salvation "outside" the Church
begins to develop. In encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863), Pope Pius IX writes matter of factly "We all know that those who suffer from invincible ignorance with regard to our holy religion, if they carefully keep the precepts of the natural law which have been written by God in the hearts of all persons, if they are prepared to obey God, and if they lead a virtuous and dutiful
life, can, by the power of divine light and grace, attain eternal life." The Second Vatican Council affirmed Pope Pius' statement in Lumen Gentium which taught that Christ is the
sole mediator of salvation and the Church is necessary for salvation, but adds that "Divine Providence [does not] deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part,
have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life."

The fathers of the Second Vatican Council were allegedly strongly influence by the thought of Rahner and his "anonymous Christianity" in developing and formulating the relevant passages of Lumen Gentium. Therefore, in attempting to understand how non-Christians can be saved, theologians have often adopted and adapted Rahner's method and framework in order to discuss Christ as universal savior in a pluralistic society. However, after the Council, Rahner has been looked upon less favorably by the Magisterium, and Balthasar, whose thought Pope Benedict seems to especially appreciate, became one of Rahner's harshest critics.

Balthasar does not disagree with Rahner so much on the idea of salvation outside the [visible] Church (in Dare We Hope he comes closer to apokatastasis than Rahner ever did), but he is wary and harshly critical of Rahner's method, which has been termed, "Transcendental Thomism."

In my next post I shall explore some of the philosophical and historical influence which led Rahner to choose his method and led Balthasar his.

SOURCES

Balthasar, Hans urs von. Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? San Francisco:Ignatius Press, 1988.

Dulles, Avery Cardinal. “Who Can Be Saved?” First Things. February 2008

Dupuis, J., and J. Neuner. The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church. Alba House, 1983.

MacIntyre on voting

2008-10-29T22:14:00.003-05:00

I just stumbled across an exerpt from Alasdair MacIntyre's "The Only Vote Worth Casting in November" in which he discusses how to approach a situation with two "politically intolerable" candidates.

MacIntyre writes:

When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives. These are propositions which in the abstract may seem to invite easy agreement. But, when they find application to the coming presidential election, they are likely to be rejected out of hand. For it has become an ingrained piece of received wisdom that voting is one mark of a good citizen, not voting a sign of irresponsibility. But the only vote worth casting in November is a vote that no one will be able to cast, a vote against a system that presents one with a choice between Bush’s conservatism and Kerry’s liberalism, those two partners in ideological debate, both of whom need the other as a target.
….

We note at this point that we have already broken with both parties and both candidates. Try to promote the pro-life case that we have described within the Democratic Party and you will at best go unheard and at worst be shouted down. Try to advance the case for economic justice as we have described it within the Republican Party and you will be laughed out of court. Above all, insist, as we are doing, that these two cases are inseparable, that each requires the other as its complement, and you will be met with blank incomprehension. For the recognition of this is precluded by the ideological assumptions in terms of which the political alternatives are framed. Yet at the same time neither party is wholeheartedly committed to the cause of which it is the ostensible defender. Republicans happily endorse pro-choice candidates, when it is to their advantage to do so. Democrats draw back from the demands of economic justice with alacrity, when it is to their advantage to do so. And in both cases rhetorical exaggeration disguises what is lacking in political commitment.
In this situation a vote cast is not only a vote for a particular candidate, it is also a vote case for a system that presents us only with unacceptable alternatives. The way to vote against the system is not to vote.

I tend to agree. What do you think?

Venting on Voting

2008-10-13T20:35:00.001-05:00

Disclaimer: (1) If I had to vote today, my conscience would not allow me to vote for either McCain or Obama. In other words, I have no political horse in this race. What follows are not political frustrations, but frustration with an unacceptable Catholic approach. (2) This is not directed to any one person in particular, but is a response to a false narrowing of orthodoxy to a particular issue or political ideology. (3) This is very one-sided post, and intentionally so. I am writing directly in response to those Catholics who claim it is a sin to vote for Obama. If I were to come in contact with an abundance of Catholics making similar errors in reference to McCain, I would respond similarly.

I am sick and tired of hearing or reading that Catholics cannot vote for Obama. I do not mean to implicate your everyday Catholic who might be ignorant of the complexities of moral theology or the breadth of orthodoxy or a proper understanding of conscience. Rather, I am absolutely frustrated with Catholics who should know better - priests, deacons, theologians, intelligent and intentional Catholics - who insist upon focusing squarely and exclusively on the issue of abortion. They claim it is sinful to vote for a pro-choice candidate and implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) state that Catholics MUST vote for McCain. In doing so they obliterate the role of conscience in voting, which should be a personal prudential decision made with an informed conscience.

The Church’s teaching on this is clear. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops stated it in their document Faithful Citizenship:

A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity... There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil...In the end, this is a decision to be made by each Catholic guided by a conscience formed by Catholic moral teaching...As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.

It really is that clear. A Catholic may, without committing sin, vote for Obama provided he is voting in spite of, not because of, Obama’s position on abortion. Period. Each Catholic, as an individual person, is responsible for informing himself on the Church’s teaching on the issues, on the candidates’ positions on the issues, on the integrity, qualification, etc. of the candidates. Once the person has informed himself, he should, in prayer, make a decision according to his conscience. No one should tell anyone that it is a sin to vote for either of these two candidates. (However, it would be a sin to vote for Obama because of his pro-choice position.)

Furthermore, these people reduce the Catholic consistent ethic of life to abortion, and in doing so, they brush aside the fact that McCain is simply not a pro-life candidate. 1) He is not against abortion in cases of rape, incest, etc. 2) As far as I can tell, his proposed policy is that the legality of abortion should be left up to the individual states. While this is an improvement over the current state of the law, it cannot be called a pro-life position in any sense of the term. 3) McCain is currently for embryonic stem cell research, which is basically abortion at an earlier stage and for the purpose of research. How can someone really make the claim that he is a “pro-life” candidate?

Everyone should educate themselves on the issues and a Catholic understanding of them. Everyone should educate themselves on the candidates. After reading, learning, praying, and discerning, everyone should feel free to vote their conscience. It is not a sin to vote for either candidate provided you are not voting for them because of their support for an intrinsically evil act.

I may disagree with your prudential judgment. You may disagree with mine. We can talk about it. We can debate it. But we should never threaten anyone with the guilt of sin due to their prudential judgment as a Catholic voter.

Random thoughts, some intelligent, some... not much

2008-10-08T09:37:00.003-05:00

1. Transcendence and sport

Man, as a being made in the image and likeness is a being open to transcendence. Animals are not open to transcendence. Plants are not open to transcendence. Only we have the ability to not only conceive, but to also to experience that which draws us entirely outside of ourselves and into contact with the absolute spiritual horizon of being.

I have certainly experience transcendence several times in my life in the face of love, self-sacrifice, the Mass, the Eucharist. However, many do not open themselves up to perceiving transcendence as such.

I was at the Saints - Vikings game Monday night. I was at the Monday night Saints home-opener against the Falcons after Katrina. Reggie's punt returns against the Vikings, Gleason's blocked punt against the Falcons -- these were events with the potential to jar to the most secular individual, those most numbed to their intrinsic transcendence, into awareness of the horizon of being. Man, woman, and child forgot about themselves, lost themselves in the euphoria, hugged random strangers. Against the Falcons, the city, a unity, as a body, experienced real hope for the first time since Katrina. A meaningless event, a spectator sport brought the body of man in New Orleans back from the edge of despair.

I don't intend to exaggerate the importance of such events. These are not deeply meaningful transcendent events as the birth of a child might be, but each time I experience them I am struck by the very real transcendence of the moment and of humanity. There cannot be transcendence without the Transcendent. These very experiences of losing ourselves in communion, in hope, are experiences which can remind us of He who emptied himself for us so that we might Hope in the face of death and despair.

2. Presidential Debates are pointless

I really don't have a lot more to say, and I really don't mean quite as broadly as I made it sound, but watching and listening last night to the two men who are vying to be "the most powerful man in the world" in a "town hall" setting nearly made me sick. The VP debates had more substance. I can get more honesty and integrity from a high school student caught cheating. I am not at all excited about either candidate.

3. When Voting Season rolls around Catholics forget about the Seamless garment

I am so tired of hearing whom I generally respect reduce the election or being "pro-life" down to one or two issues. I am so tired of hearing those Catholics tell other Catholics that they HAVE to vote for this candidate or that one, or else they will in sin. What frustrates me so is that people are often people who know Church teaching on this. They know it is morally legit to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsically evil act as long you are supporting him/her in spite of their position on said issue. Nevertheless, when it comes time to vote, it is a sin and a crime to vote for Obama in spite of his position on abortion and ESCR or McCain in spite of his position on war and ESCR. Everyone has the right and the duty to inform their own conscience on the Truth and on the candidates and to make a free and informed and prayerful decision according to their own conscience. No one has a right to say anyone must vote this way or that.

As I have said in my series on Being a Catholic in America, we are called to be pro-life, but this does not mean we are merely anti-abortion. It means we are in support of a consistent ethic of life, a seamless garment which upholds and respects and demands respect for human life at all stages. This is consistently talked about, but rarely lived out. Instead people focus only on abortion and only on the Republican platform to end abortion by legal and judicial means. However, the Republican platform does little to nothing to help those who are in difficult situations, situations which may make abortion seem like an attractive alternative. Furthermore, an unjust death is an unjust death. It should not matter whether a person is killed by an abortion, for ESCR, in an unjust war, by Capital punishment, etc. We should not and must stand for any of these. We should be outraged at all of them.

Where are the seamless garment Catholics?

4. Who are prophets?

The OT prophets were, generally speaking, neither of the priestly class nor of the ruling class. They were set apart. They preached the Word and Will of God, called for repentance and purity. Each and every Christian is baptized priest, prophet, and king. We, as Church, as the Body of Christ, are called to be set apart, to be a prophetic witness to the Truth and Hope and Life we've found in Christ. Why then do we turn to the media for truth? to Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin for hope? to money and consumerism for life? Too many of us remain more American than Catholic. This is not acceptable. Dare we witness to Christ? Dare we take up our crosses and follow Him?

5. Interesting stuff...

Katerina wrote a great post entitled "Knowledge, Freedom, Conscience and the Politics of Incompetence:
my Case Against Obama… and McCain."
I strongly suggest you read it. It was part of the inspiration for point 3, above.

A synod on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church is currently taking place. Stay tuned. We won't won't see anything groundbreaking, but, when you are talking about the Word of God, its always good stuff.

This blogger is also doing some interesting and related writing on peace, war, non-violence in the OT. Check him out.

6. Thesis...

I am currently researching and will be writing my thesis for my MA in Theology. I will be exploring how non-Christians might be saved. Specifically I will be looking at the dispute between Rahner and Balthasar on this issue. Although it probably will not specifically play into my research or writing, this is connected to my thought on non-violence. The Body of Christ has ascended into heaven and into eternity. The Church is the Body of Christ. The Church conists of the Church militant (those (explicitly ?) within the Church on earth), the Church suffering (those in purgatory), and the Church victorious (those in the Heaven). Vatican II asserts that non-Christians can be saved, thus even if a person is not part of the Church militant explicitly, he may become part of the Body of Christ in purgatory and eventually in heaven. [This is not entirely precise, but it is sufficient here.] We must not wish or commit violence against the Body of Christ or anyone who is or may be part of the Body of Christ. We do not know who will become part of the Body of Christ. Therefore we must not wish or commit violence against any one.

Kudos Supreme Court; Shame, shame Jindal - Death Penalty for Rapists

2008-10-01T19:13:00.003-05:00

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, said that imposing the death penalty in child rape cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Around the same time, Louisiana's "Catholic" governor, Bobby Jindal, signed Louisiana bill, SB 144 into law. "It gives the court the option of castration on a first conviction of aggravated rape, forcible rape, second degree sexual battery, aggravated incest, molestation of a juvenile when the victim is under the age of 13, or an aggravated crime against nature. Castration is required on a second conviction of the listed crimes."

Recently, Jindal and Louisiana (and the Bush administration) challenged the Supreme Court decision and ask the SC to revisit their ruling. The Supreme Court declined to change their opinion, amending it only slightly to account for a military law. In response, Jindal fired back:

“The Supreme Court was dead wrong in their ruling," Governor Bobby Jindal said. "It is disappointing that they did not take this opportunity to move quickly to rehear this case and examine their legally improper and absurd decision to remove death as a penalty for the horrific crime of raping a child. The fact that they based their ruling on their own perception of a ‘national trend’ against the death penalty is outrageous and harms the credibility of the entire Court. We will continue to work to evaluate ways to amend our statute to maintain death as a penalty for the incredibly brutal crime of raping a child.”

Our bishops have been calling for an end to the death penalty for 20 years. Jindal response and actions are not acceptable for a Catholic. (For more on these read USCCB link or this from Archbishop Chaput.)

I voted for Jindal, and depending on his opponent would consider voting for him again, but this is very disheartening. I understand why abortion is considered a "bigger" issue. I understand why it gets more attention. I don't have a problem with that. Nevertheless, Jindal's blatant slamming of Church teaching on Catholic punishment is very problematic, in ways similar to Biden's and Pelosi's stance on abortion.

Will Archbishop Hughes or Bishop Muench make a statement? I'm not even sure one should be made (publicly), but it is frustrating to see Catholics (of both political parties) consistently showing they are more American or Republican or Democrat than they are Catholic.

Shame on you Bobby Jindal

Christ our Hope... OT Appendix

2008-09-29T18:00:00.003-05:00

The following is a response I wrote to a comment on a previous post. Someone suggested I make it a post of its own, so here it is.

The commenter wrote: "It is not congruent with a pacifist deity." [Here it references some actions of God in the OT, specifically death of the first born at Passover and "wiping out" "wicked people"]

I’m not at all making an argument for a pacifist deity. I am not really sure what that means. The God who is Being or Existence, whose name is I AM, who is eternal and the Author of all created things, cannot rightly be called either pacifist or violent, etc--that would be, I think, of anthropomorphism akin to that of the Greek gods. We may be able to debate whether He reveals Himself in Scripture to just and loving God or malicious and cruel, but as Creator he cannot rightly be called violent or pacifist. A limited being, like human, we he discovers another being, has only finite authority over that being, if any at all. However, the Maker of a being has infinite authority over that being--the authority to choose to give life or to revoke that gift, etc.

I am not arguing that God is a pacifist deity.I am claiming that the most virtuous response, the Christian response, to conflict is a non-violent response. Hopefully the difference will be becoming more clear in the final few posts.

There are certainly incongruencies and perhaps even flat out contradictions between the OT and NT. Heck, Jesus himself admits as much in the “you have heard that it was…., but I say to you…” sermon. Nevertheless, for the Christian, Jesus is the Christ, the Word made Flesh, the full and complete self-revelation of God, thus he is the final interpreter of Sacred Scripture.

Also, as I mentioned before, God is revealing himself slowly to sinful humanity, and in doing so, he is slowly revealing man to himself. This revelation is also completed and perfected in Christ.

Finally, the Bible is not primarily a history book, or a science book, or even a morality book. It is primarily a book of proclamation. A legit use of the historical-critical method reveals that ancient literature did not so much intend to convey fact as to convey truth. Thus “what happened” and “what is true” do not always coincide perfectly (although it is difficult if not impossible for us to draw that line).

The Bible tells a story. It tells us about Salvation history. It speaks Truth, but this Truth is not always historical or scientific fact or moral platitude. God works with us where we are. Thus it is possible to conceive that what is in the OT is a lot of an imperfect and muddled following of God’s will. They may have intended to do what He willed, but were incapable of conceiving of the radical Hope they could have in him. This becomes more explicit later in the OT. As Israel is responding, perhaps “justly” and perhaps not, according to the reason of men, the prophets are calling for peace and mercy and repentance. Even David, who despite his obvious flaws, could be called a “saint” of the OT, is denied the honor of building the Temple because he has blood on his hands.

David, it seems to be, could be a microcosm of what I am talking about. God calls him and blessed him. David sins and repents. God forgives him and blessed, granting him success and kingship, but God tells him that his hands are stained with blood. He may not build the Temple.

Considering briefly your question about Passover, I would like to make a few points. We must ask ourselves a series of questions, questions for which I do not yet have well articulated answers.

What is being proclaimed here? What is the historical situation of the event? Of the authorship of the story?

We can say that it was Pharaoh who initially ordered to killing of the Hebrew first-born. Thus the Passover is not rightly conceived absent from this. This is yet another case of self-inflicted judgment, and God, as God, has the right to judgment. However, I would add that his judgment cannot be separated from his mercy. Thus Pope Benedict argues that the transcendent concept of Justice, which can never be achieved on earth (how then was it originally conceived?) is itself an argument for the afterlife. Thus God, who is God of both the living and the dead, who is the Author of Life, has the authority and ability to the judge the Egyptians in this way, but in His justice, may reward to the “innocent” children infinitely more than justice would demand.

Much of this is somewhat speculative and will probably come across as grasping for straws, but I can only add this. For me, Jesus is no longer merely some piece of information I was taught in school and raised to believed. Jesus is a person whom I have encountered in very real, but unempirical and difficult to articulate ways. I do not question the existence of God or the Love of Christ anymore than I question the love of my wife or parents. The Christ whom I have encountered is the Word made flesh. Integrity and authenticity compel me to interpret life and scripture in light of Him. I do not fully understand the intricacies of the Bible. But I trust in its Truth and hope to grow in understanding. I thank you for continuing to push me, because it is forcing me challenge some of my preconceptions and helping my knowledge to grow in depth.

Finally, I would suggest listening to the following, which is a little more coherent although less specifically directed to your question, than my response: click here

Pax.

Christ out Hope: Conclusion - THE FOLLY OF VIOLENCE AND THE BODY OF CHRIST

2008-09-26T22:17:00.002-05:00

This is the conclusion of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Part 3 and Part 4 began to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war and . Part 5 looked at the witness of early Christianity and the changes which took place after Constantine along with the thought of Augustine and Aquinas on the issue. In part 6 we studied the witness of the contemporary Church. Part 7 examined the thoughts of some recent American Catholic theologians on the topic. Part 8 explored the way of violence.

Genesis reveals to us the presence of violence at the onset of history. Ever since, mankind has chosen to express its jealousy, vengeance, and hatred with violence. Christ calls us to move past this. He institutes the new law. He tells us no longer an eye for an eye, but love, forgiveness, prayer, sacrifice. Why does Christ not want us to use violence to mete out justice? Because, “Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings.”[1] Not only will violence not bring about lasting peace; to the contrary, violent war devastates what it claims to defend, human life, dignity, and freedom. In light of this knowledge and the indeterminate violence of modern warfare, the Compendium adds,

“War is a ‘scourge’ and is never anappropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, ‘it has never been and it will never be.’ In the end, war is ‘the failure of all true humanism,’ “it is always a defeat for humanity,’ ‘never again some peoples against others, never again! ... no more war, no more war!’[2]

Again we hear reference not only to our Christians brothers and sisters, but to humanity as a whole. Because of our understanding of the Communion of Saints, we can understand that when a Christian merely wishes harm upon a brother Christian, he harms and desecrates the Body of Christ. However, what we easily forget is that we are merely temporal. We cannot know when, how, or if a person may convert and choose to walk with Christ. Therefore, we must treat all humanity as our brothers. We must treat all humanity as we would treat Christ. For Christ intends to drawall men to himself,[3]and we, as the living Body of Christ, must be his hands and feet, must witness to his love to all mankind. Christ tells us that he, as the Divine Physician, comes for sick, the sinner, those who really need him;[4] we, as his Body, must especially strive to love those who are so lacking in the peace of Christ that they would turn to violence, hatred, and evil.

We can turn to the Communion of Saints, the Body of Christ, for examples and inspiration in this regard. Franz Jagerstatter, a German Catholic during the reign of the Third Reich, who
was martyred for refusing to join the army, even though his priests and bishop gave him permission, writes, “As a Christian, I prefer to do my fighting with the Word of God and not with arms. We need no rifles or pistols for our battle, but instead spiritual weapons — and the foremost among these is prayer.”[5] Nearly two millennia earlier, St. Justin Martyr writes, “We who formerly murdered one another now not only do not make war upon our enemies but, that we may not lie or deceive our judges, we gladly die confessing Christ.”[6]

We have testimony to the love, the self-sacrificial love, which the holy ones of God embrace as Christ embraced his cross. We must live and love in solidarity with all humanity. Here we can gain confidence from the efficacy and success of this new way when it is actually attempted on the large scale. Even Weigel affirms this. He writes, “By igniting a revolution of
conscience in Poland in June 1979, John Paul II had a decisive impact on shaping the nonviolent politics that eventually produced the revolution of 1989 in east-central Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.”[7] However he adds that it is unreasonable to believe that this example can be universalized. We must address this critique before concluding our analysis.

Weigel may be correct. He is not correct that this is the inevitable state of things in a fallen world. But, he is right because too few Christians have considered and attempted Jesus’ nonviolent love. Instead of hoping in the witness of Christ, we hope in the power of the U.S. military. Now that the Church is no longer wedded to the state, the Church, the Body of
Christ, no longer has need of military force. We Christians, we faithful disciples of Christ, must remember that we belong to the City of God first and foremost. With Origen, we can theoretically or potentially confirm the justness of certain secular wars, but as Christians we can no longer allow the Body of Christ to be associated with the violent destruction of life. Origen argues that Christians are doing more good for justice by praying than are those who
take up arms in the name of righteousness.[8] Just as the pagan priests were kept from warring to keep their hands clean for sacrifices, so we, a “holy priesthood”, must keep our hands free from human blood and worthy of offering “spiritual sacrifices” to God.[9] Over time, the powerful witness[10] of the Body of Christ loving and, in some cases, dying in solidarity with the
poor and the violent will bring the Truth of Christ’s victory to all nations, such that those who are willing to take up the sword, or the gun, in the name of justice will dwindle in number. However, those violent aggressors will also dwindle in number. This would be a long and slow solution, but it is the divine way of bringing about peace and justice without sacrificing the Gospel.

This witness cannot and will not merely happen by force of will, on the practical realm; we, the Body of Christ, must mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically prepare ourselves for nonviolent resistance, just as soldiers prepare themselves for violent resistance. We must educate ourselves in peace and nonviolence. We must recognize that there is no guarantee that it will succeed in every instance, but neither does violence. Furthermore, Blessed Theresa of Calcutta reminds us that we are not called to be successful, but faithful.

Jesus’ new way, the way of kenotic nonviolent love is not easy. Because, “the only real difference between violent force and nonviolent force is who we are willing to sacrifice –
ourselves and our enemies,”[11] Self- sacrifice is certainly not easy, but “there is no greater love than this.”[12] It will be more challenging than resorting to violence. Nevertheless, we must
answer this call to sacrificial love and witness. We can only accomplish this if we give attention to the spiritual realm as well. We shall listen to the advice of Pope Benedict XVI in his recent Encyclical Spe Salvi in this regard. The Vicar of Christ writes:

“the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme.

“Yet once again the question arises: are we capable of this? Is the other important enough to warrant my becoming, on his account, a person who suffers? Does truth matter to me enough to make suffering worthwhile? Is the promise of love so great that it justifies the gift of myself? In the history of humanity, it was the Christian faith that had the particular merit of bringing forth within man a new and deeper capacity for these kinds of suffering that are decisive for his humanity. The Christian faith has shown us that truth, justice and love are not simply ideals, but enormously weighty realities. It has shown us that God —Truth and Love in person—desired to suffer for us and with us… in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which
we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after day. Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope.”[13]

All Christians share a universal call to holiness. We are all called to be saints. If our hope is in Christ and his victory over death, and if we have hope that God is justice and peace and mercy and love, then we can have the courage and faith, to follow He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life to the death if necessary for love of his children, our brothers and sisters, even if they happen to be our enemies.

If we can be faithful in following Christ, God will work through us and bring Christ, bring hope, to those who may want to kill us.

[1] CSDC, 496.
[2] Ibid., 497.
[3] John 12:32.
[4] Matt 9:12.

[5] "Franz Jagerstatter: The Blessed Objector." Whispers in the Loggia.http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2007/06/blessed-objector.html (accessed April 25, 2008).

[6] St. Justin Martyr, "First Apology." Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers,”http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html (accessed April 25, 2008), 39.
[7] Weigel.
[8] Orgien, Contra Celsus, (248), VII, 73.
[9] 1 Peter 2:5.
[10] Part of our witness should also be lobbying our countries to spend time and money researching and developing nonviolent weapons that could rend unjust aggressors unable to cause harm without violating the dignity of the person.
[11] Nate Wildermuth, “Militant,” Vox-Nova, http://vox-nova.com/2007/06/04/militant-part-1/ (2-20-08). I am in debt to Nate for much of his research and thought on this topic.
[12] John 15:13
[13] Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Spe Salvi, (2007),38-39.

Christ our Hope: Part 8 - THE WAY OF NONVIOLENCE

2008-09-19T19:06:00.001-05:00

This is Part 8 of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Part 3 and Part 4 began to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war and . Part 5 looked at the witness of early Christianity and the changes which took place after Constantine along with the thought of Augustine and Aquinas on the issue. In part 6 we studied the witness of the contemporary Church. Part 7 examined the thoughts of some recent American Catholic theologians on the topic.

Pope John Paul II, echoing and explaining Christ’s teachings and witness writes:

“One’s neighbor is…the living image of God the Father, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and placed under the permanent action of the Holy Spirit. One’s neighbor must therefore be loved, even if an enemy, with the same love with which the Lord loves him or her; and for that person’s sake one must be ready for sacrifice, even the ultimate one: to lay down one’s life for the brethren.”[1]

However, at another speech he reminds us of the duty we have to defend ourselves and others from unjust aggressors.[2] Nevertheless, he does add that war can never truly solve the problems it intends to, because of the death and destruction it leaves in its path.[3]

We hear from him a reaffirmation that Jesus’ call to nonviolence is not a cowardice or passivism. It must be active. We are duty bound, by justice, to defend others. But, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that, as followers of Christ, our response must not be violent.

“[Christ] does not oppose violence with a stronger violence. He opposes violence precisely with the contrary: with love to the end, his cross. This is God’s humble way of overcoming: With his love … he puts a limit to violence. This is a way of conquering that seems very slow to us, but it is the true way of overcoming evil, of overcoming violence, and we must trust this divine way of overcoming.”[4]

It seems then, that we can say with Pope Benedict XVI that our hope must not be in violence. We must love our neighbors and even our enemies with the very love of He who is Love. This new way of overcoming evil which Christ shows us on the cross will run in the face of our American microwave “I need solutions now”mentality, but the Holy Father encourages us that this slow way is the trueway, the divine way, of overcoming evil.

In light of this, we can confidently say that we must confront injustice and evil, but our confrontation must not be violent. It must be an imitatio Christi. But, practically speaking, what might this look like? Is war necessary for justice? Is justice necessary for peace? Is violence necessary for war? Pope John Paul II again points us in the right direction: “There is no peace without justice. There is no justice without forgiveness.”[5] John Paul II is speaking only a few months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He is gently chiding and lovingly reminding us that we must not repay violence with violence. Vengeance is empty and cyclical. Justice must be served, but if we want peace, we must be willing to forgive. This is not new
or novel. When we pray the Our Father, we admit as much.

We can now recognize the importance of forgiveness, but how does this forgiveness relate to justice? How do they coexist? John Paul II again offers us his wisdom, teaching, “The
primacy and superiority of love vis-a-vis justice - this is a mark of the whole of revelation - are revealed precisely through mercy”[6] and “Properly understood, justice constitutes, so to speak, the goal of forgiveness. In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as
its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult.”[7]
Now, Jesus’ new way begins to come into focus. Nonviolence does not mean passivity. Love is superior to justice, thus self-defense and defense of others does not have to be violent. Furthermore, in order for true justice and peace to reign, violence cannot be relied upon, while mercy and forgiveness, based in love, must be offered to our neighbor.

Those with acute knowledge of the evils of the world, those have experienced war or are aware of the irrationality and hatred which has corrupted the hearts of our “enemies,” will at this point proclaim that without force, without violence, without arms, we will not be able to secure justice, and the violence of the enemy via terrorism or other means will win the day. In response to this we must briefly address the folly of violence.

[1] John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, (1987), 40.
[2] John Paul II, “Peace: a Gift of God Entrusted to Us,” World Day of Peace Message,(1982), 9. [3] John Paul II, “Offer Forgiveness and Receive Peace,” World Day of Peace Message, (1997), 4. [4] Benedict XVI, “Benedict XVI’s Reflection on Peace” Zenit, (July 25, 2005), http://www.zenit.org/article-16679?l=english

[5] John Paul II, “No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Forgiveness,” World Day of Peace Message, (2002), 15.
[6] John Paul II, Encyclical Dives en Misericordia, (1980), 4.

[7] Ibid., 14.

Christ our Hope: part 7 -AMERICAN THEOLOGIANS AND JUST-WAR

2008-09-09T21:39:00.001-05:00

This is Part 7 of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Part 3 and Part 4 began to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war and . Part 5 looked at the witness of early Christianity and the changes which took place after Constantine along with the thought of Augustine and Aquinas on the issue. In part 6 we studied the witness of the contemporary Church. The present installment will examine the thoughts of some recent American Catholic theologians on the topic.

While we must admit the occasional acknowledgement by the popes that all men have a duty to defend others, peace, mercy, and nonviolence have begun to occupy more of their thought and teaching. However, in contrast with the popes, we can see the thought of American Catholic theologians[1] continuing to focus on the just war theory and even attempting to interpret it less restrictively than was apparently intended by Augustine and Aquinas. First, they have exacerbated the misuse of the just war theory for politics rather than pastoral purposes. Michael Baxter explains,

The teaching on just war was, first and foremost, a form of pastoral reflection and discernment. And it was in this respect an ecclesial discourse. But a shift occurred in modern times…such that "just war theory" came to be seen primarily as a set of norms for managing the affairs of modern states in the arena of international politics. At length, it came to be seen almost exclusively in this way[2]

This has resulted in an eradication of the concept of penance from war. It has transferred the perceived moral culpability from the soldier in tandem with the state, to the head of the state alone. And it has led to the just war theory being used as a rationalizing tool to justify military actions of nation states rather than as a criterion meant to limit war and to discern penances.

A few examples will suffice to shed light on their thought. In 1963 Blessed John XXIII wrote Pacem in Terris in which he outlined a vision of peace based on truth, justice, love, and freedom – a vision which he considered to be attainable if the world would embrace the awareness of human dignity and rights and if the world would justly agree on an international public authority to help resolve conflicts. However, Weigel considers this a utopian vision. He writes, “Human nature being what it is, someone would undoubtedly breach the peace, and in some instances that breach of the peace would have to be met by the use of proportionate and discriminate armed force.”[3] Because the pillars set forth by Pope John XXIII –truth, justice, love, and freedom—cannot and will not succeed, according to Weigel’s implication, we must have a backup plan. That backup plan must include violent armed forces.

Let us conclude this portion of our discussion by considering a disagreement Weigel, Pope John Paul II’s biographer, has with John Paul’s year of 2000 message on the World Day of Peace, in which the Pope writes, “war is a defeat for humanity.”[4] The Pope continues to speak of the need for humanitarian intervention for those innocent victims in war torn countries.[5]Weigel assumes this intervention necessarily must be violent and armed intervention. He writes of “John Paul II’s insistence on a duty of humanitarian intervention, which would presumably include the use of proportionate and discriminate armed force.”[6] Cardinal James Stafford of Apostolic Penitentiary responded to Weigel in an interview, explaining that Weigel’s interpretation is “abbreviated” and “omits” important qualifiers which specify and limit the Pope’s statement. Specifically, says Stafford, Weigel ignored John Paul II’s insistence that the United Nations, an international authority like the one mentioned in Pacem in Terris, is the authority to make the call on potentially armed interventions, not any specific nation-state.[7]

Cardinal Stafford’s implication is that Weigel, intentionally or not, is ignoring the importance of an international authority because of his allegiance to the United States. In doing so, Weigel is departing from an authentic Catholic understanding of the just war theory as taught by our recent popes. Thus, he and those like him have failed to perceive the continual shift toward a renewed emphasis on nonviolence. Cardinal Stafford refers to this implied disobedience of American theologians and identifies a key to this new way of thinking about war to which the Council Fathers, following Jesus’ exhortation, have called us. Stafford explicates:

"Pope John XXIII spoke of this in 1963 when he said that a program for peace is based 'on the Gospel of obedience to God, mercy and forgiveness.' Major portions of the World Day of Peace messages…have been devoted to forgiveness and reconciliation. No one is talking about the Christian understanding and practice of forgiveness which are unique.”[8]

Thus we can finally begin to come to a conclusion, a resolution of this apparent contradiction between nonviolence and war, between mercy and justice. In order to do this we shall analogically adopt Augustine’s approach[9] to Sacred Scripture and assume that apparent contradictions between Scripture and Tradition are only apparent: if there appears to be a discrepancy, the error is in our interpretation, thus we much approach humbly, ridding ourselves of preconceptions and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. Let us begin.

[1] We speak here primarily of Richard Neuhaus, Geroge Weigel, and Michael Novak, among others.

[2] Baxter.

[3] George Weigel, “World Order: What Catholics Forgot,” First Things, May 2004.

[4] Pope John Paul II, “Peace on Earth to Those Whom God Loves,” World Day for Peace Message, 2004, 3.

[5] Ibid., 11.

[6] Weigel.

[7] Delia Gallagher, “Cardinal Stafford on War and the Church’s Teaching,” Zenit, May 2004, http://zenit.org/article-17478?l=english.

[8] Ibid.

[9] St. Augustine, Letters, 116.3.

Christ our Hope: Part 6 - Witness of the Contemporary Church

2008-08-27T16:08:00.003-05:00

This is Part 6 of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Part 3 and Part 4 began to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war and . Part 5 looked at the witness of early Christianity and the changes which took place after Constantine along with the thought of Augustine and Aquinas on the issue.

THE WITNESS OF THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

After Vatican II, The Catholic Church adopted and updated the thought of Augustine and Aquinas in the Catechism of the Catholic Church officially teaching the just war theory,[1]but, as we previously mentioned, the Catechism also speaks of the evangelical witness of those who fully answer Jesus’ call and respond nonviolently. Furthermore, we know that the just war theory was one of the two most controversial and debated items in the Catechism.[2]Here, in the context of and discussion about the just war theory in the Catechism, we see the reappearance of a dilemma, an apparent dichotomous paradox within Church tradition. God is perfectly merciful. God is perfectly just. We can see this apparent contradiction in the words of each of the last two Popes. Pope John Paul II writes, “‘legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the State’. Unfortunately it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life.”[3] However, Pope Benedict XVI writes, “Loving the enemy is the nucleus of the ‘Christian revolution,’…The revolution of love… Here is the heroism of the “lowly” who believe in God’s love and spread it, even at the cost of their lives!”[4]

What shall we make of this? We have seen already that Jesus clearly and irrevocably taught his disciples love of neighbor and nonviolent resistance. He showed us, by example, not to return evil with evil, but to love, and to forgive, and to pray. We have seen that the first Christians received Jesus’ call to holiness openly and without excuse or limit. For them Jesus’ teachings were not mere platitudes, but were life giving. We have also seen, in a unique way in the past one hundred years, what horrid evil and destruction mankind is capable of. Humanity has been further convinced of the apparent necessity of violent force to defend those who cannot defend themselves and to work for justice. In this respect we can quote the ancient Roman maxim as being accurate current American sensibility: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

Forced into unease by this apparent contradiction, we shall attempt to accept the challenge put forth by the Church in Gaudium et Spes, and echoed in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: we shall consider war with a new attitude.[5]

Before attempting a synthesis and determining a firm direction from which we can develop this new attitude, we would be remiss if we did not consider the recent Magisterial statements on war, peace, and violence. The diachronic response of the Magisterium to the atrocities of the last century has overwhelmingly begun to move in thought towards nonviolence: Pope Benedict XV, writing during WWI, speaks confidently that injustices can be rectified without violence and calls on all involved to lay down their weapons.[6] In 1944 Pope Pius XII proclaims, “The Church desires to win over peoples and to educate them to virtue and right social living, not by means of arms but with the truth. For ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God.’”[7] Pope Paul VI gives us a hint as to what alternative weapons we might employ:

“It is necessary before all else to provide Peace with other weapons - weapons different from those destined to kill and exterminate mankind. What is needed above all are moral weapons, those which give strength and prestige to international law...It is no longer a simple, ingenuous and dangerous utopia. It is the new Law of mankind which goes forward, and which arms Peace with a formidable principle: "You are all brethren."[8]

Additionally, predating, but adding to the thought of Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes condemns the notion of peace through an arms race[9] and teaches, “the Council wishes passionately to summon Christians to cooperate, under the help of Christ the author of peace, with all men in securing among themselves a peace based on justice and love and in setting up the instruments of peace.”[10]

Based on the above evidence, a shift in Church understanding of violence and war becomes evident. In light of teachings of our popes, no longer can we speak of a Christian war at all, at least not one which implies violent weapons aimed at the destruction of men. What might this new type of war be like? Is it even reasonable? Before we more fully concern ourselves with these questions, we must give heed to the opposite perspective.

[1] CCC 2309.

[2] Palermo, 2005.

[3] John Paul II, Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (1995), 55.

[4] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Feb. 18, 2007.

[5] Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, (Rome:the Holy See, 1965), 80; CSDC, 497.

[6] Benedict XV, Encyclical Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, (1914), 4.

[7] Pius XII, Encyclical Summi Maeroris, (1950), 12.

[8] Paul VI, “The Real Weapons of Peace,” World Day of Peace Message, Jan 1, 1976.

[9] Gaudium et Spes, 81

[10] Ibid., 77.

Christ our Hope: Part 5 - Witness of Early Christianity

2008-08-19T17:44:00.002-05:00

This is Part 5 of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Part 3 and Part 4 began to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war.

THE WITNESS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Up until the time of Constantine, history bears witness to the lives of the first Christians’ taking to heart Jesus’ “third way” and rejecting violence in all situations. In their writing and in their lives Christians lived out Jesus’ commands to love to their enemies, to pray for them, to turn the other cheek, and in following his example, to pray for their enemies while being persecuted unto death in a witness to the efficacy and power of Jesus’ kenotic love. We do not here have time to explore the witness thoroughly, but a few poignant quotes and testimonies will suffice.

The Didache, considered to be the teachings of the Apostles, opens with a paraphrasing of Jesus’ non-violent commands in the Sermon on the Mount:

“There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference. Now this is the way of life: First, you must love God who made you, and second, your neighbor as yourself. And whatever you want people to refrain from doing to you, you must not do to them. What these maxims teach is this: Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies. Moreover fast for those who persecute you…and you will be perfect…Do not hate anybody; but reprove some, pray for others, and still others love more than your own life.”³⁴

Clearly, the Apostles seem to be fully embracing Jesus’ witness of self-sacrificial love, exhorting their flock to be willing to sacrifice their lives out of love of others. Furthermore, their exhortation to love others more than one’s life is given in the context of those whom one might be tempted to hate, whom one might need to reprove, for whom one might need to pray. The Apostles are not calling Christians to merely die for Christ, although that is certainly primary; they are calling us to be willing to die out love for our enemies. St. Clement of Alexandria begins to clarify the difference between non-Christians and Christians. In this regard he shows that Christians no longer spend time training for war or in violent disputes. “We [Christians] are being educated not in war, but in peace... [For] man is really a [peaceful] instrument…we have made use of one instrument, the peaceful Word only, wherewith we honor God.”³⁵ St. Clement calls us to respond with the Good News of Jesus Christ, but in order to do so we must be educated in peace.

This insight will have bearings on our conclusion. We could quote many more Church Fathers, and nearly all will speak similarly toward violence and Christian involvement in war. Before moving on however, we should reference a few of the Church fathers on specific issues: It is noteworthy that nowhere in patristics do we see any reference to using violence (or anything else) to defend the rights of others.

Tertullian, for example, accepts unreservedly that he would not use violence to avenge wrongs committed against him; therefore he never even considers using violence to avenge the wrongs committed against another.³⁶ ³⁷ Cadoux explains well that, in spite of this, the early Christians were guilty of neither selfish negligence, nor cowardice ³⁸; rather, they lived and died in the image of Christ, reflecting his love and his refusal to avenge the deaths of John the Baptist ³⁹ or the slaughtered Galileans.⁴⁰

In moving the discussion further towards war, we can refer to Origen. Writing around 248 in Contra Celsus, he admits the possibility of a just-war for non-Christian peoples,⁴¹ but consistently maintains that Christians should not take part, adding “[Jesus] nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to any one, however wicked.”⁴² Origen’s approach to the role of Christians living as citizens in a non-Christian country at war can provide a prophetic witness to our current call. We shall have cause revisit this later.

We have found, in our brief examination of the first two centuries of Christianity, that the followers of Christ indeed interpreted Jesus’ teachings to love the enemy, pray for the persecutor, and turn the other cheek literally. Christians, who had no power on their own and were not in any official way bonded to the state, received Christ’s call and responded generously with love of God and love of neighbor. Furthermore, for the early Christians these were not mere Christian idealisms. To be Christian was to be a man of peace, a man who had no weapon but the Word of the Christ and the Spirit of Love. So when did Christian’s begin to accept and participate in wars?

AUGUSTINE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF JUST-WAR THEORY

The first we see of a major development of a Christian “just war” theory ⁴³ is in St. Augustine’s City of God. Augustine began writing around 413, and much had changed for Christians since the time of Origen and Tertullian. Constantine had risen to power, thus ending the persecutions of Christians by the Roman Empire, had been baptized, and died. Shortly thereafter, Christianity became the official religion of the empire. Herein lies a great temptation for Christendom. Christians are no longer merely an oft persecuted minority sect in a powerful Empire.

Rather, much of the Roman Empire became Christianized. The military and the politics were now related to the faith. Emperors and governors tried to mingle political interests with Church issues, bribing priests and bishops. For the first time a significant part of the military, including the banner, became Christian. For the first time, Christians had the power, the strength, to physically, violently fight their enemies. Around this time the empire had also suffered repeated attacks from barbarians. Writing in this context, Augustine was aware of having to defend Christianity from her critics and give the philosophical and theological foundations for Christians who are active citizens in the Roman Empire.⁴⁴

Augustine, developing on the thought of Cicero and the Old Testament, describes the importance of the state as a keeper of peace and defender of persons.⁴⁵ Rome, as a Christian state, must, at times, be able to war in the name of God as a defender of peace. Augustine attempts to answer the nonviolent apologies of Tertullian and others by arguing that killing is not evil in and of itself; rather what matters is the disposition of the person: one must never kill with motivations of hate or vengeance, but only for God’s will, that is, with the intent to defend. Augustine correlates this perspective of the spiritual disposition ⁴⁶ of a soldier to that of the state,⁴⁷ thus justifying violent warfare. We must note however, that for Augustine war was only justifiable if it was absolutely necessary, that is, if the state found itself compelled to fight unjust attackers after nonviolent means of settling the issue, via communicating, had failed. Augustine explains, “Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you war against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace."⁴⁸

However it is precisely on this point, of necessity, that Tertullian’s argument for Christian nonviolence seems to trump Augustine’s development of a just war theory. Tertullian writes, “A state of faith admits no plea of necessity. They are under no necessity to sin…because there is a higher necessity to dread denying and to undergo martyrdom than to escape from suffering.”⁴⁹ As Christians the only thing that is necessary is following Christ. Christ does not directly forbid violence or violent warfare; instead, focusing on the positive, he commands kenotic love.⁵⁰

Furthermore, McGuckin, explaining St. Basil's pastoral approach to the response of his dioceses to invading barbarians and the subsequent “necessity” of a violent response writes:

All violence, local, individual, or nationally-sanctioned is here stated to be an expression of hubris that is inconsistent with the values of the Kingdom of God, and while in many circumstances that violence may be “necessary” or “unavoidable” (Basil states the only legitimate reasons as the defense of the weak and innocent) it is never “justifiable.” Even for the best motives in the world, the shedding of blood remains a defilement, such that the true Christian, afterwards, would wish to undergo the kathartic experience of temporary return to the lifestyle of penance, that is “be penitent.” Basil’s restriction of the time of penance to three years (seemingly harsh to us moderns) was actually a commonly recognized sign of merciful leniency in the ancient rule book of the early Church.**

Thus, even when Christians were pardoned on the basis of necessity and permitted to participate in a war, neither the war itself nor the violence was justified. In fact, the warriors were considered defiled and in need of penance before returning to the Altar.

Nevertheless, after Augustine, Christians were further assimilated into Rome, and wars were waged in the name of the Church. Although, Augustine’s teaching on just war was not intended to be used by the state (it was initially used by the Church for pastoral purposes to help to determine the guilt and penance for those returning from war),⁵¹before long war, even holy war, became a normal part of Christendom. Some of the wars waged in the name of the Church could be called “just,” others cannot.

The first prime example of a “Christian war”, began more than 600 years after Augustine, when, at the Council of Claremont in 1095, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade. Admittedly, this war was, in a certain sense, a war waged in defense of the Byzantine Church, which had been under persecution by Muslims. Nevertheless, the sword, which Jesus had scolded Peter for taking up, became a Christian symbol,⁵²meanwhile “Pope Urban II had brought together an international Catholic, war-loving Légion Étrangère.”⁵³

Clearly, this is a major shift, if not a complete reversal, from the faith lived out nonviolently by the early Christians. Previously, Christians had been ridiculed and persecuting for refusing to take part in the military; now they are called “war-loving.” This general attitude was predominant for as long as the Church and the state remained cohorts.⁵⁴

Less than 200 years later and over 800 years after Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas would continue the discussion of the just war theory. Aquinas adds further depth to the theology of the just war theory and further weight to its authority. For Aquinas three things are necessary for a war to be just: the war must be declared by the proper sovereign authority ⁵⁵, the war must be waged on those who are guilty of injustice and refuse to make recompense, and those declaring and waging must intend the advancement of the good and deterrence of evil.⁵⁶ Again we must add that for Aquinas war must always be a last resort, and for a war to be just, it must answer the objections he raises in the Summa.⁵⁷

The Church would remain in bed, as it were, with the state, until the Papal States were taken by force in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. Since the Church has been freed from the temptation of temporal power and military force, the Magisterium has slowly begun to revert to the nonviolent love and witness of the early Christians. But it has not yet discarded the just-war theory. Let us now consider the more recent proclamations of the Church on the issues of war, peace, violence, and mercy.

Works Cited

34 The “Didache,” 1:1-4, 2:7, cited from Early Christian Fathers, ed. Cyril C. Richardson (Library of Christian Classics Series), 1970, 171-172.

35 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, 190-200 A.D, Book I Ch. xii, Book II Ch. ii. 32, Ch. iv. 42.

36 Tertullian, de Corona Militis, 211 A.D., 11 (ii. 92).

37 This is in stark contrast with the common thought of today, which assumes a legitimate defense of self and a duty to defend others, even unto death. We shall have cause to visit this thought in more detail when we consider the contemporary question of just war. (CCC 2263)

38 Cadoux, 70.

39 Matt 14:1-17

40 Luke 13:1-5

41 Origen, Contra Celsus, 248 A.D., vii, 26.

42 Ibid., iii, 7.

43 N.B. For the time being we are assuming that war includes violence, and may therefore be contrary to Jesus’ call.

44 Robert Brimlow, What about Hitler? Wrestling with Jesus’ Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World, (Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI: 2006), 23.

45 St. Augustine, City of God (Penguin Classics), (London: Penguin Classics, 2004) 19:7.

46 We can see this also in his exegesis of Matt 5:39, where he limits Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek to a mere inner disposition. Robert Brimlow, correctly I think sees this as introducing a false dichotomy into the human person. See Brimlow, p30-32 for more on this. While I think Brimlow may be correct, we shall not pursue his line of reasoning, which intends to do away with the just war theory.

47 Ibid.

48 St. Augustine, "CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 98 (St. Augustine to Boniface)," NEW ADVENT. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102098.htm (accessed April 22, 2008), clxxxix

49 Tertullian, De Corona XI.

50 Brimlow, 32.

**John McGuckin, "Nonviolence and Peace Traditions in Early & Eastern Christianity".

51 Michael Baxter, “Just War and Pacifism,” Houston Catholic Worker, Vol XXIV, No. 3, May-June 2004.

52 H. W. Crocker, Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic – A 2,000-Year History, (Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2001), 214.

53 Ibid.

54 Crocker points out another intriguing example, in addition to that of war, of the Empire’s influence on Christianity. He writes, “Christianity had distinguished itself, in the centuries before Constantine, by not making heresy a capital crime. After the empire and Christianity became one, the imperial penalty for heresy overruled Christian practice – though most of the leaders of the Catholic Church disapproved of such capital punishment.” Is it a coincidence that these two issues, war and capital punishment, were the most hotly debated topics in the development of the Catechism?

55 Here we see a subtle beginning of the move away from the pastoral focus of the just war theory.

56 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 2a 2ae, Q. 40, A

57 N.B. One of Thomas’ strongest objections quotes Jesus’ aforementioned teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Aquinas refutes this on basis of necessity, which as we have noted above, Tertullian shows is faulty logic for a Christian.

Christ Our Hope: Part 4 - Witness of Christ continued

2008-08-13T17:57:00.001-05:00

Jesus’ Statements Which Seem to Support Violent Warfare

First let us consider the expulsion of the money changers from the Temple court, one of the pericopes sometimes cited by amateur theologians as evidence of Jesus' occasional use, or at least tolerance, of violence. Some claim this as an example of Jesus’ use of violent physical coercion to cleanse the temple, and conclude that if Jesus used “righteous” violence, then we certainly we can and should. However the use of the whip is mentioned only in John’s Gospel,1 and the Evangelist never says he used it on people. He merely says that Jesus made a whip out of cords and that he drove them, the moneychangers and animals, out of the temple area. The Gospel does not actually say that Jesus used violence on anyone. Furthermore, the Greek verb which is translated as “drove out” literally means “to cast out.” This same verb is used in many different, nonviolent, contexts: to speak of Jesus being sent into the wilderness by the Spirit,2 to speak of God sending his workers into the vineyard,3and to speak of a shepherd sending his sheep into the fold.4 Thus, it does not seem to have violent implications, but rather to imply an “authoritative dismissal.”5 This seems to necessarily be the case when we consider that it is impossible for a single man to drive out an entire crowd by threat of violence with merely a whip. Jesus must have awed the crowd by the presence and authority of his personality, expelling them by command rather than by violence.6

Second we shall consider the Lucan account, shortly before the Last Supper in which Jesus recommends that his apostles sell their cloak to purchase a sword if they do not already have one. The apostles respond that among them, they have two swords. Jesus replies abruptly: “It is enough!”7 While, if interpreted literally, this could be used to support a claim that Jesus was encouraging his disciples to have weapons handy for self-defense, the fact that the two swords were not sufficient to defend the apostles from the guards seems to disprove the notion that the two swords were enough. Furthermore, if Jesus was speaking literally why would he have shortly thereafter chastised Peter for using his sword? It seems unlikely that Jesus was speaking literally here, rendering the pericope unacceptable as an argument for Jesus’ approval of violence.

Many however, simply dismiss Jesus’ teachings against violence as being irrelevant or unrealistic. Loisy, for example, reasons “A country where all the good people conformed to these maxims would, instead of resembling the kingdom of heaven, be the paradise of thieves and criminals.”8 [This is the same reasoning often used to argue for the right to bear arms.] However popular this line of reasoning may be, these arguments seem to miss the point entirely and wind up expressing their faith and hope in human means of governing civilization, which history shows are doomed to corruption and failure, rather than in the teachings of Christ, the eternal Logos.

Furthermore those who argue against the plausibility and efficacy of living by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount neglect three important points: (1) Jesus directs these teachings not too humanity at large, but to those who are listening to him, namely his disciples. The closer one is in relation to Christ the more willing and able to one will be (or at least should be) to lovingly live out Jesus’ call to nonviolent resistance. (2) The success which the early Christians achieved in living out Jesus’ “third way” in a radical way surpasses the success of violent coercion in the effort curb human injustice and sinfulness. (3) The Christian community, the Kingdom of God, is to grow gradually and mysteriously, like seed planted in good soil,9 resulting in a gradual decrease of those who resort to violence to respond to evil. This decrease will occur simultaneously with a gradual decrease in those who seem to need be violently restrained.10 We shall return to the implications of these three points more fully later on, but for the moment we can suffice to say that Jesus’ life is a witness to the beauty and power of his message. Jesus Christ, the philosopher and the shepherd, the suffering servant and the king, calls all his disciples to love God, and in doing so, to love all those made in His image. Jesus shows us that love is a free gift of self, which is willing to accept self-sacrifice for the good of the other, even the enemy.

1 John 2:13-17.
2 Mark 1:12.
3 Matt 9:38.
4 John 10:4.
5 Cadoux, 42.
6 Ibid.
7 Luke 22: 36-38.
8 Quoted in Cadoux, 44.
9 Mark 4:1-9
10 Cadoux, 45.

Christ our Hope: Part 3 - Witness of Christ

2008-08-09T11:14:00.002-05:00

This is Part 3 of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Here we shall begin to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war.

At the outset we must admit that we have no evidence of an explicit teaching of Jesus or of his apostles on the issues of war.¹ Nevertheless, simply because Jesus does not directly address the issue of war in the Gospels does not mean that we can claim that his silence expresses neutrality or implicit approval towards war, for many of his sayings do contain implications for violence and for peace.

It is not within the scope of this paper to pursue a complete or extensive exegetical study of the Biblical evidence on this matter. However, we shall consider a few of the key texts which have been used to support violent warfare, but first we shall look at some of the texts which have been interpreted as Jesus’ condemnation of violence.

Jesus’ Statements Which Seem to Conflict with Violent Warfare

First let us turn to the Sermon on the Mount during which Jesus is referencing traditional teachings of the Old Testament and Jewish tradition and is giving them their full and complete interpretation, as only he, the Word made flesh, can. Jesus recasts the traditional teachings, in every case, in a way which is more strict than the tradition and demands greater love and self-sacrifice. Three specific passages from the Sermon on the Mount concern us. Let us now examine the first.

Jesus begins to speak of the Fifth Commandment. He proclaims, “I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”⁴ He condemns the act of even being angry at another, as anger is the emotion which leads to killing another. In light of this we can with some confidence say that while Jesus has not condemned violence per se he has spoken against the emotions which generally lead to violent acts, classifying the emotions themselves as unacceptable for his followers.

Jesus continues: “I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.”⁵ This statement is often misinterpreted as an order to Christians to be submissive. “Turn the other cheek. Do not react violently. Submit to your master or superior.” The implications of this would be staggering and would contradict the witness of Jesus’ own dealings with evil and injustice. Jesus never sits idly allowing evil to be done. He does not react violently, but he certainly does not merely submit. This passage has been used for generations to convince Christian peasants to submit to tyrant kings and to convince Christian wives and children to submit to abusive husbands. The implications of this for modern warfare are despicable and contrary to our natural inclinations to self-defense and to defending the weak and vulnerable. This interpretation will not do.

Walter Wink, in his book The Powers that Be, offers an excellent and convincing alternative exegesis of this passage. Wink shows that in order for a Jew in that culture to be struck on his right cheek, the “superior” must have backhanded him, an action which did not intend to harm but to humiliate and degrade, to put a slave or Jew back in his or her place. Wink says,

By turning the other cheek, the servant makes it impossible for the master to use the backhand again …This act of defiance renders the master incapable of asserting his dominance in the relationship. He can have the slave beaten, but he can no longer cow him. By turning the other cheek, the inferior is saying: 'I'm a human being, just like you. I refuse to be humiliated any longer. I am your equal. I am a child of God. I won't take it anymore.⁶

Jesus calls for us to use, what Wink calls, Jesus’ “third way:” a way of life, of dealing with conflict, which is based neither in passivity nor in violence. This “third way” consists in active nonviolent resistance to all that is evil and inconsistent with the dignity of the human person. This resistance renders the persecutor impotent, unable to denigrate the dignity of the Christian, who, while forcing the persecutor to recognize his equality, must also, like Jesus, be willing to make sacrifices, his own sacrifices, for this truth to be made known.

Jesus is not telling his listeners to merely submit to one who does evil. Rather, he is teaching them not to respond violently, not to respond to one (an individual or a nation-state or either?) with violent warfare. At the very least, based upon the overall context, we can affirm that Jesus seems to intend for his disciples to respond, to resist, in some non-violent fashion.

Let us turn now to our third text from the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus instructs his disciples: “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? …Do not the pagans do the same?”⁷ Again Jesus offers us another extraordinarily rich teaching. We do not here have the opportunity or the ability to fully explicate its meaning, but it does contain salience for our purpose and has a great deal to say to us. Jesus previously told us that anger, the emotion of desiring to bring harm upon another, specifically one’s “brother,” is sinful. Here, he takes it a step further, challenging his disciples to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors. Even evildoers love those who treat them well; Christians, who share a universal call to holiness, are called to love everyone, even their enemies and persecutors, for the Father is the Father of all. God wants to bring salvation to all men, including those who are presently the enemies of Christ, including those who are persecuting his followers, his body.

The Bible gives us several examples of proper Christian responses to our persecutors which may serve to evangelize a culture of violence.⁸ Jesus confronts Saul, asking “why are you persecuting me?”⁹ In doing so, Jesus not only communicated to Saul the very real unity of Christ and his disciples, but he also called him to conversion and to service of the Church. In reflecting upon this experience and on Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection, St. Paul tells us that while we were still sinners, enemies of his kingdom, Christ proved the love of the Triune God for us in his passion and death.¹⁰ Thus, Jesus shows us by example what it means to love one’s enemies. Wink sums up Jesus’ alternative to both passivism and to violence well: “Jesus is not advocating nonviolence merely as a technique for outwitting the enemy, but as a just means of opposing the enemy in a way that holds open the possibility of the enemy’s becoming just also.” Jesus calls us to love them which the kenotic love which leads to the cross and opens the door to conversion and salvation.

Before we move on to consider the Gospel evidence which could support violence, we should consider the witness of Jesus’ kenotic love as exemplary for all Christian love. St Paul, writing to the Philippians, tells us that Jesus emptied himself of power, becoming humble and obedient unto death. If we, following Cardinal Kasper and others, take Rahner’s Trinitarian axiom ¹¹ to be accurate, then the incarnation of the Son is a true and real self-communication or revelation of God the Father. And, if God is love,¹²then this Love, as revealed by Christ, is not love which covets power to subdue its enemies, rather this Love empties itself in a complete and total gift of self for the other, even the other who is enemy. This kenotic love, never fails.¹³

Thus we can offer a preliminary conclusion: in reflecting on the collective witness of the above passages we can say not only that Jesus personally rejected all violence, most prophetically in his passion and death, but that he also stipulated that his disciples -- all of them, not a select few -- do likewise. Nevertheless, there are a number of passages which many use to show that Jesus’ disuse of violence was either not absolute or not authoritative for modern Christians. We shall consider them in part 4 of this series.

WORKS CITED

1 John Cecil Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War: A Contribution to the History of Christian Ethics,(London: Headly Bros, 1919), 36.

2 Wilma Ann Bailey, "You Shall Not Kill" or "You Shall Not Murder"? The Assault on a Biblical Text, (Liturgical Press: Collegeville, MN, 2005), 86.

3 Ibid., 24.

4 Matthew 5:21-22

5 Matthew 5:38-32.

6 Walter Wink, The Powers That Be, (New York, Doubleday, 1998), 102.

7 Matthew 5:43-48.

8 In a discussion on this topic, a colleague countered that at times killing someone can be an expression of love. He argued that, because the human person is not merely temporal, because we can eternal end, he hopes that if he were about to commit some heinous and evil crime, killing him before he committed the act would be an expression of love. However, I cannot understand how this would be consistent with love. It seems like a sort of “moral euthanasia” in which we kill someone out of mercy so that they have don’t undergo or self-inflict some moral evil or spiritual suffering. Jesus teaches us that violence is not salvific, but suffering, suffering with him, is.

9 Acts 9:4.

10 Romans 5:8.

11 “The economic is the immanent and the immanent is the economic.” quoted from Karl Rahner, The Trinity: trans. By Joseph Donceel,(NY: Herder and Herder, 1970), 22.

12 1 John 4:8.

13 1 Cor 13:8.

Can Catholics vote for a pro-Choice candidate?

2008-08-07T15:52:00.001-05:00

Can a Catholic vote for a pro-Choice candidate?

The short answer, from Henry Karlson, can be found here.

The USCCB in Faithful Citizenship answers thus:

A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity... There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil...In the end, this is a decision to be made by each Catholic guided by a conscience formed by Catholic moral teaching...As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.

However, Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, put it a little more forcefully. He writes:

So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can’t, and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics— people whom I admire—who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite—not because of—their pro-choice views. But [Catholics who support pro-choice candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life—which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.

RepubliCatholics across the blogosphere have interpreted Chaput's answer to be a virtual NO.

I'd like to ask two questions:
1. Is Chaput's characterization of the issue accurate and fair?
2. In a hypothetical (or real world) situation what "proportionate" reason might fulfill Chaput's criterion?

I will post my thoughts shortly. What are yours?