Tag: politics

A Brief Note on Politics

Christian Renaissance Movement2 Comments

Eamonn Clark, STL

You have never heard of Esarhaddon. You might have heard of his father, but you have not heard of him.

I am watching the ongoing fiasco in the USA with a lot of interest – perhaps with more interest than is appropriate. (If you do not know that there is a fiasco, well, you are in for a surprise when the mainstream/legacy media is finally forced to cover what is actually about to happen in the courts.) The whole world is focused on American politics at the moment, and it seems that it is all so extremely consequential. For some people, surely it is consequential, in an individual existential sense, whether in terms of careers or direct effects from public policy that is actually at stake (which is not nearly as much as people tend to think, at least with respect to the U.S. presidency). Others think it is just about the end of the world if their candidate doesn’t win – and this sad phenomenon was quite famously on display in the aftermath of 2016. When people choose to define the meaning of their lives by the presence of a few people in Washington D.C., the individuality of one’s own life is forgotten, let alone the perspective of eternity.

Again, you have never heard of Esarhaddon. He was considered “Lord and King of the Universe.” And of all men, in terms of temporal, political power, he may indeed have the best claim of anyone in world history, or at least he is in the top 10 or so. (Mansa Musa would be another good contender, along with Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and a few Roman Emperors.) But you have never even heard of him.

Esarhaddon was the Emperor of Assyria at its absolute apex, from 681-669 B.C. His career included most significantly successfully conquering Egypt. (He is mentioned indirectly in 2 Chronicles 33:11 when the extremely wicked King Manasseh of Judah was captured by him – who then prayed to God and was eventually freed – but be honest, you do not recall that verse!) However, we know from his private letters that he was a very depressed and disturbed man. He was especially distraught over the premature death of one of his children – not unlike Pharaoh (or later, ironically, King David). For all his immense power, he could not stop the death of his family or of himself, and he could barely function in his imperial duties, often withdrawing for months at a time from public life. (In a strange and rather unique practice, there would be a “substitute king” for 100 days – after which period, the unfortunate man taking the emperor’s place would be executed. In fact, Esarhaddon once used this to dispose of one of his great political rivals…) Assyrians would have surely been as attentive to the goings-on of the imperial court as Americans are to the White House. How relevant is Assyrian politics now, except for the sake of understanding world history and especially Scripture?

You know Esarhaddon’s father, Sennacherib, whose march on Jerusalem is addressed in Isaiah 10 and 2 Kings 18-19 – likely the only reason you would have heard of him. You also might have even heard of Esarhaddon’s son, Assurbanipal (whose rule led to the end of the Empire), although that’s not so likely. But you’ve never heard of Esarhaddon. That’s worth considering. He is dead, he is forgotten, and his empire is gone too. So much for Esarhaddon, “Lord and King of the Universe.”

Will normal people 2,600 years from now have ever even heard of Trump or Biden? Who knows. But they will have heard of Jesus of Nazareth. And all that time from now, Jesus of Nazareth will remember each of us, as well.

About that Communist Article in “America”

Christian Renaissance Movement3 Comments

Eamonn Clark

If you haven’t heard by now, the Jesuit-run magazine America ran an article in praise of Communism (and a rather weak defense of its publication). There have been plenty of decent reactions. Being a fledgling scholar of socialist and Communist thought, here is a bit of what I’ve learned during the past few months in my deep dive into that world which could help the discussion… I welcome any corrections or criticisms in the comments.

  1. If Marx were alive today, he would recognize no country on Earth as having achieved Communism. He would likewise recognize no major political party as Communist upon close inspection, including those which describe themselves as such. Any country with a “state,” with private property, with wage labor, or even simply with currency, would not qualify as Communist. And any party which is not explicitly – and sincerely – working toward this goal would not be truly Communist in the classical sense. Opportunistic power-grabs which use the language of Communism and impose an indefinite program of state-capitalism through authoritarian collectivization, whatever they are, are not what Marx had in mind. It could and should be argued that any kind of large-scale collectivization and planning is doomed (see Hayek), that Marx left some troubling ambiguities about the process of socialization and its final product (especially regarding the usage of words like “socialization” and “state”) which is in part what opens the door to such misunderstandings or willful manipulations on the part of his early disciples, and that the foundations of Marx’s economic diagnoses were flawed (they were)… But what he cannot be fairly charged with is designing what is popularly thought of as “Communism.” Instead, what he must be charged with is proposing something which is not reachable or is not worth trying to reach, either due to what must happen to get there, or due to the goal’s intrinsic undesirability.
  2. No serious economist today is a classical Marxist, if for no other reason than that several prophecies of Marx’s did not come to pass. The middle class did not disappear. The age of the factory came and went without the revolution, and the revolution does not seem in sight anymore. The increased aggregation of capital has not tended to yield perpetual decreases in profit margins. This is to leave aside all theoretical questions about Marx’s version of the “labor theory of value,” which is integral to his moral critique of capitalism as being exploitative in itself, in addition to his scientific or deterministic predictions which rely on his labor theory of value. So all of this calls into question the legitimacy of the project, at least as expressed by its chief proponent.
  3. That project’s historical foundations are deeply at odds with Christianity in their basic philosophical and anthropological commitments. The dialectical materialism of the classical Communists sets up human nature in place of Hegel’s evolving God (a theory enunciated first by Feuerbach)… Through various stages of mass economic development and conflict, humanity evolves to a perfect state. This process is altogether unavoidable (“scientific,” not “utopian”), and it ends with Communism. There countless problems with this from a Christian point of view; and ironically, the atheistic determinism, violent tactics, and Pelagian ethos rob Communist life of its possibility; that possibility is best actualized in religious life, where the wall primarily prevents one from getting in, not getting out, and where the love of a transcendent God Who heals an otherwise stable and broken human nature animates all work. This should give us real pause.
  4. If there had been a successful global Communist revolution near the end of the 19th century as had been predicted by so many, we can assume safely that the age of innovation was over. The “glut” of capitalist production was seen as overwhelming at the time… We had everything we needed to relax and enjoy life, at last! And since innovation would no longer be rewarded by the accrual of wealth, it stands to reason that it would have been either only for the sake of making work easier (not necessarily more productive, but easier), altruism, or it would be done on accident. Consider what things we take for granted today that were not yet invented or mass-produced in the 1890’s. We would have been essentially stuck in that age had the revolution happened and innovation effectively ceased. What great innovations that otherwise await in the future would a successful revolution destroy today?
  5. Socialization is a matter of degrees. I take this from an analogous insight offered indirectly by Ludwig Von Mises (in his masterwork on socialism, online for free here, along with tons of other Austrian-school economics books and articles) regarding democracy: in some sense, every state is democratic, insofar as a sufficient number of people are sufficiently satisfied with the prevailing state of affairs such that it continues. Put another way, enough people choose with enough commitment to go along with what is the established order of society so that a new order is not established. Incremental changes might happen even outside of a “formal” democratic structure or means (viz., voting on a ballot). Likewise, socialization exists insofar as property is under the control of the community. All kinds of ways exist for controlling “private property” and “private production” through the government or some other organ of the community. The question then is not whether to socialize property or the means of production, it is whether to increase or decrease the strength or directness or scope of the socialization which already exists (and which informs the society’s understanding of ownership and the private sector). This is an important hermeneutic when giving any critique of “socialism”; it is a complicated issue. Simple dismissals of “socialism” are therefore rightly met with equally simple counter-dismissals by those who know the history and contemporary literature. However, Communism, the highest form of socialization, is subject to special critiques insofar as challenges to socialism’s status as desirable, achievable, and sustainable are “turned up to eleven” when discussing socialism’s perfected form.
  6. The scope of the authentic Communist movement today is very limited. The SPD’s Godesberg Program could probably be used as a singular indication of the global shift away from revolutionary Communism toward a milder and less-defined “socialism”; Marx and Engels were quite involved in the affairs of the SPD early on, particularly in opposing the influence of Lassalle’s revisionism, such as we see in the Critique of the Gotha Program alluded to in the America article. That revisionism is radically exceeded in Godesberg, the spirit of which informs the global socialist movement of today much more than an entirely unrealistic call for pure Communism. Under this hyper-revisionism, most “serious” contemporary socialists work for a humane administration of governmental tools in a mixed economy (partly socialist, partly capitalist), and many of them further envision a high degree of democratic participation in the planning of this administration – but NOT full public or collectivized ownership of the basic means of production, the classical definition of socialism. One will find this theme explored at length in the final work of Michael Harrington (also alluded to in the article – who was apparently a “Catholic Worker,” and yet, though we are not told there, was also a committed atheist), and any number of recent books and articles on so-called “democratic socialism.” (Connected but somewhat distinct ideas are “market socialism” and “participatory economics.”) These positions are sometimes subtler than one might think, even if they all ultimately fall prey at least in part to the same pitfalls as more classical Marxist theories (which, by and large, they do in my estimation). Whatever the case, while the old encyclical condemnations remain relevant, those written before 1960 are not necessarily the slam-dunk cases against contemporary socialism that many people think them to be, as they are addressing a more classical version under old global conditions.

So there you have it. In sum, classical Communism is Heaven without God, earned through a large-scale, unavoidable, Hegelian-style revolution due to class conflict, and history teaches us that, despite Engels’ optimism that the revolution only might involve force, is always incredibly violent, whether directly through the killing fields and gulags, or indirectly through creating famine and destitution. Is this what the folks at America think is worthy of discussing seriously with openness? I hope not. If it is true that Communism has a “complicated relationship” with Catholicism – and it is, simply because both are complicated things – perhaps another journal is more fit to handle the discussion.

Living Wage, Dead Economy?

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark

My mind has been abuzz with economic theory lately. I’ve chosen to do my thesis on socialism, given the continual barrage of headlines about it back in the States.

It was with great interest then that I read an article at NCR about the proposal of one particular “fresh face” of the DNC about the so-called “living wage.” The author (no relation) gives a quick tour of the main encyclicals that touch on the problem, concluding that Catholics ought to be in favor of the “living wage” because it secures the right of the employee to live, so long as he is actually doing his fair share of work.

There is so much to unpack, some of which is hinted at in the NCR article. I just want to offer a few lines of inquiry… I’m happy to take critiques in the comments or through the contact tab. Maybe this economics novice is getting something egregiously wrong. (And no, disagreeing with the general idea of monetary policy doesn’t count… But I’m still happy to discuss Keynes and all that, and I have plenty to learn, so bring it on!)

If a worker is not making a living wage, how exactly is it that he continues to live? And if he can’t afford to secure his family, he is not only likely to be distracted and stressed while working, thus becoming less productive, but he will also not provide workers to the future workforce… Not enough money, fewer kids. This second point is part of the argument of Adam Smith at least, in The Wealth of Nations. It is actually usually in the best interests of employers to ensure that their employees are well-funded. His point about kids later entering the workforce may not be as evident an effect to employers in the mammoth economy of the USA, but in developing countries or even just small countries it is more clearly important. In the long-term, it is important in both large economies and in small ones… Just look at the panic in some corners of East Asia about declining birth rates: soon, there will be no workforce!

If the living wage is to be paid, who decides how much it is, and who enforces it? This is quite critical and calls attention to the principle of subsidiarity. Socialists of the American variety would typically argue it should be the federal government. (And off to the races we go with the “central planning” which Hayek warned about so ominously in The Road to Serfdom.) Maybe some would say the state government. Suppose we tried this – are the living expenses at all the same downtown as in uptown? In this neighborhood of downtown as that one? In the city or in the countryside? Etc., etc. No. So the smallest possible unit ought to decide, if there is to be a decision at all. Given the possibility of easy transit today, it is just not feasible for even the most proximate governments (i.e. the county, the city council, etc.) to make a good analysis that won’t inevitably leave many people stuck without the relative purchasing power that was desired for all, or won’t destroy jobs by making employment altogether too expensive to continue at the current quantity.

Taking for granted an appropriate determination of a living wage for some circumstance, what is the effect on the prices of goods? If we allow the market to continue untouched outside of wage-regulation, and wages go up, it seems quite obvious that, over time, prices will rise to match the augmentation of wages. So in the best case scenario, there is a fleeting moment of prosperity, and then we are back to normal. Best case. Worst case, all kinds of price ceilings are implemented to control the purchasing market, and we have set ourselves up for stagflation, where everybody loses. Production will plummet, jobs will be lost, and the money made from that “living wage” imposed from on high will become increasingly worthless.

Is it possible to exploit workers unfairly at all through low wages? This question is the natural rejoinder to the foregoing analysis, wherein I’ve implied that the market should basically be left to itself to decide wages. I return to Adam Smith: sometimes, employers hold the cards, mainly during times of economic bust, when there is low demand for workers. Other times, workers hold the cards, mainly during times of economic boom, when there is high demand for labor. Workers and employers should both be free to form natural unions among themselves to negotiate wages and terms of employment. Left to itself, the market tends to find the right spot which assures long-term stability to the economy, avoiding the pitfalls of monetary policy and other artificial constraints imposed by far-away bureaucratic geniuses. So, if a person is willing to work for a low wage, it is a fair market price. Given all this, it is still possible to take unfair advantage of a worker’s desperation for income. (Something similar would hold for lending at interest, but we won’t get into that discussion here.) While it’s true that a low wage is better than no wage, there is a virtue involved in the act of employing people which requires a basic level of care for the employee, which we might annex to “beneficence.” (Attached to this would be a duty not to employ too many people under one master… The “order of charity,” which I have discussed elsewhere, is another big problem with socialist thought.) However, we cannot legislate against all immorality. Even though exploiting workers through unjust wages is one of the four sins which cry to Heaven for vengeance, it does not seem that civil law is usually the appropriate measure to take, as it can have such terrible unintended consequences. Instead, employers need to be shown that it is in their best interest to treat workers well, and workers need to help each other by forming charitable organizations, stable families and neighborhoods, and so on. These measures will either alter the market price of labor, or the latter will at least help provide a safety-net for when times get tough. Finally, following MacIntyre’s lead, this whole discussion would be helped by jettisoning the language of “rights,” which inevitably contradict each other, and to speak instead about virtues.

At any rate, we cannot build Heaven on Earth by government fiat. The government playing deus ex machina with economics typically leads to disaster. A freer market will tend to be a healthier market in the long term, even though some people will abuse that freedom at the expense of others. Let’s leave the vengeance to God rather than wage-planning to bureaucrats.

Fake News, Real Vices: A Quick Take on CovCath

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark

On October 18th, 1925, Greece invaded Bulgaria. This event led to the death of nearly 200 people, including many civilians… But that’s not the whole story.

This November, the 100th anniversary will come of a treaty signed in my old neighborhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine, which attempted to resolve some geographical disputes in the Balkan region after World War I. Suffice to say that it remained a point of contention, and a dispute between Greece and Bulgaria over the control of Macedonia and Thrace carried on. About six years later, a young Greek soldier stationed near the edge of Bulgarian territory ran into a clearing in a little mountain pass, perhaps totally unaware that he had even crossed the border. He had no intention of attacking anyone or taking any land – he was chasing his dog, which had run away from him. Bulgarian sentinels quickly determined it was a Greek invasion and shot him dead. The aftermath was several days of open violent conflict around the border. Thus is the event called the “War of the Stray Dog.”

While this narrative is somewhat disputed, whatever the case, after the League of Nations intervened it was admitted by Bulgaria that the whole conflict had been caused by a misunderstanding.

We seem to have just finished our own version of the War of the Stray Dog today. There was political tension (Left vs. Right), a border crossed (perceived mistreatment of a member of an historically oppressed group), a uniform (MAGA hat), an innocent misunderstanding (trying not to be provoked), and a catastrophic aftermath (nation-wide condemnation, death threats, etc.).

Calling out moral failures in this hurricane of off-the-rails virtue-signaling is like shooting fish in a barrel. So I won’t bother – you’ve no doubt read the headlines about Lefty journalists and celebrities calling for violence against these kids, and about the bishops and dioceses who trusted the mainstream media’s narrative and piled on. I just want to point out a few things.

  1. It might not have been better if the kid had walked away. The optics could have even been worse – it might look even more racist to turn your back on a Native American, right? So there was no winning.
  2. High-school kids are not typically models of serenity and prudence. Period. Ask anyone who works in secondary education or has teenage kids. So even if there were excesses or missteps, it seems beyond unfair to hold 16-year-old kids to a standard of foresight and self-control more proper to a 4-star general.
  3. If it can happen to them, it can happen to you and yours. So look out.
  4. “Officially” condemning people is unwise unless it’s your job to do so. I am thinking especially of several ecclesiastical persons/institutions who had no direct business with either the kids or the March for Life. Why is it necessary to comment at all? Are there not problems in your own house to attend to without jumping on the virtue-signal bandwagon?
  5. Every year now, for some time, when the secular media begrudgingly mentions the March for Life in passing, they will not mention the staggering numbers (500k+), the positive atmosphere, or the salient points of main speakers… They will dig up old footage of a high school kid in a MAGA hat and a Native American with a drum and talk about “angry conservatives” and “Trumpian politics” and “counter protesters.” Thankfully, that’s a sign of desperation which I think most reasonable people on the fence will see through.

I think this incident may have popped the media balloon. Time will tell.

St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, pray for us.

A Radical Suggestion for the Roman Curia

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark

If you didn’t know, there is an ongoing breakdown in American comedy. It is increasingly censorious, politically biased, and generally unfunny. The most recent high profile example is the as-yet-unresolved Oscars hosting debacle… A very long list could be made of such things in the past few years, but the current content of late-night shows speaks for itself. Here’s a great interview on the subject (mild language warning):

Also, if you didn’t know, the papal court used to have a full-time comedian, or jester (a bit more than just a joke-teller), just like many other royal courts. Shortly after his election, Pope St. Pius V, of happy memory, suppressed the office of the papal court jester. Note that he did not just go find a less outlandish, less challenging, and less funny jester, but he removed the office. He had his reasons, and knowing Pius V, they were good reasons… The court has serious business to attend to, and also, having a jester makes the court look very much like a secular king’s court, which could be scandalous.

As everyone knows, jesters are to make people laugh (among other things). In doing so, they provide a little levity amidst the tension – no doubt needed these days in the Roman curia. But humor-based laughter is an overflow of the rational faculties into the senses based on some kind of dissonance being pointed to… In other words, the most important function of the jester (or comedian) is to say what everyone is thinking but nobody else will say because they are afraid to – or are perhaps unaware of the absurdity of some set of contradictory realities. He is supposed to cut right to the heart of the issue, albeit in a roundabout way that shows the ridiculousness of it all. How useful would this be today…

The jester is fundamentally a truth-teller. And to fire a jester for a biting joke would only make the joke all the more powerful… After the pope himself, nobody’s speech is more protected than the jester’s. He can say what needs to be said, and nobody can punish him without making himself look like the real fool.

453 years is enough seriousness. Ease the tension. Tell the truth. Get a jester.

Lessons for the Church from the Kavanaugh Debacle

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark

In the past few years, it has become evident that a vast number of people, including some average pew-sitting Catholics, do not understand the value of jurisprudence – that is, the principled examination and judgment on some matter of justice by a legitimately authorized party. The show-trial of Justice Kavanaugh is a wonderful case-study.

By now, there is a mountain of both negative and positive evidence against the claims of the main accuser. (The other accusers have all but been entirely discredited at this point.) To date, there is not a single significant piece of corroboration or verification, and if there were more holes in her story it wouldn’t even exist. (To me it seems like a jumble of “recovered” memories, but I digress.) But somehow this seems not to be enough for 49 U.S. senators, millions of Americans, and many foreign onlookers. To which I say: why?

“It’s not a trial, it’s a job interview – it has higher standards.” This is the claim. Well, fair enough… But we would never want our father, our son, our brother, our friend to be treated in such a way for any reason. We would want for them the presumption of innocence. In this particular case, there is not even probable suspicion (enough for warrants or subpoenas), to make no mention of a preponderance of the evidence, the step below what is necessary for conviction (“beyond a reasonable doubt”).

It is different with Kavanaugh because, despite his (appropriately) evasive answers regarding the matter, he is obviously not a champion of the pro-choice cause. It is this unwelcome ideology which primarily motivated the grossly unjust and immature tactics that are clear to all who don’t have a devotion to Roe and the DNC platform in general.

What does this have to do with the Church?

There are many, many bishops and clergy who have unwelcome opinions (whether heterodox or not). Some of them are very powerful and enjoy great public respect, and nonetheless they have been accused of allowing or covering up bad things (like… sexual abuse), or they have been accused of such things themselves. (Frankly, it is surprising that nobody tried to tie Kavanaugh to McCarrick, given that the former has been a prominent Catholic in D.C. for many years. Maybe that would have come eventually: “He knew someone who knew what McCarrick had done, therefore he was guilty of helping to conceal abuse! We must investigate!” Etc.) We are watching our own investigative debacle unfold with the Viganò accusations (and beyond) about similar issues… And we are facing a litany of coming grand jury reports in the USA.

Some accused clerics are guilty. Some of them are not. We all know this. What is challenging is some principles of jurisprudence, especially when applying them outside the courtroom. So perhaps this is a good moment for the Church to reflect on what we all just watched happen in the USA. There are many lessons to take from the Kavanaugh debacle.

Lesson #1: Truth is not the only value in investigations

We’ve heard that “if finding the truth is all matters” then the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh would have been open-ended (viz., endless, thus destroying or at least severely limiting his chances of confirmation). The problem is, prescinding from any partisan desires about what the truth is or when and how it should be found, finding the truth is not all that matters. Fairness matters as well, given that the truth must be found through a process. Sometimes, what must be done to find the truth, or to get as close as possible, involves unfairness. This is why, for example, evidence obtained by unlawful search and seizure is inadmissible in court, even if it could demonstrate the defendant’s guilt. Even though everyone knows the defendant is guilty, it’s impossible to convict him, because if that’s done, then the entire set of principles of search and seizure laws falls apart. But sometimes an unfair process is used against a person who is innocent.

All well and good for criminal convictions, but one can’t unsee incriminating evidence. However, a weaker version of the principle of the presumption of innocence should pervade the formation of our opinions of those accused of terrible crimes. We should, in fact, usually suspend judgment until sufficient evidence comes forward and/or the accused has a chance to speak. In the meantime, we don’t get to ruin someone’s life, either by publicizing our ill-formed premature judgments in favor of the accuser or by digging into every crevice of the accused’s personal life, especially if we are putting it on public display.

This includes priests and bishops and other church officials… Investigations need to follow a reasonable path of questioning which, at some point, needs to be terminated. The goal should not be to find corroboration/substantiation – because if there is no such evidence, the investigation will never finish…

Lesson #2: Reputation is extremely valuable

St. Thomas puts the value of a good name under the value of life and over the value of physical possessions. (By the way, his Question on Unjust Accusations is also relevant – and it is really dynamite.) Once taken away, a good name normally can’t be regained except with extreme difficulty.

I’ve linked to this article from Homiletic and Pastoral Review before, but here is a quick summary:

Publishing the names of clerics who have been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse is pointless, arbitrary, harmful to morale among the clergy, and, depending the standard used, egregiously sinful.

To take a diocese named in the HPR article, a current statement from the Archdiocese of Baltimore exemplifies the lamentable sort of tendency to put “accountability” above basic norms of jurisprudence. A document produced in response to a recent “listening session” in the Archdiocese lists several gravely problematic items, such as:

“Since 2002, the Archdiocese has disclosed the names of credibly accused priests at the time the allegations became known. Their names have been updated to the original list, which is posted on the archdiocese’s website.”

The central problem here is this: who decides what “credible” means, why is it that person or persons, and how do they determine that credibility? It is a mystery. I won’t go through the entire argument which the HPR article presents (it is really worth reading for yourself), but suffice it to say that this is a fatal flaw. It is especially absurd to say that the allegations are published as soon as they become known – taken at face value, this means that a judgment is made instantly about the credibility of an accusation, supposedly meaning that it meets the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, without even hearing the accused give any kind of defense or seriously weighing the available evidence before possibly helping to ruin a person’s good name unnecessarily. Perhaps Baltimore has a very thick and subtle manual of how to determine “credibility” which is meticulously followed and they are here overstating or poorly stating their approach, but no such manual is referenced. (This same document does mention a “lay independent review board,” but it is unclear about its role in determining “credibility.”) It leaves the impression that their process is astonishingly imprudent and grossly unjust. Beyond that, it is not even clear what good publishing these names actually accomplishes, which is in part why basically no company, anywhere, ever, has had such a policy for their employees.

“The Archdiocese hosts a public meeting when a priest or other minister of the Church in active ministry is credibly accused of abuse.”

Why? So that anyone with an interest in harming that person or the Church in general has a chance to capitalize on an allegation? (This is exactly what we saw happen with Kavanaugh… Publicity can encourage a dog pile if it’s the right person being accused. Wicked people see that this is their chance to get some money, hurt a cause, forward an agenda, draw attention to themselves, etc.) It seems outlandish to do anything other than launch a discrete formal inquiry among trustworthy people who might have relevant information and who can keep their mouths shut about the investigation.

“There is zero tolerance for anyone found to be credibly accused of abuse. Anyone who is credibly accused of child sexual abuse is permanently removed from ministry.”

Leaving aside the weirdness of switching from the extremely vague word “abuse” to the still vague phrase “child sexual abuse,” we return to the central question: who decides what “credible” means? And what if it comes out that the accuser was wrong? Surely, it would not mean a “permanent” removal then, right? If there is a process of appeal and reinstatement, why use such threatening language? It reads like a juvenile smokescreen at best, and a draconian strong-arm at worst.

Much like secular liberals’ use of the words “tolerance” and “equality,” so do some dioceses use words like “accountability” and “transparency” – if you are on the “wrong side” of someone’s desires or opinions, you will be made to pay dearly. There is then “zero tolerance” for you. But no mention will be made of “zero tolerance” for false accusers, or unfair investigative practices, or unnecessary publicity. St. Thomas’ take on false accusations is worth explaining briefly: basically, if an accuser is unable to prove what he says, he should be sentenced just as the defendant would have been if found guilty. Now, perhaps it should be subject to a slightly lower standard than a conviction (such as preponderance-of-the-evidence), but this is a serious suggestion from a serious thinker which seems entirely forgotten. It would deter frivolous accusations and opportunists.

At any rate, the approach of dioceses like Baltimore is more akin to Lady MacBeth washing her hands than to balanced self-policing. And I have seen this intemperate attitude cause serious harm. The righteous intention to protect the vulnerable is achieved by adopting a strategy which is something between ritual purity and a witch-hunt. And given that scandal-plagued Maryland is now facing a Grand Jury investigation, this is all the more relevant for poor Baltimore.

Note too, by the way, that the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report in fact did not attempt to give us a list of priests found guilty of sexual abuse, except indirectly. (Nor will any other similar report in the future.) It gave us a list of “church personnel” who were accused of “sexual abuse” (a vague term) in a way the investigators thought credible enough to include in their investigative report. That is quite a different thing. Consider, for example, the report’s inclusion of an allegation against Fr. Ganter, who was born in the 1800’s… The incident supposedly happened some 80 years ago. And yet his name is among those “credibly accused,” even though he’d been falsely accused in the 40’s by three kids who later admitted they had lied. Perhaps the Grand Jury conflated “realistic” with “credible” – an easy but disastrous mistake.

Lesson #3: The opinions of survivors are not sacrosanct

As I pointed out in another post, experience is not the same as wisdom, and this error is pervasive in the Left. (Experience is especially not partial-omniscience – as if being a survivor of sexual assault means you know what happened 36 years ago in an unknown house in suburban D.C.) Having been through some experience simply does not make a person an expert on the objective causes and effects of that kind of event. A child who grows up in a war may indeed be able to describe what it feels like to be afraid of bombs every night, but he might not be a wise counselor to a General fighting a war. In fact, his own experience might blind him to the broader picture. For example, he may be so empathetic to kids like him that his advice to forego an attack with a moderate risk of collateral damage would occasion the enemy’s victory, resulting in far more damage than what was avoided.

As we saw with the unending barrage of feminist activists in the news, this is not so popular a doctrine. Especially remarkable was the encounter with Sen. Flake and some women who accosted him in an elevator, which occasioned the supplementary FBI investigation. I suppose the argument is, “I was abused by someone once, therefore Kavanaugh is guilty of abusing this other person.”

It is surely important to give a forum for survivors to speak their mind, to tell their stories, and generally to feel heard and consoled. However, one need not have survived a sexual assault to know how to investigate an accusation of sexual assault. And sometimes people further removed from an experience of abuse have a clearer mind on the issue, as there is no projection of one’s own experience onto other cases which might be quite different in nature.

Lesson #4: We are not so holy

As I recall the story, one day, an elderly St. Francis of Assisi was praised by a man for being a living saint. His reply: “I could still father many children,” implying not that he still just might get married one day and have a big happy family, but rather that he still just might become a monster. The moral is twofold – don’t definitively praise a man’s virtue until he’s dead, and don’t presume that you are beyond stooping to any level of sin. A corollary would be to see another’s failings in light of one’s own experience of sin… (There was one senator in particular who was troubling in this regard, as he has admitted to groping a girl in high school while she was intoxicated.)

To expect absolute moral perfection from anyone other than God or the saints in Heaven is stupid. It is especially stupid, hypocritical, and sinful to find as many flaws as possible in a person’s distant past to smear his or her character. This is becoming more and more relevant – consider that there might be some young man right now saying dumb things on Facebook who will one day be elected Bishop of Rome.

Frankly, watching the Senate proceedings reminded me of Christ arguing with the Pharisees and scribes – trick questions, a clear ideological agenda, a double-standard, feigned or unjustified outrage, hypocrisy, the bastardization of the fundamental text at issue… But we could all become like that. And all of us would without God’s special grace.

Lesson #5: Tribalism is bad in rational discourse

If one were to remove the letters after the names of the senators involved in the investigations and hearings, and a nameless president had nominated an opinion-less judge, what sense could possibly be made of this whole affair? None, I suggest. Epistemic vice became moral error. An observer to such a politically neutral hypothetical fiasco following the outline of the Kavanaugh debacle would be astounded by some senators’ fanatical commitment displayed to investigating seriously dubious allegations, obsession over drinking habits and notes in a high school yearbook, deep concern about judicial temperament over mild expressions of frustration at being accused of running a gang rape/drug ring and raging alcoholism in front of millions of people without any corroborative evidence, etc.

Targeted anger, imbalanced presumptions, motivated reasoning, double-standards… It’s all very bad, and it’s all very easy to fall into, due in no small part to the fact that fights can be fun and give us a sense of meaning and belonging. We have to avoid it – for the Church, the party lines might be “conservatives” and “liberals,” or “laity” and “clergy,” or “bishops” and “everyone else,” or “my diocese” and “the Vatican.” Well, as it turns out, people are complicated, and so too is human conflict. Tribalism deadens the senses to this reality.

Advocacy groups are a good thing. Lawyers are a good thing. (Incredible, but true.) But mobs are bad. And when advocacy groups or lawyers are indistinguishable from the mob, that’s when you have trouble. There are certainly predatory clerics around, and they have been concealed by other clerics. For sure. But this calls for the use of scalpels rather than hammers – let alone torches and pitchforks.

Lesson #6: Abortion is worth everything to the Left

They are willing to weaponize practically baseless accusations to run a man’s good name into the ground and then some. (This might also include the accuser, who apparently wanted to remain anonymous to the public.) And anyone who does not realize that the whole thing was about Roe v. Wade needs a serious wake-up call. SCOTUS is now a majority pro-life bench… The Leftists are terrified, they are wounded, and therefore they are extremely dangerous. Whom will they come for next to safeguard the great sacrament of the Canaanites? Me? You? Your parish priest? Your bishop? The pope? Be on your guard.

Lesson #7: Sometimes it’s just not worth it

“Reception is according to the mode of the receiver,” goes the old adage. The screaming banshees near the senate gallery, the protesters pathetically clawing at the 13-ton doors of the Supreme Court, or even the folks chanting trite little poems out on the street, are not going to be convinced by reason anytime soon. (Although, to be fair, some of them turned out to be paid to protest, so maybe they could be reached.) They feel like such-and-such is true, and that’s enough for them. Or it’s politically convenient for such-and-such to be true, and that’s enough for them. It doesn’t matter what the actual evidence is…

These people are incapable of being reasoned with, at least for the moment. As St. Thomas would say, it is like arguing with a vegetable. So, what to do? Let the banshees scream, and just do what needs to be done. Maybe eventually they can be reached, but not right now.

Plenty of people are so unbelievably angry with the Church that it is just not the right time to reach them. Some people are angry with moderate jurisprudence for accused clerics. So be it – let them be angry, and meanwhile let’s focus on doing what is truly just. Justice, by the way, is one of three goods which allows for grave scandal, in St. Thomas’ mind, the others being life and teaching right doctrine.

Lesson #8: Beware of false friends

There are many snakes in the grass who are willing to hurt good people by lying about them or otherwise damaging their reputation… Some of them are or have been “friends.”

People who are counting on secular Grand Jury reports to “fix the Church” might be falling into such a trap. Remember that Judas was not only a traitor to his Friend, but he also trusted the government too much. The two sins went together.

It is His Church, not the country’s.

Enough said.

Lesson #9: Men are seriously vulnerable in the #metoo era

This is especially true for priests. I once heard of a bishop who had a policy when he was around kids (which I suppose for him would only be at major public events), which was this: at all times, have one hand on the crosier, and one hand on the pectoral cross… Thus he protected himself from accusations. And many good clergy live in this kind of fear, a fear which is becoming less and less neurotic as the moral panic increases among the laity. They need our support, and anything we can do to help protect them is good – help them retain plausible deniability (like appropriately reminding them of diocesan CYP policies, not putting them in situations where they could easily be accused “credibly” by a mischievous kid, etc.), encourage them to stay beyond all reproach, tell them you trust them. It all helps.

It might also be worth it for clergy to take a cue from Justice Kavanaugh, who has kept a rather meticulous personal calendar for decades (remarkable!) which he produced in favor of his innocence… Names, places, times, activities. Tell your secretary to keep all of it on file, and to correct it if there are any missed appointments, unexpected events, etc. by making a special note. I know I’m considering doing this.

Lesson  #10: God alone is the Just Judge

Any human justice system is going to be imperfect. There will always be procedural rules about due process which occasion the protection of real criminals. There will always be innocent people wrongly accused who are found guilty in a fair trial.

History, strictly speaking, can never be demonstrated. We will never be totally sure about what happened in some house in suburban D.C. 36 years ago. We will never be totally sure about the veracity of any accusation of a crime, as in the end it could always have been a carefully crafted hoax to get someone framed, or an unrealistic truth. And yet we need to do our best anyway.

God, however, does not investigate – He knows, and His judgment is always just.

The Double-Effect Death-Spiral… and the Way Out!

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark

There are a number of pressing problems in Catholic moral theology, especially in bioethics. One of them is the right understanding of the so-called “Principle of Double-Effect,” (PDE) or whether this is really a legitimate principle at all in the way it is normally expressed. Now that Dr. Finnis has both parts of his series on capital punishment out, let’s put on our moralist hats and get to work.

I’ll spare you all the ins and outs of the history of the problem – Fr. Connery’s wonderful book on abortion in the Catholic moral tradition deals with this in some relevant detail – but will give you the gist of the recent discussions so that we can dive into John Finnis’ articles. I too will write in two parts, I think…

The 19th century saw the problem of “craniotomy” come up, and this is a decent and to me, most familiar way to dive into the problem of PDE. (Craniotomy is crushing the skull of an inviable fetus, in this case with an eye to extracting the child to save the mother.) Archbishop Kenrick of Baltimore wrote his morals handbook and forbade the operation, Cardinal Avanzini of Rome anonymously opined in favor (page 308-311) of the procedure in his journal (which would become the Acta Apostolicae Sedis), and Cardinal Caverot of Lyon (the city pictured above, coincidentally) petitioned the Holy Office for an official response. Needless to say, there was some controversy.

In response to Caverot’s dubium, the Holy Office (the precursor to the CDF) decided in favor of Kenrick’s position. But it did so cautiously, saying that the procedure “cannot be safely taught.” It did not exclude definitively the liceity of the procedure in itself.

Let’s fast-forward to today’s iteration of the old camps, of which there were and still are precisely three…

The “Grisezian” Position:

Doctors Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle were major proponents of the liceity of craniotomy in the 20th century and into the 21st. Grisez lays out his argument in several places, including in his magnum opus (entirely available online), The Way of the Lord Jesus. It is worth quoting the relevant passage in its entirety:

“Sometimes the baby’s death may be accepted to save the mother. Sometimes four conditions are simultaneously fulfilled: (i) some pathology threatens the lives of both a pregnant woman and her child, (ii) it is not safe to wait or waiting surely will result in the death of both, (iii) there is no way to save the child, and (iv) an operation that can save the mother’s life will result in the child’s death.

If the operation was one of those which the classical moralists considered not to be a “direct” abortion, they held that it could be performed. For example, in cases in which the baby could not be saved regardless of what was done (and perhaps in some others as well), they accepted the removal of a cancerous gravid uterus or of a fallopian tube containing an ectopic pregnancy. This moral norm plainly is sound, since the operation does not carry out a proposal to kill the child, serves a good purpose, and violates neither fairness nor mercy.

At least in times past, however, and perhaps even today in places where modern medical equipment and skills are unavailable, certain life-saving operations meeting the four conditions would fall among procedures classified by the classical moralists as “direct” killing, since the procedures in question straightaway would lead to the baby’s death. This is the case, for example, if the four conditions are met during the delivery of a baby whose head is too large. Unless the physician does a craniotomy (an operation in which instruments are used to empty and crush the head of the child so that it can be removed from the birth canal), both mother and child eventually will die; but the operation can be performed and the mother saved. With respect to physical causality, craniotomy immediately destroys the baby, and only in this way saves the mother. Thus, not only classical moralists but the magisterium regarded it as “direct” killing: a bad means to a good end.

However, assuming the four conditions are met, the baby’s death need not be included in the proposal adopted in choosing to do a craniotomy. The proposal can be simply to alter the child’s physical dimensions and remove him or her, because, as a physical object, this body cannot remain where it is without ending in both the baby’s and the mother’s deaths. To understand this proposal, it helps to notice that the baby’s death contributes nothing to the objective sought; indeed, the procedure is exactly the same if the baby has already died. In adopting this proposal, the baby’s death need only be accepted as a side effect. Therefore, according to the analysis of action employed in this book, even craniotomy (and, a fortiori, other operations meeting the four stated conditions) need not be direct killing, and so, provided the death of the baby is not intended (which is possible but unnecessary), any operation in a situation meeting the four conditions could be morally acceptable.”

We can see the attractiveness of the Grisezian position. It removes the uncomfortable conclusion that we must allow two people to die rather than save one. However, it simultaneously introduces an uncomfortable conclusion: that we may ignore the immediately terrible results of our physical exterior act in favor of further consequences of that act due to the psychological reality of our intention, in this case contingent on even further action (viz. actually extracting the child after crushing the skull – presumably, a surgeon may perform the craniotomy and then simply leave the child in the womb, thus failing to save either life).

Hold on to that thought.

The “Traditional” Position:

I put the word “traditional” in scare-quotes because it is the position which follows the cautious prohibition of the Holy Office, but it is not very old and is merely probable opinion. It is taken by a good number of moralists who are “conservative” and “traditional” in other areas. And it doesn’t have a modern champion the way Grisez was for the pro-craniotomy camp.

Folks in this school often make more or less good critiques of the Grisezian position, zeroing in on the lack of the appreciation for the immediate physical effects which flow from an external act. How is it that crushing a child’s skull does not equate with “direct killing”? It seems that such an action-theory, as proposed by Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle (GFB) in their landmark essay in The Thomist back in 2001, is utterly at odds with common sense. The plain truth then, is that craniotomy, just like ripping the organs out of someone healthy to save 5 other people, functions based on consequentialism.

This position, however, must bite two bullets. First, there is the sour prescription to let two people die when one could be saved. Second, it throws into confusion the topic of private lethal self-defense… Doesn’t shooting a person in the head also directly kill in order to save another’s life? GFB made this point in their Thomist essay, and, in my opinion, it is their strongest counter-argument. It pulls us back to the fundamental text in the discussion, q. 64 a. 7 of the Secunda Secundae, whence supposedly cometh PDE.

Hold on to that thought too.

The Rights-Based Position:

The final position for our consideration comes most recently from Fr. Rhonheimer, who seems to be at least in part following Avanzini. Basically, the argument goes like this… In some vital conflicts, like the problematic pregnancy at issue, one has two options – save one life, or allow two deaths. Everyone has a right to life, but in cases where we find acute vital conflicts, it sometimes makes no sense to speak of rights. The case in which a person in a vital conflict (the child) will not even be born is one such example. Therefore, while the child retains the right to life, it makes no sense to speak of this right, and so it does not bear on the decision of whether to perform an act which would end in the child’s death if it will save the mother.

Leaving aside the problem of the language of rights in moral discourse (see McIntyre’s scathing critique in After Virtue), we can simply observe that this is a position which does not evidently derive from virtue-ethics but is made up wholesale out of a desire to appease an intuition. Rhonheimer, as far as I recall, does not even attempt to integrate his position into the broader framework of moral theology. In sum, the damning question is, “Why precisely does acute danger to others and shortness of life remove the necessity to respect the bodily integrity/life of a person?” To me, it seems little more than an appeal to intuition followed by foot-stomping.

I credit Fr. Rhonheimer for making an attempt to present a different solution, and certainly, not all of his work is this problematic. But we are presently concerned with this particular topic. Anyway, I suggest that this is not a serious position for further consideration.

A Brief Synthesis

I recently wrote my STB thesis on moral liceity with respect to “per se” order, which is to say that those acts with “per se” order form the fundamental unit of moral analysis upon which the whole question of “object” vis-a-vis “intention” turns. I look at Dr. Steven Long’s truly excellent groundwork in his book The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act, but I expose what I found to be some ambiguities in his definition and presentation of what exactly constitutes per se order. Skipping over all the details, let me quickly show how problematic the first two foregoing positions are and then give a rundown of the basic solution and its integration with respect to capital punishment. (It is Finnis’ articles on the death penalty which brought us here, remember!)

There are 3 dilemmas we have already mentioned: the central problem is craniotomy. At the two poles are the “transplant dilemma,” with one healthy patient and 5 critical patients in need of new vital organs, and the standard case of private lethal self-defense (PLSD), such as shooting a person in the head in order to stop his lethal attack.

The Grisezian position ably explains the craniotomy and PLSD. Nowhere – and I have looked pretty hard – do NNL theorists explore the implications of their action-theory (such as presented by GFB in their article) with respect to something like the transplant dilemma. One could easily appropriate the language of Grisez’s passage in TWOTLJ to accommodate such an obviously heinous action as ripping out the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, etc. of a healthy man to save 5 others. (It should be noted that the individual’s willingness to give his body over to such an act, while good in its remote intention, is totally inadmissible. I think basically all Catholic moralists would agree with this.) To rip out the man’s vital organs could certainly be described as “reshaping the body” or something similar to Grisez’s description of craniotomy as “reshaping the skull.” After all, the surgeon need not intend to kill the man – he could simply foresee it happening in view of his means to save these other men.

GFB evidently miss the point in their Thomist article, as they claim a causal equivalence between craniotomy and procedures done on a person for that person’s own sake, on page 23: “It is true that crushing the baby’s skull does not of itself help the mother, and that to help her the surgeon must carry out additional further procedures (remove the baby’s body from the birth canal). But many surgical procedures provide no immediate benefit and by themselves are simply destructive: removing the top of someone’s skull, stopping someone’s heart, and so forth.” We can see, then, that the principle of totality is undervalued by GFB and those who follow them. Serious damage done to a person must at least help that person. Any help to other persons is secondary, and I would argue per accidens rather than per se… One human substance is always related accidentally to another human substance.

The traditional approach more or less throws the teaching of St. Thomas into a cloud of ambiguity. By stating that the craniotomy is illicit because of the directness of its physical causation, the language in q. 64 a. 7 becomes unintelligible. We have to see the whole thing:

“Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as explained above (II-II:43:3; I-II:12:1). Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in ‘being,’ as far as possible. And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore if a man, in self-defense, uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repel force with moderation his defense will be lawful, because according to the jurists [Cap. Significasti, De Homicid. volunt. vel casual.], ‘it is lawful to repel force by force, provided one does not exceed the limits of a blameless defense.’ Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense in order to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s. But as it is unlawful to take a man’s life, except for the public authority acting for the common good, as stated above (Article 3), it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense, except for such as have public authority, who while intending to kill a man in self-defense, refer this to the public good, as in the case of a soldier fighting against the foe, and in the minister of the judge struggling with robbers, although even these sin if they be moved by private animosity.”

Without launching into a critique of the Cajetanian strain of commentary which ultimately gave rise to the crystallized formulation of PDE which pervades most moral discourse on vital conflicts, I will again follow Long and say that the “rules” of PDE really only work if one already knows what one is looking for. In this respect, PDE is like the moral version of St. Anselm’s ontological proof for God’s existence – it is nice to have in a retrospective capacity, but it is not actually that helpful as an explanatory tool.

As we have seen, GFB take Thomas to mean that one does not “intend” to kill the aggressor, just as the surgeon does not “intend” to kill the child in the craniotomy. The traditional school does not have as clear of an answer – it seems forced to say, somewhat like Fr. Rhonheimer, that the rules just “don’t apply,” yet without a convincing explanation. After all, the principle of totality does not bear on the slaying of one person for the sake of another, even in the case Thomas addresses. Furthermore, because it appears that it is only due to the death of the aggressor that the attack is stopped, thus implying “intentional killing” as a means, how do we explain St. Thomas’ position?

We can note a few things in response. First, it is in fact not death which stops the attack initially – it is the destruction of the body’s capacity to continue attacking, which itself is the cause of death. The separation of the soul and body (which is what death is) need not be the chosen means or the intended end. In every single case, the aggressor is incapacitated before dying, and such incapacitation is what is sought. (This is at least part of what makes Finnis’ argument about “unintentional killing” in war plausible.) Second, the child stuck in the womb is a radically different kind of threat than the rational aggressor. Third, Thomas is quick to turn the discussion to public authority, as a kind of foil. All of this is quite significant and points to an answer.

To the first point… It is true that the private citizen can’t have the death of the aggressor as a goal, meaning, death can’t be what is sought as a means or as an end. He doesn’t need to do anything to the soul-body composite as such, he only needs to do something to the body’s ability to be used as a weapon.

To the second point… A gunman in an alley is a very different sort of threat than a child growing in the womb. There seem to be two classes of threats – non-commutative, and commutative. The non-commutative threats are those which result from principles not in themselves ordered towards interacting with the outside world, viz., the operations of which are without a terminus exterior to one’s own body. These would be the material principle itself of the body (the act of existing as a body), and the augmentative and nutritive faculties of the vegetal soul. So a person falling off a cliff, or a child growing in the womb, are not acting on the outside world… Threats which proceed from the animal or rational appetites, however, are indeed acting externally. The crazed gunman who is not morally responsible and the hired hand are both trying to do something to another person, whereas the child growing in the womb is not. So perhaps different kinds of threats allow for different kinds of defense.

To the third point… Without a full exploration of the famous “self-defense” article quoted above, Thomas is eager to explain that public authority can kill intentionally – evidently meaning it can be the end of one’s act rather than just the means. (“Choice” refers to means, “intention” refers to ends – they are only equivocally applied in the inverse senses in scholastic morals.) Here’s where it gets weird.

Because the soul-body composite is its own substance (a living human being), the act of killing a person (regardless of one’s psychology) destroys that substance insofar as the world of nature is concerned. (We leave aside the interesting questions of  the survivalism vs. corruptionism debate among Catholic philosophers.) It forms a per se act – that is to say, there is nothing further which can come from this action which will be per se an effect. This is because, as I argued in my thesis, per se order exists only within the substance chosen to be acted upon. Per se effects are those effects which necessarily occur in the substance an agent acts on which come from the agent’s act itself, given the real situation of the substance. So to destroy a substance necessarily ends the per se order. At the end of per se order there is the intended effect – such as debilitation (which is only logically distinct from self-preservation and therefore is not a separate/remote/accidental effect – what it is to protect oneself simply is to remove a threat) or death. Of course, this intended effect can itself be part of a chain of intended effects which function as means with relation to some further end. If I defend myself in order to live, but I want to live for the sake of something else (like acquiring wealth), then there is a chain of intended ends which function as means. The necessary process of moral evaluation, however, is to look for the per se case of action and examine whether it is rightly ordered in itself.

We have seen with the transplant dilemma that it is wrongly ordered to damage one innocent person’s body lethally with the good aim of helping many others. The answer to the craniotomy seems to be the same… The child does not have an unjust appetite, he has a rightly ordered vegetal/material appetite which is inconvenient to others, so he may not be attacked, unless that attack also proportionately helps him and is chosen in part for that reason. (Such a case might really exist – for example, an inviable fetus is causing the womb to rupture… It’s foreseen that delivering the child will both save the mother and allow the child to live longer than he would have otherwise, even though exposure to the outside world will be the cause of his death. It certainly seems that this would be permissible given the principle of totality.) Finally, we reach the case of PLSD… There is no principle of totality at work here, even though the intended effect of self-preservation is immediately achieved with the debilitation which causes death. Rather, the normal rule of totality is indeed suspended. This is because of the kind of threat which the aggressor poses – it is a threat to the commonwealth due to a disordered external appetite.

Because “it is natural to everything to keep itself in ‘being,’ as far as possible,” and “one is more bound to take care of his own life than another’s,” it stands to reason that in a case in which there is public disorder due to the external act of a person, that person becomes the rightful recipient of correction at the hands of those whom he threatens, without his own good being a barrier to protecting the good of oneself or the community. The blows to the aggressor, we can see, actually help him – they keep him from being a bad part of society. And the private citizen’s duty is indeed to protect the commonwealth insofar as he is a part… This would include a kind of “natural delegation” to dispense with individual totality for the sake of communal totality – he is at liberty to risk the good of the one person (while, remember, he actually does something good to the aggressor by rectifying his disordered exterior act) for the sake of the commonwealth. The private defender may not try to kill the aggressor, but he may knowingly cause it with no benefit to the aggressor beyond keeping him from being harmful. Even though death is a per se effect, the defensive act is legitimate – the private defender acts like a miniature public official in this urgent situation, without psychologically taking death itself as an end.

This plugs in very nicely with Thomas’ vision of capital punishment… Stay tuned for part 2, though I’m sure a lengthy tome like this won’t be too necessary, given that a response from Dr. Feser is likely forthcoming, due in no small part to having been called out personally by Dr. Finnis.

Interesting times indeed.

A Breakdown of Positions on the New Catechism Text

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark

Basically, there seem to me to be available 16 positions on the new text of the Catechism. They break down according to the following bifurcations: the text itself as an objective piece of magisterium vis-a-vis the author’s subjective intention behind the text, whether the putative development  is practical or speculative (viz. a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine or a principled definition of universal moral prescript), and whether that development is legitimate or illegitimate.

I consider the various readings of the text as having attempted sincerely to use the standard hermeneutic of magisterial documents, namely, to read them within the context of what has gone before, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and without otherwise relying on the subjective intent of the author except insofar as it is incontrovertibly expressed in the text. In other words, when in doubt, try to find the most sensible meaning which does not contradict established doctrine.

For my purposes here, a legitimate prudential judgment would be a correct judgment, even if it is not binding. I do not consider here the various positions on the binding character of either practical or speculative characters of the text (which would add even more positions), although it seems rather clear that it can only be the text itself in which such a binding character could be found (and not in the hidden recesses of the author’s mind), and it could only be binding if legitimate (viz., it does not contradict a past infallible teaching). It furthermore seems clear, if we are to take Ratzinger’s instruction on the matter seriously, that merely prudential applications of the Church’s teaching on capital punishment cannot be binding, even if they are uttered by the Holy Father. So that leaves us only with the possibility of a binding or non-binding legitimate speculative judgment.

Let’s see this drawn out in its combinations… I have marked commonplace positions in bold.

  1. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  2. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  3. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  4. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  5. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  6. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  7. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  8. The text presents a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  9. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  10. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  11. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  12. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is legitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  13. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  14. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a prudential application of pre-existing doctrine which is itself illegitimate.
  15. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself legitimate.
  16. The text presents a speculative development of doctrine which is illegitimate, and the author’s intention is to present a speculative development of doctrine which is itself illegitimate.

Personally, I find it possible to torture the text into being a merely prudential application, solely due to its partial reliance on “more effective systems of detention” as a criterion for calling the death penalty “inadmissible.” This application, in my opinion, is the result of a very bad judgment, not only because of the vast disparity among various countries’ justice systems, and the violence which can be caused directly or indirectly from within even a good prison, but also because it ignores some of the major arguments in favor of capital punishment, such as deterrence and an incentive to individual repentance.

Had there been no mention of systems of detention, my position would probably be different. While the last paragraph does say, “the Church teaches,” thus seemingly putting the text into the realm of speculative claims, the foregoing is enough in my view to render it “toothless.” It seems one can, and therefore should, read the text as meaning, “the Church teaches in the way that She can teach prudential applications of doctrine which properly belong to the legitimate civil authority,” which is to teach merely in a hortatory way, i.e., “Think hard about not killing!”

Given the other two reasons for the putative development (the clauses about the “increasing awareness” of dignity and the “new understanding” of penal law), it seems difficult to deny that the author’s intention was speculative. Because of the staggering litany of popes, saints, Fathers, and trustworthy theologians who have not merely tolerated capital punishment but have taken a positive stance in favor of it, if the teaching of the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment does not belong to the infallible body of ordinary magisterial teaching then one must wonder what does. One could very easily replace some words to form a “development” of the teaching on abortion, contraception, gay marriage, women’s ordination… All that needs to be done is to say that there is “an increasing awareness” of the dignity of the pregnant mother, or the financially burdened spouse, or the homosexual, or the woman, which would allow for a “development” on a connected issue which, while leading to a differing praxis would not be a “contradiction” because what has developed is the awareness or understanding of the dignity of the person or their desires which naturally leads to that new praxis, and even if there were a doctrinal contradiction, the doctrine was not directly defined by the extraordinary magisterium anyway. Watch:

The sacramental ordination of men alone was long considered an appropriate response to a male-dominant culture and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of avoiding scandal.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of women is equal to that of men. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of the Church’s conferral of ordination.

Lastly, more effective systems of ecclesiastical administration have been developed, which ensure the due protection of traditional mindsets with respect to the role of men in the Church but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive women of the possibility of sacramental ordination.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that restricting sacramental ordination to men alone is inadmissible because it is an attack on the talents and dignity of women, and the Church works with determination for the implementation of women’s ordination worldwide.

It’s that easy.

I don’t think that the intense exasperation and Sedevacantism which are now cropping up are warranted. We have seen such antics before with Honorius I (over Monothelitism) and with John XXII (over the Beatific Vision). These issues were resolved without a deposition, and without an antipope. Furthermore, it does not seem to me that we are in the kind of situation at issue in the increasingly relevant debate between St. Robert Bellarmine, Suarez, and Cajetan about manifestly heretical popes. (It is also unclear who is right, or if there might be some middle-path.) For what it’s worth, Bellarmine thought the situation of a manifest heretic (as opposed to a merely occult heretic) occupying the See of Peter was impossible, and surely he knew of Honorius and John. Bellarmine did, however, see capital punishment as an item over which there could be heresy.

At any rate, a troubled mind will not help to resolve anything. So let’s all calm down.

Much to ponder… More to come… Stay tuned.

 

Main image: screenshot of the Hydra from Disney’s Hercules

Three Intellectual Errors in American Leftism

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark

Though there are many problems one might point out in present day progressive American politics, I want to point out three particularly deep-seated intellectual vices. The misunderstandings are with respect to the following: the order of charity, experience and knowledge, and the terminus a quo/ad quem paradigm. They correspond to three key issues… the mode and structure of government, the value of so-called diversity in rational discourse, and the purpose of social institutions and roles especially in relation to sex and gender.

First, the order of charity. One of the great principles of Catholic social teaching is subsidiarity, which is the preference to defer to the more local government to provide for a constituent’s needs. The chain goes something like this: individual – family – town – county – state – nation – world. To know the needs of many individuals belongs to the governor of the family, to know the needs of many families belongs to the governor of the town, and so on. It is easy to see that as we ascend the ladder the task of governance becomes increasingly complicated, as it involves increasingly many parts. This proves the need for an order of governance in the first place, as it would be unthinkable for the king of a large country to govern each town directly, not only because of the amount of time and energy such micromanagement would take but also because of the diverse needs and situations of each town which are understood best by those who actually live there. The king is only in a position to know the affairs which affect the whole country, where its largest parts are concerned in their relations with each other. Thus, subsidiarity. The more that can be delegated to smaller governments, the better. The value of this principle is taught by some of the harshest lessons of world history… When the emperor gets too powerful there is trouble ahead both for him and for his empire.

But what about the relationships as they go up the chain rather than down it, or even those relationships at the same level? For example, what should characterize the individual’s actions vis-a-vis the family, or the state, or the world? How should families or counties or nations interact with each other? Of course, the lower owes care and respect to the higher and ought to be willing to make appropriate sacrifices for the good of the whole of which he is a part, with a greater kind of love given according to the dignity of the political body. However, this good will, or charity (ideally), follows an order, just like the governance to which it relates. Because we are creatures, we can only love in concrete practice up to a certain point, and our acts of love therefore should be patterned on our proximity – physical or otherwise – to the object of that love. Just as good parents care for their own children more than their next door neighbors’ children, they would also care more about their own town than a different town, because it is their own town which is most immediately able to care for them. Furthermore, they would be more ready to sacrifice for their town than for their county, state, or nation, not because they don’t have a greater kind of love for the larger body (i.e. the nation) according to its dignity but because that body is more remote. Finally, they will exercise more diligence and care toward families in their own town or neighborhood, as they have more interest in common with each other and are more able to look out for each other precisely because they are parts of the same small community. Such care is a legitimate application of the principle of solidarity… To be in real solidarity involves real proximity, of geography, blood ties, virtues, or even goals, and that proximity also tends to give a better understanding of the situation. This is why voluntourism is generally bad, or at least not as good as it feels: it ignores the needs of one’s close neighbors to go save people far away, and it does little to no help in the end, possibly even making things worse. The Western obsession with “saving Africa” is one example of this.

This should reveal at least one major problem with two key progressive agenda items: socialism and globalism. It is simply not possible to take care of everyone by centralizing government more and making it bigger (including by weakening or removing borders). We have a duty to look after those who are more closely united with us – and so long as we are flesh and blood, occupying physical space and belonging naturally to families, there will exist this natural order of government – and charity. We are bound to love our neighbor, but we are certainly bound to love some neighbors more than others. (See Gal. 6:10, 1 Tim. 5:8, etc.)

Second, experience and knowledge. It has become an all-too-familiar rhetorical move: you don’t share my experience, therefore your position is automatically irrelevant. “How can you, a man, dictate sensible policy on abortion? You don’t know what pregnancy is like!” This kind of thinking pervades public discourse in debates on race, gender-theory, guns… It even exists in the Church. How much do we really need to “discern with” and “listen to” various people or groups in order to understand the moral and doctrinal issues at stake? Certainly, nobody is saying that acquiring knowledge of particulars is bad or even unhelpful for dealing with those particulars themselves – indeed, it is vital, as Gregory speaks about at length in the Pastoral Rule – but once the general principles are known, especially through the authority of revelation, there is no need to go on studying particulars to learn those principles. If some people want to be “accompanied” a certain way, at odds with right morals or doctrine, then it is they who need reform, not the principles. It is they who need to work to build the bridge. Thus, the first public words of the Lord were not “what do you think” or “how are you feeling,” but rather, “repent” and “believe.”

What, then, is the value of experience? It is the collection of memories which can be applied to work for a desired end through abstracting the universal principles at work. Experience can contribute to making a person more prudent if he pays attention and has a good memory, but it does not necessarily give someone all the knowledge required to make a good decision about how to reach the goal, nor does it necessarily tell a person what ends are best to seek at all. Likewise, empathy with suffering groups, which provides a kind of substitute-experience, does not give the right means or ends either. It can actually be quite blinding. For example, perhaps you feel terribly for victims of drunk driving – but you have to look at whether outlawing alcohol would result in damage far worse than the damage avoided. Everyone you govern must be considered fairly. (See above about subsidiarity!) The wisdom that comes from suffering borne well is a spiritual kind of wisdom, a sort of perspective on one’s own life and meaning, and typically that is its limit. Being a resident of a war-torn country does not make a person an expert on foreign policy, it makes him an expert at hiding from bombs and bullets. If the same person also studied international politics at university and served for decades in his nation’s diplomatic corps, these would be of greater value for prudential decision-making about foreign policy, as they both communicate more information about the relevant matters. Perhaps his experience of hiding from air raids helps to contextualize what he is learning, or helps to remind him of how important certain consequences are, but simply having experienced the wrong end of a war does not make him a good politician.

Knowledge can be gained without experience of the things learned about. This principle is easily proven by the very existence of education: we believe that we can give people information through communicating information. It is left to the individual to organize that information and make a judgment, right or wrong. Thus, a priest who has studied the Pastoral Rule, for instance, is in a much better position to preach and rule well than if he had not studied it, ceteris paribus. If experience is the sole criterion for knowledge, we would face epistemic anarchy: no two people have the exact same experience of anything, and therefore there could never be any common body of knowledge. To rectify this, there is a theory of group-based experience, codified in the doctrine of “intersectionality.” Because minorities (and women) are necessarily victims, and the victim-narrative must always be believed, the number of victim-classes to which one belongs gives greater primacy to their claims and demands. So goes the theory. But if intersectionality defines knowledge, then we should only need to find the few Black, homosexual, transgender-woman, overweight, Muslim immigrants and let them run our lives, since they are practically demigods given their high intersectionality. And even within such an elite group, there would be divisions – some grew up poor, others did not. Some have genetic diseases, some do not. Etc. And so intersectionality is also a kind of compartmentalization which tends toward epistemic anarchy. The truth is that we are not only animals, we are rational animals; we are capable of learning without experiencing, and therefore we can generally see what is good and right in public policy without having been in the exact circumstance of those to whom any given piece of legislation applies, provided we are actually informed of how that policy will affect people and be enforced (subsidiarity!)… But we don’t need to take subsidiarity so far that we actually must be part of the racial, gender, “whatever” group over which we exercise authority.

Third, the terminus a quo/ad quem paradigm. The terminus a quo is the “point from which” one goes. It stands in relation to the “terminus ad quem,” the “point to which” one goes. It behooves a person who wants “progress” to say exactly where that progress leads to, and where it stops. Not only has there been deep confusion about where exactly some kinds of “progress” are heading, but also no principled way to determine when that progress ought to stop and be conserved. Some slopes are slippery indeed.

Today’s conservatives are yesterday’s liberals, especially with regard to gender-theory and its related issues. If you need proof, well, there is an endless supply, but try this one on for size. (Yes, really, click the link. If that doesn’t drop your jaw, nothing will.) What is the endgame? What is it really all about? How far can we “progress”? Of course, the goalposts keep moving. First, mere social tolerance is the only request. Then, once acquired, it is a small legal concession here or there, nothing big. Then, the redefinition of a social institution protected by law – but surely, this is the last step… Except then it becomes domination in schools, in the workplace, in the culture at large: indoctrination of the youth, forced service to same-sex weddings, and constant positive portrayal and exposure in the media. And now that the homosexual lobby is quickly running out of room, the momentum has carried into transgender rights.

But at this point I want to ask about these intermediate steps, which, for some basically sincere people, really are seen as the “end,” the terminus ad quem. That step is the the redefinition of social institutions or roles, such as same-sex marriage on the homosexual agenda and right around “bathroom bills” on the transgender front. There is a distinct problem of intentionality for each with regard to their understanding of their terminus ad quem as such.

Everyone has heard the comparison between the civil rights battle of the 1950’s and the present-day struggle for so-called “gay rights.” There is an oppressed group which only wants equal treatment and protection under the law. Just like Blacks couldn’t use the White schools or water fountains or any number of products and services, so gays don’t (didn’t) have access to marriage, because it is limited to the heterosexuals. Because marriage is so important in public life and personally desirable for so many reasons, it is equivalent to the desire for education, transportation, etc., wherein Blacks were discriminated against. Therefore, the two movements are basically analogous.

The problem with this argument is with regard to the terminus a quo/ad quem relationship. Under Jim Crow, goods and services that were equally desirable to both Whites and Blacks were apportioned unequally and unfairly. It was unfair because it put Blacks and Whites on fundamentally different levels of human dignity, when the reality is that race does not determine basic human nature. In other words, Blacks and Whites share the same terminus a quo, since they are fundamentally equal as human beings with the same desires and therefore deserve basic equality of opportunity, but they were treated as having different termini a quo. Because they share identical desires, such as good schools, a seat on the bus, and so on, their desires themselves have an identical terminus ad quem. To sum up, Blacks were given a different terminus ad quem because it was thought they had a different terminus a quo when in reality they did not. The civil rights movement sought the right to the same terminus ad quem by trying to show the Black terminus a quo was the same as the White terminus a quo.

This is (was) not the case with the push for same-sex marriage. Here, the terminus a quo is assumed to be the same by the government, and the terminus ad quem (marriage) is available to all. There is already equality of opportunity – it’s just that the desire of homosexuals is not the terminus ad quem which was equally available. Instead of pushing to be able to use the White water fountain, this was a push to create a Black water fountain because the water from the White fountain tastes bad to some.

Consider again: in no country ever in world history were homosexuals categorically barred from marriage. It is that they typically don’t desire the “kind” of marriage available. Instead, a new kind of marriage needs to be created to suit their desires – a different terminus ad quem altogether, just with the same name. The terminus a quo is different too, not because homosexuals and heterosexuals differ in fundamental human dignity, but because the desires which define these two categories are unequally useful to the commonwealth in which they seek to be fulfilled. Unlike schools or water fountains, marriage has not historically been treated as a good or service consumed, it has been treated as an office from which services and goods are provided to the community, namely, children and care for children. Even if same-sex couples were generally able to provide equally well for adopted or surrogate children as a child’s natural parents, which seems quite obviously incorrect for several reasons, they would still be at an unequal public dignity because they need help bringing children into existence. A man and a woman do not, generally speaking, need help procreating. And because of the clear good of parents staying together, having kids, and treating those kids well, the government is right to incentivize a lifelong commitment to a monogamous heterosexual relationship with certain public benefits which are not due to even the most committed homosexual relationships. The tendency to produce children is why there is such a thing as marriage in the first place (to protect, educate, and nurture children in a balanced and stable environment), and kids are also the primary reason the government should be interested in marriage at all, as they are the future of the commonwealth. It is especially dangerous when many fatherless young men are gathered together – this is how and why gangs form in cities… the kingpin is the replacement for the father.

We could map this same twist of the terminus a quo/ad quem dynamic onto some other public function or office of nature, such as the military. Just as every society needs marriage, it also needs a military, and so there should be certain incentives or “perks” that come with taking up arms as a soldier. But what if I want those same benefits, but without joining the current version of the military? Suppose I too am patriotic, own a gun, dislike terrorists, and sometimes wear camouflage. Shouldn’t I too have equal access to the military? I do, of course – I could go sign up at any moment – but I want to do it my own way, because I don’t desire to go to the desert or live on a base. Shouldn’t military rights be extended to me, too?

Anyone can see that this is the same line of reasoning as the same-sex marriage argument, and anyone can see also that it is a patently absurd argument.

But there is a different kind of absurdity at work in the transgender activism of today… What is the terminus ad quem of a gender transition – or even of the activism in general? If gender is a social construct, as it is so often claimed today, what is the value of changing the body? Cross-dressing or surgery would make sense if one’s real gender were something inherent to the person. So is the terminus ad quem simply to be treated a certain way by other people according to the superficial notions of male and female? If gender is a social construct, then there is no “noumenal” change, it is only a “phenomenon” which changes – that is, there is only and can only ever be a change in perception rather than any objective reality in the person or the body called “gender.” This seems contradicted by the advent of the big step in transgender activism, which is, like the gay agenda, compulsion. In this case it is even worse, because it is more arbitrary. If gender were only a social construct, looking and acting sufficiently “male” or “female” would suffice, but because the meaning of those terms is sliding away into oblivion, like “marriage,” the “appropriate” way to treat a person is based solely on that person’s desire to be treated a certain way. Because there is no objective reality “male” or “female,” and either it is consistently impossible or irrelevant for transgender people to look and act sufficiently like the paragon for “male” or “female” because of their biological sex, before or after surgery, it may be necessary simply to force people to use certain pronouns that they would not normally use.

Not to do so would be “violence,” because it causes depression and social isolation which can lead to self-harm or harassment. Therefore, speech at odds with my own desire to be called “he” “she” “zhe” or whatever, to refuse me the use of any bathroom or locker room I want, to disallow me to put on my official documents whichever of an ever-growing list of genders I determine, is punishable by law… Bad, right? It’s happening in Canada already with the infamous Bill C-16. Except we are not looking at all the harm this can cause, we are looking at the terminus ad quem. What has a trans-man or trans-woman actually become? Surely, they would say a “man” or “woman,” full stop. (Never mind that this is already causing problems – for example, does a trans-woman count as a man or as a woman for the purposes of any kind of affirmative action slanted towards women? Or take the example in the link above about the “transphobia” of RuPaul!) If gender is a social construct, a gender transition is to create a perception of a person as a member of a certain gender category. But since that category is completely based on perception, in what does the transition actually consist? What is actually being changed? And if it is all about my desires anyway, wouldn’t it be easier to change my desire to match with people’s seemingly entirely empty and baseless perception rather than the other way around? If “man” and “woman” don’t really mean anything objective anyway, then why would one even want to be called or treated as one or the other? What is the motivation to depart from the terminus a quo? It seems to be a comically extreme exercise in vanity…

Hopefully I have hammered home the point. The terminus ad quem of gender transitions and the activism surrounding it is unclear at best. And where the movement in general will end is anyone’s guess, but compelled speech is likely involved. After that point, my guess is trans-humanism will be next, especially given the rapid advances being made with the ongoing development of CRISPR.

Of course, the truth is that gender dysphoria and its accompanying behavior constitute a tragic mental illness and symptoms of that illness. The desire to “become a man” or to “become a woman” is based on a fetish with the biological reality of the opposite sex and the social realities based upon it, or some similar unfortunate disposition of the mind. Something approximately the same could be said of same-sex attraction.

These three points understood rightly – the order of charity, experience in relation to knowledge, and the terminus a quo/ad quem paradigm – give us a fitting lens through which to look at mainstream American (and broader Western) politics. The ideas are firmly rooted in the Christian intellectual tradition and help to make very useful distinctions. Hopefully they can assist you in forming your own opinions and in having your own discussions. Let me know what you think in the comments – but play nice!

Bishops and Borders

Christian Renaissance Movement

Eamonn Clark

I had endeavored to write a post some time ago when all eyes were turned to Catalonia because of the separatist fervor threatening the unity of Spain, but I never got around to it. Let this supplant it.

The recent history of the Iberian peninsula is rife with political conflict… (In fact, it is only barely out of living memory that Spain was in a war with the United States.) It should be entirely unsurprising that there are still problems… And only time will tell if Catalonia earns its independence, with violence, with voting, or with a mix of the two.

There is a singular voice in the Catalonian Church which sticks out like a sore thumb, aching to teach us an extremely important lesson about the way ecclesiastics ought to treat politics. It is St. Anthony Claret – priest of the Diocese of Vic, 3rd Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, and confessor to the Queen of Spain, Isabella II.

During his entire life and ministry, St. Anthony was surrounded by fierce political controversies and enemies of the Church, including the Carlist civil wars raging around his home, an attempt on his life in Cuba, the confiscation of the Papal States, and the dethronement and exile of the Queen. Certainly, St. Anthony’s immense tact guided him during all this – such as when he would say he was from the Diocese of Vic when questioned by Carlistas and that he was from the town of Sallent when questioned by the Isabelinos – but beyond this, two things are striking about St. Anthony’s response to political clamor.

First, he was positively and intentionally aloof from political affairs which did not directly concern the Church and the salvation of souls. This is most evident during his time in the Queen’s court, an assignment which he utterly despised, calling it a “continual martyrdom.” (Anthony Claret is one of the few saints who left us an autobiography. It is excellent.) By that time in his life, his fame was widespread, and to have the Archbishop’s approval on some matter would carry immense weight, especially with the Queen. He wanted no part – it would be alienating to those who did not agree with his decision, threatening their relationship with the Church, of which, after all, he was a steward and representative. Despite an average of a hundred letters a day asking for his help in various matters, he remained disinterested, answering none. He saw involvement in politics as an abuse of his office, as something beneath his dignity; his principal duty was the care of souls, not care of the country. When affairs did directly concern the Church or salvation of souls, such as the unification of Italy, or the anti-clerical sentiment in Spain and Cuba, he was ready and willing to act appropriately. During the Risorgimento, for instance, the Queen faced immense pressure to give her approval of the dissolution of the Papal States, but her confessor was there to warn her of the grave spiritual danger which such a move would bring… He was also there to lift the canonical penalty she incurred after having finally given her assent to Italian unification, as she sat in exile in France, disgraced and contrite.

Second, he was engaged in entirely non-partisan works as a civic leader. Given the incomprehensible amount of preaching and sacramental work which Claret performed – in his 6 years in Cuba alone, he wrote many books and pamphlets on spirituality and doctrine, validated over 9,000 marriages, confirmed some 300,000 people, and conducted 4 missions in every parish in his large and rugged diocese, always traveling by foot – one would think he would have time for little else. On the contrary, he was up to his neck in public works, such as supporting orphans, educational institutions, scientific research, agriculture, and healthcare. All of this was neutral work that no reasonable person could object to. Those who smeared him for it did so because of an animus against the Church or his own person, not because the work was partisan.

All this brings us to comments made by some bishops on illegal immigration which are only the most recent manifestation of a disturbing trend.

Unlike other so-called political issues, such as euthanasia or abortion, the Church has no teaching on the treatment of illegal immigrants as such. All we have are some basic ideas about human dignity and the authority of the state. Who could object to a preacher who says, “We should treat every human being with charity because all are made in the image and likeness of God”? It is easy, however, to imagine an objection to a preacher who says, “It is uncharitable to defend our nation from illegal immigrants,” and yet this is the kind of thing which is sometimes said, including presently. Not unlike the rhetoric which surrounds the current debate on gun-control, those of a liberal mindset accuse those of a conservative mindset of immorality prima facie – to oppose stricter gun laws is simply to care too little about people’s lives, especially children’s lives. In this case, to oppose sanctuary cities and spotty border patrol is simply to care too little about the oppressed who are fleeing from the south.

Of course, this trick could be reversed easily enough (and sometimes it is done to good effect), but making accusations of immorality due to differing prudential judgments does not make for a healthy political forum. Let me suggest that it makes for an even unhealthier ecclesiastical forum. Perhaps – or even, dare I say, probably – both sides really do care about the common good of the nation and have compassion for the suffering, but they simply have different ideas about how to reach the goal of political flourishing and the role of jurisprudential factors in border control and deportation.

Since I am not a cleric, I will go so far as to say that the past shows us that our current tolerance of illegal immigration has been extremely expensive and dangerous, the principle of subsidiarity seems to be violated by accepting a long-term responsibility for people of other countries who do not legitimately become part of our own, and that writing laws based on empathy for those who suffer is, in general, a bad idea, because it blinds one to the broader impact of that legislation.

And what good does it do for a bishop to risk scandalizing the faithful who might hold a different prudential assessment of the situation than himself by insisting that a certain position on DACA is immoral? Usually little to none; it is either ignored, is used by those who already agree as a moral sledgehammer, or simply annoys people who disagree, as they rightly sense that this is not a matter for the Church to be involved with directly. It certainly seems good for a bishop or any cleric to have a well-informed opinion on immigration policy, but it seems extremely unwise to reveal it. Perhaps the time of an ecclesiastic could be better spent by prayer, devotional and doctrinal preaching, administering the sacraments, studying theology, or building up the common good by entirely neutral means. Anything more is a waste of time at best and positively harmful at worst.

“A sacerdotes,” says St. Anthony, “must never align himself with any faction.” This is the great lesson our Catalonian saint teaches us: that a cleric is to render unto Caesar what is his by simply leaving him alone.

 

Main image: the Cathedral of Vic, where St. Anthony was ordained a priest and bishop