What Are We Really Trying to Do?

¹⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15).

 

Such words are “liberality,” “progress,” “light,” “civilization;” such are “justification by faith only,” “vital religion,” “private judgment,” “the Bible and nothing but the Bible.” Such again are “Rationalism,” “Gallicanism,” “Jesuitism,” “Ultramontanism”—all of which, in the mouths of conscientious thinkers, have a definite meaning, but are used by the multitude as war-cries, nicknames, and shibboleths, with scarcely enough of the scantiest grammatical apprehension of them to allow of their being considered really more than assertions.

 

 John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (London: Burns, Oates, & Co., 1870), 41–42.

We must do all by love, and nothing by force.

We must love obedience rather than fear disobedience.

[Written to St. Jane Frances de Chantal]

 

Francis de Sales, Letters to Persons in the World, trans. Henry Benedict Mackey and John Cuthbert Hedley, Second Edition, Library of Francis de Sales (London; New York; Cincinnatti; Chicago: Burns and Oates; Benziger Brothers, 1894), 160.

Some people I know quit Facebook, disgusted over the tone. I can understand the disgust. It seems that most of what crosses my feed involves people who are posting stories giving the worst interpretations possible to the actions of those they dislike, politics and religion alike. The problem I have with this is: giving the worst possible interpretations to an action is not seeking the truth. Instead, the critic has tried the target in abstentia and declared them guilty of openly supporting what the critic fears from him.

It leads me to ask, what are we really trying to do here? Are we trying to inform people about the truth of the matter? Or are we trying to vilify the person, encouraging others to hate the person like we do? I admit this can be a fine line. If we think a person or an idea is dangerous, we want to warn others about the danger. But when we reach the point of repeating whatever makes a person sound evil, often showing no interest in understanding what a person is actually trying to do, I think we’ve stopped warning and started propagandizing.

For example, politically, supporters of the President are called “Fascist.” His enemies are called “Communist.” Both labels assume that the other side is not only wrong but actively trying to overthrow the good. But when pressed, the reasons I’m given for the opposition can be summed up as only their political position is right and there can be no good reason for opposing it.

The same thing happens in terms of religion, people who defend the authority of the Pope are called “ultramontane,” “modernist,” or “liberal.” Again, when one delves into the accusations and rhetoric, the basic assumption is that only the accuser’s interpretation on the application of Church teaching is correct, and there can be no good reason for taking a different view.

If we were serious about warning people about the truth of the matter, we’d start by learning the truth about what a thing is supposed to be and how the person we warn against is violating it. But instead of showing this knowledge, people use these labels aimed at demonizing the person opposed and conditioning the target audience to believe the attack.

Words do have proper meaning, and words can be misused or abused. When we abuse words to invoke a certain emotion, we’re not trying to get to the truth. We’re trying to get others to irrationally accept what we say. For those of us who profess to be Christian, this attempt to replace truth with emotional appeals to buzzwords goes against the great commission, where we are told to teach people. We need to teach people what we must do and why we must do it so they understand. We must submit our opinions to the teaching authority of the Church to be sure we have not deceived ourselves and do not mislead others.

When we’re tempted to use the labels instead of the teaching the truth, we need to ask what we are really trying to do. Are we really trying to help people do right? Or are we looking for recruits to bolster the size of our faction? If we’re trying to help people do right, we’ll stop with the propaganda, the labels, and the ad hominem attacks. Instead we’ll seek to lovingly show what the truth is so they accept it freely. But if we’re focussing on recruiting for a faction, Our Lord warned us harshly against it.

Do We Follow the Church or Does the Church Just Happen to Agree With Us?

²⁴ “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵ The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. ²⁶ And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”  (Matthew 7:24–27).

*  *  *

¹⁸ And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18–19)

Some people become or stay Catholics because they agree that the Church has the authority to teach and give their assent to that teaching. Others become or stay Catholics because they find her position on certain topics compatible with their own. The former is like a house built on rock, the latter is like a house built on sand. Like the houses in Our Lord’s parable, the one built on sand faces ruin.

Why do I say this? Because the Church is simultaneously gifted with Our Lord’s authority (Luke 10:16) and protected from teaching error (Matthew 16:18. Matthew 28:19-20) on one hand and filled with sinful people who need salvation on the other. So when the Church teaches and we dislike the teaching, or if we get scandalized by the bad behavior of some churchmen, the only thing that will keep us on the right path is faith that God protects His Church. If we treat our affiliation with the Church like a political affiliation, what will we do when the Church goes in a direction we don’t like?

(probably this...)

Let’s face it. Some parts of Church history were pretty ugly with corruption or weakness. People expecting every past Pope acting like their favorite Pope will find themselves  disappointed and sometimes appalled. Yet, those flaws did not change the truth of her teaching. Popes committing sins condemned by the Church does not change the truth of her teachings.

In the same way, the Church teaches consistently from age to age, but the emphasis she gives in carrying them out can change with changing circumstances. Sometimes certain situations arise that are new. How does the Church apply her teachings to them? Sometimes the relationship between Church and State changes. Ways of evangelizing that worked in a pre-industrial Europe where all Christians were Catholics will not be effective in a 21st century computerized and secularized world.

With both cases, people who like the way the Church handled things in one era are shocked when seeing a change, thinking it a contradiction. If people are part of the Church simply because they like her views and not because they believe the Church received Our Lord’s authority to bind and loose, then a time will come when they do not want to go in the direction the Church teaches we must go. When that happens, they rebel. This rebellion might not result in formal schism or heresy. But they will believe they are right and the Church is wrong.

This is how we get contradictory reactions. Some believe the Church is too conservative and defy her teachings on morality. Others think she is too liberal and defy her teachings on social justice. Both make themselves judges against the Church when it comes to right and wrong. But judging the Church as conservative or liberal misses the point. God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. He is neither a modernist nor a traditionalist. When we judge things from what we like, we miss the point of what the Church is.

The Church is our mother and teacher. Our mother because she cares for us, our teacher because she guides us to follow Our Lord faithfully. Our Lord will not let corrupt members hijack her message. If He did, we could never know when we could trust Church teaching. If God doesn’t protect the Church under Pope Francis, how can we know if He protected the Church under St. Pius X? If we deny God protected the Church under Vatican II, how can we know whether He protected the Church under the Council of Trent? This works both ways. The “Spirit of Vatican II” Catholic who rejects the past has no basis for invoking the present because the authority of Vatican II depends on the authority God gave His Church from the beginning.

This is why we must look at our attitudes. If we think of Church teaching as liberal vs. conservative, we make the Church into a merely human institution. When we think it goes wrong, we lobby for change. But if her teaching comes from God, then our antics are not lobbying but rebellion.

Persecution: American Style

Western nations attacking Christians don’t normally use the violent, brutal attacks we associate with the term “persecution.” Because of that, it is easy to pretend that Western Christians are not targeted for their beliefs. But that’s the fallacy of relative privation. The fact that attacks on Christians in Country A are far worse than harassment of Christians in Country B does not mean the situation in Country B is not unjust.

In the West, attacks on Christians begin over teachings against popular vices. Foes portray Christian opposition to moral wrongs as hating the people who commit them. Then they accuse Christians of violating an esteemed cultural value out of bad will. These accusations justify laws (or, more commonly, executive action and court rulings) against the alleged wrongdoing of Christians. When Christians insist on obeying their faith despite unjust laws, foes harass them by Criminal and Civil complaints aimed at forcing compliance. 

Political and cultural elites argue that the injustice is just a consequence of Christians doing wrong. If they would abandon their “bigotry,” they would not face legal harassment. The problem is, they accuse us of wrongdoing, but we are not guilty of wrongdoing. We deny that we base our moral beliefs on the hatred of people who do what we profess is wrong. They must prove their accusation. People cannot simply assume it is true.

In response, foes bring up the bigoted behavior of a few who profess to be Christians. The Westboro Baptist Church was a popularly cited bugbear before the group fell into obscurity. They argue that groups like this prove bigotry on the part of Christians. This means that those who deplore stereotypes stereotype us. They claim (and we agree) that people can’t assume all Muslims are terrorists or that all Hispanics are illegal aliens just because some are. But they do use fringe group Christians to argue all Christians are bigots.

To avoid guilt in this persecution, Americans must learn that our believing certain acts are morally wrong does not mean we hate those who do those acts. Yes, some Christians confuse opposing evil with hating evil-doers. You condemn them. But so do we. Just behavior demands you investigate accusations against Christians, not assuming our moral beliefs are proof of our guilt and claiming the only defense is to renounce our beliefs.

Please, do not try to equate our moral objections with America’s shameful legacy of slavery and segregation. We don’t deny the human rights of any sinner—for then we would have to deny them to ourselves—but we do deny that law can declare a sinful act the same as a morally good act. Do not assume we want to reinstate laws and punishments from past centuries to punish sinners. We’re also shocked by what nations saw as necessary to deter crime that harmed society [1]. But saying theft is wrong does not mean we think chopping off the hands of a thief is right. Even when an act is evil, there can be unjust and disproportionate punishments in response.

Also, please do not assume that your lack of knowledge of what we believe and why we believe it means we have no justification but bigotry when we say things are wrong, Just because a foe cannot imagine why we believe X is wrong does not mean we have no valid reason. I can speak only as a Catholic [I leave it to the Orthodox and Protestants to explain their own reasons when it differs with the Catholic reasoning] but we do have 2000 years of moral theology looking into acts, why they are wrong and what to remember for the moral considerations about personal responsibility. Our goal is not coercion or punishment. Our goal is reconciling the sinner with God. That means turning away from wrongdoing and doing what is right.

Foes may say they think our ideas of morality are wrong. But if they believe we are wrong, then they have an obligation to show why they are right and we are wrong—with the same obligation to answer criticisms of their claims that they demand of us. They cannot accuse us of “forcing views on others” and then demand we accept their views without question. That’s not the values America was founded over. That’s partisan hypocrisy worthy of the old Soviet Union, and should have no part in American discourse.

 

 

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[1] Of course, remember that France as a secular nation did not abolish the guillotine until 1980, so perhaps we shouldn’t think we’re so far ahead of those times as we would like to think?

Christianos ad leones! Once More, Here We Go Again

From the first century AD to the present, harassment and persecution of the Church by government or cultural elites have followed a pattern:

1. Accuse the Church of obstinately clinging to an unpopular teaching out of hostility and bad will.
2. Attack the Church, using a false accusation as justification for unjust treatment. 
3. Offer to relent if the Church will cede a part of the obedience owed to God to the state.
4. When the Church refuses, increase the attacks and use that refusal as “proof” of unreasonableness of the Church and justification for continued mistreatment.

Sometimes these attacks have been overt, cruel and barbaric. Sometimes they masquerade as enforcement of an ordinarily good law but is misapplied. But regardless of how it is done [*], the State using these tactics is abusing its authority and often betraying the principles it was established under. In most circumstances, the Church in a region has two choices: To endure the persecution while trying to convert the persecutor or to capitulate to the State and consent to doing evil or having evil done in her name. The goal of the state is to force the second option. The call of the Christian is to choose the first option.

In the 21st century, the political and cultural elites of America seems determined to continue this cycle. No, it’s not brutal like the overt attacks on the Church in past centuries. Instead of arenas and wild beasts, it is courts and lawyers and instead of executioners and gulags, it is fines and lawsuits. But the end result is the same: The state usurps the power to compel the Christian to give support for what his religion calls evil. In doing so, America betrays the values she was founded upon. The explicit forbidding of the government to pass laws which interfere with the free practice of religion without a compelling interest (meaning vital for the safety of the country and with the least interference when proven compelling interest exists) has been perverted to the point that the state claims the right to coerce religion into abandoning whatever moral teaching is unpopular with the political and cultural elites.

We see this most recently with the vetoing of (and refusing to enforce) laws that seek to protect the freedom of religion from harassment by the state. The term Religious Freedom is put in Scare Quotes and portrayed as discrimination. The goal is to portray Christians who invoke their constitutional rights of freedom from state coercion as if they were calling for the right to mistreat people they dislike—a charge which is entirely false and one that makes use of the antics of a tiny minority to stereotype their behavior as the behavior of the whole group. In any other case, that tactic would be considered gross bigotry (for example, stereotypes like: all Muslims are terrorists, all blacks are felons, all Hispanics are illegal aliens).

The fact is, the Christian must do what is right before God—which is vastly different from the antics of the Westboro Baptists or suicide bombers—and what is right before God also means seeking the true good of our fellow human beings [†] even if we are harassed or persecuted for doing so. That is why we reject the charges against us. Our teachings and moral obligations are not based on the hatred of the sinner. If that were the case, we would have to hate ourselves as we believe we are all sinners in need of a Savior. People ma call us bigots, but that is nothing more than slander aimed at vilifying us for speaking against the popular vices of a society. Our Church absolutely forbids us from interpreting God’s commands as justifying mistreatment of the sinner [§].

So society has a choice to make. It can choose to try understanding the what and why of Church teaching and thus discover that the reason for our teaching is sound. Or it can choose to ignore the obligation to search for the truth and speak falsely against us. But if America should choose the latter option, she should consider this. The harassment of the Church and denial of religious freedom is ignoring the principles of the Bill of Rights. If society should decide that they are justified in ignoring one part as not being important, then they will have nothing to say if another group should use the same reasoning to suppress a different part of the Bill of Rights on the grounds that they don’t think it important.

I’ll leave you here with a section of dialogue by Dr. Peter Kreeft to consider:

‘Isa: But the main argument, the simplest argument, is just this: if no moral values are absolute, neither is tolerance. The absolutist can take tolerance much more seriously than the relativist. It’s absolutism, not relativism, that fosters tolerance. In fact, it’s relativism that fosters intolerance.

Libby: That’s ridiculous.

‘Isa: No it isn’t. Because … why not be intolerant? Only because it feels better to you? What happens tomorrow when it feels different? Why be tolerant? Only because it’s our society’s consensus? What happens tomorrow, when the consensus changes? You see? The relativist can’t appeal to a moral law as a wall, a dam against intolerance. But we need a dam because societies are fickle, like individuals. What else can deter a Germany—a humane and humanistic Germany in the twenties—from turning to an inhumane and inhuman Nazi philosophy in the thirties? What else can stop a now-tolerant America from some future intolerance?—against any group it decides to oppress? It was Blacks in the Southeast over slavery last century; it may be Hispanics in the Southwest over immigration next century. We’re intolerant to unwanted unborn babies today; we’ll start killing born ones tomorrow. Maybe eventually teenagers. They’re sometimes “wanted” even less than babies!

Libby: You’re getting more and more ridiculous.

‘Isa: Then answer the question: Why not? That’s the question. We persecuted homosexuals yesterday; today we persecute homophobes; maybe tomorrow we’ll go back to persecuting homosexuals again. Why not, if morals are only relative?

 

 Peter Kreeft, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 98.

 

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Christianos ad leones = latin for “The Christians to the Lions!"

[*] A common logical fallacy used here is the fallacy of relative privation, which claims that because your injustice is not as bad as another injustice, it is not injustice at all.

[†] The true good and the popular vices of a society being incompatible.

[§] At this point, someone will point out the punishments in past centuries as a “proof” against my claims. But that is to miss the point. In societies which had less developed forms of government, such practices were not distinct to one religion or culture. I don’t deny that some Churchmen in authority focussed too much on the civil punishments for sins that happened to be crimes as well, but you will never see the formal Church teaching state  that being merciless is good.

Reflection: Christianity vs. the Idols of Society

Christianity, believing God exists and that we must always seek to know, love and serve Him, sometimes finds itself at odds with a society which embraces values which reject what God commands. When that happens, we discover that the one unforgivable sin in society is choosing to obey God rather than men. I’m of the view that this happens because people don’t like to be told they are wrong in how they choose to live. If someone should dare to be a living witness to the fact that the values embraced by society are wrong, the society wants to silence that witness. 

I believe Christianity receives this hostility because it is denouncing the idols of society. Sometimes those idols are literal, like the Roman Empire. Sometimes those idols are false ideas and values that deceive people into doing evil and calling it good. Either way, societies react badly when the Church says “I will not burn incense at your altar.” However, while some individuals may compromise, the Church herself cannot, and neither can the members who seek to be faithful to Our Lord. The Church is not called to conform to the world, but to lead it away from idolatry to the truth of God.

This isn’t a surprise which comes from nowhere. Our Lord warned us in several places that they would hate us on His account and we should not expect otherwise. 

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹ And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴ If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’ (John 15:18–25.)

These words of Our Lord are a good reminder in these times. I read the newsfeeds and the comments in them and see a demonic hatred directed at people who take a stand for God’s truth. Laws passed to protect the Christian from being forced to do evil are vilified as promoting intolerance, while laws, executive orders and court rulings that assault the Christian for daring to oppose the idols of society are willing to sacrifice the virtues the society was founded upon.

That’s nothing new of course. In the Second Century AD, St. Justin Martyr wrote to the Roman Emperor, Antonius Pius, offering a defense of the Catholic faith and appealing to the virtues valued by the Empire to give Christians a just hearing to see if they had done anything wrong before assuming guilt just because the accused was a Christian. St. Justin pointed out that the Empire could not be just and condemn people on the sole grounds that they were Christian. Ultimately, the Empire chose to persecute Christians over behaving justly. The fact that we call him St. Justin Martyr testifies to that.

Likewise, America has the same choice to make. She can either choose to live by the virtues that she was founded under or she can target Christians for refusing to bow down to idols which calls evil “good.” The behavior of our political and cultural elites, our laws and our court rulings show that our nation is making the wrong choices. Christians can be ostracized, taken to court, fined or even jailed for refusing to go along with the idols of our society. When we point out that our nation is behaving unjustly when it makes these decisions, the response is to state that we deserve our fate because we will not bow down to those idols. Instead, like the Romans did in pagan times, they accuse us of being “enemies of humanity” that need to be silenced.

Yet, even though they try to silence us, we cannot be silent. We are called to convert that society, not write it off for damnation. Our Lord gave us the Great Commission:

^18 g Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20).

So, when they hate us because we will not accept the vicious customs of society and tell them a better way to live, we must make sure that our witness is not lost in bitter words over our unjust treatment. I think the words of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Cum multa, should be a reminder of how we respond in sharing and defending our faith:

[#15] We exhort them to remove all dissensions by their gentleness and moderation, and to preserve concord amongst themselves and in the people, for the influence of writers is great on either side. But nothing can be more opposed to concord than biting words, rash judgments, or perfidious insinuations, and everything of this kind should be shunned with the greatest care and held in the utmost abhorrence. A discussion in which are concerned the sacred rights of the Church and the doctrines of the Catholic religion should not be acrimonious, but calm and temperate; it is weight of reasoning, and not violence and bitterness of language, which must win victory for the Catholic writer.

 

 Claudia Carlen, ed., The Papal Encyclicals: 1878–1903 (Ypsilanti, MI: Pierian Press, 1990), 78.

Our witness must be made in both what we say and how we say it so we might not lead those who hate us into thinking we say one thing and do another.

Because Sin Is Real: The Truth America Forgot

If you read the works of the saints, or their biographies, you can see that they were aware of a truth that America has forgotten—sin is real and it alienates us from God. Instead, America (or, rather the whole of Western civilization) has a bad habit of presuming that God “doesn’t care” about the action we do that falls under the category of sin. As a result, we have an understanding about sin that is both self-contradictory and has nothing to do with the reality:

• When others do something we dislike, we have no qualms about acknowledging it as a sin.
• When we do something that is a sin, we refuse to acknowledge it as a sin and call it an arbitrary decision made by human beings that doesn’t matter to God.

In other words, while people are perfectly willing to denounce others, the fact is that, instead of thinking rationally about the good or evil of our actions we contemplate doing, we rationalize the things we already do to avoid thinking about whether they are good or evil or rationalize a reason not to do what we ought to do.

This mindset actually convicts the person before God—because we call the actions of others “sin” or “wrongdoing,” we acknowledge that there is a good which must be lived and an evil which must be avoided. But because we refuse to apply this knowledge to ourselves, we show ourselves to be hypocrites and evildoers.

When we think of it this way, the proper way to interpret Matthew 7:1-5 suddenly becomes a whole lot clearer:

¹ “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. ² For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. ³ Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

If we refuse to acknowledge our own sinfulness, we become unfit guides for helping others avoid sin—having that beam in the eye. Unfortunately, because everyone seems to think that sin is affiliated with those we disagree with, but not ourselves, that is in essence a refusal to repent. If we get angry at the Church for saying that it is sinful to commit fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, contraception, abortion, etc., and claiming it is not a sin to do these things then, by refusing to stop doing them, we show to God our refusal to repent and turn back to Him.

In other words, the sin of the pharisee is not limited to the religious zealot. It is committed by every person who refuses to say ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ (Luke 18:13b).

Unfortunately, people like to misinterpret Matthew 7:1-5 to mean that any person who says “X is a sin” is disobeying Jesus. But if that were a true interpretation, then it would certainly be disobeying Jesus to accuse them of being judgmental. But anyone who takes the time to read Chapter 7 of Matthew can see that Jesus certainly does not forbid us to say that actions are evil. In fact, near the end of the chapter, Jesus also says:

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,* but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ ²³ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.* Depart from me, you evildoers.’ (Luke 7:21-23)

Indeed, elsewhere in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 18:15-17), Jesus tells us about admonishing sinners:

¹⁵ “If your brother* sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. ¹⁶  If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.* If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

These teachings of Jesus show that “Don’t say X is a sin” is a false interpretation. In fact, if we love Christ, we keep His commandments (Luke 14:15) and if we reject the Apostles and their successors we reject Him and His Father (Luke 10:16). That is a message which is widely forgotten today by a people which thinks that the only moral obligation is being nice to those we think deserve our being nice to.

Our nation has forgotten the reality of sin as something that rejects God and harms our neighbor. In replacing it with “be nice to each other,” it has perverted the Christian message to the point that it accuses actual Christians of behaving in an “unchristian” manner. Not for bad behavior (which unfortunately does exist among who profess a belief in Christ) but for following their faith and saying “X is wrong!"

Until America recognizes the difference between rejecting evil and actual intolerance it will continue to justify evil while praising itself for “being nice."

Thoughts On Bigotry and Bigoted Defenders of "Tolerance"

Doing a word search of the word bigot and its variants is a pretty useless activity. The word exists of course, but it is defined so broadly in modern dictionaries as to be meaningless—the Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a person who is prejudiced in their views and intolerant of the opinions of others.” But when you think about it, anything could be considered bigoted if you have a strong view (favorably or unfavorably) about it. For example, if you refuse to consider the point of the Nazis as valid, and go out of your way to oppose them, you are a bigot under this definition.

Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary defines the term as, “a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.” But such a definition is very subjective. Who defines what is obstinate or intolerant? Who defines whether a view is a prejudice or not? Remember the comment I stated above? How do you distinguish a moral repugnance for Nazism from bigotry? The problem with these definitions of bigot is they make it impossible to distinguish between holding a belief from conviction and holding a view out of hatred of any view which does not come from a preferred view. 

That leads us to another problem—that a large portion of people who throw the word around “bigot” do appear to be obstinately devoted to their opinions to the extent that they want to silence people with different views on a subject—that is, the irony of this position is that this attitude by the self-appointed champions of tolerance against bigotry fits the description of bigotry.

For example, the Christian is targeted for saying “X is morally wrong,” and people who disagree will not even consider the actual position of the Church. The fact that the position exists is considered proof of bigotry while the only way of getting away from that label is to abandon any beliefs that the cultural elites dislike. The champions of tolerance find Christianity to be morally offensive when it teaches that something must not be done because it goes against what humanity is called to be, both naturally and in relationship to God. 

Personally, I think we can start to understand the term bigotry through a statement by GK Chesterton:

The difficulty was expressed to me by another convert who said, "I cannot explain why I am a Catholic; because now that I am a Catholic I cannot imagine myself as anything else." Nevertheless, it is right to make the imaginative effort. It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. [Chesterton, G.K. The Catholic Church and Conversion (Kindle Locations 137-140). Kindle Edition.

He makes this statement to demonstrate that he has not refused to consider other positions—only that he will show that he has considered them and found them to be wrong in some aspect. So, I think that to have a proper understanding of what a bigot is, it is a person who refuses to admit the possibility of getting something wrong when he or she opposes the view. So, it is not bigotry if a person investigates Islam or Mormonism and says, “I’m sorry, but I have investigated this and believe this is not true, so I will not accept it and will counter it with the truth when needed.” But it is bigotry when someone says “I don’t see how someone could be so stupid as to believe this!” If you don’t look into the reasons as to how a person could believe something, how do you know they are not right?

So, this is the point of contention here. First, do you understand what it is you are opposing (that is—do you actually know what they stand for)? Second, do you understand why you oppose that position as being wrong? If you don’t understand the position in the first place, it requires investigation. For example, I have a clear idea what I am opposed to and why I oppose them things like racism, nationalism and the like. It doesn’t change my views of the people who espouse these things (they still deserve to be treated as human beings), but I know that what they hold is wrong. I also know why I hold to the teachings of the Catholic Church—because I have tested them and found that they had answered my objections (at first) and then laid down solid reasoning for why we were obligated to avoid X and to do Y.

A person is free to use the word “bigoted” as a club, bashing all people he or she disagrees with, but the term is an ad hominem attack (marked by or being an attack on an opponent’s character rather than by an answer to the contentions made) in this context. But this is a case of the person who accuses another of bigotry is the one actually guilty of the charge. Unless a person understands what an informed (as opposed to those ignorant louts the media likes to point to) Christian believes (as opposed to what people wrongly attribute to us) and why we hold to it in the face of such hostility, such a person is unable to imagine how he might possibly have gone wrong—which is to say, bigoted, prejudiced against the views of others.

Thoughts on Growing Radicalism and Our Responsibilities

I’ve been seeing some articles recently about college professors and entertainers—who are self-professedly liberal—expressing a growing concern that college students today are becoming more extreme. These individuals have expressed a concern over the need to self-censor themselves because the students will not consider(or even hear) any views other than their own, and in fact, tend to become hostile to hearing ideas which conflict with their own. We Christians should not hold an attitude of schadenfreude however. If today’s students are so intolerant of even liberals of previous generations, then we should take seriously how will they then deal with us who have to say to one of their cherished views that, “No, this is wrong and must be condemned."

Personally, I am reminded of the French Revolution. An extremely partisan affair that once called for “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," it grew more and more extreme, turning on those who once were the radical leaders until nobody felt safe and the Revolution was eventually destroyed because those acting for the “good of the people” eventually saw these people as an enemy. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," turned out not to have so much liberty, equality or fraternity if you did not share the views of those in charge.

Watching this from the perspective of being a Catholic, I see parallels between them and now. Not so barbaric of course. We don’t have the guillotines and the constant death sentences to live in fear of. But we are seeing the growing radicalization of a generation which considers anything which is not in line with what they see to be “fair” to be “fascist,” and carried out in malice. Under such a viewpoint, the Catholic Church is the enemy of the generation who must be co-opted or destroyed—and either one is an acceptable option.

So, the question is this—is there a limit which will be the breaking point before society revolts against the revolutionaries? Or will we continue to see things get worse and worse here until they are throwing us into prisons as enemies of the state in fact instead of just in rhetoric? Ultimately, from the Christian perspective, it cannot triumph forever. We know God will ultimately triumph over evil. But that doesn’t mean we can just sit in our bunkers and wait for the rest of the world to go to hell in a hand basket. We have to take concern over the fate of these individuals. True, we don’t want them to destroy us. But more importantly, we don’t want them to damn themselves. Our Lord uses the parable of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep and return him to the fold. We have to follow His example.

Now, obviously, we cannot take a humanistic view that, if we work hard enough, we will correct all errors on our own. God gave His Church the mission and authority to bring the Gospel to all nations and people—but that does not mean they will listen to us. But on the other side of the coin, we have to take an active role so that God’s will may be carried out through us. We can neither argue that it is impossible to change our opponents nor argue that because our opponents have not changed that it means the magisterium has failed in her role. The former is shirking, the latter is shifting the blame, denying that our own actions and inactions may have a role to play in the opposition to the Christian mission.

Regardless of whether society becomes even more extreme or whether it bottoms out and starts rising again, we have a role to play. We have to prepare for persecution in some form, whether it be mild harassment or whether it be martyrdom or (most likely) it is somewhere in between. We also have to keep in mind our role in times of hostility. Even when Christians were persecuted, the Church continued to carry out her mission. Persecution hinders the mission in some ways, but does not make it impossible. We can witness by our lives that Christianity is not the demonized institution it is made out to be, but is the relationship between God and man. Our task is to be God’s means of reaching out to others so that they might be saved.

Our task is clear, regardless of who the radicals are and what ideology they embrace. We are called to preach the Gospel in season and out of season, even when it is difficult—and it will get more difficult.

Thoughts On the Growing Injustice Against Christianity In America

We’re told that judges have no right to refuse to impose laws they feel to be unjust, civil servants have no right to refuse to participate in a state sanctioned activity they feel is unjust, pharmacists and doctors are denied conscience protection and businesses have no right to refuse to do something which goes against the moral convictions of the owners. But, they do not apply this to themselves. Thus, we’ve seen governors and attorney generals who refused to defend/enforce the laws defending the traditional concept of marriage.

Americans seem to be so blind to the fact that the these arguments are only applied in one direction, denying religious freedom to Christians with a moral conviction that a law is wrong, while giving license to any other group (ethnic, gender, religion, sexual preference). What we have is the replacing the rule of law with diktats aimed at favoring the allies of politically approved ideas and harming those opposed to these ideas. The sad thing is, in the past we have lionized people who stood up to the state and said, “I will not comply with an unjust law.” These heroes in American history recognized when a judicial ruling or a law was unjust because it forbade them doing what they felt morally obligated to do.

The common tactic to justify this injustice is to try to link their cause to the Civil Rights Movement. For example, proponents of “same sex marriage” try to point to segregation laws in the 19th and 20th centuries and claim that the belief that marriage can only exist between one man and one woman is the same thing as oppressing African Americans. But that is a false analogy. The two sides are not equivalent. One can affirm that a person has rights as a human being without indulging a moral behavior believed wrong. But the Civil Rights movement existed because the laws of the time denied the fact that African Americans had certain rights as human beings.

In fact, the banning of interracial marriage (so often equated with the defense of traditional marriage) was a legal invention that invented an artificial barrier between male and female on the basis of determining that one ethnicity was inferior to another. That intention to discriminate is not present in the defense of traditional marriage. The defense of marriage recognizes that male and female runs across all national, ethnic and religious lines and those categories do not change what marriage is. 

But “same sex marriage” does change what marriage is, by denying the complementarity of the genders as what marriage is intended to accomplish. The concept of “same sex marriage” reduces marriage to a legally recognized sexual relationship—something we do not accept as a valid definition of marriage, and something we will not cooperate with.

However, rather than actually try to discuss our concerns, the tactics today are very much similar to the attacks on Christianity in the times of Pagan Rome…making false accusations about what Christians believe in our opposition to what is morally wrong. Then, like now, Christians were charged with “hatred.” In that case, the charge was “hatred of the human race.” Here, it is “hatred” of the people who benefit from something we call morally wrong. The fact that we deny the charge is ignored—just as it was ignored in Roman times. If we will not do what those in authority want, we can expect to suffer whatever people can get away with inflicting on us (even when the Imperial government of Rome did not persecute Christians, many times governors and mob rule did).

Christians were accused of false crimes like cannibalism and incest in the times of Pagan Rome. We are accused of hating women and people with same sex attraction. Then and now, we deny these charges are a part of our belief. If anyone who professes Christianity committed such crimes, they would be acting against what the Church teaches. The fact is, while loving a person means treating them with all the dignity which belongs to being a person, this love does not require us to do for them what we believe is morally wrong.

Note this distinction. Contrary to accusations, we reject the claim that we support the mistreatment of people because of their actions and reject the claim that our refusing to support what we believe is morally wrong is rooted in hatred. We also reject the antics of extremists who invoke the name of Christian while actively doing things our religion forbids against those we believe do moral wrong.

America has a choice to make. Either our nation can act like the Roman Empire (except using lawsuits, fines and prison instead of lions) unjustly persecuting us because we refuse to do what we think is morally wrong, or it can act like what our Founding Fathers intended in limiting the government—forbidding it to interfere with our moral obligations to do good and avoid evil.

Logical Fallacies in the Anti-Religious Freedom Movement

Introduction

There are a number of businesses, organizations and celebrities that are either threatening, carrying out or calling for boycotts of Indiana on account of the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They call it names like the “Freedom To Discriminate” act (George Takei) and call such laws “dangerous” (Tim Cook). But, as I read the anger spilling out over the internet, I see that the opposition is not based on any fact but rather on logical fallacies

• the begging the question fallacy
• the slippery slope fallacy
• the appeal to emotion fallacy
• the ad hominem fallacy
• the poisoning the well fallacy

The end result of these fallacies is the fact that there is an allegation of intolerance made against the Christian moral teachings, but no proof to justify the claim. Without proof, one cannot say that the accusation is proven true.

Let’s look at them.

The Begging the Question Fallacy

The begging the question fallacy is committed by acting as if something that has to be proven to be true is true. So, if the point of my argument is that “X is bad,” the premises of my argument have to be aimed at proving X is bad. If the premises of my argument are based on the assumption that “X is bad” then I am begging the question. This is commonly done in the assumption that opposition to “same sex marriage” is based on intolerance? Why are they intolerant? Because they oppose “same sex marriage”! That doesn’t answer the question “How do we know it is intolerant?” It merely repeats the (unproven) allegation.

These arguments don’t actually demonstrate that intolerance is the only possible motive for this opposition. It is simply assumed that the no good person would oppose it. So, as a result we say these arguments are unproven—you can’t prove the conclusion by this argument. If we think of an argument as a trial, then we could think of this argument as a prosecutor who alleged the accused was guilty but provided no proof of guilt for it. Any jury deciding the accused was guilty would be causing a miscarriage of justice.

The Slippery Slope Fallacy

The slippery slope fallacy seems similar to showing cause and effect (showing a link between A and B), but in actuality it argues against something simply under the fear of what it might do. In other words, “If we let A happen, B is going to happen,” again assuming but not proving. In this case, the popular example is to portray this law as the modern equivalent of the old “Whites Only” signs in the Segregated South. People ask “What about a restaurant owner refusing to serve a same sex couple?” and go on from there giving all sorts of horror stories of what could happen. Could being the operative word—what might happen does not equal “will happen,” and “what will happen” is what has to be determined before we can condemn something.

To continue the analogy of argument of a trial, this argument is like a prosecutor who tries to argue that "if we don’t convict the defendant, he will go on to commit all sorts of monstrous crimes.” But we don’t convict a person on what they might do, but on what they did do. You don’t know that a person will do this, and it is possible to take just precautions to ensure a crime does not happen without violating civil rights.

The Appeal to Emotion Fallacy

The appeal to emotion fallacy works on the premise that a good emotion associated with a claim leads one to think of it as true, while a negative emotion associated with a claim leads one the claim as false. So to appeal to “the need to let two people in love marry regardless of their gender” awakens a positive idea that same sex “marriage” is good because “love” is good, while awakening hostility towards those who oppose it as being “cold hearted.” But emotion can be exploited. Leaders exploit emotions in propaganda to move people to support their country and oppose another country. The emotions don’t mean that the claims are true.

Using the analogy of a trial once more, the appeal to emotion is like a lawyer not talking about whether the charges are true or not, but instead tries to play on your feelings to give a verdict that he wants.

The Ad Hominem Fallacy

The ad hominem does not seek to prove or disprove anything. Instead, it tries to attack the person making an argument and convince a person that because he or she has negative traits (true or not), we can ignore anything said by that person. An example of this fallacy would be if I said, "Tim Cook could not be trusted to give an accurate account of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because he was a liberal and a homosexual." Those claims have no bearing on whether or not what he says is true. (A person being a liberal or having a same sex attraction have nothing to do with whether or not a person is speaking the truth).

Likewise, the accusations that the Church is intolerant, homophobic, bureaucratic and heartless (and we deny all of them) have nothing to do with whether the Church teaching on homosexuality is true or not. These are just terms of abuse used to give a negative impression on the listener and turn them away from listening to the argument and considering if it was true.

The Poisoning the Well Fallacy

The poisoning the well fallacy seeks to make a smear attack on the target so that no matter what the targeted person says, the smear remains in the mind of the listener. This is another way where opponents of the Religious Freedom laws attack to prevent people from considering the argument. The attacker alleges that the supporter of this law is bigoted and has a hatred for people with same sex attraction. The result of poisoning the well is that the listener assumes that a defense of the law is simply defending bigotry and hatred.

The Overall Effect

The overall effect of these tactics is to give the listener the impression that the Christian that refuses to participate in a “same sex wedding” does so out of bigotry. Since bigotry is bad, a good person is led to believe that the right thing to do is to oppose Christian belief. 

The Catholic Teaching is NOT What It is Misrepresented to Be

But the problem is not a single one of these accusations are true. The Christian teaching is not motivated by hatred—indeed the Catholic Church condemns hatred. 

When one looks at the definition of hate in a dictionary it tells us the meaning is intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury, ill-will, an extreme dislike or antipathy. But that doesn’t answer the question of whether the Church teaching is motivated by hatred.So we ask: Does the Church have intense hostility and antipathy for the woman who had an abortion or the person with same sex attraction, wishing them harm? That is what has to be proven. It has to actually be established that they despise such a person and wants them to come to harm—like perhaps hoping they go to hell?

So, we would need to look at what the Church taught about the sinner and see if there is such a desire in their treatment of sinners.

But the opposite is true: the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes a distinction between our treatment of persons and treatment of behaviors, saying:

1933 This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies. Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one’s enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy. (2303)

 

2303 Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (2094; 1933)

Some people (often derisively) refer to this as “love the sinner, hate the sin.” But while that is true, it is inadequate.

The person who hates a sinner wishes a defiant sinner harm or other misfortune. Such a person is doing what the Church says is wrong. But the person who says “this act is sinful and must be stopped” is not acting out of hatred any more than a doctor who says “Smoking is harmful and must be stopped.” He or she is expressing this information in the hopes that the individual committing it will stop doing it—for their own good.

So, like it or not, the Church is explicitly saying that hatred of a sinner is forbidden and even a grave sin. For the non-Catholic, a grave sin involves serious matter where a person who commits it with full knowledge of its gravity and with full consent to do it anyway would be committing a mortal sin—which is a sin that would damn one to hell if unrepented.

So, in other words, if we hate the woman who has an abortion or the man with same sex attraction, we can go to hell for wishing such a person grave harm. Does that really make any sense to accuse the Church for holding their teaching out of hatred when they say it is evil to hold hatred for a person? Talk about self defeating! The Church does not hate people. However she does have hostility to the actions that are chosen that turn humanity away from God. 

Individuals Who Disobey the Church Exist, But the Church Can’t Be Blamed For Their Actions

Now of course, you can find extremists who actually do hate people instead of the sin committed—people who actually wish evil to afflict sinners. Up until their leader died, the media loved to provide us with stories of the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of Christianity hating people with same sex attraction. It was effective as one could find people pointing to their antics and accusing the Catholic Church of committing them. But in actuality, the Catholic Church teaching is in complete opposition to their antics. As the Catechism says:

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Treatment with respect, compassion and sensitivity is incompatible with hatred, so again we have shown that, contrary to accusations, Catholic teaching is not rooted in hatred.

Modern Society Falsely Thinks that Saying Actions Are Wrong Means Hatred of the Person Doing Them

The problem is the modern society takes a love me, love my dog attitude to the extreme. It’s not just a case of demanding that we accept a person with flaws and all—rather it is a demand that we accept those flaws as a good and deny there is anything wrong with them. A refusal to accept those flaws as good is turned into an accusation of hating the person. But, as we have shown above, hatred of a self-destructive behavior (which all sin is) does not mean hating the person suffering from it. It can mean hating a problem which keeps the person from being what they should be.

But once a person demands we accept their sin as if it were good, they see the attempt to help a person as if it were an attempt to harm them. It’s as if a person carrying a heavy load fell into quicksand and the load was dragging them down. We throw them a rope, but the weight of the load prevents them from climbing out to safety and actually threatens to break the rope. We tell them they need to let go of their load and grab the rope, but they refuse, saying that we need to get them out with their load as well. When we tell them it is impossible, they get angry at us and accuse us of wanting them to die. It is untrue. The fact is, in a life or death situation, no possession is worth your life. 

Likewise, in the reality of our having an eternal soul which can be dragged down to hell if we refuse to cooperate with salvation, no vice, no compulsion is worth losing our soul over and no human declaration can make good what God has called evil. Therefore when it comes to the choice of man declaring a thing “good” and God calling that thing “evil,” what we have is a choice between accepting and rejecting God.

Conclusion

The fact is, we deny that Christian moral teaching is based on hatred of people with same sex attraction. It is more like a wife who loves her husband with alcoholism. That alcoholism is destroying his life and his relationship with her. The wife hates this alcoholism because she can see what it is doing to her husband and wants it to be cured so he will stop harming himself and have a better life. The hatred of the harmful act is not done out of hatred for the person.

In such a case, we would recognize the husband’s accusation that his wife hated him because she hated his alcoholism to be wrong. Being an alcoholic is not a part of the man’s nature. It is a flaw which must be overcome, whether by being cured or by avoiding behavior that feeds it.

Now the person may think that their inclination is good. They may cling to it like a heavy load. But the harmful inclination can never be enabled. That is why the Church will never change her teaching on same sex “marriage” or abortion or contraception. We know they are wrong, and we cannot take part in what we know is wrong, even if someone thinks it is morally acceptable.

I think I will close this article with a quote from the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz that I have cited before. 

In it we have a situation where there has been a nuclear war, and people are suffering from radiation sickness.  The government wants to establish facilities to decide who has received enough radiation to be fatal to recommend euthanizing.  The abbot of the monastery where they want to establish the facility tells them he will refuse cooperation unless the doctor promises not to advise people to euthanize themselves.  The doctor says it is not right to do this with non-Catholic patients and accuses the abbot of imposing his views on others and the abbot has no right to make this condition, and demands the abbot explain why he insists on this stance for non-Catholics as well as Catholics.  The abbot responds:

Because if a man is ignorant of the fact something is wrong and acts in ignorance, he incurs no guilt, provided natural reason was not enough to show him that it was wrong.  But while ignorance may excuse the man, it does not excuse the act, which is wrong in itself.  If I permitted the act simply because the man is ignorant that it is wrong, then I would incur guilt, because I do know it to be wrong.  It is really that painfully simple. (A Canticle for Leibowitz. page 296 in my EOS edition)

The doctor responds by accuse the abbot of being merciless and out of touch, which is no refutation of the facts stated by the abbot. Likewise, the accusation that we are bigoted and out of touch is no refutation of our argument.

Marked

America prides itself on being a tolerant nation. When Americans see news reports of ethnic or religious hatred in another region of the world, or high handed government oppression, the general thought we have is that it is something that can’t happen here. Unfortunately, America tends to have a huge blind spot in this area and tends to think that because we don’t behave like ISIS or the Soviet Union in dealing with the people who disagree it means we are tolerant and don’t harass anyone at all.

That’s rubbish of course. America does have sanctioned tolerance of hatred of unpopular groups and tolerated behaviors of government high-handedness. The difference between here and the regions of the world that make the news is that in America they deal with their unpopular groups in a (usually) non-violent manner. But America still has her blind spots—the groups mistreated are not seen as mistreated because the targets are either not seen as being important enough to worry about or are considered to deserve the treatment they receive. Because this treatment is not brutal violence, it is argued that this treatment is not harassment at all.

Unpopular Groups are Targeted For Discrimination in America

In America today, the unpopular groups are those Christians who stand up for the traditional Christian sexual mores, especially belief in what makes a marriage—one man and one woman in a lifelong relationship accepting whatever children may come and raising them with the same values. In a world that increasingly rejects all aspects of that belief, reducing such a relationship to whatever may be sexually satisfying, a Christian who takes such a stand is seen as judgmental and intolerant towards those who live in any other way.

This is more serious than the detractors of Christianity realize, because labelling something as “intolerant” is the secular society’s version of the medieval concept of making someone an outlaw—that is, a person deprived of the benefit and protection of the law. In medieval times, the outlaw had no rights and could be targeted by anyone—the person doing the targeting not being subject to legal penalties for doing so.

Holding Christian Beliefs Unpopular Among American Elites Can Deprive One of Protection of the Law

In modern America, a Christian who is willing to compromise and accept the state’s view on abortion, contraception or “same sex marriage” can get along in America just fine. Whatever else they may believe is generally no threat. But the Christian who will not accept the state’s views on these subjects can expect trouble when they publicly state their views. We have had people who funded propositions defending traditional marriage lose their job. We have had people who refuse to provide business services that require them to treat same sex “marriage” as being morally acceptable wind up being sued or prosecuted. We’ve had Church schools successfully sued for enforcing rules that require employees to publicly live in keeping with Church teaching on morality. Catholic schools and hospitals are fighting for their right of religious freedom when it comes to the contraception against unsympathetic courts.

Basically, the situation is one where these behaviors would cause outrage if any other group was involved. Think this is rhetoric? OK, how about if a bakery owned by an African American was successfully sued for refusing to make a cake for a Ku Klux Klan event? Yet the principle would be the same—the business owner being required to do something they found offensive and sued if they would not cooperate.

The False Charge and It’s Refutation

People who try to defend this situation argue that the difference is that race is not changeable while religious beliefs are changeable. In contrast, they argue, that the religious beliefs are based on bigotry. They then equate the defense of these immoral actions with the civil rights movement in opposing racism in America. But that is to introduce a false analogy. The issue is not race. The issue is: shall a person be coerced to do something they think is morally wrong? The entire history of racism in America was not based on the belief that it was immoral to interact with people of other ethnicities. It was based on the fact that proponents of racist systems believed that non-whites were inferior to whites and had to be kept from achieving the same level as whites.

So, the Church teaching that contraception or abortion is wrong or that same-sex acts are wrong does not come from the belief that women or people with same sex attraction are inferior to males or heterosexual people and need to be kept from achieving the same level as males or heterosexual orientation (indeed the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that discrimination or mistreatment of a person with same sex attraction is not to be done). It comes from the belief that certain actions—which one can decide to do or not do—are contrary to God’s will for us and therefore may never be done. A person cannot control his ethnicity and may not be able to control his sexual orientation. But a person can control what actions he chooses to do regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

The Charge of Bigotry is No More Than An Excuse To Silence an Opponent

So the “bigotry” or “sexism” or “homophobia” charges are false, and the proponents of abortion, contraception and same sex marriage are not the stalwart defenders of America against racism. They are ideologues who have a hatred of religious beliefs that call their behavior wrong and want to silence the opponents of what they want to legitimize. Christianity says “You must not do this!” The proponents want the right to do these things. So they must demonize their opponents to make their views seem invalid. Nobody wants to accommodate bigotry (not even Christians). So if they can make this label stick in the minds of people, we will see the defense of Christian belief distorted into appearing to be “hate speech."

In logic, we call this tactic Poisoning The Well. It attempts to turn the audience against a person before he or she can even begin a defense. It works this way: An unfavorable claim is made about a person or group. Therefore, any claim made by that group is not to be trusted. That’s what’s happening here. When Christians are labeled as anti-women and “homophobes,” anything they say is discounted as a defense of bigotry. The more we say in defense of a Christian moral teaching, the more they paint us as being bigoted because we defend this position.

Conclusion 

So in this day and age, Christians who refuse to go along with the diktats of the state and the cultural elites are marked for harassment and de facto made outlaws in the sense that they are deprived of the protection of the law. The tactic is to silence us or to make us so hated that we will be ignored and written off as people who hate. Such tactics, however, are only effective to the extent that the listener accepts the claims without asking whether they are actually true. 

TFTD: How Dare Those Catholics Require Catholic Schools to Act Catholic?

The intolerant often have a way of appearing reasonable. They appeal to some sort of value that they think everyone should agree with, frame the debate in this way, and then treat everyone who disagrees with their premises as being the hate filled ones. That’s the case in the editorial "Catholic Church infringing on personal lives | Guest Columns | San Francisco | San Francisco Examiner.” The allegation is Archbishop Cordlileone of San Francisco is infringing on the rights of individuals by insisting that people who serve in Catholic run institutions actually support (or at least not publicly oppose) the Church teaching to avoid misleading students about what is right and wrong. That’s entirely reasonable. The Catholic Church has always rejected the idea of education being compartmentalized. She believes that education needs an overall approach which teaches moral values—it’s not a case of just saying “learn these values at home."

So, the Church insists that if a person wants to work for a Catholic school, they need to avoid giving the appearance of rejecting the values of the Church. If one can’t accept that, they should look for another place of business. That’s common sense. If a fundamentalist Protestant school insisted that I sign an agreement that said I acknowledged the Bible as the sole rule of faith, I would have to reject that condition. If I lied and then was caught out promoting a view contrary to the group’s views, I would have no right to object to being fired.

However, we tend to have groups of activists seeking to force change on the Church. Where we believe that a behavior is not compatible with God’s commandments, these groups wrongly assume that these teachings are nothing more than unsavory political positions which can and should be changed. They attempt the "grassroots level” attempts to change the thinking of the youth in the hopes of converting them to their way of thinking.

In other words, when it is their own values in question, these activists insist that everyone respect the values of others. But when it comes to values they dislike, they refuse to respect those values, and call them intolerance. That’s a self contradiction. If one demands that everyone respect the values of others, that includes the views they dislike. If it’s wrong for us to judge their way of thinking, it’s wrong of them to judge our way of thinking. So, if their proclaimed value system is based on “tolerance,” they should practice what they preach and stop trying to force change on the Church.

Now sometimes a counter-charge arises here. That’s to accuse us of being hypocritical. They allege that because we’re not being tolerant of behaviors, we are being hypocritical. The problem is, we don’t claim a moral relativism or tolerating all views as equally valid. We believe all people are required to seek the truth and follow it. If a person refuses to seek the truth, or refuses to follow the truth once found, that is not a good thing.

That’s a perfectly rational view. We reject, for example, the idea that one human being is superior to another as false. Because of that, we reject ideas that allow one class of people to have power over another group of people because of their claim to greater importance. We reject racism because we believe all races are equal in the eyes in God. We reject abortion, because we deny that the unborn person is less of a person than the born person. Without this kind of thinking, a person would have nothing to say to the totalitarian except, “I dislike your system.” Here’s a thought exercise… imagine some group like the Nazis use the same arguments as modern activists to claim people have no right judge them. If you say, “tolerate unpopular views,” you have to tolerate them. If you believe some views are wrong and don’t have to be accepted, then you can morally oppose such views, providing the reasons you believe it is wrong.

The Church does provide her reasons for saying that things are wrong. But the response to those reasons is insults and labels (ad hominem attacks). Indeed, many people do not even know these reasons—they just assume that the only possible reason for opposing them is hatred. That’s ironic because refusal to consider any other possibilities is intolerance.

In addition to these attacks, we see such accusers trying to make the Church teaching seem to be in opposition to Pope Francis. In a particularly repugnant example, the San Francisco Chronicle takes Papal soundbites out of context and tries to make it sound like there is opposition. But the Pope has affirmed that when it comes to the Church teaching, he “is a son of the Church.” Indeed, he continues to defend the Christian understanding of marriage. So again, the tactic is to define things in such a way that makes any opposition look hateful—but it is false.

Keep that in mind as you encounter charges of bigotry against Catholics.

Here Comes Hypocrisy (yet again...)

A tale of two cakes: Colorado's far-reaching religious freedom fight :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Remember the case where a baker was sued for refusing to provide a wedding cake for a ceremony involving a same sex “marriage” and it was considered a violation of civil rights? Well, a counter-case is going on where an individual targeted a bakery requesting a cake with anti-gay messages on it. The baker in this second case was willing to provide a cake, but not the messages on the case. The second baker was giving the same reason that the first baker gave—being forced to do something they believed was morally offensive.

However, while in the first case the baker was considered to be a bigot, in the second case, the baker was seen as defending his rights. I’m sure that in both cases the bakeries were set up for the purposes of creating lawsuits. But the treatment of the two cases are different.

In both cases the business owners want the right to not be forced to do something they find offensive. This leaves three options:

1. They can recognize the fact that nobody can be compelled to do something which they find morally evil by the courts and lawmakers.
2. They can force every belief to be scrutinized by the state for validity.
3. They can behave in a partisan manner and support views they agree with, while ignoring those they dislike.

Option #1 is the just solution. Let businesses act in accordance with their moral values and don’t let the state force its way into becoming the arbiter of right and wrong. Unfortunately, this option would force governments (local, state, federal) to tolerate views they disagree with.  Option #2 would be worthy of a dictatorship, but not the USA. Option #3 would be sheer hypocrisy, injustice done for the sake of helping those one liked while using the law to silence those one disliked.

(If I were to bet however, my money would be that #3 is the ultimate result)

So here’s the thing. If you want to be just, those who make and enforce law have to let the Christian businesses have the right to refuse to do things they find offensive. Otherwise, this is behavior worthy of a dictatorship, not a free nation.

I’ve seen people argue that the two cases are not the same thing. That the Christian bakery is practicing intolerance, while the other bakery is opposing it. But this is an assertion which assumes what needs to be proven—that the Christian belief is based on the intolerance of a person instead of on the moral conviction that some behaviors are wrong. These two things are different, and before we are indicted of hatred, the charge needs to be proven that this is our motive, not that this motive be assumed.

I’ve seen people argue that the case of the Christian bakery was “only” remote cooperation with something deemed wrong and so it could be compelled, whole the secular bakery would be forced into direct cooperation, and so it could not be compelled. But that’s making the state the arbiter of what is and what isn’t legitimate religious and moral teaching. The Christian bakery believes that taking part in providing for a same sex “wedding” is wrong and would cause scandal by giving the impression that they supported this just as much as the secular bakery would believe this was wrong and scandalous.

I’ve also seen people argue that by the very fact of saying same sex acts are wrong, we are judging people, which is itself hateful. But by that token, claiming we are behaving wrongly by opposing same sex relationships is also judging people. By our saying certain actions are wrong, we are not contradicting our belief that we are still called to love the person who commits them. But the person who says “tolerate others you disagree with,” is contradicting their own beliefs when they refuse to tolerate us and our beliefs.

Christians aren’t being hypocritical in professing an act as being morally wrong, because they recognize the difference between the sin and the human being. The Catechism says:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,¹⁴¹ tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”¹⁴² They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (2333)

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (2347)

We’re not the Westboro Baptist Church. We don’t think that people with a same sex attraction are damned for that fact. But we do believe homosexual acts are morally wrong and must be avoided by people who would live in right relation with Christ. We do believe that marriage is intended to be between one man and one woman as Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has said (Matthew 19:4-6):

⁴ He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ ⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

We will do our best to witness to this truth, and show people why they need to heed this, and yes we will seek to pass laws which reflect true morality, as opposed to judicial diktat. But we’re not motivated by hate in doing so, and we’re not violating anyone’s rights in doing so.

The same cannot be said about those who would force a Christian bakery to do what it believed to be morally wrong.

Thoughts on Charlie Hebdo, Freedoms of Speech, Press and Their Abuse

Preliminary Note: The terrorism case in France involves two separate elements—the murder of people who said things that others found offensive on one hand and the inconsistent outrage over the abuse of freedom of the press and speech on the other. To avoid any confusion in the article below, I want to make clear that I denounce these murders as evil. Even though I find the antics of the Charlie Hebdo magazine to be offensive, that offensive behavior does not justify murder as a response. Please keep this in mind that I do not seek to make any excuses for this act of terrorism.

The Situation

The attack in France against a satirical magazine is indeed a terrible thing, but reading the news reports and blogs about it, I can’t help but think that some people have missed the point as to why it was a terrible thing. The catalyst for the attack was the comics published by the magazine Charlie Hebdo which mocked the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Some extremists reacted to the offense by killing twelve people at the magazine offices. The Vatican was quick to respond with a condemnation, and had the right idea of what to condemn, saying it was a “double act of violence, abominable because it is both an attack against people as well as against freedom of the press”. That is the truth—the extremists decided they had the right to commit murder in response to people expressing a view which offended them. In response, we are seeing hashtags going around—#IamCharlieHebdo or #JeSuisCharlie aimed at showing solidarity with the murder victims as martyrs as freedom of speech and press.

(The creator of the Asterix comics came out of retirement to publish a protest)

It’s right to be appalled at the use of terrorism as a response to something one finds offensive. But the question is, are we being properly appalled? Or are we merely being appalled in a partisan manner?

Thoughts on Murder as a Tactic vs. Legitimate Tactics in Opposing Evil

First of all, regardless of what is said, no matter how offensive it is, murder is never a justified response. There is a lot of anti-Christian mockery and blasphemy out there. But if some Catholic took it on himself to murder Bill Maher or one of the New Atheists, I would condemn it—not out of sympathy for their speech, but because one may never do evil so that good may come of it. As the Catechism says:

1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.

Blasphemy is evil by its very nature, but I may not murder to stop it because murder is also wrong by its very nature. So even when people abuse the freedoms of speech and the press to deliberately be offensive, even when the West has a hypocritical double standard on what they will tolerate, no person may use an evil means to stop it. Before I move on to my reflections on the use and abuse of freedoms of expression, I want to make this clear. There are both evil and good ways to oppose something evil. When the way chosen is evil, it must be condemned. But when the way chosen is not evil, people are free to pursue it. For example, if these murderers had instead organized a peaceful protest or a non violent boycott of Charlie Hebdo, then there would have been nothing to condemn.

I make the above point because I want to make clear that nothing I say below on the use and abuse of freedoms of the press and speech should be seen as a justification of terrorism. If you think you see that as a reader, you’ve misunderstood my point.

Thoughts on Freedom of Speech and Press and Their Abuse

The freedom of speech and the press are very important rights. They protect us so we can speak the truth publicly without being silenced by people who don’t want to have that truth challenge their preferred way of living. Unfortunately, these rights are very precariously perched. It is extremely difficult to protect the legitimate rights of speaking the truth without enabling those who would abuse these rights to publish false or offensive material, and some governments have simply given up trying to find the proper balancing point between the freedom to speak the truth and the “freedom” to say whatever the hell you want.” Pornography, for example, has gone from being recognized as a crime to be considered free speech with very few boundaries (child pornography and necrophilia seem to be the only real barriers left—at least I pray they are still barriers).

Now the ideal of these freedoms would be to recognize that a person has the right to express the truth while excluding the abuse of such freedoms. But since governments have a bad habit of defining what they dislike as an abuse, it is generally recognized that it is better that the abuse be tolerated so as not to restrict the legitimate use of these freedoms. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t work that way in practice.

The fact is, when it comes to the abuse of these freedoms, we have people who slander/libel those they dislike, publicly insulting or harassing certain groups. So long as the targets treated this way are unpopular with the media or the government, the harassers will get away with it. The Double Standard is, a person or group publicizing something attacking a group which is favored by the media can expect either being ignored or being publicized for vilification. But a person or group publicizing something attacking a group which is opposed by the media will generally be supported (For example, Bill Maher’s career of insulting religion).

Thus we have a situation where people are actually behaving like hypocrites. It’s OK to mock or slander/libel Christianity and suffer no consequences. But speak out against something like same sex “marriage” an suddenly, you have no freedom. You can lose your job or be sued or prosecuted. Something is clearly not right here. Either one tolerates both or rejects both if he or she wants to be consistent. Yet we have people who say #IamCharlieHebdo in support of a magazine which openly attacks religion in an offensive way, who won’t stand up for the right of a Christian Fire Chief in Atlanta to express his right in print a book which says homosexual acts are evil. The head of Facebook announces he won’t let extremism silence freedom of speech on Facebook, but Facebook has a history of silencing articles it deems as “offensive.” In fact, it’s in the policy page:

Facebook does not permit hate speech, but distinguishes between serious and humorous speech. While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition.

Pretend it’s a joke and you can bash religion to your heart’s content (Facebook pages like “The Virgin Mary Should Have Aborted” are allowed even though it exists to attack religion). Post a serious article on why homosexuality is wrong and it can get blocked or removed.

(It took a lot of fighting on Facebook to get an article posted)

So, the question arises—if a person hashtags  #IamCharlie Hebdo, as a protest against the assault on freedom of speech and press, then why are they willing to accept other censorship? If the freedom of speech and press is an absolute, then the unpopular teachings of Christianity needs to be given the same rights to publish and be seen as those who bash Christianity already have.

Conclusion

It seems to me that the current outrage has missed the point. Yes, it is right to condemn these murders. Yes it is right to condemn the idea that a person or group can use violence to strike against those who say things that are offensive. But unless one is prepared to ask whether there is a double standard in play—such as tolerating hatred of groups one dislikes (like Christianity) and only getting outraged when it affects those one agrees with—it makes no sense to hashtag #IamCharlieHebdo. Why? Because such a protest is not a protest for justice. Rather it is a protest that an ally was attacked.

There is a civil way to oppose intolerance, but it requires us to remember truth and the obligation to treat the one we disagree with in a just manner, even when we believe we must oppose that person or group. That civil way is not really found in the West anymore. It is demanded that Christians give this civility, but it is not given to Christians.

So yes, be outraged that terrorists murdered over a dozen people on account of their being offended. But while doing that, why not ask if your own behavior is intolerant as well in what you accept being done to those you dislike?