The Appeal to Emotion (argumentum ad passiones)

As the rebellion continues against the Catholic Church reaffirming the teaching of marriage, one logical fallacy gets repeated over and over… the argumentum ad passiones or the appeal to emotion. This fallacy exploits emotions—frequently of pity or guilt—irrelevant to the situation to sway people towards a desired position. If a person loses track of what is relevant, it is easy to lose track of why some things cannot be done.

 

When the Church has to say No on an issue, people who don’t like that answer will come up with all sorts of appeals as to why that refusal should be reversed. The general tactic will be to portray the Church as unfeeling or out of touch making “unreasonable” and “arbitrary” rules that are “manmade” and should be changed. Attempts to explain why the teaching must be followed is portrayed as “legalism.” When the Church states that it is impossible to alter the teaching, it is then labeled “betrayal.” We are then given lectures about how we are “going against Jesus” for saying it is a sin.

 

We need to remember slogans like “love is love” do not refute the Church teaching. Accusing the Church of “betrayal” is meaningless when the Church never had any intention to change her teachings and in fact made clear that she could never change this teaching. But these catchphrases do succeed in stirring up feelings of sympathy for the “victim” and hostility against the Church. Because “God is love” (taken from 1 John 4:8, 16) is misinterpreted to mean “God does not condemn what I do,” whoever repeats the Church teaching that something is a sin is accused of “hating,” which is considered unforgivable and worthy of that hostility in these times^†.

 

But these emotionally changed terms have no bearing on the fact that not all behavior can be reconciled with loving God and doing His will. People can and do fixate on things they cannot have if they want to follow Christ (cf. Matthew 7:21-23). The Church can (and does) help these people in the hardships that sometimes come from the pain of doing the right thing over what we desire. And we must do so, even if nobody else will (cf. Revelation 22:11). But, if a person insists that the only acceptable solution is the one the Church says goes against God’s ways, then the person who insists on going against the Church or invents a phony theology that misleads others is the one causing the pain that he blames the Church for.

 

The common topics of dissent: abortion, contraception, divorce and remarriage, same sex “marriage,” etc... these violate the commandments set down by God. Yes, we can find appeals to emotion that claim that hardship is the only result and the greater good requires changing the teaching. But these appeals to emotion refuse to address why the Church teaches they are wrong. Instead, we are told that it is  just an “arbitrary rule imposed by celibate old men.” If Catholics accept that dishonest reframing (it is an ad hominem by the way), they can easily use that as an excuse to reject anything they dislike about the Church.

 

If one wishes to follow Christ, and professes to be a Catholic, then it follows we must believe that the Church is empowered by Christ to bind and loose (cf. Matthew 16:19, 18:18). That does not mean that the Church can bind us to commit sin or free us from doing right. It means we trust that when the Church teaches, she does so with God’s authority and protection from error.

 

This is true even though hypocrites and sinners exist in the Church. I am one of them. You, the reader, are another. In past centuries, we have had knaves and scoundrels among the princes of the Church and even Popes. But we believe that God has protected His Church from teaching error. So, pointing to the notorious sinners within the Church to bolster our outrage and justify dissent is merely a lame excuse. Our Lord had something to say about the authority of hypocritical religious leaders: “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.” (Cf. Matthew 23:2-3). Do religious leaders cause scandal by living in a way contrary to teaching a scandal? Yes. Does it justify disobedience to teaching? No. Bringing these things up^‡ may raise disgust or contempt, but do not refute the truth of the teaching they hate.

 

The faithful need to be aware of this if they should be tempted to waver. Yes, we do need to show compassion to people we believe are doing wrong. Yes, we should be careful not to use slurs and hateful language about those we believe are doing wrong. But the terms “sin” and “sinner” are not hateful language.

 

Let us face the facts. If we truly hated these people, we would not be warning them of the consequences… we would simply let them go to hell without a word. That would be going against what Christ commanded: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10) ^§. And the seeking and saving is what the Church is doing in speaking out.

 

 

__________________________

 

(†) Which raises the question: If to say “X is wrong” is to be guilty of hate, what does that make those who claim that the Catholic Church is wrong about her teachings?

 

(§) The whole story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), like that of the Woman taken in Adultery (John 8:1-11) shows Jesus giving forgiveness to the repentant. Not to the unrepentant.

Heads, They Win. Tails, We Lose: The Tactic of "Don't Impose Your Beliefs on Others!"

Americans have a funny way of thinking these days. We’re determined that nobody should be allowed to impose their beliefs on others. But when you think about it, there’s one slight problem… this is in itself a belief, and if nobody should should impose beliefs, then nobody should impose this belief. This is a self-contradicting idea that seems more interested giving a selfless appearance while aimed at silencing people they do not agree with.

Nobody ever tells atheists not to impose their beliefs on others. They tell Christians not to impose their beliefs on others. If pressed on this, they might say that Christianity is more harmful than atheism and so atheism need not be pressured to be silent. But… once again this is a belief, and if beliefs should not be imposed on others, then atheists cannot impose their views either.

This idea simply cannot be sustained. Every conscious behavior we do, we do based on the values we hold. Some of these values we hold contradict values held by others. Are we to tell the rapist’s victim not to impose her view on the rapist? No sane person would think of saying such a thing. They would argue that the rapist has no right to the victim’s body. But this way of thinking could leave us with a rapist who says, “don’t force your beliefs on me!” There the person who says “don’t impose your beliefs on me” is suddenly faced with a dilemma: Either abandon the belief or abandon justice.

In other words, we do recognize some moral values as being absolute—we cannot force our wants on another person, but we can insist that all people are obliged to act in a way which is moral and say we cannot act in a way which brings harm to another because it benefits our desires. If we must impose something on others, this imposition must be aimed at protecting the common good. This is why we forbid the drunkard from driving himself home from the bar—this denial of his freedom to drive is based on the public good of safety for others on the road.

The problem is, too many people do not think things through and consider who is harmed. People insist on the “right” to an abortion because it will interfere with their lives—but do not consider the lives of the unborn children who are destroyed by abortion. It is simply assumed that the mother’s convenience outranks the child’s right to exist. Ultimately, this is a case of deciding that my convenience outweighs your existence. 

So, what we have here is a Heads I win, tails you lose situation. We’re bad because we’re “imposing our beliefs on others.” At the same time, they’re imposing beliefs in opposition to Christian belief and pretending that this is not an imposition.

Now of course, we need to be loving and compassionate when sharing our beliefs and teaching the world the way of Our Lord. We can’t bully or coerce people into belief. But we can’t be cowardly and refuse to share our faith with the world. We believe in an objective truth, and that certain behaviors are against what God calls us to be. We have no right to be silent when God calls us to speak.

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.

Reflections on The Growing Dissent Among American "Super Catholics"

Have you encountered the Catholic who appeared on the scene in the turbulent years after the Council? He was deeply concerned with the abuses and innovations which he saw entering into the Church, and he was deeply concerned with the bishops who seemed indifferent or sympathetic to the people causing it. He publicly voiced his concerns, but the Church took a position contrary to his. Eventually, he decided that the Pope and these innovations were responsible for these errors, and felt he had to oppose them in order to be faithful to the true practice of the faith.

Unfortunately for the Catholics today who may proudly think of themselves as doing the right thing for doing this, the Council was Lateran V (1512-1517), the Pope was Leo X and the Catholic was Martin Luther—a man who did not start out intending to break away from the Church, but grew so convinced that the Church was going in the wrong direction that he ended up in opposition and died outside of the Church.

We are seeing Catholics today who are claiming to be more knowledgable about the faith than those entrusted with the teaching office of the Church, and claim to be free of error in their understanding of Church teaching while those entrusted with the teaching office of the Church. When there is a discrepancy between what the Church teaches and what the individual believes the Church teaching to be, there is a nasty habit of the individual automatically assuming that the Church today is teaching error, and they are right. I call them “super Catholics.” 

To put it bluntly, it really pisses me off because of the suffering they cause. I encounter Catholics who want to be faithful, but are having their faith assailed by these kinds of “super Catholics” (not intended as a flattering term) who portray themselves as knowledgable about the faith. These “super Catholics’ prey on the fears of the Catholic who wants to be faithful and is troubled by dissent in the Church—telling them that these antics are the fault of the post-Vatican II Church, and especially Pope Francis. By selectively quoting segments of old Church documents from the Council of Trent and Vatican I, and contrasting them with Vatican II and post Vatican II documents taken out of context, they give the impression that the Church now has fallen into error, and the only way to escape is to remake the Church in their own image.

Yes, the Church has had problems with disobedience and corruption and indifference to problems, but there has quite literally been the same problems since the beginning of the Church (for example, see Acts 6:1). So, while we do have to deal with these things when they show up, we need to be careful not to overreact or have unreasonable expectations as to what the Church can do in response. But even with this understanding, we also need to realize that there can be different ways of dealing with a situation—different ways which are not laxity or sympathy with error. You and I might like to see the Pope drop the hammer on a recalcitrant Catholic, but that is not the only way the Church can handle the situation, and we are guilty of rash judgment if we would dare say that only our preferences are the right way to handle this.

Another danger I am seeing is that the “super Catholics” seem perfectly willing to use the same tactics of the dissenters they condemned a few years back. The same sophistry used by Catholics to justify their disobedience of Church teaching on contraception, divorce/remarriage and abortion is being used by Catholics who want to justify disobedience of the Church teaching on social justice issues. The same emotional appeals, the same taking documents out of context—there’s less difference between Pelosi and the “super Catholic” than you might think when it comes to defiance of Church teaching. It’s just a matter of decree.

I think the problem is this: The most infamous dissent against the Church from the reign of Blessed Paul VI through the reign of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has come largely from the political rebellion rising in the 1960s where a false idea on freedom affected many, causing them to reject the Church teaching on life and sexual morality. But some Catholics have forgotten that while these issues are vitally important, they are not the only issues we must heed. They make use of the either-or fallacy and assume that if the Church is speaking about sins against social justice, it must mean the Church is tolerating the liberal dissent against moral teaching. But that’s totally irrational. The Church makes clear that faithfulness to God means following Him in all areas of our life, not just on ones we find politically acceptable.

But the error we are seeing is that because the Pope is not a conservative, he is assumed to be a liberal—as if these were the only two options on the table. In fact, the teachings of the Church are not held for the same motives as people hold political ideas. We hold political ideas because we think they are advantageous (hopefully in a moral way). But we hold to Church teaching because of our love of God, recognizing Him as giving us His commandments out of love for us.

Truth be told, the ”super Catholic” who decides he or she knows better than the magisterium, judging the Pope to be in error is no less a dissenter than the liberal dissenter who derides the teaching authority of “a bunch of celibate old men.” Both believe they know better than the Church who was given her authority by Christ. Both make use of emotional appeals to make their argument sound appealing. Ultimately, both say “I will not serve” when the Church teaching goes against what they want.

We should avoid such false teachers, and pray for them.

Making Excuses: What Part of Intrinsic Evil Don't You Understand?

The defenders of torture are still at it, offering all sorts of scenarios as to what sort of circumstances might justify it. "What if someone kidnapped your child? What if someone was going to target a nursery school? Don’t tell me you’d just let them get away with it?” Some of them are more elaborate than that, of course, but it’s making use of the appeal to fear fallacy—you’re invited to imagine the scenario that a loved one was in danger of death, to encourage you to change your mind. But just because we may suffer when we stick to what is right, that is not a sufficient reason for going against what we believe is right.

The problem with these arguments is that they ignore the main issue: That the Church is teaching that torture is intrinsically evil. Intrinsic evil basically means that a certain act is evil by its very nature and can’t be justified by any motivation or circumstance. Torture, Abortion, Contraception, Same sex sexual activity, rape, idolatry, abandoning the faith etc. are all intrinsically evil. The Catholic, properly educated in his or her faith, realizes that these things can never be justified for any reason whatsoever.

The justification of torture is similar to the justification of abortion. Proponents of both appeal to the motive of relieving suffering as if that was the only factor to be considered. But that’s not the only factor. There are actually three factors:

Catholic teaching holds that, to have a good act, we must have the following:

1. The Act itself must be good.
2. The motive for the act must be good.
3. The circumstances surrounding the act must be good.

If one of these are lacking, we cannot call the act good. (Think of a tripod. Then imagine removing a leg. The remaining structure won’t stand up). For example. Donating money to the poor is good. But if my motive is bad (I want to impress a woman so she’ll sleep with me) or the circumstances are bad (the money will be used to buy drugs or alcohol instead of food), the act isn’t good, even if good comes from it.

The irony is that the Catholics seeking to justify torture with exceptions actually reject those exceptions on other issues. For example, they recognize that hardship is not a legitimate reason to justify abortion because it violates the humanity of the unborn child and the mother. They would recognize that an ancient Christian who chose to sacrifice before an idol to avoid being killed would not be justified. (The reverse is true too—some Catholics who recognize torture is wrong for these reasons seem to fail to make the connection when it comes to abortion).

That’s the ultimate problem here. People seem to either be unaware or unwilling to accept that in some things, there is no but what if?  “But isn’t torture justified if a terrorist is going to fly a 747 into a nursery school?” “But isn’t abortion justified if the unborn child was conceived of rape?” “But isn’t apostasy justified if I have ten children who will starve if I get executed for being a Christian?"

The answer is “No.” There are some things that are so important that we cannot sacrifice them at any cost to ourselves. We may never do evil so good may come of it (CCC #1789). We must love God with our whole heart and our neighbor as ourself (Matt 7:12) and love our enemies (Matt 5:43-48).

Now there may be times when a person gets into a terrible situation. It may be our own fault. It may not be our fault. But in such a situation, the choice will be that we either accept the suffering as the sacrifice we need to make to remain faithful to God or to sacrifice our faithfulness to God in order to avoid the harm. If we love God with our whole heart, we know that we must choose in such a way that puts Him first in our life.

Another attempt to defend intrinsic evil is the appeal to a misapplication of double effect. Double Effect, properly understood, recognizes that situations exist where an action has a good intention, but a bad effect that is not intended, and would be avoided if possible. Not Intended is the key provision. If the evil effect is impossible to avoid AND does not outweigh the good effect, then the guilt of doing evil is not considered deliberate and therefore not considered to be sin.

But, if the evil effect is deliberately intended (such as committing torture or abortion), or if the evil effect happens through negligence (for example killing a pedestrian while driving drunk) then we CANNOT claim double effect. The guilt remains for the act and it must be condemned. So, that’s why the removal of the fallopian tube in the case of an ectopic pregnancy is not considered an abortion. The removal of the fallopian tube will cause the death of the unborn child, because there is no medical procedure that can save the child. If it was possible to save the life of the child, that option would be taken. But if the woman and doctors deliberately chose to perform an abortion to save the mother’s life, that would not be double effect. It would be deliberately choosing evil. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says on responsibility and acts:

1734 Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts. (1036; 1804)

1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors. (597)

1736 Every act directly willed is imputable to its author: (2568)

Thus the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden: “What is this that you have done?”²⁹ He asked Cain the same question.³⁰ The prophet Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed adultery with the wife of Uriah and had him murdered.³¹

An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done: for example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws.

1737 An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent; for instance, a mother’s exhaustion from tending her sick child. A bad effect is not imputable if it was not willed either as an end or as a means of an action, e.g., a death a person incurs in aiding someone in danger. For a bad effect to be imputable it must be foreseeable and the agent must have the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused by a drunken driver. (2263)

This demonstrates the flaw in the defense of things like torture or abortion by appealing to double effect. If the act was willed, or if it was foreseen as a possibility we could avoid by taking the right steps, then we don’t get to claim double effect—we did wrong, either directly, or by being negligent.

Nobody can reasonably blame a person for an accident of course. But torture and abortion and other intrinsically evil acts don’t happen by accident. They happen by a person choosing to take part in it. Once again, we are forbidden to choose an act which the Church decrees is evil, and choosing to do that act is to choose something as higher in importance than God.

Our choice is this: Either we choose God in our actions or we reject God in our actions. When God directly, or through His Church says we must not do an action, then there is never any circumstance or motive that makes it permissible.

They're Not In Limbo, They're In Defiance: Attempts to Divide and Conquer Church Teaching

The article, "Lewistown couple remains in limbo with Catholic Church,” reflects the advocacy journalism common today. We get the appeal to pity in favor of the position supported, and zero mention of why the Church acts as she does. The result of such advocacy journalism is to pit the “poor persecuted couple” against the “cold legalistic church."

But the problem is this: The Church believes that God condemns homosexual acts, and her role is to help people who are struggling in sin to return to God’s grace. The couple in question publicly rejected the Church teaching about homosexual acts by having a same sex “marriage” performed. Given the choice between loving and obeying God or remaining in their relationship, the couple chose the second option. Thus the Church had no choice but to deny them the Eucharist.

John 14:15 records that Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In Luke 16:10, Jesus teaches, "The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.” Finally, in Luke 10:16, speaking of the authority of the Apostles, Jesus says, "Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The point is, rejecting the teaching authority of the Church is rejecting Christ—no matter how people might wish it otherwise.

So, the couple and the author of the article plays the tactic of “divide and conquer.” They try to divide the pastor in question from the bishop ("What’s odd to me is the censure comes from Father Spiering at St. Leo’s, but the bishop hasn’t acted on it, he hasn’t changed it”), and the teaching from the Church (pointing to the statements of a German and French bishop).

The article portrays the couple as waiting it out, expecting the Church to change. But she won’t change from saying “X is a sin” to saying “X is not a sin.” All she might do is change the focus on how to reach out to sinners with the intention of bringing them back to the Church. Truth never changes, but the ways one reaches out to the one denying truth might change, so long as it doesn’t forget the truth. GK Chesterton once wrote:

An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century. (Orthodoxy pp. 135-36)

It’s a good point. God, being all powerful, all knowing and perfectly good, as well as being outside of time, does not change His mind about what is good and evil. He has, in the early days of bringing his plan of salvation to the whole world, gradually brought about prohibitions on what could be done in preparation for the fullness of revelation (the term is Divine Accommodation). But He has never gone from saying “X is evil” to saying “X is permissible."

Unfortunately, some people do think that because the believers in God moderated their positions on war, slavery etc, it means that the position on homosexuality must also change. But that is to miss the point. The shocking accounts of the Jews in gaining their homeland was not to say that it was once all right to commit genocide but not longer. The issue was the horrific practices of the people living in the region and God exacting His punishment, and removing such practices from the land:

⁴ After the Lord, your God, has driven them out of your way, do not say in your heart, “It is because of my justice the Lord has brought me in to possess this land, and because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is dispossessing them before me.”* ⁵ No, it is not because of your justice or the integrity of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land; but it is because of their wickedness that the Lord, your God, is dispossessing these nations before you and in order to fulfill the promise he made on oath to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Know this, therefore: it is not because of your justice that the Lord, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. (Deuteronomy 9:4-6)

Idolatry and child sacrifice were wrong in those days and are wrong now. The difference between then and now is that then God was restricting the behavior of warlike tribes that would otherwise have done worse, and He continued to restrict them in bringing them closer to His plan of salvation.

Jesus did not release moral prohibitions. He made them stricter:

Teaching About the Law. ¹⁷ *“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸ Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. ¹⁹ Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.* ²⁰ I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Teaching About Anger.* ²¹ “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’* ²² *But I say to you, whoever is angry* with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. ²³ Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵ Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. ²⁶ Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny. 

Teaching About Adultery. ²⁷ *“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹ *If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. 

Teaching About Divorce. ³¹ *“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’ ³² But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 

Teaching About Oaths. ³³ * “Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, do not swear at all;* not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. ³⁷ *Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one. 

Teaching About Retaliation. ³⁸ *“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. ⁴⁰ If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. ⁴¹ Should anyone press you into service for one mile,* go with him for two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. 

Love of Enemies.* ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors* do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?* ⁴⁸ So be perfect,* just as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:17-48)

In every single case, Jesus showed that the teaching of the Old Testament was not reversed. It was expanded to be more binding— not just avoiding the acts of murder or adultery, but rejecting the cause of those acts.

The Apostles did not believe they had the right to overturn the teaching of God, and so they never committed the argument from silence fallacy that modern critics do in trying to separate Jesus from St. Paul or the Old Testament when it comes to the condemnation of homosexual acts because they mentioned these acts while Jesus did not—ignoring the fact that Jesus defined what marriage was in a way that excluded their attempts to divide:

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.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

You can’t separate God from Jesus. You can’t separate Jesus from His Apostles. You can’t separate the Apostles from the Church today. You can’t separate the Church teaching from the Pope and the Bishops or the Bishop from the Priest who is carrying out his assignment. While you get some in the Church who want to change what the Church believes God has commanded, those people are not the Pope or the bishops in communion with him, but people who put their opinions above the teaching of Christ.

People who do this may be willfully in defiance or they may be acting out of ignorance—THAT’S where Christ’s words of not judging apply—so we can’t write them off as irredeemable. We have to continue to reach out to them, helping them to understand when actions separate them from God’s love, helping them to come back.

That’s what the Pope is calling for—not changing “X is a sin” to “X is not a sin."

Propaganda

I came across an article while checking out the news this morning. Basically it involves people who have gotten a so-called "gay marriage" in one state and wants a divorce in a state that does not recognize such relationships as marriage.

What struck me as I read this was the rhetoric used by the proponents of this "gay marriage."  The statements like:

"[T]o be in a state that doesn't recognize you as a human being, or recognize you for who you are, for who you love, it's hard... I'm not treated like the neighbors next door. I'm treated like a second-class citizen."

...show the propaganda against the reality of marriage being between one man and one woman... portraying it as looking down on people with same sex attractions.

In logic, we call this the Straw man fallacy.  The caricature of an argument which is attacked to make it seem as though the whole position is without merit.  Supporting traditional marriage is not to refuse to recognize a person with same sex attraction as a human being.  Nor is it treating them as a second class citizen.

Rather it is based on the fact that the family which raises children is the building block which society is based on. It is where the child is instilled with the teachings enabling them to build up society.

Reduce marriage to sex and emotional bond and you're destroying that building block. But you don't hear that or other reasons as to why same-sex couples can't be married.

Instead, we get appeals to pity... "the mean state (or Christians) treat us as less than human second class citizens just because we love each other."

That is biased, misleading language used to promote a political cause or point of view... the definition of Propaganda.

Sentimentalism vs. Compassion

One danger America seems prone to fall for is the danger of sentimentalism, which is the tendency to replace the reason and will with what "feels" right ("feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.  Having or arousing such feelings in an exaggerated and self-indulgent way.")  Americans prefer stories of the underdog triumphing over the powerful – especially if it is a bureaucracy, institution or government agency. 

The problem is, the underdog is not always right just because he or she is the underdog.  Nor is the person portrayed as the underdog always the underdog to begin with.  Sometimes it is the group portrayed as the evil institution that is in the right.

So today we see "women" (actually a sub faction of women who have a shared ideological view) struggling for freedom against the institution of the "heartless Church" because the Church refuses to change her teachings on sexual morality.  We also see homosexuals portrayed as the underdogs against the "fanatical religious right."

What we don't see is the fact that these so-called "underdogs" have the support of the Executive Branch of the US Government, the mainstream media, Hollywood, College faculty, rich millionaires et5c.  What we don't see is that those being coerced are not the women and the homosexuals, but those who disagree with the HHS mandate or those who do not recognize "gay marriage."

Sentimentalism

Sentimentalism is essentially a logical fallacy – the appeal to emotion (usually sympathy and fear).  What we get in this propaganda is someone who is weak who must act in a certain way and will suffer terribly unless the "evil institution" changes their policy.  This is where we see the Church attacked on its opposition to contraception ("those poor women married to men infected by AIDS!") or abortion ("those poor women who were raped!") or "gay marriage" ("those poor people forbidden to marry when they love each other!").  It's propaganda used to elicit an emotion favorable to the policy the propagandist wants passed.

What's not considered is whether the emotion sought is properly applied to the case at hand.  For example, if the fetus is a human person, then there is no justifiable case to kill that person.  If marriage is only possible between a man and a woman, no appeal to "how cruel to be denied the right to marry" can justify "gay marriage."

When people use propaganda of the back alley abortion and the coat hanger, this does not answer the primary questions:

1. Is the fetus a person or not?  and…
2. On what do you base your view?

Considering True Compassion

True compassion differs from sentimentalism in a meaningful way.  Humanity, being flawed and sinful will find people who have been afflicted in some way, either through a bad choice of their own, or being the victim of another.  Such individuals do need some sort of assistance regardless of whether they are in the right and victimized by another or are in the situation through their own fault.  However, compassion requires a solution which is in keeping with the truth and not merely treating symptoms.  True compassion does not treat one person as a means to help another.

Ultimately compassion must be in accord with what really is, seeking to change the situation, not alleviate the symptoms.  We don't show compassion by providing drug addicts with clean needles.  We show compassion by helping them break free of addiction and stay free.  We don't provide compassion by permitting abortion and destroying human life.  We provide compassion by providing support (especially if the woman is a victim).  We don't provide compassion by permitting condoms to be used.  We provide compassion by teaching the men that they don't play Russian Roulette with their wives. 

(Really, if these advocacy groups cared about these women, they'd direct their outrage at the AIDS infected men forcing sex on their wives, not at the Catholic Church whom these men were already ignoring by placing their wives in jeopardy).

In all of these cases, the popular solutions fall into sentimentalism.  The poor drug user who reuses needles should be given clean needles (which does nothing to get them free from drugs).  The poor woman who is pregnant and single is not helped by having her abortions and contraception paid for.  She is helped by helping her to use self control and be responsible, recognizing that pregnancy comes from sexual relations.  The poor African woman who is forced to have sexual relations with her infected spouse, but by providing opportunities to escape from such a desperate situation.

Conclusion

Today's sentimentalism doesn't help people.  It merely provides a (usually futile) attempt to reduce the impact of the symptoms of self-destructive behavior while permitting that self-destructive behavior to continue.  True compassion does not settle for the treating the symptoms but tries to find a lasting solution.

If we don't try to find permanent solutions, which includes modification of behavior, we'll find we've made a whole lot of commotion with no results.