Are We Making a Shipwreck of Our Faith?

I entrust this charge to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophetic words once spoken about you. Through them may you fight a good fight by having faith and a good conscience. Some, by rejecting conscience, have made a shipwreck of their faith (1 Timothy 1:18-19a)

 

I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:1–2).

 

With the Presidential Election happening in two days, the most alarming thing is not that Candidate X (X being the candidate you dislike) might win. It’s that American Catholics are so entrenched in party politics that they think that only the other party is in the wrong vis a vis Catholic teaching and if the Bishops should dare speak out on an issue where their own party is in the wrong, it is seen as “proof” that they favor the other party. It is not unusual to see partisan Catholics of both factions in social media simultaneously accuse the bishops of being pro-Democrat and pro-Republican^†, while denouncing fellow Catholics for doing exactly what they do themselves: Excuse the evil in their own party as being less important than the evil in the other party.

 

You have probably heard the counter-slogans already. Those who intend to vote for Biden will stress racism and immigration. Those intending to vote for Trump will stress the issue of abortion. Both will act as if only the other side’s voting for a party supporting evil is intolerable while their own is a justifiable sacrifice. Some even go so far as to make excuses for their party and their personal failure to oppose the evils within. Both sides are confident that they stand on the side of Christ and equally confident that those they disagree with are deliberately, and with full knowledge, choosing evil. 

 

I say this makes a shipwreck of faith because all of us need to constantly ask ourselves where we have done wrong and work to turn back to God. We need to bring the world to Christ, not to our political party. If we call ourselves Catholic Christians but make excuses instead of work to change the evils within our own party, we are conforming to the world instead of transforming it… which is a perversion of our calling.

 

Yes, we can find both Catholic Democrats and Republicans alike who are morally concerned about our country. Yes, both belong to one party because they are appalled by the platform of the other. But it is never enough to stop at condemning the other side for doing something you personally are appalled by. If we are not also appalled by the evils within our own party, we are no better than those we condemn. 

 

Yes, some evils are worse than others. But that does not mean that the others are morally acceptable. Gaudium et Spes (#27) gives us a litany of evils that indicts both Democrats and Republicans for their silence on them:

 

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.

 

I do understand the temptation to fear the consequences of calling our own party^‡ out. I used to think that way. We fear that calling out our own party means weakening our party or even being forced to vote for the other party. But nowadays I think it we should think of it in a “You break it, you bought it” way. If you identify with a political party, then—win or lose—you “bought” the responsibility to work to change that party when it goes against Catholic teaching. If you vote for a candidate who is at odds with the Catholic teaching and he gets elected, you “bought” the responsibility to oppose him on those issues. You do not get to shirk responsibility for living out and making known Church teaching just because you voted a certain way. You do not get to be silent on, explain away, or downplay those evils that are inconvenient to your own party just because you think other evils are worse. That is called being corrupt, and the cost is greater than the gain.

 

Corruption is everywhere: for two pence many people sell their soul, sell their happiness, sell their life, sell everything. (Pope Francis, “Holy Mass Celebrated for the Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City State. Saturday, 3 October 2015)

 

For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world.… But for Wales! (Bolt, Robert. A Man For All Seasons (Modern Classics). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition).

 

When the Church teaches against an evil that we have grown accustomed to, one that strikes at the human institutions we have put our trust in, we need to change how we think. We must stop thinking of that teaching as a “threat” or “capitulation” to the other side. If we feel fearful or resentful of the Pope or a bishop speaking out, we should ask ourselves why we are taking sides againstthose given the authority to interpret God’s teaching and guide us and bind us on what we must do or avoid if we hope to be saved.

 

If we are tempted to say that we are not the ones taking sides, but they are, we should ask ourselves why we are so sure of our own understanding of the Church teaching while the Pope and bishops consistently go “wrong.” It is easy for corrupt culture to blind us to the evil of their practices after all. It’s easy to be so accustomed to our vicious customs that we grow blind to the fact that something is evil, and we think the attempts to overturn it are themselves evil.

 

We should remember that Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church with the intention to teach with His authority and with His protection. If we are so certain that we, not they, are in the right, that is a sure sign we are making a shipwreck of our faith.

 

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(†) As always, I put candidates, ideologies, and parties in alphabetical order to avoid accusations of bias.

 

(‡) I will not say how I voted. Yes, I think one party is worse than the other. But that does not make the other party “good.” All I will say is I looked at both parties and decided which I thought would do the most harm to living a Catholic life. From there I voted with an intention to block it. But, no matter who wins, I will oppose the evil they stand for. If the reader immediately assumes that I ignored the evils on “the other side,” it’s kind of proving the point of my article.

Into Exile?

Thus says the Lord: Do what is right and just. Rescue the victims from the hand of their oppressors. Do not wrong or oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. If you carry out these commands, kings who succeed to the throne of David will continue to enter the gates of this house, riding in chariots or mounted on horses, with their ministers, and their people. But if you do not obey these commands, I swear by myself—oracle of the Lord: this house shall become rubble. (Jeremiah 22:3–5)

When I do my morning readings and study, sometimes the different books line up and discuss one theme in different ways. When that happens, it gives an interesting perspective on that theme. Lately, the theme coming up has been the times of Jeremiah and his warnings of coming disaster for the Jews. The Jews of the time thought of their problems as an external threat arbitrarily imposed on them for the wrongdoing of others. One of the kings even asked Jeremiah to intervene with God to prevent disaster… an attitude that showed that he did not even grasp the cause.

Jeremiah made clear that the disaster was unavoidable and the fault of the Jews themselves, not others, or other segments of the population. Everyone had fallen into corruption and had earned the coming wrath. Superficially keeping the law would not save them when their attitude was what kept them far from God.

I think of this as I watch Catholics in this country respond to the disasters afflicting us. Regardless of what side one falls under on the political divide, we sense that dark times are imminent, but we think that it is the fault of others. Whether the “others” are from a different political faction, a different country, a different religion, or whatever you prefer, we assume that our current woes are on account if them, and if they would only act as we see best, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

The prophets were clear that this was not the case. Ezekiel 18:1-4, for example, had this prophecy about that assumption:

The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, what is the meaning of this proverb you recite in the land of Israel: 

“Parents eat sour grapes, 
but the children’s teeth are set on edge”? 

As I live—oracle of the Lord GOD: I swear that none of you will ever repeat this proverb in Israel. For all life is mine: the life of the parent is like the life of the child, both are mine. Only the one who sins shall die! 

In other words, if we are undergoing a national crisis, the wrong attitude to take is “It’s somebody else’s fault.”

We need to flash forward to the year 2020. We are a nation laid low by a plague, and we are facing an election that feels like it was described in Isaiah 3:4-5. All of us—Catholics included—are acting as if we are immaculate and whatever fault exists for our trials belong elsewhere, even as we act unjustly in our own way.

We have excuses of course. We say that “Yes, the Church teaching on X is important but, in these times, we must focus on Y instead.” The problem is, we all too often have no intention of doing anything to correct the injustice of X, even if we feel perturbed by it. We decide we do not want to risk what we have by doing anything that might cause harm to it. So, we hypocritically condemn others for their failures to follow Catholic teaching and explain away our own failures. Both factions are quite proud of the fact that they follow the rules better than the other side. But let us remember the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt, the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner.

If we turn a blind eye to the sins our faction is guilty of committing or tolerating, while condemning the other side for violating God’s law, we are hypocrites and earn condemnation ourselves. So, before we point fingers at the other side for their evils and congratulate ourselves for our “virtues,” let us ask ourselves if we too are guilty in the eyes of God. I say that because, the Catechism of the Catholic Church also warns us:

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest. (Emphasis added).

We who are Catholics should also remember the teaching of Vatican II. Because we belong to the Church established by Christ and possessing the fullness of His teachings; because we can avail ourselves of the graces He provides through it, we are without excuses if we live against or turn our back on these teachings.

All the Church’s children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

We should keep that in mind. While our fellow Catholics might be sinning differently than us, that does not negate our own sins against God and our fellow man. I think this is where Our Lord’s teaching on judgment really applies:

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3–5)

If, in 2020, we condemn the other side while “being comfortable” with our own vote^* or political platform, then we have a log in our eye. The failure of the major factions to fix the evils they are complicit in means we should not call our preferred faction “good.” At best we can call it “less evil,” and need to reform it even as we oppose the evils of the other side.

Otherwise, we share in the evil and will answer for it… quite possibly facing the equivalent of the exile that the prophets warned the ancient Israelites about.

 

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(*) as one “personally opposed but…” voter told me when trying to justify her opposition to ending legalized abortion..

What is Our Obligation? Body Count Theology and the Fallacy of Relative Privation

 

The election grows closer and everybody is worried about the consequences. Looking at it objectively, no matter who wins, the consequences will be severe. So nonpartisan discussions should involve what the cost is of rejecting the greater evil. It’s understandable that Catholics would also look at the election with concern. The Catholic’s concerns about the cost will be different from the secular concerns, but we do have an obligation to identify both the greater evil and whether a “proportionate reason” exists to support the lesser evil.

 

Unfortunately, we’re seeing some Catholics reduce this into an issue of the body count. It’s understandable of course. Looking strictly at numbers, a policy that kills 62 million people is more serious than a policy that kills 6 million people and must be given a higher priority. But we do need to go beyond “strictly looking at numbers,” as the fact that the second policy “only” killed 6 million does not make it negligible or tolerable. I didn’t pick those two numbers at random. 62 million is the number killed by abortion in the United States from 1973-2018. 6 million is the number of Jews estimated murdered by the Nazis in their “Final Solution.” Both are horrific when you realize that the numbers are not statistics but human beings. It would be monstrous to argue that Hitler’s policies didn’t matter in comparison.

 

But reducing political support of a candidate to the fact that his policies have a lower body count than the other is effectively that^†! It’s ridiculous and offensive because the moral choice would be to reject both^‡. Sometimes we do have to do that. The logical error to avoid is the fallacy of relative privation. This holds that because Evil X is greater than Evil Y, Evil Y is not important… an attitude incompatible with Catholic belief^§.

 

Some Catholics may legitimately find that their conscience demands fighting the evil that Candidate A will impose must take a higher priority than the evil that Candidate B will impose, and that justifies a vote for Candidate B. But if they do think that a “proportionate reason” exists that justifies voting for Candidate B, they are not excused from fighting the evils that Candidate B supports. I would argue that they are obligated to fight the evils their vote is enabling if their candidate is elected. I do not believe we can claim that tolerating that evil for the next four to eight years is compatible with the Catholic view.

 

Unfortunately, we see Catholics on both sides who do exactly that. Some Catholics argue that by voting for the pro-abortion candidate, they are effectively reducing abortion because other policies will reduce the “need” for it… forgetting how many abortions are performed for arbitrary reasons. They then stay silent on abortion except to criticize those who give it a higher priority. Others argue that while they don’t like the evils in their party, “the stakes are too high” to fight against it until later… a later that never comes. In this game, both sides are swift to point out the hypocrisies of the other side… and never quite grasp that they are guilty of the same thing.

 

So, do you believe that the attacks on the right to life are the worst? Do you think that ignoring the other issues are missing a crucial point on what that right entails? Well and good. “They” should repent of their attitudes. But the question remains: What are you going to do about the evils in your own party? They’ll still be there on January 20^th, 2021 and saying “I voted against Candidate A in 2020” isn’t going to be a defense at the Last Judgment. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) and the Parable about the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) show that we can’t be passive when people are suffering.

 

I am, of course, just a laic blogger. I have no authority to judge the conscience of you the reader based on how you happen to vote. But I can state my fraternal concern that many people seem to be forgetting that our moral obligations go beyond the ballot box. Our obligation as Catholic Christians^¤ involve evangelizing the world in [election] season and out (cf. 2 Timothy 4:1-5) in the face of all the errors that risk damnation… not just the ones committed by those with a -D or an -R after their names.

 

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(†) To head off debates on Hitler being pro- or anti-abortion, Hitler’s views were based on eugenics, not moral values. He opposed abortion for “Aryan” ethnicities but favored it for other ethnicities.

 

(‡) I reject the concept of “Candidate X is Hitler” rhetoric that shows up (I rejected it in my blog at least as far back as 2012). No matter how repugnant we might find one or more of the current candidates, their positions are not Hitlerian.

 

(§) It’s closer to Utilitarianism where the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people is considered the key.

 

(¤) I don’t say this to deny the values of non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians that share our concerns. If you are in one of those groups, I hope my writing has some value for you too. But I am appealing as a Catholic to fellow Catholics to be aware of their obligations.

 

 

The Quadrennial Problem For Catholics

All these horrors I've heard of during the Nurnberg process, these six million Jews, other thinking people or people of another race, who perished. That shocked me deeply. But I hadn't made the connection with my past. I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn't know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realized that a young age isn't an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things. (Traudl Junge in the movie Downfall)

At the time of this writing, there’s 47 days left until the US Presidential elections. At different times, I’ve referred to this as the “silly season” or even the “stupid season” because of how we Catholics tend to irrationally let our political values replace our Catholic moral teachings in governing how we live. We tend to act as if “our” candidate is the next best thing to the Second Coming, and “the other” candidate is the coming of the antichrist. As a result, whoever—even a bishop—speaks of “our” candidate in less than glowing terms, or concedes that “the other” candidate is right on an issue is accused of standing with the forces of darkness. The Catholic teaching “our” candidate is strong on or “the other” side is weak on is considered vital. The Catholic teaching “the other” candidate is strong on, or “our” side is wrong on is considered as less important.

That’s not to say that values are relative or that we can’t vote for any candidate at all. But what it does mean is we have an obligation to understand Catholic teaching properly so our consciences will be properly formed by the Church. From that, we are required to look at the candidates running and honestly assess whether a vote for one of them is morally justified. This is entirely different from the tactic of “looking for excuses to justify how we were going to vote anyway.” Nor can we conveniently weigh the Catholic teaching in a way that suits us.

The Church does indeed make the Right to Life the first right. Without it, the rest of the rights are “illusory” as St. John Paul II put it. However, the Church defines what is part of that right more broadly than partisan Catholics do. St. John Paul II wrote, citing Gaudium et Spes:

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, fínds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

The Church has never yielded in the face of all the violations that the right to life of every human being has received, and continues to receive, both from individuals and from those in authority. The human being is entitled to such rights, in every phase of development, from conception until natural death; and in every condition, whether healthy or sick, whole or handicapped, rich or poor. The Second Vatican Council openly proclaimed: “All offences against life itself, such as every kind of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and willful suicide; all violations of the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture, undue psychological pressures; all offences against human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, degrading working conditions where men are treated as mere tools for profit rather than free and responsible persons; all these and the like are certainly criminal: they poison human society; and they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator”. (Christifideles Laici #38).

Let’s face it. Under this definition, neither party can honestly be called “pro-life.” We can only argue over which party causes the greater evil, and whether there is a proportionate reason to vote for the party that violates the Right to Life in a less evil way. But as we argue, we need to remember that God is the final judge, and He knows how honest we are being with ourselves.

Because the Right to Life is first and foremost, any party that chooses to violate it in some way is supporting grave evil, whether it involves an intrinsic evil (such as abortion) or an evil intention or consequence with an act that is not intrinsically evil. Matthew 25:31-46 reminds us that failure to help those in need is also damnable after all. Unfortunately, in the election years, we will inevitably see some Catholics argue that the other policies of a pro-abortion candidate will reduce the need for abortion… downplaying the fact that their candidate advocates the legal support for abortion, downplaying the fact that the Church lists it next to murder and genocide†. Meanwhile, other Catholics argue that “the stakes are too high” to rebuke a candidate who supports the unjust treatment of migrants and the use of torture. Both sides declare that their candidate is the only moral choice, even though neither choice is moral.

Catholic supporters of both of these candidates will need to ask themselves whether they are prepared to face those who were made victims of the policies at the final judgment and honestly say that the suffering they enabled was not as bad as the evil they sought to oppose. I don’t mean making that decision in a tsk, that’s rough but what could I do? approach where we don’t look too closely at the evils we enable. I mean, are we prepared to honestly say before God and the victims that our vote was literally intended to stave off a worse evil?

And, if we are prepared to say this honestly before God and the victims, are we prepared to show our sincerity by speaking out against the evils our vote enables if that candidate gets elected, fighting tooth and nail to overturn that evil in our party?

Because if we’re not, if we’re prepared to stay silent for the next four years over those issues, the odds are we’re not being honest about our “proportionate reason” either.

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(†) If one takes those arguments and replace the word “abortion” with murder or genocide, these arguments sound demonically evil. 

Exception Overload: Thoughts on a Variant of Whataboutism

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the “whataboutism” in which people point out the moral faults of others to shift the focus away from the issue where their side comes off as second best (a tu quoque fallacy). There is another version of that behavior that I have seen more frequently as we get closer to election day. That version is to list all kinds of exception clauses (“but what about…?”) that are aimed at escaping the obvious but unpopular conclusion.

When the Church specifically states that X is morally wrong, this tactic tries to argue that: while they don’t support a moral evil, they think the accumulation of hypotheticals and conditions—none of them by themselves as grave or graver than the evil under consideration—do meet the requirements of a proportionate reason to do something that enables an evil act.

This usually comes up after Catholic A points out to Catholic B that Party X is openly championing an an evil. Catholic B recites a litany of hypotheticals and conditions that he claims either outweighs the evil Party X is guilty of or reduces the culpability of Party X. Therefore, they argue, the conditions for a proportionate reason exist and they can morally justify voting for Party X.

Obviously, we do not want to force someone to act against conscience. That would mean pressuring them to do what they think is wrong. Some of the concerns are valid. Sometimes the badly formed conscience is sincere. But, in the spiritual works of mercy, we do have obligations to instruct the ignorant and admonish the sinners so they might not do wrong unknowingly or knowingly. So, if the person has formed his conscience wrongly, we do have an obligation to point out what the Church does teach and how they might have gone wrong.

But at other times, the arguments used are simply dishonest. For example, one argument I’ve seen claims that since it was the Supreme Court that decided Roe v. Wade, voting for a pro-abortion candidate for President is not enabling as much harm as claimed. This is dishonest because the dispute over a pro-abortion candidate in the United States is not over whether a President can overrule the Supreme Court (he can’t). It is over whether the candidate intends to harden the defenses of Roe v. Wade against attempts to overturn it, appoint judges to defend it, permit (or increase) government funding for abortion via executive order, sign laws defending abortion while vetoing laws defending life. Using whataboutism to deny this candidate is responsible for the evil of abortion in a way the Church condemns is dishonest, whether the person is sincere in believing it or just using it as an excuse§.

And, except for the most naïve, they know that this reasoning is dishonest because they do point fingers at Catholics on the other side of this political divide for using this reasoning to vote the way they want. So, we are stuck with the bizarre situation of divided Catholics that accuse the other side of making excuses for not following Church teaching on voting while not following it themselves. A Catholic leaning to support the Democrats downplays the serious nature of abortion in their voting considerations. Whether or not they intend it, the result is to ignore their own failures to oppose evil while condemning the failures of the other side. The consequence is, nothing gets done to reform the evils in our country while never considering their own part in this evil situation.

We can’t make excuses. If we know that the Church condemns a policy as evil, even if we feel we need to vote for his opponent, we have an obligation to challenge our candidate on the issues he is wrong for, not make excuses for inaction. But we seldom see that challenge made

Instead we bury the obligation in an avalanche of exceptions and hypotheticals, saying “but what about…?” And if we will do that, it will come up at the final judgment, when we desperately plead, “Lord, when did we see you….” (see Matthew 25:44).

 

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(§) Yes, this dishonesty works both ways. If it’s wrong to stack up lesser reasons or hypotheticals to claim a proportionate reason exists over abortion, it is also wrong to use these tactics to justify voting for a candidate guilty of other evils condemned by the Church. 

What is a Proportionate Reason? A Reflection

Introduction.

A reader on my blog page asked me for a clarification on what a Proportionate Reason was when it comes to moral theology and the abortion issue. It reminded me that sometimes what think is clear, the average reader might see as technical jargon. So, I apologize for not being clear and will try to explain it without sounding too technical or patronizing. (I suspect I may have to apologize in advance for not succeeding there).

Some Basic Things to Remember.

When dealing with evil and what enables it, we need to make a few basic statements. 

First. We are absolutely forbidden to do an evil act so good may come of it.

Second. To have a morally good act, the action itself must be morally good or neutral (no intrinsically evil acts [that is, the act itself is bad regardless of conditions] can ever be made good), the intention is good (doing something good or neutral for an evil reason makes the act evil), and the circumstances must be good (giving a Snickers bar to a starving child who turns out to have a peanut allergy is bad, even if no harm was intended).

Third. The conditions that make up a mortal sin require committing a serious (grave) evil, knowing it was evil and freely choosing to do it anyway.

Fourth. If it’s impossible to know something (for example, Native Americans in pre-Colombian times absolutely could not have known of the need to accept Christ) and the person acted wrongly, thinking what they did was good, God will not hold a person responsible for that ignorance, even though wrong is done. We call this invincible ignorance. But, if the ignorance was something that could have been learned if the person bothered to look but was negligent, that isn’t excusable. We call this vincible ignorance.

Fifth. The person who knows they have committed a grave sin need to go to Confession before receiving communion (Canon 916). Notorious and unrepentant sinners who choose to go receive Communion anyway can be barred (Canon 915).

So, we could sum this up and say, since we may not do an evil act so good may come of it, we have an obligation to learn what the Church teaches and live it. We are without excuse if we reject the Church teaching and do evil, and we are without excuse if we do evil through ignorance that we could have cleared up if we bothered to look. We could wind up in a state of mortal sin if all conditions are present.

We can never deliberately choose to do evil or to freely and knowingly assist in that evil. (For example, you can never have a morally good rape or a morally good lynching). Even if a Catholic should dissent from Church teaching, they are not excused from obeying it. Otherwise “I disagree” could be an iron clad defense for geocide or murder. If anybody does take part in assisting evil knowingly and willingly, they are responsible for having done evil. So, in the Ratzinger Memorandum, he mentions voting for someone because they are pro-abortion as an example of being obligated to stay away from receiving the Eucharist.

But What About Acts that Aren’t Intrinsically Evil

So, let’s move on. Keeping the above things in mind, let’s move on to Proportionate Reasons that justify an act that is not intrinsically evil in itself, but still makes the evil act possible. 

The immediately relevant part of the Ratzinger Memorandum, the part that gets dragged out every four years, is the section on voting. Voting in itself a civic duty, not an intrinsic evil. Therefore, any sin involved comes from the intention or the consequences.

While deliberate evil in a vote exists if one deliberately chose to vote to support something the Church condemned as evil, we still need to consider the consequences of voting for something that will have an evil consequence, even if unintended. This isn’t a “moral calculus” where we decide X amount of evil is tolerable, while X+1 is not. Instead we have to consider whether the person who enabled the evil had a reason that took away culpability.

If the person knows that voting for a candidate who publicly states his support for something the Church labels evil would enable this bad result (and not being aware indicates a defect in knowledge of Church teaching or the politician’s position), the greater the evil enabled means the greater the reason is needed proportionate to the harm done (there’s where we get the term proportionate reason) is needed to justify the participation in the act.

I’ve pointed out elsewhere that the Catholic Church has (in Gaudium et Spes #27) listed abortion next to murder and genocide in talking about evils. So, we cannot simply treat abortion as one issue among many any more than we can treat murder or genocide as one issue among many. 

This is where the Catholic risks stepping into a trap. It is easy for any concerned Catholic—who has sympathies for one party at odds with the Church in some way—to confuse the reasons they dislike the other party for proportionate reasons. Since the Church does speak so strongly against abortion, unless they can offer a proportionate reason for voting for a pro-abortion candidate that they would accept if used by a Catholic trying to justify voting for murder, genocide, or torture, I honestly don’t think they can defend their vote. This is why I think the insight from Archbishop Chaput is so important: 

We sin if we support “pro-choice” candidates without a truly proportionate reason for doing so—that is, a reason grave enough to outweigh our obligation to end the killing of the unborn. And what would such a “proportionate” reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions—as we someday will.

Chaput, Charles J. Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (p. 230). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So, the Catholic who says “I am justified in supporting a pro-abortion candidate because of the evils in the other candidate,” must be able to face God and the victims of the policy that this evil invoked at the final judgment and say, “Yes this was more urgent.”

I would like to conclude by bringing up another issue frequently forgotten when people debate proportionate reasons. That is, the same moral obligations that bind the Catholic considering voting for a pro-abortion candidate also apply for the Catholic considering a vote for his opponent. If that Catholic votes for the other candidate because of his support of the evil position, that voter is also culpable for that evilly intended vote. And, yes, the requirement for a proportionate reason applies to his vote for the opponent with a morally wrong platform too.

None of us are exempted from the obligation of looking to the Church to understand our moral obligations in being a Christian and following them to the best of our understanding and ability to form our consciences. None of this can be set aside because “the stakes are too high” in this election. While we must not be scrupulous in seeking to do right, we must not be lax either. So, when a candidate proudly states they will support something we know is evil, we do have an obligation to oppose it in a moral way.

And, if we should ever become convinced that we have failed to do this, let us remember that we have a Sacrament that reconciles us with God and His Church. Let us avail ourselves of that Sacrament, making a firm purpose of amendment to strive to live according to God’s commandments.

Evading the Abortion Issue

The Church is very straightforward in her teachings. Yes, determining the level of culpability in an individual’s sins might be complex in discerning knowledge and freedom in the decision, But that never makes a morally bad act good, and we must oppose evil, even when we might otherwise benefit from a group that promotes it or fear consequences if that group does not gain power. The fact is, we must not choose to do evil so good may come of it, and we must make certain that any remote cooperation [i.e., not intended] with the evil is done for a reason proportionate to the evil.

Tragically, some Catholics have announced their intention to vote for pro-abortion candidates‡, arguing that the evil of the other side meets the “proportionate reason” requirement. That they reason this way is deeply troubling. In Gaudium et Spes #27, for example, the Church lists abortion next to murder, genocide, euthanasia, torture, and slavery in terms of abominable actions¥. Those Catholics who intend to vote for pro-abortion candidates announce themselves against these other evils as non-negotiable… and rightly so. But, while they would never dream of compromising and voting for a candidate who supported those evils, they are willing to vote for a candidate who supports abortion, claiming that such a candidate is “more pro-life” while condemning Catholics who won’t vote like them.

The problem is this. While the Church does indeed teach that the Right to Life is more than just opposing abortion, one cannot be pro-life without that crucial piece. So, when the Catholic who announces his or her intention to vote for a pro-abortion candidate while denouncing his fellow Catholic for neglecting other issues of Catholic Moral Teaching in the name of abortion§,  he or she needs to keep in mind Matthew 7:2. “For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.” 

This verse is important because calling out another on a moral wrong means you know that action is wrong. So, calling down judgment on Catholics for downplaying Teaching X in the name of opposing abortion, while downplaying of abortion in the name of Teaching X is also worthy of judgment†.

Don’t get into an argument over theological calculus here where you try to calculate what level of other evils is supposed to outweigh abortion (both sides do this, and calculate it in their favor). When the Church says “X is wrong,” don’t try to justify your support of the candidate who champions X by pointing to the other side’s failings. Each one of us will answer for the evils we ignore or try to explain away when the Church has called them “evil” by name.

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(‡) This has gotten so out of hand, that I have seen some Catholics attack Cardinal Paglia claiming he is out of touch with the Church for saying that Catholic politicians absolutely cannot support or defend abortion.

(¥) Yes, the Church lists more issues in that paragraph, and yes, I have cited them in previous articles. But it goes to show that those who invoke those issues cannot claim ignorance on how seriously the Church views abortion.

(§) A popular attack they use is “anti-abortion but not pro-life.”

(†) Again, before you plan to send an angry “what about…?” response, keep in mind, I have also written blogs warning against those opposing abortion being complacent or justifying their downplaying other issues.

Logical Fallacies Catholics Need to Watch Out for in Political Discussions

I’ve been discussing the Catholic attitudes in politics lately. It’s not something I particularly want to do, but it seems to be a necessity in election years. The danger I am writing about involves Catholics on both sides of our dualistic political divide pointing out the sins of others, while either ignoring or being blind to the sins they risk falling into. Because these partisan Catholics inevitably attack the Church when it speaks out against policies supporting “their” faction, I see writing about them as part of my mission to defend the teaching and authority of the Church.

One of the major problems I see in these partisan disputes is that both sides fall into the same fallacies and use the same arguments, condemning the other side for reaching a different conclusion through them. That dispute does not help the Catholic Church spread the faith throughout the world. In fact, not only does it not respect the universal§ nature of the term Catholic, it actually leads those looking at us from outside as viewing the Catholic faith as one more partisan sect (cf. Romans 2:24).

So, as we get closer to Election day (64 days as I write this), I thought I should write on some logical fallacies that Catholics use in debating over Biden vs. Trump†, as the factions claim one is a saint and the other a demon.

The first one I would like to discuss is the Fallacy of Relative Privation. This one assumes that X is worse than Y. Therefore, those concerned about Y are focused on something unimportant. So, when we face the abortion issue, half of the American Catholics argue that because of the evil of abortion, the rest of the issues are not important in comparison because “the stakes are too high.” The other half argue that because of the evil caused in the other issues, they have to vote for the pro-abortion candidate and try to end abortion through “other means” because “the stakes are too high.” 

Both these attitudes are mirror images of each other. The practical effect of this fallacy is that whatever issue the preferred party is wrong on is essentially treated as unimportant, even if the Catholic voter would deny they didn’t care if you asked them point-blank. 

The second fallacy I would like to address is the Either-Or fallacy. This fallacy assumes there are only two choices. Either Conservative or Liberal; either Democrat or Republican. If a Catholic voter should dare say that his conscience doesn’t permit him to support either, then may God have mercy on his soul because these partisan Catholics will not. Both sides will argue that the other side is aligned with the powers of darkness, and a refusal to vote for their side is an endorsement of the powers of darkness… even though the Catholic bishops have explicitly rejected that accusation.

What every American Catholic voter needs to keep in mind is that both parties are at odds with Catholic teaching in a serious way. When trying to do good and oppose evil, we cannot use our persona preferences as our guide. We must look to the Church for guidance, and then vote according to what our conscience demands.

Unfortunately, that leads us to a third fallacy we need to beware—the fallacy of equivocation. Some words have more than one meaning (equivocal words). If we use a word differently than intended, we will fall into error over the intended meaning. When the Church refers to conscience, she does not mean an infallible voice that makes what we want to do right. Conscience says “I must do X; I must not do Y.” It doesn’t say “Meh, I don’t feel anything about this.” Also, conscience must be formed through the teaching of the Church and those entrusted to lead it. If we—upon hearing the teaching of the Pope or bishop—immediately accuse him of being left- or right-wing, we are not letting our consciences be formed by the Church, and we have no excuse for it.

The thing is, if the Church speaks out on an act as evil, we cannot support it, and we cannot enthusiastically support the party that accepts it or calls it good. We have a serious obligation to ask, “what am I going to do about that evil, now and in the future?” We should be lamenting the difficult choices we have in voting as a Christian. If we don’t, if we just assume our party is automatically right, we’re just as guilty as the other guy we’re pointing our finger at.

None of this should be interpreted as moral relativism. Are some evils worse than others? Yes. But arguing that X is worse than Y doesn’t solve the evils of Y, does it? The truth is, we can’t use some bizarre moral calculus that sets out to justify how we were going to vote anyway. The moment we write off a moral teaching as something we need to “sacrifice” because “the stakes are too high,” we are making ourselves complicit in the sins of omission.

This leads to a fourth logical fallacy, the tu quoque. This fallacy responds to an accusation by pointing out a flaw in the opponent, real or not. So, if Catholic A points out a moral failing in a political party, pointing out the flaws in the party he favors is not a refutation. So, the Catholic intending to vote for a party favoring abortion often points to the sins of a party that opposes abortion, and vice versa. But the sins of another doesn’t change the fact that our own party also supports evil… whether intrinsic, in intention, or in consequence. 

Catholics need to stop using fallacies in their thinking and arguments, because they lead us into becoming obstinate in what we were going to do anyway. It’s not enough to see the evils of the other side. We need to be aware of and oppose the evils on our own side too. Otherwise, the outsider will look at us and see just another group of partisan hypocrites, and not the Church established by Christ, while we will look at others as either enemies deserving our contempt because of their evils or allies whom we turn a blind eye to their wrongs.

 

 

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(§) From the Greek καθολικός (Katholikos—universal).

(†) As always, when it comes to comparing and contrasting opposed factions, I try to alphabetize them to avoid appearances of bias.

Thoughts on the Misuse of the Ratzinger Referendum in 2020

Everybody has talking points they use to promote their position and refute their opponent’s. Sometimes these talking points have merit to them. At other times, they are merely rattled off like an incantation intended to ward off an opponent’s challenge, but with no real understanding of what it actually means. 

Unfortunately, in 2020, we are seeing a very nuanced document—commonly known as the Ratzinger Memorandum—turned into an incantation by both sides, each conveniently reading it in a way to attack the other side, with no attempt to apply it to their own. This memorandum (which can be read HERE) was written in response to a question by the disgraced and defrocked McCarrick on whether one would be unworthy to receive Communion if they held a position in opposition to Church teaching. Only two points ever get cited by partisan Catholics. Section #3 and the bracketed Nota Bene. For convenience, they are reproduced here:

3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

* * *

[N.B. A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.]

Those who intend to vote for a pro-abortion candidate cite the nota bene and argue (dubiously at best) that the candidate’s other positions or the positions of the other candidate, become a “proportionate reason.” Those who support another candidate who is not pro-abortion candidate but is also morally bad in other areas emphasize Section #3 and say there is nothing wrong with voting for a candidate who supports those things. Both are misinterpreting the matter.

When it comes to the issue of abortion, we need to remember that the Catholic Church equates it with other barbarities. In Gaudium et Spes #14, we read:

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.

So, the candidate who supports abortion cannot be simply excused for it in the name of the other positions he might support any more than a candidate who supports genocide can be excused. This isn’t a rhetorical appeal. The Catholic Church calls these things infamies. So, when you have a Democrat who supports some of the infamies listed and a Republican who supports others on the list of infamies, you cannot say that voting for them is morally good. Nor can you claim that the issues your candidate is wrong on (if it’s on the list) is unimportant.

With this in mind, the Catholic who says they are enthusiastic supporters of the candidate who announces his intent to promote and/or defend these infamies have—at best—grossly misunderstood Church teaching. Since both major party candidates in 2020 are at odds with some items on this list, the only appropriate attitude for a Catholic who believes he or she must vote for one of them must be an attitude of sorrow and reluctance… a sense that both are terrible, but one will do less damage to the moral good than the other. Such an attitude cannot say that “Well, issue X is more important, so we’ll fight Issue Y ‘later.’”

No. It seems to me that Catholics belonging to a major party must vote in the primaries against a candidate who supports one or more of the infamies. If said candidate makes it to the national election, we had better (to build on something said by Archbishop Chaput§) make sure our reasons are going to be justifiable before God and the victims of our vote at the final judgment. If we act as if the issue our party is wrong on is “less important,” then let’s stop the pretense that we will fight for the other issue “later.” We should be fighting now to reform whatever party we identify with so they might be less inclined to nominate a similar candidate next time. That fight doesn’t end on Wednesday, November 4th 2020.

If we truly think that the candidate we vote for is the lesser of two evils† and he gets elected, the Catholics who voted for him had better take a “You broke it, you bought it” attitude when it comes to the evils they identified as “lesser.” The Catholics who voted for his opponent had better work to eliminate those evils within their own party. Unfortunately, this never seems to happen.

I would like to address another error Catholics commit in citing the Ratzinger Memorandum against the US Bishops on the Death Penalty. It is true that Benedict XVI (then-Cardinal Ratzinger) did point out that support of the death penalty was morally tolerable. But we need to remember that this was written in 2004. It is superseded by what Pope Francis wrote in 2018, amending the Catechism on the Death Penalty. Benedict XVI was not in error in 2004, because the teaching was not yet refined. But those Catholics who think they can treat the 2018 teaching as if the 2004 memorandum outranked it have fallen into a dangerous error. There is no more permissible “legitimate diversity” of opinion here.

But, before those Catholics who already opposed the death penalty get too smug, let them remember this: If they recognize that Catholics who treat the death penalty as a “lesser issue” are wrong, then they are utterly without excuse if they treat abortion the same way. It is true we can easily defend Pope Francis’ change on the grounds that self defense requires the minimum force required and in modern times, the death penalty is no longer the minimum force required. However, the supporter of a pro-abortion candidate can’t escape the fact that abortion can never be justified. As long as Christianity existed, abortion was condemned as murder… which is an infamy. So if Catholics who support a candidate who is in favor of the death penalty are wrong, where does it leave the Catholics who support a pro-abortion candidate?‡

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(§) What he said was: ‘And what would such a “proportionate” reason look like? It would be a reason we could, with an honest heart, expect the unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions—as we someday will.’ (Chaput, Charles J. Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (p. 230). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I believe we can logically extrapolate from this and apply it to all issues that the Catholic Church describes as Infamies.

(†) One of the propaganda pieces used by some Catholics is “voting for the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.” The irony is, it tends to be used by Catholics who enthusiastically intend to vote for a different candidate (hopefully in spite of) who still supports an infamy against a Catholic who reluctantly plans to vote for the other. It overlooks the possibility of a Catholic voter seeking to reduce damage as much as possible (much like accepting the consequences of a side swipe to avoid a head-on collision). 

(‡) Please don’t argue that you are “eliminating the need for abortion.” That doesn’t work for the other infamies listed in Gaudium et Spes, and it doesn’t work here either.

What Happens When Catholic Voters Are Dishonest?

CAN. 751† Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

CAN. 752† Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.

CAN. 753† Although the bishops who are in communion with the head and members of the college, whether individually or joined together in conferences of bishops or in particular councils, do not possess infallibility in teaching, they are authentic teachers and instructors of the faith for the Christian faithful entrusted to their care; the Christian faithful are bound to adhere with religious submission of mind to the authentic magisterium of their bishops.

CAN. 754† All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.

Over the past two weeks, the USCCB have issued statements on different moral teachings… abortion, the death penalty, the treatment of migrants, religious freedom and the like. Right on the heels of the Democratic and Republic Conventions, these statements seem aimed at reminding American Catholics about what the Church requires of them.

And, right on schedule, American Catholics come out of the woodwork to denounce those statements, claiming they are ignoring (often they accuse of the Bishops of deliberately ignoring) other issues that these critics think is more important. When the bishops condemn abortion, those Catholics planning to vote for a pro-abortion candidate accuse them of ignoring the other teachings. When they condemn the death penalty, those Catholics who plan to vote for a candidate who supports it accuse the bishops of ignoring abortion… which they just spoke about the day previously.

When this happens, it is hard to avoid wondering if a portion of these Catholic voters are either culpably ignorant or outright dishonest§. By saying this, I don’t mean dishonest in the sense of “not believing in God.” Rather I mean dishonest in the sense of not honestly seeking to examine one’s conscience and see if their behavior is against what Catholics are called to be.

I have seen some Catholics proclaim to be faithful while refusing to give assent to the Pope (that’s dissent at best, if not de facto schism). I’ve seen others proclaim to be “Pope Francis Catholics†” while being openly contemptuous of the bishops who repeat his teachings. More often than not, you can tell which of them plan to vote Democrat and which plan to vote Republican while claiming to be the only Catholics to follow the Church correctly. Catholics of these factional views try to claim their political views are doctrine, while doctrine their party is afoul of is “opinion” or “prudential judgement.‡”

We need to remember that Jesus Christ has established the Catholic Church under the visible head of St. Peter and his successors—up to and including the current Pope—and the bishops in communion with him. If an individual bishop or a group of bishops act against that communion, they do not act with any authority. But when a bishop teaches, we are bound to give “to adhere with religious submission of mind to the authentic magisterium of their bishops” (Canon 753).

This is where we run into the dishonesty test. If a Catholic who, upon being instructed by the Pope or his bishop on a certain matter, immediately searches for reasons not to obey… such a Catholic is not being honest. He is guilty of what Our Lord condemned in the attitude of the Pharisees, looking for legalistic excuses not to follow God’s teachings and there are consequences for that attitude (cf. Matthew 18:17, Luke 10:16).

Whether the Pope or bishop speaks out on an intrinsic evil like abortion, or a morally neutral act carried out with evil intention or consequence, we don’t get to decide whether to obey or not. Either we obey or we are not faithful Catholics… no matter how hard we politically fight those we see as enemies of the Church.

It should be noted that such prohibitions are not limited to matters of dogma. The Church can also bind in matters of discipline and governance. For example, there was never anything evil about eating meat. But the Church decreed for centuries that we must not eat meat on Fridays as an act of penance. Those Catholics who did eat meat on Fridays were not guilty of sin simply because they ate meat, but because they refused to accept the penitential discipline laid down. These acts of governance can be changed as needed. But we don’t get to pass judgment on those acts of governance and decide whether or not we will follow them.

This is where every Catholic needs to look at their behavior. If the response to the authoritative act of Pope or bishops is to look for ways to evade that obligation, we are being dishonest. If we point out the sins of others who we politically oppose while doing the same thing, we are being dishonest.

And if we are dishonest, we are not giving the obligatory assent. Once we start down that road, we will end up facing judgment for it. If we are unrepentant in our disobedience, we do risk hell. That is the end result of being dishonest with ourselves. And if (God forbid!) we face that judgment for not keeping God’s commands, the things we did do will be of no avail. As Our Lord, Jesus Christ said:

“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. 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?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’” (Matthew 7:21–23).

…and we will have no honest excuse if we do not give the obedience God commands us to give to His Church.

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(§) This is of course something for God to judge and the individual Catholic’s confessor to assess. I will not “name names” or accuse individuals of being guilty. All I hope to do is get people to think about it.

(†) I hate this term. Not because of any hostility to the Pope, but because virtually all of the Catholics I have encountered who use it hijack it to cover their political views which are actually in opposition to what the Pope has said.

(‡) I’ve discussed that HERE.