Thoughts on Catholicism and Human Law

I would like to expand on something I wrote a few days ago concerning the concept of legitimate and illegitimate law. I hope in this day and age (unfortunately, you never know) most people would recognize that governments can and do create unjust laws (whether actual laws, judicial rulings and executive orders) which are made binding through force—not just in totalitarian nations, but right here in the US as well.

Realizing that even in the Western Nations (which are always held up as the paragon of freedom compared to the rest of the world, fair or not) the governments can and do create unjust laws is important. It shows that no state government is impeccable in creating laws (human laws, to distinguish from Divine Law and Natural Law)—even if our own party of preference is in command.

I think that with this understanding in mind, the Catholic perspective should be explored. A lot of accusations have been made about us, and we need to have a basic understanding on how the Church views the authority of the state and the human law it creates.

We're not anarchists. We don't hold that the adage, the government that governs best governs least. Nor do we hold that government is a necessary evil. When it works as it ought, government justly holds authority and must be heeded. On the other hand, Catholicism is not a proponent of Big Government. The authority of the state certainly has limits as to what it can do.

In the Catholic perspective, the purpose of government is ensuring the common good. However, the government is not itself the common good. It can only be a means to this end. The government does not have the authority to redefine what the common good is, and the burdens of the law must not be unequally proportioned—such as favoring your friends and harming your enemies. (See Summa Theologica I II Q 96 a4). Finally, the laws passed cannot exceed the authority of the lawgiver.

This last point is important. While certain views of government exalt the power of the state, when the government decrees something it has no right to decree, the law it passes has no authority—much like if I were to pass a law that all the houses on my block have the obligation to pay me a 20% tax on their gross income. I would have no right to make such a law because I do not have the authority to even make a law. Maybe if I had my own private militia I could get away with it, but the law would have no authority on its own.

A government may decree a thing, but if the thing decreed goes beyond the authority of the government to decree, then the only way that the law can be binding is if the government uses force to carry out the law. There would be no moral  obligation to follow such a law.

When you see these principles, it becomes clear that sometimes the Church must necessarily be in opposition to certain acts of government but is not acting in a partisan manner in doing so.

The Church rejects the claim by a state that it can decide to change the definitions of what is good or evil. Thus when the state creates such legislation, she denies that the law has binding authority. If the law interferes with the ability to do good and avoid evil, then it is not a law at all. It is merely an act of coercion.

Thus the Church will challenge the state that decrees that it can make marriage anything other than between one man and one woman. The Church will challenge the state if it decrees that abortion is a "right." The Church will challenge the state if the state demands that employers violate their religious faith by paying for contraceptives.

When the state decrees such things, these laws lack the morally binding force that valid human law possesses. The government can use force to demand compliance—do it or be sued, locked up or dead.

Now while that threat of coercion may work on individuals within the Church, it doesn't work on the Church as a whole. The Church that recognizes the witness of martyrdom (which is not to be confused with the perversion of the term by those who blow themselves and others up to make a point).

Martyrdom in the Catholic sense says that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil—even to the point of dying rather than doing what God forbids. The Catholic faith, which says, " I would rather suffer as an innocent than to be guilty of doing what God forbids," does not accept the claims of the state to have the right to make good evil or evil good.

The reasons above also explain why the Church—contrary to the hopes of the media—will never permit abortion, woman priests, "gay marriage," contraception, or remarriage when the spouse of a pervious valid marriage is still alive. The Church is not an institution which arbitrarily makes up rules for Catholics to follow and can undo them whenever she likes. When God teaches us what is good or evil, the Catholic Church knows she does not have the authority to change that teaching.

When one understands these things, it becomes clear how the Church can be in opposition to the human laws of a government without being partisan. The Church can accept a government which seeks the true common good and does not seek to elevate itself to the greatest importance and does not seek to make laws it has no right or authority to make.

But it must seek to convert the government that seeks partisan gain for its supporters, that seeks to pass laws it has no right to pass.

This then is why the Catholic Church must sometimes be in opposition to our government.

Thoughts on Catholicism and Human Law

I would like to expand on something I wrote a few days ago concerning the concept of legitimate and illegitimate law. I hope in this day and age (unfortunately, you never know) most people would recognize that governments can and do create unjust laws (whether actual laws, judicial rulings and executive orders) which are made binding through force—not just in totalitarian nations, but right here in the US as well.

Realizing that even in the Western Nations (which are always held up as the paragon of freedom compared to the rest of the world, fair or not) the governments can and do create unjust laws is important. It shows that no state government is impeccable in creating laws (human laws, to distinguish from Divine Law and Natural Law)—even if our own party of preference is in command.

I think that with this understanding in mind, the Catholic perspective should be explored. A lot of accusations have been made about us, and we need to have a basic understanding on how the Church views the authority of the state and the human law it creates.

We're not anarchists. We don't hold that the adage, the government that governs best governs least. Nor do we hold that government is a necessary evil. When it works as it ought, government justly holds authority and must be heeded. On the other hand, Catholicism is not a proponent of Big Government. The authority of the state certainly has limits as to what it can do.

In the Catholic perspective, the purpose of government is ensuring the common good. However, the government is not itself the common good. It can only be a means to this end. The government does not have the authority to redefine what the common good is, and the burdens of the law must not be unequally proportioned—such as favoring your friends and harming your enemies. (See Summa Theologica I II Q 96 a4). Finally, the laws passed cannot exceed the authority of the lawgiver.

This last point is important. While certain views of government exalt the power of the state, when the government decrees something it has no right to decree, the law it passes has no authority—much like if I were to pass a law that all the houses on my block have the obligation to pay me a 20% tax on their gross income. I would have no right to make such a law because I do not have the authority to even make a law. Maybe if I had my own private militia I could get away with it, but the law would have no authority on its own.

A government may decree a thing, but if the thing decreed goes beyond the authority of the government to decree, then the only way that the law can be binding is if the government uses force to carry out the law. There would be no moral  obligation to follow such a law.

When you see these principles, it becomes clear that sometimes the Church must necessarily be in opposition to certain acts of government but is not acting in a partisan manner in doing so.

The Church rejects the claim by a state that it can decide to change the definitions of what is good or evil. Thus when the state creates such legislation, she denies that the law has binding authority. If the law interferes with the ability to do good and avoid evil, then it is not a law at all. It is merely an act of coercion.

Thus the Church will challenge the state that decrees that it can make marriage anything other than between one man and one woman. The Church will challenge the state if it decrees that abortion is a "right." The Church will challenge the state if the state demands that employers violate their religious faith by paying for contraceptives.

When the state decrees such things, these laws lack the morally binding force that valid human law possesses. The government can use force to demand compliance—do it or be sued, locked up or dead.

Now while that threat of coercion may work on individuals within the Church, it doesn't work on the Church as a whole. The Church that recognizes the witness of martyrdom (which is not to be confused with the perversion of the term by those who blow themselves and others up to make a point).

Martyrdom in the Catholic sense says that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil—even to the point of dying rather than doing what God forbids. The Catholic faith, which says, " I would rather suffer as an innocent than to be guilty of doing what God forbids," does not accept the claims of the state to have the right to make good evil or evil good.

The reasons above also explain why the Church—contrary to the hopes of the media—will never permit abortion, woman priests, "gay marriage," contraception, or remarriage when the spouse of a pervious valid marriage is still alive. The Church is not an institution which arbitrarily makes up rules for Catholics to follow and can undo them whenever she likes. When God teaches us what is good or evil, the Catholic Church knows she does not have the authority to change that teaching.

When one understands these things, it becomes clear how the Church can be in opposition to the human laws of a government without being partisan. The Church can accept a government which seeks the true common good and does not seek to elevate itself to the greatest importance and does not seek to make laws it has no right or authority to make.

But it must seek to convert the government that seeks partisan gain for its supporters, that seeks to pass laws it has no right to pass.

This then is why the Catholic Church must sometimes be in opposition to our government.

On Stereotypes

Read more »

On Stereotypes

Read more »

Thoughts on Law and Obligation: They're Not Always the Same

Let's start this article with a question:

Is a law to be followed just because it is a law (or court ruling)?

It would be tragic if this were presumed to be true because we have seen many harmful laws which have been implemented merely on the say so of the government—laws which were accepted unquestioningly by a majority of the people.

The Third Reich is the obvious example of such laws. The Nazi Party came to power legally and then legally (or through fait accompli) changed laws to what they wanted them to be.  if accepting a law on the basis of being a law (the technical term is legal positivism) is true, then it was not wrong for Germans to follow the laws of the Third Reich—something I suspect nobody would agree with. (if you're reading this, and you do agree, then do yourself a favor and keep quiet).

But we don't even have to "violate" Godwin's Law to demonstrate this. We can point to Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, the acceptance of slavery and segregation, forced relocations (Native American, Japanese). These were legal at one point in America.

So, let's go back to our question. Does the fact that a thing is a law mean that it must be followed?

1. If you answer "Yes," then you must accept the injustices a government that a government commits, and accept the claim that those opposing such a law (say, for example, Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr.) are wrong and ought to be punished for law-breaking.
2. If you answer "No," then it means you recognize that the government can do wrong, and when it does, it must be opposed, and this opposition is legitimate.

I think of this Legal Positivism attitude when I hear certain politicians invoke the "right to abortion" granted by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and other cases. The Supreme Court also affirmed the "right" to own slaves and the "right" to segregate. The Supreme Court may be the last stop when the political will is lacking to amend the Constitution, but we can see that history tells us that the Supreme Court has erred in the past—it is not infallible.

I think this demonstrates that government action cannot be the sole grounds of judging whether a thing is good or bad. If the Supreme Court, or Congress or the President does wrong, and the result of that wrong is a Ruling, or a Law, or an Executive Order, that result must be opposed with the intention of overturning the injustice.

Now of course, opposition cannot be rooted in "I don't like that policy! I want my policy!" (Which is what passes for political dispute today). Opposition must be rooted in the knowledge that some things are wrong—either always wrong, or wrong in circumstance (as an example: murder is always wrong. But in some contexts, like self defense, killing might be justified). This is not a matter of disputing what the percentage should be for the tax rate, where legitimate disputes can occur over what is best. This is a matter of "Does the government have the authority to decree that an evil is now good in a binding manner.

Some skeptics may face this point by denying we can know any thing is objectively wrong. But normally such skepticism is used with the intent of trying to justify doing a bad thing.  The fact is, we do know some things are wrong: The Holocaust, Ethnic Cleansing, Slavery, etc. We know that treating a human being as less than a human being is to be condemned regardless of where it is done or what century it is done.

Feigned or real ignorance is not a valid argument defense against the the fact that a thing is wrong. Yes, a person who truly does not know that a thing is wrong (for example a person who is insane) might have a defense against prosecution, but that does not mean that the act itself is not wrong. An insane man may not have deliberately chosen to commit murder, but that doesn't change the fact that murder is wrong.

But the person who feigns ignorance about the evil of a thing or a person who claims that good and evil is merely an arbitrary decision of the person who decrees it (many people who demand that the Catholic Church change her teaching fall into this category) does not have this defense, because we DO know things are wrong… even when we pretend not to know.

Think of it this way. The person who denies we can know what is truly good or evil will probably NOT think that way if I should steal his money (Hey, it's annoying writing articles on an Android tablet, I could use a laptop, and robbing you would help me get it quicker). Such a person, despite his claims that we can't know if a thing is good or evil, knows that it is wrong to deprive a person of his life or property at the whim of another.

We can see this in the skepticism used to defend the "right" of abortion. Roe v. Wade is essentially an Argument from Ignorance fallacy that claims that we cannot know where life begins, therefore we can't restrict the right to abortion. The problem is, a person taking action while not knowing whether it might harm another is at the least guilty of negligence and possibly manslaughter or even murder. When an action might cause harm to another, we are obligated to make sure it is safe to proceed before acting.

What is worse is the fact that some recent thinking in the defense of abortion holds that it probably is a person, but that is less important than the right not to be pregnant. In other words it effectively says it is ok to treat a person as less than human if it benefits me.

We've been down that road before. Here in America, we've treated Blacks, American Indians, Japanese and other minorities as being less than human for our own convenience. In other countries, Germans have treated Jews and Slavs as less than fully human. Serbs have treated Bosnians and Croats as less than fully human. Turks have treated Armenians as less than fully human.

The list goes on and on, each with government approval.

The only way to avoid such monstrosity is to recognize that law must be subject to truth, and when a government goes against what is true in its laws, it must be opposed.

There are graveyards filled with people because too many just decided that because a thing is a law, it must be acceptable.

Thoughts on Law and Obligation: They're Not Always the Same

Let's start this article with a question:

Is a law to be followed just because it is a law (or court ruling)?

It would be tragic if this were presumed to be true because we have seen many harmful laws which have been implemented merely on the say so of the government—laws which were accepted unquestioningly by a majority of the people.

The Third Reich is the obvious example of such laws. The Nazi Party came to power legally and then legally (or through fait accompli) changed laws to what they wanted them to be.  if accepting a law on the basis of being a law (the technical term is legal positivism) is true, then it was not wrong for Germans to follow the laws of the Third Reich—something I suspect nobody would agree with. (if you're reading this, and you do agree, then do yourself a favor and keep quiet).

But we don't even have to "violate" Godwin's Law to demonstrate this. We can point to Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, the acceptance of slavery and segregation, forced relocations (Native American, Japanese). These were legal at one point in America.

So, let's go back to our question. Does the fact that a thing is a law mean that it must be followed?

1. If you answer "Yes," then you must accept the injustices a government that a government commits, and accept the claim that those opposing such a law (say, for example, Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr.) are wrong and ought to be punished for law-breaking.
2. If you answer "No," then it means you recognize that the government can do wrong, and when it does, it must be opposed, and this opposition is legitimate.

I think of this Legal Positivism attitude when I hear certain politicians invoke the "right to abortion" granted by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and other cases. The Supreme Court also affirmed the "right" to own slaves and the "right" to segregate. The Supreme Court may be the last stop when the political will is lacking to amend the Constitution, but we can see that history tells us that the Supreme Court has erred in the past—it is not infallible.

I think this demonstrates that government action cannot be the sole grounds of judging whether a thing is good or bad. If the Supreme Court, or Congress or the President does wrong, and the result of that wrong is a Ruling, or a Law, or an Executive Order, that result must be opposed with the intention of overturning the injustice.

Now of course, opposition cannot be rooted in "I don't like that policy! I want my policy!" (Which is what passes for political dispute today). Opposition must be rooted in the knowledge that some things are wrong—either always wrong, or wrong in circumstance (as an example: murder is always wrong. But in some contexts, like self defense, killing might be justified). This is not a matter of disputing what the percentage should be for the tax rate, where legitimate disputes can occur over what is best. This is a matter of "Does the government have the authority to decree that an evil is now good in a binding manner.

Some skeptics may face this point by denying we can know any thing is objectively wrong. But normally such skepticism is used with the intent of trying to justify doing a bad thing.  The fact is, we do know some things are wrong: The Holocaust, Ethnic Cleansing, Slavery, etc. We know that treating a human being as less than a human being is to be condemned regardless of where it is done or what century it is done.

Feigned or real ignorance is not a valid argument defense against the the fact that a thing is wrong. Yes, a person who truly does not know that a thing is wrong (for example a person who is insane) might have a defense against prosecution, but that does not mean that the act itself is not wrong. An insane man may not have deliberately chosen to commit murder, but that doesn't change the fact that murder is wrong.

But the person who feigns ignorance about the evil of a thing or a person who claims that good and evil is merely an arbitrary decision of the person who decrees it (many people who demand that the Catholic Church change her teaching fall into this category) does not have this defense, because we DO know things are wrong… even when we pretend not to know.

Think of it this way. The person who denies we can know what is truly good or evil will probably NOT think that way if I should steal his money (Hey, it's annoying writing articles on an Android tablet, I could use a laptop, and robbing you would help me get it quicker). Such a person, despite his claims that we can't know if a thing is good or evil, knows that it is wrong to deprive a person of his life or property at the whim of another.

We can see this in the skepticism used to defend the "right" of abortion. Roe v. Wade is essentially an Argument from Ignorance fallacy that claims that we cannot know where life begins, therefore we can't restrict the right to abortion. The problem is, a person taking action while not knowing whether it might harm another is at the least guilty of negligence and possibly manslaughter or even murder. When an action might cause harm to another, we are obligated to make sure it is safe to proceed before acting.

What is worse is the fact that some recent thinking in the defense of abortion holds that it probably is a person, but that is less important than the right not to be pregnant. In other words it effectively says it is ok to treat a person as less than human if it benefits me.

We've been down that road before. Here in America, we've treated Blacks, American Indians, Japanese and other minorities as being less than human for our own convenience. In other countries, Germans have treated Jews and Slavs as less than fully human. Serbs have treated Bosnians and Croats as less than fully human. Turks have treated Armenians as less than fully human.

The list goes on and on, each with government approval.

The only way to avoid such monstrosity is to recognize that law must be subject to truth, and when a government goes against what is true in its laws, it must be opposed.

There are graveyards filled with people because too many just decided that because a thing is a law, it must be acceptable.

Thoughts on Accusations of Imposing Values

One thing I have heard is the accusation that Catholics are imposing our views on others who don't share them. It's wrong of us to do so, we're told.

To which my response is, "What the Hell do you think you're doing to us?"

It's not a flippant response. It's pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of the accusation. If it is wrong for Catholics to seek to change the society that it shares with others that do not agree with us then it is certainly wrong for others to seek to change the society when we disagree with them.

So long as someone holds to a moral relativism that denies any absolutes, then any accusations made against us also applies to them. If we're in the wrong, then so are they.

But, if there are moral absolutes, real right and wrong where one side can be right in such a way as to mean following  one side is not an opinion, then those who oppose us have the same obligation to demonstrate the truth about their beliefs as we are. Moreover, we have the same right as they do to explain and defend our beliefs. We have the same rights to show people that what we believe is true.

No, we're not forcing opinions on people who don't share them. We're sharing what we believe to be vitally important and trying to show how it is true. People are not forced to accept what we believe. If they accept what we believe, it is because they too are convinced that what we believe is true.

If someone wants to deny us that right, claim that we have no right to live as we feel we are called to live, no right to teach what we know to be true; if they want to lie about our beliefs and try to deny us the right to live according to our beliefs, then it is they—not us—who force views on others.

They are what they accuse us of being.