Persecution: American Style

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

Filling In the Blanks—Wrongly

There is a story that a priest told in a homily once when I attended Franciscan University of Steubenville. Since I cannot find the exact text (though I understand the priest has published a book of his stories), I will try to retell it from memory:

It was the Championship game and the home team was down by six points. It was the Fourth Quarter, Second and Ten, and there was a minute on the clock. The coach told the quarterback, “Get the ball to Jones! He’ll get the touchdown.” The team went into the huddle, then lined up to play. To the horror of the coach, the quarterback didn’t throw the ball to Jones, but did a handoff to another player. The player was stopped for a loss of yardage. Angry, the coach signaled again telling the quarterback to get the ball to Jones. The quarterback started to say something, but the coach waved him back on the field.

Again, the team went into a huddle and then lined up. But the quarterback did not throw the ball to Jones, but to another player. He made up a little of the lost yardage, but not enough. It was now Fourth and Eight and the coach had to decide what to do. Once more he told the quarterback, “Give the ball to Jones!” The quarterback started to speak, but the Coach ordered him back on the field again, telling him not to argue.

Once more the team went into the huddle and lined up on the field. Once more the quarterback did not give the ball to Jones, but to yet another player. The opposing team stopped him cold and the game was over.

Furious, the coach stormed out to the field and confronted the quarterback. “I told you to get the ball to Jones! Why did you ignore me?"

The quarterback looked at the coach and said, “I did tell Jones to take the ball, every time. But he refused to take it."

If the coach had bothered to let the quarterback explain himself, he might have found a new strategy. But in assuming he knew all the facts, he jumped to the wrong conclusion and blamed the wrong man for what happened. One might say that the moral is to investigate thoroughly and don’t merely assume you know all the facts based on what you see.

Introduction

It’s said that nature abhors a vacuum. From what I see, it also seems true to say that people abhor a vacuum. When relies solely on what they see, and don’t consider the possibility that they have insufficient facts from which to judge, there is a tendency to try to connect those facts based on what one thinks. The problem is, if our knowledge is incomplete, the odds are we will fill in those blanks wrongly, drawing a connection which should not be drawn. This can happen in all areas of life, but in some areas it can lead to some serious errors.

Here’s a secular example. The Obama administration is going to change the name of Mt. McKinley to Mt. Denali, which is the native name for that mountain. Now, I dislike Obama’s politics and how he tends to do things in a heavy-handed arbitrary manner, that seems to be imposing a political agenda that often attacks the Catholic Church.

So, it is easier for me to assume this was yet another one of these actions. But reading the accounts, I learned that this stemmed from a request which began 40 years ago and is supported by the Alaskans themselves, apparently across party lines. In other words, it is easy filling in the blanks to assume this was some sort of politically motivated stunt, when it actually seems to be somebody finally getting around to taking care of a long standing request. But the easy way is the wrong way. One is still free to disagree if they choose, but the facts require the person to stop repeating accusations of political motivations and political correctness. 

Assuming We Know Things About the Church When We Do Not

That seems to be the problem today when it comes to writing about the Church. Whether it is the secular media which is effectively religiously illiterate, the uninformed anti-Catholic, or whether it is the Catholic blogger railing against what they see as wrong in the Church, the fact remains: If you don’t know all the facts, the odds are you’re going to come to a wrong conclusion. Basically, it works this way:

• Some claim is made concerning the Church, that the observer dislikes.
• The observer fills in the blanks based on their own biases.
• The observer draws a conclusion that interprets the fact by their bias.

So, we see the religiously illiterate media hear the Pope say something that sounds different, apply their biases about what they think they know about the Church, and conclude (wrongly) that the Church is changing her teaching. We see the anti-Catholic observe a Catholic behavior without understanding it, apply their biases (that the Catholic Church is evil) and ascribe bad will to the behavior. We see it when the Church teaches on an area the observer is unfamiliar with, the observer applies his biases about the Church being filled with “modernists,” and interprets the teaching as “proof” of the infiltration of modernists.

In all of these cases, the observer has assumed his or her biases are true, and never investigates them. Then when they encounter something unfamiliar, they create a perverted interpretation of the event and treat that interpretation as if it were the truth. Thus we see things like “The Church will change her teaching on marriage,” (whether said in hope or fear) despite the fact that Pope Francis has been just as solid as his predecessors on the subject. We see Pope Francis labelled as Marxist, when he said nothing that was not already said by St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. We see Laudato Si labelled as a “global warming document.”

None of those allegations are true: They come about by using one’s bias to interpret the facts and confusing the interpretation for fact. Atheists and anti-Catholics make the same mistake as traditionalist and modernist Catholics, and we see the Church simultaneously being accused of being too spiritual, being too worldly, being too liberal or being too conservative. When American Catholics are simultaneously calling American bishops as being Pro-Democrat and Pro-Republican, that’s a good sign that the problem is with the one interpreting the Church teachings, not the Church which is teaching.

Avoiding the Error

Since all people are called to seek out the truth, and live according to it, we cannot be satisfied with what we think we know about something. Ultimately we need to root out our assumptions, not use them to fill in the blanks. Otherwise, we run afoul of the proper understanding of the warning of Matthew 7:1 and risk committing rash judgment. So how do we remedy this?

It seems to me that when we come to an unfamiliar situation, we have to ask ourselves whether we really understand something, or whether we just think we do. We have to look for an answer and not assume that because we don’t know an answer, it means there isn’t one. When the behavior of a bishop or a priest seems problematic, the first question is, do we have all the facts? If we do not, we do wrong in assuming bad will.

Second, we have to assess who are the main players. Remember the story I tried to retell above: The twist at the end was that the quarterback wasn’t to blame. Jones was, and the coach shared part of the blame for not finding out what was really going on. How many times does the Pope or a bishop or a priest get blamed for something that he did not say or do, but someone thought he said or did (“Who am I to judge,” taken out of context was one of the most shameful of these).

Finally, we must not speak before we know the truth. A blogger who hits the “Post” button before assessing whether perhaps there is a side he or she didn’t consider is doing wrong, taking part in misleading others. If we cannot establish that the motivation is bad will (as opposed to thinking it is bad will on account of our biases being used to interpret actions), we must not say that the motivation is bad will.

God forbade us to bear false witness. But false witness is not only a deliberate lie. We can also bear false witness by spreading falsehood without verifying if it is true. We risk doing this when we fill in these blanks. Now, each individual must look into their own heart and see if they are guilty of this, knowing God is their judge. All I would ask is, if an individual should find this mindset present, that he or she reconsider their approach. 

Reflections on an Anti-Catholic Attack

Introduction

Longtime readers should be aware of my favorite definition of truth and falsehood, according to Aristotle: To say of what is, that it is or to say of what it is not is to speak the truth. While that is not all there is to the concept of truth, it is an important point. We have to say what is true about a thing, whether we agree or disagree with a position. Otherwise, if we try to refute a position by speaking falsehood (saying of what is that it is not, or of what is not, that it is) about it, we prove absolutely nothing at all.

That means that in refuting something we should speak the truth about it, whether it is about Nazism, about Communism, about racism, about conservatism or liberalism. It applies to religions as well. If we are going to reject something as being wrong, we should do so by showing why the truth about it is repugnant, and not speak falsehoods about it to deceive people away from it.

Anti-Catholicism Does Not Speak The Truth

That is why I find religiously motivated anti-Catholicism to be so perplexing. Such individuals profess to believe in God and to follow the teachings of Christ—but have no qualms whatsoever about speaking falsely about the Catholic Church. Common tactics are misrepresenting teachings, misrepresenting history, misrepresenting Scripture and distorting the defenses of the Catholic faith. 

Now, it should be clear that if one believes that Catholicism is wrong and, out of a misguided sense of goodwill, wants to lead Catholics out of the Church, they should strive to understand what the Church actually believes on a subject and, with that accurate knowledge, investigate whether the Catholic belief contradicts the Scriptures in context. But that is precisely what is not being done.

Instead, the common tactic is to take a Catholic teaching that has been so frequently misrepresented that people no longer question whether the assertion is true. Then contrast that distorted teaching against a specially selected verse of Scripture. Then argue that the discrepancy shows that Catholicism is evil and must be opposed.

One Must Use Authoritative Sources When Investigating Something

If I were to write a paper on quantum physics, what would you want to know before accepting my conclusions? The first thing would be to determine whether my assertions and research were accurate. If I was uninformed about the topic or, if I was uninformed about the fundamentals, my conclusion wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on. Any truth in the paper would be strictly coincidental, and not a reliable guide. So, when we want to learn the truth about something, we go to the sources that are authoritative. For example, we go to NASA and not to the National Enquirer when we want to learn accurately about what was discovered on Pluto. Likewise, we don't ask Planned Parenthood or NARAL to explain the reasons why people oppose abortion.

This logically follows in other areas as well. If one wants to refute Islam intelligently, one has to know what the Qur'an says. If one wants to intelligently refute Mormonism, one has to know what the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price say—because the individual Muslim or Mormon is going to write you off as an idiot if it becomes apparent that you don't understand what they believe.

Likewise, when one wants to know what the Catholic Church believes, one doesn't go to an anti-Catholic site or an anti-Catholic theologian. One goes to an source which Catholics acknowledge as having the authority to say: "THIS is what we believe." In doing so, we have to interpret the source according to the intention of the authority—not what someone thinks it means based on their own (often uninformed) readings.

So, if one wants to know what the Church believes on a subject, one goes to a source which the Church has approved. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. When one wants to know what the Pope meant in a soundbite, one goes to the Vatican website and gets the whole interview or address in context. One studies the Catholic faith to see whether the accusations made against her are accurate or not. They should NOT go to Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Spurgeon, Gerstner, Sproul or Barth. 

This is common sense. If a person relies on sources which are based in hostility, the first question to be asked is whether the hostility blinds the judgment or not. Remember, there are a lot of times people have misinterpreted another's intention and held a grudge which was based on a misunderstanding on the grounds that a person refused to believe goodwill on the part of that which he or she opposed.

One Must Consider the Agenda of Those Who Attack the Church

That must be remembered. When it comes to Catholicism, there is a lot of hostility from former members. At various times, groups have broken away from the Church. Such actions are based in opposition. Was the opposition justified? There is a lot of propaganda used to exaggerate the corruption in the Church to make it appear that the entire Church taught heresy and was out for malicious self-benefit. But often the people who made such claims had a vested interest in justifying their schism—they needed to make it look as if the Church was teaching falsely.

The problem is, when someone takes the worst possible elements about a person and exaggerates them, you can make anybody look bad—and some have gone so far as to try to slander Jesus Himself. So, we need to remember that we do not accept what a person says about their enemy simply on their own say-so (that's the ipse dixit logical fallacy). When one makes an accusation, proof is required.

But proof is not the same thing as assertion. Imagine a trial where all the evidence presented was only interpreted by the prosecutor. How likely is the accused to get a fair hearing? If you answered "not likely to be fair," you are correct. (if you answered "likely to be fair," perhaps you might prefer the legal systems of Iran or North Korea). So, when it comes to seeking to refute the Catholic Church and lead people out of her, the right way to do it is to study the Church teaching so that the evidence presented is evidence that the Catholic will say, "Yes, this is true." The wrong way to do it is to make claims which the informed Catholic will say "You are either deceived or lying."

And that's the thing about the Catholic faith. When one actually does the research and presents the truth about the Catholic faith, it cannot be refuted. One can honestly say "I disagree with the Church!" (there's a vulgar but accurate saying about opinions and posteriors which I won't repeat here), but one cannot honestly say "the Church is teaching error!"

Even the Devil Cites Scripture (Matthew 4:1-10)—So Check the Context

And that brings us to the next point. The whole attack on Catholicism from a Christian perspective depends on an individual interpretation of the Bible—generally from the assumption that Protestantism (in whatever form) is true—which requires us to ask "Why should we believe your interpretation of the Bible and not mine?" Remember, there are all sorts of ways to make a Bible verse fit whatever you want—look at the denominations that try to justify "Same sex marriage" for example.

So when an anti-Catholic tries to contrast Scripture with Catholic teaching, we have to ask:

• Have they properly understood the verse of Scripture?
• Have they properly understood the Catholic teaching?

Because the fact is, while the Bible is without error, that does not make the individual interpreter infallible—again, remember the denominations which justify "same sex marriage." If the Plain Sense of Scripture was so easy to find, then Lutherans and Zwinglians should have agreed on the meaning of the Eucharist, while the Presbyterians and Baptists should agree on the meaning of Baptism. The fact is, they don’t.

See, the Catholic accepts the authority of Scripture. That's a plain statement of fact. What the Catholic rejects is blindly accepting every personal interpretation that comes down the pike about what verses mean. If one wants to sling verses against the Church, expect us to take offense when those verses are taken out of context or are misapplied against the Church.

Conclusion

There is a whole raft of objections against the Church, and Catholics have been refuting these claims since the beginning of the Protestant schisms in the 16th century. Basically, it is a case of the same false accusations—that we worship Mary, statues, saints, the Pope—which Catholics emphatically reject as false. The attack is essentially the logical fallacy of begging the question. The opposition to Catholic practices have always depended on a misinformed understanding of what is actually being done and an overly literalistic interpretation of Scripture. 

The person of good will who thinks Catholicism is wrong and wants to “save” us from it has to recognize that God is truth and opposes lies. One who repeats falsehood is either deceiving or deceived, depending on whether the person knows the claim is false or whether the person never bothered to investigate the truth of the accusation. Since every person has the obligation to speak truthfully, the person of good will has to stop repeating false claims about the Church. This applies to false history and misrepresentations of history. 

God forbade false witness, and when one feels the need to speak against something, they have the obligation to seek the truth first, because even when acting out of ignorance, slander/libel does bear that false witness. It stands to reason that if we love God, we will seek to live in a way pleasing to Him, and that means not speaking falsely.

Postscript for Catholics

One of our responsibilities in defending the faith against those who attack it is not to automatically accept what those who attack the Church claim. Many anti-Catholics sound quite confident when they say that what we believe contradicts the Bible, but their confidence relies on believing certain stock phrases are true. We have the obligation to learn our beliefs—not just what we believe, but why we believe it. When we understand these things, we will not be led astray by spurious arguments that depend Catholics being ignorant about what they believe. Remember, to pray and to study

We Must Stand Up For Right When Society Goes Wrong—Because We Are Christians

‘Isa: So you have no universal law, no higher law, no higher standard than culture, right?

Libby: Right. We don’t claim to have a private telephone line to heaven, like you.

‘Isa: So you can’t criticize your culture, then. Your culture sets the standard. Your culture creates the commandments. Your culture is God. “My country right or wrong.” That doesn’t sound like progressivism to me. That sounds like status quo conservatism.

Libby: You’re confusing me. You make everything stand on its head.

‘Isa: No, you do. Or your media do, and you’ve been suckered by them. It’s a big lie; it’s pure propaganda. If you just stop and think for yourself for a minute, you’ll see that it’s really just the opposite of the media stereotypes. Only a believer in an absolute higher law can criticize a whole culture. He’s the rebel, the radical, the prophet who can say to a whole culture, “You’re worshipping a false God and a false good. Change!” That’s the absolutist; and that’s the force for change. The Jews changed history more than anyone because they were absolutists—the conscience for the world, the Jewish mother who makes you feel guilty about not calling her, not calling on God, not praying. Or guilty about vegging out in front of the TV instead of going out and getting an education and getting a job and changing the world.

Libby: Not fair! The relativist is for change too.

‘Isa: But he has no moral basis for it. All a relativist can say to a Hitler is, “Different strokes for different folks, and I like my strokes and I hate yours.” The absolutist can say, “You and your whole society are wrong and wicked, and divine justice will destroy you, inescapably, unless you repent.” Which of those two messages is more progressive? Which one is the force for change?

[Peter Kreeft, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 75.]

Introduction

Being a Christian today—at least one who takes a position contrary to what is currently favored culturally—is becoming an unpopular and potentially dangerous stand to take. While society is stressing the importance of being nice, and not saying anything negative about someone we disagree with (except when directed against said Christians), we are unpopular because we say “This is wrong, and cannot be done.” To which, the world says “Stop judging, you bigot!” (completely unaware of the self-contradiction). The impression one gets is that society would be perfectly willing to welcome us back into the fold if we would stop being so obstinate and go along with what they hold.

The Problem

If the society was the source of determining what was right and wrong, then it would be foolish of us to be countercultural. Under such a view, whoever rejected the mores of society would be a hateful person. But this is where the problem lies. Christianity cannot accept society as the source of determining right and wrong. Indeed, we know that societies have a bad habit of going very wrong. In America, our mistreatment of American Indians and African-Americans give us examples of behavior that cannot be considered good even though society once favored it. The totalitarian dictatorships of history give us examples of behavior we cannot condone. So there has to be a source for determining right and wrong which is outside of society. Otherwise, when a new group is in power, people will find themselves without grounds to protest actions they find offensive. And society, in the name of freedom, is rapidly undercutting the pillars that support freedom. They do this by saying, “Stop trying to push your values on us!” while pushing their values on others.

It is only when the people of a society is willing to investigate why a thing is right or wrong and then seek out the right while rejecting the wrong, that it can bring about justice while rejecting injustice. But that is precisely what the people of society are not doing. Instead we have an emotionalism that holds that people should be allowed to do what makes them happy, but that concept of “happy” is based on what makes them feel good. The problem is, some forms of pleasure affect others in a negative fashion. Other forms of pleasure are harmful to the person who pursues them in the long run. But when someone stands up and says, “This is actually harmful,” he or she is shouted down as “intolerant.” The label is not a refutation of the objection, but everybody assumes that it is.

The Christian Mindset

The informed Christian, on the other hand, starts from the perspective that the all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God designed the universe and everything in it (which does not require a belief in “creationism”). God may be above reason, but is never contrary to reason. From this perspective, God designed His universe in a way that reflects His goodness. As a result, when we try to do things in a way which goes against this design, it is harmful. Maybe that harm is immediately apparent—such as attempting to defy gravity. Other times it takes time to discover—like people who abuse drugs and alcohol not discovering the harm before it is too late.

The point is, the Christian moral code is not an arbitrary ipse dixit invented by a cranky God or made up by a celibate priesthood. The Christian certainly follows God’s commandments because of love for Him (John 14:15), but the reasonableness of God’s teaching is apparent in the cause and effect of what His laws order us for and how rejection of those laws cause harm even for the person who does not believe God exists (physical, psychological and social effects).

That’s not to downplay the very real harm a person does to his or her relationship with God, which is even more serious than the physical, psychological and social effects. But it does show that the Christian’s objection is not based on “Because God said if you don’t do this, you’ll burn in hell!” Rather it is based on, “If you do this, you will destroy yourself spiritually, physically, psychologically and socially and we do not want you to cause your self-destruction."

What Follows From This

Once a person realizes this, the falseness of accusation of “pushing your values on us” is exposed as untrue. The Christian is not trying to force people into adopting a creed. He or she approaches the world from the perspective of trying to do what is right, and challenging the world to stay away from things that are harmful. When we push for society to be good, it is because we recognize that a bad society is harmful to the well-being of each individual and to the cohesion of society as a whole.

And, of course, the Christian protest is true. Society is falling apart. Family ties are collapsing. The individual is considered primary, and anything that dares to suggest that the individual’s desires cannot be elevated at the extent of harming others or disrupting society as God designed it is met with hostility.

Because of What We Are, Christians Must Act

So, even though our stands are increasingly unpopular and misrepresented (it’s easier to hate someone who is misrepresented as acting out of intolerance or other bad will), the committed Christian will not “go along to get along.” Our Lord has tasked us with a mission:

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

The consequences of rejecting what God has commanded will be alienation from God in the most important aspect, but will affect the other parts of our life as well. For us, standing by while a person destroys their life is akin to standing by while a person drowns. If we could have done something (even if our aid is rejected), but did not, we share in the blame:

¹ The word of the Lord came to me: ² Son of man, speak to your people and tell them: When I bring the sword against a land, if the people of that land select one of their number as a sentinel* for them, ³ and the sentinel sees the sword coming against the land, he should blow the trumpet to warn the people. ⁴ If they hear the trumpet but do not take the warning and a sword attacks and kills them, their blood will be on their own heads. ⁵ They heard the trumpet blast but ignored the warning; their blood is on them. If they had heeded the warning, they could have escaped with their lives. ⁶ If, however, the sentinel sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the sword attacks and takes someone’s life, his life will be taken for his own sin, but I will hold the sentinel responsible for his blood. 

⁷ You, son of man—I have appointed you as a sentinel for the house of Israel; when you hear a word from my mouth, you must warn them for me. ⁸ When I say to the wicked, “You wicked, you must die,” and you do not speak up to warn the wicked about their ways, they shall die in their sins, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. ⁹ If, however, you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, but they do not, then they shall die in their sins, but you shall save your life. (Ezekiel 33:1-9)

Our speaking out to the world can only go so far, and if a warning is unheeded, we cannot help that. But if we do not warn when we should warn, we do evil. 

The Obligation to Search For Truth Remains

Now, the person who rejects this Christian view is not free to go on doing as they like. Each person has the obligation to seek out and live according to what is true, not what is pleasurable. You might say you reject Christian teaching. But on what basis do you reject it? Do you even understand the teaching you are rejecting? Or do you merely associate it with “being mean?” The problem with that is sometimes there is no time for niceties when it comes to shouting a warning—HEY! WATCH OUT! Sometimes the individual lacks the social graces in expressing the truth. But these are not legitimate reasons to refuse to see if the claim is true.

It is not enough to say, “Well I don’t see anything wrong with this!” That’s the argument from ignorance fallacy—just because you don’t see anything wrong with it, doesn’t mean nothing is wrong with it. Each person has the obligation to examine their life and see whether what they do is good or evil. In doing so, they must reject the evil.

Unfortunately, that is seldom done. Many people just go along with an injustice being done, saying “I didn’t know!” or “What could I have done?” But I think we should consider the final lines from the 2004 movie, Downfall:

Traudl Junge: 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 realised that a young age isn't an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things.

Conclusion

The obligation of each person is to seek out and follow the truth. The reason we are Christians is because we believe we have found the truth—a truth beyond us and above us which guides us to be what we are called to be. Because we possess this truth, we will continue to let people know what it is that we offer. And it is not just a negative, mocking “you’ll be sorry if you don’t listen to us…” warning either. We want people to know and share in the good we have found. Benedict XVI said, in 2005:

Anyone who has discovered Christ must lead others to him. A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on.

In vast areas of the world today there is a strange forgetfulness of God. It seems as if everything would be just the same even without him.

But at the same time there is a feeling of frustration, a sense of dissatisfaction with everyone and everything.

People tend to exclaim: “This cannot be what life is about!”. Indeed not. And so, together with forgetfulness of God there is a kind of new explosion of religion. I have no wish to discredit all the manifestations of this phenomenon. There may be sincere joy in the discovery. But to tell the truth, religion often becomes almost a consumer product. People choose what they like, and some are even able to make a profit from it.

But religion sought on a “do-it-yourself” basis cannot ultimately help us. It may be comfortable, but at times of crisis we are left to ourselves.

Help people to discover the true star which points out the way to us: Jesus Christ! Let us seek to know him better and better, so as to be able to guide others to him with conviction.

[Benedict XVI, August 21, 2005, Homilies of His Holiness Benedict XVI (English) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013).]

Out of love of God and love of neighbor, we let people know about the truth. Not for our benefit of course. We’re not on a commission basis. We share because we want you to share in the treasure we have found (Matthew 13:44-47). We want you to avoid the pitfalls which can keep you from receiving it.

An Open Letter From a Catholic to Supporters of Obergefell v. Hodges

To the Reader:

After yesterday’s ruling by the Supreme Court, I have seen many anti-Christian (in general) and anti-Catholic (in specific) attacks which seek to dismiss our teachings as the inventions of “homophobic bigots.” The rhetoric has gotten sharp—and I confess to sharing the guilt. However, many of the attacks I have seen demonstrate a profound lack of understanding about our beliefs. So I thought that rather than do a sarcastic blog with a Condescending Wonka theme (it wasn’t very nice), I should try to just write this open letter trying to explain why we must hold our position even in the face of misunderstanding and hostility.

I hope this does not come across as rude or condescending. I hope to give an insight into our beliefs on sexual morality without getting too technical or passionate. But I am only human and therefore a sinner who needs the grace of Our Lord, just like everyone else. So some things might slip past my editing. So let us begin.

We do understand the justification people use in championing “same sex marriage.” It is a combination two things. First, of thinking that love between any two consenting adults is love regardless of gender (hence the #loveislove hashtag), and feeling sympathy for people with a same sex attraction who (until yesterday) were unable to marry. Second, the belief that the situation of people with a same sex attraction is similar to the situation of persecuted minorities in American history, and that the Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges is seen as something similar to the victories of the Civil Rights movement. Because you do see things in this way, it is easy to understand why you see those of us who think the Obergefell ruling was wrong as filling the same role that Southerners filled in opposing Civil Rights. Certainly we deplore the fact that some who held the title of Christian have taken part in the mistreatment of minorities which causes you to mistrust  us and our motives.

But, though we understand your perspective, we cannot accept it as being accurate. The two situations only have a superficial resemblance. The Civil Rights case was about ethnicity, which was apparent by simply looking at the individual. People were judged as inferior simply because of the color of their skin. There was no behavior to modify. In the eyes of those who were racist, no matter how the black man acted, no matter how educated he might turn out to be, laws were aimed at preventing them from being equal to whites in the eyes of the law. Segregation and Slavery before it were dehumanizing and aimed at telling non-whites to “stay in your place."

But this is not the case when it comes to the support of “same sex marriage.” The area of contention is not in believing that ethnicity is a stigma. The division is over the claim that a sexual relationship between two people of the same gender is morally acceptable and there is no reason to forbid them from getting married. Right and wrong is recognized by most people. If we didn’t acknowledge that some acts were always wrong, we would be unable to condemn Nazis, Slave Owners, Terrorists or Rapists. The difference between the two sides in this dispute is over where the line is to be drawn between right and wrong. 

That brings us to the problem. We understand, even though we do not accept, your reasons for supporting “same sex marriage.” The problem is, many seem not to understand our reasons for opposing same sex marriage? Let me deny some of the common accusations against us. It is not, as is widely claimed, that we have a fear or hatred of people with same sex attraction. Nor is it the “ick factor” that we are accused of holding over the physics of the sexual act between two people of the same gender. The reason of our opposition is based on what we believe the purpose of marriage is for.

We do not accept the idea that marriage is a sexual relationship where the partners have feelings for each other and undergo a civil ceremony. We believe that the sexual act is properly based on the complementarity of one male and one female in a lifelong relationship aimed (to the best of their circumstances and ability) at establishing a family  (Father, Mother, the children they brought into the world) with the aim of raising new generations, teaching them the values needed to sustain that society.

Thus, Christianity must speak out and label as “misuse of the sexual act” those actions which either cannot or refuse to accomplish this. Thus the Catholic Church says that acts such as masturbation, fornication, adultery, same sex acts, and contraception all fall under the category of “misuse.” (Other sexual acts like polygamy, rape, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, and necrophilia are condemned for not only violating the purpose of marriage but for other reasons as well. But since many people jump to conclusions and assume that the mention of this means the person is equating them with same sex acts, I will not use them as examples to avoid useless distractions).

The point is, we do not single out people with same sex attraction as being wrong. (Completed acts of sodomy and oral sex between husband and wife are also condemned). Rather, we include sexual acts by people of the same gender alongside other sexual acts which misuse the purpose of what the sexual relationship is intended for.

Unfortunately, many people do not understand our technical terms and assign them a meaning that we never intended in the first place. For example, the term “unnatural act.” People do not understand what the term means and assumes it means “extra special bad, go directly to hell.” But that’s not what it means. What we mean runs along these lines:

• A sexual act which would ordinarily be considered morally acceptable between husband and wife (i.e. male-female genital acts), but is used in ways not part of the marriage act (rape, fornication, adultery etc) are considered “natural sins.”
• A sexual act which uses the sexual organs in a way for which they were not designed (masturbation, sodomy, oral sex) is considered “unnatural sins.” 

The reason for this difference of classification is not to say that homosexuality is “worse” than rape (Rape is more serious). The classification is intended to show how it is wrong. The “natural sins” use the sexual act in the way it was physically designed but not for the purpose it was designed for. But a person who misunderstands what we mean by these terms will draw the wrong conclusions and accuse us of saying something we never said.

When a person understands how the Catholic Church understands marriage, it becomes clear that the teaching that says homosexual acts are a sin is not based on the hatred of the people who have such an attraction. It is based on the belief that God designed the sexual act for marriage, and this design precludes everything except the relationship of one man and one woman in a lifelong relationship with the openness to raising children (if possible).

Now it is true that some Christians have done reprehensible things to people with same sex attraction, and we deplore that. But, while I can only speak about my own religion (if you want to hear non-Catholic perspectives, I believe you should speak to someone who is an informed member of that faith),I can point to our teaching that while sexual acts between people of the same gender are morally wrong, the Catholic Church recognizes that this inclination is a trial and that we may not treat such people unjustly. Our Catechism says:

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

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

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

Now, you the reader may not agree with what we hold. But please understand that we do not hold our beliefs out of hatred of the people who do what we call wrong. We believe that acts which are sinful separate us from God and must be avoided if we would show our love for Him (see John 14:15). Since we believe that God made clear, for reasons which are not arbitrary, that marriage exists between one man and one woman (see Matthew 19:4-5). Since we believe this command is from God and is not manmade, we do not believe that we have the right to change this teaching.

I hope this open letter helps explain our concerns.

God Bless

Apologia: Religious Faith Free of Government Interference

Introduction

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

—The First Amendment (Emphasis added)

America was founded with religious freedom recognized as a primary right.  The state can neither compel people to belong to one faith, nor to persecute a faith because of what they believe.

Vatican II Document, Dignitatis Humanae, speaks of religious freedom in this way:

2. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

The two stances are remarkably similar – the State does not have the authority to force a person or a group to do what they believe is morally evil.

Unfortunately, the modern stance of the US Government and the political elites is one which seeks to compel the Catholic Church and the institutions affiliated with her to participate in behaviors she finds contrary to what she believes to be right.

CREDO: Right Belief and Right Practice

Doctrine is what is professed by the Church as believed, and denial of the doctrine is to deny what we believe to be true.  A person who denies the Trinity cannot be said to believe what the Catholic Church believes, even if he or she is a part of the Catholic Church.  Indeed, throughout the centuries, holy men and women have been martyred because they would not deny what the Church professes to be true and would not agree with what the Church teaches is false.

This point must be understood.  Even under the threat of punishment, we cannot go against what we believe.

In the Catholic view, we can know of God through Divine Revelation and through reason.  Through reason, we can grow in understanding about why the commands of the Lord are as they are and understand what reasonably follows from what we believe.

We believe God is all powerful, all knowing and perfectly good.  From this we recognize that His moral law is not based on an imperfect understanding of human nature and is not arbitrary (it isn't a case of "whatever God feels like is good").  God is perfectly good and His moral law reflects His goodness.  God's law also reflects what is good for persons.  He does not command us to do what is harmful for ourselves and does not forbid what is good for us.

Because our Lord has made it clear that to love Him is to keep His commandments, we who profess to love the Lord must obey Him.  It isn't a matter of merely following rules legalistically.  When you love a person, you act in a way which has the good of that person in mind.  The beloved can forgive actions done which are offensive.  However, a habitual contempt for the good of the beloved demonstrates a lack of love.

We believe that right practice (orthopraxy) depends on right belief (orthodoxy).  For example, a person who believes people are nothing more than cogs in a machine to serve a higher purpose will treat persons differently than those who believe people need to be treated with dignity and cannot have this dignity taken away for the sake of expedience.

From this we can see that Catholics – at least those with a proper understanding of the faith – believe that to love God is to behave in a way that is in keeping with what He commands, and that to act in opposition to His commands is not only to treat God wrongly but also are harmful to ourselves.

Non-Catholics may disagree with us and claim we have a wrong understanding about what God intends.  However, it cannot be denied that under the Constitution, Catholics and Catholic institutions are free to act according to what we think right.  We harm none by refusing to take part in abortion, homosexual "marriage" and other things we believe to be against what God commands.  We do not violate anyone's rights.  Rather, those who come to a Catholic group and insists we accommodate their demands against what we believe violate our rights – especially when they take us to court to force us to act against our faith.

Moreover, we do have the right as American citizens to seek to reform our nation and to reach out to others to teach them why our beliefs are true, just as every other American citizen does.

The US Government and Political Elites Are Behaving In A Way That Contradicts the Constitution and our Inalienable Rights

Now, our rights are being infringed upon.  A Catholic individual, a Catholic school, a Catholic hospital are no longer protected when it comes to living according to what our conscience demands.  Catholic institutions are told that they must take part in things we call evil or cease to function.  Moreover, members of the political elites are speaking out against us, claiming our beliefs are harmful and must be opposed.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, when asked about the arguments against homosexual marriage, replied, "There is no answer from the opposition. There really isn’t.  Ultimately, it’s, ‘I want to discriminate.’ And that’s anti-New York. It’s anti-American."  He has also been on record as saying, "The laws would have to be paramount, and would have to be paramount to your religious beliefs."

That's chilling.  Either Cuomo misspoke or he is saying that law trumps religious belief.  I have found no evidence of the former (no clarifications or retractions).  If it is the latter, then it is Cuomo who is anti-American, because it is he who violates the First Amendment, not us.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), chair of the DNC, describes beliefs that the informed Catholic holds protecting the personhood of the unborn as, "an extreme and radical step."  She says that it is, "divisive, dangerous, and destructive laws which would cripple a woman’s right to choose, limit access to birth control, and put the lives of women with difficult pregnancies at risk."

There is no respect for our rights here.  Instead the motives for our beliefs are characterized as being motivated by hatred and by wanting to deny women their "rights."  Essentially the constitutional guarantees of our religious freedoms in America are being undermined, and the political elites are misrepresenting our motives to permit their violations of our freedom.

In the name of "fairness" we are treated unfairly.  Apparently all people are free to live out their lives in accord to what they believe to be right – unless those beliefs are religious beliefs which say certain actions are immoral.

Absolutes and Relativism

I've gone over this theme before, but it is important: If there are no absolutes, then there is nothing wrong with Catholics living as we do without interference.  However, if there are absolutes, and we Catholics are in the wrong, then we are justified in demanding that proof be shown to us that we are in the wrong and how this truth is known.

But if our accusers want to do this, they must be honest.  We are not "homophobes" because we believe homosexual acts to be wrong.  We are not "misogynist" or "anti-women" because we oppose abortion and contraception.  We believe that both homosexual persons and unborn infants must be treated as human persons with the rights belonging to all persons.

We condemn the view which says a person with homosexual tendencies may be treated as less than a person, but this does not mean we must support and promote homosexual acts as being morally acceptable acts.

Extremism, By Nature, Is Not the Norm

Our accusers must be honest and recognize that the extremist does not represent the Catholic position.  The person who assaults persons with homosexual tendencies and the person who shoots abortionists does not act in accord with the Catholic faith, but AGAINST the Catholic faith.  So it is either ignorance or dishonesty to label such persons as being inspired by our beliefs – such a person clearly overlooks the prohibition against murder for example.

The extremist, by definition, is: "a person who holds extreme political or religious views" according to the Oxford English Dictionary.  To label the Catholic position as extremist, is to declare a knowledge of what the norm is.  The norm is the standard and the further one deviates from the norm, the more extreme it is.

So to call us "extremist" means the accuser claims to know the truth (eliminating the claim of relativism) and then is obligated to prove their claim of what is the truth that we deviate from.

Our Guilt is to be Proven, Not Assumed

The fact is the US Constitution lists freedom of religion as part of the Bill of Rights.  If one wishes to argue that the Catholic faith is an ideology which is harmful to others, then it falls to that person to prove the charge.  Our rights cannot be taken away until we are proven guilty of a crime for we are innocent until proven guilty.  Yet people like Cuomo assume our guilt is proven and the state can compel us to act in a way our religion forbids.

We are accused of hatred and bigotry as our motives for opposing homosexual "marriage."  However, nobody actually looks to see if these are our motives.  In fact we explicitly reject this accusation as slander.

Our detractors dismiss our reasons and our faith, ipse dixit, as being without merit – but they cannot be bothered to learn our reasons.  They merely assume that because our views reject theirs we must be motivated by hatred.

Is it reasonable or just to condemn us out of ignorance?  Is it just to lump us together with those who commit crimes without investigating  whether we share their beliefs and motivations?

Not only is it unjust, it is actually bigotry.  The same sort of bigotry which assumes all Hispanics are "Illegals," that assumes all Jews are "misers" and all Blacks are "dishonest."  An entire group is accused of possessing a trait on account of a few people who fit that trait.

Conclusion

The Constitution of the United States gives us freedom to live as we feel obligated to live in the Freedom of Religion.  Yet today, the government and political elites would deny us our rights and would compel us to do things we have believed to be immoral far longer than the United States was a nation.  Not only do they infringe our rights, but they refuse to listen to our defense, insisting we must be motivated by bigotry because we believe their views to be wrong.

Americans will need to ask serious questions about justice and who is really being deprived of it.  The charge of being "anti-American" and the charge that we are dangerous because we consider homosexual acts to be immoral and personhood to begin at conception are unjust charges.

However, since the freedom of religion is enshrined in our Constitution, the charge of "anti-American" and "dangerous" does not apply to us, but rather to those who would restrict our rights to practice our faith and operate institutions according to our faith.

Postscript: Can This Apologia Be Applied Against Us as Well?

Some may argue that we do not practice what we preach, that we demand rights for ourselves and deny them to others.  We would reject this as a false charge.  We do not argue that homosexual persons should be denied the rights due all human persons.  We do not demand they be denied the rights they possess in the Constitution.  Rather we say certain actions are not rights to be recognized (abortion, homosexual "marriage") but the demand of recognizing a self-gratification now in vogue by misusing titles.

Homosexual persons can of course marry a person of the opposite gender.  But if our beliefs (that marriage is between a man and a woman) are true, then the whole concept of Homosexual "Marriage" is an oxymoron.

On the other hand, religious freedom is not a self-gratification in vogue, but a right which the Constitution recognizes that all people are entitled to.  Denying us this right is not denying us a privilege but denying us what is our due.

In other words, we deny nobody their rights by saying homosexuality and abortion are wrongs and refusing to accommodate these wrongs by having our religious institutions take part in them.  But people who do force us to accommodate what we believe to be wrong or else close up our institutions are denying us our rights. 

Apologia: Religious Faith Free of Government Interference

Introduction

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

—The First Amendment (Emphasis added)

America was founded with religious freedom recognized as a primary right.  The state can neither compel people to belong to one faith, nor to persecute a faith because of what they believe.

Vatican II Document, Dignitatis Humanae, speaks of religious freedom in this way:

2. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

The two stances are remarkably similar – the State does not have the authority to force a person or a group to do what they believe is morally evil.

Unfortunately, the modern stance of the US Government and the political elites is one which seeks to compel the Catholic Church and the institutions affiliated with her to participate in behaviors she finds contrary to what she believes to be right.

CREDO: Right Belief and Right Practice

Doctrine is what is professed by the Church as believed, and denial of the doctrine is to deny what we believe to be true.  A person who denies the Trinity cannot be said to believe what the Catholic Church believes, even if he or she is a part of the Catholic Church.  Indeed, throughout the centuries, holy men and women have been martyred because they would not deny what the Church professes to be true and would not agree with what the Church teaches is false.

This point must be understood.  Even under the threat of punishment, we cannot go against what we believe.

In the Catholic view, we can know of God through Divine Revelation and through reason.  Through reason, we can grow in understanding about why the commands of the Lord are as they are and understand what reasonably follows from what we believe.

We believe God is all powerful, all knowing and perfectly good.  From this we recognize that His moral law is not based on an imperfect understanding of human nature and is not arbitrary (it isn't a case of "whatever God feels like is good").  God is perfectly good and His moral law reflects His goodness.  God's law also reflects what is good for persons.  He does not command us to do what is harmful for ourselves and does not forbid what is good for us.

Because our Lord has made it clear that to love Him is to keep His commandments, we who profess to love the Lord must obey Him.  It isn't a matter of merely following rules legalistically.  When you love a person, you act in a way which has the good of that person in mind.  The beloved can forgive actions done which are offensive.  However, a habitual contempt for the good of the beloved demonstrates a lack of love.

We believe that right practice (orthopraxy) depends on right belief (orthodoxy).  For example, a person who believes people are nothing more than cogs in a machine to serve a higher purpose will treat persons differently than those who believe people need to be treated with dignity and cannot have this dignity taken away for the sake of expedience.

From this we can see that Catholics – at least those with a proper understanding of the faith – believe that to love God is to behave in a way that is in keeping with what He commands, and that to act in opposition to His commands is not only to treat God wrongly but also are harmful to ourselves.

Non-Catholics may disagree with us and claim we have a wrong understanding about what God intends.  However, it cannot be denied that under the Constitution, Catholics and Catholic institutions are free to act according to what we think right.  We harm none by refusing to take part in abortion, homosexual "marriage" and other things we believe to be against what God commands.  We do not violate anyone's rights.  Rather, those who come to a Catholic group and insists we accommodate their demands against what we believe violate our rights – especially when they take us to court to force us to act against our faith.

Moreover, we do have the right as American citizens to seek to reform our nation and to reach out to others to teach them why our beliefs are true, just as every other American citizen does.

The US Government and Political Elites Are Behaving In A Way That Contradicts the Constitution and our Inalienable Rights

Now, our rights are being infringed upon.  A Catholic individual, a Catholic school, a Catholic hospital are no longer protected when it comes to living according to what our conscience demands.  Catholic institutions are told that they must take part in things we call evil or cease to function.  Moreover, members of the political elites are speaking out against us, claiming our beliefs are harmful and must be opposed.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, when asked about the arguments against homosexual marriage, replied, "There is no answer from the opposition. There really isn’t.  Ultimately, it’s, ‘I want to discriminate.’ And that’s anti-New York. It’s anti-American."  He has also been on record as saying, "The laws would have to be paramount, and would have to be paramount to your religious beliefs."

That's chilling.  Either Cuomo misspoke or he is saying that law trumps religious belief.  I have found no evidence of the former (no clarifications or retractions).  If it is the latter, then it is Cuomo who is anti-American, because it is he who violates the First Amendment, not us.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), chair of the DNC, describes beliefs that the informed Catholic holds protecting the personhood of the unborn as, "an extreme and radical step."  She says that it is, "divisive, dangerous, and destructive laws which would cripple a woman’s right to choose, limit access to birth control, and put the lives of women with difficult pregnancies at risk."

There is no respect for our rights here.  Instead the motives for our beliefs are characterized as being motivated by hatred and by wanting to deny women their "rights."  Essentially the constitutional guarantees of our religious freedoms in America are being undermined, and the political elites are misrepresenting our motives to permit their violations of our freedom.

In the name of "fairness" we are treated unfairly.  Apparently all people are free to live out their lives in accord to what they believe to be right – unless those beliefs are religious beliefs which say certain actions are immoral.

Absolutes and Relativism

I've gone over this theme before, but it is important: If there are no absolutes, then there is nothing wrong with Catholics living as we do without interference.  However, if there are absolutes, and we Catholics are in the wrong, then we are justified in demanding that proof be shown to us that we are in the wrong and how this truth is known.

But if our accusers want to do this, they must be honest.  We are not "homophobes" because we believe homosexual acts to be wrong.  We are not "misogynist" or "anti-women" because we oppose abortion and contraception.  We believe that both homosexual persons and unborn infants must be treated as human persons with the rights belonging to all persons.

We condemn the view which says a person with homosexual tendencies may be treated as less than a person, but this does not mean we must support and promote homosexual acts as being morally acceptable acts.

Extremism, By Nature, Is Not the Norm

Our accusers must be honest and recognize that the extremist does not represent the Catholic position.  The person who assaults persons with homosexual tendencies and the person who shoots abortionists does not act in accord with the Catholic faith, but AGAINST the Catholic faith.  So it is either ignorance or dishonesty to label such persons as being inspired by our beliefs – such a person clearly overlooks the prohibition against murder for example.

The extremist, by definition, is: "a person who holds extreme political or religious views" according to the Oxford English Dictionary.  To label the Catholic position as extremist, is to declare a knowledge of what the norm is.  The norm is the standard and the further one deviates from the norm, the more extreme it is.

So to call us "extremist" means the accuser claims to know the truth (eliminating the claim of relativism) and then is obligated to prove their claim of what is the truth that we deviate from.

Our Guilt is to be Proven, Not Assumed

The fact is the US Constitution lists freedom of religion as part of the Bill of Rights.  If one wishes to argue that the Catholic faith is an ideology which is harmful to others, then it falls to that person to prove the charge.  Our rights cannot be taken away until we are proven guilty of a crime for we are innocent until proven guilty.  Yet people like Cuomo assume our guilt is proven and the state can compel us to act in a way our religion forbids.

We are accused of hatred and bigotry as our motives for opposing homosexual "marriage."  However, nobody actually looks to see if these are our motives.  In fact we explicitly reject this accusation as slander.

Our detractors dismiss our reasons and our faith, ipse dixit, as being without merit – but they cannot be bothered to learn our reasons.  They merely assume that because our views reject theirs we must be motivated by hatred.

Is it reasonable or just to condemn us out of ignorance?  Is it just to lump us together with those who commit crimes without investigating  whether we share their beliefs and motivations?

Not only is it unjust, it is actually bigotry.  The same sort of bigotry which assumes all Hispanics are "Illegals," that assumes all Jews are "misers" and all Blacks are "dishonest."  An entire group is accused of possessing a trait on account of a few people who fit that trait.

Conclusion

The Constitution of the United States gives us freedom to live as we feel obligated to live in the Freedom of Religion.  Yet today, the government and political elites would deny us our rights and would compel us to do things we have believed to be immoral far longer than the United States was a nation.  Not only do they infringe our rights, but they refuse to listen to our defense, insisting we must be motivated by bigotry because we believe their views to be wrong.

Americans will need to ask serious questions about justice and who is really being deprived of it.  The charge of being "anti-American" and the charge that we are dangerous because we consider homosexual acts to be immoral and personhood to begin at conception are unjust charges.

However, since the freedom of religion is enshrined in our Constitution, the charge of "anti-American" and "dangerous" does not apply to us, but rather to those who would restrict our rights to practice our faith and operate institutions according to our faith.

Postscript: Can This Apologia Be Applied Against Us as Well?

Some may argue that we do not practice what we preach, that we demand rights for ourselves and deny them to others.  We would reject this as a false charge.  We do not argue that homosexual persons should be denied the rights due all human persons.  We do not demand they be denied the rights they possess in the Constitution.  Rather we say certain actions are not rights to be recognized (abortion, homosexual "marriage") but the demand of recognizing a self-gratification now in vogue by misusing titles.

Homosexual persons can of course marry a person of the opposite gender.  But if our beliefs (that marriage is between a man and a woman) are true, then the whole concept of Homosexual "Marriage" is an oxymoron.

On the other hand, religious freedom is not a self-gratification in vogue, but a right which the Constitution recognizes that all people are entitled to.  Denying us this right is not denying us a privilege but denying us what is our due.

In other words, we deny nobody their rights by saying homosexuality and abortion are wrongs and refusing to accommodate these wrongs by having our religious institutions take part in them.  But people who do force us to accommodate what we believe to be wrong or else close up our institutions are denying us our rights. 

Apologia: We May Not Do Evil So Good May Come

Preliminary Notes

apologia ■ n. a formal written defence of one’s opinions or conduct.[*]

I make no apologies, in the modern understanding of the term, for standing with the Catholic Church of course. However, I do offer this apologia to defend what I believe as a member of the Catholic Church.

Let me say this upright to those who would comment on this article: Comments which strike me as being uncivil or anti-Catholic will be deleted and their author will be banned from the site. I recognize that some people will disagree with what Catholics believe, but there is no excuse for behaving in a rude manner or making wild accusations.

Also it is important to understand that while this article is based on explaining why Catholics must oppose abortion, abortion is not a “Catholic” issue. There are non-Catholic pro-lifers out there, and I have even encountered some atheist pro-lifers. (A good philosophical discussion of abortion can be found HERE).

While some non-Catholics (or heterodox Catholics) may deny the premise that the unborn child is a person, Catholics accept the premise as true, and it is important to remember this in understanding this.

Preliminary Doctrine

It will help to understand the Catholic understanding about abortion if one keeps in mind these beliefs of the Catholic Church

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."⁵⁶
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."⁵⁷ Therefore "it is right not to … do anything that makes your brother stumble."⁵⁸

—Catechism of the Catholic Church

Non-Catholics may not agree with these principles. However, people professing to believe the Catholic faith do (or at least are required to) hold to these principles. Recognizing that Catholics do hold to these beliefs will help understand why some things must be held as absolutes and why the Catholic Church must sometimes say “No,” when the world says “Yes.”

Introduction

While the secular anger over Bishop Olmstead's action continues, it seems very little based on the issues he had to deal with (the hospital refusing to agree to certain conditions), and tends to focus more on the attack on the Catholic position on abortion in general.

The typical response is to blame the Catholic Church of being indifferent to the suffering of the mother, and being unreasonable in opposing abortion in such conditions.

This is unjust and maligns us.  However, not all opposition is based on bigotry, and I write this to the men and women of good will.

Now there are two types of attacks I have seen.  The first is based on not knowing why the Catholic Church teaches as she does.  The second is based on an intolerance which assumes any position contrary to one's own must be held out of ignorance and/or bureaucratic indifference.

Now of course it is generally futile to try to explain to the intolerant why we hold what we do.  The intolerant person generally refuses to understand any view other than their own[†].  However the person who is merely uninformed about what we believe and is willing to understand us even if he or she disagrees with us is a person with which dialogue is possible.

It is to the second type of person to whom I address this apologia.

What is Abortion?  Why Does the Catholic Church Condemn It?

Abortion is the direct termination of a human life by the destruction of the unborn child.  Secular and non-Catholics may disagree with this, but this is the Catholic belief.

The Catholic Church teaches:

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

So we have a belief that because human life must be respected and protected from the moment of conception.  It follows from this belief that a human person (born or unborn) may not be deliberately killed for the benefit of the mother.

Two things follow:

1. We condemn the deliberate killing of the child to save the mother
2. We condemn the deliberate killing of the mother to save the child

Medical treatment to save the mother is of course required when possible.  However, the killing of one life to save another is not morally permissible, and this is exactly what the "Life of the Mother" cases of abortion are.

So we can put it in a syllogism, showing that Catholics believe:

1. It is [forbidden] to [Kill an innocent person to save another] (All A is B)
2. [Abortion] is [Killing an innocent person to save another] (All C is B)
3. Therefore [Abortion] is [Forbidden] (Therefore all C is A)

When one looks at it this way, one can see that Catholics cannot justify abortion to save the life of the mother on the grounds that it is the direct killing of an innocent person.

Doing Evil vs. Suffering Evil

Since we believe "One may never do evil so that good may result from it," we are sometimes faced with the problem of tragedy.  The common objection is this: “Since both the mother and child will die, you are guilty of both deaths by refusing abortion.”

This is false.  Since abortion chooses to kill one life in favor of another life, abortion means an active choice to do something evil with the intention that good may come of it.

So when it comes to doing evil (committing abortion) vs. suffering evil (recognizing the mother may die), we believe we may not do evil.

This is hardly a new issue.  It came up in the times of persecution under the Roman Empire, where some would argue that to admit to being a Christian would lead to hardship and even death.  Some heretics argued it was all right to deny the Christian faith because of the evils which would be suffered.  St. Augustine pointed out that this was in fact a case of doing evil before evil could be done to you.

In other words, the principle we reject is, "Do unto others before they do unto you."

If we accept the idea of "doing wrong to prevent wrong being done to you," as a moral premise, then we open up a Pandora's Box of moral evil.  Can the state make this decision to sacrifice an innocent citizen for the sake of the nation?  Can we condemn a innocent man for a crime he did not commit to avoid a riot?  The Catholic Church would say no to both, and say so on the same grounds she condemns abortion: We may not do evil to achieve a good end.

This is something which exists today. When the New York Times and the ACLU hold that Catholic hospitals should be forced to administer abortions, Catholic hospitals may be forced to close their doors rather than cooperate with evil. This would not be “permitting people to die because of a dogma.” This would be saying: If you say we must perform evil actions to run a hospital then you effectively make it impossible for us to run a hospital.

In other words, if the ACLU gets its way, Catholic hospitals may have to suffer evil by being shut down instead of doing evil by deliberately taking human lives. However, the evil being done would be done by the ACLU and the government, not the Catholic hospitals forced to shut down by this denial of our First Amendment rights.

What about Double Effect?

Double Effect is a principle which is often misunderstood. I have seen it misapplied to the Catholic Church to indicate that because she permits certain things, she is being arbitrary in not applying things universally.

So let’s start with what Double Effect is, and how it applies to pregnancy and illness.

Double Effect recognizes that there is an action which is intended. An unintended effect may be to cause harm to innocent bystanders. However, this evil is not intended and would not be done if it were possible to avoid it. Moreover, the good done must outweigh the unwanted evil.

So, for example, let us imagine an enemy is discovered flying over New York with an atomic bomb and must be shot down before he detonates the device. However, since he is flying over the heart of the city, if he is shot down, the wreckage will no doubt fall down and injure or kill people.

With this, we have the following:

1. The direct intent is to shoot down the enemy to protect the innocent
2. The unintended and unavoidable consequence is that some innocent person may be killed by the wreckage of the plane being shot down.
3. The killing of the innocent is not directly intended and would be avoided if possible (that is, if it were possible drive the plane away from the populated area and then shoot it down, they would choose that action).
4. The direct intent is not morally wrong in itself (defending the innocent by shooting down the plane)
5. The good outweighs the unintended evil

In such a case it could be licit to shoot down the enemy plane if there was no other choice. However, it would not be licit to radio the pilot and tell him “We have your wife and children and we will kill them unless you turn back. Why?

In the second case, the direct intent is to kill the innocent to deter the guilty.  This evil is directly intended as a means of stopping the attack.  Therefore it is not a moral means and may not be used.

Now in this day and age, after 9/11/2001, many people might think this is an acceptable tradeoff under the concept of utilitarianism (putting the emphasis on benefitting the greatest number of people while harming the fewest). However, since the Catholic Church believes one may never directly intend do evil so good may come of it, the utilitarian concept is unacceptable.

Double Effect and Abortion

Now when it comes to abortion, we have the following situation.

1. The good intended is to save the life of the mother.
2. The means chosen is to directly kill the unborn child.
3. Since this is directly intended to sacrifice one life to save another, this is not double effect.
4. Since the Catholic believes the unborn child is innocent and believes that the willful taking of innocent life is always evil, it follows she must oppose things which directly intend an evil so good may come of it.

Since the death of the unborn is directly intended, we cannot call it an unintended effect, and since Catholics believe the means in this case is evil, we are not free to do this as a means to the end.

This is where the objections come in about the Catholic Church permitting the removal of a uterus from a pregnant woman (a Hysterectomy) and asking why abortion can’t be done instead. Isn’t it the same thing?

No.

The concept of the Hysterectomy is that a diseased organ must be removed to save the mother’s life. The unborn child may be attached to the diseased uterus, but in this case the death of the fetus is not directly intended and if it were possible to save the unborn child, it would be done.

The difference is: One directly intends to kill the unborn child. The other does not.

Self Defense and Abortion

Self defense is the principle that one is permitted to use force necessary to protect one’s life from an unjust attacker. The Catholic Church has this to say on the subject:

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one's own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not."⁶⁵

2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:

If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.⁶⁶

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

Some have made the point that abortion to save the life of the mother, or in the case of rape falls under the principle of self defense. The argument is that being made pregnant by a rapist or becoming gravely ill during a pregnancy is an attack on the mother and abortion is justified on the grounds of self defense.

The Catholic Church cannot accept this.  The idea of the unjust attacker being defended against must be directed to the person who unjustly attacks.  Not another person related to the unjust attacker (this rejects the idea of abortion in the case of rape/incest).  Nor is the fact that a person existing is harmful to the mother justifiable in doing abortion.  Just because the unborn child exists does not mean the unborn child is unjustly attacking the mother who is suffering.

Because of this, the Catholic cannot accept the appeal to Self Defense as anything other than legalism, distorting the intent to justify something which is not self defense in any sense of the term.

Conclusion

The key points here are that Catholics believe that in order to be faithful to Christ, we must behave in a way which seeks to do good and realize we may never do what we believe to be evil. Therefore:

1. We may not choose an evil means to achieve a good end.
2. The unborn child is a human person with human rights
3. Abortion directly intends to end the life of the unborn child.
4. Deliberately choosing to end an innocent human life to achieve an end is evil
5. Because abortion directly intends to end an innocent human life, Catholics must consider it an evil act and may never participate in the act.
6. The Catholic Church recognizes the life of the mother is also sacred, and the Church does not prefer one life over the other. We believe that all reasonable means which are not evil must be employed to save lives.
7. Therefore it is false and scurrilous to accuse us of not caring about the life of the mother.

As a result, though individuals, groups and governments may hate us, revile us, seek to litigate against us or seek to restrict our rights as human beings by denying us our rights under the First Amendment to practice our faith without interference, we are required to obey God rather than man.

Since we believe we are forbidden to do evil, since we believe that the deliberate killing of an innocent person is evil, and since we believe abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent person, we are obligated to stand up and say, “We will not do this evil you demand of us.”

---

[*] Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A. (2004). Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[†] By “understand” I do not mean to automatically “accept.” Rather, I mean understand in the sense of knowing what we believe and why we believe it, even if one disagrees with us.

Apologia: We May Not Do Evil So Good May Come

Preliminary Notes

apologia ■ n. a formal written defence of one’s opinions or conduct.[*]

I make no apologies, in the modern understanding of the term, for standing with the Catholic Church of course. However, I do offer this apologia to defend what I believe as a member of the Catholic Church.

Let me say this upright to those who would comment on this article: Comments which strike me as being uncivil or anti-Catholic will be deleted and their author will be banned from the site. I recognize that some people will disagree with what Catholics believe, but there is no excuse for behaving in a rude manner or making wild accusations.

Also it is important to understand that while this article is based on explaining why Catholics must oppose abortion, abortion is not a “Catholic” issue. There are non-Catholic pro-lifers out there, and I have even encountered some atheist pro-lifers. (A good philosophical discussion of abortion can be found HERE).

While some non-Catholics (or heterodox Catholics) may deny the premise that the unborn child is a person, Catholics accept the premise as true, and it is important to remember this in understanding this.

Preliminary Doctrine

It will help to understand the Catholic understanding about abortion if one keeps in mind these beliefs of the Catholic Church

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."⁵⁶
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one's neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."⁵⁷ Therefore "it is right not to … do anything that makes your brother stumble."⁵⁸

—Catechism of the Catholic Church

Non-Catholics may not agree with these principles. However, people professing to believe the Catholic faith do (or at least are required to) hold to these principles. Recognizing that Catholics do hold to these beliefs will help understand why some things must be held as absolutes and why the Catholic Church must sometimes say “No,” when the world says “Yes.”

Introduction

While the secular anger over Bishop Olmstead's action continues, it seems very little based on the issues he had to deal with (the hospital refusing to agree to certain conditions), and tends to focus more on the attack on the Catholic position on abortion in general.

The typical response is to blame the Catholic Church of being indifferent to the suffering of the mother, and being unreasonable in opposing abortion in such conditions.

This is unjust and maligns us.  However, not all opposition is based on bigotry, and I write this to the men and women of good will.

Now there are two types of attacks I have seen.  The first is based on not knowing why the Catholic Church teaches as she does.  The second is based on an intolerance which assumes any position contrary to one's own must be held out of ignorance and/or bureaucratic indifference.

Now of course it is generally futile to try to explain to the intolerant why we hold what we do.  The intolerant person generally refuses to understand any view other than their own[†].  However the person who is merely uninformed about what we believe and is willing to understand us even if he or she disagrees with us is a person with which dialogue is possible.

It is to the second type of person to whom I address this apologia.

What is Abortion?  Why Does the Catholic Church Condemn It?

Abortion is the direct termination of a human life by the destruction of the unborn child.  Secular and non-Catholics may disagree with this, but this is the Catholic belief.

The Catholic Church teaches:

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

So we have a belief that because human life must be respected and protected from the moment of conception.  It follows from this belief that a human person (born or unborn) may not be deliberately killed for the benefit of the mother.

Two things follow:

1. We condemn the deliberate killing of the child to save the mother
2. We condemn the deliberate killing of the mother to save the child

Medical treatment to save the mother is of course required when possible.  However, the killing of one life to save another is not morally permissible, and this is exactly what the "Life of the Mother" cases of abortion are.

So we can put it in a syllogism, showing that Catholics believe:

1. It is [forbidden] to [Kill an innocent person to save another] (All A is B)
2. [Abortion] is [Killing an innocent person to save another] (All C is B)
3. Therefore [Abortion] is [Forbidden] (Therefore all C is A)

When one looks at it this way, one can see that Catholics cannot justify abortion to save the life of the mother on the grounds that it is the direct killing of an innocent person.

Doing Evil vs. Suffering Evil

Since we believe "One may never do evil so that good may result from it," we are sometimes faced with the problem of tragedy.  The common objection is this: “Since both the mother and child will die, you are guilty of both deaths by refusing abortion.”

This is false.  Since abortion chooses to kill one life in favor of another life, abortion means an active choice to do something evil with the intention that good may come of it.

So when it comes to doing evil (committing abortion) vs. suffering evil (recognizing the mother may die), we believe we may not do evil.

This is hardly a new issue.  It came up in the times of persecution under the Roman Empire, where some would argue that to admit to being a Christian would lead to hardship and even death.  Some heretics argued it was all right to deny the Christian faith because of the evils which would be suffered.  St. Augustine pointed out that this was in fact a case of doing evil before evil could be done to you.

In other words, the principle we reject is, "Do unto others before they do unto you."

If we accept the idea of "doing wrong to prevent wrong being done to you," as a moral premise, then we open up a Pandora's Box of moral evil.  Can the state make this decision to sacrifice an innocent citizen for the sake of the nation?  Can we condemn a innocent man for a crime he did not commit to avoid a riot?  The Catholic Church would say no to both, and say so on the same grounds she condemns abortion: We may not do evil to achieve a good end.

This is something which exists today. When the New York Times and the ACLU hold that Catholic hospitals should be forced to administer abortions, Catholic hospitals may be forced to close their doors rather than cooperate with evil. This would not be “permitting people to die because of a dogma.” This would be saying: If you say we must perform evil actions to run a hospital then you effectively make it impossible for us to run a hospital.

In other words, if the ACLU gets its way, Catholic hospitals may have to suffer evil by being shut down instead of doing evil by deliberately taking human lives. However, the evil being done would be done by the ACLU and the government, not the Catholic hospitals forced to shut down by this denial of our First Amendment rights.

What about Double Effect?

Double Effect is a principle which is often misunderstood. I have seen it misapplied to the Catholic Church to indicate that because she permits certain things, she is being arbitrary in not applying things universally.

So let’s start with what Double Effect is, and how it applies to pregnancy and illness.

Double Effect recognizes that there is an action which is intended. An unintended effect may be to cause harm to innocent bystanders. However, this evil is not intended and would not be done if it were possible to avoid it. Moreover, the good done must outweigh the unwanted evil.

So, for example, let us imagine an enemy is discovered flying over New York with an atomic bomb and must be shot down before he detonates the device. However, since he is flying over the heart of the city, if he is shot down, the wreckage will no doubt fall down and injure or kill people.

With this, we have the following:

1. The direct intent is to shoot down the enemy to protect the innocent
2. The unintended and unavoidable consequence is that some innocent person may be killed by the wreckage of the plane being shot down.
3. The killing of the innocent is not directly intended and would be avoided if possible (that is, if it were possible drive the plane away from the populated area and then shoot it down, they would choose that action).
4. The direct intent is not morally wrong in itself (defending the innocent by shooting down the plane)
5. The good outweighs the unintended evil

In such a case it could be licit to shoot down the enemy plane if there was no other choice. However, it would not be licit to radio the pilot and tell him “We have your wife and children and we will kill them unless you turn back. Why?

In the second case, the direct intent is to kill the innocent to deter the guilty.  This evil is directly intended as a means of stopping the attack.  Therefore it is not a moral means and may not be used.

Now in this day and age, after 9/11/2001, many people might think this is an acceptable tradeoff under the concept of utilitarianism (putting the emphasis on benefitting the greatest number of people while harming the fewest). However, since the Catholic Church believes one may never directly intend do evil so good may come of it, the utilitarian concept is unacceptable.

Double Effect and Abortion

Now when it comes to abortion, we have the following situation.

1. The good intended is to save the life of the mother.
2. The means chosen is to directly kill the unborn child.
3. Since this is directly intended to sacrifice one life to save another, this is not double effect.
4. Since the Catholic believes the unborn child is innocent and believes that the willful taking of innocent life is always evil, it follows she must oppose things which directly intend an evil so good may come of it.

Since the death of the unborn is directly intended, we cannot call it an unintended effect, and since Catholics believe the means in this case is evil, we are not free to do this as a means to the end.

This is where the objections come in about the Catholic Church permitting the removal of a uterus from a pregnant woman (a Hysterectomy) and asking why abortion can’t be done instead. Isn’t it the same thing?

No.

The concept of the Hysterectomy is that a diseased organ must be removed to save the mother’s life. The unborn child may be attached to the diseased uterus, but in this case the death of the fetus is not directly intended and if it were possible to save the unborn child, it would be done.

The difference is: One directly intends to kill the unborn child. The other does not.

Self Defense and Abortion

Self defense is the principle that one is permitted to use force necessary to protect one’s life from an unjust attacker. The Catholic Church has this to say on the subject:

2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one's own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not."⁶⁵

2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:

If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.⁶⁶

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

Some have made the point that abortion to save the life of the mother, or in the case of rape falls under the principle of self defense. The argument is that being made pregnant by a rapist or becoming gravely ill during a pregnancy is an attack on the mother and abortion is justified on the grounds of self defense.

The Catholic Church cannot accept this.  The idea of the unjust attacker being defended against must be directed to the person who unjustly attacks.  Not another person related to the unjust attacker (this rejects the idea of abortion in the case of rape/incest).  Nor is the fact that a person existing is harmful to the mother justifiable in doing abortion.  Just because the unborn child exists does not mean the unborn child is unjustly attacking the mother who is suffering.

Because of this, the Catholic cannot accept the appeal to Self Defense as anything other than legalism, distorting the intent to justify something which is not self defense in any sense of the term.

Conclusion

The key points here are that Catholics believe that in order to be faithful to Christ, we must behave in a way which seeks to do good and realize we may never do what we believe to be evil. Therefore:

1. We may not choose an evil means to achieve a good end.
2. The unborn child is a human person with human rights
3. Abortion directly intends to end the life of the unborn child.
4. Deliberately choosing to end an innocent human life to achieve an end is evil
5. Because abortion directly intends to end an innocent human life, Catholics must consider it an evil act and may never participate in the act.
6. The Catholic Church recognizes the life of the mother is also sacred, and the Church does not prefer one life over the other. We believe that all reasonable means which are not evil must be employed to save lives.
7. Therefore it is false and scurrilous to accuse us of not caring about the life of the mother.

As a result, though individuals, groups and governments may hate us, revile us, seek to litigate against us or seek to restrict our rights as human beings by denying us our rights under the First Amendment to practice our faith without interference, we are required to obey God rather than man.

Since we believe we are forbidden to do evil, since we believe that the deliberate killing of an innocent person is evil, and since we believe abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent person, we are obligated to stand up and say, “We will not do this evil you demand of us.”

---

[*] Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A. (2004). Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[†] By “understand” I do not mean to automatically “accept.” Rather, I mean understand in the sense of knowing what we believe and why we believe it, even if one disagrees with us.