Fundamentally Missing the Point: The Danger of Assuming Everyone Thinks Like You

(See: Israel hawks to Pope Francis: Stay out of politics - Rachael Bade - POLITICO)

One of the more foolish things a person can do, especially in terms of politics, is to assume that everybody sees things the same way and if a person sees things differently that us, it means they are doing so for the same motivations and with bad will. For years, liberals accused Catholics of violating the separation of Church and State, getting involved with politics when she spoke out on moral issues like contraception, abortion, “same sex marriage” and the like. This assumption overlooked the fact that the Church had been teaching on these issues long before the modern concept of “liberal vs. conservative” even existed.

But this is not an error limited to liberalism. Conservatism has its own “sacred cows” as well, and can get just as irrational when the Church says something that strikes too close to home for them as well. For example, the outrage that happens when the Pope says that capitalism sometimes falls short of the mark and needs to be corrected. The conservatives then act just as irrationally as liberals and accuse them of getting involved in “political” affairs.

This time, the issue is over the fact that the Church intends to establish diplomatic relations with Palestine. Some conservatives are upset, believing this is an endorsement of the behavior of Palestinian terrorists and opposition to the right of Israel to exist. That kind of thinking is the “either-or” fallacy—the assumption that there are only two choices and to choose one means the rejection of the other. It overlooks the possibility of rejecting both choices, or there being a third choice, or holding to both views because they are not contradictory.

The fact is, the Church does sometimes need to establish diplomatic relations in a country in order to carry out her mission in that country. This is why the Church had established diplomatic relations with repugnant nations like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. We forget, being Americans, that the free practice of religion is not always present in other nations—even in democracies (let alone autocratic nations)—like it is in America. The whole idea of the concordant (an agreement between the Church and a nation) is intended to get the freedom for the Church to carry out her mission in that nation, and gives the Church standing to approach another nation as a diplomatic entity and not as a subject.

The fact is, there is a Catholic population in the Palestinian territories, and the Church does need to look after them. Also, in her commitment to peace, she does need to be able to speak to the leaders of both Israel (with whom the Church does have diplomatic relations already) and Palestine both without the emissaries being seen as subjects of one of the nations.

The point is, when the Church acts in establishing relations with a nation, that does not mean that the Church endorses the policies of that nation. It is foolish to assume that the Church looks at matters in the same way as an American politician and, when the politician disagrees with the Church teaching, that means the Church is deliberately taking a position in opposition to the political slant which the politician supports.

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On People and Actions: You Are Not Your (Expletive) Khakis.

You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your @#$%ing khakis.

—Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

One of the major problems that comes up when people hear the old adage of loving the sinner and hating the sin is that nowadays, people assume that what they do is what they are. Therefore, when the Church condemns an action, people assume this means the Church hates them personally. This is why people assume Christianity is “homophobic” or “anti-woman” when they condemn behavior like homosexual acts, contraception, abortion and divorce/remarriage. Then we get to hear a lot of people quoting Matthew 7:1 out of context.

As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, "Parvus error in initio magnus erit in fine.” (“Small error in the beginning; large [error] will be in the end”). From the beginning error of believing a person is what they do, the concluding error is condemnation of a sin = condemning a person. A person may have a job as an accountant, but that does not make the person an accountant and a person may have a same sex attraction, but that does not make the person a homosexual. The Church believes that a person is more than their actions or ethnicity—and to reduce them to their behavior is to treat them as less than human. 

In terms of Catholic teaching, the person is primarily a child of God. The individual may be ignorant of that fact. The person may reject that fact. The person may accept that fact. But regardless of what the individual does with that information, the fact remains that he or she is a child of God and however they are treated must reflect this fact. Because of this, the Catholic Church never allows us to turn our backs on the sinners, the poor or anyone else—we’re not allowed to write off anyone as irredeemable.

But the fact that we, as Christians, cannot write off anyone as irredeemable has one very important fact that follows from it—every person is in need of redemption. That indicates that we are at odds with God in how we live to some extent. When we act in a way which is contrary to how God calls us to live, that needs to change. Living contrary to God’s call blocks us from Our Lord's redemption, and such behavior must be abandoned if we would be saved. People who know what the truth is can offer correction, just as the person who teaches can offer a student correction when the student gets a wrong answer. That’s not being judgmental. Consider this excerpt from a Socratic dialogue by Peter Kreeft (one that does not deserve to be in obscurity):

Libby: You sound so damned sure of yourself, so dogmatic, so judgmental! Your namesake[*] said, “Judge not.” But you don’t dig that soft stuff, do you?

‘Isa: What do you think Jesus meant when he said “judge not”? Do you think he meant “don’t judge deeds, don’t believe the Commandments, don’t morally discriminate a just war from an unjust war or a hero from a bully”? He couldn’t have meant that. He meant “don’t claim to judge motives and hearts, which only God can see.” I can judge your deeds, because I can see them. I can’t judge what your motives are, because I can’t see that.

Libby: Then stop being so judgmental about that, at least.

‘Isa: But I can judge what your motives ought to be—just as you’re doing, when you judge “judgmentalism”.

—Peter Kreeft, A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 108.

So the Christian teaching is not “homophobic” or “anti-woman” (two popular epithets today). Rather the teaching is concerned with letting people know how their lives estrange them from God and what they must do to be saved. It’s not a hatred. It’s a case of viewing a person as being worth the effort to save—worthy of receiving our love because God loves them.

Sure, you’ll find Christians who are judgmental and hateful. You’ll also find atheists and Buddhists who are judgmental and hateful. But the Christian who actually hates another person because of their sins is not acting as God commands them to act. They are not acting as the Church commands them to act. I think people forget that. Yes, in the Middle Ages, punishments that we now see as barbaric were seen as normal. But even then, the person was not reduced to the evil they did. Even when the evil done resulted in Capital Punishment, the Church was still concerned for the salvation of the person—to bring them back to right relationship to God before they died.

But what happens when a person refuses to be brought back into right relationship with God? We certainly cannot say “Oh well, might as well go ahead and do it then.” We cannot allow people to redefine their action as “good.” But we can try to show love in pointing out that this action is harmful to a person based on what God wants them to be—because trying to encourage a person to abandon a harmful action is an act of love, not an act of hatred.

________________________

[*] The Arabic form of “Jesus” is ‘Isa. Hence the reference to “Your namesake” in the quote from Peter Kreeft.

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Abusus non tollit Usum: Thoughts on An Argument Trying to Refute the Defense of Marriage

As we wait for the Supreme Court to decide the fate of “same sex marriage,” I have seen an argument pop up in different places which tries to refute the defense of traditional marriage. This argument isn’t new, but I haven’t seen it for a few years. This arguments points to the cheapening of marriage as we know it in society with easy divorce, marriage for superficial reasons and the like. Some have argued that people with same sex attraction who want to marry have a higher esteem for marriage than heterosexuals because of the abuses that goes on in marriage today. I have seen both promoters of “same sex marriage” and Christians use it (the former for trying to justify their agenda, the latter trying to say “we’re all to blame here!”)

That argument is fundamentally flawed, but unless a person understands the issue, he or she can be easily led astray by it.

The problem can be summed up under the legal maxim abusus non tollit usum: “abuse does not take away use,” meaning that the fact that a thing may be abused or improperly used from a moral point of view does not justify its destruction, non-use, or non-application. I would argue that trying to redefine the meaning of marriage qualifies as the destruction of the original purpose.

In other words, the fact that many people have cheapened the true meaning of marriage (both now and in the past) through abuse does not justify the changing of the meaning of marriage. It means that we tighten up the meaning of marriage so as to eliminate the abuses and reinforcing the true means of marriage—which is what the Catholic Church has been doing every time there has been an attempt to distort the meaning of marriage. She has always stood for lifelong marriage between one man and one woman open to the transmission of life to a new generation. 

The proposal that “same sex marriage” proponents have "deeper respect" for marriage is a bit of a non sequitur (literally “it does not follow,” basically it means introducing something irrelevant to the discussion). Any attempt to redefine the intention of marriage is wrong—whether that wrong is the multiple divorces and remarriages of a Hollywood Actor/Actress or whether that wrong is trying to define marriage as existing between two people of the same gender. The invocation of “deeper respect” is misleading because it tries to sneak the idea of “same sex marriage” as if it were part of the proper understanding of marriage, when it is not.

Ultimately, the cheapening of marriage. is in reducing it to merely an emotional bond that lasts only as long as both partners feel such a bond—denying that marriage is a lifelong commitment which is open to procreation and raising the children born from this marriage. Any concept of marriage which does not recognize these characteristics is cheapening marriage—and the nature of “same sex marriage” is nothing more than an emotional bond. It’s unfortunate that marriage today is reduced to sentiment, but the solution is to defend what marriage is intended to be in all cases, not to redefine it in order to appease sentimentality.

Does respect for marriage need to be deepened in the West? It sure does. Are things like divorce/remarriage, adultery and fornication cheapening how the public views marriage? They sure do. Do these things justify reconsidering “same sex marriage?” They absolutely do NOT. The Christian who recognizes marriage as created by God has a duty to stand with the Church in defending marriage against false ideas and attempts to redefine it.

And that’s why we have to stand and speak out the truth (with compassion of course), even if the whole world hates us for it.

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