Catechism – eyebeleave

Cardinal Burke’s confusion

Burke purple

2094 words, 11 min read

In what is fast becoming a series¹, this post will pick up on just one of the 40 “truths” presented by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke in his “Declaration of the truths relating to some of the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time” – a document he claims is being published in a “spirit of fraternal charity” and one that I wholeheartedly recommend not to read.

Just like with a punnet of strawberries, there are obvious places to look at here too, when trying to decide whether or not to buy it. An easy way to start is to review “truth” #28 on capital punishment, which reads as follows:

“In accordance with Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, the Church did not err in teaching that the civil power may lawfully exercise capital punishment on malefactors where this is truly necessary to preserve the existence or just order of societies (see Gen 9:6; John 19:11; Rom 13:1-7; Innocent III, Professio fidei Waldensibus praescripta; Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. III, 5, n. 4; Pius XII, Address to Catholic jurists on December 5, 1954).”

This is a direct challenge to the recent change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, effected by Pope Francis (who has “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church” (cf. Cann. 331-334)), which now states the following regarding the death penalty:

“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

Against this background, let us look at three aspects of Burke’s claim: first whether the Church erred, second, whether its tradition (on the basis of the references in this “truth”) has been constant and – most seriously – whether the lawfulness of capital punishment is in accordance with Holy Scripture.

First, the Catholic Church today does teach that the death penalty is always inadmissible as is set out by its supreme legislator (Pope Francis) and promulgated in its Catechism. Applying the Church’s past teaching to today – as Cardinal Burke does – is therefore an act of erring and in direct conflict with the Church’s Magisterium.²

Second, let’s take a closer look at the references to the “constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium” provided by Burke. The first of these is a passage from the 1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent, which reads as follows:

“Execution Of Criminals

Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment- is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which is the legitimate avenger of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.”

This is pretty clear: to preserve and secure human life, civil authority has the right to put criminals to death as a protective and punitive measure.

Let’s now look at the second of the two references for the constancy of tradition, a talk Pope Pius XII addressed to Italian lawyers in 1954, and at the only paragraph in that text that talks about the death penalty:

“The human judge, on the other hand, since he does not possess the omnipresence and omniscience of God, has the duty of forming for himself, before issuing the judicial sentence, a moral certainty, that is, one which excludes every reasonable and serious doubt about the external fact and the internal guilt. But he does not have immediate insight into the interior dispositions of the accused at the very moment of the crime; rather, in most cases the judge is not in a position to reconstruct them with absolute clarity from the arguments offered as proof, nor, often enough, from the very confession of the delinquent. But this difficulty should not be exaggerated, as though it were ordinarily impossible for a human judge to attain sufficient certainty, and therefore a solid foundation for a sentence. According to the cases, the judge will not fail to consult renowned specialists on the capacity and responsibility of the presumed criminal, and to take into consideration the findings of the modern sciences of psychology, psychiatry and characterology. If, despite all these precautions, there still remains a grave and serious doubt, no conscientious judge will proceed to pronounce a sentence of condemnation, all the more so when there is question of an irrevocable punishment, such as the death penalty.”

Hm … this is somewhat different from the first reference. Yes, the death penalty is not deemed inadmissible. However, it is presented as a case where the general challenges of ascertaining guilt and culpability, that are essential limitations of human judges as compared with God, the ultimate Judge, impose a heightened degree of caution and a heightened burden of proof on the jurist. Incidentally the whole text is set in the context of reforms being considered to the penal code and speaks about the relationship between crime and punishment, which it examines from psychological, juridical, moral and religious angles. Far from being a simple affirmation of the rights of the state, as set out by the Tridentine Catechism, Pius XII’s reflection is a careful, cautious one, calling for checks and balances commensurate with the irrevocability of capital punishment.

Moving beyond the two references provided to substantiate “constancy of tradition”, it is worth noting that the first mention of the death penalty in any conciliar document of the western Church comes on 6th July 1415, during the 16th session of the Council of Constance (none of the 15 councils that pre-date it, starting with the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, even mention the topic):

“Doctors who state that anybody subjected to ecclesiastical censure, if he refuses to be corrected, should be handed over to the judgment of the secular authority, are undoubtedly following in this the chief priests, the scribes and the pharisees who handed over to the secular authority Christ himself, since he was unwilling to obey them in all things, saying, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death; these gave him to the civil judge, so that such men are even greater murderers than Pilate.”

Again, this does not sound very “constant” (pun intended) with the Tridentine text. Church authorities handing transgressors over to secular authority are “greater murderers than Pilate”? But, isn’t the state perfectly within its rights to mete out the death penalty, as the Tridentine text suggests?

Let’s also bracket Burke’s references from the other end, with the wording of the Catechism as approved by St. John Paul II, where its §2267 sets out the Church’s position in 1992 (now replaced by Francis’ text quoted above):

“Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.””

Note again the tone of how the topic is dealt with, which is in continuity with Pius XII’s approach and takes it further still. Unlike the Tridentine text, capital punishment is a last resort and one whose likelihood of being legitimate is close to nil, if not nil.

Third, let’s turn to Burke’s claim that capital punishment is in accordance with Holy Scripture, and in particular with the two New Testament references. The first points to John 19:11, which goes: “Jesus answered [him], “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”” Here the “him” is Pilate and reading the passage as condoning capital punishment is a rather lazy application of how this passage has been interpreted during the history of the Church (although not an uncommon one). While St. Augustine takes the reference to “from above” here as being “from God”, as in “all power comes from God”, to go from there to taking all application of power to be good is some stretch and one that both St. Augustine himself and later St. Thomas Aquinas refutes very clearly in his commentary on John’s Gospel:

“So, first Christ teaches Pilate about the source of his power; secondly, about the greatness of his sin.

In regard to the first he says, You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. He is saying in effect: If you seem to have some power, you do not have this from yourself, but it has been given to you from above, from God, from whom all power comes: “By me kings reign” (Prv 8:15). He says no power, that is, no matter how little, because Pilate did have a limited power under a greater one, the power of Caesar: “For I am a man under authority” (Mt 8:9).

Therefore, he concludes, he who delivered me to you, that is, Judas or the chief priests, has the greater sin. He says greater, to indicate that both those who delivered him up to Pilate and Pilate himself were guilty of sin.” (§2394-2396)

Far from suggesting that Pilate’s application of the death penalty to Jesus is a “good thing”, St. Thomas recognises it as a sin – as sin committed while exercising God-given power. Just by giving you a knife (that can be used for a lot of good), I am not condoning let alone approving everything you do with it.

The second reference, to Romans 13:1-7 again seems to be taken by Burke to follow the same pattern of equating the divine source of power with the goodness of its application. And it is St. Thomas Aquinas who succinctly debunks this misinterpretation of Scripture too:

“The order of authority derives from God, as the Apostle says [in Romans 13:1-7]. For this reason, the duty of obedience is, for the Christian, a consequence of this derivation of authority from God, and ceases when that ceases. But, as we have already said, authority may fail to derive from God for two reasons: either because of the way in which authority has been obtained, or in consequence of the use which is made of it.”

I’ll leave the analysis of the other 39 “truths” to the reader who chooses to ignore my advice …

¹ For the previous one, on Cardinal Müller, see here.
² I know that I am side-stepping the literal claim of “truth” #28 which is about whether the Church did or did not err in the past. This is a different question from whether its past teaching is true today.

Cardinal Müller’s confusion

2017 09 20 Cdl

685 words, 4 min read

It is interesting to see the approach that Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has taken to responding to an ostensible call from “many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church” to “make a public testimony about the truth of revelation”, which he constructs by referencing 33 of the Catechism’s 2865 paragraphs.

Sadly, those 33 paragraphs do not include the one that would have sufficed: §85, which goes like this and two thirds of which come from one of Vatican II’s four dogmatic constitutions – Dei Verbum:

““The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” (Dei Verbum, §10) This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.”

Also curious is the total lack of mention of the pope, the “successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome” in Cardinal Müller’s attempt to dispel confusion and shed light on the “many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church” who are currently at a loss with regard to the “truth of revelation”, especially since he is rather central (to put it mildly) to the “shepherds’ very own task” that Cardinal Müller self-attributes in his statement. Yet again the answer is in the Catechism that Cardinal Müller presents – quoting St. John Paul II’s Fidei Depositum – as the “safe standard for the doctrine of the faith” in the opening paragraph of his declaration. There, at §883, and quoting from another of Vatican II’s dogmatic constitutions, we read:

““The college or body of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head.” As such, this college has “supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff.” (Lumen Gentium, §22)”

Besides such paradigmatic confusion, Cardinal Müller also seems to be exercising some, shall we say, poetic license. Just to give an example, he presents “[f]or he who dies in mortal sin without repentance will be forever separated from God” as the summary of §1033, which reads:

“We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 Jn 3:14-15) Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. (Cf. Mt 25:31-46.) To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.””

I’m afraid the Catechism (and the magisterium of at least the last three popes) is a shade more nuanced. Instead of Cardinal Müller’s “[f]or he who dies in mortal sin without repentance will be forever separated from God” we have “[t]o die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice” (emphasis mine). Not the same and a bit confusing, if you ask me … or even better, if you ask the Pope, or read and put into practice the Gospel, or read the whole Catechism, instead of Reader’s Digest versions of 33 of its 2865 paragraphs.

Finally, the entire missive ends on another confusion, which is its author’s title, given as “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2012-2017” and which instead ought to be “Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”, with all the implications of authority that this difference entails.

Conscientious objection

1611 words, 8 min read

The supremacy of conscience in determining the actions of an individual is a key principle of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, in no uncertain terms, presents it as the ultimate criterion: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.” (CCC, §1790). Regardless of whether it is “right” or not – and it can certainly also be wrong! – “[i]n all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience.” (Dignitatis Humanae, §3).

This is, indeed, not only the teaching of the Catholic Church, but also enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ articles 1 and 18:

“Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

In practice, the picture is far from clear though, in that external forces – but internal ones too – often push in directions opposed to a person’s conscience and going against them can come with significant risks, to the point of putting one’s own life on the line. The United Nations themselves recognize this clearly and in their guidance about conscientious objection with regard to military service, give the following example of probably the earliest recorded conscientious objector:

“In the year 295, on reaching the age of 21, Maximilianus, as the son of a Roman army veteran, was called up to the legions. However, he reportedly told the Proconsul in Numidia that because of his religious convictions he could not serve as a soldier. He persisted in his refusal and was executed. He was subsequently canonized as Saint Maximilian.”

It may not always be a matter of life and death though, at least for the person whose conscience can come in conflict with external forces, such as a state’s laws, and the qualifier “certain” used in the Catechism as well as the knowledge that one’s own conscience may be erroneous can both put a question mark over one’s conscience. The principle of following it can therefore be less than unambiguous in practice and arguments for its bending and dulling can easily creep in. This may, in part be what has resulted in the, to my mind, disgraceful positions taken by some politicians and representatives of the Catholic Church in Central Europe with regard to the refugee crisis (and the opposite of what has thankfully lead many citizens as well as clergy and lay persons to do the right thing).

Against the above background, I would here like to translate parts of an interview that Cardinal Walter Kasper gave yesterday, in which he addressed the question of conscience in the context of the refugee crisis and with reference to the laws of individual states. Here Kasper starts his argument from the position of mercy:

“To welcome someone is a work of mercy and justice that goes beyond state laws. The Holy Year of Mercy reminds us about what the Old and New Testament teach: we must welcome as brothers and sisters those who arrive to us from oppressions and persecutions. And even before we understand whether or not they are to be considered refugees, we must remember that they are human beings and as such have the right to live in a healthy and free environment. It is clear that immigrants must respect the rules of the society that welcomes them, but we must be open because that is what Christian mercy asks of us.”

Next, he goes on to directly address how mercy and the laws of states relate:

“State laws are to be observed, but they are not the ultimate criterion of being a Christian. Mercy goes further. The state cannot give orders to mercy. In this sense, the laws stipulate a minimum level for the rules of coexistence, while mercy goes beyond. And it is only mercy that gives a certain warmth to our society, without it and without compassion we would live in a very cold society. […] There is a question of conscience. One has to wonder if a man who has no documents can be returned to a country where he was persecuted. It is clear that a state has the right to ask for the documents of immigrants, but there is always room for individual conscience.”

In fact, Pope Francis took this same argument even beyond the confines of the Church, by emphasizing the inviolability of a person’s conscience also in the case of non-believers (in one of his first acts as Pope – the letter to the atheist Eugenio Scalfari):

“[T]he mercy of God is limitless for those who turn to him with a sincere and contrite heart, the issue for the unbeliever lies in obeying his or her conscience. There is sin, even for those who have no faith, when conscience is not followed. Listening to and obeying conscience means deciding in the face of what is understood to be good or evil. It is on the basis of this choice that the goodness or evil of our actions is determined.”

And, some months earlier, in his remarks before the Angelus prayer, he explained what he means by conscience, in clearly Christian terms:

“[T]he importance, even for Jesus, of conscience [was this]: listening in his heart to the Father’s voice, and following it. Jesus, in his earthly life, was not, so to speak, “remote-controlled”: He was the Word made flesh, the Son of God made man, and at one point he made a firm decision to go up to Jerusalem for the last time – a decision taken in His conscience, but not on His own: with the Father, in full union with Him! He decided in obedience to the Father, in profound intimate attunement to the Father’s will. For this reason, then, the decision was steadfast: because it was taken together with the Father. In the Father, then, Jesus found the strength and the light for His journey. Jesus was free. His decision was a free one. Jesus wants us Christians to be free as he is: with that liberty, which comes from this dialogue with the Father, this dialogue with God. Jesus wants neither selfish Christians, who follow their egos and do not speak with God, nor weak Christians, without will: “remote-controlled” Christians, incapable of creativity, who seek ever to connect with the will of another, and are not free. Jesus wants us free, and this freedom – where is it found? It is to be found in the inner dialogue with God in conscience. If a Christian does not know how to talk with God, does not know how to listen to God, in his own conscience, then he is not free – he is not free.

So we also must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience. Conscience is the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.”

During the press conference after his visit to the USA, Francis also explicitly applied this same principle to the scenario of a conflict between individual conscience and state law:

“[C]onscientious objection is a right, and enters into every human right. It is a right, and if a person does now allow for conscientious objection, he or she is denying a right. Every legal system should provide for conscientious objection because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise, we would end up selecting between rights: “this right is good, this one less so”. It is a human right. I am always moved when I read, and I have read it many times, when I read the “Chanson de Roland”, when there were all these Moors lined up before the baptismal font, and they had to choose between baptism and the sword. They had to choose. They weren’t permitted conscientious objection. It’s a right and if we want to have peace, we have to respect all rights.”

While its prominence has recently been heightened, conscience has been given great respect throughout the history of Christianity, which can also be seen in the following guidance given by St. Francis of Assisi to the leaders of his own order:

“If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man’s conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.”

At a time when obedience to hierarchy was unquestionable, Francis underlined the importance of placing conscience above obedience even in a context where authority may be exercised with the best of motives and by the best and most holy of people.

The broken bread, shared and eaten

On 26th June this year, the Spanish priest and writer Pablo d’Ors (appointed consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope Francis) published an essay entitled “Will anyone in the Church dare?” in the magazine Vida Nueva, because of which he has since been accused of heresy and condemned by no less than three Spanish bishops.

Let’s first take a look at the essay in question (rendered in my own, crude translation):

The sacraments of the Church now mean virtually nothing to the vast majority of those who still participate in them. A sign that no longer signifies isn’t a sign anymore, but a game of magic. Christian rites, and the symbols in which their foundations lie, have degenerated, for the majority of believers, into pure magic. Of course men and women today still need magic, that is, words and gestures that in an automatic and irrational way connect us with the transcendent. But that’s not the point.

I argue that many of the behaviors of priests and lay people during the Eucharistic celebration are fundamentally magical, not religious. Can you imagine the apostles kneeling before the bread or Jesus collecting crumbs from a plate? These behaviors reflect our attitude towards the sacramental sign being much more magical than religious.

For them to convey meaning, signs have to be understood. The doctrine of ex opere operato, which postulates that the sacrament is effective irrespective of the understanding of the recipient, has disconnected the sign from the subject and has degenerated and objectified it. The sacraments need to be understood, at least to some extent. Otherwise, they sacramentalize nothing, which is what is happening today in our temples. Nobody understands anything. What our masses remind me of most is Beckett’s theater of the absurd.

Let’s take the example of the Eucharist, whose symbols are bread and wine. Bread is, of course, something everyday, soft and nutritious. That bread is a symbol of God means that God is something everyday, that God is soft, that God is nutritious. But if the symbol is the bread, the sign or sacrament is the broken bread, shared and eaten. So that what it is about is to break and share the bread consciously; to lift it to one’s mouth consciously; to, consciously, chew it and swallow it.

Consciously means knowing that it is not just about giving bread to others, but about be being bread for them, to turn yourself into the food that relieves their need. Eating of this Bread gives us the strength to be bread. In the same vein, the sign is not simply the wine, but the wine shared and drunk. Drinking from this Wine enables us to be wine for others. And wine is blood, that is, life: to be life for others.

And storing the Eucharist in a tabernacle, what’s that about? Have we not said that the true sign is sharing it? A proof of our mentality being magical is that we think that God is more in the tabernacle than outside it. But that … is absurd! It is not as if he were more there than elsewhere. It is that he is there to … show us that he is everywhere, so that we may remember it. God is everywhere, we say, but then we endeavor to put him into a box. Enclose him in a few theories we call theology and symbols that we call sacraments, but that do not sacramentalize anything.

There is only one solution: to explain everything as if it had never been explained before, because maybe that’s the situation; and it is, of course, to be all done as if for the first time, perhaps because it is the truth. We will see then, in wonder, the power of our symbols, we will save our rites, we will discover, at last, their transformative power for the human soul.

But will anyone in the Church dare? Will anyone present these symbols and rites not only as those in which the most genuine Christian identity is encoded, but as symbols and rites of universal value, suitable for everyone, Christian or not? Will someone, finally, present Christianity as a religion that includes humanism, not one that excludes it or is exclusive?

Respect for difference from other spiritual traditions must not make us lose sight of Christianity as a universal humanizing proposition. I detect in my contemporaries not only a hunger for spirituality, but a desire to recover, in an understandable and contemporary way, the religious tradition we come from. Care for silence, a sensibility that is growing, will bring with itself a care for the word and the gesture. But, will there be anyone in the Church who dares? Where will be the prophets who’ll make us understand that the only possible fidelity to the past comes from creativity and renewal in the present?

And now, for completeness’ sake, let’s look at the criticism leveled at it by José Rico Pavés, one of the three Spanish bishops who have condemned this essay as heretical (again in my own translation and only focusing on the passages that specifically address d’Ors’ text):

[I have] read the article by Pablo d’Ors entitled ‘Will there be anyone in the Church who dares?’ with sadness and concern. Sadness, because of finding, in so little space, such a vast number of doctrinal errors whose consequences are dramatic for Christian life. Concern, noting that the article’s author is a writer and priest, and since not long ago, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Without offering any proof beyond his own perception, the author affirms in a way that exudes absolute certainty that “The sacraments of the Church now mean virtually nothing to the vast majority of those who still participate in them”; he argues that “many of the behaviors of priests and lay people during the Eucharistic celebration are fundamentally magical, not religious”; and, as an argument, ask the reader whether they can imagine “the apostles kneeling before the bread or Jesus collecting crumbs from a plate” (sic); he blames the doctrine of ex opere operato for disconnecting the subject and the sign, objectifying and degenerating it; he explains the Eucharist departing from the bread as “a symbol of God”, whose meaning is “to break and share the bread consciously”, from which he deduces that the Eucharistic reservation in the tabernacle becomes meaningless, and he considers it a proof of our magical mentality to think that God is more present in the tabernacle than outside it.

The author proposes to “explain everything as if it had never been explained before,” and to present the sacraments as “symbols and rites of universal value, suitable for everyone, Christian or not” showing “Christianity as a religion that includes humanism, not one that excludes it or is exclusive”. But, he asks finally, will someone in the Church dare to implement this solution?

To find in so few lines so much nonsense results in a great weight. Does the author know what the Catholic Church means by sacrament? Does he ignore the difference versus magical rites? Does he know that the sacred character of the sacraments does not lie primarily in the meaning that we give them, but in being born of the salvific will of Christ to communicate his Life to us? Why doesn’t he mention even once the word faith and the verb to believe? Does he think that the sacraments can be understood without faith? Does he maybe not know the teaching of the Church on the permanent presence of Christ in the Eucharist, on the eucharistic reservation and worship due to this Sacrament of Love outside of the Holy Mass?

How is it possible that almost 50 years after the encyclical Mysterium Fidei (03/09/1965), the same weak proposals concerning the Eucharist and the sacraments, which were already rejected by Pope Paul VI, continue to spread today? In these times, it may be that the only thing that we need to dare is this: believing with the Church, believing in the bosom of the Church.

So, here we have two texts: an essay on the popular lack of understanding of the sacraments and a call for their revival, and a refutation of that essay. But, you could ask, why should I care about a Spanish argument between a priest and a bishop? Well, I can certainly tell you why I care: because this is one of the few examples I have seen so far of a theologian accepting Pope Francis’ invitation from paragraph 49 of Evangelii Gaudium:

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37).”

When I read d’Ors’ essay, what I see is someone who is concerned for the good of the Church, who sees his “brothers and sisters […] living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ” and who identifies an anachronistic and life-detached exposition of the sacraments as a barrier and as a source of degeneration. He perceives a perversion of the sacraments to the point of being confused with magic – not in the good way of Arthur C. Clarke’s: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, but by deforming a gift from God that builds on faith but that does not suppress reason into a mere irrational, “God-spray” gimmick. A danger that has a reminder built into the very vocabulary of magic, where the term “hocus-pocus” itself is likely a corruption of Jesus’ words at the last supper: “Hoc est corpus meum.”

d’Ors then offers readings of the Eucharist that are simple, broadly understandable and that powerfully underline its being gift, communion and source of life. He finally makes a call for a new language, a new explanation, explicit (very much like last year’s Synod on the Family), points to the latent hunger for transcendence in the world (a need also recognized by atheists) that the Church is called to sate, and closes with an exhortation to continuity through renewal (wholly in-line with Benedict XVI’s ““hermeneutic of reform”, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church”).

Yes, d’Ors is critical of the doctrine of “ex opere operato,” but he does not deny it, only attributing negative consequences to it (or – arguably – its misuse). He also speaks about God’s presence in the tabernacle pointing to His presence outside it, which is in fact in line with how the Catechism speaks about it: “God, who reveals his name as “I AM,” reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them.” (§207) and – incidentally, quoting from Paul VI’s Mysterium Fidei:

“The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 73, 3c.) In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” (Council of Trent (1551)) “This presence is called ‘real’—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei 39)” (§1374)

d’Ors’ sentiment about the tabernacle pointing to God’s presence all around us is also very much along the lines of St. John Chrysostom’s homily on the Gospel of Matthew where he too warns against false formalism and where he calls for a harmony between Eucharistic adoration and – to borrow Pope Francis’ words – a care for His flesh in the poor:

“God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts. […] Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? First, fill him when he is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn his table. Will you have a golden cup made but not give a cup of water? What is the use of providing the table with cloths woven of gold thread, and not providing Christ himself with the clothes he needs? What profit is there in that? Tell me: If you were to see him lacking the necessary food but were to leave him in that state and merely surround his table with gold would he be grateful to you or rather would he not be angry? What if you were to see him clad in worn-out rags and stiff from the cold, and were to forget about clothing him and instead were to set up golden columns for him, saying that you were doing it in his honour? Would he not think he was being mocked and greatly insulted?”

I do not wish to dissect Bishop Pavés’ words or speculate about the motives of his choice of what to focus on or why he transferred the lack of understanding that d’Ors describes and laments among the faithful to a supposed lack of d’Ors’ understanding of Church teaching. Instead I would like to close with appreciating d’Ors’ clear desire to see the sacraments understood and brought closer to the lives of the faithful today and to extend their gifts to all, whether they be in the Church or beyond it.

Natural law

Last year’s Synod on the Family lamented an almost universal lack of understanding of the concept of “natural law” among the faithful, a principle that the Church relies on for the bulk of its moral teaching, which she sees as being shared by all of humanity. Her teaching on marriage and on human reproduction makes copious reference to the natural law, as does her social teaching. As a result, I would here like to review the foundations of what natural law is, how it fits into the bigger picture of the Church’s teaching and how access to it works. Since, like any aspect of the Church’s teaching, the understanding and consequences of natural law develop over time, let me look at a couple of sources in chronological order, starting with Aristotle and arriving at the current, 1993 Catechism.

Aristotle, in his Rhetoric points to a distinction between societal laws and laws that derive from nature and that supersede the conventions of a society. While doing so, he refers to examples from Greek literature that already at his time were “classics”:

“Universal law is the law of Nature. For there really is, as every one to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or covenant with each other. It is this that Sophocles’ Antigone clearly means when she says that the burial of Polyneices was a just act in spite of the prohibition: she means that it was just by nature: “Not of to-day or yesterday it is, But lives eternal: none can date its birth.”

And so Empedocles, when he bids us kill no living creature, says that doing this is not just for some people while unjust for others: “Nay, but, an all-embracing law, through the realms of the sky Unbroken it stretcheth, and over the earth’s immensity.””

St. Augustine then emphasizes three very interesting things about natural law. First, that it relates to the orderedness of the universe (which is also its basis of intelligibility and of rationality in general):

“Therefore, let me explain briefly, as well as I can put it in words, the notion of that eternal law which is impressed upon our nature: ‘It is that law in virtue of which it is just that all things exist in perfect order.’” (De libero arbitrio, 1.8.18.)

Second, that such ontological order translates to a rational one and that acting in accordance with it leads to a well-ordered and fulfilled life:

“From this ineffable and sublime arrangement of affairs, then, which is accomplished by divine providence, a natural law [naturalis lex] is, so to speak, inscribed upon the rational soul, so that in the very living out of this life and in their earthly activities people might hold to the tenor of such dispensations.” (De Diversis Questionibus Octoginta Tribus)

“Whatever sets man above the beast, whether we call it ‘mind’ [mens] or ’spirit’ [spiritus] or, more correctly, both since we find both terms in Scriptures, if this rules over and commands the other parts that make up man, then man’s life is in perfect order … We are to think of a man well-ordered, therefore, when his reason rules over these movements of the soul, for we must not speak of right order, of or order at all, when the more perfect is made subject to the less perfect … It follows, therefore, that when reason, [ratio] or mind [mens], or spirit [spiritus], rules over the irrational movements of the soul, then that is in control in man which ought to be, by virtue of the law which we found to be eternal.” (De libero arbitrio, 1.8.18.)

Here the idea of a right order seems particularly well aligned also with the first (and again last) step of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path, which is right understanding and about which he says that it is “a knowledge and vision of things as they really are”.

Third, St. Augustine – rooted in St. Paul – is also very clear about natural law being accessible to all, regardless of their beliefs and he even goes as far as to recognize its knowledge in the “ungodly”:

“For who but God has written the law of nature (naturale legem) in the hearts of men? that law concerning which the apostle says: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing them witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when the Lord shall judge the secrets of men.” [Rom. 2:14-16] And therefore, as in the case of every rational soul, which thinks and reasons, even though blinded by passion, we attribute whatever in its reasoning is true, not to itself but to the very light of truth by which, however faintly, it is according to its capacity illuminated, so as to perceive some measure of truth by its reasoning.” (Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount)

“For hence it is that even the ungodly think of eternity, and rightly blame and rightly praise many things in the morals of men. And by what rules do they thus judge, except by those wherein they see how men ought to live, even though they themselves do not so live? And where do they see these rules? For they do not see them in their own [moral] nature; since no doubt these things are to be seen by the mind, and their minds are confessedly changeable, but these rules are seen as unchangeable by him who can see them at all; nor yet in the character of their own mind, since these rules are rules of righteousness, and their minds are confessedly unrighteous. Where indeed are these rules written, wherein even the unrighteous recognizes what is righteous, wherein he discerns that he ought to have what he himself has not? Where, then, are they written, unless in the book of that Light which is called Truth? Whence every righteous law is copied and transferred (not by migrating to it, but by being as it were impressed upon it) to the heart of the man that works righteousness; as the impression from a ring passes into the wax, yet does not leave the ring.” (De Trinitate, 14.15.21.)

St. Augustine paints a picture of great harmony here: the universe is ordered, reason recognizes that order and even those who do not live in sync with it understand that there is an order that is proper to human conduct and that is inscribed in nature.

Next, St. Thomas Aquinas develops the concept of natural law by thinking of it as a rational agent’s participation in God’s eternal reason:

“All things partake somewhat of the eternal law, insofar as, namely, from its being imprinted upon them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent way, insofar as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end, and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.” (Summa q91, a2 (p20))

Going beyond just the concept of Natural Law, Thomas Aquinas takes a stab at spelling out its “first principles” as being the following: that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided, that life is to be preserved, that one is to reproduce and raise one’s offspring and that knowledge and life in society are to be pursued:

“Whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of natural law as something to be done or avoided. […]

All those things to which man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason as being good and, consequently, as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil and objects of avoidance. […] Wherefore the order of the precepts of the natural law is according to the order of natural inclinations.”

What is interesting here is that, in addition to the orderedness of reality being reflected in our understanding of it that St. Augustine spoke of, St. Thomas adds to it also a link to our inclinations, making being, understanding and desire all aligned with each other. Even though St. Thomas already speaks about limits to the understanding of natural law, and gives examples of it being overridden in some societies (e. g., “theft, although it is expressly contrary to the natural law, was not considered wrong among the Germans, as Julius Caesar relates.”), the overall picture is one of all-encompassing harmony.

In 1888 Pope Leo XIII picks up the subject of natural law in the context of his encyclical entitled Libertas (“freedom”). There he first challenges the notion of freedom being opposed to an adherence to laws, which he in turn equates with reason:

“Nothing more foolish can be uttered or conceived than the notion that, because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from law. Were this the case, it would follow that to become free we must be deprived of reason; whereas the truth is that we are bound to submit to law precisely because we are free by our very nature.”

Leo XIII then defines natural law as follows, identifying it again with reason:

“natural law […] is written and engraved in the mind of every man; and this is nothing but our reason, commanding us to do right and forbidding sin.”

and proceeds to elaborate on how God helps us to adhere to it in a way that does not cancel our freedom:

“To this rule of action and restraint of evil God has vouchsafed to give special and most suitable aids for strengthening and ordering the human will. The first and most excellent of these is the power of His divine grace, whereby the mind can be enlightened and the will wholesomely invigorated and moved to the constant pursuit of moral good, so that the use of our inborn liberty becomes at once less difficult and less dangerous. Not that the divine assistance hinders in any way the free movement of our will; just the contrary, for grace works inwardly in man and in harmony with his natural inclinations, since it flows from the very Creator of his mind and will, by whom all things are moved in conformity with their nature.”

The need for help with discerning natural law is also underlined in Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, where he writes:

“[T]he human intellect, in gaining the knowledge of such truths is hampered both by the activity of the senses and the imagination, and by evil passions arising from original sin. Hence men easily persuade themselves in such matters that what they do not wish to believe is false or at least doubtful.”

And with that we arrive at the Church’s present understanding of natural law, which is clearly set out in the current Catechism. There human rationality (which already to St. Augustine was key) is presented as the interface with the natural law [note also the referring to humans as animals, consistent with evolutionary continuity]:

“Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him.” (§1951)

“Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie.” (§1954)

The aims of natural law, it’s subsisting in reason and being accessible universally are spelled out next:

“The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one’s equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature. […] The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.” (§1955)

“The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties.” (§1956)

The Catechism then picks up on St. Thomas Aquinas’ point about variation in the application of natural law and presents a particularly useful way of looking at how our varying understanding of natural law differs from the immutable natural law itself (a relationship akin to that between science and the laws of nature):

“Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.” (§1957)

“The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history; it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies.” (§1958)

While the Christian sources cited so far all speak about a close link between natural law and divine law, the vast majority of what they assert about it can, in my opinion, be considered even in the absence of theist beliefs and depends only on whether moral values can be discerned by reason or whether they are all solely the result of social convention or individual choice. E.g., whether the goodness of treating men and women equally can be arrived at by the use of reason alone or whether it is solely the result of a social contract. Whether we could all just agree on its opposite tomorrow or whether the rational appeal of it would persist against social consensus.

This is a question that has been controversial for centuries and I won’t even attempt to do it justice here, skipping even Hume’s famous distinction between is and ought (i.e., that what is (e.g., as in human nature) has no normative power), and I’ll just conclude with presenting a pair of opposite assessments of natural law from the atheist perspective.

The first is Mark Murphy’s flat-out declaration of their incompatibility in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“If Aquinas’s view is paradigmatic of the natural law position, and these two theses — that from the God’s-eye point of view, it is law through its place in the scheme of divine providence, and from the human’s-eye point of view, it constitutes a set of naturally binding and knowable precepts of practical reason — are the basic features of the natural law as Aquinas understands it, then it follows that paradigmatic natural law theory is incompatible with several views in metaphysics and moral philosophy. On the side of metaphysics, it is clear that the natural law view is incompatible with atheism: one cannot have a theory of divine providence without a divine being.”

To me this sounds a bit tautological though in that it can be read as saying: the way St. Thomas Aquinas speaks about natural law is theist, therefore there is no atheist way of positing natural law. It does not engage with considering whether those aspects of Aquinas’ thought on natural law that are not theist (i.e., “human’s-eye point of view”) don’t also make sense in isolation (and would argue that they do).

Second, Murray Rothbard’s rebuttal of such a facile opposition to the concept of human nature in atheist thought, arguing precisely from a perspective of humans being just as much part of the material world as atoms, molecules and stones, all of which have specific shared features.

“It is indeed puzzling that so many modern philosophers should sniff at the very term “nature” as an injection of mysticism and the supernatural. An apple, let fall, will drop to the ground; this we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple (as well as the world in general). Two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen will yield one molecule of water — behavior that is uniquely in the nature of hydrogen, oxygen, and water. There is nothing arcane or mystical about such observations. Why then cavil at the concept of “nature”? […] And yet, if apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only entity, the only being, that cannot have one? And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and reflection? If all things have natures, then surely man’s nature is open to inspection; the current brusque rejection of the concept of the nature of man is therefore arbitrary and a priori.”

Considering all of the above, I believe there is a basis for recognizing that humans have rational access to innate moral values, from which normative laws can be derived. This does not necessitate a belief in a superhuman source of such laws (although for a Christian such a belief has added incentives for discernment and adherence) or a belief that those laws are perfectly and unchangeably known. In fact, the Church too recognizes that the natural law is not immediately accessible and that it subsists beneath our attempts to elucidate it, attempts that because of this alone need to continue and may yield evolving results. All that a subscription to the concept of natural law entails is a belief to there being values that derive from who humans are rather that only from our arbitrary consensus.

Sin and faith: the gift of Christian identity

A couple of weeks ago, Cardinal Walter Kasper gave an interview to EWTN during which he displayed great patience in the face of persistently being misunderstood (or willfully misrepresented?) by his interviewer. Why do I bring this up? Because, in the course of that interview, in a moment of exasperation, Cardinal Kasper presented the following, beautiful synthesis of how the Church needs to be a sacrament – i.e., sign and instrument – of mercy, which he derived from Jesus’ self-sacrifice having been in response to a rejection by his people:

“[M]arriage is an icon, an image of the alliance of God with his people. And notice that in Holy Scripture, how often the people of God abandoned him … And also Jesus was rejected by his people. He substituted himself [for them], went to the cross, g[a]ve them a chance. And before he went on Easter Eve he […] gave the Church, his apostles, the authority to forgive or not to forgive, to bind and to loose [cf. Matthew 18:18]. And all this, this is also a sign of mercy. It is not only the category of human justice you can apply here. You must, the Church must, act according to the action of God and God’s mercy, and the Church is sacrament of mercy. It means sign and instrument of the mercy of God. That’s our Catholic understanding of the Church. And if God gives, acts in this way, the Church can do it also.”

That Jesus gave his disciples the authority both to impose and abolish what the Church is to do and not do, to believe and not believe, to denounce and to value, is not just a turn of phrase to illustrate the completeness of passing “power of attorney” to His followers, members of His mystical body, but an imperative to keep her teaching be a means to union with Him in every present moment. Kasper prefixing the above reminder of Matthew 18:18 with a spelling out of the fact that even at the pinnacle of His love for us, at the moment of his loving self-sacrifice, Jesus was rejected by his people, is no accident either and, to my mind, serves as a stark reminder that the goods that the Church gives access to in the name of her head are not rewards, addressed to those who fully comply with her teaching, but expressions of His gratuitous, wholly undeserved and merciful self-giving.

As I kept returning to delighting in and thinking about Cardinal Kasper’s words, Pope Francis (five days later) chose the question of Christian identity (which is implicit in Kasper’s reasoning) during a morning homily at Santa Marta. Note also that identity is a key prerequisite to dialogue for Francis.

The angle chosen by Francis that day was that “sin is part of our identity,” that we are “sinners, but sinners with faith in Jesus Christ,” and that “it is God who gives us this identity as a gift.” Saying that sin is integral to our identity – an identity given to us by God as a gift – struck me as a rather stark claim (though one that immediately made me think of the “felix culpa” of the Easter Vigil liturgy). Placing it alongside Cardinal Kasper’s thoughts, it seemed to me that it is the key to understanding not only the idea of a Christianity that needs to go out and be prepared to get hurt in the process, which Pope Francis spoke about also in Evangelii Gaudium (§49), but also to the centrality that mercy has in Francis’ teaching.

Before going any further, let’s look at Pope Francis’ words in more detail in terms of what constitutes Christian identity:¹

“We too must traverse a long journey during our lives, so that this Christian identity may be strong, so that we may give witness. It is a journey which we can defined as being from ambiguity to true identity.

It’s true, there is sin, and sin makes us fall, but we have the Lord’s strength to get up and proceed with our identity. But I would also say that sin is part of our identity: we are sinners, but sinners with faith in Jesus Christ. It is not only a faith of understanding, no. It’s a faith that is a gift from God and that entered us from God. It is God himself who confirms us in Christ. And he has anointed us, he has impressed his seal in us, he has given us the down payment, the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. It is God who gives us this gift of identity.

It is essential to be faithful to this Christian identity and to let the Holy Spirit, who is precisely the guarantee, the pledge in our hearts, to bring us forward in life. We are not people who follow a philosophy; we are anointed and have the guarantee of the Spirit.

Ours is a beautiful identity that shows itself in witness. It is because of this that Jesus speaks of witness as the language of our Christian identity. And this is so even though Christian identity, since we are sinners, is being tempted, will be tempted; temptations always come and our identity can weaken and can be lost.”

Pope Francis describing himself as a sinner since the very beginning of this pontificate is not some humble-bragging, but a reminder that sin, weakness, failure are intrinsic to what it is to be human. It is also central to what it means to be Christian. We are not perfect, flawless, wholly-compliant, but addled with sin, with failure, with imperfection. What Pope Francis points out though in the above homily is that these flaws are not a source of resignation or pessimism, something that ought to trouble us, or something to be denied, but instead a basis for being open to God’s merciful love. I am a sinner, someone who gives in to temptation, who fails to love, who makes mistakes, but I know that I am loved by God and I entrust myself to Him and give space to him so that he may lead me – with all my flaws – ever closer to Himself.

This is in stark contrast to a position that seems to, at least implicitly, underlie the thought processes of many who oppose openness to all, regardless of their closeness to the Church’s teaching, and who seem to be operating on the assumption that participation in the life of the Church has perfection as a prerequisite. Failure here is a personal weakness that disqualifies one from participating in the mystical body of Christ and that needs to be overcome before re-integration can take place. Here the Church is an association of the flawless and of the self-sufficient.

This is not a Church I recognize, and neither is this the Church that presents herself in the Catechism. Already the Gospel is characterized there as “the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners” (§1846), which is followed by declaring that ““You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption”. Next, sin is presented as undeniably part of us, and its recognition in oneself as a precursor to mercy:

“To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”” (§1847)

And St. Paul goes even further, by correlating grace with sin:

“As St. Paul affirms, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us “righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin: Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.” (§1848)

Truth, recognizing our sinfulness, is followed by God’s merciful action and His gift of redemption, which as Cardinal Kasper stated so clearly, the Catechism too links to the pinnacle of Jesus’ loving self-sacrifice:

“It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal—so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.” (§1851)

A recognition of my sinfulness is no guilt-ridden pessimism, but instead a source of joy, since God’s love exceeds whatever flaws I have and envelops me, all of my brothers and sisters and the whole of creation. My flaws are an invitation to be merciful to all, regardless of their beliefs or way of life, since they are loved by God just as much as I am.

O felix culpa!

¹ Since the quotes from Pope Francis homily were much more extensive in the Italian account that day, the following is my, crude translation of that text, rather than the official English text by Vatican Radio.

The Catechism’s Universe

After sharing sketches of how Pope Francis and Chiara Lubich have spoken about the universe, I will have take a quick look at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says on the subject. As in the previous two cases, the terms “universe” (used 18 times), “cosmos” (6x) and “creation” (125x) are again used as synonyms, while the term “world” refers to social, cultural, economic, political realities (219x, two of which, however, synonymously with “universe”). Note also that the following overview will (with some small exceptions) follow the sequence laid out in the Catechism, since there is a clear logic to it and since that logic itself is worth paying attention to.

The Catechism’s exposition of a Catholic understanding of the universe starts from the central mystery of faith – the Trinity, where the universe is introduced as a source of clues about it and evidence for it:

“The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the “mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God.” To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation […]” (§237)

The importance of the universe is then highlighted by pointing out that it is mentioned in the very first verse of Scripture (Genesis 1:1) and that the belief in its being created by God is part of the most succinct exposition of faith – the creed:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Holy Scripture begins with these solemn words. The profession of faith takes them up when it confesses that God the Father almighty is “Creator of heaven and earth” (Apostles’ Creed), “of all that is, seen and unseen” (Nicene Creed).” (§279)

Very soon after the close bond between God and the universe is established, the good of scientific enquiry into the working of the universe is declared, as is its potential to enrich our relationship with God:

“The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: “It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements… for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.”” (§283)

Creation is then presented as the start of a sequence where a relationship with God follows the creation of the universe and that culminates in His own dwelling among us:

“Creation is revealed as the first step toward [God’s] covenant [with humanity], the first and universal witness to God’s all-powerful love.” (§288)

“The glory of God consists in the realization of [the] manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us “to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace,” for “the glory of God is man fully alive; moreover man’s life is the vision of God: if God’s revelation through creation has already obtained life for all the beings that dwell on earth, how much more will the Word’s manifestation of the Father obtain life for those who see God.” […]” (§294)

The deep rationality of the universe and God’s invitation for us to engage with it by participating in His own “being, wisdom and goodness” are presented next, alongside the affirmation of our human intellect being capable of understanding the universe (whose “measurability” is also declared):

“We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance. We believe that it proceeds from God’s free will; he wanted to make his creatures share in his being, wisdom, and goodness: “For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Therefore the Psalmist exclaims: “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all”; and “The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”” (§295)

“Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: “You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.” The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God,” is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship with God. Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work. Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness — “And God saw that it was good… very good” — for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world.” (§299)

The Catechism then also talks about our response to God speaking to us also through the universe, which takes on the form of us searching for Him:

“Man is in search of God. In the act of creation, God calls every being from nothingness into existence. “Crowned with glory and honor,” man is, after the angels, capable of acknowledging “how majestic is the name of the Lord in all the earth.” Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence. All religions bear witness to men’s essential search for God.” (§2566)

At the same time as creating an intelligible universe, God himself infinitely exceeds it both at the macro and micro scales and remains ineffable:

“God is infinitely greater than all his works: “You have set your glory above the heavens.” Indeed, God’s “greatness is unsearchable.” But because he is the free and sovereign Creator, the first cause of all that exists, God is present to his creatures’ inmost being: “In him we live and move and have our being.” In the words of St. Augustine, God is “higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self.” (§300)

God’s relationship to the universe is not that of an absentee father who withdraws from his offspring. Instead, He “upholds and sustains” its being:

“With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence: “For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured, if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.”” (§301)

Instead of the universe having sprung forth fully-formed, it was created “in a state of journeying,” on a journey that contains the “free action of creatures”:

“Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection: “By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well.” For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes,” even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.” (Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 1: DS 3003; cf. Wis 8:1; Heb 4:13.)” (§302)

Coming back to its relationship with the Trinity, the universe’s links to all three divine Persons are emphasized:

“God created the universe and keeps it in existence by his Word, the Son “upholding the universe by his word of power” (Heb 1:3) and by his Creator Spirit, the giver of life.” (§320)

That the Genesis account is symbolical and a hint at the universe’s inner nature is presented next:

“God himself created the visible world in all its richness, diversity, and order. Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine “work,” concluded by the “rest” of the seventh day. On the subject of creation, the sacred text teaches the truths revealed by God for our salvation, permitting us to “recognize the inner nature, the value, and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God.”” (§337)

Then, God being the source of all that exists is underlined:

“Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history are rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun.” (§338)

The Catechism then speaks about the universe’s beauty, which points beyond itself to the beauty of God, as the trigger for our desire to understand it, which – incidentally – is not dissimilar to how atheists like Richard Dawkins speak about awe and wonder¹:

“The beauty of the universe: The order and harmony of the created world results from the diversity of beings and from the relationships which exist among them. Man discovers them progressively as the laws of nature. They call forth the admiration of scholars. The beauty of creation reflects the infinite beauty of the Creator and ought to inspire the respect and submission of man’s intellect and will.” (§341)

Having sketched out the key features of how the universe relates to God, what it is and how our engaging with it is also an engaging with God, the intimate nature of the relationships between humans and the rest of the universe is laid out:

“There is a solidarity among all creatures arising from the fact that all have the same Creator and are all ordered to his glory: “May you be praised, O Lord, in all your creatures, especially brother sun, by whom you give us light for the day; he is beautiful, radiating great splendor, and offering us a symbol of you, the Most High…. May you be praised, my Lord, for sister water, who is very useful and humble, precious and chaste…. May you be praised, my Lord, for sister earth, our mother, who bears and feeds us, and produces the variety of fruits and dappled flowers and grasses…. Praise and bless my Lord, give thanks and serve him in all humility.” (St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures.)” (§344)

“The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ.” (§374)

“By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man’s life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice.”” (§376)

This harmony among God, man and woman and the universe is not only there as a good in itself, but also a basis for men and women to work with God:

“The sign of man’s familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden. There he lives “to till it and keep it.” Work is not yet a burden, but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.” (§378)

“Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Hence work is a duty: “If any one will not work, let him not eat.” Work honors the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross, daily, in the work he is called to accomplish. Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ.” (§2427)

“The primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and beneficiary. By means of his labor man participates in the work of creation. Work united to Christ can be redemptive.” (§2460)

The idea of God’s traces in the universe, introduced in the early paragraphs of the Catechism is picked up again and our capacity to intuit God’s actions from what is accessible through sensory perception is highlighted. The empirical here becomes a conduit for what lies beyond it (echoing St. Paul’s “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12)) – “the universal language of creation”:

“God speaks to man through the visible creation. The material cosmos is so presented to man’s intelligence that he can read there traces of its Creator. Light and darkness, wind and fire, water and earth, the tree and its fruit speak of God and symbolize both his greatness and his nearness.” (§1147)

“Inasmuch as they are creatures, […] perceptible realities can become means of expressing the action of God who sanctifies men, and the action of men who offer worship to God. The same is true of signs and symbols taken from the social life of man: washing and anointing, breaking bread and sharing the cup can express the sanctifying presence of God and man’s gratitude toward his Creator.” (§1148)

“The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself. Truth in words, the rational expression of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality, is necessary to man, who is endowed with intellect. But truth can also find other complementary forms of human expression, above all when it is a matter of evoking what is beyond words: the depths of the human heart, the exaltations of the soul, the mystery of God. Even before revealing himself to man in words of truth, God reveals himself to him through the universal language of creation, the work of his Word, of his wisdom: the order and harmony of the cosmos—which both the child and the scientist discover — “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator,” “for the author of beauty created them.”” (§2500)

God’s presence in the universe, its being a gift to us and a means by which God speaks to us and we can strive to know him, also mean that it calls for respect and care:

“Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectancy of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come. That is why, although we must be careful to distinguish earthly progress clearly from the increase of the kingdom of Christ, such progress is of vital concern to the kingdom of God, insofar as it can contribute to the better ordering of human society.” (§1049)

And not only is care in order, but a just and universal access to the goods contained in the universe:

“In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men.” (§2402)

“The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity. Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.” (§2415)

And finally, the universe – as “the great book of creation” – is also presented as helping us to meditate:

“Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of creation, and that of history—the page on which the “today” of God is written.” (§2705)

In summary, the Catechism presents a universe that is intimately linked with God, who is its source and who sustains it and who also speaks to us through it. This communication is in the form of God’s “traces” in the universe and in the form of an invitation to engage with it rationally (as a pointer to God’s wisdom) and through beauty (as a foretaste of the beauty of God Himself). The universe is more than just a teaser for the goodness, truth and beauty of what is to come and is a good in itself, to be developed and enjoyed by all in a just and equitable way. This is a universe that we are call to care for and think of in the context of the relationships among us and with God.

¹ “The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.” ― Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

Who are children of God?

Catholics? Christians? “Good” people?

No.

In total disagreement with the author of yesterday’s “Thoughts on today’s Mass,” distributed in my parish, who said that “we are not naturally children of God: we become so by baptism, when God adopts us as his own. Otherwise to call God our Father would be a bold presumption,” I would like to show that the Catholic Church teaches that every single human being is a child of God. Using the idea of being God’s child as the basis of separation, the basis of an “us,” as opposed to a ”them,” is perverse and absolutely not what the Catholic Church teaches, in spite of the official-looking material handed out in some of its parishes.

To begin with, Jesus – the Son of God – himself recognizes familial status universally, when he says that “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:50) and St. Paul too picks up on the key being adherence to God’s will: “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Romans 8:14).

That such adherence to the will of God is open to everyone – whether they believe in God or not – and that it is at the heart of what the Catholic Church believes, is very clear from Nostra Aetate, the declaration issued during the Second Vatican Council by Pope Paul VI, which says in its closing paragraph:

“We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man’s relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: “He who does not love does not know God” (1 John 4:8).

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.”

And this is also reflected in what the Catechism teaches about the opening words of the Our Father, the prayer Jesus taught:

“God’s love has no bounds, neither should our prayer. Praying “our” Father opens to us the dimensions of his love revealed in Christ: praying with and for all who do not yet know him, so that Christ may “gather into one the children of God.” God’s care for all men and for the whole of creation has inspired all the great practitioners of prayer; it should extend our prayer to the full breadth of love whenever we dare to say “our” (§2793)

Note in particular the thought-provoking idea in the above of Catholics praying with those who don’t know Jesus. Even in a fundamentally religious act the desire of Catholics is to be united with those who don’t share their beliefs!

And if the above weren’t enough to categorically declare that Catholics consider every human being to be a child of God and therefore also their brother or sister, let’s see what the last three popes had to say on the subject:

“We must never forget that every person, from the moment of conception to the last breath, is a unique child of God and has a right to life.” Pope Saint John Paul II (Address at the Ceremony of the Anointing Of The Sick, Southwark’s Cathedral, London, 28 May 1982)
“God is the origin of the existence of every creature, and the Father in a unique way of every human being: he has a unique, personal relationship with him or her.” Pope Benedict XVI (Sunday Angelus address, 8 January 2012)
“Since many of you are not members of the Catholic Church, and others are not believers, I cordially give this blessing silently, to each of you, respecting the conscience of each, but in the knowledge that each of you is a child of God. May God bless you!” Pope Francis (Audience to Representatives of the Communications Media, 16th March 2013 – the day after his election!)
“Every human being is a child of God! He or she bears the image of Christ! We ourselves need to see, and then to enable others to see, that migrants and refugees do not only represent a problem to be solved, but are brothers and sisters to be welcomed, respected and loved.” Pope Francis (Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 5 August 2013)

I rest my case.

Faith in science

A couple of days ago I saw Prof. Steven Pinker tweet about an article (“No Faith in Science”) by Prof. Jerry Coyne, who argues that science does not involve faith. I was curious to see whether Coyne would come up with a convincing argument or whether the piece was going to be a rather ill-informed rant against religion (as has been the case previously).

My summary of Coyne’s argument – and do read it in full if you are that way inclined – is the following:

Religious faith is “intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person” (Walter Kaufmann), “involves pretending to know things you don’t” and is “wish-thinking.” The term “faith” used in the context of science is “confidence derived from scientific tests and repeated, documented experience.” In other words faith when applied to religion is delusional pretense while when applied to science it is rational confidence. “The conflation of faith as “unevidenced belief” with faith as “justified confidence” is simply a word trick used to buttress religion. In fact, you’ll never hear a scientist saying, “I have faith in evolution” or “I have faith in electrons.””
Confidence in a scientist’s statements “is based on the doubt and criticism inherent in science (but not religion): the understanding that their expertise has been continuously vetted by other [scientists]. In contrast, a priest’s claims about God are no more demonstrable than anyone else’s. We know no more now about the divine than we did 1,000 years ago.” Science is advancing while religion is arbitrary and static.
Science is built on evidence while religion can’t be: “There is strong evidence for the Higgs boson, whose existence was confirmed last year by two independent teams using a giant accelerator and rigorous statistical analysis. But there isn’t, and never will be, any evidence for [religious claims].”
“The orderliness of nature—the set of so-called natural laws—is not an assumption but an observation.”
In summary – and in Richard Dawkins’ words – Coyne argues that “There’s all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.”

Since I completely disagree with the above, let me try to be explicit about my reasons, which will be made from my perspective as a Catholic (and scientist), but many features of which also apply to believers of other religions (and practitioners of other rational pursuits):

Let’s first look at the Kaufmann definition: religious faith as “usually confident” and insufficient to “command assent from every reasonable person.” Here I’d first like to point to the pervasive presence of doubt in Christianity – starting right with the apostles themselves (Thomas being the obvious choice, but the rest of them were an equally incredulous lot too, much to Jesus’ frustration 🙂 and explicit in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which in its opening paragraphs says: “Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so. […] We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God — “the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable” — with our human representations” (§40-42). Far from being over-confident, this opening caveat sounds eminently transparent and humble to me. Turning to the second feature of the Kaufmann definition, I struggle to think of many things that “command assent from every reasonable person” – least of all new scientific theories or even observations of phenomena that appear contradictory of the accepted science of the day. One could argue that such an attitude – of cautious assent – is good and is a feature of being critical. That is all well, but then it becomes problematic to use it as a test of reasonableness of faith. Finally, let’s look at the claim that scientists don’t make statements like “I have faith in evolution.” That may well be, but slight variants like “I believe evolution to be true,” or “I consider evolution to be a likely mechanism accounting for the variety of changing life-forms on Earth” are much easier to come by. Is Coyne arguing that the specific grammar and vocabulary of “I have faith in …” has some special features that its alternative formulations don’t?
Next, there is the juxtaposition of “unevidenced belief” with “justified confidence.” Here I’d like to argue that beliefs, assumptions, working hypotheses, views, etc. of both scientific and religious nature can easily fall into these two categories. As a scientist, my adherence to theories whose consistency with observation I have not tested can be as much based on authority and tradition (I read them in text books and other scientists also hold them to be true), as those of a religious person with regard to the teachings of their faith. Conversely, many of my beliefs are very much backed up by evidence: that the merciful will be shown mercy (Matthew 5:7), that walking an extra mile (Matthew 5:41) or welcoming strangers (Matthew 25:35) are sources of joy, or that the pinnacle of love is self-sacrifice (John 15:13). I believe these not because someone has tricked me or made me believe them, but because I have experienced their truth. This is not to say that religious faith and the beliefs that form part of science are the same – they are not – but just to argue that the line is not between the two but among different beliefs in both.
The claim that “we know no more now about the divine than we did 1,000 years ago” may well be true for a “we” that includes Coyne, but certainly not for a “we” that includes me or a vast number of Christians. Christianity is in constant flux and if a Catholic from 500 years ago time-travelled to the present day, they would be stunned by many of the features of present-day Christianity. The Church’s teachings change constantly based on the experiences of her members trying to put Jesus’ words into practice. For a simple, but very specific, example, see a previous post, and for a greater variety, just take a look at a number of statements made by Pope Francis over the last months – causing a stir with regard to atheists, homosexuals, the poor, etc. – even the cross he uses is a source of controversy, which couldn’t exist if Catholics were just a bunch of nodding sheep. To look at all that and say that there is no change in religion is plain irrational.
Arguing from “giant accelerator[s] and rigorous statistical analysis” is just scarily naïve. Statistics is all about compliance with assumptions (about populations, sampling, distributions, …) and the scale of a device has no bearing on its capacity to access the truth. The scary thing to me here is the underlying naïveté by virtue of which observation is considered to be about the “given” (data) instead of realizing that it is all about the “taken.” There is no observation without theory (language itself being theory laden) – what you are looking for, how you measure, are a consequence of what your expectations are and the result can either be consistency or inconsistency (where in the latter case the theory can be revised or the content of observation questioned). This is not meant as a criticism – the process leads to progress and great understanding, but just as an emphasizing of observation and measurement not starting from scratch or being an independent entity with respect to theory.
Finally, let’s look at the claim that the “orderliness of nature is not an assumption but an observation.” Beyond the implicit challenges of observation, I’d ask about what observation or observations result in the belief in orderliness, repeatability, the uniformity of the laws of nature? For this universally-quantified claim to be attributable to a finite set of observation, requires an assumption or even a belief in finite observations lending credence to the nature of other observations of greater cardinality and holding under conditions for which no observations were made (e.g., in the past) or for which no observations can be made (e.g. the future). Again, this is not a criticism of science – making the assumption of orderliness and repeatability is a useful and rational thing to do (it is inherent to rationality itself), but it is not a consequence of observation. Instead, it is a precursor. Without such a belief or assumption, observation would be pointless.

Ultimately it is up to you to decide for yourself whether my arguments above – the arguments of a Catholic – are “intense, usually confident, belief[s] that [are] not based on evidence,” “supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation,” or whether they make recourse to “evidence and logic” and can therefore co-exist happily with scientific convictions.

Just war?

[Warning: long read :)]

Jesus was a pacifist. To deny this in the face of his own words – “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” (Matthew 5:22), “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44), “But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.” (Matthew 5:39) and “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) – would be sheer dishonesty.

How about the Church though, has it stuck to Jesus’ pacifist position? Let’s see what it says in the Catechism:

“(§2304) Respect for and development of human life require peace. Peace is not merely the absence of war, and it is not limited to maintaining a balance of powers between adversaries. Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity.

(§2307) The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.

(§2308) All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.” (Gaudium et Spes, 79 § 4)

(§2309) The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

there must be serious prospects of success;

the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

(§2314) “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” (Gaudium et Spes, 80 § 3)”

While the above does talk about circumstances under which war is justified, it is a last resort, acceptable under the simultaneous satisfaction of specific conditions listed above, and has self-defense as its purpose, with indiscriminate destruction and the devastating effects of modern means of warfare ringing alarm bells. During the progress of such self-defense (the only possible trigger for just military action), the Catechism further emphasizes that “The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. “The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties.” (Gaudium et Spes, 79 § 4)” and proceeds to warn against the abuses so endemic in war and against the accumulation of arms. Finally, the Catechism draws attention to the root causes, of which war can be a symptom, and calls for their treatment:

“(§2317) Injustice, excessive economic or social inequalities, envy, distrust, and pride raging among men and nations constantly threaten peace and cause wars. Everything done to overcome these disorders contributes to building up peace and avoiding war.”

And Pope Francis, where does he stand? There can be no doubt here that he, like Jesus, is an absolute pacifist:

“War is madness. It is the suicide of humanity. It is an act of faith in money, which for the powerful of the earth is more important than the human being. For behind a war there are always sins. [… War] is the suicide of humanity, because it kills the heart, it kills precisely that which is the message of the Lord: it kills love! Because war comes from hatred, from envy, from desire for power, and – we’ve seen it many times – it comes from that hunger for more power.” (Homily at Domus Sanctae Marthae, 2 June 2013).

“We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow destruction, pain, death! Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death! […]

My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross. How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment! There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken. […]

violence and war are never the way to peace! Let everyone be moved to look into the depths of his or her conscience and listen to that word which says: Leave behind the self-interest that hardens your heart, overcome the indifference that makes your heart insensitive towards others, conquer your deadly reasoning, and open yourself to dialogue and reconciliation. Look upon your brother’s sorrow and do not add to it, stay your hand, rebuild the harmony that has been shattered; and all this achieved not by conflict but by encounter! […]

Let the words of Pope Paul VI resound again: “No more one against the other, no more, never! … war never again, never again war!” (Address to the United Nations, 1965).” (Prayer Vigil for Peace, 7 September 2013)

And Francis is not alone is his radical stance against war, Blessed Pope John Paul II said that “War should belong to the tragic past, to history: it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future” and that “Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.” Benedict XVI too was clear about war being a failure: “War, with its aftermath of bereavement and destruction, has always been deemed a disaster in opposition to the plan of God, who created all things for existence and particularly wants to make the human race one family.”

So, you may ask, what is the point of writing about the attitude of Jesus, the Church and recent popes with regard to war, when it is so obviously pacifist and admitting of military self-defense only under almost theoretical, extreme conditions and applying to specific parts of an armed conflict? Sadly there are other, vocal proponents of a very different take on this topic, who – to my mind unbelievably – present their positions as Catholic and who tend to trace them to statements like the following one by George Weigel, who feels supported by Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas:

“Thus those scholars, activists, and religious leaders who claim that the just war tradition “begins” with a “presumption against war” or a “presumption against violence” are quite simply mistaken. It does not begin there, and it never did begin there. To suggest otherwise is not merely a matter of misreading intellectual history (although it is surely that). To suggest that the just war tradition begins with a “presumption against violence” inverts the structure of moral analysis in ways that inevitably lead to dubious moral judgments and distorted perceptions of political reality.”

With Jesus and the Church’s position having been stated with such force and clarity over the last decades, I won’t even go to the trouble of addressing positions like Weigel’s point-by-point and would just like to note that they are akin to reading St. Paul and arguing in favor of slavery today. Positions that may be textually consistent with the source they claim justifies them, but that both miss the original author’s intentions (just think about what slavery would be like if “master” and “slave” followed St. Paul’s advice¹) and the fact that the Church is the living Mystical Body of Jesus that has considerably matured over the last 2000 years.

¹ “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ, not only when being watched, as currying favor, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, willingly serving the Lord and not human beings, knowing that each will be requited from the Lord for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. Masters, act in the same way toward them, and stop bullying, knowing that both they and you have a Master in heaven and that with him there is no partiality.” (Ephesians 6:5-9) A classic “infiltrate and destroy from within” tactic if ever I saw one.