The Natural Law: Always and Everywhere

Viva Christo Rey!

Have you ever noticed how every town in the world has a main street which is called just that: “Main Street”? This seems to be an unwritten law in every community.

Brothers and sisters, there is a law not written on paper but written in the heart of each and every human person. This law we call “the natural moral law” or simply “the natural law.”

Now, because a person is human, he just knows that certain things are right and just:
• worshipping God
• honoring your parents
• helping your brothers and sisters
• helping your neighbor who is in need
• telling the truth
• respecting the property of other people
• being happy with the good things that God has given you and not wanting somebody else’s things

Do you notice how these commands that I have just named are very similar to the Ten Commandments?
• I am the Lord, your God, you shall not have strange gods before Me.
• Keep holy the Lord’s Day.
• Honor your father and your mother
• You shall not kill.
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
• You shall not steal.
• You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

This is because the Ten Commandments are a direct way of saying the natural law, which God has put into your heart and into the heart of every human person.

Finally, no one on earth—not even the government—has authority to make anyone act against the Ten Commandments. No one has any right to make a person act against the natural law. Furthermore, the Ten Commandments have been revealed to everybody and are valid in every place and for all time. Everyone has to obey them. Everybody should want to obey them. They come straight from the Heart of God, a Heart so lovingly solicitous for the true well-being, the salvation, of each one of us!

Socialism is incompatible with Church teaching and virtuous living

It is not the role of the Federal government to provide for—name it. It is the role of the Federal government to create an atmosphere where people can do what we are called to do as individuals (not collectively as a government), which is to be our brother’s keeper, which is in fact to provide for those who are needy in our society. That’s the bottom line. What we’ve seen in our society is this collectivist idea that we need to just go out and collect taxes from everybody, and by paying your tribute to Washington, you’ve now done your duty to provide for your fellow man as you are required to under biblical teaching, under Church teaching; that’s just simply false. And we need to get back—and I say this as part of our organization called patriot voices, and I say this to conservatives—if you want government smaller, people have to get bigger. And that’s the message. They want government bigger; people will get smaller. That’s not the Catholic vision; that’s not the biblical vision of Jesus Christ.

-Rick Santorum, The World Over, August 16, 2012

Truth Leads to Freedom

If you want real freedom, then accept the Truth.

Pope Benedict XVI, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, has said much about the importance of understanding the relationship between faith and reason. Benedict’s understanding and teaching on this relationship is evident in the address he gave to the U.S. bishops during the recent [March 2012] Ad Limina visit.

With her long tradition of respect for the right relationship between faith and reason, the Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of an extreme individualism, seek to promote notions of freedom detached from moral truth. Our tradition does not speak from blind faith, but from a rational perspective which links our commitment to building an authentically just, humane and prosperous society to our ultimate assurance that the cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning.

Here it seems that His Holiness is presenting morality not from a top-down model, which could require “blind faith”, but rather from a within model: the makings of right living are within us and within the universe, like a language of righteous living imprinted on our very being, and we can use our ratio (rational powers) to decode this language. This language is accessible to us, because it is part of our makeup. Furthermore, it is accessible to all people of good will, not only to “religious” people or only to Catholics; although the Church has an indispensible role in teaching some of the more complicated matters in moral theology and ethics. Yet the basics are available to all. Unless one has killed his conscience by repeated and vicious sins, he knows in his heart that murder, stealing, lying, and cheating are morally wrong.

Wisdom to the Simple

Every man can be wise. You don't need a college degree to be wise; some farmers are actually wiser than some professors. God gave us the natural law, which we can know because we are creatures with ratio or reason. The natural law is nonetheless revealed to us by God in the Ten Commandments. The natural law, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is "nothing more than the rational creature's participation in the Eternal Law." Follow this law, which God has given to man, and you will be wise.

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple. -Psalm 19