The Free Peoples of Africa

As has already been reported in the news, the West (that is, the current Administration of the U.S. and the U.N.) is trying to foist contraception upon developing nations, using various euphemisms as a selling point. Well, the Catholic Bishops of Africa aren't buying. They are standing up for the freedom of the Africans. Yes, I say, "freedom," because true freedom is the ability to do what is right. The Africans are decent people who want to observe the law that is written in their hearts, that is, the natural moral law. This law is written on the heart of every human person. Every human being knows what is right and just, but, says St. Thomas Aquinas, some persons and even whole societies may lose this "knowledge" on account of repeated violations of the moral law. In theological terms, a man's conscience becomes numb. How blessed are the Africans and their bishops because their consciences are pure! "Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord and enter His holy place? [It is] the man with clean hands and pure heart." -from the Psalms

The Pope of Moral Theology

What’s so great about Pope Saint John Paul II? Beside the fact that he is extremely consistent with the teachings of the Popes who came before him—which truly ought to be the modus operandi of every Pope—and beside many other pertinent facts of his papacy, there is the fact that he has almost single-handedly renewed the face of moral theology. Somehow, moral theology—it seems—had become an adjunct, an accessory, merely one of those “required courses” at Catholic colleges and seminaries. But now, every Catholic student and seminarian who knows the mind and heart and legacy of Pope John Paul II will want to study and implement moral theology, that is, the moral teaching of Christ and the Catholic Church, into his life and the life of each one whom he serves by offering the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. He will not need a requirement to motivate him in the matter. He will be like St Paul, who is morally compelled to preach the Holy Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The point of the Holy Father’s renewal of moral theology is well-made by Monsignor William B. Smith:

Conventional Catholic moral teaching was for some time seen as almost indistinguishable from canonical discipline. In many seminaries, both subjects were taught by the same teacher. During his pontificate, John Paul has overseen the promulgation of a new Code of Canon Law for the Western Church—Codex Iuris Canonici (1983). … It is thus all the more remarkable that amid the canonical achievement, John Paul II did not leave moral theology as an adjunct of canon law but renewed it by returning to the “sacred sources” of sacred theology, especially Sacred Scripture. [William B. Smith, "John Paul II's Seminal Contributions to Moral Theology" in Geoffrey Gneuhs, editor, The Legacy of Pope John Paul II: His Contribution to Catholic Thought(New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2000) 40-41]

Pope John Paul II says so himself in Veritatis Splendor, his “moral masterpiece on fundamental moral theology”(Ibid., 40). The saintly Pope writes:

The specific purpose of the present encyclical is this: to set forth, with regard to the problems being discussed, the principles of a moral teaching based on Sacred Scripture and the living Apostolic Tradition, and at the same time to shed light on the presuppositions and consequences of the dissent which that teaching has met (Veritatis Splendor, no. 5).

Indeed, the Holy Spirit is renewing the face of the earth.

The Ineffable Mercy of God

Western Civilization is toppling because she has abandoned her roots: “public and private moral virtue and respect for the natural [moral] law” and a belief—at time implicit and at other times explicit—in the one and only God. Governments would do well to look to ancient Rome for guidance:

Meanwhile Rome had developed a remarkably well constructed system of checks and balances to prevent the domination of their government either by the patrician class … or by the kind of popular assembly whose inconstancy had doomed Athens. As we shall have more than ample opportunity to see in the course of this history, even the best political structure is of very little value without public and private moral virtue and respect for the natural law; but all this the people of the Roman republic had, in an impressively high degree (Warren H. Carroll, The Founding of Christendom, 216, Emphasis mine.).

God watches over his worldwide family and allowed the Romans a chance to develop their potential and set the stage as it were for the Incarnation of the Son of God in the fullness of time.

These early Roman moral qualities and the system of government of the early Roman republic, complementing each other, laid the foundation for their eventual dominion over the Western civilized world, though not until Rome had been tested and annealed in the crucible of the Punic Wars with sinister Carthage could this potential be realized (Ibid.216).

In his monumental work, The Everlasting Man, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, points to the magnificence of Divine Providence in the struggle that left its mark on the rest of history:

It is not for us to guess in what manner or moment the mercy of God might in any case have rescued the world; but it is certain that the struggle which established Christendom would have been very different if there had been an empire of Carthage instead of an empire of Rome. We have to thank the patience of the Punic wars if, in after ages, things divine descended at least upon human things and not inhuman. … -- G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, 154-155, Emphasis mine.

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