The Custodian of the Natural Law

Pius XII was a good and holy man. He was a heroic defender and protector of Jews during World War II. The evidence for this truth is massive, the testimonies are many, the facts are unchangeable. All efforts to show the opposite have been conclusively refuted. The question is not whether Pope Pius XII acted heroically during World War II and was instrumental in saving hundreds of thousands of Jews from Nazi extermination. The question is not whether libels and slanders against this good and holy man can be refuted. [They certainly can!] The overwhelming question that has to be addressed it this: Why is this good man being defamed? Who are those who devote themselves to besmirching the reputation of Pius XII? What are they really after? What is their fundamental objective?
The Didache taught that there are two paths, one of light, the other of darkness. John Paul II has spoken of a Culture of Death and a Culture of Life. During World War II, Pius XII courageously walked the path of light. He stood up against the Culture of Death and Defended the Culture of Life. The Nazis he condemned are no more. Their totalitarian twin, the Communists, have withered away as the state was supposed to. But the Culture of Death is still among us, stronger than before. Those who opposed Hitler now occupy countries which have espoused under other names his genetic atrocities. The moral relativism and nihilism of the West, which have permitted the Culture of Death to flourish among us, recognizes its main enemy. That enemy is the Catholic Church. For such foes, Pius XII is merely a target of opportunity. Their aim is the natural law which, as Pius emphasized from the beginning of the war, was violated by the Nazi racist policies. The Culture of Death is an equally systematic assault on the natural law of which the Catholic Church is the chief custodian. Hence the libel and defamation of the Church.

-Ralph McInerny, The Defamation of Pius XII (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2001) xi-xii. Emphasis (bold)added.

Dear Friends,
Dr. McInerny speaks truly! We want to look at the big picture. Pope Pius XII has been defamed because--as Supreme Pontiff and Teacher of the one true Church--he defended the natural law, "of which the Catholic Church is the chief custodian". So this is a burning issue that continues even--or rather especially--into our own day, Anno Domini 2010. Just look at what's happening in the "Health Care debate" in the highest levels of government of the United States of America! Some people are working very hard to have abortion funding written into this proposed law of the land. They also are resistant to any efforts to have conscience clauses inserted into the bill, clauses that would protect medical personnel who still have a well-formed conscience, that is, who still want to follow the natural law.
And there has been a continuum of Church defense of the natural law. After Pope Pius XII, Pope Paul VI defended the natural law; indeed, his argument in Humanae Vitae was a strong natural law argument. John Paul II, Paul VI's nearly immediate successor, defended nearly every aspect of the natural law: the family, the right to life, etc. And Benedict XVI continues to defend the natural law.
Empires come and go, but the Catholic Church, the custodian of the natural law, will endure until the end of time, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it! (Mt. 16:18)

That Ubiquitous Law

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I, the Lord your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go. If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would flow like a river, and your vindication like the waves of the sea.

While the ancient Greeks and Romans were using right reason to discover the existence of God and the natural law, the ancient Israelites were learning the natural law through Divine Revelation. Through Moses, God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, which is the natural law expressed explicitly. God is good: He provides for all His children.

P.S. The English word "ubiquitous" comes from the Latin word, "ubique" [oo-bee-kway], which means everywhere. When in the Mass, you hear the Latin phrase, "semper et ubique," it means, "always and everywhere." Then there are the Marines, who have the motto, "Semper fidelis," which means, "always faithful."

G. K. C. on Divine Providence

Dear Blogger,

As promised, here is the quote from Chesterton:

After that, all men knew in their hearts that she [the Roman Republic] had been representative of mankind, even when she was rejected of men. And there fell on her the shadow from a shining and yet invisible light and the burden of things to be. 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, divine things descended at least upon human things and not inhuman. Europe evolved into its own vices with its own impotence, as will be suggested on another page; but the worst into which it evolved was not like what it had escaped. Can any man in his senses compare the great wooden doll, whom the children expected to eat a little bit of the dinner, with the great idol who would have been expected to eat the children? That is the measure of how far the world went astray, compared with how far it might have gone astray.

-Gilbert Keith Chesteron, The Everlasting Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1953) 154.

God bless,


Little Brother

"Only One Is Good"

Dear Little Brother:
Can pagans ever be good? Should we love them too even though they don't acknowledge the one true God or the Church that our Lord founded? -a blogger

Dear Blogger:
God wants us to love everyone--that includes pagans. The meaning of "love" is to desire the salvation of your neighbor and to pray for this intention. Furthermore, there are "good pagans" and "bad pagans"; we need pray for both. Looking at history, we find examples of both: The pagans of the ancient Roman Republic (not to be confused with the Roman Empire) used what wits they had to come to the conclusion that a Supreme Being exists, and that there is a natural law that any human being can discover using his reason, that is, his God-given intellect. This natural law is based on the Eternal Law, which is based on the nature of God himself and how God made the universe to work. If we lived our lives according to the way the God of Love made the universe and according to our nature as human beings, this human nature being part of God's universe--of his Eternal Law or Eternal Plan, then the world would be the way God created it to be. Of course, it will be even better than we can ever imagine, thanks to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, King and Lord of All History.
Now, let's get back to the distinction we were making, and please excuse "the digression." The Roman Republic provides us with an example of "good pagans". Often, they are called, "the noble pagans of antiquity". An example of a bad pagan society would be ancient Carthage. Rome fought against Carthage in the Punic Wars. ("Wars"--plural in number-- because there were three of them and they took place over a long period of time.) The Carthaginians worshipped Moloch, a demonic god who required child sacrifice. So, one religion is as good as another, right? Wrong! This "religion" clearly was not good. As already implied, it was demonic. The Carthaginians were literally throwing babies (most likely their own) into the fires of Moloch. That's how they "fed" him. Interestingly, the Carthaginians were the descendants of Phoenicians who moved to Northern Africa and founded the New City, more commonly know as "Carthage." Guess which famous woman in history was a Phoenician queen. You're right! It's the infamous Jezebel. In an intermarriage that made an alliance between Phoenicia and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Queen Jezebel married King Abab. Jezebel pressured the weak King Ahab into setting up Baals for the Israelites to worship. You know what this meant. The northern kingdom of God's Chosen People were worshipping idols and committing child-sacrifice along with the pagans. How horrible! How utterly unthinkable. Jeremiah was right when he said, "The Temple! The Temple! ..." Dont' think you are doing fine and God is pleased with you and your Temple if you worship false gods and do child sacrifice! Because of that, your glorious Temple doesn't amount to "a hill of beans" to put it in "the vernacular".
Thus, Ahab and Jezebel began the first outright religious persecution of God's Chosen People since they came into existence. These are the same monarchs who were the contemporaries of that great and fiery prophet, Elijah (or Elias). And the great Elijah, fighting for the religious rights of God's people and fighting literally for the dear children, overcame the priests of Baal! God is pro-life! Indeed, when Hiel offered his two sons to the Baals by burying them in the foundations of Jericho, Jeremiah tells us that this is something that God never dreamed of. When a person reads this, with an inner voice of the soul, he can just hear God weeping!
In his classic book, The Everlasting Man, Gilbert Keith Chesterton shows the world the difference between "the noble pagans" and "the bad pagans". (Perhaps we could also call them the pagans of antiquity versus the pagans of iniquity.) Chesterton asks how anyone can possibly compare the little pagan wooden dolls whom the children would invite to eat some of their dinner with the pagan god, Moloch, who would have had the children for dinner; yes, Moloch would have eaten the children! The Romans, with natural reason and natural law, did their level best to be the people they were created to be and achieve their final end, union with God, whether they could say this in so many words or not. The Carthaginians simply didn't develop natural virtue and decided to be bad. Probably, the worship of Moloch was more "convenient" for them.
Blogger, I'm here at the library and don't have my copy of The Everlasting Man right here on my person, so please excuse me. In my next e-letter, I will send you the entire quote of Chesterton on this matter. So for now, as said a noble Roman general returning from the Punic Wars: Carthago delenda est!
-Little Brother

Reason and Revelation

Here is an excellent and easy-to-understand explanation of the natural law by Anne Carroll, author of Christ the King: Lord of History.

… But in philosophy, Rome did mark one important accomplishment: the development of an understanding of the natural law.
The natural law means that there are certain moral principles which men logically determine by studying life, human nature and reality. Some of these principles are the evil of murder, of theft, of perjury. The Hebrews, of course, prohibited these things because of the Ten Commandments, which they had received as a direct revelation from God. But the Roman philosophers reasoned with their minds to many of the same conclusions and then taught these conclusions to the people. They were the first people, therefore, to develop on their own a code of natural law morality. They used this as a basis for their law code, which was one of the fairest and most just systems in the world because it was based on principles believed to be unchanging, rather than on what any individual judge thought about the case. This means that the poor as well as the rich could expect justice under Roman law.

Our God is awesome! He gives each of us an intellect and a heart with which to discover the truth about ourselves (our nature as human beings), the world, and how we should want to live in order to be truly happy. At the same time, he tells us explicitly how to do this as He gives us the Ten Commandments. These Commandments are actually the natural law written on the stone tablets of Moses and which God writes on the heart of each human person. Wow! One would think this more than enough to assure that we “get the message.” However, God’s love is always greater than we could possibly imagine. He goes even further by sending His Love “in the flesh”, the Son of God Incarnate, to redeem us from the Evil One and to show us in person how to live in order to be truly happy—forever!

The Law Written on Your Heart

"This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people." (Jeremiah 31:33) Happy Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus!

The Natural Law is in Our Hearts

Don't give up; good things still happen! God really does "cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly."

"Seventy years ago it was against the law to dispense birth control devices or medicines. Planned Parenthood set up shop in the Chase Clinic here in Waterbury to dispense contraceptives. The Priests of the City of Waterbury had a meeting and drafted a letter to be read at all the Masses in the City the next day. As it happened, the District Attorney for the City of Waterbury attended the 10:00 Mass in Saint Margaret’s Church. The next day he met with his staff and by the end of the week, the Birth Control Clinic in Waterbury and 11 others around the State were closed." -From the Rector's column of the bulletin of The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday, June 7, A.D. 2009

It was only seventy years ago and society was still morally good enough -- at least in one part of the world -- to follow Jesus, and the civil laws were still based on the natural law. Caesar and the Pope working together; miracles can happen!

Father Thomas Euteneuer will be present at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Waterbury during the weekend of June 19-21, to help commemorate this event. Furthermore, June 19 is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and June 20 the Solemnity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!