There are, as we know, seven principle virtues—four cardinal virtues and three theological ones—I a daresay that abortion manages to violate all seven of them. Few sins, I think, can claim such thoroughness in being so opposed to virtue.

Abortion and Prudence

Would a practicing homosexual be welcomed into the Church? Would a practicing thief be welcomed into the Church? Would a practicing idolator be welcomed into the Church?

I'd first like to re-phrase the question to get to the gist of it, then return to these three specifics. "Would a practicing and unrepentant sinner be welcomed into the Church?"

There are several ways in which we can welcome a person. We can, for example, invite him to come attend Mass with us or invite him to an outing (say, a Church picnic). One need not be a Catholic to do either of these things, nor really to recognize them as forms of being made welcome.

There is another form of welcome, which is "would this person who is unrepentant of his grave sins be welcome to receive the sacraments?" The answer to this questions is "no, he would not." As pertaining to the sacraments in general, this is because the Church tries to respect where a person is on his faith journey, whether he himself does or not.

"For surely anyone's love will grow feebler and cooler towards one whom, as he supposes, he will have to leave, whose truth and wisdom he will have to reject, and that after he has come to the full knowledge of them, according to his capacity, in the perfection of felicity. No one can love a human friend with loyalty if he knows that in the future he will be his enemy" (City of God, Book XII, Chapter 21).

Last week, I discussed this passage from Saint Augustine's City of God in the context of happiness and God as the total, supreme, and perfect good--the Ultimate Good. Today I want to explore a little more about what this means with regard to love.

What does it mean to love? This needs to be answered before much else can be discussed. There are a great many opinions about what it means to love, and most of them are wrong. This should not be surprising, since these mistaken opinions are I believe related to the various mistaken opinions about what constitutes happiness and what constitutes good. The three things--the good, happiness, and love--are, after all, related to each other.

Note: This post is meant as a sort of "bridge" piece which ties together a few loose ends from other previous posts. Thus, it is in part a review of previous posts both here and on my other sites, in preparation for a series of three posts on a related subject.

In his book Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law, Professor J Budziszewski discusses happiness as understood by Aristotle and his disciples, and also by other philosophers. He begins by suggesting a few "wrong" answers, each of which has been held out as "true" happiness by one school of thought or another. Thus, happiness is not pleasure, it is not honor, it is not the acquisition of bodily or material goods (that is, health and wealth), nor is it even excellence of mind, body, or moral character (e.g. Knowledge [1], strength, or virtue). That is not to say that a happy person must eschew all of these things, but only that none of them lead to ultimate happiness. Rather, ultimate happiness is tied to the ultimate Good.

"We have been asking in what the good of the human soul lies; maybe we should make better progress by first asking in what we think the good of anything lies—the good of a racehorse, the good of a knife, the good of an eye or what have you. The good of a racehorse lies in racing, the good of a knife lies in cutting and the good of an eye lies in seeing; that’s easy. But do you see what we’ve done here? In each case we have defined the good of a thing as an activity; not as any old activity but as its proper work or function....the function of a human soul will be whatever a human soul can do that nothing else can do, or at least that nothing else can do as well...Christianity points out that the human soul seems designed for at least two things, not one—at least two activities are unique to it and belong to its proper work. One is to understand, the other is to love; the former employs the reason, the latter employs the will. Both are directed to God and neighbor. To the extent that love and understanding are connected, any defect in one implies a defect in the other, and any defect in the comprehension of one also implies a defect in the comprehension of the other."

Note: This is the third installment on a long-dormant series of posts in which I reflect upon various heresies. Today's subject is cynicism; the modern cynic often tends to combine one or more formal heresies, or more broadly to reject three important ideas: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. I should add as a final note that I am here reflecting upon modern cynics, which are loosely based on the cynics described by Fr George Rutler in his essay for Disorientation: How to Go to College without Losing Your Mind, and not necessarily as the Greek philosophers such as Diogenes and Antisthenes (though these do have some things in common).
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"Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him" (John 18:36-38).

As a general rule, heresy involves taken a single true doctrine or set of true doctrines and either rejecting them or overemphasizing them to the detriment of all other doctrines. Today's heresy, however, is not a heresy in the proper and particular sense, but rather is a type of attitude which lends itself to heresy, and indeed is a more vague kind of heresy. In fact, in a certain sense, it is an attitude adopted along with certain other attitudes or heresies, upon whose shoulders it stands. Cynicism might be described as the combinations of modernity (and post-modernity), moral relativism, and iconoclasm with a decided--indeed even and intentional--lack of charity.

[In part I of this series, we searched for a dominant metaphor by which to encapsulate the condition of the man of faith in the modern world. We settled upon one: "The contemporary soul wanders in a perpetual wasteland." We also anticipated that, in exploring this metaphor, we could not take it at mere face value and instead we must find a genuine expression of faith within it. Thus, in looking at the reality of faith, we begin by, today, examining the reality of sin.]

It scarcely bears mention that, from the perspective of faith, it is sin and its effects which provide the formal and efficient causes of the squalid conditions of our world, not just of now but in every other time in human history before us and after us. This is not at all apparent from the perspective of unbelief. Countless material explanations of our present darkness stand in the place of sin: economic (via Marx), historical (via Hegel), psychological (via Freud and psychotherapy), socio-historical (via Comte), biological (via Darwin), to give but a few, as the list is long and divergent. As people of faith, we can accept or reject any number of these material explanations based on the understanding that any material cause or combination of material causes is insufficient to account for the experience of darkness and desolation in our historical and cultural milieu.

I was reading a reflection by Monsignor Charles Pope concerning beliefs, philosophies, and God. He opens by stating that

There is a tendency in the modern age, at least in the Western world, to trivialize the human person. One of the ways we do this is to say, in so many words, that it does not really matter what a person thinks or believes.

This is by no means a new sentiment (in the sense of being unique to today), but rather has permeated the "modern" era. For example, writing about 100 years ago, G.K. Chesterton said that this was often the attitude of the day. He continued by writing that

“It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages….But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period.” (Heretics)

There are a number of challenges facing Catholic schools in the 21st century, some unique and others age-old. One seeming minor challenge which will become a major challenge is brought to light by two cases, one in the Denver Archdiocese and the other in the Boston Archdiocese: both involve the children of same-sex couples. These two cases were handled similarly by the school's administrators (in one case, the children will be allowed to complete this year, but not to enroll next year; in the other, the child is denied enrollment altogether), though differently by the bishops of those two dioceses. His Excellency Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, has stood behind the decision of Sacred Heart of Jesus School, stating (emphases mine) that

The policies of our Catholic school system exist to protect all parties involved, including the children of homosexual couples and the couples themselves. Our schools are meant to be “partners in faith” with parents. If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It also places unfair stress on the children, who find themselves caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church.

The Setting

There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there’s the kind of thing reported by the mainstream media. I am referring here to three cases of sexual abuse, in neither of which is implicated the Holy Father, but both of which are constantly mentioning said Supreme Pontiff. The first is the case of the priest—Fr Peter Hullerman, sometimes referred to as “priest H.”—who sexually abused minors while serving in the Archdiocese of Munich. At the time, the archbishop of that diocese was Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). The second is the so-called Murphy Case, involving s priest in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, involving Fr Lawrence Murphy, who was accused (though never formally convicted) of molesting up to 200 children. The third and final case is a lawsuit one launched in Kentucky which “seeks to have the pope deposed over claims that the Holy See was negligent in failing to report abuse claims.”

It is of the utmost interest that justice be done in regards to all of the child abuse cases. People of good conscience can agree on that point in good faith, and can agree that the people who are directly involved can and should be prosecuted. The scandals themselves are widespread geographically (though everywhere involved only a very small number of the clergy—about 4% in the US by one account, and as small as 0.3% by another), and some occurred as recently as 20 years ago. Because of the sensitive nature of these cases, they ought to be dealt with both fairly and justly, being careful to separate those guilty of abuse from those not guilty, and those who actually harbored these molesters from those members of the hierarchy who were not involved in any cover-ups.

Unfortunately, this is not the approach taken by the mainstream media. These are much more interested in forming a witch-hunt, both against the Church writ large and against the Pope himself. Unfortunately, the negative effects of this media frenzy are already being felt here in the states, as people’s favorability of the Holy Father is dropping. The Holy Father, for his part, is scarcely implicated in these despicable deeds.

It's been up for a while now, but I only recently found the site where the ISI book reviews get published. Here, then, is the link to my review of Professor J Budziszewski's "The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction." The book itself was well-written; Budziszewski is fast becoming one of my favorite writers and speakers, and is also one of the most welcoming professors I've met. Here is an excerpt of the review: