Query: A Catholic's Voting Obligation in Light of New CCC Changes?

On this blog's Facebook page, I recently linked to an article on The Josias by Dr. John Joy, STD, addressing the magisterial weight of Pope Francis' amendment to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty. It is an excellent piece you should all read.

As a follow up question to Dr. Joy's article, someone on Facebook posed this question:

"Does it follow [from Dr. Joy's conclusion] that Catholic politicians and voters are morally obligated to support efforts to abolish the death penalty in developed nations? I primarily have the United States in mind. If a voter fails to support efforts to suppress the death penalty would that be a grave sin? If a Catholic fails to believe that using the death penalty is sinful in the modern context would that be a grave sin? I am trying to understand how strong is the obligation to give religious submission of will to the Holy Father's teaching."

I reached out to Dr. Joy with the question and got the following response:

"It's not clear to me at this point how this text [of the Catechism] should be understood, so it is hard to know exactly how Catholics should respond. But here are the three most likely possibilities as far as I can see: 

(1) If the text is meant to be understood as a doctrinal assertion of the intrinsic immorality of the death penalty, then it must be rejected as formally heretical. 

(2) If it is meant to be understood as a doctrinal assertion of the intrinsic immorality of the death penalty when not absolutely necessary for public safety, then it must be rejected as erroneous and at least proximate to heresy if not formally heretical. 

(3) If it is meant to be understood as a prudential judgment about the applicability of the death penalty in the present circumstances, then I would assume that the words of Cardinal Ratzinger would still apply:

"If a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion [i.e. it would not be a grave sin]. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia" ("Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles", July, 2004).

So as far as I can see, regardless of how the text of the Catechism is interpreted, Catholics are not morally obliged to work for the legal abolition of the death penalty, nor are they morally obliged to think that the use of the death penalty in the present circumstances is necessarily sinful. 

Therefore, it is doubtful at best whether this new text imposes any obligations on the faithful, and a doubtful obligation is no obligation at all. If there is an obligation imposed by this text, I think it is probably this: that Catholics ought "to encourage the creation of conditions that allow for the elimination of the death penalty" (CDF, Letter to the Bishops, August 2, 2018); understood in this sense, that we ought to do what we can to create a society where the death penalty does not need to be used in practice because capital crimes are not committed. That's a goal that any Catholic should be able to get on board with."

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Dr. John Joy is the Co-Founder and President of the St. Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies. He earned his master's and licentiate in sacred theology at the International Theological Institute in Austria and recently defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His primary academic interests are in the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, dogmatic theology, and especially questions of infallibility and the magisterium of the Church. He is the author of On the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium from Joseph Kleutgen to the Second Vatican Council, as well as earlier works Poena Satisfactoria and Cathedra Veritatis: On the Extension of Papal Infallibility. He writes for various online Catholic publications, including One Peter Five and The Josias.

Identity-Based Outreach Ministries Blur the Lines Between Overcoming Sin and Celebrating It

I want you to take a good, hard look at this advertisement for a Jesuit-sponsored retreat in - where else - California:

I have not wasted my time on this, but if I were to contact the organizers and object to this event, I am fairly certain they would respond very charitably with some line about reaching out to the margins, "the Church is a field hospital", Jesus ate with sinners, I have not come to call the just, go to the peripheries, reach out to the lost, and so on and so on and so on.

And this response would be very frustrating because, all those things are true - I would not be able to object to any of those statements individually. But I would still know that this event is very, very wrong.

Over the years I have gone round and round with people who argue in favor of a kind of "identity-based outreach ministries" for persons with same sex attraction. I have consistently argued that this is a bad idea, because it inevitably leads to a situation where a group of people are categorized according to their sins and disorders. And there is a fine line between going out to sinners and affirming sinners. There ought not to be a fine line; it is actually a very easy distinction to make - but our stupid generation makes it a fine line. 

I vehemently disagree with identifying groups of people by their sins - and this is not just true for sexual sins. I have multiple people in my family who have struggled with alcoholism, but I do not think of them as the alcoholic members I my family; they are regular, fallen humans struggling with a particular vice. I think of them as just...my family, my family where everyone has their own problems, just like any other humans.

I've known people who do drugs; I don't define them as "the drug addicts" - they are sons and daughters of Adam whom my Lord died for, who are fighting - sometimes winning, sometimes losing - a war against a painful addiction. But these addictions, vices, and sins do not define who they are. Part of me feels like it would be an insult to the grace of God to allow them to be defined by their failures.

There is always a danger in making more of these sins than what they are, or turning people into little "communities" where one is identified and understood in terms of their vices. That's certainly not to say there is no place in the Church for ministries geared towards people with particular challenges - support groups for divorced, for substance abuse - I know of one young men's group that is organized to provide mutual support for its members to stop masturbation. This is all fine and well. But nobody speaks of the "Divorced community" or the "Masturbators Community", nor would we think of our friends by those identifiers. "Hey, it's Cheryl my divorced friend", or "Look, there's Joe the Masturbator!"

LGBT persons will respond, "Exactly. And I do not want to be identified as Michael the Homosexual or Julie the Lesbian." I agree 100%. But if that is the case, let's stop with this "LGBT community" nonsense. There is no LGBT community just like there is no masturbators community. There are just people struggling with various problems. If LGBT people do not want to be identified by their sexual activities, then stop perpetuating that identity by insisting on the "LGBT community."

I think when the Church starts adopting the identity based assumptions of the secular world, we risk shifting from the traditional Christian view of helping sinners overcome their sins to a more modern sociological view of "celebrating" the "gifts" that each distinct "community" brings. This is very dangerous - not because, say LGBT people don't have gifts, but none of the gifts they have are because they are LGBT. An LGBT person might be intelligent, have a great singing voice, be good with accounting, or whatever, but none of those gifts are grounded in their sexual disorders. 

One might object that a sinner can bring a particular insight as a result of struggling with their sin. Perhaps. But if I am a recovering alcoholic, I certainly may be able to speak more eloquently to the struggles of other alcoholics, but this gift of insight comes not from my alcoholism, but from my victory over it. It comes from the virtue developed in successfully overcoming a vice.

On the other hand, if I am not a recovering alcoholic - that is, if I am still down and out and drunk continually - then I have no business being in any ministry at all till I get my life together. Ergo, either one has a gift to share by virtue of overcoming their vice, or if they have not overcome it, they shouldn't be in any "ministry" - but in no case does a "gift" arise from possessing the vice itself.

No authentic "gift" to the Church can come directly from a person's sin or disorder. But if we insist on speaking of how these disorders can "enrich" the Church's experience, we end up with a kind of "affirmative action" approach to things. For example, what qualities do we look for in a lector? Well, he must be articulate, have a pleasant voice, be able to speak loudly and clearly, and read with the proper intonation and stress. If those qualities happen to be possessed by a man who incidentally is a struggling (chastely) with same sex attraction, then of course there is no problem with him serving as a lector. In this case, we want certain gifts and talents suitable to the office and the person who fills them happens to be struggling with homosexual attraction. His struggle is incidental; everyone struggles.

But suppose we took the approach that there was this LGBT "community" that we needed to reach out to in order to be more "inclusive." Now suppose we need a lector. Instead of looking for the right qualities suitable to the office (voice, projection, etc), we begin with the affirmative action mentality of "This is a great opportunity to showcase how inclusive we are. Let's recruit a gay man to fill this office", and all of the sudden his homosexual tendencies become not incidental, but essential to why he is chosen - because the parish wants to showcase its token homosexual to prove how inclusive they are. In such a case, how can anyone escape the conclusion that the man's same sex attraction is being celebrated, since this is the reason he was invited to lector?

Looking again at the retreat advertised above, do we get the impression that the LGBT persons will be helped to overcome their vices and live chastely? Or do we get the impression that the LGBT identity is being celebrated and mainstreamed?

In my opinion, identity-based ministries that create "communities" centered on a particular sin are counter-productive to helping people overcome that sin because they end up creating "communities" out of these persons where their "gifts" are celebrated, rather than their souls cleansed.

Guest Post: Critiquing the "Non-Negotiable" Distinction

Another U.S. presidential election is upon us. And what a whopper it has become. I have never seen so much nonsense. For me personally, this one is a no-brainer. I'm voting for Trump. And not as a "lesser" evil; I positively like him and have supported him since the primaries. In my opinion he has the best platform of any presidential candidate I've seen in my adult life. I have multiple Trump signs in my yard. So...this one is easy for me.

But it's not as easy for everyone. Many Catholics I know are having sincere scruples about how to vote this time around. Some sincerely believe they cannot cast a vote for Trump in good conscience. I have been party to many discussions - online and in person - where there is a lot of hand-wringing over what to do.

A friend of mine wrote a guest post on the popular approach of evaluating electoral issues in terms of "negotiables" and "non-negotaibles." This approach has been popularized by popular Catholic outlets like Catholic Answers and other conservative bishops, such as Archbishop Chaput.

There are few things so confusing as a situation where someone may come to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. In this guest post, our author says that the division of issues into "negotiables" and "non-negotiables" in fact breaks down and provides little help for a voter to really evaluate the issues. True, a voter may use the negotiable/non-negotiable approach and still end up making a "proper vote", but as a result of faulty reasoning. This article will recap the negotiable/non-negotiable distinction, offer a critique of it, and provide an alternate means of weighing candidate positions.

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Colin Donovan has a column in the most recent edition of the Register that succinctly states an argument I am hearing again and again; namely that there is a distinction between political "negotiables" and "non-negotiables", and that Catholics must vote based on the non-negotiables. In the following essay, I will restate his argument succinctly, critique it, and offer an alternative.

Donovan's Argument

Donovan quotes the famous letter of Joseph Ratzinger which states in a footnote: "When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons." 

Donovan asks the question what those proportionate reasons are, and answers it in reference to the terms "negotiable" and "non-negotiable", which he claims to find in the writings of Benedict XVI. In Donovan's view, the non-negotiable issues are cut and dry issues involving intrinsic evils, whereas those issues that are negotiable "involve multiple moral principles and complex social circumstances" and as such "are not directly comparable" to the non-negotiables.

The proportionate reasons Ratzinger mentioned are - for Donovan - when a candidate is worse in the "non-negotiables" than his opponent.  However, the "negotiables", such as "health care, the economy and foreign policy", since they "can admit of various possible means to achieve the objective policy, and so people of good will can reach differing conclusions" can never be the basis of proportionate reasons to vote for someone. Thus, one must always give primary consideration to the "non-negotiables", vote based on them, and resist the attempt to try to make the negotiables outweigh the non-negotiables by an appeal to proportionality.

Critiquing the "Non-Negotiable" Principle

There are three errors in this line of reasoning that I will bring forward: (I) Connecting proportionality to non-negotiables, (II) Defining non-negotiables as things that admit to reasonable disagreement vis-a-vis the means employed, and (III) Dividing issues into negotionables and non-negotiables.

I. The argument employed in the article - that if something cannot be the subject of reasonable disagreement, it is in a class different from those things that can be the subject of reasonable disagreement - is false. This is because it very often happens that the ends cannot be subject to reasonable disagreement, whereas the means can. For example, in Pope Benedict's address to participants of the Congress promoted by the European People's Party, which Donovan cites as the major source for the distinction between negotiables and non-negotiables, the pope lists as his third non-negotiable "the protection of the rights of parents to educate their children." But it cannot be denied that this protection may take different forms and involve different cultural institutions. Reasonable people may disagree about how this should be done while agreeing that it must be done. It follows, then, that some non-negotiable ends are only reached by negotiable means. 

Furthermore, we might not know what ends a particular candidate wishes, except by examining particular policies that constitute negotiable means. Therefore sometimes an issue that is negotiable can be the basis for proportionality insofar as behind the negotiable means is a non-negotiable principle that is proportionate. Similar things could be said vis-a-vis protecting religious liberty, or even vis-a-vis reducing abortion itself (although in that case it is clear that Catholics must oppose the legalization of abortion regardless of the effectiveness of law to reduce the numbers of abortions). 

Rather than proportionality being based on the non-negotiable character of something, proportionality is based on the proportional importance of the good at which something aims - and negotiable means can aim at even the highest goods. Here I would like to mention that Pope Benedict himself never connects proportionality to the non-negotiable status of something. That is a connection of two different texts which it is not obvious are meant to be connected.

II. It follows that the distinction Donovan employs between non-negotiables as things that do not admit to reasonable disagreement and negotiables as things that do is insufficient, because the means to accomplish non-negotiable ends often, or even usually, admit to reasonable disagreement. When we acknowledge that non-negotiable ends might not have a clear and decisive path to be reached, we can begin to see that there are many more "non-negotiables" than there seems to be at first blush. Ratzinger's 2002 document, approved by John Paul II, "On Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life", appears to list a few surprising non-negotiables. After the common list of protection of human life and of marriage, it lists the right of parents to educate their children, the protection of minors, freedom from modern day slavery (such as prostitution), religious freedom, and, most surprisingly, "the development of an economy that is at the service of the human person and of the common good, with respect for social justice, the principles of human solidarity and subsidiarity, according to which "the rights of all individuals, families, and organizations and their practical implementation must be acknowledged". Who could fail to recognize that in counting the development of an economy in service to the human person as a "non-negotiable", John Paul II has established as a principle and an end something that is often the subject of bitter disagreement?

III. At this point, it should be obvious that the entire distinction between "negotiable" and "non-negotiable" is breaking down. This break down becomes even more apparent when it is recognized that neither Ratzinger, neither as Cardinal nor Pope, appears to have ever talked about "negotiables". The document Colin Donovan references does not talk speak of it, nor does the 2002 document, nor does Benedict XVI mention it in several other writings where be talks about "non-negotiables". While it may be a fair point to assume that if there are "non-negotiables" there are also "negotiables", Donovan puts words in the pope's mouth when he defines them in terms of the ability of people of good will to disagree. In fact, since the pope does not speak of "negotiables", it goes without saying he doesn't define what they are. But he does define what "non-negotiables" are, saying that these are matters of natural law where the dignity of the human person is at stake. Ironically, the Catechism (CCC 2288) lays out a natural law argument that health care is a right and societies have a duty to ensure its availability. This would elevate health care, too, to the level of non-negotiables, for while we can disagree about how best to provide it, we cannot disagree about its necessity or intrinsic value. 

It is evident from all of this that proportionality cannot be defined in terms of "negotiable" and "non-negotiable", and that the Magisterium has never proposed that framework. Not all non-negotiables are necessarily proportionate to each other, and very many things that appear to be negotiable actually aim at something non-negotiable, and proportionality can be established in these things as well.

An Alternative Criterion

If we are not to determine proportionality in terms of negotiables and non-negotiables, then how are we to determine it? 

I propose that we should determine it in terms of what is most closely connected to or affects the common good. There are goods that belongs more closely to the common good, and goods that are more distantly related to the common good. Among those that belong more closely, first place must be given to the religious freedom of Catholics and the rights of the Church, and after that to the peace and harmony of society, and then to life, to family and marriage, to property and the right to seek happiness, to justice for citizens, (especially the vulnerable and marginalized), to respect for women, for children, for sexuality, and so on and so forth. To use a list from the 2002 document: "the promotion and defense of goods such as public order and peace, freedom and equality, respect for human life and for the environment, justice and solidarity."

In determining proportionality, we must ask the question what parts of the common good does a particular candidate opposes, and how much does it hurt the common good? We must do this not only abstractly, but by attempting in prudence to gauge what the benefits and injuries to the common good will be if a particular candidate is elected. Then we must acknowledge that, while not every evil hurts the common good to the same degree, every evil takes from the common good some incommensurate part of it. Abortion does not hurt the common good is exactly the same way as unjust war, nor as a high percentage of elderly without health care, nor as gender ideology, nor as the loss or impairment of religious liberty, and so on.

Also we have to acknowledge that all these things admit to degrees. Someone may wish to reduce the number of abortions, but their efforts may not be likely to make any impact whatsoever, whereas someone else may wish to increase social acceptance of prostitution and have the means to do so. While abortion is objectively worse than prostitution, the actual circumstances may make prostitution a proportionate issue.

Figuring out the proportionality of these issues is not a scientific process, but an exercise of the virtue of prudence that every Catholic called upon to do. It is not something that can be farmed out to the Bishops or to professional theologians, but it is something that Catholics, listening to pastors and experts, have to reach their own conclusions about, in complete conformity to the teachings of the Catholic Church. This is because - while not all issues are proportionate - there is no such thing as a "super issue" that can bring about a justification for the toleration of every other deviation from the common good. It is not enough to say that X is in favor of legal abortion, and Y is in favor of restricting access to abortion (to one degree or another). Politics is the study of contingent things, and who to vote for requires an evaluation of contingent things, starting from the teaching of the Church. It is possible for multiple people to evaluate contingent affairs differently and even to reach different conclusions about who to vote for.

For instance, if one Catholic thinks the result of a particular policy will be promote a very important part of the common good, whereas someone else things the result will be less clearly good, the first will value highly something the second will not. Because it politics is the art of the contingent, two people engaging in politics with the same goals may, as a matter of fact, reach polar opposite positions and vote accordingly. What is important is that something that is directly harmful to the common not be tolerated by one's vote except in the case where there is a proportionate reason for tolerating it, and this proportionate reason has to be a part of the common good that is in some way as important - and which cannot be realized except by voting for that person.

As a practical example: Person A believes that the environment is being hurt by man-made global warming. He is also Pro-Life. In several elections, he has had to chose between an enemy of one good and an enemy of another. He has had to evaluate which is the greater is evil and whether the good of one is proportionate to the evil of the other. He has had to evaluate this not just abstractly, but in terms of the results he thinks the candidates will have on these goods that he cares about. In the end, he has decided in most elections that abortion is most surely the greater evil, and, while not entirely convinced, he nonetheless makes the prudential decision to vote for climate change skeptics. This man is a good voter. He is not a "single issue" voter, but, rather, he is one who has weighed everything with an educated mind and a carefully formed conscience. The fact that some people disagree with him in one way (that abortion poses less of a threat to the common good) or another (that global warming is a threat to the common good) does not change that he has made a good decision in voting, attempting, to the best of his ability, to not tolerate what he perceives to be evil with his vote except for a proportionately good reason.

Punishment for Abortion

This week, my Facebook feed is on fire with Catholic friends and Pro-Life activists insisting that it has never been a Pro-Life position advocate punishing women who procure abortions. These folks are appalled that anyone would suggest such a thing. It is like, they are utterly disgusted that it could possibly be suggested that women be held legally responsible for the murder of their child.

I for one never gave this much thought until; probably because it seems like such a stretch to imagine a situation where abortion is illegal, let alone argue about who should be punished for it. I think I always assumed that in Christendom there would be some legal penalty for women who procured abortion. After giving this some more thought this week, I have to say I am not totally opposed to the concept of punishing women who have abortions.

It has been a staple of the Pro-Life movement that abortion is murder. If that is the case, then the abortionist is a murderer and the woman who procures and abortion is an accessory to murder. This is rather straight forward. This is the fundamental truth.

However, it seems that another staple of the Pro-Life movement has been to portray the woman as the "victim" in an abortion case: a victim of Pro-Choice propaganda, of Planned Parentood, of unsympathetic relatives who insist on abortion, of the abortionists who downplay the risks and reality of abortion - and, after the abortion has been carried out, a victim of her own guilt.

Anyone who has dealt with women who have had abortions knows that they are under tremendous suffering and often struggling with immense guilt over their deed. In order to help these women heal, the Pro-Life movement has usually chosen a "soft" approach with these women, which necessarily implies helping them get over the guilt of their deed. The "victim" approach makes this easy.

But while the victim approach may be helpful from a psychological point of view with regard to helping the woman heal, there are also legal ramifications. A person has been murdered. The mother who procures the abortion has ordered the murder of a human being. Yes, the abortionist did the killing, but at the mother's behest and with her consent. If abortion truly is murder, then the mother is truly an accessory.

From a legal standpoint, how can that irrelevant? While most Pro-Lifers would advocate strict punishments for abortionists, should the accessory to murder simply go away with no legal ramifications for ordering the death of a human being?

Yes, these women are hurting. Yes, they are probably very troubled. But everybody who murders somebody else is troubled. That is nothing new. And the fact that someone is hurting or confused or guilty or whatever has never been a legal argument that they should not be punished for being an accessory for murder. Yes, the mother is often repentant...but so are many people who kill other people. When has that been justification to omit any legal penalty?

If I hire a hit-man to kill my wife, the hit-man is the murderer and I am an accessory to murder. Both of us will be charged with crimes. Now, if we really believe abortion is actually murder, how can it not be inferred logically that the woman who wills murder, pays for murder, assents to murder, and procures murder is not also legally responsible, at least to some extent?

Will it help women heal from abortion by advocating a legal punishment? I don't know. I don't know if it helps the murderer heal to throw him in prison. I am not addressing a psychological question, but a legal one - is it just that the accessory of murder be punished, at least in some sense?

I am not here advocating any particular punishment. I am merely asking - is advocating some legal ramifications for women who have abortions really that far out there? Should Pro-Lifers who have loudly insisted for 40 years that abortion is murder really be so mortified that someone should suggest that the accessories to murder face some legal penalty for this? It does not seem really that far fetched.

Christ Before Family

The Roman Martyrlogy is always read in anticipation for the next day at Prime in the 1962 divine office. For today there is a section that I think will find enlightening to those who are going to be encountering people who may have apostatized from the faith, or perhaps have deliberately excluded them from their thanksgiving celebrations and wrestle in their minds if they have made the right decision. 

"In Persia, the holy martyr James, styled the Dismembered, a famous martyr. In the time of the Emperor Theodosius the younger, to please King Isdegerd, he denied Christ, wherefore his mother and his wife held aloof from him. Then he bethought himself, and went to the King and confessed Christ, and the King in wrath commanded him to be cut limb from limb, and his head to be cut off. At that time countless other martyrs suffered there also." The Roman Martyrlogy

I have not heard to many orators whether clerical or lay teaching on the importance of that part of the Gospel found in Matthew 18, that after multiple admonishments that we should treat a person as a gentile or a tax collector. That of course does not mean we treat them with cruelty, or that we continue to admonish them (which will only harden their hearts: "Rebuke not a scorner lest he hate thee." Proverbs 9:8), but that they be treated as both someone who is not one of us, as Christ referenced to the gentile, and as someone we keep at distance, as the tax collector. For a more in depth look at this, please look at my brother Bonifaces article on Christian Shunning.

Let us not also forget that to deliberately choose the company of those who scoff at the Catholic religion was viewed as an occasion of sin and an injury to faith.    It certainly can be a test of faith, because we cannot be silent in the name of peace while Our Lord who is everywhere present is cruelly treated at the table we eat at. 

Our Lord warned us that our enemies would be that of our own household (Matthew 10:36), and that we must love Him more to the point of our love for our families appearing to be hatred when compared to the love of Christ (Luke 14:26). Family get togethers should not seek some type of false unity where everyone gets a long.  What of a family where one relative is a satanist, another is living in sin, and another devout, while all started Catholic.  How would it be possible for such a gathering to dwell in peace?

This excerpt from the Martyrlogy shows that holding a person in aloof who has denied the faith can both serve as a means of admonishment, and that it was effective to the point of making a man both returning to the faith and suffering a horrible, but glorious death.  It also shows that when we put Christ first before our family ties, as St. James the dismembered's wife and mother did it is true love and charity, if we truly love others we can do no less. 

Strength and courage my friends, do not hesitate to defend Christ, to be aloof from those who have abandoned the faith, or to exclude scoffers. May thanksgiving to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is to be put first always at all of our tables.  Christ before family, Christ before friends, Christ before country, Christ before everything.  May we never prefer anything to the Love of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Happy Thanksgiving. 

The unhappy man who lay with his mother

Our humble little publishing operation, Cruachan Hill Press, is about to release a new edition of the Life of St. Columba as told by St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona. St. Columba (521-597), also known as Columcille, is one of the great saints of the Irish golden age and is known as the Apostle to the Picts and the Apostle of Scotland. The book will also contain several original essays on Columba and Irish Catholicism, as well as an appendix on the hymns of St. Columba. It should be available in the beginning of December.

In working my way through the Vita of this remarkable saint, I came across a section in which St. Columba encounters a penitent who had committed a particularly heinous sexual sin. The saint's reaction is very interesting, especially in light of our contemporary situation vis-a-vis the divorced and civilly remarried, finding "value" in homosexual relationships, etc. Let us read the section in its entirety, taken from St. Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, Book I, Chapter 1:

Regarding an Unhappy Man Who Lay With His Mother

At another time, the saint called out the brethren at the dead of night, and when they were assembled in the church said to them: "Now let us pray fervently to the Lord, for at this hour a sin unheard of in the world has been committed, for which rigorous vengeance that is justly due is very much to be feared."

The next day he spoke of this sin to a few who were asking him about it. "After a few months," he said, "that unhappy wretch will come here to the Iona with [Brother] Lugaid, who is unaware of the sin." Accordingly after the few months had passed away, the saint one day spoke to Diormit [his attendant], and ordered him, "Rise quickly; lo! Lugaid is coming. Tell him to send off the wretch whom he has with him in the ship to the Isle of Mull, that he may not tread the sod of this island." He went to the sea in obedience to the saint's injunction, and told Lugaid as he was approaching all the words of the saint regarding the unhappy man.

On hearing the directions, that unhappy man vowed that he would never eat food with others until he had seen St. Columba and spoken to him. Diormit therefore returned to the saint, and told him the words of the poor wretch. The saint, on hearing them, went down to the haven, and as [Brother] Baitan was citing the authority of Holy Scriptures, and suggesting that the repentance of the unhappy man should be received, the saint immediately replied to him, "O Baitan! This man has committed fratricide like Cain, and become an adulterer with his mother." 

Then the poor wretch, casting himself upon his knees on the beach, promised that he would comply with all the rules of penance, according to the judgment of the saint. The saint said to him, "If you do penance in tears and lamentations for twelve years among the Britons and never to the day of thy death return to Ireland, perhaps God may pardon thy sin." 

Having said these words, the saint turned to his own friends and said, "This man is a son of perdition, who will not perform the penance he has promised, but will soon return to Ireland, and there in a short time be killed by his enemies." All this happened exactly according to the saint's prophecy; for the wretched man, returning to Hibernia about the same time, fell into the hands of his enemies in the region called Lea (Firli, in Ulster), and was murdered."

The man appears to have killed his brother and committed incest with his own mother. I want to note Columba's reactions as the various aspects of this tale unfold. First, when he hears of this sin, his immediate response is horror at the wickedness that has been done. The sins of fratricide and of laying with one's mother is a sin against nature, "for which rigorous vengeance is justly due and very much to be feared." On account of this, he encourages his brethren to "pray fervently" on account of this monstrous act. Columba's initial response is revulsion at this act against nature - he is not interested in finding anything good in the incest and "walking together" from that point. His primary concern is the justice and vengeance of God.

Second, when he finds out that this "unhappy wretch" is planning on visiting the monastery of Iona, he tells his attendant to "send off the wretch whom he has with him in the ship to the Isle of Mull, that he may not tread the sod of this island." He recognizes Iona as a place consecrated to God and is concerned lest the the presence of an unrepentant sinner guilty of such a grotesque crime should pollute the sanctity of the island. He is not concerned with how the "wretch" will feel upon being sent off. He does not put up banners on his church proclaiming how "affirming" and "inclusive" it is. He does not believe that welcoming this unrepentant sinner into the congregation of Iona will be the first step in a gradual leading of the sinner towards the fullness of faith. No - he is mortified that such a person would want to set foot on his island and orders him to be sent off.

Well, in imitation of the Canaanite woman of the Gospel, the sinner begs to see St. Columba, and St. Columba finally relents. It is interesting that one of the monks, Brother Baitan "citing the authority of the scriptures", suggests that the man is penitent and should be received. Baitan seems prone to quickly and easily reconcile the sinner, perhaps moved by a kind of false mercy that would claim to restore grace without the requisite penance. Columba responds by explaining to Baitan the gravity of the sin - essentially saying that this is no ordinary sin, and that ordinary repentance will not be sufficient to restore this man to grace. Because this man has murdered his brother and lain with his mother, "a sin unheard of in the world", an extraordinary degree of penitence is necessary. Columba rightly states that it must be ascertained whether this man has demonstrated sufficient contrition and the willingness to do the proscribed penance. Thus Columba balances Baitan's swift application of reconciliation with a necessary obligation to justice.

The man seems willing to listen to the saint. He throws himself at Columba's feet and promises to do whatever the saint should tell him. This is a pivotal moment, the moment of grace. How does Columba respond? Is he overly anxious to assure the man that he is forgiven, that he should not be scrupulous about his sins? Does he quickly reconcile the man and tell him to follow his conscience regarding whether or not he should return to communion? Does he give him three Hail Mary's and tell him not to worry about it any more? On the contrary, he tells him, "If you do penance in tears and lamentations for twelve years among the Britons and never to the day of thy death return to Ireland, perhaps God may pardon thy sin."

Of course Columba, being a saint, has the gift of foreknowledge and knows that "this son of perdition" will not complete his penance but will return to Ireland impenitent and be murdered by his enemies.

I will not offer any further comment here except to note the gulf that exists between St. Columba's method of interacting with this sinner and the path favored by the modern apostles of mercy. Was St. Columba being unmerciful? It's hard to say how his foreknowledge changes things; would he have behaved differently if he did not already know this man would die impenitent? Who knows - but the point is that Columba's whole orientation is different than what we see being trotted out these days. The modern apostles of mercy have little concern with the objective state of the sinner's soul, no worry for God's vengeance, only trifling care for His justice, and practically no concept of holiness. They - and those who follow them - have become the "unhappy wretches."

Considering the man had committed murder and incest, Columba's penance was merciful. The point is that mercy does not always look the way the Kasperites think it should.

Mercy, Annulments & Matrimony

Some reflections on the current state of things vis-a-vis matrimony, annulments, and mercy.

1. There has been a lot of talk about making sure the annulment process is merciful and compassionate. When people use this sort of language, they demonstrate that they do not understand what the annulment process is all about. The annulment process is primarily investigative; its purpose is to determine whether or not a putative marriage bond is valid or not. It has to do with research and investigation into the historical facts in a particular case. "Mercy" and "compassion" by their nature have nothing to do with such an investigative process. To say such a process should be "merciful" or "compassionate" is like suggesting an archaeologist needs to be more merciful when he is trying to figure out if there are ancient skeletons buried beneath a parking lot, or that a coroner doing an autopsy needs to incorporate compassion into his findings. If we told the archaeologist or the coroner this, they would rightfully look askance and wonder in what sense mercy was even relevant to their investigation. Investigation is about simply uncovering facts, and just as mercy and compassion are irrelevant to the facts of a scientific investigation, so they are irrelevant to the annulment process.

2. The annulment process is a legal process. Legal procedures can be just or unjust, but they cannot be merciful or unmerciful. It could be argued - because of the above point about the nature of investigative enterprises - that mercy has no place in legal proceedings. Mercy does have some place in legal proceedings when it comes to the prudence of a judge or magistrate in handing down a particular sentence. We may implore a judge to be merciful; there is a saying, to "throw oneself on the mercy of the court." But (and this is an important distinction) one is appealing for mercy regarding a sentence, not a procedural process. It is the sentence which elicits pleas for mercy, not the process of uncovering facts. A judge may be moved to mercy in issuing a sentence, but no judge would take seriously a plea that searching to uncover the facts of a case was unmerciful. So appeals to mercy are directed towards a sentence, not a process.

Furthermore, we appeal to mercy from persons, not procedures. A procedure can be more or less just, granted; but we do not make judgments about whether a system of procedures is merciful. Mercy is a moral act and can only be granted by a person, never a procedure. The talk about our annulment procedures being made more "merciful" is absurd.

3. It could be argued, of course, that an annulment is exactly that - a sentence. After all, the Tribunal issues a sentence at the end of the annulment process, and upon that sentence depends whether or not a previously contracted marriage is declared null. But the sentence is merely a sentence of fact, not a punitive sentence. The sentence is a statement that such-and-such are the facts of the case. One cannot appeal to mercy in such a judgment; it would make as little sense as saying that the judge's finding of fact that John Doe was spotted at the nightclub on the evening of July 25th is unmerciful. Facts are not merciful or unmerciful. They're just facts. And the annulment decree is a sentence of fact finding, not a punitive sentence. A person can argue that a fact is irrelevant, or needs to be understood in context, or that it is being understood errantly, but he cannot argue that a fact is unmerciful.

4. Finally, it is fascinating to me that there seems to be an eclipse of the concept of the sanctity of the marriage bond itself. For example, despite the great moral shift in the West, if you took a survey, most Americans would still say adultery or "cheating" is wrong. However, if you were to reword the survey and say, "Is it acceptable to have extramarital sex if your partner agrees to it?" we would see widespread agreement. If adultery is wrong, how could it be acceptable because a partner agrees to it? In other words, while many in the West still think adultery is wrong, they no longer understand why it is wrong. For most, adultery is wrong because it violates the trust of a spouse. This explains why so many will say it is acceptable in an "open marriage" situation or when the spouse assents to it. It is only wrong when the spouse has not consented. The betrayal of the spouse's trust is the real evil. Thus, the issue becomes whether mutual consent is violated - the Lockean libertarian principle applied to matrimony.

On the contrary, Catholic Tradition has always held that an extramarital affair is always immoral - even if the spouse consents to it - because it is an offense against the marriage bond. Of course violating trust is a bad thing, but it is not the only thing. The Catholic Tradition recognizes the marriage bond as something that exists objectively; it can be violated and sinned against by certain acts, even if both parties consent to them. But our culture no longer has any concept of an objective marriage bond; marriage is nothing other than consent - with consent, anything becomes permissible; without consent - a continuing consent - the marriage ceases to exist. Whereas Tradition sees the marriage bond as arising out of  a one-time act of consent, for the moderns the bond is nothing other than the consent itself. Thus, they do not understand why anything that is consented to can possibly be objectionable.

5. Finally, even if we could disregard all of the above and suggest that "mercy" should be applied in annulment cases, we ought to note that if "mercy" contradicts objective fact - that is, if in the name of mercy a declaration of nullity is issued that is not warranted by the objective facts of a case - well, this is not mercy; it is simply lying, which is an injustice.


We need to recognize as Christians that not only will our teachings be increasingly rejected, but they will not even be understood. When society cannot even understand that an objective marriage bond exists, the difference between a procedure and a sentence, an investigation of fact vs. a judgment, then the time has probably come to return to the deserts and lonely places and beat our breasts in prayer until renewal comes or the comes and smites the earth in flame.

True Tolerance

Tolerance is the chief virtue in the modern hierarchy of values. The enlightened man is the tolerant man; he may certainly have his own convictions, but he understands that others have their convictions, too, and they are as certain of theirs as he is of his. This attitude leads him to hold his convictions in a sort of vague and non-dogmatic manner, for to insist too strongly on any particular point of belief would imply the rejection of non-complementary values, which is the fundamental sin against tolerance. Thus while the tolerant man may not commit certain sins himself, he must not be too strident in condemning sinful activities in others. He may not personally affirm a certain philosophy or political belief, but his tolerance keeps him from arguing too vehemently for his own. It must never seem that there is not room for every man and creed under the big tent of pluralism. Tolerance effectively keeps such a man from taking a stand for anything – except the virtue of tolerance, which must be consistently asserted above all things.

We are all used to this reprehensible modern idea. But, as we have seen in other cases, this modern definition of tolerance is merely a cheap counterfeit for what was once an actual Christian concept. This is nothing new. Christian liberty is replaced by the secular concept of liberty; the Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy of nature is dethroned by a Freudian-biologist assessment of nature; the classical ethos of love is transformed into the debased, passion-driven thing that now passes as love. This bait-and-switch has also happened with the concepts of the State, faith, justice, worship and almost every other aspect of Christian thought. It is no different with tolerance. The purpose of this article, then, is not to be another invective against false tolerance, but an examination of the older, Christian virtue of tolerance that the modern counterfeit has replaced.

Christian tolerance is a related to the cardinal virtue of fortitude. Fortitude is the habit of the soul whereby a person is able to endure difficulties resolutely in pursuit of the good. Tolerance is one aspect of fortitude and related to patience. When we encounter an obstacle or difficulty, patience is the virtue that helps us to maintain our inner tranquility in the midst of the difficulty, thus enabling us to persevere in God’s grace undisturbed. 

This is related to tolerance, but tolerance is a further refinement of patience. There are many kinds of difficulties one can encounter in life – a storm may knock a tree on your fence, a reckless driver may rear end your vehicle, a co-worker may irritate you by grinding their teeth non-stop, or you may come down with a nasty case of gall stones. 

We are called to be patient in every adversity, but tolerance is a special kind of patience that we exercise when the source of our adversity is a moral agent, because the free will of the agent endows the obstacle or adversity with another degree of value – personal culpability. Whereas patience helps us to maintain our tranquility in the face of any obstacle, tolerance helps us persevere in charity when faced with the culpable failings of others; it moderates our responses to such persons and enables us to react with charity and forgiveness instead of harshness. 

Thus, tolerance can only be exercised towards moral agents. I can be patient when the tree falls on my fence, but I do not exercise tolerance towards it. A man can be heroically patient when passing a gall stone, but he is not practicing tolerance. Tolerance is exercised, however, when we continue to be charitable and friendly towards our co-worker despite his annoying personal habits; it is a work of tolerance to smile and continue undisturbed in our tranquility when the clumsy teenage driver rear ends our car. While we are patient in every adversity, tolerance is a special kind of patience that must be exercised when our adversity comes from a culpable moral agent.

Humility is necessary for tolerance; in fact, tolerance is motivated by humility. We are quick to overlook the irritating traits or faults of others because we know that we, too, have such faults. Tolerance grounded in humility stops us from rushing to judgment and losing charity in a particular sort of adversity.

But there is one further distinction to make: Tolerance is exercised in face of difficulties that come from a culpable agent, but which are not in themselves immoral. For example, we can be tolerant of a co-worker’s constant teeth-grinding, a family member’s unpleasant body odor, a friend’s habit of picking his nose, a customer who irritates you with his inane chatter. St. Therese of Lisieux mentions a nun who consistently splashed her unintentionally while doing dishes, and an old nun who had a habit of “sucking her cheek” during Adoration. These sorts of actions are the proper objects of tolerance; it helps us to maintain our charity in the midst of the annoyances and irritations we inevitably encounter when dealing with other human beings. The patient endurance of these foibles of human nature is what Christian tradition has called tolerance.

But notice that none of these things are immoral in themselves; they are morally neutral acts whose unpleasantness comes not from the fact that they are evil but that we personally find them irritating. Morally evil actions are not the proper objects of tolerance; we may be tolerant of a friend who always carries around a disgusting chaw-bottle to spit his tobacco in, but we should never be tolerant of a friend who steals or blasphemes. We may be tolerant of a customer who wastes our time with banal chit-chat, but we should not be tolerant of a customer who offends our ears with sexually explicit jokes and provocative or harassing speech.

The same can be said of formal error or heresy. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was extremely forgiving of the personal faults and irritations of his brothers but was relentless in condemning the heresies of Abelard. The same can be said of many other saints and doctors.

In short, sin or error can never be the proper objects of tolerance. No saint ever spoke of tolerating heresy or exercising tolerance towards the adulteries of the sinner. In such cases, we have an obligation to “preach the truth in season and out” (2 Tim. 4:2) and to “admonish the sinner”. It is not tolerance to refuse to condemn a wicked action or expose the errors of heretical or harmful philosophies. Modern “tolerance” is not tolerance but indecision.

It is not a coincidence that the idea of tolerance has been perverted to mean refusal to take a decisive stand against something; tolerance was originally about us. It was originally about my reactions to something, maintaining my tranquility and my charity. Its purpose was to help maintain is in a specific, objective state of grace in the face of daily annoyances. It used to be known as Christian forbearance, as St. Paul says "forbearing one another" (Col. 3:13, Eph. 4:2). But modern tolerance is about the other; it is about not offending someone else, not disturbing them. And this shift to the other is a shift to the subjective, both because it is no longer focused on maintaining ourselves in an objective state of grace, but also because it is irrelevant whether the other’s perceived offense may be rightly or wrongly incurred. The mere fact of their possible offense is to be avoided at all costs; it is of no consequence why they are offended or whether they are right to be so. So we see in the modern corruption of tolerance of profound shift towards the subject that has robbed the concept of all its objective value.

And that is a profoundly harmful shift that we should have no desire to tolerate.

The Vice of Effeminacy

The Church teaches that persons afflicted with homosexual tendencies who wish to live in accordance with God's will are called to observe chastity. Hence the talk about "chaste homosexuals." 

All Christians are called to chastity, whatever their state in life. But this stress on the chastity required of homosexual Catholics sometimes tends to orient our focus too much on sexual activity alone. For example, take the case of a homosexual Catholic who is chaste but effeminate in his manner. As long as that person is chaste, there is a tendency to shrug off the question of effeminacy. An effeminate man is laughed off as "just being eccentric." Some people seem to find effeminate men endearing; "My, how friendly he is!" others will say.

The implication in this sort of laissez-faire attitude towards effeminacy is that it is completely acceptable so long as it is not accompanied by homosexual actions - that the chaste homosexual can be as effeminate and flaming as can be but is praiseworthy so long as he is not engaging in sodomy.

Such a view is very reductive and fails to comprehend the entirety of the problem posed by homosexuality. Homosexual acts are certainly immoral, but so is the homosexual tendency and all its manifestations, including effeminacy.

Is effeminacy actually a sin? St. Thomas Aquinas takes it further and says effeminacy is a vice - that is, a habitually sinful disposition.

Effeminacy in the classical tradition is seen as a kind of "softeness." The Latin, mollities, means literally "softness", but in various contexts can also mean irresolution, tenderness, wantonness, voluptuousness, weakness, or pliability. It essentially occurs when the traits traditionally associated with the feminine are found in the man.

The sum of these traits in a man constitute the vice of effeminacy, which St. Thomas, following Aristotle, says is a opposed to the virtue of fortitude. The effeminate man is he who is incapable of "manning up" and enduring the challenges of life. St. Thomas notes how this is opposed to fortitude or perseverance:

"Perseverance is deserving of praise because thereby a man does not forsake a good on account of long endurance of difficulties and toils: and it is directly opposed to this, seemingly, for a man to be ready to forsake a good on account of difficulties which he cannot endure. This is what we understand by effeminacy, because a thing is said to be "soft" if it readily yields to the touch" (STh, II-II, Q. 138, Art. 1).

But it is not merely yielding to difficulties that make a man effeminate or soft; a soldier may be tortured for information and eventually yield, but that does not make him effeminate. Another thing is necessary. St. Thomas explains:

"Now a thing is not declared to be soft through yielding to a heavy blow, for walls yield to the battering-ram. Wherefore a man is not said to be effeminate if he yields to heavy blows. Hence the Philosopher says that "it is no wonder, if a person is overcome by strong and overwhelming pleasures or sorrows; but he is to be pardoned if he struggles against them." 

Now it is evident that fear of danger is more impelling than the desire of pleasure: wherefore Tully says under the heading "True magnanimity consists of two things: It is inconsistent for one who is not cast down by fear, to be defeated by lust, or who has proved himself unbeaten by toil, to yield to pleasure." Moreover, pleasure itself is a stronger motive of attraction than sorrow, for the lack of pleasure is a motive of withdrawal, since lack of pleasure is a pure privation. Wherefore, according to the Philosopher, properly speaking an effeminate man is one who withdraws from good on account of sorrow caused by lack of pleasure, yielding as it were to a weak motion" (ibid).

So it is not merely yielding to challenge, but more specifically, refusing the challenge of pursuing the good because one is attracted to pleasure. He is fundamentally a weakling, one who sees the face of virtue and shrinks back from the effort. St. Thomas and the classical tradition associate this with "womanliness." For example:

"Now the delicate are those who cannot endure toils, nor anything that diminishes pleasure. Hence it is written (Deuteronomy 28:56): "The tender and delicate woman, that could not go upon the ground, nor set down her foot for softness"...Thus delicacy is a kind of effeminacy" (ibid).

St. Thomas cites the biblical passage from Deuteronomy on the delicate and tender woman as an example of the behavior he is talking about. Thus the effeminate man is the delicate man, the womanly man. And this sort of behavior, insofar as it is voluntary, constitutes a vice. The effeminate man is the man who does not have a strong and deep sense of his masculinity; rather than man-up and accept the challenge of understanding and growing in his identity has a man, he prefers to shrink back and adopt the attitudes and mannerisms of "the tender and delicate woman." And this disposition is a vice.

Effeminacy is a vice contrary to the virtue of fortitude. Which leaves one question - in what sense can an effeminate but chaste homosexual be said to lacking in fortitude when he exercises enough fortitude to remain chaste? If he has the self-control to keep his disordered passions in check, how can he simultaneously lack self-control and fortitude through the vice of effeminacy? How can he simultaneously have fortitude while lacking it?

Virtue is a habit, a stable disposition from which one generally performs good acts. Good acts that are done by the virtuous man are called virtuous in a participated sense, not in the particular of each act. If a man lacks fortitude in many areas of his life, his exercise of fortitude in a particular act may not constitute the presence of the virtue of fortitude; a man who rises to the challenge of performing a difficult act when called upon but does not have a habit of doing so is not virtuous; he has merely performed a good deed. Similarly, a man who may have disciplined himself with regards to sexual activity but has effeminate habits in every other aspect of his life may not really have the virtue of fortitude.

It could also be argued that we are talking about different virtues. His sexual abstinence could entail the presence of the virtue of temperance, while his effeminacy reveals a lack of fortitude. Thus he may be truly virtuous in some respects but lack virtue in others. This is where a very clear understanding of the relationship of virtues to each other, and how particular types of activities align with particular virtues is important.

Back to the chaste homosexual. Not all chaste homosexuals are effeminate. And not all effeminate men are homosexual. But effeminacy and homosexuality are connected, and we need to recognize that even if there is no homosexual activity taking place, effeminacy itself is a vice that should not be encouraged, coddled, laughed off, or ignored. Homosexuals are called to chastity, and the effeminate are called to overcome their effeminacy and grow into their manhood - this may be a great challenge and require deliberate effort on the part of the man sincerely struggling with effeminacy. But that's what fortitude is - manning up and overcoming the challenges we encounter in this vale of tears.

There is one more question that must be addressed: Since what is proper to females and males can fluctuate in different cultures and times, how can effeminacy exist as an objective vice? For example, to wear powdered wigs and lace was manly in 1750. For a man to do so now would be bizarre. Since what sort of fashions are proper to men and women change over time, is it not futile to try to nail down what sort of behaviors constitute effeminacy?

Remember, a virtue (or a vice) is a fundamental interior disposition. We are not talking about clothing fashions or hair styles; we are talking about a person's character. Fashions change, and in general, a man has an obligation not to take up fashions and dress popularly identified as womanly in his particular culture so as not to scandalize others.

But effeminacy is something deeper than fashion; it is the deep-seated, habitual disposition towards delicacy and withdrawal of effort for fear of lack of pleasure. The mere fact that we cannot come up with a systematic list of what behaviors constitute effeminacy or deduce exactly when one has become effeminate does not mean the vice does not exist. This is the same with any vice: for example, when does a person become cowardly? When he has run away from something once? Twice? How often and in what situations does he have to shirk before he can be categorized as a coward? Furthermore, what is considered cowardly varies from culture to culture. In some cultures it is considered brave to strike an enemy suddenly and then run away; in others it would be considered cowardly to strike someone and then flee. It is very difficult to pin down, but everybody agrees that cowardice exists.

Similarly, everybody acknowledges that effeminacy exists. Aristotle wrote about it in the Greek world. Cicero, centuries later and in a different cultural milieu, also condemned it. It was preached against and condemned by medieval moralists. Aquinas understands it and considers it a vice. It would be absurd to suggest that moral authors from Aristotle to Aquinas and beyond were only writing about a subjective, relative concept when they condemned effeminacy. Just like we all have a general consensus of what cowardice is, the Catholic tradition has a consistent picture of effeminacy. Aristotle, Aquinas and the rest had a clear idea of what they were writing about, just like most people today have a clear idea of what is meant by an "effeminate man" or a "girly man." You know it when you see it, even if it is difficult to systematically define.

Finally, it is important to note that one is never going to be perfectly actualizing fortitude, even though he has a stable disposition and could be called virtuous in that respect, until he reaches beatitude and has perfection of all virtues. Since we are judging particulars it is hard to treat of it scientifically, as if we were dealing with only principles. The point is not to dwell obsessively on whether a particular person has fortitude or not; God knows that. The point is to understand why this trait is considered vicious and how it relates to the other virtue which is its contrary.

Most of you are probably aware of this already, but Fr. James Mason wrote an excellent article on this vice for Homiletic and Pastoral Review, discussing how effeminacy ruins seminary candidates; I highly recommend his article ("Forgotten Vice in Seminary Formation"). I highly recommend it.

Christian Marriage Video Project

Unam Sanctam Catholicam is proud to present an original series of videos on issues relating to homosexual so-called "marriage" and Catholicism. Unfortunately, many Christians, even those who support traditional marriage, have never been educated to explain the Christian opposition to homosexual acts beyond a vague conception that it is "wrong", "sinful", "against nature", or whatever.

These are all certainly true, but how many Christians can actually explain why it is against nature? Why is homosexual "marriage" not a civil right? How are laws seeking to ban same-sex marriage different from the old laws banning interracial marriage? If homosexual sex (as well as contraceptive sex) is wrong because it is closed to life, why is it not wrong when an elderly couple has sex or a married, infertile couple?

In my experience, most Catholics are totally unprepared to offer an answer to these sorts of questions. And - unfortunately - many in the Church's hierarchy are very hesitant to speak too boldly on this subject. This is truly a shame; the Catholic faithful are in desperate need of a logical and easy to understand exposition of the Church's rationale for its position, something grounded in the Scriptures and Sacred Tradition. Instead, they have been fed nonsense about "religious liberty" and First Amendment rights, trying to make this a Constitutional issue instead of a theological issue - and when the Supreme Court tossed out those Constitutional arguments on June 26th, those Catholics who had never been educated in any other argument against same sex marriage were left in the lurch.

Here are out first two videos in the series: the first on homosexuality and the Bible, the second on the ends of marriage. It is important to note that these videos do not attempt to merely present talking points, nor force the question into an artificial paradigm of "religious liberty" and the First Amendment, as some American Catholics have tried to do. Rather, they approach the subject from the point of view of Catholic Tradition, theology and natural law. These videos are not meant to convince opponents but rather help Christians better understand their own tradition.

These videos were totally funded by donations. We currently have three more videos like these in various phases of production, on homosexual marriage and civil rights, material cooperation in sinful activities, and the duties of the Christian state. If you would like to help donate to this project, you can do so by clicking below:

Please share these videos and contribute if you believe this project is timely and necessary. Deo gratias.

Homosexualtiy and Tactical Accommodation

Since the infamous gay marriage ruling of June 26th, 2015, I have noticed a very troubling trend in the Catholic world. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, but I think I will say it is a sort of "tactical accommodation." What is this tactical accommodation? It is a degree of measured accommodation to homosexuality that, while stopping short of actually affirming it, allows a certain amount of legitimacy of some of the points of the homo-fascist crowd, thus giving the appearance of compromise to one side while maintaining fidelity to Catholic teaching on the other. I believe the purpose of this accommodation is to save some face with the other side.

In practice, this looks something like, "I believe in traditional marriage, but I also believe that conservative Catholics have generally failed at loving homosexuals adequately." 

Or perhaps, "I know we should not encourage people to define themselves by their sins, but Christians should not be so dismissive of the concept of homosexual identity."

Or another favorite, "The Church's teaching has not changed; but at the same time, I think the Church needs to more fully utilize the unique gifts and that homosexuals can bring."

And so on.

It's as if the Supreme Court ruling is being used as an occasion for self-reflection; not a reflection on the corrupt morals of the world or the need for a stronger defense of Church teaching, mind you, but an occasion to reflect on how we can be more accommodating to homosexuality.  

Even so, the message is clear: The Church is the problem. It is Catholics who have been intolerant. Homosexuals are the victims who have not been sufficiently appreciated. It is the faithful who need to change their approach to homosexuality, not homosexuals who need to conform their lives to the truth.

My friends, while this might make some of us feel good and believe we look more respectable in the "dialogue" with the world, it all mere nonsense. 

This sort of waffling about the evils of the age is how the Church shifted massively to the left after Vatican II: Catholics ceded ground to the progressives, such that what was once merely Catholicism was redefined as "integralism." This horrid lie has Catholics believing that our perennial Tradition is "radical Traditionalism" while what goes on at your typical Catholic parish is "Catholicism."

Similarly, the Church's traditional, uncompromising approach to homosexuality will increasingly be seen as "rigid" and "unmerciful" as Catholics, pressured by society, cede ground to the homo-fascists by making the sorts of wrist-wringing, self-condemnatory statements mentioned above. Traditional Catholic disgust at such acts - which are sins crying to heaven for vengeance - will be seen as an "extreme" position, which will be contrasted to the other "extreme" of homosexual acceptance. The new middle, the new orthodoxy, will be a kind of Kasperian dichotomy that still affirms the inadmissibility of homosexual relations while steadfastly refusing to say anything even remotely "negative" about them. And this new center will be put forward as "the Church's teaching."

Black is white. White is black.

We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

But what of the objections themselves? Have conservative Catholics been "unloving"? Do we need to make room for a homosexual "identity"? Do homosexual Catholics, by virtue of their homosexuality, have some special gifts or insights for the Church? Well, I of course deny all three, but I am not arguing these points here, merely noting that this sort of waffling compromise is being floated and seems especially prevalent among the "new evangelization" crowd.

To see how far we have fallen in our kiddie-gloves approach to this topic, look at the language of St. John Chrysostom, the great preacher and Bishop of Constantinople:

“All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by disease; but the worst of all passions is lust between men…. The sins against nature are more difficult and less rewarding, since true pleasure is only the one according to nature. But when God abandons a man, everything is turned upside down! Therefore, not only are their passions [of the homosexuals] satanic, but their lives are diabolic…So I say to you that these are even worse than murderers, and that it would be better to die than to live in such dishonor. A murderer only separates the soul from the body, whereas these destroy the soul inside the body….. There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity.” (St. John Chrysostom, In Epistulam ad Romanos IV)

Was St. John Chrysostom insufficiently loving of homosexuals? Did he not adequately grasp the gifts they had to offer?

This is how Catholicism has always approached homosexuality. The leaders of today's Church need to take their cue from saints like Chrysostom and others who were unflinching in their attitude towards this evil. Bishops, priests, man up! Sound off like you've got a pair! We need clarity and power in the Holy Spirit, not tactical accommodation.

Should we "support" or "oppose" law enforcement?

If you live in the United States, you have no doubt as of late been inundated with stories of police brutality from around the country. Whether there is a real increase in police brutality or whether these sorts of incidents are just getting more attention I could not say. But this discussion has spawned some really stupid knee-jerk reactions from both the Left and the Right. By way of reminding the mainly Catholic readership of this blog that Traditional Catholicism does not exist on the Left-Right spectrum - and that points of agreement with one side or the other tend to be merely incidental - I want to try to inject some sanity into a discussion that is rapidly degenerating into pure stupidity.

It has now been over a generation since the end of the Civil Rights movement, and the cadre of dying septuagenarian progressives on the Left are trying to stretch the momentum of the 60's to every possible corner of American society. This is what is behind trying to hand the mantle of the Civil Rights movement on to the perverts in the LGBT community (despite the protest of many African Americans).

This is also what is behind the liberal "opposition" to "police" as they attempt to make every engagement between a white office and a black person an issue of racism - which of course gets a bit muddled when the officers are black, as in the Freddie Gray case. It is a classic case of playing the race card, which consists essentially in viewing every social interaction solely through the lens of race and nothing else.

There is also a tendency on the Left to fail to sympathize with the difficult situations police officers are in. In the now infamous pool party arrest, the officer was surrounded by a hostile crowd. It is understandable why he drew his gun. Officers are asked to do a very tough job, and that job will inevitably at times involve them "getting tough." There are certainly some bad apples; but the Left's crusade against police brutality too often becomes a broadly ignorant "opposition" to any police action whatsoever and results in police who are afraid to do their jobs because they don't know if they will get in trouble for using force, drawing a weapon, etc.

As we will see with the Right, the Left can be schizophrenic on this issue. The same people who hate America, hate the police, etc. have no qualms about calling 911 or running to an Embassy when they get in trouble in a foreign country. Of course, not everybody who protests against police brutality "hates cops"; but if the Left would have us grant this, let the Left grant that not every police officer is a secret racist. This is way more complex than "Who are you with? Police or black people?"

Okay, so the Left is stupid. No big surprise there. But the Right has some equally stupid positions on this question; in fact, I think the Right's approach is equally schizophrenic.

One thing I have never been able to comprehend is how the conservative Right promotes a cult of law enforcement by its excessive honor of police officers and military personnel whilst simultaneously nurturing fears of a police state. One would think a constituency that demonstrates such anxiety over the establishment of a police state would be a little more reserved in the lauds they heap upon law enforcement? After all, you cannot have a police state without the police. Yet, the opposite is the case; they worry about the establishment of the dreaded American police state whilst simultaneously claiming that no honor is too high for our law enforcement and military.

The Right professes to abhor and fear the establishment of a police state but never misses and opportunity to engage in a public love fest with law enforcement. This is inconsistent and weird - just like conservative fear of "big government" goes hand in hand with reflexive support for a bigger and greater military, the very thing which ultimately makes "big government" possible. I know conservative fear of a police state is directed more towards liberal politicians and  not law enforcement as such, but any police state, liberal or otherwise, would require the cooperation of the police. I don't see how one can profess to fear a police state while simultaneously empowering the police consistently.

This is the major case of double-think regarding law enforcement in the conservative right, and the reflexive cult of law enforcement it engenders leads to another canard, which is the "I support police" campaign going around social media.

You know what I'm talking about. All sorts of images of police officers with their families or officers helping people with tags like "support our police" or "I stand with the police" and so forth.

It is the goofiest thing in the world to take a position as broad as "I support police." Not because I have anything against police qua police, but because its not rational to simply "support" an entire profession as if it were a political position.

For example, what if I were to sport a bumper sticker that said, "I support realtors." What? That would not make any sense. Or, "Stand with our accountants." "Support plumbers." Who talks like that about any other profession? I don't have anything against plumbers, but I certainly don't support plumbers qua plumbers, I support an individual plumber when he does a good job, and I do not support an individual plumber when he shows up late or screws me over.

I support an accountant who is competent. I oppose an accountant who is incompetent. Ditto with every other profession. People who do certain professions are judged according to their skill in that profession, so we are ultimately talking about the competence of individuals. I cannot simply "support realtors"; I support intelligent, hard working realtors and I oppose dumb, lazy realtors.

But with police - and I would argue military and teachers as well - we are supposed to either "support" them or be "against" them. I do not "support the police." Like anything else in this world, I support a police officer when he does good and oppose him when he does evil. To the degree that that evil is systemic, I oppose that institutional evil. To the degree that quality public service and self-service are systemic, I support that. And I understand that the two contrary qualities may be present in one department or even in a single officer, because even the best of us still do evil. So insofar as a particular officer does good, I support him, and insofar as he does wickedly, I oppose him.

Now, some will respond, "But the reason people speak of 'supporting' police, teachers, etc. is because these very professions have in fact become politicized and taken on the character of a political position which can be supported or opposed," to which I respond, if one or both sides in the stupid Left-Right dichotomy have politicized a profession, that is no argument that I need to. If one side has made a political platform out of "supporting" teachers, I will not allow myself to up the ante by adopting the knee-jerk political position of "opposing" teachers just because Party X supports them and I belong to Party Y. I support effective teachers and oppose ineffective teachers.

Similarly, if the Left is mobilizing against law enforcement (while simultaneously trying to establish a Leftist police state somehow?) in a move of crass politicization, I do not see how it helps anything by closing ranks "for" law enforcement in an act that is equally politicized. Those who are unable to get off the Left-Right paradigm will have a difficult time with this.

So no, conservatives, I do not "support" police. Nor do I "oppose" them, Mr. Liberal. I look for individuals to act in accord with their duty and the common good according to their office. If they can do that, I support them; if and when they fail (which clearly happens) I oppose them. I have known a lot of good, wonderful cops in my life; I've even had to make decisions regarding management of police officers. But I've also been totally shafted by cops and seen some really terrible things done by police officers, things that were so unjust that I couldn't think of them without trembling in rage. And I think if the Left suffers from an inability to recognize the difficult situation police can find themselves in, the Right suffers from a knee-jerk defense of law enforcement and often fails to recognize real abuses when they crop up.

Let us judge each instance - and each person - on their own merits and not get caught up in the stupidity of the Left-Right paradigm.

The Faithful Island Has Become a Harlot

"As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:41-42).

Our Lord spoke these words about the city of Jerusalem, but they could easily be applied to Ireland in the wake of its shameful referendum yesterday legitimizing homosexual marriage. 

The faithful isle has become a whore; the land of saints and sages has become drunk with the abominations of the nations and is reeling in its inebriation. Éire has betrayed St. Patrick. Éire has betrayed the Irish martyrs. Éire has betrayed its own constitution, which begins with the words, "In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial..."

Yes, a disappointment to all Catholics, especially those who love the Catholic heritage of Ireland. Yet it is hard to tell what is more disappointing, the referendum results, or the lame excuses offered by the Irish Church's prelates. Rorate Caeli has documented how the bishops of Dublin and Derry offered the most mediocre, ambiguous, limp-wristed resistance to the vote, basically telling Irish Catholics that it was better to vote 'Yes' than to vote 'No' for the "wrong reasons."

After the vote, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin placed the blame squarely on the Church, conveniently omitting any mention of the degenerate morals of his flock.

“I think really that the church needs to do a reality check, a reality check right across the board, to look at the things it’s doing well, to look at the areas where we really have to start and say, ‘Look, have we drifted away completely from young people?’ ” 

This reveals immediately the error in his thinking. If a reality check is needed, it is not because the Church has "drifted away" from young people - indeed, the Church doesn't drift away from people, people drift away from the Church - rather, the reality check needed is that this wishy-washy affirming dialogue centered nonsense that passes for Catholicism in most of the West is incapable of attracting young people. They're bored to tears with it. It means nothing to them. It's a fundamental failure of "modern" Catholicism.

But does the Archbishop recognize this? Nooooo. Of course not. The problem isn't that the Church has reformed; it's that she hasn't reformed far enough! More dialogue! More new language! More reaching out!

"It’s very clear that if this referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people, then the church has a huge task in front of it to find the language to be able to talk to and to get its message across to young people, not just on this issue, but in general.”

Somebody tell the Archbishop that the "language" needed to address this issue does not need to be "found." It has always been here in the Church's traditional moral theology, which has always taught that homosexual acts are acts of grave depravity and that even the homosexual tendency is intrinsically disordered.

Yet, for Archbishop Martin, the problem is not the immorality of homosexual acts but rather hand-wringing concerns that the Catholic Church is becoming a "safe space for the like-minded." He dislikes the clear moral teaching proposed by the Catholic Tradition. Instead he prefers to lounge about in Satan's favorite area, the grayscale:

“We need to find...a new language which is fundamentally ours, that speaks to, is understood and becomes appreciated by others. We tend to think in black and white but most of us live in the area of grey, and if the church has a harsh teaching, it seems to be condemning those who are not in line with it. But all of us live in the grey area. All of us fail. All of us are intolerant. All of us make mistakes. All of us sin and all of us pick ourselves up again with the help of that institution which should be there to do that."

Gray area indeed. This sounds like the realm of the lukewarm, and we know what Christ said about that. Is it not obvious that this is the voice of Satan speaking through this man?

He wraps up his interview with this gem:

“The church’s teaching, if it isn’t expressed in terms of love - then it’s got it wrong."

Of course, truth must always be spoken in love. The problem with these days however is that the truth isn't spoken at all. The Archbishop made the most equivocating, minimal resistance to the homosexual marriage referendum; and then, when it unsurprisingly passed, blamed the Church for "getting it wrong" and "drifting away" from the young and now calls for "a new language" to rectify the problem he helped create.

The solution for the problems created by the revolution is always more revolution, isn't it Archbishop Martin?

So, where are the angry counter protests? Where are heroic calls by the country's Catholic politicians and clergy for repeal? Where are the spirited vows that same sex so-called marriage will never be recognized by Catholic Ireland, regardless of the law of the land? Not a peep. Martin could care less. I personally believe the man is relieved that this issue is "settled", as he now has the luxury of throwing up his hands and saying, "It's the law of the land. What can I do?"

Indeed.

In the beginning of this post, I cited our Lord's lament over Jerusalem and suggested it could be applied to Ireland. In fact, it could probably be applied to western civilization in its entirety, which continues to decay because it does not know what will bring it peace. But if this passage does apply to western civilization, let us also remember how the passage ends:

"The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:43-44)

"See how the faithful city has become a harlot, She who was full of justice! Righteousness used to dwell in her- but now murderers!"(Isaiah 1:21)