“Having an abortion is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to have an abortion; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.”

Murdering ones 10 yr. old child is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to murder that child; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.

Stealing you neighbor’s car is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to steal that car; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.

Homosexually raping a teengage boy is wrong, but each person should decide, according to his own conscience, whether or not to rape that boy; state officials should not presume to make such a decision for anyone.

Sounds Catholic to me…

This is the part that messes up peoples’ minds about ethics.

Yes, you and each person have free will, which is of inestimable value.  This means that it is literally up to you to decide what you will do with the problems in your life—whether you will seek God, or seek evil or seek the easy way.  God have designed it that way, and that fact should never be taken lightly.

The problem is that in order to choose well, a person has to understand the difference between right and wrong.  Yes, some choices are objectively right and some objectively wrong.  Jeffrey Dahmer’s choices were objectively wrong, for instance.

This is where the evil comes in when it comes to moral abdication of authority.  Morally abdicating teaching authority for many people places them in a situation where they have just a ton of trouble understanding morals.

Some people, whether people like to be told this or not, have very weak ability to tell right from wrong.  Perhaps they have an ill-formed conscience, or have seen things they should not have seen and it hurt their ability to understand ethics.  This actually happens frequently.  Perhaps it’s just that they are not thoughtful or not intelligent about some things.  Some people are clueless about morals and have to follow rules—period.  Admit it.  And lastly, there are a certain number of people who choose to do evil for the hell of it, or because they think they can get ahead of other people if they use them for their own goals.

Soo, yes, of course Domenico and Sinner you are correct.  It is just not as simple as the gross simplification in the phrase that was posted.  This phrase (about having an abortion) is far too blunt an instrument to mean much of anything ethically.  It’s a pretty stupid statement, actually. 

But such are the statements that so often pass for moral decisions these days.  It’s one of the reasons we’re in the messes we’re in.

Holy——well Holy Cow,

michigancatholic, we agree on something.  Your statement is spot on.  Could not agree with your assessment more.

Camilam

It may be a stupid statement, but it’s the one you hear from pro-abortion politicians all the time. Just as the second statement is pretty stupid.

“It may be a stupid statement, but it’s the one you hear from pro-abortion politicians all the time.”  I would add that this is also sometimes heard from some of the Catholic clergy. For example, at Holy Cross college, Worcester, Mass., commencement a year or so ago, the invited speaker was Chris Matthews. If I understand correctly the position of Chris Matthews- it is that he is personally opposed to abortion but that he is not opposed to laws which will make an abortion safe, legal and rare. Something like that.  It was reported that the president of Holy Cross college, Father MacFarland had said that the position of Chris Matthews is “arguable” within Catholic theology. I think that Father MacFarland also said that the greatest living American theologian, Avery Cardinal Dulles, did not have a problem sharing a platform with Mr. Matthews during the Holy Cross commencement exercises.  Also, you have the case of the Jesuit priest and former politician Father Drinan who is personally opposed to abortion, but at the same time is in favor of pro-abortion laws, including the horrific partial birth abortion.

I said above that mal-formation of conscience or disregard for right and wrong, rather than free will, was the cause for most of these moral problems.  We have agreed on that.

And then Alfredo said that scandal is caused when someone like Avery Cardinal Dulles takes the stage with someone like this Chris Matthews he describes.  He is correct.
The teaching difficulty of the Dulles/Matthews situation fits under the category above of abdication of moral teaching.  These kinds of things should not happen.  Make no mistake—people can say this without attacking anyone or being political.  Condoning abortion, by refusing to point out evil in close quarters is an objective wrong for a Catholic precisely because of the contradiction that is produced by doing so. 

The idea that juxtapositions (Cardinal Dulles/Chris Matthews) are ok is important to understanding what has happened in the 20th century, when we picked up a cultural repugnance for talking about actual good and evil (pointing out evil where it is seen).  It’s a sort of victorian *superdelicacy* that people wrongly identify as kindness or tolerance.  What it really is is papering over the things you don’t want to identify, the things you don’t want to deal with, so you don’t get called a dirty name. 

People should not be attacked for pointing out contradictions that are, in fact, there.  The fact that these condoning situations are controversial confuses weaker people and leads them to believe they are wrong when they identify them as evil,  further weakening their ability to tell good from evil.  People have a sort of helplessness in modern life—they feel that they can’t possibly solve all the problems because they can see so much (world wars, modern news methods, etc.) so they just figure they’ll do what they can locally and avoid trouble, getting called dirty names, getting involved.  But they still hurt over being overwhelmed.
So, we have a cultural repugnance for confrontation no matter what.  We would rather watch as hell breaks loose than identify evil and be called that horrible word “judgmental.”  :/  It’s a sort of victorianism to be this way, but it’s very common among the general population.

The interesting thing is the reliance of example.  We claim that something must be taught by example, and then we claim that the example of condoning evil is irrelevant and we can do that without producing a contradiction.  You cannot have it both ways without living in contradiction.  Living in contradiction is forbidden by logic..  Living in a moral state forbidden by logic is something some people want to do.  However, it’s not Christian nor is it civilized.  Accepting that is hard for some people.  We used to have a saying in the philosophy dept where I took my degrees:  If logic can’t convince someone, I don’t know what might.  Think about it.  Illogicality induces the case where everything is simply *up for grabs.*  Chaos.

This is what is operant here and why it scandalizes people so badly when things like the Dulles/Matthews thing come to light.  Other things like this happen all the time.  You can probably think of a dozen, right off hand.  Given the fact that many peoples’ abiilty to discern right from wrong is weak, it doesn’t make much sense to weaken it further with confusion.

The interesting part, for an ethicist, is NOT knowing that there is a contradicition produced however—that’s evident.  The interesting part is knowing WHEN the contradiction is produced.  Christ taught in public, but he didn’t insist that everyone in the Holy Land show up.  However, he never let a “close-at-hand” or “near close-at-hand” opportunity pass and he left us a mandate to do the same.  Obviously for clergy, “close-at-hand” has a different scope than for laypersons because they have different responsibilities.  They also have a larger capacity for inducing scandalous contradictions because their responsibilties take them into the public arena so often.

In contemporary times (WW2 on), there has been a tendency to try to teach “by contrast.”  It’s been kind of amazing.  It can best be described as trying to IMPLY the best way to do things RATHER than explicitly TEACH the best way to do things.  Because that lets you out—you don’t have to make statements that could be construed as *judgmental* which no one wants to be, under pain of cultural *sin.*  (It’s called constructivism, and yes, it’s a philosophical theory and not a very good one.)  You see this sometimes in the way-out trendy teacher or priest.  You see this is the *sophisticate* who doesn’t want to *talk turkey* and get to the point.  It’s generally a waste of time and sometimes a cover for evil.

UM, remember Christ went to the cross for pointing things out straightforwardly.  Think about that.

So, let’s get basic here.  In order to teach something to someone, you have to start with a definition.  (What are you going to teach?)  A definition is composed of 2 parts:  what a thing is and what it is not.  Showing people only what it is not will not teach anything—it’s only half the definition. 

In order to teach christian life to people, we must show (tell, scream, demonstrate, preach) what it IS (not cultural delicacy but holiness!), and then show (point out, identify) what it is not.

[Need I remind you that holiness doesn’t always consist of being politically correct and non-confrontational, but rather in being obedient to scripture, tradition and the teachings of Jesus Christ.  We lose a lot of people to evangelicals over this.]

And then there have to be rules because that’s all some people can understand.  People don’t like to be told this, but the number of people who can only operate under rules is very large—some estimates cite half the population, simply because of the weakness of understanding of right and wrong, and also the modern tendency to try to twist right and wrong around (an outcome of intensive entertainment and advertizing psychology practiced on all of us).  Myself, I think it’s higher than that.

People don’t learn the basic concepts of logic in school anymore and use the idea of counterexample in logical fallacious ways, causing everything to be a reduction to absurdity.  This accomplished, then they simply go on to do what they wanted to do in the first place.  This is not morals, nor is it logical or moral.

So we need to begin anew to teach people morals, starting with moral rules, probably.
Putting something like this in place makes everyone mad though.  =)  It’s like trying to reform ancient Rome.  It’s a hell of a lot of work and I see few actually attempting it.

So the contemporary “bread and circuses” go on, eh?

Alfredo, if you think Chris Matthews is bad, take a look at Emmanuel College’s 2004 Commencement Speaker...Mary Beth Cahill.  Cahill, a member of Emmanuel’s Class of ‘76, is not only head of the John [B]F.[/B] Kerry for President campaign, but she’s also the former Executive Director of Emily’s List, which claims that “our grassroots network has helped elect 55 Democratic [B]pro-choice[/B] members of Congress, 11 senators, and seven governors. We know how to win.”  Cahill also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

“A [B]Catholic[/B], liberal arts and sciences college in Boston, Emmanuel College prepares men and women with the skills to succeed in tomorrow’s world and the [B]social conscience to make a difference in that world[/B]. Founded in 1919 by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur…” 

The name [B]Emmanuel[/B], meaning “God with us”, is of course a name of Jesus most often associated with the liturgical season of Advent, during which Jesus is literally a fetus growing in his mother’s womb, as the world waits expectantly for his birth. 

“Cahill began her career in 1976, working in [B]Father Robert Drinan[/B]‘s congressional office…”  That’s the same year she graduated from Emmanuel.

Thanks seamole. I don’t know what happened to the “Catholic” colleges, or even to the Catholic Church, in the last forty years or so.
But wait. What is the correct approach for dealing with a Catholic priest who preaches that it is arguable within Catholic theology to assert that you are personally opposed to abortion while at the same time you support laws to make abortion legal. I know people want to deny Communion to politicians with that point of view, but I haven’t heard much about excommunicating Catholic priests or nuns with a similar point of view.  After all, the priest is the one who is giving out the Sacraments, and the one who has been trained in Catholic theology.

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