St Thomas More: a question

[simple_soul]

I’m not so sure that apologetics are as important today as spiritual theology is. I do appreciate the value of apologetics. I certain appreciated it when I studied it at seminary. But after studying the spiritual life and dealing with Catholics for more than 30 years, I’m convince that they need spiritual theology more. Too many Catholics have no idea who God is, the nature of God, and the attributes of God. Many have no idea how to live a life of constant conversion toward holiness. They do not understand the anatomy of their own souls, much less how their consciences should work. Too often, they confuse conscience with belief. ** Belief is very personal. Conscience is the voice of God. Unless you can tell them apart, you run the risk of following your personal convictions instead of the voice of God. ** What good is it to be able to argue the Immaculate Conception and not know how to do penance or how to stop abortion? The Immaculate Conception does not suffer if people do not believe. She does suffer if the unborn are slaughtered.

*Dear Br. JR and Lief,

I hope you two do not mind but I have been following along this conversation between you and I have to say it has been most enlightening,

Br. JR, I just wanted to comment on what you said here. (Lief I hope you don’t mind).
I believe this hits home for me. Especially the part that I bolded. How do I learn to tell the difference between what is my personal conviction and what is the voice of God?
*

Right now I’m recovering in the hospital. So I have time between the doctors’ and nurses’ visits to answer questions.

I will join Lief in keeping you in my prayers.

 

[JReducation]

*Dear Br. JR and Lief,

I hope you two do not mind but I have been following along this conversation between you and I have to say it has been most enlightening,

Br. JR, I just wanted to comment on what you said here. (Lief I hope you don’t mind).
I believe this hits home for me. Especially the part that I bolded. How do I learn to tell the difference between what is my personal conviction and what is the voice of God?
*

I will join Lief in keeping you in my prayers.

Thank you for your prayers. I’ll answer you first and then I’ll go back to Lief when I come back from my procedure. They’re coming to take me away in a few minutes.

I always tell my candidates and novices that the best way to discriminate between the voice of God and my personal opionion is by applying the following questions:

1. Is this consistent with Church teaching?
2. Will this move me to be a holier person?
3. Is this the greatest good that I can do at this time (forget tomorrow or yesterday)?
4. Will it do unnecessary harm to my well-being or that of anyone else?
5. Did I pray over this?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Lief_Erikson]

JReducation:

I always tell my candidates and novices that the best way to discriminate between the voice of God and my personal opionion is by applying the following questions:

1. Is this consistent with Church teaching?
2. Will this move me to be a holier person?
3. Is this the greatest good that I can do at this time (forget tomorrow or yesterday)?
4. Will it do unnecessary harm to my well-being or that of anyone else?
5. Did I pray over this?

Really good advice, JR!

May God and His angels watch over you during this procedure and any or all future ones.

It’s great to hear from you, simple soul, as always .

 

[simple_soul]

Thank you for your prayers.

I do hope and pray all went/is going well.

I’ll answer you first and then I’ll go back to Lief when I come back from my procedure. They’re coming to take me away in a few minutes.

Thank you, I do look forward to your responses to some of Lief’s questions.

I always tell my candidates and novices that the best way to discriminate between the voice of God and my personal opionion is by applying the following questions:

1. Is this consistent with Church teaching?
2. Will this move me to be a holier person?
3. Is this the greatest good that I can do at this time (forget tomorrow or yesterday)?
4. Will it do unnecessary harm to my well-being or that of anyone else?
5. Did I pray over this?

I like this list. Could I use it as a guide for myself?
I do have a question regarding #1. What I have a hard time discriminating between is am I understanding church teaching correctly or am I understanding/twisting church teaching to mean what I want it to so that I can believe that I am consistent with her. How do I know which it is that I am doing?

 

[JReducation]

We’ve gone pretty far from Thomas More. Let me see if I can explain moral infallibility. Please remember that I’m not a moral theologian. My training in moral theology is what every priest and brother gets in four years of theology at the seminary. That just skims the surface. My area is Mystical and Ascetical Theology, sometimes called Spiritual Theology.

The Church never has to declare that a moral teaching is infallible, because we have the promise that she cannot teach error in faith and morals. Therefore, when she says that something is immoral, the statement is protected by that promise. On the surface that sounds simple enough. But it’s a little more complex than this.

Let’s say that the Church says that eating Hershey’s Kisses is a sin. Many people will buy into it and others will scream bloody murder. The question is whether or not this statement is an infallible statement. To meet the criteria of infallibility that statement has to be based on an infallible principle. If eating Hershey’s Kisses kills and the intention is to kill, then it is a sin to eat them. The principle here is that you may not deliberately do anything that kills with the intention of killing. There was a rather humorous event in Church history. I’m not sure which pope was involved, but I know that it involved coffee.

When the first explorers to the Americas returned to Europe carrying coffee beans, the pope at the time tasted the coffee. He found it to be such a wonderful drink that he said it must be immoral, because it gave sensual pleasure beyond belief. In that case, the statement does not have the protection of infallibility. First, coffee does not have that effect on everyone. Second, it is not the intention to arouse the lower senses. The principle about the lower senses is infallible, but it is not applicable. The same pope later retracted this statement.

In the case of prosecuting those who teach heresy or error, the principle cannot change. It is an infallible principle. “The end never justifies the means.” The key word here is “never”. Even if the end is to protect the faith and the faithful, the means is not justifiable. The Church has ruled that such means is a violation of human rights. This never came up before for several reasons.

First reason: the concept of Human Rights was not as clearly understood by our forefathers as it is today. Just look at how we violated the rights of women, slaves, children, non-Catholics and other sectors of society. It’s not that they were bad people. It’s that they were a product of their time. These thoughts did not occur to them. Instead of responding to situations, they reacted to them or did nothing.

Second reason: the Church was often under physical attack. If every man has to love his neighbor as himself, then he should not wish to harm his neighbor. The converse of that is that he should not wish to have his neighbor do physical harm to him either. This placed a moral duty on the faithful to protect themselves from attack. However, there was always a moral principle involved here. This principle has never changed, nor can it change, because it is infallible. One’s response must be proportionate and consistent with the aggression. That’s the principle.

If someone teaches error in a Catholic country, to arrest him is not proportionate. The person that is teaching error is not depriving the citizens of that country their freedom, not is he imposing a fine of them for not listening to him, or denying them peaceful co-existence. To fine someone, arrest that person, or deny him entrance into the country is disproportionate to the action of preaching heresy or error. The only proportionate response is to teach Truth. If the person is doing other harmful things, you respond proportionately.

This is where men like Popes John XXIII through Benedict XVI have the right of it. The best way to curb the attacks on the teachings of the Church from non-believers, TODAY, is through ecumenism. The problem is not ecumenism. The problem is the extremists. Let me speak about them first and then real ecumenism. There are two extremists. The first kind is the relativist. This person says that all religions are the same. This group really scared Pius IX and Pius X. They are still scary today.

The second group of extremists are the separatists. These are the Catholic version of the Separatists that colonized the New England region. This is the group that see no good in any one who is not a Catholic and as far as they’re concerned all non-Catholics are wrong on all counts. They have nothing good to teach us and they remain non-Catholics because they don’t want to listen to the Truth. This is a little over the top, to use my favorite expression.

There are many things that I have heard on many subjects, not just religion, that I have a tough time accepting. Just because you hear something, does not mean that you fully appreciate it without any doubts. If you have doubts, Augustine says that you may not embrace it. You cannot act in doubt. That’s immoral. If you are unsure whether something is against the will of God or not, then you cannot act until you are certain one way or the other. Many non-Catholics are not convinced by what they hear. They are not being obstinate. They are being honest. As Mother Teresa said, “God wants fidelity, not great accomplishments.” Converting to Catholicism is a great accomplishment. However, it must be an act of fidelity not submission to what someone else says. The right wing extremists refuse to see this side of things.

 

[JReducation]

Here is where ecumenism helps. My religious community does pro-life ministry 24/7. That’s our main ministry. We work alongside many non-Catholics: Jews, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, agnostics, a few Muslims, and even some atheists. When you find a common truth that all share and you build a ministry and a relationship around that truth, the animosity and the lack of trust start to collapse. Relationships become stronger. You begin to see the other person as a friend and a brother. As that happens, you begin to ask questions and have civil conversations about the things that are different between you. But you don’t come out fighting, because you’re talking to your friends and brothers. You’re discussing differences between people who are not going to hurt each other. You may walk away not having converted anyone, but at least you were heard. You never know what the Holy Spirit does with that little seed that you planted. In addition, you learn that the other side has more truths than you thought. By acknowledging those truths you show respect for them.

I’ll give an example. I was talking to a woman after praying outside of an abortuary. She’s Protestant. We were praying the Rosary, because everyone there is Catholic, except her. I’m not sure what she was praying. But she was deep in prayer the entire time. Later we spoke and she said to me, “I don’t pray the Rosary, because we Methodists don’t do this. But I do want to pray with you (Catholics), because the power of prayer is not diminished regardless of our differences.” I just happened to have studied the mysticism of Charles Wesley, the founder of the Methodists. We spoke a great deal about his methods of prayer, which are awesome. Too bad that most Methodists today don’t practice them. I told her about Teresa of Avila’s methods, which she didn’t know. I showed her how Teresa and Wesley had some common ideas about prayer. She didn’t know this. She was intrigued by Teresa. Next week I have to deliver a copy of Teresa’s The Way of Perfection, which she asked to borrow. She wants to read about Teresa’s methods on prayer. What she does not know is that Teresa speaks about many other points of the spiritual journey that Wesley did not mention in his writings. By the way, if you have not read Teresa’s work, do so.

Do I have to teach her the Rosary? No. She has heard it. She hears it every Saturday. She knows what it is and why Catholics pray it. It does not bother her to be with Catholics who pray the Rosary. That’s a beginning in the right direction. There was a time when a Methodist would not go within ten miles of a Rosary. There are some that still don’t. There was a time when Catholics would not be caught dead inviting a Methodist to pray with them. Some still don’t. But this is correct ecumenism. It’s that slow chipping away at the stone. As I like to call it, the bringing down the walls of mistrust and hostility. There was no better teacher of this than St. Francis of Assisi.

The new response to protect the faith and the faithful is an appropriate implementation of ecumenism. The problem is that we’re not doing it right. We are either relativists, “I’m OK you’re OK,” or separatists, “I’m OK and you’re doomed.”

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

I do hope and pray all went/is going well.

Thank you, I do look forward to your responses to some of Lief’s questions.

I like this list. Could I use it as a guide for myself?
I do have a question regarding #1. What I have a hard time discriminating between is am I understanding church teaching correctly or am I understanding/twisting church teaching to mean what I want it to so that I can believe that I am consistent with her. How do I know which it is that I am doing?

That’s a tough one. I would have two pieces of advice.

1. Always use an authoritative source. No, people on CA are not authoritative sources.
2. When you’re unsure, go with the strictest possible interpretation for yourself and the most lenient for others. The essence of holiness is to be tough on oneself and gentle with others.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[simple_soul]

That’s a tough one. I would have two pieces of advice.

1. Always use an authoritative source. No, people on CA are not authoritative sources.

So, for the most part, I have come to understand.:sad_yes:

1. When you’re unsure, go with the strictest possible interpretation for yourself and the most lenient for others. The essence of holiness is to be tough on oneself and gentle with others.

Thank you, I believe both of these and the other five that you posted earlier will help a lot.
Just as long as I keep them in mind at all times.

 

[The_Old_Medic]

J
Wow-the Franciscan priest-friars WERE mean to the non-ordained members of the Order! I was in the SFOs from 1979 to 1988. The fraternity I was in wore brown robes over our street clothes with a cord and a Franciscan Scapular. Some of us even wore a San Damiano crucifix as well. In those days, there were liberal members of the Seculars’ hierarchy on the provincial level [before the leadership structure was changed to ‘regions’ instead of ‘provinces’] who didn’t want the members to look ‘too religious’ with regards to wearing the robes. In fact, I ended up walking out of the fraternity in 1988 when the leadership announced they were going to ‘do their own thing’ and elect officers without the presence of any outside higher-ups. I stood up and said, ‘You can’t DO that!’ , but they ignored me and told ME that I WAS ‘DISOBEDIENT’ in wearing a long brown Franciscan-like dress when I went on a pilgrimage by myself to Lourdes. I said that I had permission from a Franciscan priest who was my personal spiritual director at the time to wear it. But they wouldn’t listen, and so I gathered up my things, and walked out!

I have no idea why you chose to “vent” your problems with the SFO here, but it was neither appropriate nor was it in any way a part of this discussion.

And I have never heard of any of the professed members of ANY religious community being mean in general to the secular members. One individual perhaps, because humans are humans, but never as a general rule.

You should be ashamed of yourself for such an obvious attempt to, as you put it, “hijack this thread”.

 

[JReducation]

I have no idea why you chose to “vent” your problems with the SFO here, but it was neither appropriate nor was it in any way a part of this discussion.

And I have never heard of any of the professed members of ANY religious community being mean in general to the secular members. One individual perhaps, because humans are humans, but never as a general rule.

You should be ashamed of yourself for such an obvious attempt to, as you put it, “hijack this thread”.

I’m a friar, if you’ll allow me a moment to explain what is being said above, it may help. I know this is getting very far from Thomas More. But it is something that is remotely connected with him, because he was a Franciscan and he was a product of his time.

The same thing happened to every other Franciscan through the ages. Each of us is a product of our time and we often have to go back recover. Recover means return to the roots in order to correct a deviation.

Not all changes are bad. Some are good and should be kept. There were changes in the Franciscan family that were very bad for the Franciscan family. The worse was the excessive ordaining of men to the priesthood. First of all, it was not the intent of our Holy Father to found a cerlical order like the Dominicans or the Carmelties. His intention was to gather men together in a brotherhood of equals. Some were ordained and others were not. Canon law refers to those who are not ordained as lay and the ordained as clerics. Lay is not to be confused with the lay person in the pew or the Secular Franciscan. Lay means a person who is not a member of the clergy, be he or she is still a consecrated religious. For example, St. Calre was lay. Brother Leo was lay. But they were fully professed members of the order.

As more men were ordained, they began to immitate the diocesan clergy. As a result, many of the ordained friars assumed the lifestyle of the diocesna clergy. The problem is that the diocesan clergy are seculars. They can have servants, property, and power. A friar is not a secular man and is not to have any of the benefits of the secular man.

These ordained friars began to assume control of the order. One of the first things that they did was to take way the right to study from the non-clerical friars. Later they took away the right to govern the community on the grounds that the non-clerical friars were not educated enough to govern a community of educatede priests. Later they took away their right to vote in community elections and chapters. Eventually they took away their righ tto do ministry outside of the religious house and they were submitted to being servants to the ordained friars. The non-clericla friars were the porters, gardners, cooks, tailors, cleaning men, infirmarians, messengers, and the official beggers to keep the community fed. The ordained friars were at the university teaching, in parishes, running retreats, doing mission work and living a very comfortable life with no community obligations.

There are always very holy men who see the inustice of this and who saw that this was contrary to the family that Francis founded. There were others who were unwilling to give up their position of privilege. They actually went out and got the support of the laity to maintain their positions. They convinced the laity that wihtout priests the Franciscan order was of no use to them. The laity was convinced and those lay people who had money and power influenced bishops to give the ordained Franciscans special privileges and to assign them to their towns, kingdoms and sometimes to their estates.

In 1950 there was a general chapter. The non-clerical friars had managed to get ordained sympathizers to represent their cause. They had to, because they were not allowed to attend the General Chapter and speak for themselves, even though this was a violation of the Rule of St. Francis and the practice established by Francis. This was the beginning of the internal struggle. There were clerics who were very mean to the non-clerical friars.

 

[JReducation]

The meanness intensified when Vatican II ordered the Franciscans to recover our ancient customs, to reduce the number of ordiantions, to give back to the non-clerical friars the right to vote, the right to govern, the right decide who gets ordained and who does not, the right to get theology and other academic degrees and the right to participate as equals in all ministries. They also ordered the ordain to transition from living in rectories back to friaries run by Guardians, many of whom were not ordained friars. The ordained were to do their own laundry, wash their dishes, make their beds and share in the manual labor of the community. They could no longer impose manual labor on the non-ordained friars. It was up to the local superior to make sure that work was equally distributed. It was up to the local superior to make sure that when an ordained friar exercised priestly ministry, as soon as the celebration of the sacrament was over, he put on the habit of the brother and her participates in community life like any brother. Superiors were also given authority to take away the title “Father” for priests and insist that every member of the house be called either Brother or Friar and that the only Father is the superior, whethere he is ordained or not. He is Father because he is the canonical successor of our Holy Father Francis. Even the pope was to be called by the proper Franciscan title, Lord Pope, not Holy Father. Holy Father is Francis.

As a result of this return to the origins, there was a lot of anger and a lot of meaness. I know first hand, I lived it. Thank God it has disappeared. We’re talking about the years between 1965 and 1990. Today many new communities have been allowed to come out of the older Franciscan communities. Among them are my own, which was originally Capuchin, the Franciscans of the Renewal, also originally Capuhin, the Franciscans of the Eucharist, the Franciscans of the Immaculate, wich were original Conventual and others.

Today the non-clerical friars, as we call them, are theologians, spiritual directors, retreat masters, local superiors, novice masters, General Superiors, parish administrators, as well a being involved in many other ministries with the homeless, hungry, children and youth, pregnancy centers, prison and hospital chaplains, teachers, social workers, and many other things. The ordained friars are running soup kitchens instead of parishes. The number of ordained friars has been deliberately cut back, since we don’t have a shortage of priests. We don’t need as many priests to run soup kitchens, shelters, pregnancy centers, do youth ministry, retreats, teach, and do manual labor. There are entire communities of friars that have no ministry except to live in a neighborhood and be present. They walk the streets all day long. They do tremendous work of evangelization that way. They evanelize one one one, instead of the large parish model.

There are still friars in parishes. But we’re not taking on more. As the friars who are in parishes can no longer run them, because it interferes with the consecrated life, the parishes are given back to the bishop or closed. The focus is back on the consecrated life and living in brotherhood as the early friars did.

To conclude, we become creatures of our times and often we have to be pulled back to reality and reminded that the original vision and mission of a particular way of life is not of this time or this world. I believe that this was the shock that Thomas More faced himself.

Thomas made a horrible mistake. The Franciscan Rule for seculars forbde promising allegience to any state or taking arms for any government. Thomas, even though he had promised to obey the rule of the Secular Franciscans, disobeyed. He accepted to become the Chancellor. He too thought that those rules were for a different time and palce. He was a product of his time. This came to bite him in the butt. He could not contradict the King, because of his allegience to the crown. He could not contradict the Church, because of his faith. It was during this crisis that he writes one of his famous letters to his Franciscan brethren admitting that Francis was right and he (Thomas) had been wrong. He should never have pledged allegience to a government. Now he could not retract it, nor could he comply with it.

Like the friars, Thomas also learned the hard way that Francis’ way was truly revealed by God and had a lot of wisdom to it.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Lief_Erikson]

I have a few questions, Br. JR.

I’ll just start by saying I fully agree with you about ecumenism. And I would never say it’s acceptable to use force to try to bring people to the faith. True faith cannot be forced, and violence committed against people that have done no wrong is wrong.

I have some more questions, though . First, about the infallibility. I’m curious what the wording of the Church’s infallible moral statement on religious freedom is. Do you know anyone in your community who might be able to share this with me?

I also had a question about the Church’s statement, “the ends never justify the means.” I fully agree with this – a good end never legitimizes an evil action. But is this statement the infallible moral teaching on the basis of which it is believed religious freedom is an infallible teaching? Or is there a more explicit infallible statement about religious freedom?

What would happen if the infallible principle, “the ends never justify the means,” was found in the future to not appropriately apply to religious freedom? I mean, what if future popes started to reason like past popes have. True religion is the source of social, legal and political stability. Where false religion is present, morals fall into error as well, at some points. Where morals fall into error, justice slips. Everything hinges on religion. All that is true and good comes from Christ, whether it is found in Islam or Buddhism or Catholicism. But wherever people leave part of the truth, this has negative repercussions both for them personally and for society generally. Evil laws and injustice have frequently flowed from nations’ decisions to abandon the Church’s teachings. Catholic states have submitted to the Church’s teachings and consequently tend to have more just laws. Religion is the center of justice. Spreading false religion has negative civil ramifications, social, political, and economic. False religion buttressed the eugenics and the suppression of blacks. The Church was always against racist slavery and eugenics, as well as the dehumanization of man present in the ideology of everyone who believes abortion is acceptable. Where false religion spreads, justice falters and immorality spreads. This has direct ramifications on the security of peoples. Thus a heretic or an apostate’s errors are not limited to causing spiritual destruction – they can also cause physical destruction and chaos, even if decades or centuries later, and not by the intent of the false teacher. Romans 1 and Wisdom 14, along with many Catholic saints of our history, have pointed out how false religion leads to destruction, both physical and spiritual. Though truly, the evil of leading someone else into spiritual destruction is great enough to deserve penalties even if these teachings didn’t also lead to physical harm for people’s lives as well (Luke 17:2).

I know that a substantial number of those who commit this evil of spreading errors to the destruction of the weak are actually not personally culpable for their sins. That is the #1 reason why I would urge mercy, and that penalties such as execution would

Is only the principle, “The ends never justify the means,” infallible, or is the chain of reasoning linking this principle to religious freedom also protected by the charism of infallibility? The pope that denounced coffee was able to retract because he later saw that the reason by which he linked drinking coffee to the infallible principle regarding the lower senses was flawed. Could future popes do the same with the present teaching about religious freedom?

 

[LilyM]

All I can say is thank goodness the difficulty has been resolved - and in the nicest possible way so that Benedictines and Franciscans can both claim St Thomas as one of their own. :getholy:

As a lay member of a Franciscan group (albeit an ecumenical kinda offshooty one), and a budding lawyer, of course he’s a ready-made role model for me.

 

[JReducation]

I have a few questions, Br. JR.

Your question is very good. I clipped your post so I could have some room to respond. Let’s begin with the first principle.

“The end never justifies the means.” This is an inviolable principle of Catholic moral teaching. It is based on this principle that actions once taken by the Church in order to secure a good had to be suspended, modified or even revoked. The good that was sought was never in question. The means being used was called into question under this principle. The principle itself cannot be disputed. It is a fixed principle in Catholic moral teaching and considered part of revealed truth. This obviously eliminates the possibility that any situation will ever arise where the principle does not apply. John Paul II made that very clear when he said, “Truth does not contradict truth.”

The Church has not made any statement that Catholicism is not good for society or that it is equally good as something else. In fact, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II goes to great lengths to show how other belief systems do not enhance the social good, but impair it and are nihilistic. However, we cannot interfere with a person’s freedom to choose those belief systems. To interfere with them is to contradict the Church’s moral teaching on the dignity of the person.

Here is what happens. When the Church or Catholics allow themselves to violate human dignity, even for one instance, the entire house of cards collapses. We have built an entire Theology of the Body, Gospel of Life and Social Teachings on human rights based on the principle that human dignity is inviolable. The Church has defended this with scripture and tradition as revealed truth from God. To interfere with a person’s religious freedom is an assault on human dignity. We would be sinning against a revealed moral truth. The only thing that left for the Church is to bring Catholicism into the market place through a strong Catholic presence in all of its forms: worship, education, art, social programs, mission, religious life, and so forth.

This was the reason behind the Holy Father’s apology to the Jews on behalf of all Catholics. The goal of the Church’s silence, in many places, was to protect innocent Catholic people. That goal is virtuous and is not in question. What John Paul said was unacceptable was the way that Catholics were protected in many places. In many places Catholics were protected at the expense of Jewish lives. As John Paul infallibly declares in Evangelium Vitae, man can never choose one life over another. When those people who could have done something, did nothing, for fear of their lives, they were acting on speculation, not on fact. It was the wrong means to a good end. In other cases, where there was a real threat to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, the means were good. One has the duty to protect one’s life, if one knows that it is in danger. A perceived threat is not knowledge. It is pure perception and speculation. We do the same thing with abortion and a sick mother. I bring up this example so that you can see how the Church applies the principle of the ends does not justify the means. Even in her own examination of conscience, she has found that she has allowed Catholics to violate this principle. Now, the Church is taking a hard-line position on this. She is saying, no matter what the good outcome may be, you cannot violate the means.

In Veritas in Carite Pope Benedict XVI repeats what the Council said on religious freedom. He repeats that this is a moral law that comes from God, not man. God has written his law into man’s heart and man cannot rewrite it. God has written into man’s hear a law that says that he has the right to practice his faith according to his best judgment. Does this mean that his faith is correct? No. What is correct here is that the person is using his best judgment.

We have to understand that the statement on religious freedom not only binds what Catholics may or may not do to spread the faith, but it also binds non-Catholics to comply with the natural duty to seek truth and to practice it as best they can. The more the person knows about truth, the greater his moral duty to comply with it. It is important to understand that the Church and the laity are not talking the same language here and the laity has to get on board. The laity seems to believe that just knowing what Catholicism teaches constitutes knowledge and therefore, you are not longer invincibly ignorant. The hierarchy of the Church, from the popes on down, disagree with this. Ignorance is not the absence of information. You can have the information. Ignorance is the absence of conviction. If the person does not know, in the biblical sense of knowing, to be convinced and feel the call to commit, then the person is not morally culpable. If that person were convinced, he or she would feel the call to commit to the faith. At that point, he or she makes a choice and is morally responsible for that choice.

 

[JReducation]

In conclusion, we are bound to use means that do not do harm to human freedom, human dignity, and other human rights in order to spread the faith. But we are still bound to evangelize. We just have to select means that are consistent with revelation. What the Council did was clarify the rules for evangelization by clarifying what religious freedom entails.

Another interesting point here is that the Church does not condemn what was done in the past, nor does she justify it. It is the belief that people are a product of their times. They function within the understanding that they have. It is also a well known fact that even though the principle about the means and the ends dates back to the time of the Apostles, many popes deliberately ignored it for temporal reasons, not faith. We have to be very careful when we look back and see what they did not did not do. It can be that they acted in good faith. It can also be that they acted for personal gain. Both realities are part of the human condition.

What happens with the decree on religious freedom? It is built upon an infallible principle. What needs to be done is to make sure that the language that was used in the 1960s is clear enough so that we understand it. If the language is not clear, it can lead to wrong applications. This is what has happened with the moral relativists. They take the language and assume that the Church is saying that everything is the same and everyone is the same. The Church has never said either of those two things, not even at Vatican II. There are difference between people and their rights vary according to their place in society. There are differences in belief systems. What the document does call upon Catholics to recognize is that there are overlapping beliefs too. We human beings have a tendency to push away whatever is different, without looking for the common points. I’ll give you a simple example. Every faith believes in virtue. That’s a common element. That is not a coincidence. It was placed there by God. The point is to engage in a dialogue where we can explain to others what the life of virtue is about and where they can teach us how they understand the life of virtue. You begin by giving up the prejudices and the arrogance. Catholics are as guilty of religious prejudice and religious arrogance as other people are. I would venture to say that the two most arrogant believers is the Catholic and the Muslim. Unfortunately, arrogance is not the way to get to heaven. What is funny in this, if it did not cause so much suffering, is that neither Catholicism nor Islam condones arrogance. This is the laity and a few clerics who have made this popular. It’s not in the books.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

All I can say is thank goodness the difficulty has been resolved - and in the nicest possible way so that Benedictines and Franciscans can both claim St Thomas as one of their own. :getholy:

As a lay member of a Franciscan group (albeit an ecumenical kinda offshooty one), and a budding lawyer, of course he’s a ready-made role model for me.

There was a policy in religious and secular orders that we were never to share any internal information with the laity. Our rules, constitutions, traditions, customs, statutes, system of governments, finances, and anything that had to do with how we did things were never to be shared where the laity could hear it.

When this was in effect the reason was that the wealthy would use their understanding of religious life as a means to manipulate and control religious. Religious felt threatened by these very powerful lay people who were the financial supporters of their work, but often were not so charitable. They donated so they could get something in return and they used our regulations and so forth to get it.

This rarely happens today. At least, I’ve never seen anyone try to use economic power to control religious and secular orders. Gradually we began to let people read and hear about how we govern ourselves, our rules, constitutions, policies and infrastructure. But now, I’m wondering if we need to pull back again. In the age of Internet, it’s very easy for people to get a piece of information at any time. They can even get entire documents But they are not present when these things are written and applied by the religious and secular orders. What happens is that the person who is going through the Internet or the many books that we have today, this person can take this information and interpret it and then run and tell others what they found, without asking the horse.

There was never a conflict between the Benedictine Oblates and Secular Franciscans about Thomas More. No one ever brought it up until two things happened.

1. The Internet came into the picture. Suddenly people have a lot of time on their hands, get addicted to computers, and go out to find things that are not always very clear on the internet.
2. Some (not all or even many) lay people began to take on themselves a sense of entitlement regarding religious orders and secular orders. I’m not too sure how they justify that in their minds. They seem to believe that they can have an opinion in everything that goes on in the orders.

I’ve always used this example. Religious and secular orders are families. We have an accepted practice in society that we do not have the right to opine about what goes on in anyone’s family unless we see harm being done.

We really need to learn boundaries again. Technology and our obsession with democracy has led us down the path of a world without boundaries. This is how things that were not an issue for hundreds of years or were an issue only for a small number of people, now become an issue.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Lief_Erikson]

Thank-you very much for your posts . Let me see if I can explain my question a little better, as I’m not sure your posts really are focus on what I was going for.

JReducation:

“The end never justifies the means.” This is an inviolable principle of Catholic moral teaching. It is based on this principle that actions once taken by the Church in order to secure a good had to be suspended, modified or even revoked. The good that was sought was never in question. The means being used was called into question under this principle. The principle itself cannot be disputed. It is a fixed principle in Catholic moral teaching and considered part of revealed truth. This obviously eliminates the possibility that any situation will ever arise where the principle does not apply. John Paul II made that very clear when he said, “Truth does not contradict truth.”

The Church has not made any statement that Catholicism is not good for society or that it is equally good as something else. In fact, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II goes to great lengths to show how other belief systems do not enhance the social good, but impair it and are nihilistic. However, we cannot interfere with a person’s freedom to choose those belief systems. To interfere with them is to contradict the Church’s moral teaching on the dignity of the person.

Here is what happens. When the Church or Catholics allow themselves to violate human dignity, even for one instance, the entire house of cards collapses. We have built an entire Theology of the Body, Gospel of Life and Social Teachings on human rights based on the principle that human dignity is inviolable. The Church has defended this with scripture and tradition as revealed truth from God.

What I meant when I was asking if the principle might be found to not apply is the following. What if a future pope might say that the means used in the past, civil law vs. heretical or apostate preachers, is not in fact a violation of human dignity? This hypothetical pope would agree that violations of human dignity are never justifiable, and he would agree that the ends never justify the means. But he concludes, like historical popes have concluded, that these means are not immoral. He would be of the opinion that using law against heretical preachers is not evil or immoral, but is a moral way of defending society. Thus the means are good and do not constitute a violation of human dignity, and the ends are good. And therefore the principle that “the ends never justifies the means” does not contradict the pope’s decision to permit Catholic states to suppress heretical or apostate evangelists through the use of force. Which is what I meant by, “it does not apply.” It universally applies, but this future pope believes that using the means of using civil law against the spreading of false religions are good, just as the end (protecting the true faith) is good, the means do not violate human dignity, and therefore the principle does not contradict the use of law against heretical preachers.

Is this clearer? I’m saying that as in the case with the pope against coffee, the pope realizes that the principle does not contradict the coffee – or in this case, the means of using law to suppress heresies are found to not be a violation of human dignity and are in fact found to be moral and good. So the means and the ends are good, and therefore the principle that the ends do not justify the means is upheld while the practice of suppressing the spread of heresies with law is also upheld (as in the past).

Is this possibility excluded by the nature of the infallibility protecting the current papal statements about religious freedom? Or is the infallibility of their statements about religious freedom completely emanating from the principles that these statements are believed to stand on? If the infallibility of the statements about religious freedom is entirely derived from the principle, “the ends do not justify the means,” and, “no violation of human dignity is acceptable,” then a future pope might be able to argue that the means of suppressing the spread of heresies with law are moral and are not a violation of human dignity, and consequently these infallible principles do not contradict using law against the spread of false religions.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

All I can say is thank goodness the difficulty has been resolved - and in the nicest possible way so that** Benedictines and Franciscans can both claim St Thomas as one of their own**. :getholy:

.

How? Did I miss the post? Can someone link me, please?

 

[LilyM]

How? Did I miss the post? Can someone link me, please?

Way back in post 7, before the thread got a tad sidetracked. Brother JR told us that one can be (and St Thomas was) BOTH a professed secular Franciscan (or whatever the terminology was in his day) AND an oblate attached to a particular Benedictine monastery - the two aren’t incompatible.

You responded to that post - I’m surprised you don’t remember

 

[JReducation]

Thank-you very much for your posts . Let me see if I can explain my question a little better, as I’m not sure your posts really are focus on what I was going for.

Is this possibility excluded by the nature of the infallibility protecting the current papal statements about religious freedom? Or is the infallibility of their statements about religious freedom completely emanating from the principles that these statements are believed to stand on? If the infallibility of the statements about religious freedom is entirely derived from the principle, “the ends do not justify the means,” and, “no violation of human dignity is acceptable,” then a future pope might be able to argue that the means of suppressing the spread of heresies with law are moral and are not a violation of human dignity, and consequently these infallible principles do not contradict using law against the spread of false religions.

I see what you’re asking and it already exists in the Church. The state has a moral duty to enact laws that are consistent with revealed truth. What the Church says that the state may not do today or ever (he is that infallibility thing) is that it may never create any law prohibiting the freedom of religion and religious expression, regardless of how heretical it may be. To pass such a law is worse than the heresy.

The heresy is an error. It’s not a sin. The sin would be to knowingly embrace heresy. But to violate someone’s right to worship and freely express his faith is a sin, because it is a direct assault against a person’s God given freedom.

We have to separate errors from crimes. For example, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, genocide, sexual or racial discrimination, and so forth. Those are crimes. The state must enact laws to protect the innocent from these crimes.

But if someone is preaching that Buddha is God, that is not a crime. It is a falsehood. Such teaching does no harm to the Catholic. It is not an assault against Catholicism or discrimination against Catholics. If you said that those who do not believe in Jesus Christ should pay a special tax. That is crime. The state would be sinning against human freedom. In that case, the Church does not care that it’s a sin tax against Christians. It’s a discrimination.

The state is regulated by moral laws in what it may legislate and what it may not condone. Religious freedom is something that the Church teaches that the State must alwasy condone provided that the freedom is exercised responsibly and in a manner that does not violate human rights and natural law. For example, if you belong to a church that says it’s a virtue to marry someone of the same sex. That is contrary to natural law. That belief cannot be allowed legal expression.

We do have a moral criteria in place as to what the state can allow and what it must prohibit. The expression of religious beliefs is not one of the things that the state can morally forbid. It can forbid crimes committed in the name of religion. It can forbid violation of natural law in the name of religion. It can forbid any teaching that constitutes a threat to person or property or a threat to human rights. Rubbing Buddah’s belly doesn’t fall under any of those crimes or moral evils. The state cannot forbid that religious practice.

Teaching the tenets of Lutheranism do not violate human rights as defined by the Church. Therefore, we must allow it. The state would be morally wrong to interfere. Catholics would be morally wrong to attempt to limit the rights of Lutherans to teach and believe what they believe. All faiths have a right to free expression. No faith has the right to hurt people, damage property, or encourage any kind of repression against non believers. The state has a duty to keep those things under control.

For example, some Muslims believe that God said that Jews must die. The killing of Jews is a religious act. The state has a moral duty to intervene. Freedom of religion cannot violate other freedoms. I should have mentioned that too. Even our freedom to be Catholic cannot violate other people’s freedoms.

Remember, we’re not talking about man-made freedoms. We’re talking about freedoms that come from revelation and from natural law.

The point here is that the Catholic Church believes that we cannot proclaim to have the fullness of truth and then violate truth. Truth allows man to search for God through is own means and the means that God puts at his disposal. That’s not always going to be Catholicism. There are two important points here. First, all of those other faiths eventually lead to Catholicism, if they are followed correctly. The how is a very long explanation. I won’t go into that here. Second, the Church also teaches that Jesus Christ uses those other faiths to save souls. Right there, that takes away any claim that we may have that it’s OK to forbid non-Catholic faiths. To do so would be to cut off a means that Christ uses to save some people, because it’s the only thing that will work for them today. Tomorrow may be different. But we’re not there yet.

Yes, religious freedom is considered an infallble moral teaching. Again, it has to be observed without breaking other moral laws.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF