Hi everyone,
I’ve been doing some research on value of the human person from a Catholic perspective;
I had a few questions:
- Is the seamless garment theory doctrine?
- When did the Church officially take a stance against capital punishment? The Church has always been against punitive deaths saying they can only be remotely acceptable if all other solutions have been tried and have failed.
- “Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.”; is there any stance on life’s sacredness that could answer/support that quote?
I really appreciate any help you could offer, I’m a pretty devout Catholic (most certainly not a “cafeteria” Catholic) and as such would like some help in understanding the “when/why/how” of these few questions.
Also, any other info you might want to offer would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Psy
Being very much an advocate for the unborn, I have struggled with the idea of Bernadin’s seamless Garment (consistent ethic of life) theology for several years now. Yes, Catholics should be following a consistent ethic of life in their daily lives, but when it comes to which ssues which promote the most evil, they must be able to discern which issues carry the most moral weight…
It wasn’t until I read the comments and guidance by the Priests For Life, their website is
www.priestsforlife.com, that I began to understand how Bernadin’s theory can be accepted as Catholic teaching. The problem is, many Catholics, lay and clergy alike, have either distorted Bernadin’s theory through misunderstanding, or because of personal agendas.
What those “cafeteria” Catholics, lay and clergy have done is tp disregard the HIERARCHY of EVILS in order to get their Social Justice agendas to be accepted by Catholics in general. They are wrong in that they present all issues as being of equal morality which they are not. Some Catholics will quote supremacy of conscience when trying to discern which has the weightiest value such as abortion, economics, feeding the poor, death penalty etc. What they forget here is, yes, one must follow one’s conscience, but it must be WELL FORMED through the teachings of the Church. Pope John Paul talked at length about these in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. The USCCB, while talking about all the issues in their document Faithful Citizenship, failed to discern and emphasize for the general Catholic laity, this HIERARCHY OF EVIILS. Therefore 56% of Catholic voters in the last Potus election either ignorantly, or obstinately, chose to help promote Intrinsic evil over good. Yes there are such things as Intrinsic Evils (five of them were issues in the last election) of which about 1/3 of our Bishops had the backbone to identify and speak out against during the last POTUS election. No Catholic should/could have, in right conscience, voted for a party which promotes ANY of the INTRINSIC EVILS. This, most Catholics, 56%. did not understand, or ignored.
In order to better understand how this idea of laisez faire became accpted by malcontents in the Catholic Church, I would suggest you read the book “The Desolate City”, Revolution in the Catholic Church, by Anne Roch Muggeridge, which explains how progressive theologians, both lay and clergy, were able to over run Vatican II and why we have so much dissension among both the Catholic clergy and laity today.
Also try this website for further insight as to what a consistent ethic of life means.
priestsforlife.org/newsletters/v9n3mayjun99.htm#letterfrompriests