Reason is not enough

A few further thoughts on the modern crisis in our understanding of human sexuality...

Part of the Post-Enlightenment legacy, which is now playing havoc particularly with the upbringing of the young, is a mis-placed trust in reason.

Don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that reason is held in too high regard. Whilst our Faith is characterised by mystery, it does not reject, but rather honours, reason. To give up on reason is not a Catholic approach at all: revelation may take us further but is always reasonable. The Word, the Logos of the Father, is truth incarnate; and theology, the queen of disciplines, is (rightly understood) faith seeking understanding.

No, my point is different. The modern error is to set too much store by our being subject to reason. My current bête noire, the CES gay propaganda masquerading as an anti-bullying resource, is a case in point. One of the many things wrong with it is that it seems to assume that you can argue a child into virtue: that once you have given cogent reasons why bullying is wrong, the child will no longer bully. (There are, of course, many other and more serious things wrong with Made in God's Image, and I have documented many of them elsewhere on this blog).

But Catholic tradition, and everyday experience (including my own, as I look at my own patterns of sinful behaviour) demonstrate that such is not the case.

In fact, we have a disordered relationship with reason: too often, our passions are felt more strongly, and we either ignore or distort our reasoning, to indulge our passions.

This, the Church teaches, is part of the damage to our nature brought about by that original catastrophe, known as the Fall.  

One of the many things I lament in the change from the Traditional to the New Rite of Mass is the loss of the wonderful prayer from Psalm 140 (said at the incensing of the altar): Pone, Dómine, custódiam ori meo, et óstium circumstántiæ lábiis meis: ut non declínet cor meum in verba malítiæ, ad excusándas excusatiónes in peccátis. (Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: and a door round about my lips.  Incline not my heart to evil words; to make excuses in sins.)

To make excuses in sins... How those words resonate!

Human sexuality is damaged by Original Sin: we desire that which we should not desire. And reason, which should order our desires to the good, is subjugated to our passions - unless we train ourselves -  discipline ourselves - to submit to grace.

That is why virtues are learned by practice and example, not just by exhortation; and why when the Faith is abandoned, and 'sexual preferences' (ie a particular sub-set of our passions) are made sovereign, reason lags far behind...

For the tragic results, you need only look around.

And another thing

I have continued to think about the Holy Father's sermon on the Holy Family, about which I have already posted.

In particular, I have been thinking about the Immaculate Conception, and the difficulty that poses for us, inheritors of Original Sin, to read Our Lady's words accurately.

One of the effects of Original Sin is that our passions are not properly subject to our souls: that is the seat of the will and the intellect. But in Our Lady, preserved from Original Sin and its effects, that is not the case. Her passions are subordinate to her will, that is her capacity to love, and her intellect, her capacity to know.

Further, we know that any turning of the will away from the will of God is a sin: so by definition Our Lady never allowed her will to deviate from the will of God. 

Her intellect was also endowed with those preternatural gifts which the rest of us lost through Adam's sin: knowledge of God, of her relationship to Him and of Her eternal destiny.

It is in that context that we have to read Our Lady's words to her Son, both here in Luke 2, and also, for example, at the Annunciation and at the Wedding Feast in Cana.

It is of course tempting to read Our Lady's words as 'containing a certain reproach,' but is that correct, given her Immaculate status? Certainly, if a normal mother said those words, reading reproach into them would seem completely reasonable; but in this respect (freedom from Original Sin and Actual Sin) she is not a normal mother. 

All I believe we can legitimately read into them is the intellectual question they pose: "How could you (whom I know to be all-good) do this which has caused us such distress?"  - Faith seeking understanding. And it is no defect in her intelligence that means she does not understand all her Son does; it is natural for the human intellect to be unable to fathom the full mysteries of God - indeed, that is what we mean by a mystery.

So just as her words at the Annunciation (unlike the very similar ones of Zachary) do not display any failing in Faith, so her words here do not display any failing in Love; nor do her words at Cana display any failing in Hope.

Indeed, Cana is in some ways my favourite: when Protestants level the charge of Mariolatry at us, I reflect that it is a charge made in ignorance. Anyone who has turned to Our Blessed Mother for counsel or comfort knows that she always ends by telling us the same thing: 'Do whatever He tells you!' The Mother always points to the Son, and to honour her is to draw closer to Him.

As always, I issue the usual disclaimer: I am no trained theologian, and if I have got anything wrong in this post I invite correction. Indeed, as I have mentioned before, one of the delights of blogging is to provoke those wiser, better instructed, or more holy than myself to educate me.

Alma Redemptoris Mater, 

Quæ pervia cæli porta manes, 

Et stella maris, 

Succurre cadenti,

Surgere qui curat, populo: 

Tu quæ genuisti,

Natura mirante, 

Tuum sanctum Genitorem

Virgo prius ac posterius, 

Gabrielis ab ore

Sumens illud Ave, 

Peccatorum miserere.

The Mythology of Re-Marriage

In the run-up to part two of the Synod, I fear that I am going to have to return to this theme more than once.

So perhaps I should start this post (which is a follow-up, as promised, to this one) by stating my credentials. I am no moral theologian, or scholar of religion. However, when it comes to this topic, I do have some life experience to bring to bear. I am a sinner from early childhood, so understand something of the dynamics of sin and self-deception; and I have been married for more than thirty years, for better and for worse, and know a little about that.

But much more importantly, I have been raised in the Faith of the Church, and simply seek to pass on what I have received.

It seems to me that the movement in favour of telling divorced and re-married people that they may receive Holy Communion must rest on one or more of the following errors.

• A false understanding of mercy and compassion
• Confusion about the reality of sin
• A lack of belief in the teaching authority of the Church
• A desire to change the Church's teaching
• A belief in the necessity of erotic love

So let us address them in turn.

A false understanding of mercy and compassion. The argument is often couched in terms of mercy or compassion. That may be the underlying intention indicated by this: I see no reason why one cannot believe in the indissolubility of marriage in a doctrinal sense, but still think that it is right in practice to make allowances and bend rules for people whose lives go wrong. In fact I think this is far more Christlike than treating them as uniquely sinful.

The general drift is that we mustn't be too hard on people, because that is not kind; and we all make mistakes (or even, in more reactionary circles, 'we all fall into sin'). Therefore, we should overlook the fact that someone is divorced and remarried, in the name of mercy or compassion.

However, that is not the approach taken by Christ, who surely is our model, nor the approach taken by the Church, His Mystical Body, animated by the Holy Spirit. Rather, Christ's approach, and the Church's approach following His example and inspiration, is to call sin by its name, and to call sinners - that is all of us - to repentance.

Of course, Christ is compassionate; of course, the Church is; of course we must be. We must reach out in love to everyone.  But it is a false compassion to teach people that sin is good, and needs no repentance.

Moreover, the kindness advocated by those calling for change is very unkind, and indeed unjust, to others; not least abandoned spouses and children. It also creates a moral climate in which more people are likely to suffer abandonment in the future. It strikes me as the kind of compassion that buys the drunk another drink at the bar, rather than the tough love that would insist on walking him home...

Underlying that error is another, I think, that is at the root of the problem for many people: 

Confusion about the reality of sin. The problem here is that many of us know people who have been divorced and re-married. We know that they are not evil people. We know they are often devoted to their new families. So surely their new relationship cannot be harmful. Even if, technically, it is not legitimate, if it is based on love, and their conscience is clear, what can be wrong with that?

This view confuses two things: the subjective and the objective. About the subjective, we are forbidden from judging: indeed how can we possibly know the state of someone else's conscience? We may, charitably, assume that they are acting according to their best lights, and therefore recognise that the guilt associated with their illicit relationship may be negligible (if, for example, they truly believe that their first marriage was invalid). We are certainly forbidden from reaching a negative judgement about another's conscience.

However, the subjective does not over-ride the objective. A (hypothetical) abortionist who sincerely believes that his vocation is to help women in difficulty, and is therefore subjectively innocent, nonetheless kills an unborn child every time he performs an abortion. Further, he does himself genuine harm each time: he gives Satan a further foothold in his soul (and the macabre case of Kermit Gosnell, for example, demonstrates the cumulative impact of that, as does the willingness of other abortionists to perform the visibly evil partial-birth abortions).  The point is that sin is bad for us (and others), even if we do not fully understand that it is sin, or fully consent to it. There is an objective reality at work here.

It is distressing when even Cardinals of the Church seem to forget this truth, and say that the old language – of mortal sin, for example – was a misguided attempt to motivate the faithful (see here).

In the case of the divorced and re-married, there are several things going on at this level. One is the continuing breach of the solemn promises made at the first marriage. A second is the objective act of adultery committed each time the new union is consummated. A third is disobedience to the teaching and authority of the Church. Even where subjective guilt is minimal, these objective facts will cause harm to the person committing the sin. That is why it is a false mercy to pretend to the person that it is all right to continue to do so: in doing so, we are colluding with the individual doing great harm to himself or herself, and inevitably to others, too (for such is the nature of sin); not to mention offending God. For, and this is the really tricky bit, the teaching about re-marriage being adultery, and adultery being sinful comes straight from Christ Himself.

There is one other aspect to this. Many pastors seem to think that the issue should be left to the conscience of the individual. That is to overlook another reality: Original Sin. Part of the damage we suffer (known as concupiscence) is that we are not the best judges in our own cases: the merest self-reflection reveals how quick we are to make excuses for our own sins. It is a false compassion to allow people to delude themselves on so vital an issue.

As mentioned, persistence in believing that, though divorced and remarried, one should be free to receive Holy Communion, also demonstrates a lack of belief in the teaching authority of the Church. The Church has clearly and consistently taught that those in a state of mortal sin thereby exclude themselves from communion, until they have confessed their sin, with a firm purpose of amendment. That teaching, of course, follows logically from what has been stated above, that sin is bad for the sinner, and from St Paul's admonition. Therefore, the Church, in her maternal love, calls the sinner to repentance, just as Her Lord did. One of the reasons for the current confusion, I think, is that the Church has not been sufficiently clear about this in recent decades. For everything I argue here also applies to anyone in a habitual state of sin which he or she is not repenting of and striving to amend - such as the Catholic couple who use artificial contraception, or the priest who entertains impure thoughts or uses pornography, and so on. 

The leads us to the next error I identified: A desire to change the Church's teaching.

My instinct is that the corruption of the faithful, and possibly the clergy, at this level underpins this call for 'compassion.' It is much more comfortable to call for the 'rules' to be changed than to confront the need to submit to the change that Christ demands - and will accomplish, if we allow Him to.

However, the Church can no more change the moral law than she can change the nature of the Trinity. She can only pass on the truth entrusted to her - or fail to do so. And in the case of so many of our pastors, it is the latter we find. They fail to teach the truth, and in failing to do so, end up losing their grip on it themselves. 

And in large part, I think that is due to them succumbing to a particularly peculiar error: 

a belief in the necessity of erotic love.  This seems to underlie comments such as the suggestion that repentance followed by living “ as brother and sister” as laid down in Familiaris Consortio is ludicrous and cruel.' (here, 4th letter). We know that the deepest and truest love need not be expressed through sexual intimacy: again we have the example of Christ to follow here, as well as His Blessed Mother, countless saints through the ages, and many celibate priests, religious and lay people in our own time. But in a post-Freudian, post-sexual-revolution world, many of our bishops and priests seem to think that such a truth is unteachable. Which is an error that is visibly causing immense harm to the Church and many, many families.

--

As I mentioned at the start, I am no moral theologian, and am always open to correction if I have misunderstood or misrepresented anyone or anything in this blog, just let me know. But my fear is that my analysis is correct, and that the battle at the Synod will be damaging.

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix.
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus nostris,
sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

--

Update:

See here for my additional thoughts on hard cases, and the love and compassion of God.

Fear of Sin

So, pulling together the threads of recent posts, both about Fry and regular reception of Holy Communion, I think we are back to one of my old hobby horses: the fear of Sin.

There are two types of fear of Sin, the holy and the unholy.

The holy fear of sin is that fear that is mandated in the Bible and supported by a constant stream of Catholic teaching until, say, the mid 1960s.

It is the fear that we may end up, as Christ warned us, in Hell, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; that fearful knowledge that each of us, personally, contributes to the sufferings of Christ by each and every sin we commit; that fear that, but for the Divine Mercy, Divine Justice would send us to our proper place.

Such fear is healthy: sin is the greatest evil that can befall us, and if we die in unrepentant mortal sin, then we go to Hell.

Here is what the Catechism has to say on the subject of Hell:

IV. Hell

1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few." Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."

1037 God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance":
Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.

However, it seems to me that we have replaced that with another fear: the fear of talking about sin or Hell. That is the unholy fear to which I referred.

I think many priests and bishops, and even cardinals, are running scared on this one. I imagine that they are worried that they will lose people, and that they have listened to the secular voice that says that people don't want bad news.

The trouble is that without the bad news of sin and damnation, the Good News of the Gospel is completely meaningless, as I have pointed out before (here for example, inter alia).

What the Church truly has to offer is what our broken world is longing for at the deepest level: healing, wholeness, forgiveness and redemption. But these require a change of heart on the part of the individual: a turning away from sin. If we who are in the Church have lost that understanding, we are like salt which has lost its flavour: good for nothing and to be trampled underfoot.

The challenge is how to present all this in a hostile world. To do that, we need to be grace-filled; and we will not be grace-filled unless we regularly confront the sin within us, and beg for God's mercy and grace, through the sacramental means that Christ established for that very purpose.

A Straw God Argument

The increasingly ludicrous Stephen Fry answered a question about what he would say if he died and found that, unexpectedly, there was a God, and he was face to face with him.

He launched into what I see as a pompous and arrogant rant, accusing God of being evil for creating a world in which the innocent suffer.

He is right about one thing: the problem of suffering is one that any serious theology has to address.

But the reason I describe his ad Deum attack as a Straw God Argument is because he attacks a theology that nobody holds. It seems clear from the terms of his argument that he has no idea how scholars - mightier brains than he, though he may not recognise the fact - from Judaic and Christian backgrounds, have grappled with this; nor even how other atheists, again with more powerful and penetrating insights than his, have framed the debate. He is a bit like someone arguing against climate change who points out that we have had a very cold winter: he is rather missing the point at issue.

What is lamentable isn't so much his ignorance and arrogance, as the fact that many people seem to think that he is saying something of worth.

The other extraordinary thing is his failure of imagination. The premise of the question was that he found, after death, that he was wrong about something he is so sure of. Yet there is no sense of a need to reappraise his belief-system or even question it. Instead, he imagines telling the Almighty off as though He were an errant property mistress on a TV studio floor.

When St John, the Beloved Disciple, encountered the Risen Christ he fell on the floor as one dead (see the start of the Apocalypse). Yet Fry imagines he will tower over the Father and tell Him what's what. I hope and pray that when that day comes to pass, Fry will have more humility, and indeed more sense, and will find it in himself to ask for the mercy that we all need on that Day of Judgement.

It is not all Fry's fault, of course. He lives in an age when the Church has largely failed to proclaim the Gospel in a clear and compelling way; and in particular with regard to suffering.

At the root of the mystery of Suffering is the mystery of Freedom; and at the root of that, the mystery of Love.

God wanted to create creatures capable of love. To love is an act of the will: to choose what is good for the beloved. Thus the will must be free: a forced choice is no choice at all. Which means that freedom to love must be accompanied by the freedom not to love - and that is the root of all suffering. Moreover, since the Original Sin of our first parents, we are all damaged and have a tendency to self-love over and against the love of our neighbour. Our freedom to choose not-love means that we are able to hurt each other, and also to hurt and damage all of nature at a lower level than ourselves, to an extraordinary extent.

At the level of emotional suffering, and indeed most man-made suffering, that is clear enough. But what of the hard cases that Fry raises: the child with bone marrow cancer, for example?

This is where another truth that is under-proclaimed at present becomes important: the fact that we are under the Angels. The Angels too had freedom to choose. Lucifer chose not to love. And being of angelic power and intelligence, he can hurt and damage all of nature at a lower level than himself. That is where natural disasters and natural disease have their origins. Yet how shy we are of that truth.

But we can also say more about suffering. God is not heedless of it: indeed He took mortal flesh precisely so that He could enter into human suffering. He joins us in it, He helps us to bear it, and he helps us to find redemptive meaning in and through it.  So suffering, which is an undoubted evil, can be used for good by God and his saints: indeed, paradoxically to our mind, it is those whom the Father loves most who have the fullest cup of suffering: starting with His Son, and with Our Blessed Lady accompanying Him in His Passion, and standing at the foot of the Cross.

And finally, there is the matter of perspective. If to help a patient recover, a doctor has to cause him some pain, that counts as nothing when the patient is restored to health for the rest of his life. How much more is that the case, when we consider the fleeting nature of this earthly life against the eternity of happiness that God promises. 

None of this finally resolves the problem of Suffering; but it offers some insight. And for Fry to pontificate about God and suffering without any awareness of these considerations demonstrates the paucity of his thought on this subject.

Found it!

I have blogged before (here and here, for example) about the risks to children of their mothers having live-in lovers.

I suggested that there were two important questions to address:

• Is there a disproportionate frequency of abuse and murder of women and children by men living with women who have children by previous relationships?
• If so, is there a causative link between such patterns of relationship and abuse, or is it merely a co-factor of other determinants (eg chaotic life style, educational levels, deprivation, poverty)?

It seems that there is some research on the first of these (and it confirms my suspicions).

The research is reported in an article called Suffer the Little Children: Cohabitation and the Abuse of America's Children (here).

The source reports makes chilling reading in all their findings; but what struck me particularly is this, which I quote verbatim from the first report cited (available here): 

'Children living with their married biological parents universally had the lowest rate, whereas those living with a single parent who had a cohabiting partner in the 

household had the highest rate in all maltreatment categories. Compared to children 

living with married biological parents, those whose single parent had a live-in partner had more than 8 times the rate of maltreatment overall, over 10 times the rate of abuse, and nearly 8 times the rate of neglect.' 

Is anybody telling young women that, as they preach the doctrine that the only sexual morality they need to consider is the morality of desire and mutual consent?

This is one of the true fruits of the so-called sexual liberation: but as a society, we dare not even discuss it.

Nuclear damage

The details of the murder of Daniel Pelka have been dreadful beyond description.

Our first response must be one of prayer: for the repose of his soul, of course, but also for the pardon and healing of his murderers.

Beyond that, however, there is always talk of the lessons to be learned.  Yet again, the 'agencies' involved will be castigated for their failures, and perhaps some improvements will be made.

But it seems to me that there is a potential blind spot in the public examination of this and other cases.  I heard on the Today Programme, this morning, for example, the comment that he had been killed by his parents.

That is not true.

As is clear from the more detailed reports, he was killed by his mother, and a man who was not his father who was living with his mother at the time.

Whilst that has been noted in passing, it is not the subject of any comment.  I find that worrying, as I think we should look at such data.  And this is by no means the first case featuring such non-nuclear family relationships.

But the media do not want to do so. Co-habitees are given a free ride.  To see what I mean, imagine if this were the second or third case where the murdering male was a member of the EDL or the BNP or had some other identity of which the media disapproves.  It would certainly not simply be mentioned in passing. Or imagine if it was the second or third time a home-schooling traditional Catholic was guilty, come to that...

But because our societal norm (or at least the one desired by the ever-wonderful BBC and most journalists) is one in which the myth that consensual sexual behaviour, temporary relationships and so on, are healthy and have no adverse consequences, these questions will never be asked:

• Is there a disproportionate frequency of abuse and murder of women and children by men living with women who have children by previous relationships?
• If so, is there a causative link between such patterns of relationship and abuse, or is it merely a co-factor of other determinants (eg chaotic life style, educational levels, deprivation, poverty)?

I don't know the definitive answer to these questions, though I have a strong intuition about them...  But what is scary is that they are not even being asked.

Sexting...

I keep seeing reports of teenagers indulging in sexting (here  and here for example), and the admonition of parents for failing to monitor their kids' electronic devices (as in the first article linked to).

Clearly this is a serious problem.

But the problem doesn't lie simply with the kids.  Consider this (from that same article): 

Jon Ebert, a psychologist who spoke to the Tennessean had wise words for kids today: “A lot of adolescents are still developing in their mind the ability to think ahead to the consequences. They’re in the moment, and they’re thinking of shock value or just being funny. What they’re not thinking about is the footprint they’re digitally leaving for themselves. They’re not thinking about what that footprint can do to them later on down the road or what effect that footprint can also have on others.”

Is it just me, or is that a profoundly troubling quotation (and editorial comment: 'wise words')? 

If the only advice we can offer to teenagers is to 'think about your digital footprint,' we are completely missing the point.

But I suppose it's the equivalent of 'make sure you use a condom.'

That is, we will not teach good behaviour (morality) for fear of seeming to preach - we will merely offer advice on how to avoid the consequences of immoral behaviour: advice which is doomed to failure, as immoral behaviour has profound and lasting consequences, even if the most obvious and immediate consequences are avoided, and also because all the protections (condoms, wiping computer memories...) are flawed and may fail too.

This seems to me to epitomise the moral bankruptcy that we are leaving as a legacy to the next generation, and it frightens me.

I would never give my kids such advice, any more than I check their mobile phones to make sure they are not taking pornographic pictures of themselves and others - but then I hope (and believe) that we have raised them in such a way as to make such advice, and such checks,  unnecessary.  I could, of course, be wrong, but even so, I think the noxious implications of such advice are such that I refuse to consider giving it anyway.

Sancta Maria purissima - ora pro nobis.

That Philpott Case

Like most people, I have been very disturbed and upset by the Philpott case. I have also been disturbed by much of what has been said about it, and much that has not been said.  Here I offer a few reflections.

Firstly, this is clearly evil at work.  Six young children were killed, albeit by mistake. The Devil, when he has gained sufficient power, often demands human sacrifice. This is diabolical.

It is also tragic: those children's lives were cut off so early; and many other lives were blighted along the way.

I have also noticed, with some distaste, politicos and journalists from all sides jumping on the case to make their own points.  I will not comment on the benefits issue, beyond noting the irony that those on the right, who normally talk loudly about individual responsibility etc are now talking about the economic structures that allegedly 'caused' this; whilst those on the left, normally keen to look at the economic structures that cause problems are equally keen to regard this as an individual issue.   I am sure that there are lessons to be learned, politically and socially, from this tragedy; and I am equally sure that they will not be learned by this approach.

I also notice with distaste, the need for many (John Humphrys on the Today programme, for example) to brand Mick Philpott as 'an evil man.'  I think that is wrong.  He is clearly a man who has done some very evil things. But certainly as Christians, we are commanded not to judge people, though we must clearly judge actions such as his.  The distinction is vital, for many reasons.

One is that, by calling Philpott evil, we create a distance between him and us: the implicit message is 'Thank God that I am not a sinner like him' and we know who prayed that prayer.  The truth is that we are sinners, and in that respect, closer to Philpott than we are to Christ.  We should not forget that fact.  This is Adam's sin working its way through the system, as it were.  It is only by the grace of God that we do not behave in ways every bit as depraved as Philpott.

Another is that it seems to close the door on the possibility of repentance, forgiveness and conversion; yet again, as Christians, those surely must be what we hope and pray for in this case - just as we hope to be penitent, forgiven and converted ourselves: sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris... I was surprised that one of the best comments on this that I have read was on a blog I frequently find irritating: Archbishop Cranmer posing the stark question: 'Who will kiss Mick Philpott's feet?' 

What I have not seen anywhere is a discussion of sin.

Yet that, surely, is the right context within which to start to make sense of this evil, this tragedy.

In traditional Catholic theology, we talk about 'the World, the Flesh and the Devil.'  If I had to sum up the Philpott case in three words, those would seem a pretty good selection.

At least as reported, it would seem that Mick Philpott was in thrall firstly to the World - seeking to boost his self-image by his fecundity, his television appearances, his sexual prowess and so on.  The Flesh also featured strongly, and his unrestrained and reckless indulgence of his sexual appetite seems to have led to worse and worse places for himself and those around him.  And as traditional wisdom has it, if one gives these too strong a foothold in one's life, the Devil is not far behind.  Whilst it seems clear that he had no intention to kill his children, his thinking was so corrupted that he risked their lives in pursuit of his own goals, and the Devil's plans were accomplished.

Looking a little beyond that, I did notice some people (eg Caroline Farrow, on Twitter) demonstrating some sympathy for Mairead Philpott, on account of her dreadful past, her vulnerability when she met Mick and so on.

However, I have seen nobody extend that sympathy to Mick Philpott: and so I will do so.  It seems that he too suffered from a broken home and a chaotic upbringing; he was a spoiled child, in the literal sense of those words, and grew into a spoiled adult.  In other words, he was a victim before he was an offender.  I say that not to excuse him: his actions were truly evil, and not just on that last night, but as an acknowledgement of truth, and in justice; and also because there is something we should - indeed must - learn from this.

For the fundamental truth that this illustrates is that to break the Natural Law is to court disaster.  Mick's parents seem to have done it, damaging Mick along the way; Mick has done it more so, with catastrophic results for himself and so many others.

And our response: if we are to be followers of Christ, we must be concerned with truth and love.  

In the name of truth, we must assert that it was sin,  breaking the Natural Law (not least with regard to marriage, throughout the generations) that led to this outrage of evil.  If, as a society, we continue to break this law, we can only expect more such tragedies.

In the name of love, we must pray for Mick Philpott and all the others affected by this tragedy, and hope for their redemption, not their damnation.

And, of course, we must pray for the souls of the children who lost their lives.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis; cum sanctis tuis in aeternam, quia pius es.

In paradisum deducant eis angeli.

Requiescant in pace.

Further reflections on Hypocrisy

A few disconnected thoughts have been swimming around what passes for a brain in the pater familias at Trovato Towers, in addition to those I posted here.

One is that if someone subsequently discovered to be a hypocrite has been lauding certain virtues or values, it is wholly irrational to disbelieve the virtues or values.  The rational response is to disbelieve the hypocrite, precisely in his claim to live up them.

The second is that, pace Cardinal O'Brien, I am sure that things look very different from his perspective and from those who have denounced him.

Whilst I am quite prepared to believe that they may have experienced his approaches (if such there were) as an abuse of power (inter alia) I am also sure that it will not have seemed like that to him at the time.  Recognising the multiple subjectivities at work in such a situation is important if we are not to leap into judgemental mode, but rather understand with compassion what has gone wrong.

That is not to say that we may not judge particular actions as wrong; indeed we must, for the sake of justice and truth.  But we are commanded not to judge our brothers, and that for the sake of an even higher law, the law of charity.

The very best thing we can do is to pray for all concerned, and the next thing is to look to ourselves and root out all that is not in accord with the high truths of Faith Hope and Charity to which we are called.

For to reform and heal the Church, we need to reform and heal the members of the Church; and the place to start is with ourselves, not with others.

The Cardinal Sin of Hypocrisy

The word hypocritical has been applied to Cardinal O'Brien a lot, recently.

Which is odd. Practically every day for many years, he has proclaimed himself a sinner in public. 'I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters...'

A hypocrite is one who proclaims himself to be better than he is, not someone who upholds higher values than he is able to live up to.

That is an important distinction, because if we do not make it, the only alternative is to say: these are the values I am able to live up to (however low or non-existent they be) and such is perfection.

To take the simplest example: I believe it is right to tell the truth and wrong to lie, in nearly all circumstances.  However, I still find myself telling lies for trivial reasons: to save embarrassment, to make myself look better, to improve an anecdote, and so on.  However, that is not hypocrisy; it is simply sin.  It would only be hypocrisy if I proclaimed 'Lying is wrong, and of course, I never do it.' Otherwise, if hypocrisy meant simply inconsistency, I could only avoid it (assuming I will never completely overcome my propensity to tell the occasional fib) by proclaiming that lying is OK.

Cardinal O'Brien, of course, was damned (in the eyes of many) wherever he stood.  Either he was a celibate talking about sexual behaviours of which he had no knowledge or experience, or he was someone talking about sexual behaviours of which he had some knowledge and experience.  I can't help feeling that it was his condemnation of the behaviours, more than the issue of his experience or lack thereof, that provoked the ire of so many.

From a Catholic point of view, he was of course a sinner.  In that he is not unique.  Our Lord and Our Lady apart, that's what the Church is made of.  Sinner is the raw material for saint.

It may well be, indeed I think it highly probable, that he was a penitent sinner.  If he sinned many years ago, and confessed his sin, and did penance; then that sin is forgiven  One could argue about the restitution owed to any whom he has offended or injured in sinning, but we do not know enough about the case.

However, that perspective does raise the interesting question as to whether, with that in his past, he should have spoken out so vehemently against that particular category of sin.  For what it is worth, I think he was right to do so.  The reformed sinner knows the sin from the inside.  He knows how depraved and ultimately unsatisfying sin - any sin - actually is, compared with the anticipatory promise made by the Devil.  How should he keep silence?

Perhaps, and I am inclined to think this may be the case, it would have been wiser and more honest to proclaim himself a sinner in this regard, historically, as part of the context of his condemnation.  But I can fully understand why he may have decided not to do so: we have created a culture so toxic that it could well have put an end to his ministry (as indeed it has done now) and brought opprobrium on his office and the Church he loves (as indeed it has done now).

Of course, he should not have sinned in the first place: but before you cast the first stone, do a full, life-long examination of conscience...

Old Fashioned Sin

What was it ++Nichols said about all that talk about sin? A misguided attempt to motivate people, wasn't it?  It would seem he thinks we have grown out of that and are now a mature pilgrim people wending our way happily heavenwards.

Someone ought to tell the Holy Father. When he was a mere Cardinal, he wrote In the Beginning, a series of sermons on Genesis, subsequently published as a book. In the fourth sermon, he addresses head-on the problem of sin, and its disappearance from even religious instruction: 'Hardly anyone [...] dares to proclaim the prophetic message: Repent! Hardly anyone dares to make to our age this elementary evangelical appeal, with which the Lord wants to induce us to acknowledge our sinfulness, to do penance, and to become other than what we are.'

Later on he writes: 'Thus sin has become a suppressed subject, but everywhere we can see that, although it is suppressed, it has nonetheless remained real.'

He even insists on Original Sin!  And it is these realities, Original Sin and actual sin that help us to understand our need of redemption. For in the Holy Father's mind, the Old Testament always points to, is explained by, and finds its fulfilment in the New, and specifically in Christ and His saving work.  And so he concludes: May we be touched by the words of Jesus in their entirety: 'The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'


H/t Catholic Book Reviews for reminding me of this great book.

On Homosexuality and being 'disordered'

Over at James Preece's blog - which is always a stimulating read - there is much discussion on homosexuality and the fact that it is intrinsically disordered, but not sinful. Only homosexual acts are actually sinful. Some people find this hard to grasp, and others find it intrinsically insulting to people with homosexual tendencies.

As so often, looking in the mirror is a good way to shift the perspective. So surely what we should be explaining is that we are all intrinsically disordered in one way or another - it's called Original Sin. For many of us, part of that is in the realm of our sexuality. Any who are tempted outside of marriage, or are tempted by lust or a contraceptive mentality within marriage, are disordered. That's probably most of us... The Devil attacks our ability to love and our ability to procreate as major targets, and it seems clear that we are damaged by Original Sin in this area.

What counts is how we respond to those temptations. If we succumb to them, that's sin; if we don't, it may well be exercising heroic virtue, in response to God's grace. And that is true of homosexual and heterosexual people alike.

What doesn't help is to declare our own pet disorder to be normal and right, and try to educate others to see it in that way...