Pro-Life Archives - Spes in Domino

March 9, 2022 iacobusm Faith and Culture, Pro-Life

Random Selection Favors Religion, or, What Would Darwin Do?

I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Spes in Domino — **The Marriage***, by Pietro Longhi, c. 1755*

An Angry God

Random selection appears to have doomed its most enthusiastic promoters to extinction.

I want to be clear that I am not taking issue in this post with the theory of evolution per se, or even with Darwin’s specific take on it in particular. Just as there is a “Spirit of Vatican II” that doesn’t concern itself overmuch with what the Second Vatican Council actually decreed, there is a Spirit of Darwinian Evolution that invokes evolutionary theory as a sort of charm that wards off the need for a Creator, but doesn’t feel the need to explain how. It’s that totemic use of evolution, with a quasi-mythical Darwin as its high priest, that I’m referring to here. My whole point, in fact, is that if materialist atheists were actually to apply evolutionary theory to themselves, they would have to admit that unbelieving humanity is doomed.

*Charles Darwin: Prophet of an angry god*

Let’s start with atheism itself. Atheism and the related materialist philosophy are often described as religions, or as quasi-religions. There’s something to that. For unbelievers, a dogmatic adherence to the tenets of their ideology often seems to play the role that religion and devotion to God fulfills in other people’s lives. It certainly is the case that many of those who reject religious belief treat Darwinian evolutionary theory with almost religious awe, and have turned the man himself into something of a god (Darwin Fish, anyone?), or at least a prophet. If he is a prophet, however, he’s a prophet in the mold of the mythological Greek prophetess Cassandra, whose prophecies were never believed. The evidence is pretty clear: random selection likes religion, but is not a fan of atheism.
Before I look into the matter more directly, I should provide a little context. In my years teaching in Catholic schools I often engaged in dialogue with young unbelievers who were enamored of proselytizing atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (if a messenger of good news is an evangelist, what’s the messenger of bad news? A cacangelist? Just a thought.). In the course of these discussions, I came to an interesting realization: in Darwinian terms, atheism is a negative trait. In strictly materialist terms, that is, based on the clear, straightforward evidence, if we all became atheists, humanity would cease to exist in short order.

Believe the Science

I soon discovered that I was not at all the first person to come to this conclusion: I found a report on a site called Scilogs* about the work of German researcher Michael Blume, who says that

It is a great irony but evolution appears to discriminate against atheists and favor those with religious beliefs . . . Most societies or communities that have espoused atheistic beliefs have not survived more than a century.

Blume’s research shows that not just atheist societies, but unbelieving individuals consistently undermine their own posterity:

Blume took data from 82 countries measuring frequency of worship against the number of children. He found that those who worship more than once a week average 2.5 children [2.1 children per woman is the “replacement rate”, the minimum necessary to maintain a population at its current level] while those who never worship only 1.7 – again below replacement rate. There was also considerable variation in religious groups . . . Those without a religion, however, consistently averaged less than two per woman below the replacement , whereas those with the strongest and most fundamental religious beliefs had the most children.

Other researchers come to similar conclusions, and not only on the replacement of populations. On the most basic level, their own individual existence, unbelievers fall short of believers: statistically, those who are actively religious live four years longer.

Viruses of the Mind

What would Charles Darwin say? It would appear that Evolution is an angry and capricious god indeed, as it has clearly selected its most ardent adherents for extinction.

The curious hostility of the process of evolution to the materialist worldview casts a bright light on a contradiction that lies at the heart of the project of atheist proselytization: even if you believe it, why would you want to convince other people? The Dawkinses of the world will reply, as the Blume post says, “that religions are like viruses of the mind which infect people and impose great costs in terms of money, time and health risks.” This, it seems to me, actually defies reason: as I ask my unbelieving interlocutors, is it logical to conclude that a world populated by those who think we are nothing but matter created by meaningless, random natural forces will be a better, kinder place than a world that is the home of people who believe we have been created intentionally by a loving God? Can we reasonably expect that those who believe that we are answerable to nobody and morality is just a social construct will be more loving and generous than men and women who are convinced that we have been commanded by a benevolent Creator to love one another? It just doesn’t make sense.

God is Love (1 John 4:8)

And not surprisingly, the empirical evidence agrees. In addition to the demographic data above, anyone who has studied the history of Rome before and after the Christianization of the Empire, can attest to the humanizing effect of Christianity, and that it was that same Christian Church that civilized the barbarians who eventually overwhelmed the Roman state. Modern day sociological evidence shows the same thing: religious believers (especially Christians) report higher levels of personal happiness (see here, for instance), are more likely to join community and voluntary associations (even non-religious ones), and are more likely to vote. As is the case with the data cited by Blume, the more devout the believer, the stronger the effect. Arthur C. Brooks copiously documents the same results with a wealth of statistical evidence in his book Who Really Cares: believing Christians are much more involved in donating their time and talents for building up their societies, and are much more willing to spare their personal wealth to help others. The Catholic Church alone has founded and runs thousands of hospitals, schools, and countless other charitable projects around the world. Is there any organization founded or run by atheists that even comes close? I submit that the reasonable view is the one that fits the evidence, not the one that contradicts both the empirical data and common sense.

A final point involves getting beyond narrow materialist ideas of what constitutes reason and taking a more expansive (and more traditional) view. Is The Truth about humanity more likely to be something that diminishes humanity, that tears down our societies, makes our lives meaner, and maybe even leads to our annihilation? Or does it lift us up, does it promote flourishing societies and happy productive people? Jesus Christ says “I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life” (John 14:6): doesn’t the evidence bear him out?

*The article to which I refer has since been removed. You can find the same information, and more, on Blume’s own website: http://www.blume-religionswissenschaft.de/english/index_english.html

January 21, 2022 iacobusm Faith and Politics, Pro-Life

“Choice” and the Father of Lies

Untrammelled Will v. The Truth

Truth is the mortal enemy of Sin. There is nothing sin hates and fears more than the truth. Few issues illustrate that reality as starkly as abortion. Truth has been the theme of a number of my discussions here recently (“I Show You The Times: The Truth v. The Narrative,” “Rights, Solidarity, and the Truth“). It’s only fitting that we return to the topic today on the 49th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, in which the court sacrificed the Truth of Human Life to the Untrammelled Human Will.

Before we get to the main topic, however, I’d like to look briefly at today’s anniversary. I’ve seen and heard more than one Catholic commentator hopefully suggest that this year’s March for Life, which has taken place in Washington, D.C. every January since 1974, may be the last. The Supreme Court is hearing another abortion case this year, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, and opponents of the abortion regime are hoping that the current court will have the nerve to overturn Roe. Then, as Katherine Jean Lopez writes in the National Review, “If it’s overturned in June, I’m hoping the march will move to June. The march would then be in thanksgiving.” Such a decision would be cause for rejoicing indeed . . . but I’m not holding my breath.

*The March for Life fills Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., 21 January 2022 (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)*

I don’t mean to sound negative, but hear me out. In the best case scenario, the Supreme Court completely overturns Roe, as well as 1992’s Casey v. Planned Parenthood. In that case, states would be free to restrict or even outlaw abortion, but it would need to be fought out state by state. The pro-life movement would need to keep going strong for years to come, both working to outlaw abortion, and to fight off the inevitable challenges to any pro-life laws that are passed.

As it is, I don’t expect the best case scenario from this court, although, pray God, nothing would please me more. Whatever the outcome, total reversal of Roe, a widening of the loopholes in the old decision, or a ringing endorsement of Roe’s unrestricted abortion regime (which I admit is also unlikely), the struggle won’t be over, now or ever. Abortion is just one front in the eternal war. I’m reposting below a revised version of my discussion of this topic on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, “‘Choice’ and the Father of Lies’:

The Father of Lies

“He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)

As we mark the ugly anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this week, it is only appropriate that we take a look at “Old Scratch” himself, the Devil. In John’s Gospel our Lord tells us everything we need to know about the Devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning”, and “He is a liar, the father of lies”. And what is his first lie, the Big Lie that is still his primary murder weapon? “You will not die . . . you will be like God, knowing good and evil”. (Genesis 3:4-5) No worries, there will be no eternal consequences, Satan tells us, we can decide for ourselves what is good and evil, we are gods. For this reason he is called “the Devil”, from the Greek διάβολος (diabolos), which means “slanderer, perjurer, false accuser, and can also mean “deceiver, one who misleads”. It derives from the verb διαβάλλω (diaballo), whose original meaning is “drive through”, or destroy. Satan seeks to destroy us, eternally, by using falsehood and deception to separate us from God.

A Unique Set of Prayers

I got to thinking about all this the other day due to an obervation from my Lovely Bride. She had just run across this article [here] from the National Right To Life News, detailing certain pro-abortion “prayers” that are being circulated by our old friends at Planned Parenthood. She couldn’t help but think of the observation of C.S. Lewis (and many others) to the effect that Satan can’t create anything on his own, all he can do is mock and falsify God’s creation. I think she has a point. PP calls their campaign by the inelegant title “40 Days of Prayer For Women Everywhere”, an obvious mockery of 40 Days For Life. Here is a sample of a few of the Planned Parenthood “prayers”, from the NRTL News article:

“We give thanks for the doctors who provide quality abortion care”

“We pray for a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility.”

“We pray for all the staff at abortion clinics around the nation. May they be daily confirmed in the sacred care that they offer women.”

“We give thanks for abortion escorts who guide women safely through the hostile gauntlet of protesters.”

“We pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power [of choice, i.e. abortion] by their religion. May they learn to reject fear and live bravely.

”National Right To Life News notes that these “prayers” were composed by a group calling itself “Faith Aloud”, and that “Infamous late term abortionist Dr. Leroy Carhart is a member of the board.”

“To Whom It May Concern . . .”

Planned Parenthood ‘honors’ the birth of Christ

My first reaction on reading this was: do these people really believe that God will surround their butchery of unborn babies made in His image and likeness with “a cloud of gentleness”? That this butchery could be in any sense called “sacred care”? That the Lord would smile upon their request to separate women from their (most often Christian) religion?

Well, maybe they don’t, because these petitions are not actually addressed to God, or to anyone else for that matter. Is it due to a lack of faith, or perhaps a realization that a just and loving God would not be likely to answer prayers such as these? Whatever the case may be, these are the same people who mocked the words of the Heavenly Host with “Choice on Earth” Christmas cards (in Planned Parenthood newspeak, “choice” always means “abortion”); these are the same people who thought it a generous gesture after the terrorist attack on 9/11 to offer free abortions to pregnant widows of men who died in the World Trade Towers.

This macabre mockery of religious faith has been a part of the pro-abortion industry/movement for a long time, and it isn’t limited to that movement’s flagship enterprise: immediately after the Roe decision in 1973 a group calling itself the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR) was founded, which soon, recognizing that the truth in this case was a rather unlovely thing, removed the explicit reference to abortion and changed their name to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And the ugly truth about abortion is the reason for the euphemisms and the bizarre, phony prayers: if they’re honest, they lose, and so they must pretend to be something they’re not. Abortion, like all sin, can’t survive in the Light of Truth.

Spiritual Hosts of Wickedness in Heavenly Places

*The AntiChrist taking orders from his boss: detail of fresco in Orvieto Cathedral by Luca Signorelli, 1499-1504*

The battle against the Spiritual Hosts of Wickedness, then, calls for a two-pronged strategy: first prayer and reliance on God, next a bold proclamation of the truth. That’s why, before the March for Life in Washington and our local marches, we attend Mass or a prayer service. We need to remember that it’s not simply a matter of politics, it’s not even primarily a matter of politics: it’s a matter of Good and Evil, the God of Truth and the father of lies. Let’s make sure we stay on the right side.

December 26, 2021 iacobusm Christmas and Advent, Pro-Life

2nd Day of Christmas: Feast of the Holy Family

And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:51-52)

St. Augustine addressed our Lord as “O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.” We can see this mix of new and old in Christ’s Church as well. For example, today’s celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family, celebrating the little family group of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. This is a very recent observance, as Holy Days go: the Church added it to the liturgical calendar less than a century ago, in 1921, because she was beginning to discern some troubling trends facing the institution of the family in the modern world. The Feast of the Holy Family reminds us that the family as traditionally understood is an integral part of God’s plan for humanity, and also that the family was sanctified by the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity when he came to us through that institution.

*The happily married Belle from Dickens’* **A Christmas Carol** *(illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1915)*

It will perhaps not shock you to hear that the trends that merely troubled Mother Church a century ago have become so powerful that they now threaten to overwhelm the institution of the family all together. The sad fact is that even the way we commonly think of family, and children, is very different than it was for most of humanity before us. Here’s an interesting example of how attitudes are changing. It’s a tradition in our family that together we read Charles Dickens’ 1843 Christmas Classic A Christmas Carol every year at Christmas time. We also watch the 1951 film version of the same story, featuring Alistair Sim as the main character, Scrooge (after whom the film version is also named). The film adds some detail about Scrooge’s early life, but in general sticks closer to the original book than is common in the movies. There is one change, however, that always makes me wonder. When the Ghost of Christmas Past is showing Scrooge scenes from his earlier life, we see him breaking off an engagement to a beautiful woman named Belle because she doesn’t share his growing obsession with money. The spirit later gives Scrooge a glimpse of the same woman years later. In Dickens’ book we see her happily ensconced with a loving husband (who is clearly not Scrooge) and a big bunch of raucous, happy children; the implication is that Scrooge could have been enjoying this delightful domestic mayhem himself if he had chosen another path. In the film, however, we see no husband or children at all: instead, we see Scrooge’s former fiancee (here named Alice), apparently never married, ministering to the needy in a shelter. The message for Scrooge in this case is, look at the wonderful, loving woman you lost through your greed.

*Rona Anderson as the unmarried Alice in the*
*1951 film* **Scrooge**

Now, there’s nothing wrong with the film version of the story; charitable works are quite commendable (and, of course, required of Christians: see James 2:14-26), and charity is in fact an important theme in the original story. But why the change? Most likely by 1951 the makers of the movie were afraid that a house full of children, with which Dickens’ mid-19th century audience would have connected immediately, simply wouldn’t have looked as appealing.

This is something I’d noticed before, in another context. Let’s go back (briefly) to a decade or two before the Holy Family came together, to 17 B.C. That year saw the publication of Vergil’ Aeneid, one of the world’s great literary works (which also claims the distinction of having made the young St. Augustine cry; look it up if don’t believe me). At one point in the the story the devious goddess Juno is trying to bribe the wind god Aeolus to help in one of her schemes, and promises as his reward the most beautiful of nymphs, who will be his forever and, she promises, “make you the parent of beautiful offspring” (pulchra faciat te prole parentem). Later in the same story, Anna, sister of Queen Dido of Carthage is trying to persuade her royal sibling to abandon the vow of chastity she had made after the death of her first husband so that she might marry Aeneas, the hero of the story. Anna urges her to forgo “neither sweet children nor the rewards of Venus” (nec dulcis natos Veneris nec praemia).

*Aeneas and Dido, with Anna behind and to the right.* **Aeneas takes his leave of Dido**, *by Guido Reni, c. 1630*

I’ve read the Aeneid with high school students many times over the last couple of decades, and the same thing always happens. They get the appeal of the good looking nymph, and they live in a social and media environment that is constantly trumpeting the modern version of the “rewards of Venus.” But “beautiful offspring”? “Sweet children”? In a society that all too often depicts children as mere hindrances, and where even a president of the United States is on record as referring to young mothers being “punished with a baby,” we need to explain a thing which was obvious both to the pagans of ancient Rome and Victorian Christians eighteen centuries later: that a child on the way is indeed a “blessed event.”

**St. Joseph with the Infant Christ**, *by Clemente de Torres*, c. 1700

The difference between the genuine pagans of 2,000 years ago and today’s neo-pagans is telling. The family is part of God’s original plan for humanity, and people all over the world have always recognized it as a natural good. Beyond that, when Jesus chose to come into the world as part of a human family He made the institution itself holy, just as He sanctified humanity through His incarnation. When modern day secularists reject and even attack the traditional family, they are not simply denying the obvious worldly benefits of an age-old institution, they are opposing something that they, unlike Vergil and his compatriots, should know has been established and hallowed by God. It’s of a piece with Satan’s defiant Non Serviam!, “I will not serve” . . . and is therefore diabolical.

That’s the challenge the family faces today, and as the family goes, so goes society. It’s an all-out spiritual assault. The Holy Family, fortunately, not only gives us the model, but also provides some powerful intercessors. We all know, I think, that we can always call on the Blessed Mother, but we shouldn’t forget St. Joseph, a Holy Advocate we need more than ever:

Glory of home life,

Guardian of virgins,

Pillar of families,

Solace of the afflicted,

Hope of the sick,

Patron of the dying,

Terror of demons,

Protector of Holy Church,

pray for us.

Featured image top of page: The Flight into Egypt, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1828

Music for Christmas

Verbo Factum Est (The Word was made Flesh, taken from the opening of John’s Gospel). This is its most famous musical setting, by Hans Leo Hassler, published in 1591. Here it is performed by the Sanctuary Choir of the the Seattle First Baptist Church.

Verbum caro factum est
Et habitavit in nobis
et vidimus gloriam ejus
gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre
plenum gratiae et veritatis.

June 22, 2021 iacobusm Faith and Politics, Pro-Life

The Bishops, the Politicians, and Abortion: What Would St. John Fisher Do?

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

The quote above is often attributed to communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. There is no record of his actually having said it, but it’s widely repeated because it pithily sums up a terrifying truth about the relentlessness of war. In an age when a large and influential segment of the population wages political warfare on all who seem to stand in the way of their urgent drive to replace reality as it is with a vaguely envisioned utopia, we can amend that to “You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.”

For a long time now the Catholic bishops in the United States have dabbled in politics, mostly in a manner that we would call “virtue signaling” today: a statement about nuclear war in the 1980s, expressions of concern about capital punishment in the 1990s, some hand-wringing about immigration in more recent years. All issues with legitimate moral dimensions, it’s true, but all likewise issues on which serious Catholics can have legitimate differences of opinion. In none of them were the bishops confronting Catholics or others who were clearly advocating anything directly contrary to the moral law, or promoting an intrinsic evil. And for what it’s worth, none of them are areas in which Catholic bishops have particular competence.

Over the same stretch of time there has been another issue looming, one which is indeed a matter of intrinsic evil, about which there is no room for prudential judgment, and which is very much within the competence of the episcopacy: abortion. Abortion has been unambiguously condemned as a moral evil from the very first days of the Church: “thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide” (Didache, II.2). Now, to be fair, the bishops have been virtually unanimous that abortion is wrong. At the same time, they have been unable or unwilling to fully deploy their authority to teach, govern, and sanctify in the case of prominent prominent public figures who claim to be Catholic and. at the same time, promote abortion and other evils.

It has become increasingly difficult for them to dodge the issue. Now a man who claims to be “a devout Catholic” has become President of the United States, having promised to use the power of the U.S. government to make abortion more accessible at home and around the world, and furthermore at the expense of American taxpayers regardless of their religious or moral convictions. He is doing the same with regard to other moral evils such as same sex marriage. He has even pledged to drag the Little Sisters of the Poor throught the federal courts yet again to force them to pay for contraceptives for employees.

As it happens, we are honoring two great saints today who know what is to stand for the Truth in the face of an invasive government, St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. St. Thomas More is more familiar to us than his contemporary St. John Fisher, partly because his magnetic personality still resonates almost five centuries later, but also in large part because of Robert Bolt’s play and film A Man For All Seasons. St. John Fisher’s story is no less compelling, however, and is in fact given greater prominence by the Church (both Saints are commemorated on the anniversary of his death, although they were not martyred on the same day). As a bishop who faced some particularly difficult choices, he is particularly relevant today.

Who was St. John Fisher? At the time of his death he was bishop of the English See of Rochester, and he died defending the authority of the Church, its vicar the Pope, and the sanctity of marriage, against a monarch who was willing to destroy all of those things in order to get his way: King Henry VIII. In my previous post (here) on Blessed Margaret Pole, who gave her life in the same cause, I wrote of Henry VIII that he:

could serve as a sort of patron “anti-saint” for our times. He was a man possessed of great gifts . . . Henry never mastered himself, however, and so his prodigious talents were put at the service, not of his people, but of his equally prodigious cravings for women, wealth, and power. In the end he tried to swallow even the Church. In his later years his grossly obese body became a living image of his insatiable appetites.

John Fisher was no stranger to Henry’s household. Before his episcopal ordination, Fisher had been the confessor of Margaret Beaufort, Henry’s grandmother, and reportedly tutored the future Monarch himself. The bishop’s long familiarity with the king and his family did him no more good than layman Thomas More’s personal friendship with Henry did him. Fisher had championed the marriage of Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, and had resisted the king’s encroachments on the Church. At last, when he refused to take an oath recognizing the offspring of Henry’s new wife Ann Boleyn as the legitimate successors to the throne, he was put to death. He alone of the English bishops resisted to the bitter end King Henry’s usurpation of the authority of the Church and mockery of the sanctity of marriage.

Henry VIII’s bloated specter casts a longer shadow over the world today than at any time since his death almost five hundred years ago, now when a voracious state is devouring more and more of our freedoms, and casting an especially greedy eye on the free exercise of religion. It’s in this context that the American bishops, who just their annual meeting, voted last Friday to issue a document on “Eucharistic Coherence”, by which they mean the constant practice of the Church (going back to the days of the Apostles themselves) that individuals who engage in persistent and unrepentant public evil should not receive the Body and Blood of Christ in communion.

What this document will actually say is not yet clear; a committee will work on a draft over the next few months for the bishops to vote on at their November meeting. Given the past timidity of the bishops in this regard, it’s hard to envision them getting enough of the espicopate to sign off on a really clear and decisive statement. The brief statement on the USCCB website looks a lot like the all-too-familiar fence straddling:

American Bishops (Photo by Leigh Vogel/MaxPPP)

Since the conclusion of the Spring Plenary Assembly of the U.S. bishops last week, there has been much attention on the vote taken to draft a document on the Eucharist. The question of whether or not to deny any individual or groups Holy Communion was not on the ballot. The vote by the bishops last week tasked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine to begin the drafting of a teaching document on the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life. The importance of nurturing an ever deeper understanding of the beauty and mystery of the Eucharist in our lives is not a new topic for the bishops. The document being drafted is not meant to be disciplinary in nature, nor is it targeted at any one individual or class of persons. It will include a section on the Church’s teaching on the responsibility of every Catholic, including bishops, to live in accordance with the truth, goodness and beauty of the Eucharist we celebrate.

Clearly, we should not get our hopes up. All the same, we should keep engouraging our bishops to do the right thing, and keep praying for them: The Holy Spirit may yet give them the strength. The possibility that the bishops may at last take a stand has impelled a large number of pro-abortion self-identified Catholics in the U.S. Congress to issue a preemptive strike in the form of a so-called “statement of principles“. There really aren’t much in the way of actual principles in the letter. The pro-abortion legislators mostly point out all the areas where they agree with the prudential policy preferences of a large number of bishops, with the implication that all of those political stances somehow outweigh the moral depravity of abortion. The statement concludes with, well, with the the usual tired, unconvincing cliches:

We believe the separation of church and state allows for our faith to inform our public duties and best serve our constituents. The Sacrament of Holy Communion is central to the life of practicing Catholics, and the weaponization of the Eucharist to Democratic lawmakers for their support of a woman’s safe and legal access to abortion is contradictory.

I examine the incoherence of the “weaponization” argument in my post “Who’s Really ‘politicizing’ the Body of Christ?”; I’ll simply point out here that this description implies that the real significance of the Eucharist is to influence political behavior, and that abortion itself is just another political issue. There is no recognition that the value the Church places on the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with politics, and the dismissive reduction of the horror of abortion to the trite evasion of “a woman’s safe and legal access to abortion” is simply insulting. This letter and the public comments of some of the individual signers are saturated with the same self-idolatry that we find at the center of the gender wars: I am not bound by any truth or reality outside of my desires – if I decide that I’m a Catholic, nobody can tell me differently.

And if reality is really reducible to our individual desires, then here’s no need for bishops . . . or a Church . . . or even a Savior. This is an important moment for the American bishops. They stand to lose whatever moral authority they have left if they allow themselves to be bullied by this crowd of political grifters. The spirit of Henry VIII might be alive, but his modern day emulators at least don’t have his power to remove the heads of their adversaries. May our bishops look to the example of St. John Fisher, pray for his intercession, and trust in the Lord to sustain them as they leave aside the temptations of mere politics and take up once again the true authority handed on to them from Christ through his Apostles.

St. John Fisher, pray for all Catholic bishops and priests, and be an inspiration to them, that they may follow your lead in bravely defending Christ’s Church and his Holy Sacraments. Amen.

Featured image top of page:
“Execution of Bishop John Fisher (A) and lord chancellor Thomas More (B) “.
Unsigned engraving from: Theatrum Crudelitatum Haereticorum, Antwerp 1592.

June 6, 2021 iacobusm Faith and Politics, Pro-Life, The Church

Discerning the Body: The Bishops, The Politicians, and The Eucharist

Qui bene distinguit bene docet

It is now abundantly clear to all of us, I hope, that St. Paul’s warning about the eternal battle “against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12) is not just a rhetorical trope. It’s raging all around us with a palpable intensity. One of the clearest signs is that more and more of our institutions are taking up and loudly proclaiming the ancient lie first whispered by the Father of Lies to our first parents: “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5) The New Orthodoxy, in fact, goes beyond determining good and evil for ourselves: even external realities like male and female must bow before the the power of the “awakened” human will. Anyone with the temerity to question the new teachings will be told, as Lot was by the men of Sodom: “This fellow came to sojourn, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” (Genesis 19:9)

When you consider the nature of the current struggle, it seems clear that language is one of the main fronts in the war right now. Above I referred to Satan as the “father of lies”. That title is bestowed on him by Jesus himself: “When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.” (John 8:44-45) To the extent that we’re wading through a sea of lies, we’re fighting on the Enemy’s chosen ground. We need to find a way to move the battle back to dry land, to the truth.

That’s where the Latin adage above comes in: Qui bene distinguit bene docet, “He who distinguishes well, teaches well”. A sure way to deceive people either by misdirection or by appealing to their desires, is to obscure the distinction between the truth and a falsehood that bears a passing resemblance to the truth. Promoters of killing embryonic human beings for their stem cells, for instance, will leave out the important qualifier “embryonic” and say that those who oppose the practice are “against stem cells”. In this way they suggest that opponents of embryonic stem cell mining are also against the morally benign and medically beneficial use of adult stem cells, and that they are therefore “anti-science,” and “against medical treatments”, etc. etc. That’s a lie, because most opponents of embryonic stem cell research support the use of adult stem cells.

I should make a caveat at this point: yes, whenever we lie, and whenever we distort or corrupt the language in order to deceive, we are by definition doing the Devil’s work. That doesn’t mean that everyone who gets on board with a false narrative is in League With Satan. I’m sure most such people believe that they are on the side of the (unfallen) angels. At the same time, that doesn’t mean that they (or we, when we do it) aren’t at fault. We are responsible for properly forming our consciences, and when we ought to know better, well, we ought to know better.

Bene Docet

This brings us to the second half of our legal maxim, bene docet, “teaches well”. If we don’t know the truth because we failed to distinguish well, we will not be able to teach well. How well could I teach Latin, for example, if I couldn’t (or didn’t) distinguish nouns from verbs? As it happens, there are more important truths to be taught than proper Latin grammar (if you can believe it). There are truths, or maybe better there is Truth, that is essential for our eternal salvation . . . and there are men who are specially commissioned to teach it.

I’m talking about the bishops of the Catholic Church, of course. The three most essential tasks given to a bishop are these: to teach, to govern, and to sanctify. One of the most important things they are responsible for teaching is, in fact, just what we are celebrating this weekend: Christ’s real Presence, Body and Blood, in the Eucharist. How well are they teaching it? According to a study published by the Pew Research Center two years ago, not very. You’ve probably heard the bottom-line finding: 70% of Catholics don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in Eucharist.

That figure alone doesn’t tell us anything about why they don’t believe, but a deeper dig into the report turns up some interesting details:

Most Catholics who believe that the bread and wine are symbolic do not know that the church holds that transubstantiation occurs. Overall, 43% of Catholics believe that the bread and wine are symbolic and also that this reflects the position of the church. Still, one-in-five Catholics (22%) reject the idea of transubstantiation, even though they know about the church’s teaching.

The vast majority of those who believe that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ – 28% of all Catholics – do know that this is what the church teaches.

What’s striking here is that the largest segment of Catholics, more than four out of every ten, don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but not because they’ve rejected the doctrine: they don’t even know that it is the doctrine. That is a huge failure on the part of those responsible for teaching in the Church, but a great opportunity as well. Who knows what might happen if somebody tells them what the Catholic Church really believes?

Exempla Docent

A smaller group, but still much too large, are those who say they know the teaching, but reject it. This is a tougher nut to crack. The Pew survey doesn’t go into why they don’t believe or why, despite rejecting a foundational Church doctrine, they still consider themselves Catholic. No doubt they don’t think it’s terribly important. Isn’t that the message they get from the institutional Church? It’s unlikely they’ve heard much of an explanation or defense of the doctrine of transubstantiation, unless they’ve actively sought it out.

Speaking of teaching, here’s another Latin maxim: exempla docent: examples teach. The reception of Communion seems a pretty casual affair in many places without the patens, communion rails, and reception on the tongue that served as concrete reminders to earlier generations of just what, or better yet Whom, they are receiving. And not only that: everyone receives. Everyone and anyone, it seems, is worthy to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord, even promoters and purveyors of a practice as abominable as abortion.

Let’s go back for a moment to bene distinguit. We need to distinguish between doctrinal teaching and mere opinion. We need to make the distinction between a state of grace and a state of sin. We need to distinguish the Body and Blood of Christ from ordinary bread and wine. The Church tells us that the Eucharist is the Summit and Source of the Christian Life, but millions of Catholics are at risk of losing their Life in Christ, and they don’t even know it.

Qui Non Bene Distinguit, Non Bene Docet

That is the issue that many of our Teachers in the Church fail to discern in the current controversy over Eucharistic Coherence, which, as we saw recently, simply refers to the question of whether to admit public, unrepentent advocates of legal abortion and other evil practices to Holy Communion. Those who say that to exclude such people is to “politicize” or “weaponize” the Eucharist are failing to distinguish between the practice of faith and mere politics. In doing so, they endorse the view that the deliberate destruction of innocent human life is not an issue of Good and Evil, but simply a policy disagreement. Qui non bene distinquit, non bene docet.

The issue isn’t political advantage for one party or another, the issue is life itself . . . eternal life. Let’s add a little Greek lesson to the Latin. In secular parlance, a “scandal” is when a prominent person is publicly embarassed. That’s not the original meaning , or the Catholic meaning of the word, however. In Greek σκάνδαλον originally meant the trigger of a trap, the stick that, knocked out of place, causes the snare to catch the victim. From there we get the Christian meaning of scandal, a practice or behavior that blurs the distinction between right and wrong, and in so doing ensnares people in Sin.

Bene Distinguant Episcopi Nostri

The issue here is not that the politicians in question are politicians per se, it is that that as prominent people who represent themselves as Catholic they are publicly using their influence to promote things that are gravely sinful. When those responsible for teaching, governing, and sanctifying fail to distinguish the true dimensions of the problem, and fail to govern by allowing those who persist in openly promoting sin to receive communion, the appointed teachers are teaching by their actions that the Body and Blood of Our Lord is simply not that important. As St. Paul reminds us, unworthy reception of communion is not sanctifying, but condemning:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. (1 Corinthians 27-30)

The real issue is not politics, but the saving of souls, the souls of the politicians in question and the souls of those whom they ensnare by their example. Bene distinguant Episcopi nostri – May our bishops distinguish well.

Feature image: “The Anti-Christ” from the Cathedral of Orvieto, painted by Luca Signorelli 1499-1500.

June 3, 2021 iacobusm Faith and Politics, Pro-Life

Who’s really “politicizing” the Body of Christ?

An unusual and unfamiliar expression, “Eucharistic Coherence”, has been showing up on a lot of Catholic websites lately. I’ve written about the abuse of language on more than one occasion in the recent past (here and here, for instance), but this term is not itself abusive, rather it’s intended to expose and correct abuse. It refers to the coherence that ought to exist between the way Catholics profess and live out their faith in public on the one hand, and their worthiness to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord in Communion on the other. To put it more plainly, it’s a fancy way of saying that public figures who actively promote abortion and other egregious violations of the moral law are not “devout Catholics”, despite their self-professed devotion to Mother Church, and ought not receive communion.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? And yet it’s not. Here’s the short version of the story: given the exuberance with which certain nominally Catholic politicians in the United States promote the killing of the unborn, the dismantling of the family as an institution, and other unlovely manifestations of the Culture of Death, the U.S. Catholic Bishops are preparing to discuss Eucharistic Coherence (i.e., what to do about the scandal caused by said politicians) at their annual meeting later this month. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that a group of 68 American bishops (I could name names, but you probably know them already) have written to Archbishop Gomez, head of the Bishops Conference, asking him to halt the discussion. It seems these bishops are gravely concerned that applying the standard that St. Paul first sets in his First Letter to the Corinthians, that one must be in communion to receive communion (see 1 Corinthians 11:27), would be to “weaponize” or “politicize” the Eucharist.

As they say, never a dull moment, eh? Some interesting commentary on the situation has been published in just the last few days (you can find a sampling here, here, and here). Of course, this issue did not just arise within the last year, it’s been going on for decades. Given it’s current prominence, however, it seemed a good time to republish a piece I first wrote six years ago, originally called “Is The Catholic Church A Political Animal”, in which I raise the question: who is really “politicizing” the Eucharist?

You’re going to find politics wherever people gather, or so someone once told me when I had objected to using the secular political terms “liberal” and “conservative” to describe different factions within the Catholic Church. And he was right, if by “politics” we mean the small-p wrangling that unavoidably accompanies any human enterprise requiring two or more people. But that is a very different thing from Politics, of the partisan variety. The Church is not a political party, and does not work like a political party. Nor should it.

That may seem an obvious point to you and to me, but it’s not at all obvious to everybody. It’s a distinction lost on a large number of people outside of the Church for instance, for many of whom politics has taken the place of religion, and so has become the lens through which they interpret everything. Many such people have come to dominate the secular media in the developed world, with the result that the mass media projects the secular political model onto the Church, with bad guys called conservatives working to thwart the good guys, the liberals (sometimes referred to as progressives), who are fighting to bring about a kinder, better Catholic Church More In Step With The Times. This is the only model of the inner-workings of the Church most people (including most Catholics) see in print, on television, or online, unless they intentionally seek out those Catholic outlets which reject this distorted interpretation. Sadly, many self-described “Catholic” entities embrace the false political model of the hierarchical Church.

U.S. Catholic Bishops (NCR Online photo)

That is not to say that there isn’t a wide range of legitimate differences of opinion within the Church; there is and always has been. Unlike a political party, however, where major policy planks can change overnight with a vote of the membership (and why not? They’re only opinions), there are many things in the Church which are grounded in Divine Revelation, and are therefore not up for negotiation. This vital distinction was expressed very clearly by then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) in 2004. Senator John Kerry, the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States, was widely criticized for receiving communion and touting his Catholic bona fides despite his open advocacy for legal abortion and other positions contrary to Catholic moral teaching. Accordingly, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter (later published by the Holy See under the title “Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles”) to Kerry’s ordinary, then Archbishop of Washington, D.C. Theodore McCarrick, which shows very clearly how the Church is different from a political party. Cardinal Ratzinger writes:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

This crucial difference between particular moral issues can be obscured by applying secular political terms to church “politics”. Political parties often change even basic positions, and this is sometimes a good thing: consider that, when I was a child, many prominent leaders in the Democratic Party in the United States were unapologetic White Supremacists and segregationists. Such a position would be unthinkable today, and yet nobody doubts that the Democratic Party is still the Democratic Party.

“There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus XVI)

The political analogy can create the impression that proposed changes in the Church are benign or even desirable changes of the same sort, but nothing is further from the truth. The difference between abortion and euthanasia on the one hand and war and capital punishment on the other is that the Church has always taught that the first two are intrinsically evil, i.e., never permissible; this teaching is part of the deposit of faith and cannot change, and to publicly oppose it is to separate oneself from the Church (hence the unworthiness to receive communion). In the case of war and capital punishment, the Church has taught that they may be morally licit under some circumstances, a teaching that likewise cannot change. While there are certain moral principles that bind a Catholic here (e.g., the Just War Doctrine), the actual application of these principles belongs to the prudential judgment of individual Catholic decision makers. It is in the application of prudential judgment that legitimate differences of opinion may arise.

Many so-called “progressives” in the Church today, however, are not advocating simply the more progessive application of unchanging principles in prudential situations, but are pushing for changing more foundational things like the teaching on marriage, the meaning of priesthood, sexual morality, etc. The Catholic Church, however, unlike a poltical party, can’t change its teachings and still remain the Catholic Church. One can usually make a case for being either a conservative or a liberal in political matters, but when it comes to Church Doctrine, we can only be Catholic . . . or Not.

Featured image top of page: “The Last Supper” by Juan de Juanes, 1562

January 21, 2021 iacobusm Pro-Life

The Truth Is Pro-Life (Flashback Thursday)

This post was first published January 16th, 2015 on my original blog, Principium et Finis.

“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” Thus spake Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority in the U.S, Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision in January, 1973. And so the era of virtually unlimited abortion in the United States burst upon the nation in a flurry of obfuscation and falsehood. There never was, in fact, any question of when “life begins”, certainly not on scientific grounds (I defy you to find a biology text that does not agree that life begins at conception): the only question was whether all human life was deserving of protection, or only certain lives. For more than four decades now, the abortion industry and its apologists have relied on verbal smokescreens like Justice Blackmun’s to provide just enough cover that Americans can avoid the ugly truth about abortion.

Traditional ultrasound image of a baby ***in utero***.

It’s getting harder all the time to keep the charade going. When Blackmun wrote his decision in 1973, ultrasound was not yet commonly used by obstetricians in the United States, and so for the vast majority of Americans unborn babies remained invisible, out-of-sight . . . and therefore fairly easy to dismiss. Not anymore. Virtually all expectant mothers have pictures of their babies in the womb long before the birth, pictures that have become increasingly clearer and more life-like, especially with the advent of 3-d ultrasound (see photo below). If it looks like a baby, squirms like a baby, gives a “thumbs up” like a baby (see photo above), well, what can one conclude? Of course, women who go to abortion clinics are unlikely to be offered such pictures, even if an ultrasound is performed, because women who see an ultrasound of their unborn baby are much less likely to abort (see here).

Howard Slugh, an attorney, addresses the ultrasound issue in an article [here] in National Review Online called “The Life-Affirming Power of Ultrasound”. He discusses in particular the growing number of state laws in the U.S. that require the abortionist to perform an ultrasound and to show the images to the mother of the unborn baby. There are some interesting features to the legal battles over these laws. First of all, even though abortionists fervently deny that ultrasounds change minds, they “in fact have conceded the point in lawsuits challenging mandatory ultrasound laws”, which they have been fighting tooth-and-nail to stop. Why bother, if they don’t give women reason to reconsider their choice to abort?

That’s not the only revealing thing about the abortionists’ legal arguments. “No one”, according to Slugh, “asserts that the images are misleading or that the laws require additional pro-life commentary.” The abortion providers can only argue that simply requiring them to show clear, unaltered pictures of what (or really, as the images show, who) is being aborted will dissuade some of their customers. A federal court, in striking down one of these laws in North Carolina, said in its decision that the law “explicitly promotes a pro-life message by demanding the provision of facts that all fall on one side of the abortion debate.” Notice that the law does not require the suppression of “facts” that fall on the other side of the debate: it simply requires that the mother know all the facts before undergoing abortion, and the facts happen to be pro-life. And so the abortionists are reduced to asking the court to help them hide the truth. As Slugh notes:

All these sources agree that the more a mother knows about her child, the less likely she is to abort him. This is not because ultrasound images are misleading or politicized; it is because they supply a mother with truthful information necessary for making an informed choice.

It’s good to bear this in mind as we work to protect life: truth is our ally. We should continue to publicize the truth by educating and informing our fellow citizems, by participating in pro-life events, and by supporting pro-life laws such as the ones mentioned above that give women more access to full and accurate information. But more than that, we should also be sure to pray to the Lord of Truth, that He continue to open our eyes and hearts, and those of our fellow people, to the Truth of the humanity of the unborn, and to the sanctity of all human life.