In an interview on Monday, radically pro-abortion former Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the Democrats extreme abortion agenda crystal clear. She said that if Democrats win Congress, they will kill the filibuster in the Senate so they can legalize abortions up to birth nationwide.

This is a stark reminder to every pro-life voter in America that pro-life Republicans must win Congress and Joe Biden can’t be re-elected.

In an interview Monday on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” Pelosi falsely claimed “People have to view abortion as a democracy issue. This is about freedom to make your own decisions for a woman. It’s a personal decision, it’s an economic decision at the kitchen table of America’s families, if and when they could expand their families or even start their families.”

Tur asked, “Do you think it’s going to be a more powerful issue at the ballot box this time around?”

Pelosi said, “Well, it is because the fact is that no matter what he says, there will be a national abortion ban, and that would be horrible for our country.”

“We have to win it all. We have to win the White House, with our great president of the United States, Joe Biden, who has a vision for America that is in keeping with the vision of our founders, the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, the aspirations of our children and their families,” she responded.

Please follow LifeNews.com on Gab for the latest pro-life news and info, free from social media censorship.

Tur asked, “If President Biden gets reelected and there’s a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, what can President Biden do to protect abortion nationwide?”

“We can enshrine into the law Roe v. Wade,” she responded.

Tur said, “That would take two-thirds in the Senate.”

She then laid out the radical abortion agenda: “No it doesn’t. It’s 60 votes is the Senate now but if we win 50-plus-1 in the Senate, 50 plus the vice president, we can overturn the 60-vote rule.”

Tur said, “The filibuster.”

Pelosi confirmed: “The filibuster and pass it with a 51-vote margin. That’s what we need to do.”

Responding to her comments, SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told LifeNews, “Biden-Pelosi Democrats will stop at nothing to force abortion on demand any time for any reason, in every state in America – with no exceptions even for brutal second and third trimester abortions when babies can feel pain. They will scrap every rule such as the filibuster that stands in their way and weaponize the full force of the federal government to promote their abortion agenda.”

She said Democrats would go even further and overturn every pro-life law in America.

“Democrats like Pelosi are being up front about their goals, and they are nothing if not ambitious. What they won’t tell America is that their deceptively named ‘Women’s Health Protection Act’ is far more sweeping than Roe v. Wade and would overturn parental rights, informed consent, health and safety standards, late-term abortion limits, and more – a truth the voters are only supposed to discover after it’s too late.

Multiple post-Dobbs polls show that at least seven in 10 Americans support significant limits on abortion. SBA Pro-Life America is tracking the pro-abortion extremism of the Biden-Harris administration at sbaprolife.org/biden-harris.

This election cycle, SBA Pro-Life America and its affiliated entities plan to spend $92 million to protect life across America. This includes reaching 10 million voters – four million directly at their doors – across the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to educate them on key issues and win pro-life majorities in the U.S. House and Senate.

The post Nancy Pelosi: If Democrats Win, We Will Kill the Filibuster and Legalize Abortions Up to Birth Nationwide appeared first on LifeNews.com.

A Spanish version of this paper appears in: Miguel Ayuso Torres (ed.), ¿El derecho natural contra el derecho natural? Historia y balance de un problema (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2024).

Introduction

The so-called “New Natural Law Theory” is a name applied to a certain attempt at recovering natural law theory in a form that would make it impervious to objections taken from Hume’s “is-ought problem.” The attempt was begun by Germain Grisez in 1965, and carried on by Grisez himself, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, Robert P. George, and others.1 The theory began as a new interpretation of St Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on natural law, but it quickly diverged from St Thomas’s teaching on many particular conclusions. The name “New Natural Law Theory” seems to have been used first by critics of the theory.2 The theory has been influential in jurisprudence, political philosophy, moral theology, and the interpretation of Catholic Social Teaching. While it has had some influence among non-Catholics,3 its primary influence has been among Catholics.

The New Natural Law Theory has been found useful as a way of defending what I will call “neo-conservative” Catholicism. By the term “neo-conservative” I mean to signify writers who, in the decades following Vatican II, were concerned, on the one hand, with defending the objectivity of moral norms and the truth of the Church’s moral teachings on matters such as abortion, euthanasia, and contraception; but who, on the other hand, interpreted Vatican II as allowing for a rapprochement between the Church and classical liberalism on such matters as usury, free market economics, social contract democracy, the primacy of individual rights, the separation of Church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and (in short) most of the ideas that had been condemned by the 19th-century Popes as “liberal errors.”4 Thus, a theory whose theoretical concern was in part reinterpreting the natural law in response to the moral epistemology of the Enlightenment ended in endorsing many of the particular political and juridical conclusions that originally stemmed from Enlightenment thought.

In this paper I offer a critique of the New Natural Law Theory from the perspective of the traditional Thomist understanding of natural law, and more fundamentally of the good to which natural law is directed. I will argue that New Natural Law Theory exaggerates the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. This exaggeration leads its proponents to a fundamental misunderstanding of the good. Counter-intuitively, their exaggeration of the distinction between speculative and practical truth leads them to have an overly abstract understanding of the good; they neglect the implications of Aristotle’s insight that while the truth is found primarily in the mind, the good is found primarily in things.5 They consider the good according to the mode of existence that it has in the mind. As a consequence of this, the proponents of the New Natural Law Theory misunderstand the way in which the good is most properly said to be universal or common. They tend to understand the universality of the good as a universality in predication (one name said of many things), rather than a universality of causation (one elevated cause of many effects below it).6 They thereby misunderstand the way in the which natural law is related to the good. They understand the first precept of the law, on which all the precepts of natural law are founded—“good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided”7—to refer to the universal predicate “good,” a name abstracted from particular goods and said of particular goods, rather than as referring the actual common good of all things, in which all other goods participate, and to which all goods are directed. The proponents of the New Natural Law Theory therefore deny that there is a hierarchy among the goods to which we are inclined by nature. This leads them to the astonishing opinion that God is not the complete end of human life. The denial of the hierarchy of goods also leads them to deny the primacy of the common good of a complete society (societas perfecta) over the private goods of individuals. They therefore also misunderstand the relation of the common good to individual rights. Instead of rights flowing from the common good by means of law (which is always directed to the common good), the proponents of the theory see rights as the foundation of law, and the common good as an instrumental good that secures rights to individuals. The proponents of the New Natural Law Theory therefore accept modern liberal errors on such rights as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.

In Part I of this paper, I will give an outline of the New Natural Law Theory and show how the conclusions just mentioned follow from its principles. In Part II, I will explain the traditional Thomistic understanding of the good and the natural law and show how it grounds the rejection of liberal errors by the 19th-century popes.

Part I: Goodness, Law, and Right in the New Natural Law Theory

In 1965 Germain Grisez published an article that came to be seen as the beginning of the New Natural Law Theory. The article offered a new interpretation of Summa theologiæ Ia-IIae, q.94, a.2, in which St Thomas treats the question of whether the natural law contains only one precept or many. It will be useful to summarize St Thomas’s text before turning to Grisez’s interpretation.

St Thomas points to an analogy between speculative and practical reason. Just as speculative reason moves from self-evident, naturally known principles to conclusions, so practical reason moves from self-evident, naturally known principles to its conclusions. Reason first apprehends being, and from this first apprehension, the first principle of speculative reason is derived: the principle of contradiction. This principle is based on the understanding of the opposition of being and non-being. What is is and cannot not be. Or, in other words, the same cannot be affirmed and denied of the same thing at the same time. All other self-evident principles of speculative reasoning are based on this first principle and would be meaningless without it. For example, it is self-evident that a whole is greater than any one of its parts. But this proposition would be meaningless if the same could be affirmed and denied of the same, for then the whole could be both greater and not greater than one of its parts.

In practical reasoning, i.e. reasoning directed to action, St Thomas argues the first thing apprehended is the good, that which all seek after, because “every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good.” From this the first principle of practical reasoning follows: “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” All other self-evident principles of practical reason, St Thomas argues, are based on this first principle and would be meaningless without it.

Nevertheless, St Thomas goes on to argue there are many precepts of the natural law, because man is inclined (slanted) by nature to many different kinds of goods that perfect or complete him. Human reason apprehends such goods as ends on account of the first principle that the good is to be done and pursued. Nevertheless, the goodness of those ends is self-evident and naturally known through the natural inclinations in man. Thomas shows how various levels of nature in man result in various kinds of inclinations. The first level is what man has in common with all beings. As a being, a substance, man is inclined like all substances to conserve his being, to keep on existing. And because the being of living things is life, natural law commands man to preserve his life. The second level has more particularly to do with man’s being as an animal, a sensitive being. In accordance with this level man is inclined to sexual intercourse and the rearing of young, and such things. The third level has to do with man’s specific nature as a rational being. According to this third level, man is inclined to specifically rational goods, and thus he is bound by natural law to shun ignorance and falsehood and, moreover, to avoid offenses contrary to rational sociability.

In his interpretation, Germain Grisez reads St Thomas as making a rigid distinction between speculative and practical reason. He takes Thomas here as having anticipated the famous “is-ought” problem raised by Hume:

The theory of law is permanently in danger of falling into the illusion that practical knowledge is merely theoretical knowledge plus force of will. […] [P]ractical reason really does not know in the same way that theoretical reason knows. For practical reason, to know is to prescribe. This is why I insisted so strongly that the first practical principle is not a theoretical truth. Once its real character as a precept is seen, there is less temptation to bolster the practical principle with will, and so to transform it into an imperative, in order to make it relevant to practice. Indeed, the addition of will to theoretical knowledge cannot make it practical. This point is precisely what Hume saw when he denied the possibility of deriving ought from is.8

Although practical reason does not know in the same way as speculative reason, nevertheless it still does know abstractly. This is seen in how Grisez understands the notion of “good” in the first precept of the law. At first, Grisez seems to indicate that “good” refers to the last end, the ultimate final cause: “The good of which practical reason prescribes the pursuit and performance…is the last end, for practical reason cannot direct the possible actions which are its objects without directing them to an end.”9 But it soon becomes clear that Grisez does not think the first precept orders reason to any actual good in things, rather “good” in the precept is merely a universal predicate, one name said of many particular goods. The good of the first precept is indeterminate. For Grisez the first precept does not actually prescribe any actions, but rather makes human actions possible by “determining that action will be for an end.”10 “Good” in the first principle does mean the actual final cause of human action, but rather signifies abstractly anything that man might choose as his final cause:

The will necessarily tends to a single ultimate end, but it does not necessarily tend to any definite good as an ultimate end. We may say that the will naturally desires happiness, but this is simply to say that man cannot but desire the attainment of that good, whatever it may be, for which he is acting as an ultimate end. The desire for happiness is simply the first principle of practical reason directing human action from within the will informed by reason. Because the specific last end is not determined for him by nature, man is able to make the basic commitment which orients his entire life.11

For Grisez there is therefore a “gap” between the first precept of law and the subsequent precepts of the natural law. Each of the subsequent precepts is in a sense a “first” precept; each of them is a self-evident ordering to some kind of good to which man is inclined. There is therefore no order between the other self-evident precepts of the natural law. They cannot be ordered by their proximity or distance from the true final end, because the first precept, at work in them, is not about the true final end. Rather, any of the goods of the other precepts, or any synthesis of them, can be taken by man as his final end. This is why proponents of the New Natural Law came to call such goods “basic goods.”12

One of the most startling consequences of the New Natural Law Theory’s denial of a hierarchy of ends is Germain Grisez’s thesis that God is not enough to satisfy the human heart. In a 2005 lecture entitled “The Restless Heart Blunder,” Grisez argued that St Augustine’s famous dictum that our hearts are restless until they rest in God was a blunder, because friendship with God is only one good among others. Therefore, he argues, the true end of human life is not God, but the Kingdom of God, which includes all human goods: “Strictly speaking, God is not the ultimate end toward which we should direct our lives. That end is God’s kingdom, which will be a wonderful communion of divine persons, human persons, and other created persons. Every member of the kingdom will be richly fulfilled in respect to all human goods, including friendship with God.”13 This opinion is so offensive to pious ears that it scarcely needs refutation. I will, however, show why it is wrong in Part II. I believe this to be the most pernicious error of the New Natural Law Theory.

The denial of the hierarchy of goods leads proponents of the New Natural Law Theory to deny the primacy of the political common good, the common good of the complete human community, over the goods of parts of the community as parts. Although their position is qualified in various ways, proponents of the New Natural Law Theory tend to see the “specifically political common good” as being “limited and in a sense instrumental.”14 The role of the state is to provide the necessary conditions for persons and smaller communities to seek their basic goods. The state, according to them, is therefore not ordered to the fullness of human virtue, but only towards such social virtues as are necessary for maintaining public order: “As the public good, the elements of the specifically political common good are not all-round virtue but goods (and virtues) which are intrinsically inter­personal, other-directed…, person to person…: justice and peace.”15

In this instrumental understanding of the political common good, proponents of the New Natural Law are closer to the political philosophers of the Enlightenment and their 19th-century liberal heirs, than they are to the Socratic tradition of political philosophy as it was developed by Plato, Aristotle, and the great thinkers of the Middle Ages. It is thus not surprising that proponents of the New Natural Law Theory tend to agree with the Enlightenment philosophers and the 19th-century liberals on the vital importance of rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. 

To his credit, John Finnis points out that there was a “watershed” in the understanding of the concept of right or jus between the time of St Thomas Aquinas and that of Francisco Suárez. St Thomas had seen the primary meaning of right as being “the just thing itself,” meaning “acts, objects, and states of affairs, considered as subject-matters of relationships of justice.”16 Finnis implies that the distribution of such rights is related to the common good. To make his point more explicit: the duty that someone else has to render to you, what is your due by justice, is measured by law, which is an ordinance for the common good. Three centuries later, Finnis notes, in the work of Suárez, the primary meaning of jus comes to be a moral power that a person has over what belongs to him or is due to him.17 Finnis, however, disagrees with theorists such as Michel Villey that this watershed represents a bad development that needs to be corrected. According to Finnis, “there is no cause to take sides as between the older and the newer usages.”18 In a postscript to the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights, Finnis goes even further, arguing that the “watershed” between Thomas and Suárez, “must be regarded as much more a matter of appearance and idiom than of conceptual, let alone political or philosophical, substance.”19 The main reason for this is Finnis’s instrumental understanding of the common good. Since the common good is ultimately for the sake of the enabling the enjoyment of basic goods, “right” in St Thomas’s sense is ultimately for “right” in Suárez’s sense:

[W]hen we come to explain the requirements of justice, which we do by referring to the needs of the common good at its various levels, then we find that there is reason for treating the concept of duty, obligation, or requirement as having a more strategic explanatory role than the concept of rights. The concept of rights is not on that account of less importance or dignity: for the common good is precisely the good of the individuals whose benefit, from fulfilment of duty by others, is their right because required in justice of those others.20

Ultimately, therefore, Finnis can affirm the modern use of rights language as “a supple and potentially precise instrument for sorting out and expressing the demands of justice.”21 Finnis certainly disagrees with some contemporary claims about rights, such as the claim of a right to abortion or homosexual marriage,22 but he agrees with others. Particularly, he defends the right to free practice of religion. He reads Vatican II’s Declaration Dignitatis humanæ as having defended that right on the basis of an instrumental understanding of the common good.23 I would argue that his reading of Dignitatis humanæ is, in fact, incorrect, and that his error of interpretation flows from the error in his principles.24

In Making Men Moral, Robert P. George disagrees with the radical liberal claim that politics should not be concerned with morality, yet he uses the New Natural Law theory to defend the rights that had been defended by classical liberals: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to privacy, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.25 The list reads almost like a list of liberties condemned by the 19th-century popes.

Part II: Contrasting the New Natural Law Theory with the Old

Contrary to Grisez’s claims, St Thomas did not hold the main theses of the New Natural Law Theory. An understanding of his “old” natural law theory will, therefore, show the conclusions of the new to be erroneous.

For St Thomas the distinction between speculative and practical reason is not as rigid as for Grisez. Practical reason is distinguished from speculative reason from something that is accidental to reason as power—namely that practical reason orders what is known to action, whereas speculative reason orders it to contemplation. But, St Thomas argues, “to a thing apprehended by the intellect, it is accidental whether it be directed to operation or not.”26 In other words, to know for the practical intellect is not radically different than for the speculative intellect. 

Nevertheless, since the good is in things, the practical intellect ought to consider goods according to the existence they have in reality, rather than merely according to their abstract existence in the mind. Hence the first precept of the law, “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided” refers not to a universal name, said of many goods, but existing only abstractly in the mind; rather it refers to a good common in its causality—the final end attracting all things by its actual goodness. 

Hence, in discussing the essence of law in general St Thomas argues that law is always ordered to a good which is universal in causality. Thomas argues that law is always ordered to “the common good.” He raises an objection: “Law directs man in his actions. But human actions are concerned with particular matters. Therefore the law is directed to some particular good.”27 In response, Thomas writes: “Actions are indeed concerned with particular matters: but those particular matters are referable to the common good, not as to a common genus or species, but as to a common final cause, according as the common good is said to be the common end.”28 In other words, in any kind of law, particular actions are commanded because they are directed toward that common good which is their final cause. Therefore, in the first precept of law, “the good” refers to the most common good to which all other goods, and all actions, are directed. Insofar as it refers to other goods to be done, it is referring to those other goods as actually ordered to the highest good and last end.

But what is the last end and highest good?29 It is God Himself, the unbounded ocean of actuality, perfection, and goodness. The good is what all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection. But since every created perfection is from God as its agent, exemplar, and final cause, it is a participation in God’s perfection. To participate is to take part in something without removing a part from it. My reflection in a mirror partakes of my form, without depriving me of any part of my form. God does not have parts, but creatures share in Him in an incomplete, that is, a partial way. Therefore, creatures are ordered to their Creator the way parts are ordered to a whole. The perfection that each creature desires consists in an ever-greater likeness to the Creator. But that means that the perfection that they desire only ever exists in a secondary way in themselves. It exists fully only in God. Therefore, St Thomas teaches, creatures naturally love God more than themselves:

In natural things, everything which, as such, naturally belongs to another, is principally, and more strongly inclined to that other to which it belongs, than towards itself…. For we observe that the part naturally exposes itself in order to safeguard the whole; as, for instance, the hand is without deliberation exposed to the blow for the whole body’s safety. And since reason copies nature, we find the same inclination among the social virtues; for it behooves the virtuous citizen to expose himself to the danger of death for the public weal of the state…. Consequently, since God is the universal good, and under this good both man and angel and all creatures are comprised, because every creature in regard to its entire being naturally belongs to God, it follows that from natural love angel and man alike love God before themselves and with a greater love. Otherwise, if either of them loved self more than God, it would follow that natural love would be perverse, and that it would not be perfected but destroyed by charity.30

As all the great mystics of the Catholic tradition have known, therefore, God and God alone fully satisfies the desires of the human heart. Contrary to Grisez’s impious thesis, the one who has God and all created goods does not have more than the one who has God alone.

As James Berquist has shown, however, it does not follow that one could simply restate the first precept of the law as “God is to be pursued and what leads to Him is to be done.”31 This is because what is first naturally known to us is rather indistinct and confused. We know there is some final end of desire, but we do not yet know explicitly that it is God. Hence St Thomas writes:

To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature, inasmuch as God is man’s beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely [simpliciter] that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else.32

A human being first apprehends the natural law when he attains the age of reason. St Thomas describes the first deliberation that takes place at the age of reason as the discernment of the true end to which man must order himself. If he fails to order himself to his end, he commits a mortal sin.33 As James Berquist has shown, the one who fails to order himself to his end does not see the good as a common good, to which he must order himself, but rather as a private good which he wishes to order to himself.34

From this primacy of God as the universal common good follows a hierarchy of all other goods, which are good because they are like God and because they in some way (either indirectly or directly) help us to approach God. The highest good of the human moral life is the common good of the complete human society, the political community. The intrinsic common good of the polity is peace, the tranquility of order that results from justice and prudent governance. This peace is a thing of beauty, in which the splendid virtues of citizens are brought into a harmonious unity, like a symphony of human life which imitates the beauty of Heaven. As Socrates puts it, “no city can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern.”35 The extrinsic common good of the city is happiness. As Aristotle teaches, a city is founded for living well, that is acting according to moral virtue.36 Human happiness is found in doing the human activity (ergon) virtuously. And this is ordered to God both by making human beings more like God, and by preparing them for the contemplation of God. This virtuous activity is a truly common good when it is shared in political friendship.37 All other human goods are directed to this common good. This does not mean that the political community can simply destroy lesser human goods; on the contrary, the lesser goods are necessary for the primary good, which depends upon them.38

Given the primacy of the common good, Finnis is wrong to see the watershed between the older understanding of “right” as found in St Thomas and the modern theory of “rights” as a matter of appearance rather than substance.39 On the contrary, on the older understanding, since the common good is understood as true human happiness, rights are distributed with a view to that true happiness, to the fostering of the virtuous activity in which it consists. But on the newer understanding, the common good is degraded to an instrument for serving rights understood as something merely personal. As the Laval School Thomist Henri Grenier put it:

If objective right is understood as right in the strict sense, it follows that subjective right, i.e., right as a power, is measured by the just thing, according to conformity to law. Moreover, since law is an ordinance for the common good, it follows that the whole juridical order is directed to the common good. But, if subjective right is understood as right in the primary, strict, and formal meaning of the term, it follows that the juridical order consists in a certain autonomy, independence, and liberty. For subjective right is not measured by the just thing, but the just thing is measured by the inviolable faculty, which is a certain liberty. Therefore, according to moderns, the juridical order is directed to liberty rather than to the common good. This gives rise to errors among moderns, who speak of liberty of speech, liberty of worship, economic liberty,— economic liberalism,— without any consideration of their relation to the common good.40

As Charles De Koninck argues, this reversal has “execrable practical consequences.”41 For, when each orders the common good to his own private good, every member of society is a little tyrant.42

The papal condemnations of the demands of 19th-century liberals for freedom of speech, worship, etc. can be understood in this light. The popes recognized that the freedom being demanded was a tyrannical freedom, contrary to the fostering of true virtue and the common good. Thus, Pope Leo XIII in examining liberal demands for religious liberty teaches that such a liberty, understood as “the principle that every man is free to profess as he may choose any religion or none” is contrary to the virtue of religion, whereby we render to God what is His due. He then goes on to discuss the relation of this supposed right to the common good of the state. It is worth quoting him at length:

This kind of liberty, if considered in relation to the State, clearly implies that there is no reason why the State should offer any homage to God, or should desire any public recognition of Him; that no one form of worship is to be preferred to another, but that all stand on an equal footing, no account being taken of the religion of the people, even if they profess the Catholic faith. But, to justify this, it must needs be taken as true that the State has no duties toward God, or that such duties, if they exist, can be abandoned with impunity, both of which assertions are manifestly false. For it cannot be doubted but that, by the will of God, men are united in civil society; whether its component parts be considered; or its form, which implies authority; or the object of its existence; or the abundance of the vast services which it renders to man. God it is who has made man for society, and has placed him in the company of others like himself, so that what was wanting to his nature, and beyond his attainment if left to his own resources, he might obtain by association with others. Wherefore, civil society must acknowledge God as its Founder and Parent, and must obey and reverence His power and authority. Justice therefore forbids, and reason itself forbids, the State to be godless; or to adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness—namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges. Since, then, the profession of one religion is necessary in the State, that religion must be professed which alone is true, and which can be recognized without difficulty, especially in Catholic States, because the marks of truth are, as it were, engravers upon it. This religion, therefore, the rulers of the State must preserve and protect, if they would provide— as they should do— with prudence and usefulness for the good of the community. For public authority exists for the welfare of those whom it governs; and, although its proximate end is to lead men to the prosperity found in this life, yet, in so doing, it ought not to diminish, but rather to increase, man’s capability of attaining to the supreme good in which his everlasting happiness consists: which never can be attained if religion be disregarded.43

This argument is based on the contrast that Pope Leo XIII sets up between true liberty, ordered to the true good, and false (liberal) liberty, which is ordered indifferently to whatever human beings take to be their end. Thus, liberty of speech, of publishing, etc. are condemned in similar terms. True liberty is essentially ordered to God, who is the last end and first principle of all human moral acts. As Leo XIII teaches in the encyclical Au milieu des sollicitudes, the true understanding of human morality is thoroughly theocentric:

The idea of morality signifies, above all, an order of dependence in regard to truth which is the light of the mind; in regard to good which is the object of the will; and without truth and good there is no morality worthy of the name. And what is the principal and essential truth, that from which all truth is derived? It is God. What, therefore, is the supreme good from which all other good proceeds? God. Finally, who is the creator and guardian of our reason, our will, our whole being, as well as the end of our life? God; always God.44

The errors of the New Natural Law Theory remove God from the center of human moral, juridical, and political life. The acceptance of those errors therefore leads to a hollowing out of morality, and a secularization of jurisprudence and politics. Ultimately, it represents a capitulation to the modern enemies of the Church, who have set up a secular anti-culture in the place of the noble customs of Christendom. It is therefore imperative that those errors be resisted.

1. For an overview see: Patrick Lee, “The New Natural Law Theory,” in Tom Angier (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 73-91. ︎
2. See: Russell Hittinger, A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 5. ︎
3. See, for example: Anver M. Emon, Matthew Levering, and David Novak, Natural Law: A Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Trialogue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), which shows how the movement has been influential on certain Jewish and Muslim thinkers. ︎
4. See, for example: Gregory XVI, Mirari vos (1832); Pius IX, Quanta cura (1864); Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum (1888). My own view is that the teaching of Vatican II is in continuity with that of the popes of the “Pian” age. See: Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., “Religious Liberty in the Light of Tradition,” in: idem (ed.), Integralism and the Common Good: Collected Essays from The Josias, vol. 2, The Two Powers (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2022). ︎
5. See: Aristotle, Metaphysics, VI.4 1027b; St Thomas Aquinas, In Metaph. VI, lect. 4, 1240. ︎
6. See: James Berquist, “Uncommon Confusion: The New Natural Law Theory’s Confusion of Predication and Causality Destroys the Natural Order,” The Josias, February 13th, 2023. I am very much indebted to Berquist’s insights for my reading of the NNL. ︎
7. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiæ, Ia-IIae, q.94, a.2, c; translation Laurence Shapcote, op, edited and revised by The Aquinas Institute, available online at aquinas.cc. ︎
8. Germain Grisez, “The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa theologiae, 1-2, Question 94, Article 2,” in Natural Law Forum 10 (1965), 168-201, at 193-194. ︎
9. Ibid., 182. ︎
10. Ibid., 199. ︎
11. ︎
12. Patrick Lee, “The New Natural Law Theory,” 73; cf. Steven A. Long, “Fundamental Errors of the New Natural Law Theory” in The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (2013) 105-131. ︎
13. Germain Grisez, “The Restless Heart Blunder,” 2005 Aquinas Lecture, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas. ︎
14. John Finnis, “Public Good: The Specifically Political Common Good in Aquinas,” in Robert P. George (ed.), Natural Law and Moral Inquiry: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Politics in the Thought of Germain Grisez (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998), 174–209, at 187. ︎
15. Ibid., 179. ︎
16. John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011), 206. ︎
17. Ibid., 207. ︎
18. Ibid., 210. ︎
19. Ibid., 465. ︎
20. ︎
21. Ibid., 210. ︎
22. See: John Finnis, “Is Natural Law Theory Compatible with Limited Government?” in Robert P. George (ed.), Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality: Contemporary Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1-26. ︎
23. Ibid., 6-7. ︎
24. Cf. the exchange between Thomas Pink and Finnis on the interpretation of Dignitatis humanæ in: John Keown and Robert P. George (eds), Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). ︎
25. Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), ch. 7. ︎
26. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiæ, Ia, q. 79, a. 11, cf. Long, “Fundamental Errors of the New Natural Law Theory,” 107-108. ︎
27. Ibid., Ia-IIae, q. 90, a.2, arg. 2. ︎
28. Ibid., Ia-IIae, q. 90, a.2, ad 2. ︎
29. The following paragraph is based, in part, on my paper: “Common Good Eudemonism,” Divinitas 62.1 (2019), 425-439. ︎
30. ︎
31. Berquist, “Uncommon Confusion.” ︎
32. ︎
33. Ibid., Ia-IIae, q. 89, a. 6. ︎
34. Berquist, “Uncommon Confusion.” ︎
35. Plato, Republic, 500. ︎
36. Aristotle, Politics, I.2 1252b 27. ︎
37. See: Jacques de Monléon, Personne et Société (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007) 142-145; Gregory Froelich, “Friendship and the Common Good,” The Aquinas Review 12 (2005) 37-58. ︎
38. See: Charles De Koninck, On the Primacy of the Common Good: Against the Personalists, in: The Writings of Charles De Koninck, vol. 2, ed. Ralph McInerny (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). ︎
39. Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, 465; cf. Part I of the present essay. ︎
40. ︎
41. De Koninck, On the Primacy of the Common Good, 108. ︎
42. Ibid., 80. ︎
43. ︎
44. ︎

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Idaho/Moyle v. United States regarding Biden’s Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) guidance, a transparent attempt to use existing federal laws to force physicians to perform abortions, especially in states with pro-life protections. As a board-certified obstetrician, I have practiced under EMTALA for over 30 years, and it has never been confusing to me or to any of my peers. We know the purpose of the law is to protect the health of mothers and their unborn children, and that is every obstetrician’s mission, as well.

The Biden administration has disregarded EMTALA’s plain text, which intends to prevent “patient dumping” and requires evaluation, stabilization, and (if necessary) transfer to another medical facility when an “emergency medical condition” places the health of the woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy.

The administration’s guidance never mentions the unborn child, implying the child’s needs are not a priority. It requires a provider to perform an abortion “if it is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve the medical emergency,” even though EMTALA does not specify the treatment or stabilization physicians must administer but allows them to use their medical judgment to determine the best course of action. The Charlotte Lozier Institute argued these and other points that undermine the administration’s case with great detail in their amicus brief filed in support of the state of Idaho.

If a pregnancy complication poses a risk to a mother’s life, every state in the country allows the physician to intervene. These laws allow physicians to use their “reasonable” or “good faith” medical judgment to determine when to intervene in an emergency. There is no requirement that a threat be immediate, only foreseeable.

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Physicians spend years developing that judgment in school and practice. While we can’t always predict the risk’s severity, we do know which complications can threaten a woman’s life and when to intervene. We don’t wait until a woman is dying but discuss treatment options with a woman and her family when the diagnosis is made, so that we can prevent her from becoming seriously ill.

This is why I was frustrated by some of the conversations between the solicitor general and some of the left-leaning justices when they discussed complex medical scenarios as overly simplified hypotheticals, assuming that physicians can predict with certainty whether a complication would kill a woman or “merely” cause serious damage to an organ system, implying that Idaho law allows intervention in one scenario but not in the other. Based on their clinical experience and their knowledge of the peer-reviewed literature, physicians have the skills to make judgment calls, and no law is preventing them from doing so. Hospitals usually have protocols to assist physicians in their decision making and to support them in their actions.

We’ve seen news articles highlight women injured in pregnancy emergencies because physicians were afraid to intervene following the Dobbs decision. These actions are not the fault of the laws, which clearly allow intervention. Abortion advocates (including the leadership of some medical organizations) have sown confusion and fear to turn Americans against pro-life laws and expand abortion. These cynical tactics unfortunately have impacted how some physicians practice medicine. This can be remedied by calling on medical organizations to provide more guidance, but some ideologically driven medical organizations have refused to offer it.

Like approximately 90% of obstetricians, I do not perform elective abortions, and most hospital systems do not provide them. Yet I have always felt empowered to intervene if a pregnancy emergency threatened my patient’s life, and I have seen my peers do the same, usually by inducing labor or, in rare circumstances, through cesarean section delivery.

Even in life-threatening situations, abortion is rarely, if ever, necessary. I’ve delivered over 5,000 babies and I have never had to perform an abortion, even though there have been times I have needed to deliver a child to protect his or her mother. Regrettably, the child does not always survive.

I have found the caring approach of perinatal palliative care – a multi-disciplinary, coordinated care strategy, focused on relieving suffering and honoring the life of the unfortunate child – to be preferred in this situation. I’ve never had a mother express a preference for a D&E abortion over induction. When the tragic loss of a desired baby occurs, the mother wants the baby’s body treated with respect and usually will want the chance to say “goodbye,” to hold the child, and bury him or her. This supportive care assists the family in their grief.

The administration’s blatant attempt to highjack a law to promote a pro-abortion agenda should be recognized for the ideological maneuver it is. The Supreme Court should recognize and rebut this cynical misuse of power, and reaffirm the fact that Idaho has the right to protect the lives of all its citizens, including the unborn.

LifeNews Note: Ingrid Skop, M.D., FACOG, is vice president and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

The post OBGYN Confirms Abortion is Not Health Care, All Pregnant Women Get Care Under Abortion Bans appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Cars Used to Make Us Happy

Paul Craig Roberts

I attended a classic car show recently and realized why my generation was so happy compared to the current ones. Cars in those days were beautiful and the muscle car element had glorious sounds. Beginning in 1954 but especially with the advent of the 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air coup and Ford Fairlane coup you were looking at beauty enhanced by two-tone paint jobs. Some were a combination of pastels. Others were combinations of strong colors–red and black, yellow and black, red and white, and some were a combination of a strong color and a pastel–navy blue and French blue, pink and black.

In 1955 Chevrolet brought back the V-8 for its cars, and it was a performer. A stock ’55 Chevy V-8 was a match for our souped up 1950 Ford flatheads. What you could do to that 55 Chevy V-8 was something else.

So many of the cars, not only Chevrolets and Fords, but also Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Dodges had beautiful two-tone paint jobs and delightful styling. The cars also offered wonderful visibility. You could see where you were going, backing up, and what was on either side. For us what constituted safety was visibility, good brakes, and maneuverability.

The mid to late 60s into 1972-73 was the muscle car era. The cars had appealing design as they were designed by designers and not by safety bureaucrats. Some of the colors were outrageous–plum crazy purple, bright lime green, triple black, orange. Such outstanding colors usually indicated potent performance. How fast were the muscle cars of a half century ago?

Very. Plymouth Barracudas, Superbirds, Dusters, Roadrunners, Dodge Daytonas, Chargers, Ford Torinos, Oldsmobile Cutlasses, 442s, Pontaic GTOs, Firebirds, Chevrolet Chevelles, Cameros could compete in quarter mile times with the supercar of the era, a Lamborghini Miura S (1970). The muscle cars would leave in the dust James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, Ferrari’s 250 GT Lusso, and even beat fast cars from 20 and 30 years later such as the Lotus Esprit Turbo (1988) and Subaru’s 2001 WRX.
Moreover, a muscle car could be souped up to high heaven. Some of them run 9 and 10 second quarter mile times, which beats the entire range of today’s supercars, such as Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Corvettes, and Shelby Mustangs. Not many of the souped up muscle cars from a half century ago can beat the present day Dodge Demon, but they can run with it.

The thing about muscle cars is that they were so fast that you didn’t need to soup them up like you did a 1950s Ford flathead or a 55 Chevy.

Muscle cars date from the days of 30 cents per gallon gasoline, and in those days it was 100 octane. The combination of low purchase cost (a Plymouth Barracuda with a Hemi engine cost $4,000), operating cost, style, and performance made them a deal that no longer exists.

Today’s cars are loaded down with electronics and “safety” that you don’t need and that is difficult to live with and costly. If the tire pressure in my safe car drops from 32 to 31 on come warning lights and notices on my screen. You have to go through a pointless exercise and then spend half an hour figuring out how to turn off the warning indicators.

Moreover, the accepted safety style comes from federal safety bureaucrats. Consequently, unless you can see the Mercedes star, you can’t tell one from a Toyota.

Today all cars look alike. And you have 4 color choices–white, black, gray, and a dark red. Mopar performance cars, Corvettes, and performance Mustangs are bringing back striking colors and their performance products have a striking appearance. They certainly get your attention, but they are not beautiful.

At a large car show cars from the past and present will be on display. The older cars are beautiful. The new ones are aggressive and heavy in appearance. They don’t inspire. They drive well but they don’t make you happy. They look brutish, like American foreign policy.

In my teenage years driving down a road was like driving along a rainbow. Colors everywhere. Distinctive styles with no possibility of confusing one make with another, glorious sounds if a muscle car passed you, and wonderful visibility.

All of this ended when the fools up high decided to make us safe. One of the consequences has been that we can’t see out of our cars. My safety designer car has great forward vision unless I turn left down hill. Then the massive pillar that makes me safe blocks all vision. There could be a dog, a child, a huge pothole in the road and I am unable to see it.

Rear vision depends on cameras, but they are useless when you are backing out of a parking slot in a shopping center. You can see behind you but not on your side as the enormous pillar blocks all vision. When the massive trucks of today are parked along side of you, it is a game of Russian Roulette to back out.

The emphasis on safety has homogenized car design. There is no distinction, and there are no shapes that work with two-tone paint. The modern car world is drab, and drabness produces depression.

Thus, the cost of our bureaucratic imposed safety is depression. We are mired in sameness and brutal shapes.

When did you last see a happy American?

Another Consequence of Globalism

The avocados and berries are for export.

https://apple.news/AJyzWYpeQTjuA4cXdzX5S0g

(Key passages featured here, for anyone who thinks those of us speaking up for truth are somehow in sin. God forbid. Link to the whole thing at the end. Wishing you a blessed Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church. -nvp)

Dearest brothers and fathers in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in His precious Blood: with desire to see you turn back to the true and most perfect light, leaving the deep shadows of blindness into which you are fallen. Then you shall be fathers to me; otherwise not. Yes, indeed, I call you fathers in so far as you shall leave death and turn back to life (for, as things go now, you are parted from the life of grace, limbs cut off from your head from which you drew life), when you shall stand united in faith, and in that perfect obedience to Pope Urban VI., in which those abide who have the light, and in light know the truth, and knowing it love it…

Oh, human blindness! Seest thou not, unfortunate man, that thou thinkest to love things firm and stable, joyous things, good and fair? and they are mutable, the sum of wretchedness, hideous, and without any goodness; not as they are created things in themselves, since all are created by God, who is perfectly good, but through the nature of him who possesses them intemperately. How mutable are the riches and honours of the world in him who possesses them without God, without the fear of Him! for to-day is he rich and great, and to-day he is poor. How hideous is our bodily life, that living we shed stench from every part of our body! Simply a sack of dung, the food for worms, the food of death! …

Oh, wretched man, the darkness of self-love does not let thee know this truth. For didst thou know it, thou wouldst choose any pain rather than guide thy life in this way; thou wouldst give thee to loving and desiring Him who Is; thou wouldst enjoy His truth in firmness, and wouldst not move about like a leaf in the wind; thou wouldst serve thy Creator, and wouldst love everything in Him, and apart from Him nothing. Oh, how will this blindness be reproved at the last moment in every rational being, and much the more in those whom God has taken from the filth of the world, and assigned to the greatest excellence that can be, having made them ministers of the Blood of the humble and spotless Lamb! Oh me, oh me! what have you come to by not having followed up your dignities with virtue? …

Now you have turned your backs, like poor mean knights; your shadow has made you afraid. You have divided you from the truth which strengthens us, and drawn close to falsehood, which weakens soul and body, depriving you of temporal and spiritual grace. What made you do this? The poison of self-love, which has infected the world. That is what has made you pillars lighter than straw. Flowers you who shed no perfume, but stench that makes the whole world reek! No lights you placed in a candlestick, that you might spread the faith; but, having hidden your light under the bushel of pride, and become not extenders, but contaminators of the faith, you shed darkness over yourselves and others. You should have been angels on earth, placed to release us from the devils of hell, and performing the office of angels, by bringing back the sheep into the obedience of Holy Church, and you have taken the office of devils. That evil which you have in yourselves you wish to infect us with, withdrawing us from obedience to Christ on earth, and leading us into obedience to antichrist, a member of the devil, as you are too, so long as you shall abide in this heresy.

Ah, foolish men, worthy of a thousand deaths! As blind, you do not see your own wrong, and have fallen into such confusion that you make of your own selves liars and idolaters…

https://www.virgosacrata.com/saint-catherine-of-siena-letter.html

Over the last two weeks, the bullish sentiment index has reversed from extreme greed to fear. The composite net bullish sentiment index, comprised of professional and retail investors, fell from 38.15 to 9.9 in two weeks. The previous drop between July and October last year was similar and marked the bottom of the correction.

While the bullish sentiment index can indeed fall further, what is notable is the sharp reversal of market “exuberance” in such a short span. However, as discussed in “Just A Correction,” there was a significant gap between buyers and sellers.

“However, at some point, for whatever reason, this dynamic will change. Buyers will become more scarce as they refuse to pay a higher price. When sellers realize the change, they will rush to sell to a diminishing pool of buyers. Eventually, sellers will begin to “panic sell” as buyers evaporate and prices plunge.”

Like clockwork, that correction came quickly, with the market finding initial support at the 100-DMA. With solid earnings from GOOG and MSFT, the market rallied to initial resistance at the convergence of the 20- and 50-DMA. It would be unsurprising if the market failed this initial resistance test and ultimately retested the 100-DMA soon. Such a pullback would solidify that support and complete the reversal of the bullish sentiment index.

In early April, we wrote:

“Whatever trigger causes a reversal in the bullish signals, we will act accordingly to reduce risk and rebalance exposures. But one thing is sure: investor sentiment is extremely bullish, which has almost always been a good “bearish signal” to be more cautious.

While we have warned of a potential correction over the past few weeks, it reminds us much of June and July last year, where similar warnings for a 10% correction went unheeded. We are now seeing many individuals ‘jumping into the pool’ in some of the most speculative areas of the market. Such is usually a sign we are closer to a market peak than not. As such, we want to make adjustments before the correction comes.”

Very quickly, as supported by the bullish sentiment index, those bulls are turning bearish and are now calling for a more profound decline.

While such is possible, I suspect most of this correction is complete for two reasons.

Earnings Continue To Remain Strong

The first reason is that despite higher interest rates, earnings growth continues to remain robust, at least among the “Magnificent 7,” where Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT), in particular, exceeded estimates by a wide margin. However, overall, and most importantly, earnings growth has continued since the October lows of 2022. Notably, the support for improving earnings comes from the increased fiscal policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act.

While those policies will eventually fade, making forward estimates subject to downward revisions, the current earnings environment remains relatively robust. Furthermore, forward estimates remain optimistic that the Federal Reserve will cut rates later this year, lowering borrowing costs and supporting economic activity.

Notably, the increase in earnings, at least for now, remains a strong indicator of rising asset prices. The risk of a deeper market correction (greater than 10%) is significantly reduced during previous periods of improving earnings. While such does not mean a deeper correction can not happen, historically, corrections between 5% and 10% in an earnings growth environment tend to be buying opportunities and limit deeper reversal in the bullish sentiment index.

Improving earnings also precedes improving CEO confidence, which has provided pivotal support to financial markets since 2000.

Buybacks Returning

We discussed the most critical reason we expected a market correction in mid-March. To wit:

“Notably, since 2009, and accelerating starting in 2012, the percentage change in buybacks has far outstripped the increase in asset prices. As we will discuss, it is more than just a casual correlation, and the upcoming blackout window may be more critical to the rally than many think.” – March 19, 2024

Furthermore, the “blackout” of corporate buybacks coincided with more extreme readings in the bullish sentiment index. Buybacks are crucial to the market because corporations have accounted for roughly 100% of net equity purchases over the last two decades.

Here is the math of net flows if you don’t believe the chart:

• Pensions and Mutual Funds = (-$2.7 Trillion)
• Households and Foreign Investors = +$2.4 Trillion
  • Sub Total = (-$0.3 T)
• Corporations (Buybacks) = $5.5T
  • Net Total = $5.2 Trillion = Or 100% of all equities purchased

Unsurprisingly, that blackout window coincided with a sharp contraction of more than $367 billion in buybacks over the last 4-weeks. Consequently, when you remove a critical “buyer” from the market, the ensuing correction is unsurprising.

However, corporate share buybacks will resume in the next couple of weeks, and with more than $1 trillion slated for 2024, many buybacks remain to complete. Such is particularly the case with Google adding another $70 billion to that total.

As noted above, improving earnings and a decent outlook for the rest of this year also boost CEO confidence. (If you don’t understand why buybacks benefit insiders and not shareholders, read this.)

With robust economic activity supporting earnings growth, that improvement boosts CEO confidence. As CEOs are more confident about their business, they accelerate share buybacks to increase executive compensation.

The liquidity boost from buybacks and stronger earnings will likely provide a floor below the market. This doesn’t mean the current correction doesn’t have more work to do. However, it is unlikely that it will resolve into something more significant.

At least for now.

The post Bullish Sentiment Index Reverses With Buybacks Resuming appeared first on RIA.

Never was leaf so green,
for you branched from the spirited
blast of the quest
of the saints.

When it came time
for your boughs to blossom
(I salute you!)
your scent was like balsam
distilled in the sun.

And your flower made all spices
fragrant
dry though they were:
they burst into verdure.

So the skies rained dew on the grass
and the whole earth exulted,
for her womb brought forth wheat,
for the birds of heaven
made their nests in it.

Keepers of the feast, rejoice!
The banquet’s ready. And you
sweet maid-child
are a fount of gladness.

But Eve?
She despised every joy.
Praise nonetheless,
praise to the highest.

The post Song to the Virgin appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

According to a statement from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the pope will take part in a session of the June G7 summit Puglia (June 13-15) dedicated to artificial intelligence, a subject of mounting concern to this papacy. The pope’s participation will mark the first time a pontiff has taken part in a G7 summit.
 

The post Pope to take part in G7 Summit to talk about Artificial Intelligence appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

I should pray more.  And I definitely need to be a better person.

Since I am now a Catholic, I believe there is an important relationship between prayer and becoming a better person.  But as a Catholic, I don’t believe that becoming a better person is something that God will do in me without me.  I need to do my part.  My part is made possible by God’s grace, but the operations of God’s grace are not contrary to my free will, nor do they preclude my own efforts.  Grace, as Thomas Aquinas was fond of saying, does not violate nature but perfects it.

So I need to pray and work on developing the virtues.  They’re not mutually exclusive; they’re mutually inclusive.  You pray for more virtue. And if and when you feel a little of the freedom that comes with having developed the virtue, you turn your eyes to heaven like you were turning to address the doctor who just put your dislocated shoulder back into its socket, and you say, “Thank you, God.  That’s much better now.”

On the Catholic understanding of grace, it would be a mistake to imagine that I do something truly charitable, truly good, apart from God’s grace, such that I can turn to God and say, “See how good I am!  I did that!  You should show me some respect!”  This would be like a child who asks for money from his father to buy him a Father’s Day gift – then asking him for privileges because he bought his father a gift.  Everything we have we got from God.  What God wants in return is that we love our blessed, saintly mother and get along with our brothers and sisters.

And yet it would also be a mistake to imagine that we can depend on piety alone without virtue.  If you’re an alcoholic, you can’t say, “Well, I do the rosary every day, so I don’t need to go to AA meetings.”  That would be a big mistake.  People in AA know that their sobriety depends on a “higher power.” But they also know that they must do the work and go to meetings.  It’s not an either-or; it’s a both-and.

So too, it would be a mistake to imagine, “I have a deep devotion to Mary; I visit her shrine all the time; so I don’t need to work on my marriage.”  I am repeatedly saddened and confused when I see pious, devoted Catholics simply dump their spouse, saying little more than, “That just wasn’t working out,” or, “I wasn’t fulfilled in that relationship,” much the way any non-Catholic or non-Christian would.  Piety is no substitute for virtue.  Saying the rosary is great, but it makes no sense to say it and then abuse your employees or support abortion.  It’s like saying, “I love my mother” and then kicking her down the stairs.

It is classic among evangelicals to find someone who says he has “devoted his life to Jesus,” and who believes he has, but is still getting drunk and cheating on his wife. Just because a person has “given his life to Jesus” one day in an altar call doesn’t necessarily mean that all the temptations will miraculously go away or that now he will suddenly be caring and responsible in a way he never was before.

Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio, c. 1606 [Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome]Faith is not magic. It’s not a magic wand that touches you and, in an instant, turns you, a frog, into a prince.  God’s grace works in God’s own time.  He rescues the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt, but it’s forty years before they get to enter the Promised Land. In the meantime, they must work and sacrifice and prepare themselves.  They must worship at the Tabernacle in the desert and fight their enemies.  It required years of struggle. But God was there every step of the way.

St. Augustine would not have become the great preacher and bishop he became had he not trained endlessly to develop the skills of rhetoric.  And St. Thomas would not have written the Summa had he not spent countless hours in study.

Some say: “Pray as though everything depended on God, and act as though everything depended on you.” I prefer to say that we should act knowing that, if we want to be better, God is already working in us, and pray knowing that God will not work in us without us.

If you want God’s help and God’s grace, He will give it to you.  But it won’t necessarily transform you overnight.  Not that this doesn’t ever happen, but don’t lose hope if it doesn’t.  We must walk by faith and not by sight, the way Abraham did when he set out for God knows where, and the way Mary did when the angel told her something beyond understanding.

If we do our work each day and pray constantly, God will help us develop the virtues.  But if you don’t do the work of developing the virtues, don’t expect God to rescue you miraculously when the time comes.

If you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, God might save you from disease, but remember, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”  You cannot say: “God, I’m now going to do something utterly self-destructive, and later I will depend upon you to rescue me.”  Or, “I won’t discipline myself to develop the virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, or justice; I won’t discipline myself to be other than my spoiled, arrogant, greedy, and spiteful self; I will do everything contrary to God’s wisdom and guidance; and yet I still want God to make me flourish.”  You can’t get heavenly happiness if you’re living a hellish life.

God can turn water into wine, but He can’t make creatures designed for selfless love flourish if they say no to being transformed by that love.

The post Piety and Virtue appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

President Biden’s campaign will continue using the popular social media site TikTok even though the president supported a provision in the military aid bill he recently signed forcing TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok within 270 days. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok within the required time, TikTok will be banned in the USA. … Continue reading "TikTok Ban Exposes Hypocrisy in Congress"

The post TikTok Ban Exposes Hypocrisy in Congress appeared first on Antiwar.com.

The Mythos Of The Twenty-First Century
April 29 2024

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