My dear parishioners,
Peace! In other bulletins (4 December, 2016-11 June, 2017) we have considered the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “conscience.” We then turned to Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis splendor (6 August, 1993) which addresses fundamental moral issues, including “conscience” more than one hundred times. These reflections were begun earlier (6 April, 2018-30 May, 2018). Here we now consider a passage from Veritatis splendor, 56.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) warns against any ”double status of moral truth” as if “exceptions to general rules permit one to do in practice and in good conscience what is qualified as intrinsically evil by the moral law.”
What does it mean to say that there are “intrinsically evil” acts? A morally relativistic age like ours, sadly denies that there are any acts which are evil by their nature (except to say that there are evil acts)… Granting “exceptions to general rules” is another way of being “permissive” giving a wink and a nod to sin, vice and evil. Mother Church is not morally relativistic. Intrinsically evil acts are those acts which are always and everywhere evil, or bad, by their nature. There are various intrinsically evil acts addressed by Mother Church. Consider the nature of murder, direct abortion, euthanasia, suicide, theft, masturbation, fornication, pornography, homosexual practices, elective sterilization, contraception, adultery, divorce, polygamy, lying, slander, calumny, and theft (cf. CCC 2321, 2322, 2324, 2325, 2450, 2454, 2396, 2508, 2507, 2450, 2453). Mother Church recognizes that all of these sorts of things are intrinsically evil, sinful, bad. If we allow the sure and certain teaching of Mother Church to inform our conscience, based on Sacred Scripture and the Natural Law we will recognize this. Mother Church is not morally permissive, but calls us to holiness, rejecting sin, Satan and the glamour of evil (cf. Matthew 3:2; Acts 3:19; 2 Timothy 2:19).
Those who would reject the sure and certain perennial teachings of Mother Church, of Sacred Scripture, of the Natural Law may also be content to have some sort of “double truth” as in “normally this is bad, but not for me, or not in this situation, or not ever.” Any attempt to have a “double status of moral truth” is more akin to a “double set of books” in accounting (i.e. the real numbers and the public numbers)… Hopefully none of us would want our accountants or bankers to have a double set of books. Mother Church and her spiritual children, Saint John Paul II included, are anything but morally skeptical. We can know the truth and the truth will set us free (cf. John 8:31-32). We can know the truth about God who has revealed Himself to us. We can know the truth about ourselves, made in His image and redeemed by His blood. We can also know the truth of God’s mercy who does not will that the sinner die but be converted and live (Ezekiel 18:23).
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr