What Does the Church Teach About Pet Euthanasia? (Dangerous Pets)

Mean little dog

A correspondent writes:

On what grounds may a pet be euthanized?

We have an adopted dog that is highly destructive, more than we are willing to support financially, and more than we can manage with our limited time and attention. We are afraid for our one-year-old child’s safety, as the dog plays rough and has injured both my wife and me. The dog is confined to a kennel most of the day, since we cannot supervise and control him to prevent damage. We do not feel we can provide a good quality of life for this animal.

Day-training and boarding-school are not feasible, since the dog cannot ride in a car. We are not willing to pay for an expensive in-home behaviorist. We don’t have the time or expertise to train him ourselves.

We have tried re-homing the dog for months now. The foster family we got him from will not take him back. The local shelters will not take him as they are all at full capacity. Family, friends, and coworkers will not take him. We posted him on a couple of re-homing websites, with no success. We believe his chances of re-adoption are low due to his behavior and a pre-existing health condition.

We regret our decision to adopt this dog. We do not want to have an otherwise healthy dog put to sleep. But we do not know what else to do. We do not believe we are acting out of frustration alone. We are trying to consider what is best for our family’s wellbeing. Above all, we want to do what is right in the sight of God. If we are about to do something evil, we want to know it. So far, we have not found any clear teaching from the Church.

Can you help us?

I believe that I can.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity

2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure.

2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.

These passages do not directly address your question, but they do contain the principles that provide its solution.

Animals do not have rights the way humans do. Consequently, they are “by nature destined for the . . . good . . . of humanity” (2415).

“God entrusted animals to [our] stewardship. . . . Hence it is legitimate to use them for food” (2417), meaning it is legitimate to terminate their lives when human need requires it.

While “it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly,” this is not the case when there is a human need requiring their death and it is “unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to” human needs. Consequently, “one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons” (2418).

In your case, the animal is dangerous, it has already injured you and your wife, and you have a vulnerable child that it may injure. You have not been able to re-home it, and you do not have money to reasonably spend on alternative solutions (e.g., an animal behaviorist). At present, the dog is spending most of its time in a kennel for safety reasons, meaning it is not having a good quality of life, either.

In light of the principles and circumstances just described–and the lengths you’ve already gone to to try to find an alternative solution–Catholic moral theology would understand the decision to have the animal put to sleep. It would not be something evil. In light of the circumstances you describe, it sounds like it would be the best solution, even if it is a regrettable one.

For what it’s worth, a similar situation happened in my own family when I was a child. We adopted a dog that had been largely raised without human company, it was quite aggressive, and it attacked and harmed my little sister. My parents made the decision to have the dog put to sleep. This pained me as a child, but as an adult, I understand the decision they made.

Bottom line: We are not required to keep dangerous pets, and if there are no better solutions, they can be treated like other dangerous animals and put to sleep.

I hope this helps, and God bless you!

Is Objective Morality Real?

A reader writes:

I have been really hurting due to a question that I can’t seem to find an answer to wherever I look. Wherever I go, I can’t find a Christian that will answer my questions. I am Catholic, but this particular question causes me pain, because morality is the bedrock that my framework is built upon.

My question is, how do I know that Morality is real?

I heard that morality is just a herd mentality to ensure human survival. Like, for example, I don’t kill him, so he doesn’t kill me, a herd mentality. Homosexuality is wrong because it doesn’t ensure human survival. It’s a sort of empathy-like survival mechanism.

This does mean that if you do something wrong, since there would be no Objective Morality, that there is nothing actually wrong about it, and you could technically do whatever, and it would just be atoms moving across space-time, a scary thought indeed.

How do I beat moral nihilism? What are some arguments against it? What if someone is willing to accept it, because facts don’t care about your feelings? How do you show its real? What evidence is there? I still believe, but it hurts to have my framework attacked.

Those attacking the objective reality of morality based on its survival value are making a fundamental mistake, which is pitting objective morality and survival value against each other. They do not need to be seen in opposition and should be seen as in harmony.
According to the standard Christian understanding (and, specifically, the Catholic understanding), morality is rooted in human nature. For example, we need lifelong marriages because our offspring are born helpless and take 2 decades to mature. Therefore, they need care for decades, and thus the parents need to stay together for decades, which amounted to a full human lifespan before modern medicine. Therefore, human nature implies lifelong marital unions.
This would be different if God had designed us to be creatures like fish, which essentially fertilize their eggs and then leave them to their fate. No lifelong marriages would be needed.
We therefore must understand the rules of (human) morality in terms of human nature. They are given to us by God to help us survive and thrive, based on the way our natures work. Therefore, being a moral person has survival/flourishing value.
However, this is exactly what we would expect of a loving God in giving us his laws. They would be based around our nature and be meant to promote our good. They would thus draw upon our nature as human beings and make explicit the best ways for humans to survive and thrive.
God’s law for man thus is not an alien standard imposed on us that has nothing to do with human flourishing. Instead, on the Christian view, it is designed to promote human flourishing, based on our nature.
And this is what Scripture indicates: God gave man laws for man’s own good. The law is designed to help us. Following it is good for us.
This is explicit in various passages in the Bible. It’s also implicit in other passages. One that I find particularly interesting is James 1:22-25, which compares a person who hears God’s law and does not do it to a man who looks at his face in a mirror and then forgets what he looks like. The analogy James uses shows how God’s law reveals our own nature to us. If we forget God’s law, we forget our own nature.
The fact that morality has survival value thus is not contradictory to the biblical view of morality. It is built into the biblical view of morality. The biblical view presupposes that morality has survival value, and the two should not be put in opposition to each other.
When it comes to evidence for the objective existence of morality, we have the testimony of the human heart. Humans have a powerful intuition that some things are Just Right and other things are Just Wrong. Our hearts tell us that morality is objectively real (and they tell us this because God built it into us).
Even those who claim not to believe in objective morality inevitably slip back into assuming that it is real. They invariably fall back into the assumption that some things are just evil–whether it’s racism, sexism, torturing babies for fun, or whatever else it may be. They may be able to momentarily suspend their belief in objective morality, but they inevitably slip back into the view that it is real. So strong is the testimony of the human heart.
Further, belief in objective morality is a human universal. It appears in all world cultures in all periods of history. This only happens with things that are built into human nature, and so belief in morality is part of human nature.
We thus have powerful evidence from the human heart that morality is objectively real.
Furthermore, by believing in morality, we are simply going along with our nature (rather than fighting against it).
Finally, a critic of morality would have absolutely no grounds for trying to guilt us or cause us anxiety for our belief in morality, because if the critic was right then–on the critic’s own principles–we wouldn’t be doing anything wrong by believing in morality, because there would be no objective right or wrong.
And we’d be happier for just going with what human nature tells us–that morality is real.
We’d also reap the survival and flourishing benefits of leading a moral life.
I hope this helps, and God bless you!

More People Are Demanding to Be ‘Debaptized’ — Here’s What’s Wrong With That

In some places, the demand for debaptisms has been going up, which could be rather surprising.

“What’s a debaptism?” you might ask. “Is that even a thing? How can you un-pour water on someone?”

The short answer is that No, debaptism isn’t a thing, but that hasn’t stopped people from asking for it. And yes, “debaptism” is the language they use. The Pillar explains:

The Catholic Church in Belgium reported on Wednesday a sharp rise in the number of people asking for their names to be removed from baptismal registers.

The Church’s latest annual report, published on Nov. 30, said there were 5,237 such requests in 2021, compared to 1,261 in 2020 and 1,800 in 2019. …

Nevertheless, a rising movement in Europe promoting ‘debaptism’ has encouraged Catholics to write to Church authorities asking to be removed from parish baptismal records. The movement is a consortium of several political and philosophical factions among European secularists.

 

A Movement With Some History

This movement has been around for a while. For example, in 2012, NPR reported:

In France, an elderly man is fighting to make a formal break with the Catholic Church. He’s taken the Church to court over its refusal to let him nullify his baptism, in a case that could have far-reaching effects.

Seventy-one-year-old Rene LeBouvier’s parents and his brother are buried in a churchyard in the tiny village of Fleury in northwest France. He himself was baptized in the Romanesque stone church and attended Mass here as a boy. …

But his views began to change in the 1970s, when he was introduced to free thinkers. As he didn’t believe in God anymore, he thought it would be more honest to leave the Church. So he wrote to his diocese and asked to be un-baptized.

 

Problems for the Debaptizers

There are problems with what the debaptizers are asking for.

It’s not possible to un-pour water on someone after it has been poured on them. This makes debaptism physically impossible (though some atheist organizations have used tongue-in-cheek ceremonies with hairdryers).

However, it’s also not theologically possible to reverse all the effects of baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Incorporated into Christ by baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, baptism cannot be repeated. (1272)

So, when you get baptized, an indelible spiritual mark is put on your soul, and nothing can remove this.

You can commit sins that will remove the sanctifying grace that baptism gave you, but the mark remains.

And — if you change your mind and repent — you can return to grace and resume life as a Christian.

You don’t need to get baptized again. In fact, you can’t get baptized again, because the spiritual mark remains.

 

What Happens in “Debaptisms”?

What happens when a person decides he doesn’t want to be a Christian anymore and sends in a “debaptism” request? The Pillar explains:

A spokesman for the Belgian bishops’ conference told The Pillar on Dec. 1 that when the Church received a ‘debaptism’ request, ‘it is noted in the register in the margin that the person has requested to be de-registered.’

‘You are not allowed to cross out or delete an entry in an official register,’ he explained.

That makes sense, because there needs to be a record of the fact the person was baptized. Suppose that they later change their mind and decide they want to live as a Christian again. There needs to be a record of the fact that they were baptized in order to show that they shouldn’t be baptized again.

What happened in the case of Monsieur LeBouvier? NPR reports:

‘They sent me a copy of my records, and in the margins next to my name, they wrote that I had chosen to leave the Church,’ he says.

Specifically, the revised record said that he “has renounced his baptism.” But that wasn’t enough for Lebouvier, and he sued the Church to have his name removed from the records.

 

A Parallel Case

Why would he do that? Let’s consider a parallel case — getting civilly married.

People sometimes go before a government official, get hitched, and then later change their minds and decide they don’t want to be married to each other after all.

When that happens, they get a divorce, and they seem to be happy with that. They don’t demand that the state go back and erase all records of them ever having been married.

There are good reasons the state doesn’t do that. Various legal matters may turn on the fact that the two people were married at one time (taxes, child custody cases, inheritances, lawsuits, etc.), and the state needs to have a record of the marriage — even if the state now regards it as dissolved.

 

Um … Why?

So why would someone like LeBouvier want his baptismal record obliterated?

Part of it could be confusion caused by poor catechesis. He might think that the existence of a physical record of his baptism itself makes him a Christian.

This would be a case of magical thinking, however, as it isn’t writing on a piece of paper that does this.

On the other hand, it could be cantankerousness. LeBouvier could have simply resented the Church and wanted to be difficult.

Instead of being satisfied with the fact that his parish noted in the records that he had renounced his baptism, he wanted to be a jerk and make a demand that he knew could not be granted, giving him a pretext to take the Church to court.

 

A Case Resolved

Whatever his motives, he ultimately lost. In 2014, the French Supreme Court ruled against LeBouvier, which is as it should be.

It’s a simple matter of historical fact that LeBouvier was baptized. That’s true regardless of what the effects of baptism are, and as an unbeliever, LeBouvier presumably wouldn’t even believe in the indelible mark it left on his soul.

It’s just true that — on a certain date — he was baptized in a certain parish, and there can be records of that fact occurring, just like there can be records of any other historical event taking place. Shy of having a flux capacitor-equipped DeLorean, there’s no way to go back in time and undo the event.

Just as the state can keep records of things that happened — like marriages — even if their effects are regarded as now neutralized (or not, from a religious perspective), so can the Church.

 

The Effect of a Document

There is a reason that people like LeBouvier might not be satisfied with the Church simply noting in the baptismal records that they no longer consider themselves Christian.

When people get a divorce, they get a court decree — a piece of paper that says they’re no longer legally married — and even though the state hasn’t gone back and erased all records of their marriage, the decree seems to satisfy them.

But the Church doesn’t have an equivalent of this when someone abandons the Faith.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law did envision the possibility of someone defecting from the Church “by a formal act.” This had certain canonical effects, such as no longer being required to have a Catholic wedding.

 

Defections and the German Kirchensteuer

But the German church tax system (Kirchensteuer) complicated matters. Under this system, the German government automatically takes a portion of an individual’s income and gives it to the church they are a member of.

Consequently, some Germans began defecting from the Church and claiming they no longer needed to pay the tax.

Apparently in response to the German situation, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in 2006 instituted a cumbersome process that made it harder to formally defect. The process involved things like meeting personally with your bishop and convincing him that you really, most sincerely, did not consider yourself a Catholic anymore.

Unsatisfied with the results of this, in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI decided to eliminate the concept of formal defection from canon law entirely.

This had serious unintended consequences, as it meant that people who had been baptized but not raised Catholic — many of whom might not even know that they had been baptized — were now legally unable to contract valid marriages (because of the obligation to observe “canonical form”) and were condemned to the state of perpetual, objective fornication.

To my mind, the cure was worse than the disease caused by the German tax situation, but it meant that one no longer even got a letter from one’s bishop saying that he believed you no longer regarded yourself as Catholic.

 

Looking to the Future

As the secularization of Europe progresses, it remains to be seen whether future Church leaders will deem it appropriate to create a document certifying that “We recognize that you no longer consider yourself or wish to live as a Catholic.”

Hopefully, such a document will not be needed — and God forbid that anyone should want one.

But while the French courts ruled against LeBouvier, we can’t count on this remaining the case in the future.

Anti-Catholic and anti-Christian animus continues to spread in the legal system, and just as there are cantankerous litigants who may just want to “stick it to the Church,” there may be cantankerous judges who wish to do the same thing.

To head off the legal collision that could result from activist judges demanding that the Church mutilate its baptismal records, it could one day be prudent to create a way of formally acknowledging the sad reality of people who no longer consider themselves Christian.

Practical Tips for Being Charitable with Others

A correspondent writes:

I’ve never seen you treat someone uncharitably in a conversation, so my question is, how can I grow in that area so that I’m not allowing my approach to be a stumbling block to my interlocutor?

I have the intention to not stand in the way of truth with my approach but sometimes I fail and could use some practical tips.

Thank you very much! You are too kind!

Regarding being uncharitable, this is something we all have to wrestle with, and we all fail sometimes. “We all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man” (Jas. 3:2).

I try, in any statement destined for the public (whether spoken or written) not to say anything that I would not say to a person’s face.

Getting in the habit of speaking charitably even when a person is not there probably has a spillover effect even when the person is there–i.e., I learn to keep the charitable speech filter on all the time, rather than turning it on and off. At least that’s the goal.

I also try to put myself in the other person’s position as much as possible. If I wouldn’t want something publicly said to me, I don’t want to say it to or about the other person.

In some cases, it may help to think in terms of other, closely related parties as well. For example, suppose I was in a conversation with a man and his wife and children also were present. There are certain things I would not want to say to him in front of those he cares about, lest I undermine him as a husband and father (the same thing would apply with the sexes reversed).

If I wouldn’t want something said about me in front of my loved ones, I shouldn’t say it to another person in front of his loved ones. Nobody should be mocked in front of those they hold most dear.

While these people may not be physically present for a conversation, in the age of the Internet, a person’s loved ones could see the conversation–either live or after the fact–and even if they don’t, the person’s fans will see it, and people care about how they look and are made to look in front of their online followers.

So, the Golden Rule continues to apply: If I wouldn’t want something publicly said about me, I shouldn’t say it about someone else.

All of those are considerations that deal with the reasons not to be uncharitable, but there are also positive reasons to be charitable, which relate directly to one’s own self-interest.

For example, my interlocutor himself is more likely to take me seriously and thoughtfully if he can see I’m being friendly and fair minded toward him.

And, if I’m in a public conversation and those observing it see that I’m clearly being charitable, they will think more positively of me and be more open to what I have to say.

(Conversely, if my interlocutor comes off as less charitable or uncharitable, the audience will correspondingly take a negative view of him and what he is saying.)

There are thus multiple reasons that favor a charitable approach, and by keeping these factors in mind and putting them into practice, the discipline of taking a charitable approach becomes a habit and second nature, though (especially with certain individuals) it can be a challenge and there can be lapses.

Of course, all this deals primarily with how one says something rather than what one says. It is a false charity if one shies away from telling truths that need to be spoken in a given conversation.

Going into minor or tangential matters can display a lack of charity (e.g., you can look like you are beating someone up or going down rabbit trails, even if you remain pleasant and calm), but the main truths that are relevant to a conversation need to come up, even if they are uncomfortable. Yet, with practice and discipline, they can still be spoken in a charitable way.

This is the first time I’ve tried to articulate some of these thoughts, but I hope they are helpful.

Getting Science and Religion Wrong (Plus COVID Vaccines)

It isn’t often that I come across an editorial filled with as much factual inaccuracy and misunderstanding as the recent one by Dr. Amesh A. Adalja.

This is striking, because he’s a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, and his editorial is on health security.

The piece is titled, “No, the New COVID Vaccine Is Not ‘Morally Compromised.’”

What’s wrong with the piece? Let’s look . . .

 

Pope Francis vs. U.S. Bishops?

Dr. Adalja begins by discussing the new Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine and the concerns raised about it by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He writes:

Is this group concerned about lower numerical efficacy in clinical trials? No, it seems that they have deemed the J&J vaccine “morally compromised”. The group is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and if something is “morally compromised” it is surely not the vaccine. (Notably Pope Francis has not taken such a stance).

Apart from the nasty insinuation that the bishops conference is morally compromised, what’s wrong with this is that he states Pope Francis has not taken a stand like the U.S. bishops.

Adalja bases this assertion on a news story headlined “Vatican Says Covid Vaccines ‘Morally Acceptable.’”

Here’s a piece of advice for Dr. Adalja: Don’t trust what the press says about religious topics. Always look up the original sources.

Had Dr. Adalja bothered to read the primary sources, he would have come across this document from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was authorized by Pope Francis, meaning that he put his teaching authority behind it.

The document holds that—although circumstances may permit taking vaccines like the Johnson & Johnson one—those that used cell lines derived from aborted children are morally compromised, and so the document states:

Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental health agencies are therefore encouraged to produce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that do not create problems of conscience for either health care providers or the people to be vaccinated.

So, Pope Francis takes exactly the same position as the U.S. bishops. Or rather, they’re taking the same position he is.

 

The Issue at Hand

Adalja then begins his case for why the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should not be considered morally compromised, so he argues that cell lines from aborted children are widely used in biotechnology and that they are used to find treatments for diseases.

These facts are not in question, but raises them does not engage the moral issue from a Catholic perspective.

The Catholic Faith holds that unborn children are people, and therefore they must be treated as such.

You could not kill an innocent person and then harvest his body for medical consumables. That is immoral, and that is what is happening with the cell lines in question.

The problem is not the cell lines themselves. It is the way they were harvested, which was—in essence—scavenging the body of a homicide victim.

If biomedicine needs cell lines to develop treatments, fine! But get them in an ethical way!

This is not impossible. There are perfectly legitimate ways of doing it. It’s just a question of being willing.

What the bishops want to see is not a banishing of cell lines from medicine.

Instead, they want to see public agencies and private companies—like Johnson & Johnson—get enough pushback that their consciences are activated, and they stop making morally tainted cell lines and replace them with ones that have been developed ethically.

 

Adalja Disagrees

Dr. Adalja does not recognize an unborn child as a human being. He states:

An embryo or fetus in the earlier stages of development, while harboring the potential to grow into a human being, is not the moral equivalent of a person.

Scientifically, this is nonsense. (Notice that he invokes the nonscientific category of “the moral equivalent of a person.”)

Viewed from a scientific perspective (as opposed to a faith perspective), a human being is a living human organism.

An unborn child—from the single-cell, zygote stage onward—is a living human organism:

  • The unborn are living (because dead fetuses don’t grow).
  • They are human (because they have human genetic codes).
  • And they are organisms (because they are organic wholes that are not part of another organism—as illustrated by the fact their genetic codes are different than those of their mothers).

Unless you want to invoke nonempirical concepts, you have to put unborn children in the same biological category as born ones, which is the category of human beings.

And unless your system of morality allows you to kill innocent human beings, you cannot kill them.

Adalja may not agree, but if he wants Catholics to disregard this purely objective viewpoint that is based on reason—and which also happens to be the teaching of their Church—he needs to provide arguments against it, which he doesn’t.

 

Enter the Ad Hominems

Like many who can’t produce objective arguments for their position, Adalja turns to ad hominem attacks on the Church. His overall attitude is expressed when he says:

Appeals from clerics, devoid of any need to tether their principles to this world, should not have any bearing on one’s medical decision-making.

It’s true—and irrelevant—that the bishops are clerics (as if that were a bad thing!), but they are not “devoid of any need to tether their principles to this world.”

Without invoking any nonempirical concepts, they have recognized the truth—which is entirely accessible to reason—that unborn children are human beings.

But Adalja doesn’t stop there. He then produces a brief litany of assertions that are further ad hominems.

 

The Dark Ages?

Adalja writes:

In the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church opposed all forms of scientific inquiry

This is factually inaccurate in the extreme. Dr. Adalja is apparently not a historian of science, for no historian of science would make such a claim.

It was—in fact—the clerical caste in the Middle Ages that contained the principal drivers of scientific inquiry, or natural philosophy, as it was then known.

Dr. Adalja should learn more about this period before he makes further assertions about it.

Allow me to recommend a good, popular level course on the subject that he should consider taking. (And so should everybody else; it’s really good.)

 

Lust of the Eyes?

Dr. Adalja asserts that in the Middle Ages the Church was “even castigating science and curiosity as the ‘lust of the eyes.’”

The scientific revolution didn’t occur until after the Middle Ages, so science did not exist in its present form then. Adalja’s claim that the Church was “castigating science” in the Middle Ages is thus going to be in some degree anachronistic.

But if he wants to say that “the Catholic Church” was doing this, he’s going to need to quote some official source capable of speaking for the Church—like a pope or an ecumenical council.

Yet when we click the link he has provided, we find only a statement of a single theologian: St. Augustine.

And has Adalja even understood St. Augustine?

If you read the page (from Augustine’s Confessions), you discover that the kind of curiosity he’s rejecting as trivial is the kind people have for things in theaters and circuses, about astrology, and about magic and divination. He writes:

[T]he theatres do not now carry me away, nor care I to know the courses of the stars, nor did my soul ever consult ghosts departed . . .  I go not now to the circus to see a dog coursing a hare.

Those are the kinds of things Augustine considers idle curiosities.

Adalja should really read and digest the pages he’s linking.

 

“Because It Is Absurd”?

Adalja continues:

One early Middle Ages church father reveled in his rejection of reality and evidence, proudly declaring, “I believe because it is absurd.”

This time, Adalja gives us a link to a Wikipedia page about a quotation attributed to Tertullian.

And we have numerous problems.

First, Tertullian did not live in the “early Middle Ages.” He lived in classical antiquity.

Second, he wasn’t a Church Father. He has been denied that title because of his problematic views.

Presenting Tertullian as a reliable representative of Catholicism is like presenting Immanuel Velikovsky as a reliable representative of mainstream science.

Third—as the Wikipedia page points out—the quotation attributed to him isn’t accurate. As Wikipedia notes:

The consensus of Tertullian scholars is that the reading “I believe because it is absurd” sharply diverges from Tertullian’s own thoughts, given his placed priority on reasoned argument and rationality in his writings.

Fourth, the sentiment that Adalja tries to attribute to the Catholic Church is, in fact, rejected by the Church. As Wikipedia also notes:

The phrase does not express the Catholic Faith, as explained by Pope Benedict XVI: “The Catholic Tradition, from the outset, rejected the so-called “fideism”, which is the desire to believe against reason. Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd) is not a formula that interprets the Catholic faith.”

Did I mention that Adalja really should read and digest the pages he links?

 

Finishing the Litany

Adalja finishes his litany of ad hominems by saying:

This organization, which tyrannized scientists such as Galileo and murdered the Italian cosmologist Bruno, today has shown itself to still harbor anti-science sentiments in its ranks.

The Galileo situation was much more complex that Adalja presents it—as acknowledged by Galileo scholars and historians of science. (Really, Dr. Adalja! Check out that history of science course I linked earlier!)

The case of Giordano Bruno is complicated by the fact that the needed part of the records of his trial has been lost. But his cosmological views were not the key issue. As the Wikipedia page Dr. Adalja links observes:

Starting in 1593, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno’s pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of the transmigration of the soul and reincarnation.

And, needless to say, the Catholic Church would not today support what happened to Bruno, as illustrated by its stance on the death penalty.

 

Back to the Future

All of this raises the issue of the extent to which any of this matters.

Rather than providing evidence that would undermine the Catholic Church’s position on unborn chidren, Dr. Adalja has been giving us a litany of historical ad hominems that don’t engage the issue.

His project at this point is simply to attack the Catholic Church rather than seeking to engage and interact with its views.

Yet—despite the problems with the historical examples he cites—let’s grant him all of them. Let’s suppose that things really were as bad as he says.

What does that have to do with today?

The Catholic Church clearly has a pro-science attitude in the present. Consider this quotation from the Catechism, which is just one among many:

The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers (CCC 283).

The Church runs its own astronomical observatory, as well as a special organization dedicated to the appreciation of science—the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Members of the academy include numerous distinguished scientists, including many Nobel laureates, and they are appointed to the academy based on their contributions to science, without respect to whether they are Catholic or whether they even believe in God.

Members have included famous scientists such as Niels Bohr, Alexander Fleming, Werner Heisenberg, Stephen Hawking, Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford, and Erwin Schrodinger.

Given all this evidence, it is clear that the charge that the Church is “against” science is sweeping and unjust hyperbole.

 

Conclusion

Dr. Adalja’s conclusion that the Church “has shown itself to still harbor anti-science sentiments in its ranks” is a bit underwhelming.

Every group of humans harbors “anti-science” sentiments in its ranks. Even scientists sometimes harbor “anti-science” views.

So what?

The question is whether a particular instance involves such views, and Adalja has done nothing to show that the Catholic Church’s assessment that unborn children are human beings is scientifically false.

Indeed, he cannot do so without invoking nonempirical—and thus nonscientific—criteria, because they objectively are living human organisms.

What Dr. Adalja does do is provide a compelling illustration of how to get science and religion wrong.

Instead of entering into the thought of the bishops he is criticizing, identifying the relevant, underlying premises, and then interacting with them:

  • He hasn’t done his research (the bishops are basing their position on Pope Francis’s)
  • He makes bare assertions about unborn children without providing evidence for them (i.e., that they only have the potential to grow into a human being, when they already are living human organisms)
  • He turns to a litany of historically oriented ad hominems that he (a) gets wrong and (b) do not reflect the Church’s stand on science

This is not how the dialogue between science and religion should proceed.

People of whatever perspective should seek to enter and understand the thought of the other before attempting to critique it. In other words, they should do their homework.

In particular, they should avoid ad hominem attacks on the other.

It’s both unfair and irrelevant to use ad hominems to attack and dismiss religious claims, just as it would be unfair and irrelevant to use ad hominems to attack and dismiss scientific claims (which could easily be done if that were desired).

Let’s hope that lessons can be learned from this unfortunate example.

OCD, Therapy, and Promises

A reader writes:

Mr. Akin,

Thanks for the OCD articles you’ve posted. Your one on promises has been a site I’ve read and re-read many times as a comfort to know I’m not alone.

In your estimation, is it OK for one working through an exposure technique to purposely think, “No matter what I think, including ‘I promise,’ I’m going to ignore it and move on”?

In my case, when I thought “I promise”, I was thinking it as if directing it to God, as you would in prayer. I immediately regretted it . . . and in fact have replayed it in my head over and over to try to comfort myself, and worry I may have double-downed on my promise.

My worry being that it wasn’t a compulsion I could blame it on, but a conscious thought. I usually take a thought of “I promise” as meaning I need to give up things I enjoy for a day (coffee, etc.). And then the days compound.

Thanks for all the help; it really is comforting.

Thank you for writing. I believe I can be of help.

 

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Its Treatment

For those who may not be aware, one of the most promising treatments for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder involves cognitive behavior therapy and, specifically, exposure and response prevention therapy.

In this treatment, a person with OCD is exposed to situations that can trigger his obsessive thoughts and then refrain from engaging in the compulsive behavior ritual that he normally uses to relieve the stress they cause.

He thus learns by experience that he doesn’t need to perform the compulsive rituals in order to deal with the thoughts that flit across his mind, and the OCD condition lessens over time.

While this therapy involves some initial stress, it has proved effective for many patients and is considered one of the best therapies for this condition.

 

Promises to God

In this situation, the reader has OCD that is manifesting in thoughts about making promises to God and then being bound by them.

This is a common manifestation among religious OCD sufferers.

When this occurs, the person feels compelled to make promises to God that will inconvenience him to a greater or lesser degree, but which he feels obligated to keep.

The fact that these are inconvenient promises is the point: The OCD wants the person to be inconvenienced, since it is the inconvenience—and the fear of disobeying God—that is the cause of the anxiety that the condition wants.

But are such promises binding?

 

The Answer Is No

Such promises are not binding because they (1) are not rational, (2) are made under the duress of anxiety, (3) are not fully human acts, and (4) are the product of a disordered thought process and disease that needs to be fought.

For all these reasons, they do not bind.

However, OCD sufferers can have a fear that a particular promise might have been voluntary, and so it might bind. The same anxiety thus emerges in a new form: fear that a particular promise might bind, and the cycle starts again.

The solution is this: It doesn’t matter what degree of voluntariness a particular promise had. It’s still part of an overall disease process that needs to be thought. Ignore it anyway.

 

Promises to a Friend

To see why, suppose you live far away from any body of water and have no interest in boating.

Then, one day, a friend who you know has OCD comes to you and says, “Guess what! I’ve had an obsessive-compulsive impulse that I need to buy you a luxury yacht! I’m not sure how voluntary this thought was, so I’m afraid it might be binding. Therefore, I promise to sell my house, pull all the money out of my bank account, liquidate my retirement savings, and buy you a luxury yacht!”

What would your response be? Would you consider him bound to keep this possibly voluntary promise he has made to you?

Of course not! You would tell him, “Hey! Slow your roll! I have no need for a luxury yacht. I don’t care whether this thought was voluntary or not. You need to fight your OCD. I do not want you to hurt yourself by giving in to your OCD. Do not sell your house. Do not pull all the money out of your bank account. Do not liquidate your retirement savings. And do not consider yourself bound by this promise. In fact, do the opposite: Fight your OCD and ignore this promise for your own good. Don’t feed the OCD! The path to getting better involves ignoring promises like this!”

That’s what a good friend would say!

 

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Well, Jesus is an even better friend than the human ones we have here on Earth, so he’s going to tell us exactly the same thing.

As Jesus himself said:

What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matt. 7:9-11)

God is better than any earthly father, and so this principle applies here. As in the case of the friend, no earthly father, knowing that his son had OCD, would want his son to honor obsessive-compulsive promises he had made to do things for him, even if the son thought a particular thought might have been voluntary. He would want his son to ignore them and so get relief from his OCD.

For a promise to bind, it not only has to be made, it also has to be accepted. No friend would accept such promises as binding. No earthly father would. And neither does God.

Just because a person has compulsively tried to promise something to God doesn’t mean God considers that promise binding.

God has no needs, which means that he doesn’t need anything we might promise him. Further, he loves us, which means that he’s not going to hold us to promises made due to the effects of a disordered medical condition that needs to be resisted.

God knows that, if OCD suffers allow themselves to play the “Maybe that thought was voluntary”-game, it will only keep them trapped in their OCD.

The Great Physician wants us to be healed, including of OCD, and the path to healing is to ignore such obsessive-compulsive promises, even if we think one might have been partly voluntary.

Therefore, whether it’s part of exposure and response prevention therapy—or not—God wants OCD sufferers to ignore such promises.

So that’s what they should do.

Scrupulosity, OCD, and Life Goals

How is a person with scrupulosity or OCD supposed to manage going about life when their condition interferes with achieving key life goals–like getting an education, finding a spouse, or holding a job?

Recently I received the following email (per my usual policy, I’ve edited it to remove any personally identifying details):

Hi Mr. Akin, I am a practicing Catholic, but also very scrupulous. (I do have the mental disorder of OCD)

My question is in regards to near occasions of sin. I think many things are near occasions of sin, some being real and some being scrupulous.

I have decided to go to a Catholic college. The major I am going into has both a 100% on-campus option and a 100% online option. I really want to go onto campus but I feel it is a proximate occasion of sin because I have the opportunity to avoid it.

The reason I see this as a proximate occasion of sin is because I struggle with chastity; almost every time I see a beautiful girl I have impure thoughts.

I do not want to offend God because I know that we as Catholics are required to avoid proximate occasions of sin that can be avoided.

I would very much appreciate it if you could give me your educated input on if I have a moral responsibility to avoid being on campus. I have spoken to my spiritual director and he said I need to weigh the pros and the cons and which one outweighs the other.

Thank you for your time.

I responded:

Thank you very much for writing. Your situation is a difficult one, but not an uncommon one. We all have challenges and temptations that we face, and the latter can be especially strong at your time of life.

Unfortunately, I can’t give you a simple, single answer to what to do in your situation regarding attending college on campus or not. However, I can sketch the principles that need to go into that decision.

Forgive me if I repeat some things you already know, but I don’t want to accidentally leave out something important.

As you know, OCD is a common disorder that feeds scrupulosity. There may be treatment avenues for OCD that you haven’t yet pursued that could help. If you are not already in contact with a physician or psychologist about the condition, I strongly recommend consulting one to see what options may be available.

One of the most promising treatments for OCD is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which–among other things–can involve exposure to the things that trigger a person’s OCD to help him become desensitized to them.

This tends to work because, the way OCD normally operates, there are certain triggers that produce distressing thoughts (the obsessions), and then to manage this anxiety, the person feels compelled to perform certain ritual behaviors (the compulsions).

A common strategy that OCD sufferers employ is to avoid the things that trigger their obsessions, and this is not always unreasonable. However, if it becomes the default strategy, it can cause the OCD to grow in strength, as more and more things become potential triggers. The very act of seeking to avoid the OCD triggers can actually reinforce the disorder and make it worse.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) seeks to break this cycle by helping the sufferer realize, on an emotional level, that he does not need to give the OCD triggers power over him.

It thus may involve a form of treatment where the person is gradually exposed to his triggers, and he learns to manage the anxiety, which gradually decreases.

To take a classic example (really, the classic example), suppose a person with OCD has a fear that his hands are constantly dirty and need to be washed. This is extremely common. As you may know, some OCD sufferers spend hours a day washing their hands, until they are raw.

One way CBT might help treat this would be to say, “Whenever you have the thought that you need to wash your hands, don’t give in immediately. Set yourself a goal–say, you won’t wash your hands for 5 minutes. Then, relax and think about something else. Distract yourself so that you’re not thinking about your hands.”

By the time the 5 minutes ends, you may have either forgotten about your hands or, if the thought comes back to you, you can say to yourself, “Hey! I didn’t wash my hands for 5 minutes, and the world didn’t end. I’m still okay.”

That reassurance that, despite the presence of the trigger (the thought you need to wash), things are still okay, though you didn’t immediately give in to it will–over time–give the person the confidence that he can relax and not be governed by his obsessive thoughts. This then can lead to a diminishing of how often the obsessive thoughts occur.

The bottom line suggested by CBT is: “Don’t simply run from your triggers. If you do that, they will get worse. Instead, do your best to relax and ignore your triggers. Focus on something else. That is what will weaken them.”

To apply this to your situation, it will not be possible for you to spend your life avoiding women for purposes of avoiding temptations to mental sin. Women are half of our race, and you can’t just run away from them.

Instead, you need to find a way to manage the situation: to encounter women, and relax and move beyond whatever distressing thoughts and temptations may occur. That’s the long term solution.

Temptations to sin are particularly strong at your time of life, and there is no magic cure. The problem will get better later on in life, but for now it is something that has to be dealt with.

The parts of the problem that can be dealt with, right now, are the scrupulosity and OCD–as well as the general management of temptation that every person must do.

Normal temptation management is something that there is a good bit of literature on (including temptations against chastity), and your spiritual director can no doubt be of help with figuring that out.

There also are literature and support groups for people suffering from scrupulosity.

A key part of this is recognizing that there is a major difference between temptation and sin; having a thought or feeling of being attracted to a woman and desiring her is only temptation; it doesn’t become sin until you foster this feeling by an act of the will; and it doesn’t become mortal sin unless there is full knowledge and deliberate consent.

Because OCD wants to cause you anxiety, the thoughts it generates are “ego-dystonic”–contrary to your moral values, which is why they cause distress and why the OCD generates them, to make you anxious.

The fact that you are operating with a problem like OCD means that the thoughts are not fully voluntary, and so even when there is some apparent motion of the will, it isn’t sufficient to be mortal sin.

The standard counsel for scrupulous people is thus to assume that a sin was not mortal unless the opposite is manifestly evident.

Today, there are new methods of dealing with OCD, of which Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the most promising.

I also can say that the long-term solution is not to simply flee women. In fact, doing that would not only increase your OCD, it would also harm your ability to achieve important life goals, like getting an education, holding a job, and finding a wife.

At some point, you must decide that you will regularly encounter women and just manage the temptations and OCD/scrupulosity that this will involve, knowing that it will get better over time.

This decision cannot be delayed indefinitely, because even if you didn’t attend college on campus, you will be encountering women in the workforce–not to mention needing to date and find a wife, for which college is an excellent opportunity.

I can’t tell you whether attending college on campus or online is the better choice at the moment, but I can tell you that the less you feed your OCD now, the fewer habit patterns you’ll need to unlearn later.

Whatever you decide, do not scruple about it, but trust that God will guide you through the situation and bring about your good and his greater glory.

I hope that this is helpful for you, and I encourage you to share it with your spiritual director and get his further thoughts.

God bless you!

Thomas Aquinas on the Occult

When people think of the occult, things like astrologers, mediums, witches, and demons come to mind.

Many dismiss such things as incompatible with modern science, and while Christians know the supernatural is real, they can be affected by this skeptical attitude.

But in the past, highly respected, intellectual figures like St. Thomas Aquinas took occult phenomena seriously.

Back then, the word “occult” had a different meaning. In Latin, occultus meant anything that was hidden—anything that people didn’t know about or understand. The world thus was filled with “occult” or hidden things and forces.

These weren’t automatically contrary to the Faith, and “occult” had a neutral meaning. Just because men didn’t understand something, that didn’t mean it was evil.

God was the one who set up the world, and he created many things hidden from man’s knowledge. Sometimes, he would reveal these through the prophets and thus provide “occult knowledge.” Thus, Scripture says that God “reveals the things that are hidden [Vulg., occulta]” (2 Macc. 12:41).

 

The Medieval Cosmos

In the Middle Ages, it was thought that things on Earth were made of the four classical elements—air, earth, fire, and water. Everything else was a mixture of these four. Also, the elements weren’t thought to be made of atoms but could be divided indefinitely, without reaching a smallest unit of matter.

Opinion was divided on the stars. Some thought the heavenly bodies were made of the same four elements, but others thought they were made of a fifth element called aether (cf. Summa Theologiae I:70:1 ad 1).

It was thought that the Earth was a sphere at the center of the cosmos. The heavenly bodies—the sun, moon, and stars—were thought to surround the Earth in a series of transparent, concentric shells or spheres.

The lowest sphere held the moon. Everything below the moon (i.e., the “sublunar world”) was subject to change and corruption. But since the heavenly bodies endlessly moved in their orbits, seemingly without change, they were regarded as incorruptible.

Outside the spheres was the highest heaven, sometimes called the empyrean heaven—a realm filled with light, where the angels and saints dwell (ST I:61:4, I:102:2 ad 1).

The spiritual world contained beings Aquinas called “separated substances”—that is, things that exist though separated from matter. These included God, angels, demons, and disembodied human souls.

 

Occult Forces

Modern science recognizes four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. The latter two were unknown in Aquinas’s day, and the first two were very imperfectly understood.

People knew physical objects fall, but they didn’t use gravity to explain that. It wasn’t till the 1600s that Isaac Newton proposed an invisible force causing objects with mass to attract each other. He named the force “gravity,” from the Latin word meaning “heaviness.”

Newton got pushback, because the physics of his day held that bodies couldn’t influence each other unless connected by a physical medium. Gravity was supposed to work even across a vacuum, with objects exerting “spooky action at a distance,” so Newton was criticized for proposing this magical, “occult” force.

By contrast, Aquinas held that stones fall toward the Earth because they contain the element of earth (Letter on the Occult Workings of Nature), and though electricity and magnetism had been known since ancient times, it was not understood that they were two aspects of a single force.

Aquinas even listed magnetism as an occult force: “Now in the physical order, things have certain occult forces, the reason of which man is unable to assign; for instance, that the magnet attracts iron” (ST II-II:96:2 obj. 1).

Other objects also had natural abilities. Thus, Aquinas held that gold could improve mood and that sapphires could stop bleeding (LOWN)—a parallel to modern “crystal healing.”

The way these worked was hidden, but that didn’t make it wrong to employ them: “There is nothing superstitious or unlawful in employing natural things simply for the purpose of causing certain effects, such as they are thought to have the natural power of producing” (ST II-II:96:2 ad 1).

But there was a problem if you were adding magical or superstitious observances to an object’s natural abilities.

 

Magic

The term “magic” (Latin, magia) comes from the Magi—a Medo-Persian tribe with priestly duties. Originally, “magic” referred to the rituals Magi performed, but it was extended to any foreign or unauthorized rituals.

Magus (“magician”) then was applied to people who performed such shady rituals, no matter what their nationality—even Samaritans and Jews (Acts 8:9, 11, 13:6). It’s thus hard to say what nation the Magi who visited Jesus belonged to, just that they came “from the east” (Matt. 2:1).

In the first century, fields we take for granted were not clearly distinguished. Religion, philosophy, science, medicine, and magic were combined in a confusing way.

By Aquinas’s day, the distinctions were becoming clearer, and he contributed principles that helped distinguish them.

 

Medicine

Our word “pharmacy” comes from the Greek pharmakon, which could mean a magic potion, a medicine, or a poison. Whichever of the three you wanted in the ancient world, you’d go to a pharmakeus, who would make it for you—illustrating just how tangled magic and medicine (and crime) were.

The practice of making such substances was known as pharmakeia. This is the word the New Testament uses when Paul lists sorcery as one of the “works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:20) and when John says that the nations were deceived by sorcery and that people did not repent of their sorceries (Rev. 9:21, 18:23).

This negative attitude toward pharmakeia was because it involved magic. Ancient pharmacists didn’t just grind up herbs to make medicine. They also said spells and performed magical procedures over them.

This continued in the Middle Ages, and herbology was viewed with suspicion. Yet some plants had curative powers, and Scripture acknowledges that “the Lord created medicines (pharmaka) from the Earth” (Sir. 38:4)—so there had to be something good here. The question was how to disentangle medicine from its magical overlay.

Aquinas acknowledged that it’s permitted to use a substance’s natural effects, “but if, in addition, there be employed certain [mystical] characters, words, or any other vain observances which clearly have no efficacy by nature, it will be superstitious and unlawful” (ST II-II:96:2 ad 1).

 

Astrology

Astronomy and astrology were not distinguished in the Middle Ages, but it was clear they contained a mix of truth and falsehood.

Aquinas knew some things could be predicted with certainty, “even as astrologers foretell a coming eclipse” (ST II-II:95:1), but not everything astrologers said was true.

It’s surprising how open Medievals were to astrology. The heavenly bodies had been regarded since antiquity as having a great deal of influence on Earth. Thus, in medicine, herbologists would pick or prepare plants when the heavenly bodies were in certain alignments, to ensure their potency (a practice not wholly without basis, since plants ripen in different seasons, though that has to do with the sun rather than the moon or planets).

Aquinas was quite prepared to see the stars as influencing physical bodies: “The natural forces of natural bodies result from their substantial forms, which they acquire through the influence of heavenly bodies; wherefore through this same influence they acquire certain active forces” (ST II-II:96:2 ad 2).

But he denied that one could create “astronomical images” imbued with power from the stars by inscribing astrological signs on them. The reason was that the signs are artificial.

The stars might give a magnet its ability to attract iron, but men could not channel the power of the stars by inscribing symbols on an image, since such characters “do not conduce to any effect naturally, since shape is not a principle of natural action.” Consequently, “no force accrues to them from the influence of heavenly bodies, in so far as they are artificial.” Only the natural substances they were made of might have an effect (ibid.).

Because the stars influenced the physical world, Aquinas held that “astrologers, by considering the stars, can foreknow and foretell things concerning rains and droughts” (II-II:95:1).

But what effect did they have on man? In antiquity, many thought the stars rule our fates inexorably, but Christian thinkers held this wasn’t compatible with free will.

It was men’s choices that ultimately determined their destiny, but this didn’t mean the stars had no influence. Since they were physical objects, stars couldn’t affect our souls directly, but they could affect our bodies and the sensations we experience, such as anger and concupiscence.

They thus could influence the choices we make, for “the majority of men follow their passions, which are movements of the sensitive appetite, in which movements of the heavenly bodies can cooperate” (ST I:115:4 ad 3).

Aquinas didn’t regard making predictions on this basis as the sin of divination, because they were natural predictions based on human reason: “Accordingly it is not called divination, if a man foretells things that happen of necessity, or in the majority of instances, for the like can be foreknown by human reason” (ST II-II:95:1).

It would be superstition, though, if “by observing the stars, one desires to foreknow the future that cannot be forecast by their means,” and thus, “we must consider what things can be foreknown by observing the stars” (ST II-II:95:5)

Since most men follow their passions, Aquinas concluded that “astrologers are able to foretell the truth in the majority of cases, especially in a general way. But not in particular cases; for nothing prevents man resisting his passions by his free-will” (ST I:115:4 ad 3).

But since few resist, astrologers were particularly able to predict “public occurrences which depend on the multitude” (ST II-II:95:5 ad 2), such as wars and the like.

 

Demons

Demons could influence physical objects, at least in certain ways, so Aquinas held they could intervene in human affairs.

Both they and the good angels could assume temporary physical forms (ST I:51:2). These temporary bodies allowed them to perform some tasks but not others. For example, they could not reproduce—at least not directly.

However, following St. Augustine, Aquinas held that demons could take the forms of incubi and succubi and have relations with human beings. This would allow them to acquire the cells needed for reproduction: “If some are occasionally begotten from demons, it is not from the seed of such demons, nor from their assumed bodies, but from the seed of men taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man.” In this case, the offspring would be fully human, “so that the person born is not the child of a demon, but of a man” (ST I:51:3 ad 6).

Demons’ control over physical bodies was limited. Again following Augustine, Aquinas held they could not transform a human body into that of a beast, “since this is contrary to the ordination of nature implanted by God.” But demons could trick human senses into thinking a person had turned into a beast: “Imaginary apparitions rather than real things accounted for the aforementioned transformations” (On Evil 16:9 ad 2). He thus saw werewolf-like transformations as illusions rather than physical events.

Aquinas didn’t have a problem with using hidden natural forces, but he was wary of practices that included words or other symbols. There was nothing wrong with invoking God, the good angels, or the saints, but the only other spirits that might respond to invocations were demons.

“In every incantation or wearing of written words [on an amulet or medal around the neck], two points seem to demand caution. The first is the thing said or written, because if it is connected with invocation of the demons it is clearly superstitious and unlawful. On like manner it seems that one should beware lest it contain strange words, for fear that they conceal something unlawful” (ST II-II:96:4).

 

Ghosts

The spirits of departed humans also could manifest in the world.

Like all Medievals, Aquinas recognized that the saints in heaven could appear to men, and he recognized that the same was true of other souls: “It is also credible that this may occur sometimes to the damned, and that for man’s instruction and intimidation they be permitted to appear to the living; or again in order to seek our suffrages, as to those who are detained in purgatory” (ST III-II:69:3).

The damned thus might appear—perhaps against their will—to scare the living back onto the straight and narrow, and those being purified might appear to seek prayers.

 

Natural Human Abilities

What power might the human soul have to influence physical things? Aquinas held that souls can affect their own bodies directly, and they can affect other things indirectly.

For example, “when a soul is vehemently moved to wickedness,” this might manifest in the eyes so that “the eyes infect the air which is in contact with them to a certain distance” and thus “the countenance becomes venomous and hurtful, especially to children, who have a tender and most impressionable body” (ST I:117:3 ad 2).

This was Aquinas’s explanation for the “evil eye,” and it was reasonable to fear a child might be harmed by it (ST II-II:96:3 ad 1).

Aquinas only considers the case of a person’s soul being moved by a desire to harm someone, not whether the same principle could be used for neutral or good purposes. However, he sees the soul as having at least a weak natural ability capable of producing physical effects remotely. Today, such natural mental abilities would be classified as psychic powers, and this specific ability would be a form of telekinesis.

He also acknowledged another natural human ability that today would be classified as psychic: precognition, which he referred to as “natural prophecy.”

In supernatural prophecy—or prophecy in the proper sense—God reveals something to a person, possibly through an angel. However, Aquinas held that humans also have a natural disposition allowing them to sometimes learn about the future.

He distinguished this from predictions based on learning and experience, such as how “the doctor foresees that health or death will come, or a meteorologist foresees the storm or fair weather” due to “technical knowledge” (Disputed Questions on Truth 12:3).

Instead, natural prophecy “is derived from the power of created causes, in so far as certain movements can be impressed on the human imaginative power.” Given the influence he believed the stars have, it’s no surprise he saw them as one cause of these impressions, saying they can be produced “for instance, by the power of the heavenly bodies, in which there pre-exist some signs of certain future events.” Also, unlike supernatural prophecy, natural prophecy is not infallible, “but predicts those things which are true for the most part” (ibid.).

Natural prophecy can occurs in dreams, but it wasn’t the only reason dreams sometimes foretell the future. Aquinas says they also may do so by chance or when a man responds to a dream to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alternately, predictive dreams may be caused by God, angels, or demons. But sometimes they are due to the natural “disposition of the heavenly bodies” (ST II-II:95:6).

Aquinas doesn’t explain in detail how to tell when this is the case, but he notes that “we must say that there is no unlawful divination in making use of dreams for the foreknowledge of the future, so long as those dreams are due to divine revelation, or to some natural cause inward or outward” (ibid.).

 

Superstition

Superstition is a vice contrary to religion that “offers divine worship either to whom it ought not, or in a manner it ought not” (ST II-II:92:1), and Aquinas’s discussions of occult phenomena offer principles for discerning whether a particular practice is lawful or superstitious.

The first concerns whether the goal of the practice is good. If you’re trying to do something wrong—like harm a child with the evil eye—the practice is not permitted.

The second concerns whether it can be expected to have an effect. If the practice can’t possibly work—like expecting an image to have power from the stars because you put an astrological symbol on it—it’s superstitious and thus not permitted.

The third concerns whether the practice works by natural means. If you’re only relying on powers God built into nature—like an herb’s healing effect—the practice will be lawful.

The situation is more complex if you’re explicitly or implicitly invoking a spiritual entity. The fourth principle thus concerns who you’re invoking. If it’s demons—whether you’re aware of that or not—the practice isn’t lawful.

Even if you’re invoking God, his angels, or the saints, it’s not automatically legitimate, because it’s possible to invoke them superstitiously. The fifth principle is thus checking that you’re being reasonable and reverent.

For example, when considering whether it’s lawful to wear an amulet or medal with divine words written on it, Aquinas says, “one should beware lest, besides the sacred words, it contain something vain, for instance certain written characters, except the sign of the Cross; or if hope be placed in the manner of writing or fastening, or in any like vanity, having no connection with reverence for God, because this would be pronounced superstitious. Otherwise, however, it is lawful” (ST II-II:96:4).

 

Aquinas on Evaluating Practices

 

A Modern Perspective

It’s remarkable how free the Medievals were of modern skepticism about mysterious phenomena.

It’s also striking how willing figures like Aquinas were to think carefully about what is acceptable and unacceptable. He didn’t simply dismiss everything as being due to demons or forbid everything that we would consider occult.

In subsequent centuries, we’ve made both scientific and doctrinal progress (CCC 2115-2117). Astronomy and astrology have been disentangled. Also, medicine and magic are largely distinct, though quack procedures relying on allegedly spiritual principles remain (e.g., Reiki).

In some ways, our age has become too skeptical, too quick to dismiss accounts of the spiritual and paranormal. Aquinas may have been wrong about the influence of the stars, but the world still has hidden elements.

These include the supernatural forces Christians have long been aware of. They also include natural things science hasn’t discovered (e.g., some scientists think we may have found evidence of a fifth, previously unknown, fundamental force).

Aquinas made a real contribution with his principles for discerning the good and the bad in mysterious phenomena, and these remain valuable as we encounter the many mysteries God’s world still contains.

Coronavirus, Mass, and Catholic Life

The coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic has produced many questions and controversies, including how it is impacting people’s ability to attend Mass and receive the sacraments.

How dangerous is the virus? What should be our response as Catholics?

Here are eight things to know and share.

1) How dangerous is the coronavirus?

Nobody knows for sure. The virus only emerged a few months ago, so doctors are only now getting experience with it.

Some have compared Covid-19 to the flu, which is a well-understood and predictable disease.

It appears that Covid-19 is much more infectious than the flu. A person with the flu will infect an average of 1.3 other people, but a person with Covid-19 will infect an average of between 2 and 3.11 additional people. Covid-19 thus has the chance to spread much more rapidly.

Covid-19 is also much deadlier than the flu. In the United States, the death rate for the flu is usually around 0.1%. The death rate for Covid-19 is not yet well understood, but it appears to be between 1.4% and 2.3%—making it between 14 and 23 times more deadly than the flu.

While it is true that—at present—more people are killed by the flu than by Covid-19, governments and health authorities are working to keep the latter from becoming as common as the flu.

There are around 27 million cases of flu each year in the U.S., resulting in around 36,000 deaths. If COVID became as common as the flu (and, remember, it’s actually more infectious than the flu), there would be around 500,000 deaths.

This is what authorities are trying to prevent.

Current Center for Disease Control guidelines for how to protect yourself are online here.

 

2) Is everyone equally at risk?

No. Covid-19 hits certain people much harder than others. People younger than 60 are much less likely to die because of the disease, though they can still catch and spread it.

They may even have it but not feel sick and yet spread it to others. In fact, a recent study suggests that more than 80% of current cases were spread by people who did not know they had the virus.

People older than 60 are much more likely to die, and the risk increases with each decade of age.

People with other underlying conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease also have increased risk of dying.

Current Center for Disease Control guidelines for how to protect yourself are online here.

 

3) Why are bishops cancelling Masses and dispensing people from their Sunday obligations? Aren’t Christians called to be martyrs?

Christians are called to be martyrs when we are forced into the situation. If we are directly asked if we are followers of Christ, we cannot disown our faith. “If we deny him, he also will deny us” (2 Tim. 2:12).

However, this doesn’t mean we are called to rush into martyrdom. In fact, Jesus said that we can flee persecution for our faith: “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next” (Matt. 10:23).

The requirement to witness to our faith thus does not mean Christians can’t take reasonable steps to protect themselves from physical danger.

If it is morally permissible to leave town to avoid one physical danger (being killed by people who hate our faith), so is staying home from Mass for a few weeks to avoid another physical danger (being killed by a plague).

 

4) Are bishops being too quick to cancel Mass?

The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen Gentium 11), so no bishop will take the decision to suspend Masses lightly.

The decision involves a prudential judgment call, so there is no single answer that obviously applies in all situations. This means the faithful should pray for the bishops as they wrestle with this issue and show respect for the difficult decisions they are having to make.

They also should bear in mind that:

  • The conditions in some areas are much worse than others.
  • In some places, bishops may not have much of a choice, as public authorities have prohibited public gatherings over a certain size.
  • Epidemics grow exponentially, so the only way to stop them is to take early action—before the situation becomes severe. If you wait until an epidemic has gotten really bad in an area, it is too late.

 

5) When are people allowed to stay home from Mass?

People are allowed to stay home from Mass in three situations:

  • When one has a legitimate excuse (e.g., because a person is at elevated risk of acquiring Covid-19)
  • When one is dispensed by the competent authority (e.g., the pastor or bishop)
  • When it is impossible to go (e.g., because Masses have been cancelled)

 

6) On what basis can pastors and bishops dispense a person?

The Code of Canon Law provides that the pastor of a parish can give a dispensation in individual cases, as can the superiors of religious institutes (can. 1245).

The bishop’s authority is greater. He can “dispense the faithful from universal and particular disciplinary laws issued for his territory” by the Vatican (can. 87 §1). This is the category of laws that the Sunday obligation belongs to.

 

7) What should we do if staying home from Mass?

One is not legally obligated to do anything on these days. However, the Church strongly recommends that the faithful undertake another form of spiritual activity:

If participation in the eucharistic celebration becomes impossible because of the absence of a sacred minister or for another grave cause, it is strongly recommended that the faithful take part in a liturgy of the word if such a liturgy is celebrated in a parish church or other sacred place according to the prescripts of the diocesan bishop or that they devote themselves to prayer for a suitable time alone, as a family, or, as the occasion permits, in groups of families (can. 1248 §2).

Watching a Mass on television or the Internet also is a possibility, and some parishes and dioceses stream Masses on their web sites.

Participating in the Liturgy of the Hours is another possibility (can. 1174 §2), as are reading the Bible or spiritual works.

 

8) What should I do if I’m not sure whether I’m getting sick?

Err on the side of caution. With many diseases, people are most infectious just before they start feeling sick and just after they start having symptoms. Therefore, if you think you might be getting sick, you may be at the point where you have the greatest chance of infecting another person.

Even if you do not feel sick, you may be able to spread the virus to others, so it is important to follow safety practices even if you currently feel fine.

This applies especially if you have contact with older people or those with health conditions that put them at greater risk of dying from Covid-19.

Remember: We are not just protecting ourselves; we are protecting those around us.

If we don’t have the virus, we can’t give it to others. Even if we’re young and healthy, we’re protecting the more vulnerable. That is a physical work of mercy, and it’s an act of love for others. As Jesus taught us, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

New Books in the Bible? (& More Weird Questions)

It’s time for more weird questions with Jimmy Akin, including this time new books in the Bible; Heaven on another planet; impeaching the Pope; time travel & the Eucharist; marrying aliens; zombie apocalypses; and more.

Weird Questions in this Episode:

  • How does the Church view books like 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, or the Greek Ezra (which are found in Bibles of the Byzantine tradition)? Was there ever an official statement or teaching on these other works which were sometimes in the Bible?
  • Is it possible that God has placed heaven, or the New Earth of Revelation, on a planet in another galaxy?
  • Could the pope make a canon law that allowed for impeachment of a pope?
  • Could intelligent non-human aliens receive the Eucharist?
  • Assuming time travel is possible and a priest and his parishioners are transported back to a time before the Incarnation of Christ. Since the Last Supper hadn’t happened yet in the natural timeline, is it possible to have a valid eucharistic consecration?
  • Why wouldn’t there be marriage in the age to come? Will the sex organs on our resurrected bodies not work?
  • If you can have a nihil obstat for books, why doesn’t the Church have a similar system for speakers and Catholic teachers?
  • Can a priest give himself confession if he is in a state of mortal sin and needs to say Mass and receive the Eucharist?
  • How did the animals get to places like Australia after the Great Flood?
  • If we found another sentient species (on earth or on another planet), would it be a violation of natural or moral law for a human to marry and/or procreate with that being?
  • Will God allow a zombie apocalypse possible to happen? Will killing a helpless, disabled, and starving zombie be criminal or immoral?

Links for this episode:

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