Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin
When you say “Church teaching has been adamant: No Catholic can in principle support abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, or homosexual ‘marriage'” should we treat that as Dogma?
Could the same have been said about artificial birth control 20 years ago?
“Could the same have been said about artificial birth control 20 years ago?”
Yes, and this was the issue that John Courtney Murray addressed. Following Aquinas, he indicated that sometimes, a society could choose not to ban something immoral, particularly a matter of private morality, because there would be greater disorder created in enforcing the ban. It is not an acceptance of the immoral action, but a prudential judgment on the best way to use the sword of government. Unfortunately, many people stopped reading there, and based on their incomplete understanding, asserted that the same argument could be made for abortion. What they neglected was that this did not hold for matters of private morality that involved extremely grave evils, such as the taking of human life. It is not appropriate for a society to ever sit back and watch in those instances; the very purpose of forming a society and establishing a government is to prevent them. Accordingly, abortion is not a private matter than could be left unregulated as a prudential matter.
Nice work there! =)