Category: Moral Theology

A reader writes:

A person is going out with some co-workers for a dinner.  Normally
the co-workers go out to clubs the person would not go to –but in
this case it is a normal place for dinner so that this person can
attend. 

Problem is that a number of the co-workers are Catholics who
do not practice their faith.  The person desires to go in part of
this reason –to evangelize in friendship (and they already said
yes).  But it is on a friday of Lent and it is likely that they will
not abstain from meat. 

The problem is that these kind of events
often are paid for via ‘group payment’ they divide up the cost and
tips among them (it would be strange then to ask to pay
separately) .  Question: is there any problem with this material
cooperation in paying in small part for wayward Catholics?  Or any
problem with showing approval or something?

It is in handling questions like this that I ask myself, "What would Pope Benedict do?"

It seems to me that Pope Benedict would say that calling someone back to the practice of the faith is of transcendent value compared to the subject of a non-practicing Catholic eating meat on Friday in Lent. In other words, having the person hear a message of friendship and the gospel is more important than him hearing a message of the particulars of when we’re supposed to abstain from meat. If you can only give one message to him–as is likely the case here–then give him the really important one.

It may be true that they’re committing a lesser objective sin (breaking the abstinence that is required from Catholics), but everybody you meet, no matter who they are, are committing some kind of sin. The important thing is doing what you can to help them, and it seems to me that the friendship evangelization you are talking about will benefit them more than either talking to them about abstinence from meat or not going and not having the opportunity to evangelize.

The fundamental norm that guides situations like this is the good of souls, and helping people back to the faith when you have the opportunity to do so will do more good than focusing on lesser points (which they likely won’t care about any way if they aren’t practicing their faith) or missing the opportunity altogether.

The friendship evangelization strategy also treats the cause rather than the symptom. If you can help get them back into the active practice of the faith then the abstinence issue will take care of itself. Making an issue of abstinence now might even impede their return to the faith by getting them sidetracked on lesser matters instead of what they need to really be focusing on.

So I’d go and take the opportunity to evangelize in friendship. I wouldn’t raise the subject of abstinence. If they happen to raise it–noticing perhaps that I don’t have meat on my plate–I’d just shrug and smile and not make any bigger deal of it than that.

If they press further, I’d even be inclined to say, "Friday abstinence is something I do to practice my faith, but let me tell you why my faith is important to me in the first place."

As to the check, I would pay my ordinary share and not scruple about it beyond that. I’d put it under the rubric of "If someone forces you to go one mile with him, go two instead." Further, there’s nothing that says you’re paying for the part of their meals that consists of meat. You’ve just decided as a group to split the check evenly, and what each person decides to order is up to him.

If you must scruple, though (and I would encourage you not to), then order stuff that’s more expensive than the average meal, and that will cause others to contribute to your meal rather than visa versa.

Seriously, though, I wouldn’t scruple in this area. Just go and be of what spiritual service you can to your friend, making sure that you major in the majors and not the minors.

Hope this helps!

20

A reader writes:

I have a quick question on the Parable of the Sower. It says, "The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."

My question is, are Christians allowed to have "desires for other things" besides God?  For example, if I strongely desire a wife, is it wrong?  I’ve been praying for a wife for years, but this parable convicted me.

The "desires for other things" phrase may be unfamiliar to some because it is found in Mark’s version of the Parable of the Sower, but not in Matthew or Luke’s version, which are better-known.

This phrase need not be an occasion for scrupling, however. It does not mean that desires for things other than God are bad. God himself designed us so that we would desire various things: food, human companionship, respect, love, sex, etc. All of those are goods, and God designed us to desire goods. It’s what motivates us to seek them and thus seek good.

The problem is when we allow desires for temporal goods to crowd out eternal goods. It is not sinful to desire a particular temporal good–such as a wife–but it becomes sinful if one is willing to mortally sin (turn one’s back on God) in order to gain a wife. The same is true of any other temporal good. If we are willing to mortally sin in order to get it then we have fixed our will on it rather than God. The situation is similar if we’re willing to venially sin in order to get it. In that case we’re letting it impede our relationship with God, but we’re not turning away from God to pursue it.

There is nothing wrong with desiring temporal things in addition to God; there is nothing wrong with strongly desiring them. What we have to make sure is that our desires for these things do not lead us into sin. As long as that is the case, there is no problem and the hierarchy of goods is as it should be, with us recognizing the transcendant value of eternal goods over temporal ones.

The balance is struck by Jesus in Matthew 6, where he tells us:

[D]o not be anxious,  saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What  shall we wear?’   For the Gentiles seek all these things;  and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all  these things shall be yours as well. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be
anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the
day [Matt. 6:31-34].

   

20

The reader with obsessive-compulsive disorder who wrote before about the possibility of selling one’s soul writes:

Thank you very much for the prompt and logical
response.

My pleasure.

Unfortunately, I also read some of the combox, and the
doubting disease kicked in.

Yes, I was aghast when I discovered that–despite the fact this was a Rule 20 post–not only had the rule been violated in the combox but it had been immediately violated by the very first commenter. By the point I discovered it, there was an extensive (over 20 posts) discussion underway, and I couldn’t untangle it all and thus had to simply shut off the combox.

Rule 20 exists precisely in order to not have pastoral answers I’m giving undermined and add to the burden of the people I’m trying to help. I was livid when I discovered this blatant violation of the rule because of the pain it could inflict on the original reader, and I would have banned the commenter who did it immediately except that I don’t think he did it intentionally.

I also have to share some blame myself in that I should have better foreseen that this would happen and not have left the combox open on that post in the first place. At least one can argue that this was a case which was too sensitive to risk handling it under Rule 20.

So my apologies for all that.

One person mentions the
possibility of a pact with the devil — i.e. if I get
the thing that I want, I agree to go to hell.  I think
that’s pretty close to my conception of "selling my
soul" — more as a metaphor: I’d still be "me", but
I’ve agreed to spend eternity in hell.

I don’t want to take much more of your time on this
subject, but could you address the question from this
perspective?

Sure. The above is a metaphorical (not literal) understanding of "selling one’s soul" that is not subject to it being ontologically impossible (the way literally transferring your soul to someone else is). It would be at least possible to agree to go to hell in order to obtain some temporal good, and doing so would be gravely sinful because it is placing some temporal good above one’s eternal destiny.

So what if one did mentally choose this, giving it the full and deliberate cooperation needed to make it a fully human act?

Well, the devil isn’t omniscient, and merely thinking about striking a bargain with him doesn’t mean that you did.

Further, no such bargain would be binding.

You can’t morally obligate yourself to do something immoral, and willfully going to hell is immoral. Any "contract" of this nature would be automatically invalid. It would have no binding force before God. Therefore, all someone would need to do to get right with God–supposing he had done such a thing as a fully human act and thus been responsible for it–would be to turn to God and repent.

However, merely having a thought along these lines would not be the
same as committing this sin. Having the thought is just a temptation.
It isn’t a sin. You’ve got to engage the will in order for sin to take
place. Thus if a person with OCD has thoughts along these lines, he
should remember that they are not sins and put them out of his mind.

But what if the person with OCD feels that he has given some sort of
cooperation of the will to the thoughts (i.e., endorsed them). Here he
is to remember two things:

1) In order to actually commit a mortal sin
one must give deliberate consent to the thought. You haven’t committed
a mortal sin if you just feel some kind of partial cooperation of the
will, so don’t worry about it and think of something else.

2) The goal of obsessive-compulsive disorder is to try to inflict pain
on people by throwing thoughts and feelings at them that they don’t
want. It will try to trick them into thinking they are sinning mortally when they are either sinning venially or not sinning at all but just having a temptation. Therefore, an OCD-sufferer needs to follow the advice given to scrupulous people by sound pastoral theology
and assume that they have not given deliberate cooperation to the thoughts and thus have not mortally sinned.

The fact that the reader mentioned in his original e-mail
that he has a strong urge to resist these thoughts shows that he is in
this category and should ignore them.

20

A reader writes:

I suffer from OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
One of my most troubling obsessions is the thought
that I have (or will) sell my soul (e.g. to the
devil).  This thought generally occurs when there’s
something that I want (e.g. I want project X to go
well at work; I see an attractive woman), and is
generally accompanied by an urge to strongly resist
the thought.

I’m hoping you can address this from a theological
perspective.  That is, is it even possible to sell
one’s soul?  If not, I’ll have "ammunition" to ignore
these thoughts going forward, and be able to dispel
all fear that I may have ever given in to the thought
in the past.  If it is possible, how would I know if I
had done it?

It is not possible to sell one’s soul. Period.

The only things that can be sold are things that (1) you own and (2) are alienable (that is, capable of being transferred from one person to another).

It is questionable whether you even own your own soul. To the extent that ownership even applies to souls, it could be stated that God owns our souls. Thus St. Paul, alluding to the fact that Christ redeemed us on the Cross, states:

You are not your own;  you were bought  with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

There is thus a significant argument to be made that we can’t sell our souls because we don’t own them.

Even if one were to quibble on that point, though, we most definitely cannot sell our souls because they are not alienable. They can’t be taken away from us and given to someone else. Why? Because the soul is the essence of who we are.

I can’t transfer my essence–my "me"-ness–to anybody else. He has his own "me"-ness (which to me is "him"-ness), and it is logically impossible for someone else to be both him and me. He’s him. I’m me. That’s all there is to it.

Therefore, a single individual cannot have two souls. This is obvious to see in the case of an embodied soul: Human souls are the substantial forms of our bodies (that’s been dogmatically defined), and a body cannot have two substantial forms. The same thing applies even when our souls are outside our bodies, though. They constitute the irreducible essence of our persons, and as such they cannot be transferred from one person to another, by definition.

The thing to do when these thoughts come to you is to resist them, as you are doing, and to resist them in such a way that they aren’t reinforced. Just do your best to relax and put them out of your mind.

20

Word is that there’s a new bioethics document cookin’ at the CDF.

Good!

I tol’ y’all that we’d see doctrinal development on bioethical questions during the coming years.

The latest document is supposed to be a sequel to Donum Vitae, which was prepared under the auspices of Cardinal JoePre-16 back in 1987 and that presciently looked forward to things like embryonic stem cell research. (In fact, just recently I was quoting Donum Vitae in a guide on stem cell research I was writing).

The new doc is expected to pick up where DV left off, covering new bioethical challenges that were unthinkable 20 years ago but that are now not only thinkable but in hot development.

I’m lookin’ forward to it!

Let’s hope it’s as prescient as its predecessor was!

GET THE STORY.

P.S. It ain’t gonna deal with the use of condoms to stop the AIDS virus. No big surprise there.

P.P.S. There’s a new document on natural law in the works, too! That’s another one I’m really looking forward to! (See above link.)

A reader writes:

I was recently asked to be a notary at my good friends wedding in a couple
of months.

Immediately I thought I may not be able to do so because I am a practicing
catholic and this will be a non catholic wedding.  Neither the bride or
groom are practicing catholics nor do they plan on getting married in any
type of church.

If neither of your friends has ever been Catholic then they are not bound by canon law to observe the Catholic form of marriage. They are therefore free to marry in any kind of service they want, religious or not.

Assuming that they have the capacity to marry (e.g., they are not presumably still married to someone else, despite a civil divorce), their marriage will be presumed valid.

Assuming that their marriage is presumably valid, there is no apparent canonical or moral reason why you could not serve as a notary, a deputy commissioner of marriages, or any similar role at their wedding. Canon law does not prevent Catholics, even lay Catholics, from officiating at such weddings, and as long as the marriage will be presumed valid, nothing in moral theology would do so either (assuming that there isn’t some other factor affecting the situation, like the vows expressly rejecting an essential property of marriage).

I’ve thought through this issue with some care, because I myself was asked to preside at the wedding of my sister (a never-before-married non-Catholic) to her fiance (another never-before-married non-Catholic), and after parsing the relevant factors and consulting with others, I ended up being deputized as a one-day deputy commissioner of marriages and peformed the ceremony.

A reader writes:

About a month ago, you ran a post in which you talked
about 2 of the 3 conditions necessary for mortal sin:
adequate knowledge and deliberate consent. I was
wondering if you would mind running a post that deals
with the third: grave matter.

Specifically, I have the following question: in
paragraph 1858, the Catechism states that grave matter
is specified by the Ten Commandments. However, I’ve
also heard it said that all sins could be categorized
as breaking one of the ten commandments. Does this
mean that all sins involve grave matter? This doesn’t
seem correct to me. Could you offer some guidance as
to how to determine what grave matter is?

This is an area in which it seems that some further doctrinal development may occur. It is true that the Ten Commandments are usually identified as the key reference point for what counts as grave matter and that it is commonly thought that all sins can be related to the Ten Commandments in such a way that the sin is a violation of at least the principles that are behind the individual commandments.

This is not the only way of classifying sins, however. Sometimes the sins are classified based on which of the seven virtues they violate, which are then sometimes related back to the Ten Commandments.

While, if you consider them broadly enough, the principles behind the Ten Commandments may be capable of embracing every particular sin that is committed, it is not the case that every sin has grave matter.

A classic example is that of theft. If you steal a dollar from a millionnaire, it isn’t grave matter because he has plenty of money and the loss of a dollar will not gravely harm him. On the other hand, stealing a dollar from a beggar in the streets of Calcutta, who needs that dollar to survive, would indeed be grave matter, because it does grave harm to the individual.

Moral theologians handle this by saying that violating the commandment "Thou shalt not steal" has potentially grave matter, but in some cases there is a parvity (smallness) of matter that keeps it from being grave. Thus stealing a dollar can be grave (in the case of taking it from someone who will starve without it) but in other cases it is not grave because of the smallness of the harm that is done (as in taking it from a millionnaire).

In trying to relate this distinction to the traditional formulation that some sins have light matter (making them venial) while others have grave matter (making them potentially mortal), it is tempting to say that any sin, if done to an extreme enough degree, will have grave matter, and thus that all sins are potentially grave, it being parvity of matter that prevents them from being grave.

I am inclined toward this view, and in the process of checking it out, I’ve asked others trained in moral theology whether they can think of any sins that always have light matter, that never could be grave no matter the extreme degree to which they are carried. They haven’t been able to think of any, and neither have I. Thus I’m inclined to say everything is potentially grave if carried out in an extreme enough fashion.

Where the dividing line is crossed between grave and non-grave matter is not clear. The gravity of the matter is based on the harm done, and there is not an objective standard by which we can judge harm. There are certain clear and commonly agreed upon reference points (e.g., anything that would take a life would be grave; anything that would cause mild annoyance would be non-grave), but ultimately the assessment of gravity is a matter that can only be subjectively assessed, leading to the common rule that those who are non-scrupulous should go ahead and confess if there is doubt about whether a sin was grave and those who are scrupulous should confess only when they are sure that the sin was grave.!