Category: Moral Theology

A reader writes:

I am in a bit of a quandary, and I hope you can spare a few minutes to give
me your thoughts, eithe r in your blog or privately.

As Christmas gift, I was given a shirt with an imprint of the figure of the
Divine Mercy Jesus

Something like this, but in bright yellow:

http://www.cafepress.com/ctso.38480255

I do not want to wear it because:

– my personality and clothing style does not suit these types of shirts
– I am honestly embarassed to wear blatantly religious clothes (although not
embarassed to be Catholic).
– I’m not really a devotee of the Divine Mercy

My concern is, is my embarassment and reluctance to wearing these clothes
tantamount to denying Christ?  Because, frankly speaking, one of the reasons
I do not want to wear it is because I am embarassed to appear "too
religious".  Am I acting like St. Peter when he denied Christ?

(I don’t think I will have qualms about wearing tasteful ones though, like
the "Decided" or "Family Circus" shirts that Catholic Answers sell).

Let’s star with that "denying Christ" means. When Scripture uses this phrase it means something specific: Issuing a denial that has Christ as its object. This could mean denying that Jesus is the Christ or it could mean denying that you are an adherent of the Christian faith.

But one thing it does not mean is simply keeping your mouth shut. In order to deny Christ you have to open your mouth (or use sign language or e-mail or some other form of interpersonal communication) to specifically issue a denial.

Now: If you put on a shirt that had a picture of Jesus with a big circle around him and a slash through the image then THAT could be a denial of Christ in the form of a T-shirt, but merely not wearing a religious T-shirt is not a denial of Christ.

If it were then the Church would be telling us that we are all obliged under pain of mortal sin to go out and buy religious T-shirts, because to deny Christ knowingly and deliberately is a mortal sin. (Scripture is real clear on that point.)

The Church is not telling us that. The Church has never told us that. Therefore, it isn’t. There’s just a difference between not witnessing for Christ on every possible occasion and DENYING Christ. The latter is a sin; the former is not.

We simply aren’t obliged to take every possible opportunity to witness. Witnessing is a good thing, but if you try to do it on every single occasion where it’s physically possible for you to do so then you’ll actually DAMAGE the cause of Christ because you’ll be ramming the Christian message down people’s throats. You’ll also end up taking time away from your family that you should be spending on them. You’ll fail to study for things you should study for. You’ll fail to do a whole bunch of things that you should do and end up looking like a nut to non-Christians (as well as fellow Christians) if you try to implement a witness-every-single-moment method.

And they’ll be RIGHT to regard you as a nut, because you’ll drive yourself nuts doing this.

God didn’t design humans to operate in that manner. He created us to live lives in which we attend to many different things (our families, our work, ourselves) in addition to witnessing to our faith. He didn’t just create us to be witnessing machines.

We are meant to live what Catholic theology terms in modo humano or "in a human manner." This means devoting adequate attention to all of our duties, including our duty (when it is appropriate) to witness to our faith.

There is thus, as Ecclesiastes might say, a time to witness and a time to refrain.

Over the centuries the Church has thought a good bit about when it is a time to refrain. The era of persecutions forced that on us. A conclusion that was reached was that there are situations in which the prudent thing to do is to refrain from witnessing–for one’s own sake (there are also situations where it is prudent to refrain from witnessing for the sake of the person you’re trying to help; e.g., if doing it at this moment would push him away from Christ instead of drawing him closer).

After all, Jesus himself told us:

When they  persecute you in one town, flee to the next (Matthew 10:23).

So there can be reasons not to witness in a particular set of circumstances.

This means that, unless you are in some REALLY strange circumstances (like the Roman emperor has declared that failure to wear a religious T-shirt will be construed as a denial of the Christian faith), failing to wear a religious T-shirt is NOT denying Christ.

If you don’t want to wear the T-shirt, you don’t have to. You do have to witness to your Christian faith in SOME circumstances in SOME way, when it’s appropriate and productive, but you don’t have to witness to your Christian faith in THIS way.

That being said, I don’t know that being embarrassed about wearing overtly religious clothes is a spiritually healthy impulse. If society were more hostile to Christianity than it is (e.g., if we were living in Stalinist Russia) then this would be understandable. But in much of the developed world we aren’t (yet) in that situation, and we have some duty to do what we can to keep Christianity visible in the public square. Wearing religious clothing is ONE WAY to do that (though not the only way).

Even though it would not be a sin to refrain from wearing this T-shirt or any other religious article of clothing, I’d still counsel you to take your feeling of embarrassment as an occasion of sanctification–something you can work on to grow in holiness by learning to be more comfortable testifying to your religious identity through what you wear.

That doesn’t mean I’m counselling you to wear this shirt. I haven’t seen it, and it may be hideous–or radically contrary to your personal style or conveying an impression that you are a devotee of a particular devotion that you aren’t a devotee or whatever.

But I would think about maybe wearing–on occasion, when it’s appropriate–something that would help you eat away at the feeling of embarrassment that you presently feel and so grow in holiness.

A reader writes:

I’ve noticed it’s becoming increasingly popular amongst women and girls, pious or otherwise (e.g. Brittany Spears). Is it considered irreverent for a person to wear a rosary around the neck? I thought I read a statement from Pope John Paul II on this a couple of years ago (asking women not to wear rosaries as adornment), but am at a loss to find it.

I’m pretty sure that there isn’t such a quote. Certainly, I have never run across one, and it does not sound to me like the kind of thing that John Paul II would say.

The reason is that–as pope–he had to oversee a Church spanning countless cultures, with different sensibilities, and with numerous different spiritualities.

How one shows reverence for something is largely a cultural matter. One can show it, among other ways, by proximity or by distance.

For example, we show devotion to the saints, and many people show it by wearing small blessed pictures (medals) of them. This is a way of showing devotion to the saints by keeping reminder of them on our person and–in some cases–where other people can see the pictures (medals), making this devotion also a form of public testimony.

But I can imagine a culture in which people want to do the opposite. "No blessed object should be worn on the body," they might say. "The only role for a blessed picture of a saint is as an icon hanging on a wall–not on one’s person!" These people would be attemting to show their devotion by distance.

Neither of these positions would be wrong. Showing devotion by proximity or by distance are both ways of showing devotion. Unless the Church weighs in to mandate a particular devotion, it remains a matter of culture and personal preference.

In the case of the liturgy, the Church has mandated certain forms of showing devotion. We are to stand for the reading of the gospel and kneel for the consecration, for example. In the liturgy–in part because it is a communal activity (one where we all participate in the liturgical action as a group)–how we show our devotion is significantly regulated by the Church’s liturgical law.

But the Church hasn’t been anywhere near that specific when it comes to non-liturgical matters, like the sacramentals and the Rosary.

Whether it is to one’s personal taste that some people want to show their devotion to Mary by wearing a Rosary, this is a matter that–so far as I can tell–the Church has left up to individuals.

Those who favor the practice could also argue that wearing a Rosary–even a blessed one–as a way of showing one’s devotion to Mary is not different in principle than wearing a picture (medal) of Mary–even a blessed one.

My inclination, therefore, would be to take a Pauline approach to this and note it as a matter of Christian liberty. People on both sides of the Rosary-wearing divide should recognize that others’ sensibilities are not the same as theirs, that different people have different ways of showing their devotion, and neither should look down on the other.

A reader writes:

Thanks for your work at Catholic Answers.

I have one question.

The question is, could you recommend any books/websites/groups that help with scrupulosity?  One of the most helpful things that I’ve ever come across is the Ten Commandments for the Scrupulous:

http://mission.liguori.org/newsletters/scrupulosity.htm

Numbers 1,2,8,9, and 10 are particularly helpful.

I’m afraid that you’ve already struck upon the main website/group that I would have recommended. The group is called Scrupulous Anonyomus, and they have a monthly newsletter of the same name.

BASIC INFO ON THE GROUP & LINKS HERE.

CURRENT ISSUE OF THE NEWSLETTER. (WARNING: Evil file format! [.pdf])

NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES. (Ditto).

Despite its name, Scrupulous Anonymous (from what I can tell) is NOT a 12-step program. It’s simply a support group for Catholics who have scrupulosity–particularly the chronic scrupulosity that is caused in religious people who have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (that’s the disorder that the TV detective Monk has).

For this I have to give them credit. OCD is a recently classified disorder that plays a huge role in chronic scrupulosity, but since it has only recently been identified as a psychological condition, it has not been possible up to now to recognize its role in generating scrupulosity–or use any of the means for treating OCD as a means for treating scrupulosity.

Many priests were educated before OCD was classified and are unware of its existence, meaning that they are handicapped when it comes to serving those who have chronic scrupulosity.

Scrupulous Anonymous recognizes the role of OCD, which puts them significantly ahead of the curve compared to many.

I haven’t read much that S.A. has done, but from what I have read, I’ve been quite impressed.

In particular, I had not read the Ten Commandments for the Scrupulous that you linked, but it’s very good and in definite agreement with traditional Catholic pastoral practice.

I’d make a couple of tiny tweaks, but I was very impressed by the piece overall.

There’s also

THIS BOOK BY FR. THOMAS SANTA, FORMER EDITOR OF THE S.A. NEWSLETTER.

We published a piece by him

SOME TIME AGO IN THIS ROCK.

I’ve also dealt with the subject a few times here on the blog, such as HERE and HERE.

I wish I had other groups/sites/books to recommend, but this is about the limit of what I’m aware of on the subject at present. I know that there are a lot of secular OCD support groups out there, but I don’t have specific knowledge of them or of other Catholic support groups, which I also suspect are out there.

Perhaps folks who are aware of other good ones can give some additional leads in the combox.

A reader writes:

Jimmy. My wife and I are quite pleased that she is expecting our second child. We found out that she was pregnant and the first ultrasound/OB visit is coming up soon.

We did not do any fetal testing with our first child and don’t plan on doing any fetal testing with this child, but I have been unable to find any official church teaching on fetal testing. Obviously there is opposition to almost all abortion, but do you have a good resource for what would be acceptable?

Obviously amnio increases the risk for miscarriage.

Thanks in advance.

First, let me clarify what you wrote regarding abortion. Any deliberate killing of the unborn–either as a means or an end–is homicide and cannot be done, no matter the circumstances. Thus it does not matter if prenatal testing showed that the unborn had a horrible genetic disease. He still has a right to life and can’t be killed.

When and whether prenatal testing is okay depends on two things: (1) the good to be achieved by doing the test and (2) the danger the test itself poses to the child.

If (1) is proportionate to (2) the the test is morally licit. If it is not (i.e., if the danger to the child is proportionately greater than the good to be achieved by the test) then the test is immoral.

Some tests seem to pose little risk to the child and can be done as long as one isn’t tempted to do something immoral (like have an abortion) if one finds out that there is a problem with the child. I gather that ultrasound generally falls into this category.

Other tests, like amniocentesis, pose more of a risk to the child. Such riskier procedures could be performed if there is a proportionate good to be achieved, such as the ability to treat the child in utero and cure the problem. That isn’t possible in many cases yet, but with the growth of gene therapy and nanotechnology it will be possible to help more children in utero.

Things like doing an amnio just so you can find out if the kid has Downs so that he can be whacked, however, are immoral.

So would be (in a few years) doing gene therapy on the kid not to correct genetic flaws but to produce a "designer baby."

HERE’S A STATEMENT FROM THE USCCB FROM 1996 ON THE SUBJECT OF GENETIC TESTING.

From what I can tell, this statement doesn’t seem to have Magisterial authority, but it does contain a helpful summary of recent Magisterial interventions on this topic:

More and more frequently, expectant mothers are undergoing amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, and other tests to detect genetic anomalies in their unborn children.

The most detailed Catholic teaching on this and related subjects appears in a 1987 statement from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called The Gift of Life (Donum Vitae).  It asks: “Is prenatal diagnosis morally licit? If prenatal diagnosis respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safeguarding or healing as an individual, then the answer is affirmative” (sec. I, no. 2).

The Holy Father builds on this declaration in his recent encyclical The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae), holding that prenatal diagnostic techniques are morally permissible “when they do not involve disproportionate risks for the child and the mother, and are meant to make possible early therapy or even to favor a serene and informed acceptance of the child not yet born” (no. 63).

However, some prenatal testing poses significant risks to the unborn child, especially when performed on embryos before selection for implantation in the womb. Disturbing test results can also tempt individuals to make decisions not in accord with sound morality. The Holy Father goes on to note:

But since the possibilities of prenatal therapy are today still limited, it not infrequently happens that these techniques are used with a eugenic intention which accepts selective abortion in order to prevent the birth of children affected by various types of anomalies. Such an attitude is shameful and utterly reprehensible, since it presumes to measure the value of a human life only within the parameters of “normality” and physical well-being, thus opening the way to legitimizing infanticide and euthanasia. (no. 63)

Hope this helps, and congratulations on your new pre-born baby!

There are certain pieces of "conventional wisdom" that I’m quite skeptical of. One of them is "The death penalty doesn’t really deter murders." Really? How do we know this? Whether one supports or opposes capital punishment, this claim is at least counterintuitive.

It would seem that executing a murderer would at least prevent him from committing repeat offenses and deter those murders–whether or not it scares off potential murderers from killing others. Further, isn’t the whole idea of having penalties attached to laws generally regarded as providing a deterrent? Why should this penalty be any different? Could the "it doesn’t save lives" argument be just wishful thinking?

I can imagine arguments that having the death penalty fosters a culture of death such that it actually leads to more murders. Maybe. Weird things like that happen. But where’s the data?

That’s why it’s nice that God created economists. They can be a big help in testing received bits of conventional wisdom and seeing if they hold up or if they’re just wishful or prima facie thinking.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently carried an op/ed piece touching on this that was startling:

NEVER have those of us who oppose the death penalty felt more convinced that we are right. And never has there been a series of more impressive-sounding arguments to suggest that we are wrong.

For most of the past century we have been secure in the belief that executing murderers does little to stop murder. That’s what the psychologists and the criminologists have told us.

But now economists have entered the debate. And they have brought to the task a dazzling range of highly sophisticated techniques originally developed to answer more prosaic questions, such as whether tax breaks encourage saving.

More often than not the economists find that executions do save lives.

As they starkly report their central finding: each execution results in an average of 18 fewer murders. Or, to present the finding in an even more unsettling way: any state that refuses to impose the death penalty for murder is condemning 18 or so innocent people to death.

Now, I know that claims of this nature are controversial and subject to testing and revision and reversal themselves, but it’s nice to have additional research being done. That’s how science–including criminology–moves forward.

READ THE STORY.

READ THE SUNSTEIN-VERMUELE PAPER. (WARNING! Evil file format [.pdf]!)

DISCUSS.

Muslim groups in India are speaking out against a proposed plan to install five hundred condom distribution machines in one of the Indian states most plagued by HIV/AIDS. They argue that fighting AIDS is a good thing but that the machines promote sex, degrade women, and contribute to the corruption of youngsters.

"Plans to install 500 condom vending machines in the capital of one of India’s worst HIV/AIDS-affected states have angered Muslim groups so much they have taken to the streets to protest a ‘condom culture.’

"Critics of the plan by the Tamil Nadu government and India’s National Aids Control Organisation to put 500 machines in the capital of Chennai and 1000 more across the state later said it would degrade women and corrupt the young.

"’We must fight AIDS, but these machines at public places will only promote sex outside marriage among the younger generation,’ said MH Jawahirullah, who heads Tamil Nadu’s largest Muslim group, the Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (Muslim Progressive Party).

"Over 200 Muslim women, many in veils, hit the streets of Chennai waving placards denouncing the plan and shouting: ‘Don’t ruin our culture, Remove these machines.’"

GET THE STORY.

As you may know, the late John Paul II was not granted the Nobel Peace Prize in part because of his determined defense of the Church’s traditional teaching against artificial contraception (source, scroll to item 6). By not allowing condoms as a "protection" against disease, the Pope killed millions, or so went the chatter from ideologues (source).

I wonder if those same ideologues will now turn their wagging fingers to the Indian Muslims protesting condom machines and denounce them for killing AIDS sufferers by their opposition to the "condom culture."

Guest blogger Ron Belgau writes:

I read your blog post today on face transplants, and it provoked a tangential train of thought.  It’s not one I’d want to endorse, but thought I’d send it along for your enrichment (if that is the right term).

Two things caught my attention: first, the prohibition on brain transplants due to the fact that the brain is the seat of the personality, and second, the statement that brain death may be a legitimate criterion for death.

It seems to me that, based on those two considerations, one could make an argument for brain transplantation, with a twist.

Suppose that A receives a gunshot wound to the head which causes brain death (we will assume brain death of a sort that would be acceptable to the most pro-life physician, not just medical community vulture brain death), but leaves his body undamaged.  Meanwhile, B is in a very serious car accident in which his body is damaged beyond all repair, but his brain is undamaged.

It seems to me that within the framework you have offered, one *could* argue that, if it were technically feasible, it could be morally justifiable to transplant B’s brain into A’s body.

In any case, the proper description for this situation would be to say that A had died, and that B was alive in A’s body.  Although from the medical perspective, it probably makes sense to say that we transplanted B’s brain into A, from the moral perspective, what we would want to say is that we had transplanted A’s body to B.

I’m not sure what I want to say about a case like this.  It seems like it could be justified, on the grounds that if we don’t do it, both A and B will die (assuming brain death is a legitimate criterion for death, which *seems* legitimate if we say that the brain is the seat of the personality), while doing it will allow B’s personality to live on, and potentially live a long and productive life.

At the same time, the personal and social identity issues with this case are far more problematic than those involved in the face transplant issue.  One can also imagine a number of particularly ugly ways that this kind of technology could be abused: criminals seeking a new identity, aging Hollywood stars and starlettes looking for the ultimate makeover, etc.

No, you’re quite correct. IF "brain death" (suitably defined and verified) is an adequate criterion for death then you could do PRECISELY this kind of full-body transplant.

Under the scenario you describ you could also snip off both their heads and sew B’s head onto A’s body.

This is one of the things that causes me and others to have significant questions about whether "brain death" in an adequate criterion for somatic death. While the death of the brain may be a necessary condition for the death of the body, it isn’t clear to me that it’s a sufficient condition for the death of the body. I kinda want the rest of the body to die, too–as a whole. I’m not talking about fingernail beds and hair follicles and minor systems like that. I kinda want overall systemic failure before I say that the system of the body is dead, not just the technologically irreversible cessation of brain or higher brain function.

I also think that what counts as technologically irreversible cessation or brain or higher brain function is going to look VERY different once nanotechnology comes online over the next 20-30 years, making our present understandings of what counts as brain death JUST AS INVALID as the cessation of heartbeat definitions of death that were used a hundred years ago.

If you started cutting someone up back then just because their heart stopped beating 20 seconds ago then you would be cutting up someone who was really not yet dead.

People back then weren’t dead the moment their hearts stopped beating. More has to happen to the heart for death to occur than just a cessation of its activity. If it can be jumpstarted then the person simply was not at the point of death, even if his heart could not THEN have been brought back online due to lack of technology.

In the same way, just because a person’s brain has ceased functioning does not mean he’s dead if it turns out that there’s a technology 30 years from now that will jumpstart his brain.

If nanotechnology has the promise that it seems to at this point and we use brain death as a criterion then half a century from now we are LIKELY to find out that we’ve been cutting up people for parts who were STILL ALIVE, we just didn’t have the ability to bring their brains back online yet.

Recently a reader e-mailed me regarding the ethics of face transplants, such as the one recently done in France.

I haven’t had a chance to fully research the facts of that case–and researching them is apparently somewhat difficult since there is considerable (and MOUNTING) dispute over what the facts in the case actually are.

Let me give what I think are some general principles, though:

1. Any part of the body–except the brain as a whole (since it is the seat of the personality)–is in principle transplantable provided (a) that you don’t kill the donor and and (b) that you don’t do more OR EQUAL harm to the donor than the benefit that the recipient will derive and (c) that the donor’s wishes aren’t violated and (d) there isn’t an acceptable alternative to transplantation–though let’s ignore this criterion for the moment.
2. If you were to transplant a face from a deceased person then (a) and (b) are taken care of, leaving you with (c). If the donor donates his face after his death, I don’t presently see a fundamental moral barrier to the procedure (ignoring condition [d]).
3. If the person is not "dead" but only "brain dead" then the question of whether (a) and (b) are met depends on whether you consider "brain death" an adequate criterion for "death." John Paul II expressed openness (in a document whose level of magisterial authority is not fully clear, though it certainly is not infallible) to using brain death as a criterion of death, but many Catholic moral theologians, physicians, and others (including myself, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop Robert Vasa, Fr. Benedict Groeschel,
   Charles Rice, Paul Byrne [past president of the Catholic Medical Assn.]) have significant reservations about this, both on a theoretical and practical level. On the theoretical level, is "brain death" really an adequate criterion for somatic death? On a practical level, the medical establishment has been infected with an anti-life ethic whereby numerous physicians have sought to expand "brain death" via loosey-goosey criteria that make it a declaration of brain death untrustworthy for practical purposes. If, though, you view "brain death" in the current environment as an adequate criterion of death then this case becomes equivalent to (2), above. If not, it becomes equivalent to (4), below.
4. If the donor is not dead and transplanting the face can be done without killing him (which is possible if fatal infection can be prevented) then condition (a) is satisfied. If the person also does not object to his face being transplanted then condition (c) is satisfied. That leaves us with condition (b). Here we run into a HUGE problem. While faces are non-vital organs (you CAN potentially live without them, as some accident victims can attest), it is difficult under normal circumstances to see how the removal of one person’s face so that another may have it would not constitute an immoral MUTILATION of the first person. While one person can sacrifice a good in order to provide a greater good for someone else, mere exchange of one face for another does not does that. It’s sacrificing one bodily good for (at most) an equal bodily good, which seems to be an impermissible mutilation of the donor.
5. To avoid the problem in (4), some have suggested removing faces from donors who are in a "persistent vegetative state." The argument, presumably, would be something like, "Hey, the donor isn’t using his face anyway, so why shouldn’t the recipient have the benefit of it? This way the good to the recipient outweighs the harm to the donor." This seems like an extraordinarily problematic course of action. First, a declaration that a person is in a PVS is another one of those things that–in the present, anti-life medical environment–is notoriously unreliable due to loosey-goosey criteria. Second, the fact that someone is in a persistent vegetative state does not mean that the person is in a permanent vegetative state. There is a chance (that will GROW WITH TIME as medical technology advances over the next few decades as nanotechnology comes online) that the person will recover from their "vegetative" state. Because of this possibility, it is not clear that the benefit to the recipient will outweigh the harm to the donor. How would you like to wake up and find that your face had been given to someone else?
6. One could say, in response to the concern that a patient might wake up and find his face gone is that, as medical technology advances we could also build him a new face. But this sword cuts both ways. As medical technology advances we could ALSO build a better face for the recipient WITHOUT a transplant. And we can do that NOW. This brings us back to the ignored condition, (d). True, an artificial face is not as good as a natural one, but it is a REAL POSSIBILITY. We can get skin and cartilage and bone–OR SUBSTITUTES FOR THEM–from a variety of sources that don’t require transplanting someone’s face. An artifically constructed face may not be as good as a natural one, but it may be "good enough" given the need for the harm done to the donor not to equal the benefit to the recipient.

It therefore strikes me that the prospect of face transplants is beset by extraordinary difficulties, even if a categorical rejection of it (per point [2]) is not immediately clear.

While the face may not be a vital organ, it is nevertheless a part of the body to which humans naturally attach ENORMOUS significance, and this puts it in a special category.

We might propose a taxonomy of body parts ranging from (1) the seat of the personality [the brain] to (2) unique vital organs [the heart, the liver] to (3) unique crucially important organs [the face] to (4) non-unique vital organs [lungs, kidneys] to (5) non-unique, non-vital organs [corneas, patches of skin, volumes of blood]–with it being progressively harder to have morally legitimate transplants as one moves up the scale, with it being impossible to transplant from a live person by the time one hits (2) and impossible to transplant from any person by the time one hits (1).

To point to the elephant in the living room: We naturally feel a profound sense of horror and revulsion at the idea of transplanting a face, particularly from a non-dead person, and we should GO WITH THAT FEELING.

I am reminded from the scene in Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldbulm says, "You were so preoccupied with whether or not your COULD that you didn’t stop to think if you SHOULD!"

That sounds very much like the current situation in France.

Many research-oriented doctors today are so concerned with trying out new techniques and being the first to do something that they totally ignore moral considerations such as those expressed above.

As the current French situation seems to be illustrating.

GET THE STORY.