Category: Theology

A reader writes:

Since becoming Catholic I’ve heard a lot about capital punishment, and whether or not it should be opposed. Lately, however, I’ve become uncertain about how this ought to actually be applied. Some say that tobe consistently pro-life one should work against the death penalty as well as against abortion. This has caused some confusion on my part.

Okay, first off, be extremely careful about this "consistenly pro-life" stuff. This is rhetoric that is commonly used to hijack (or neutralize) the issue of abortion by relating it to other issues of a different character:

• Anti-death penalty folks use this rhetoric to try to establish a moral equivalence between abortion and the death penalty and thus argue that if you’re anti-abortion, you need to be anti-death penalty on the grounds that there is a moral equivalence between them such that supporting either would be "inconsistently" pro-life.
• Pacifists use the rhetoric to try ot establish a moral equivalence between abortion and warfare and use the same argument described above.
• Supporters of certain welfare or social programs try to establish a moral equivalence between abortion and not supporting their favored welfare or social programs such that if you’re against abortion you must also support their welfare or social programs to be "consistent."
• Some who oppose abortion seek to neutralize it by establishing a moral equivalence betwen it and other issues such as those described above and saying, in effect, if it’s okay for you to be inconsistently pro-life by not being anti-death penalty, pacifist, or a supporter of more money for this social program, then it’s okay for me not to be anti-abortion.

I know that the "consistently pro-life" rhetoric is out there in Catholic circles, including some highly placed churchmen, but in my judgment it is more of a hindrance than a help in dealing with the problem of abortion. One of the ways it does so is by putting a whole slate of agenda items in front of pro-lifers and making the problem too big to solve. It would be better to solve abortion and then work on other issues.

Another way it is a hindrance is that it has a tendency to mis-educate the conscience of the individual by establishing a moral equivalence between abortion and the other issues such that the individual who absorbs this language thinks or has a tendency to think that the issues are morally the same. Some who use the language may make the needed distinctions between the relative moral status of the issues, but these technicalities are lost on the ordinary individual.

Thus last year many in the Catholic community were convulsed by the question of could they vote for a particular candidate who opposes abortion but also supports the death penalty. The answer is: Of course you can. There are several reasons for this, but a key one is the fact that abortion and capital punishment are not morally equivalent. Abortion is intrinsically evil (meaning always evil) whereas capital punishment is at most only extrinsically evil (meaning evil in some circumstances but morally licit in others).

The same thing goes for war, social programs, etc. They just aren’t of the same moral status, and in my opinion we will be better able to deal with these problems if we use a language that better conforms to the objective differences in the moral status of these subjects. A "one-size-fits-all" rhetoric like the "consistenly pro-life" stuff has a tendency to mis-educate the conscience of individuals and thus make the problems harder to deal with.

However, after looking at the Catechism and reading bits of earlier Church documents touching on the subject, it seems that the ideas of when and how the death penalty can and should be applied have modified dramatically over the centuries. As such, is the current teaching in the Catechism to be considered an infallible teaching of faith and morals, or is it of a lesser nature–say, a personal opinion of the Pope that need not be absolutely accepted by all laymen? (This would especially concern Catholic politicians since it seems that the Church allows for the state to make up its own mind on this matter.)

When the Pope says that capital punishment should be used "rarely if at all," is this an official magisterial statement, or a statement as a personal theologian? Can one be consistently pro-life while approving of capital punishment?

Despite a popular impression to the contrary, the Catechism is not an infallible document (hence it’s already been revised once to fix some minor issues that needed correction). It is a realiable guide to the teaching of the faith, and it does repeat a number of infallible teachings, but it does not, as a whole, enjoy the property of having been written under the charism of infallibility.

This is something that Cardinal Ratzinger is at some pains to point out in THIS BOOK. In fact, he points out that the inclusion of a particular item in the Catechism does not change its doctrinal status. It has only the level of authoritativeness that it had prior to its inclusion in the Catechism. Thus you have to look at its doctrinal status in other Church documents to determine what weight it has in the Catechism.

Ths means that you have to look at Evangelium Vitae 56 to determine the doctrinal weight of the statement on the death penalty, and when one does that it is clear that it is phrased in a very tentative way that may be best understood as the prudential judgment of the pope and not as a matter to which all Catholics are required to assent.

Thus in his memorandum of last summer, Cardinal Ratzinger noted:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia [SOURCE].

A reader writes:

Can you recommend a couple of books on the Catholic view of end times and prophecy? (I am not a fan of and want to avoid books with a lot of private revelation references.)

David Currie has a book on the rapture, which is a related subject. I have not read this book but enjoyed his "Born Fundamentalist, Born again Catholic." Are you familiar with his work on rapture? Do you know if it would be suitable?

I teach RCIA and one of my students is a fan of end times prophesy … she is now interested in the Catholic perspective. I have never looked into the subject in any detail. Thanks for any help you can give me.

I have to confess that I haven’t yet read all the books I’m about to recommend, but they all by good authors, so I’d recommend them on that basis. Here goes:

• RAPTURE: THE END-TIME TERROR THAT LEAVES THE BIBLE BEHIND by David Currie
• WILL CATHOLICS BE LEFT BEHIND by Carl Olson
• THE RAPTURE TRAP by Paul Thigpen

I’d also recommend some of the stuff I’ve written, which is online electronically:

• FALSE PROFIT: MONEY, PREJUDICE, AND BAD THEOLOGY IN TIM LAHAYE’S LEFT BEHIND SERIES.
• APOCALYPSE NOT
• THE EARTHQUAKE GENERATION
• THE CORPORATE CONVERSION OF ISRAEL
• THE WOMAN OF REVELATION 12
• ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH
• THE BEAST IN REVELATION
• HUNT-ING THE WHORE OF BABLON (PART I)
• HUNT-ING THE WHORE OF BABYLON (PART II)
• THE WOMAN, THE SEED, THE SERPENT
• THE ANTICHRIST
• REVELATION: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
• LA SALETTE: SORTING FACT FROM FICTION
• SECRET NO MORE

A correspondent writes:

A correspondent writes:

A reader writes:

I got your email address from your website, jimmyakin.org. I
started listening to the Catholic Answers Life by downloading files
from the show archive recently (sorry, this may have nothing to do with
your website) . As a Catholic, I m very keen to learn more about the
faith. 

Since I m in Malaysia (State of Sabah, North Borneo),

By the way, if you’re going to reply this email, I would like to
ask you just one question which is always on my mind. The question is
‘Why does God allow division among Christians (Catholic, Protestant,
Orthodox, etc.), or did He?’ Could you suggest any books/references on
this? (sorry, that’s more than 1 question)

I’m not sure that I can recommend any books on why God allows people to have disagreements in the Christian community, but I hope that the following thoughts may be helpful:

1. The problem has been with us since the first century. Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one (John 17), knowing that divisions would arise among them. If you read 1 Corinthians, especially chapters 1-3, it’s very clear that there were divisions in the early Christian community, and St. Paul writes against these divisions.
2. Since the existence of divisions in the Christian community is evil, this makes the existence of such divisions a part of the overall "problem of evil" (i.e., why God allows evil in general).
3. We do not have a complete answer to why God allows evil, but since he always has adequate reasons for what he does, we can reason that there must be an adequate reason for God to allow this.
4. Knowing that, we can speculate about what the reson or reasons he allows evil are.
5. One of the most popular suggestions for why he allows evil in order to allow a certain kind of free will to exist in this life, the kind of free will whereby he allows people to make a free choice for good or evil. Letting them do this means letting them sometimes choose evil, which means allowing the existence of evil.
6. While it is not certain that this is the reason God allows evil, it does fit with the facts that in this life people do sometimes choose evil and God does allow it.
7. It also fits with the fact that the divisions in the Christian community have arisen because different people (the founders of different sects, in particular) have exercised their free will in such a way that they have left the unity of the Catholic Church and founded their own communities.

Hope this helps, and hope you’ll visit and participate in the blog regularly!

A reader writes:

James,
Jimmy

When I figured out that the Iraqi elections were
scheduled on the anniversary of the eve of the Tet
Offensive, I had a theological question I have never
heard asked. Is it possible that embedded within
history, in the unfolding of God’s plan (Divine
Governance), are sort of historical ironies or puns?
If one looks at puns in the Bible it would seem that
God had to predestine not only the characters and
their circumstances, but the language (Hebrew,
Aramaic, Greek) and its development.

It is possible that God has all kinds of buried puns in history, but I wouldn’t suggest that you go looking for them until the next life. That’s when we’ll have the balance and maturity to appreciate such things. In this life the danger of becoming obsessed with them and seeing connections where none exist is too great. (Many people drive themselves nuts this way.)

For example, (while you’re not nuts) I’m not sure that I see a big connection between the Tet offensive and the Iraqi election. They were both things that (a) occurred in other countries and (b) were significant and (c) happened on the same day, but there are only 365.2422 days in the year, and significant things are happening in other countries all the time. There’s bound to be some that have the same anniversary.

Sure, in this case they were both things that happened in connection with insurgency and a controversial U.S. war, but their fundamental nature is different: The insurgency on Tet was not trying to thwart a local election being held at the same time.

On the other hand, here’s a hopeful note: The U.S. defeated the insurgency in Tet; may it do the same in Iraq. (And on a cautionary note: The media was so anti-U.S. policy that it portrayed Tet as a U.S. defeat when it wasn’t; the same may happen with Iraq.)

As far as puns in the Bible, while God may have predestined the development of biblical languages to allow the precise puns he wanted to use, this isn’t a necessity. Every human language is capable of producing puns, and God may have given Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek scope to develop and then used their native pun-generating capacity when it came time to write the Scriptures.

A reader writes:

Tonight on O’Reilly, he stated that all Catholics believe in "Baptism by Desire."  I know that that statement is obviously not true, but my question is:  Is "Baptism by Desire" a defined doctrine or dogma of the Church where assent is required?  I’ve only been Catholic for a couple of years now, and I’m trying to learn as much as possible.

Searching the internet, I found two articles, both written by Catholic priest, one supporting BBD, the other against it.  Both seemed to have valid points.  Don’t know which one to believe.

I always hate commenting on things that I haven’t heard or read, because I don’t know the exact words that were used. If O’Reilly said that "all" Catholics believe in baptism by desire then this is technically incorrect. A tiny number of dissident Catholics (Catholics who reject the teaching of the Church) do not accept baptism of desire, flying in the face of the Catholic understanding that has persisted since the early centuries of the Christian age.

That being said, you should believe the page you found by the priest who supported baptism by desire. This is the clear teaching of the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

1258 The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.

1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."62 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity [SOURCE].

That is something that has been obvious for some time, particularly with the release of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, which says that we may hope for the salvation of infants dying without baptism.

Recently, Pope John Paul II asked the International Theological Commission (a body operating under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) to study the question of the fate of such infants in more detail.

HERE’S AN INTERVIEW WITH A THEOLOGIAN WHO HAS STUDIED THE PROBLEM IN DEPTH.

(Cowboy hat tip: ExceptionalMarriages.Com.)

I don’t think the theologian in question explains himself as well as possible on all points, but it’s still a valuable overview.

A reader writes:

I was listening to Ave Maria Radio approx. 2 – 3 weeks ago, and you answered a question from a listener regarding the kinds of souls.  For example, you had mentioned that plants have a vegetated soul….what do humans and animals have???

According to this division of souls:

1. Plants have vegetative souls that allow them to live, grow, and reproduce,
2. Animals have sensitive souls that allow them to feel and (usually) move from place to place, and
3. Humans have rational souls that allow us to have rational thought.

These distinctions go back to Aristotle’s discussion of the powers of the soul but were picked up by the Medievals (e.g., Aquinas). An important point that was stressed by them is that each entity only has one soul, which is the substantial form of the body. Therefore, it’s not that animals have two souls and humans have three. Each soul type includes the functions of lower types.

Jamie at Ad Limina Apostolorum provides some commentary on my recent post about the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

His central thesis–that the Compendium is viewed as an elaboration of a particular subject dealt with in the Catechism of the Catholic Church–is certainly correct. I think, however, that another thesis he advances must be understood with some nuance.

He writes (excerpts; and the "yeah!" is Jamie rather than me):

I share Akin’s concern that the social teaching of the Church not be so readily equated with its moral and dogmatic teaching, which admittedly admit [yeah!] of a greater degree of solemnity. But this concern is balanced with another (which Jimmy certainly shares as well) that the Church’s social teaching not be itself downgraded to the level of ‘optional’ or ‘throw-away,’ a hodgepodge of socioeconomic suggestions paperclipped to the Really Important Stuff ™ like the Pope and the Sacraments and all that.

[T]he fact that the Catechism already contains the Church’s social teaching, at least in summary form, brings up another point. It simply doesn’t make sense to think of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a collection of the Really Important Stuff – like hard, dogmatic teaching – with the Church’s social thought playing the the ugly red-headed stepchild. If the Church’s social teaching is included in the Catechism, then it is the Really Important Stuff as well, or at least integral to it.

I would press the question of whether the Church’s social teachings can be so easily separated from the Church’s dogmatic and moral teachings. Is not the Church’s social teaching not moral in its very essence (even if it rarely advances to the level of solemn, dogmatic statements about morality)? Is it not also a ‘doctrine’ in the fullest sense of the word? In fact, the Holy Father has claimed the Church’s principles of social doctrine, as enunciated especially in Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, "belong to the Church’s doctrinal patrimony" (Centesimus Annus 3), constituting a "genuine doctrine" (5), and "an essential part of the Christian message" (5). John XXIII called it "an integral part of the Christian conception of life" (Statement on New Social Justice Compendium, Cardinal Martino (I know, I know, but at least give him the time of day) said, "When, in any way whatsoever, one loses the keen awareness that this Social Doctrine belongs to the Church’s mission, Social Doctrine itself is manipulated, falling prey to various forms of ambiguity and partisan application."

I’ve quoted Jamie at some length because he makes a number of points that need to be addressed for purposes of pointing out the nuance with which they need to be understood (and one point on which I disagree).

Here goes.

Continue reading “Ad Limina Doctrinarum Ecclesiae”