Catholicism and Conscience

One of my jobs at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center is to provide web resources for a project on Catholicism and Conscience. I’ll just cut and paste a bit here then send you over to that site to read the rest:

The Catholic tradition on conscience is very extensive, while being quite unified. One may wonder, if the teaching is so unified, why there would be so much to say. The reason is because the tradition is unified on a tension. The first pole of the tension is that under no circumstances should one violate one’s conscience – one must always follow even an erring conscience. The other pole of the tension is that, at the same time, a rightly formed conscience is expected to concur with Catholic teaching. These two moral requirements, that one should follow one’s conscience and that one should follow Church teachings, are potentially in conflict. The requirements may not align, and if so, then a point of tension has appeared between an individual’s conscience and the Church’s teachings.

Here I will endeavor to provide only a brief overview of the immense literature surrounding the Catholic understanding of conscience. In the first section I will provide some background to the subject of conscience, in the second some examples of perennial issues that arise in the discussion of conscience, and in the third some current examples of conscience in the news.

The site is a work in progress so if you have any feedback by all means leave it as a comment here (you can’t leave comments on the Center’s page). Particularly leave a comment if you know of any current news stories involving Catholicism and conscience rights (please provide a link), I will add it to the section at the end (“Current Flashpoints”) where we are compiling contemporary cases. Two prime cases being the HHS mandate on contraceptive insurance coverage, and the new tendency of some bishops to use of “affirmations of faith” with diocesan employees (in that particular case the requirement has been temporarily withdrawn).

Reflections on the Election of Pope Francis

There is an old Confucian proverb about a farmer.  One day,  the farmer’s best horse got loose and ran away.  The neighbors came to offer their sympathies for his loss: “such bad luck” they said.  “Maybe” he replied.  The next day the horse returned, bringing with him two wild horses.  The neighbors celebrated the fortunate turn: “such good luck” the exclaimed!  “Maybe” the farmer replied.  On the third day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild horses, but he was thrown off and broke his leg.  The neighbors (being the nosy bunch that they were) again offered sympathies: “such bad luck!”  “Maybe,” he replied yet again.   On the fourth day,  military officials came to the town to draft young men into the military.  They passed the farmer’s son by because of his leg.  “Such good luck,” the neighbors replied. “Maybe” said the farmer…

The Catholic social media universe was buzzing following yesterday’s news.  Since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was largely an unknown quantity to us here in the United States, most people were trying to piece together an image of the new head of our Church.  First came the wave of obvious “firsts” – he’s the first Latin American Pope, the First Pope from outside Europe in over 1000 years, the first Jesuit Pope, and finally, the first Pope to choose the name Francis after Francis of Assisi.    Next came his first public address, which he opened by asking the faithful to pray for him rather than by offering his blessing on the faithful.  Then came the news that as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he had made a point to live in a small apartment, take the bus to work, and to cook his own meals.

For most of my more liberal Catholic friends, this was a day to celebrate.  From a conclave that consisted entirely of cardinals named by the past two, highly conservative Popes, the expectation was that another highly conservative Pope would emerge.  So when this bus-riding, self-cooking, poor-loving, humble, non-European, non-Vatican-insider emerged, the liberal half of Catholicism rejoiced.

“Maybe,” said the Farmer.

“I Will Wait For You”: The Meaning and Morality of Waiting

A few months ago an interesting synchronicity occurred which caught my attention. Two pieces of popular culture both mentioned the idea of waiting, in highly idealized terms.  The first (that I noticed) was Mumford and Sons song “I Will Wait for You.”

The second was the trailer for the movie “Cloud Atlas.” At minute 5:10 Frobisher speaks (via letter) to Sixsmith, saying that he believes there is a better place after death, and that he will be there waiting for him.

(Yes, I know I said I was going to review the movie “Cloud Atlas” and I never did. But the trailer was better than the movie and I couldn’t bring myself to say all that needed to be said about the movie; so the trailer and the book review will have to do.)

What is so interesting about waiting that two pieces of popular culture would both mention it in such lyrical terms? What deeper truth is being pursued when both mention the idea of waiting?

The quick answer (do wait for the longer one) is that we live in a society that hates to wait. We rush, rush, rush and never encourage restraint from immediate gratification and indulgence. Advertising is all about getting you to act NOW, before your judgment and virtue can act to keep you on track. We want it all now, now, now. Anything worth waiting for is lost. This habituates us towards vice, and it is ubiquitous – everywhere, all the time.

The messages of waiting provided by Mumford and Sons and “Cloud Atlas” are therefore very counter-cultural, and stand out all the more because of it. But there are even deeper ideas at play here too. And this leads to the longer answer.

Should Pope Benedict XVI Have Stepped Down?

Today Pope Benedict XVI gave his two-weeks notice. He’s retiring to a life of prayer after 8 years in office.  This is the first time a Pope has resigned since Gregory XII in 1415. But is it the right thing for him to have done?

I have just a few thoughts to add to the whirlwind of news surrounding the  matter.

1) This is a truly humble and unusual way to end his pontificate. Benedict has always been his own man. I think he is setting a good example, that when one needs a rest, one may take it.

2) Benedict was never the exciting rock-star type pope that John Paul II was. But in his own way, Benedict is making an impact, even at the end. He is reminding the world that the tradition is deep… really deep… and if one needs resources for facing difficult situations (e.g. wanting to resign) one can find them there if one looks.

The Catholic tradition is so huge that it is hard for any one person just to comprehend the size of it (thousands of years and millions of people), much less understand it. As a friend of mine recently said of St. Thomas Aquinas – who is just one of thousands of major figures in the tradition – “Saint Thomas wrote 8 million words. And I haven’t read them all.”

Pope Benedict had a problem and he went to the tradition to solve it, in a precedented, but non-typical way. Smart man.

3) I will miss Benedict’s humility. I will also miss his environmental teaching. Benedict installed solar panels on the Vatican’s roof, made a goal of the Vatican becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral country, and spoke many times on the need to protect the environment. He also, of course, supported all the other teachings of the Church, but on the environment he worked to push forward some important new teachings for our times.

4) While I am truly surprised that this happened right now, I am also not entirely surprised that this is the way Benedict decided to end his pontificate. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger never wanted to be pope.  He accepted the role reluctantly. A few years ago when he visited the tomb of Pope Saint Celestine V – the pope who made resigning from the papacy possible – I thought that this might be the way Benedict chose to go out.

5) Who will succeed Pope Benedict? I have no idea. But I am sure that whatever happens things will turn out just fine. As another friend of mine noted today “The papacy is an office, not a man.” The institution of the Roman Catholic Church will roll on, with all its excesses and deficiencies, while the human parts are switched out over the millennia. It is both a sad and exciting time. Something new – and yet not new – for us to experience.

So in conclusion, should Pope Benedict XVI have stepped down? I think we, as outsiders, simply have to agree that only he knows the answer to that question. And since he is the only one that knows, we just have to trust his judgment and agree that, yes, he is doing the right thing.

What are your thoughts on the Pope’s resignation?

Responding to the Murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School

Several posts on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings have come out, and I just want to share some here.

Why do teachers protect their students during a shooting? Because they care deeply about their students.

We see it again at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and we stand in awe of this courage and commitment to young lives. What is it that compelled principal Dawn Hochsprung to charge the shooter who threatened her school and kids? What prompted teacher Victoria Soto to position herself before a huddle of students, making herself the shooter’s target?

During the Virginia Tech massacre, Holocaust survivor and engineering professor Liviu Librescu gave his life while his students escaped, blocking the door with his body, while he was shot through the door. Many Sandy Hook teachers acted similarly. Let their heroism be remembered.

Gun control is a pro-life issue, by the way. I have heard people claim otherwise. Fr. James Martin:

Gun control is a religious issue. It is just as much of what many religious people call a “life issue” or a “pro-life issue,” as is abortion, euthanasia or the death penalty (all of which I oppose), and programs that provide the poor with the same access to basic human needs as the wealthy (which I am for). There is a “consistent ethic of life” that views all these issues as linked, because they are.

More on the idolatry of guns:

BACK IN 1990, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) issued this warning: “The religious community must … take seriously the risk of idolatry that could result from an unwarranted fascination with guns, which overlooks or ignores the social consequences of their misuse.” Two decades later, about 660,000 more Americans have been killed by guns, with a million more injured.

Yes, 660,000 dead in 22 years. That’s a Civil War scale death toll, and we call it normal. One million since 1968. The British paper The Telegraph comments:

The statistics are even more heart-breaking when applied to the young. The slaughter of children by gunfire in the United States is 25 times the rate of the 20 next largest industrial countries in the world combined. If you add them all up, since the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968, well over a million Americans, children and adults, have been shot to death, and even now 80 people die in this manner every day. The terrible slaughter on Friday is not as unusual as it should be.

And what about other nations without firearms, are they not plagued by illegal guns with no-one able to stop them? How about Japan? In 2006, they had only two firearms deaths. Two. In 2008 the US had 12,000.

Of the world’s 23 “rich” countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America’s ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America’s.

But what about the country at the other end of the spectrum? What is the role of guns in Japan, the developed world’s least firearm-filled nation and perhaps its strictest controller? In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally.

But what price freedom? Don’t we need all these guns to protect us from government tyranny? If one is that paranoid, one should consider that perhaps widespread gun ownership is exactly what the tyrannical powers want right now. A population in fear. A population without trust, fragmented. No Second-Amendment-mandated militias organized to “save” you. Yes, if you are one of those types, you have already been had.

Gun rights advocates also argue that guns provide the ultimate insurance of our freedom, in so far as they are the final deterrent against encroaching centralized government, and an executive branch run amok with power… I have often suspected, however, that contrary to holding centralized authority in check, broad individual gun ownership gives the powers-that-be exactly what they want.

After all, a population of privately armed citizens is one that is increasingly fragmented, and vulnerable as a result. Private gun ownership invites retreat into extreme individualism — I heard numerous calls for homeschooling in the wake of the Newtown shootings — and nourishes the illusion that I can be my own police, or military, as the case may be. The N.R.A. would have each of us steeled for impending government aggression, but it goes without saying that individually armed citizens are no match for government force. The N.R.A. argues against that interpretation of the Second Amendment that privileges armed militias over individuals, and yet it seems clear that armed militias, at least in theory, would provide a superior check on autocratic government.

But ultimately, this is about some kind of freedom, right? People want guns.

“How could we have let this happen?”

It is a horrible question because the answer is so simple. Make it easy for people to get guns and things like this will happen.

Children will continue to pay for a freedom their elders enjoy.

This matter is our choice.  We have unwittingly, collectively, chosen something horrible.  But we can choose again and choose better. We do not have to live like this.

I pray that we as a nation find the strength to make a better choice. Deuteronomy 30:19:

This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.

Amen.

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If you contributed one of the links, thank you.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: A Philosophical and Ethical Book Review

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is a spectacular novel. It is a tour-de-force through six stories, each story with its own genre, creating a multigenre whole unlike any work I’ve read before. (There may be other works out there like this, but I don’t know them – I’m an ethicist, not a lit guy – so if you have suggested readings, let me know!)

I picked up this book because I saw the trailer for the movie version by the Wachowskis (of “The Matrix” fame) that is coming out today. I could tell that the story was going to be fascinatingly intricate, and that a movie could not do it justice, so I wanted to read the novel first before seeing the movie. I won’t include the trailer here because it may affect your reading of the story; it did for me (while reading I kept thinking “I wonder who is going to play this character?”). I will review the movie in a few days and include the trailer then.

In this review I am going to try to avoid specific spoilers, however, the generalities of the work will come up and especially what I see as the moral and philosophical core of the work. If you read this review it may spoil the novel for you on that level, so if that concerns you, just go read the book instead, then come back.

But if you want to know anyway, come along. Here’s how we will go: 1) The story itself, its style and composition, 2) Its major themes, 3) Its similarities and differences with a few other works, and a few allusions I picked up, 4) Its movie potential.

Cardinal Dolan and Stephen Colbert at Fordham

Despite a media blackout, the media have managed not to be blacked out from “The Cardinal and the Comedian” a Friday-night event at Fordham that drew a crowd of 3000 students. Humorist James Martin, S.J., moderated an evening conversation between New York Archbishop (and Cardinal) Timothy Dolan (also President of the USCCB) and Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

By all accounts it was a terrifically funny evening. The New York Times, America Magazine, The Jesuit Post, CatholicMoralTheology.com, and the National Catholic Reporter have all had great coverage (and others, I’m sure – it was blurbed in my local paper), so read more about it there. NCR is particularly good for “Storifying” a lot of the social media that came out, so definitely look at that to see some direct accounts.

What I really like about this event is not only that one of my friends helped make it happen, not only that it had “real” authentic people speaking of their faith, not only that it allowed social media to shine… What I really like about it is that it gets to the core of the “Good News.”

The goal of our life is happiness, a natural happiness in this life and a supernatural happiness in the next. That is our endpoint, that is what is drawing us in – the happiness of God. Ask St. Thomas about it, Summa Theologiae I-II Q 1-5. That’s right, God made humanity for the sake of our happiness, for the sake of joy and delight. We weren’t put here as slaves or to act as monsters. We are capable of being those things, but we are here to LIVE! and live fully.

That is a beautiful thing, and ought to bring us to thinking about our lives and how to be better people. Because in becoming better people we become happier people, more who we are meant to be.

A bit has been made of this event as an example of “the new evangelization” that Pope John Paul II talked about. Well, I think it was better than that. Leave out the word “evangelization,” to some people that has overtones of instrumentalization, of using others to get yourself into heaven. And there is no need for big words anyway. Just call it life. Just call it real people being honest. Just call it Good News.

Yes, there was a media blackout on the Good News. But the Good News got out anyway. Somehow it does that. So good job to all involved. You made something that burst its way into the world despite the lid on it. Something so good that regular people just couldn’t contain themselves, they had to speak up. And that is something pretty amazing in itself.

My New Article: Teleology and Theology, Aristotle and Cognitive Science

From the abstract:

Recent research in cognitive science has shown that humans innately prefer teleological explanations. Children even go so far as to hypothesize the existence of a deity in order to justify teleological explanations. Aristotle also believed in the importance of teleology for human psychology. This paper investigates the convergence of ideas from the cognitive science of teleology with the Aristotelian understanding of teleology visible in the virtues of techne and wisdom. I argue that Aristotelian psychology and ethics is gaining empirical support, and that this could have important implications for science, philosophy, and theology.

So cut to the chase – what’s the point? Humans evolved to pick up teleology – the purposes of other humans, of tools, and of skilled behaviors. This same sensitivity allows us to ponder the purpose of our own existence and the purpose of the universe as a whole, as well as hypothesize a creator. In other words, this is a major part of what makes us capax Dei – capable of relating to God.

From a theistic perspective this is great – science has shown us part of the religious architecture of our minds, as aspect of what makes us homo religiosus. And equally, from an atheistic perspective this is great; theistically-inclined humans are just misapplying an otherwise perfectly useful cognitive bias – one used to figure out what another human is doing, their purpose, or the purpose of an object – to try to figure out something purposeless, the universe. But notice that the first move is a metaphysical one – the declaration that the universe is purposeful or purposeless. No scientific experiment can tell you the answer to that, it is an assumption, not a conclusion. The data can go either way, depending on the framework it is placed in.

I have to say, I really like this paper. I worked on it a long time. The peer reviewers said nice things about it. I could easily spend more time investigating this sort of work, and at some point I most likely will.

But, alas, one of my committee members always counsels me “Go for the deeper problem!” And so the deeper problem from the cognitive science of the virtues, at least from the standpoint of naturalistic ethics, is how to relate science and ethics – or, in more Humean terms, how to get “ought’ from “is.” So that is what I am doing now.

And then the deeper problem after that is how to let that knowledge make a positive difference in the world, both for the individual and everyone. Currently some of my applications are towards environmental ethics, bioethics and technological ethics more generally, and the ethics of space exploration.

All of this is because I want to know how humans ought to relate to technology. Technology is absolutely essential to our humanity. We lack hair (we need clothes) and our digestive systems are inadequate to eat many foods (we need to prepare and cook it). And yet technology can also be extremely dangerous. Human technology has now reached the point where it can begin to alter human nature itself.

To know what to do, we must first know who we are. Identity creates action. And then action creates identity. Transhumanists will argue that our nature is to transcend humanity. And bioconservatives will argue that that is impossible – that no matter what we may become we will always remain human. Natural law yields virtue and vice. What we think humans are will dictate what we think humans should do. We are manipulating creatures – what will we do when we finally come to target ourselves? In this century, we will find out.

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For more info, see my Academia.edu page.

Reflections on Individualism and Catholic Social Teaching, Part I

The problem with Catholic Social Teaching today is not that it is unknown, but rather that it is almost too commonplace.

[This post was originally published by the author at the St. Augustine Catholic Parish (Oakland, CA) Young Adult Blog.]

It used to be said that Catholic Social Teaching was the “best kept secret” of the Catholic Church.  I am not sure that is really true anymore.  My experience as a Catholic school teacher and my conversations with many friends in the same field make it clear that anyone who has gone through Catholic High School in the past decade has a thorough instruction in the social tradition of the Church.   Catholic colleges under the rubric of Catholic Social Teaching were far ahead of the surge of mission trips and volunteer opportunities that have now become a normative part of the “college experience” even at non-Catholic schools.  And in the past decade or two, social justice ministries have become standard in most Catholic parishes, with some larger parishes even employing a full-time social justice minister.  Here at St. Augustine, incidentally, “social justice” (a heading that includes our Corazon mission, St. Vincent de Paul, and our Kenya Project) was our second most popular answer to “Where do we want to grow at St. A’s?” and our eighth most popular response to “What do we value at St. A’s?” in our recent parish transition meeting.

It seems to me, that the problem with Catholic Social Teaching today is not that it is unknown, but rather that it is almost too commonplace.  We take it for granted that as Catholics we stand for human life and human dignity and that we stand on the side of the poor and the vulnerable without ever really reflecting on how special that is, or what that really ought to require of us.   Like most faiths, Catholicism has a set of moral standards for how individuals ought to act: rules of individual behavior like “thou shall not kill” and “honor thy father and mother.”  But unlike many other belief systems, our faith also teaches us a vision of society that we are to work toward together – a vision of what God’s Kingdom ought to look like.  This was the subject of most of Jesus’ parables: “The Kingdom of God is like… a mustard seed… a good Samaritan… the feast for the prodigal son.”   Our Church, in the body of encyclicals and conciliar documents that has come to be known collectively as Modern Catholic Social Teaching, has brought these teachings forward, examined the “signs of the times,” and identified the most pressing social concerns of our day so that we may each do our part to work toward the Kingdom of heaven.

Is Geoengineering Now Inevitable? Or, Is the Only Solution to a Technological Problem More Technology?

Scaling the Heights of the Scala Naturae (Wikipedia)

Once a year I teach a course at Santa Clara University called “Energy, Climate Change, and Social Justice.” I love teaching it. The premise is to help engineering graduate students learn how to think ethically about the problems generated by global warming, with an eye towards coming up with innovative solutions. We look at conventional and renewable energy sources, vulnerabilities that different areas and people’s of the world face due to global warming, and potential policy solutions to help get the world on track towards carbon neutrality or negativity.

But this year a strange thought continually crossed my mind as I was teaching the course. Is active human control over the climate now inevitable?  A few months ago a friend of mine at another university had expressed to me the wish that humans would not be responsible for the Earth’s environment – not responsible for the climate, not responsible for the weather, not responsible for the deaths and destruction and rising oceans. To him it seemed much better that such events were not blameworthy, that things could just happen and they would not be anyone’s fault. The idea of filing a lawsuit over climate change just seemed very wrong. Shouldn’t there just be some things that no-one is responsible and guilty for? Would that not be a better world?

I was unsure how to respond, but the question remained on my mind. I agree that a world where humans were not responsible for the climate might be a better world, but I’m not sure we can ever go back. Here is my thinking.