Radio Replies Vol 4 - Catholic Apologetics Online

They are certainly born without any personally acquired bad habits. But to maintain that children are born with human nature as it ought to be, and without any innate tendency or liability to perversity, is to maintain a theory quite opposed to experience. The fact is that everybody, with growing consciousness, finds all kinds of desires opposed to reason awakened and making rebellious demands. As soon as a child is capable of choice it again and again ^finds itself choosing evil rather than good. G. K. Chesterton was right in retorting to a friend who denied original sin: "Well, old man, the only thing you know about original innocence is that you never had it."

That is not his only innate tendency. He also has a tendency to do the wrong thing. St. Paul wrote: "I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind." Rom., VII, 23. His experience of the existence in himself of the two laws, the law of good and the law of evil, is the experience of every man. The pagan poet Ovid bore testimony to the fact when he wrote: "I see the better things and approve of them; yet I do the worse."

Not man, but some men who have abandoned religion in favor of sheer materialism try to persuade themselves and others that no conduct is wicked, but at worst only a mistake. That, however, is their form of wishful-thinking. There is such a thing as morally evil conduct. Men frequently and deliberately choose such conduct, under the influence of temptations from the devil, or from other evil men, or from their own unruly passions and desires. And they know that they are guilty in making such a choice, however they may try to deceive themselves into believing otherwise.

The New Testament was not composed by the mediaeval Church. It was written in the first century. It records the assertion of Christ Himself, again and again, that the devil is an existent evil personality. It records St. Paul's warning to the Ephesians to put on the armor of God in order to resist the wiles of the devil; and also St. Peter's warning: "Your adversary the devil goeth about seeking whom he may devour." You may refuse to believe in this teaching of Christ and the Apostles; but you are not justified in treating it as an invention of the mediaeval Church.

You may dismiss that as so much nonsense. In fact you should dismiss as false about 90% of anything you read about the Spanish Inquisition in novels, and at least 50% of what you read in history books written in the Protestant tradition. More imaginative rubbish has been written about the Spanish Inquisition than about any other theme in history, Putting aside all exaggerations, we have to get down to the basic facts. They will often seem in these days ugly enough, and there is no need either to whitewash them or attempt to justify them. But there is need to try to understand them and make sure that we do not distort them.

No. It is of course immoral and sinful to inflict suffering on others in order to gain one's private ends. But that is an instance of immorality and sin, not a definition. To define immorality and sin you must say what those things are in themselves. It is useless to offer as a definition: "I think this thing is immoral," or "I think that action is sinful." If I am asked to define crime I would say that crime is the violating of the law of the land. All deliberate violations of the law of the land, in varying degrees, come under that. But I would not have defined crime by saying: "I define crime as the robbing of a taxi-driver." Of course, if I thought that robbing a taxi-driver was the only possible form of crime, then my definition would be adequate; but I would in fact be wrong. The infliction of suffering on others to gain one's private ends is not the only possible form of immorality and sin. To tell a deliberate lie is immoral, although far from being prompted by cruelty it could be prompted by kindness. To indulge in solitary personal vice is a sin, even though it inflicts no suffering on others in order to gain one's private ends. Sin is a deliberate violation of God's Law in thought, word, deed or omission.

No. It is enough that a person deliberately and knowingly decides to do what his conscience tells him to be morally wrong. He has not consciously to resolve to offend God. Most people, when they sin, are thinking of the wrong thing they intend to do, not precisely of the wrong they; are doing to God.

Heaven and hell are not "mythology." If they are, then Christianity is merely another mythological religion, for the doctrines of heaven and hell are woven into its whole fabric. If they are mere fables then Christianity itself is a mere fable. If they are false doctrines, then Christianity is false; and to maintain that would require the wholesale denial of historical evidence. Nor is it the lowest form of morality to do good and avoid evil in view of a promised heaven or a threatened hell. For those doctrines reflect God's supreme approval of good and His supreme disapproval of evil. And motives relating to God are higher than any on a lower level.

It could be, if Christianity offered it as the only motive of one's conduct. For then one would be fostering only mercenary selfish desires and fears. There would be no love of goodness for its own sake, and one would remain evil at heart. But that the heaven and hell motive is not the only motive does not mean that heaven and hell should be denied, nor that one should refuse to take them into consideration. God is both Eternal Love and Eternal Justice. Our conduct towards Him must be regulated by both considerations. If men omit the thought of God's Love, they degrade Christian standards. If they omit the thought of God's Justice, they soon begin to interpret His Love as weakness and softness, as though He does not mind what they do. No one with any real understanding of Christ could accuse Him of offering dangerous incentives with His exhortations: "Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven" (Matt., V, 12), and said: "I will tell you whom to fear; fear ye Him who hath power to cast into hell." (Lk., XII, 5). The trouble is that, in an irreligious and material age, people do not like the thought of another world at all. They want to live for this world without any uncomfortable thoughts of responsibility beyond it^ But heaven and hell exist, and it is not morality but folly to ignore them.

The experience of centuries has not shown that. Sins and crimes without number have been prevented by the fear of hell, What the experience of centuries has shown is that people who believe in hell can become so absorbed by present visible and tangible realities that they fail to advert to the significance of the invisible realities in which they believe but which are not an immediate prospect to be encountered here and now. Under a present obsession they can dismiss the thought of them for the time being. But when they recover from their obsession, the fear that is the beginning of wisdom reasserts itself and leads them to/repentence, which in turn prepares them for higher motives. Meantime, if temporary forgetfulness of hell leads to occasional lapses amongst people who believe in it, much worse results occur amongst those Who repudiate all belief in hell and think they can do any evil with impunity, provided they are clever enough to escape human justice.

No. The fear of death is a natural and instinctive fear which can exist equally in people with or without religion and morals. But the motive of Christian morality is an intelligent conviction of the existence of God, of our dependence upon Him, and of our duty to Him, together with a love for Him in our hearts and the will to conform to all that is just and good and pleasing in His sight.

You may intend your reference to Christ as the Philosopher of Galilee as a compliment; but if so it is one that borders on insult and blasphemy. Christ was not just another wise man; He was and is God. He spoke, not in the name of human philosophy, but with the authority of God. He gave us a divine revelation and a supernatural religion, not merely a system of human thought on the purely natural level.

That is not true, The natural moral law can, of course, be known by reason, although reason left to itself has never succeeded perfectly in deciphering it. Whilst philosophers and religious teachers have sometimes rightly discerned its requirements and emphasized them, at other times they have fallen into gross errors concerning jit. On the other hand, without rejecting any part of the natural moral law but including it, Christ gave the higher precepts of a supernatural religion; and the things He most emphasized were not only not emphasized by other religions, but were simply unknown to them. At most those other religions can be said to have emphasized some of the principles of the natural moral law which are equally valid for all men everywhere, whether they be Christians or not.

We cannot accept the suggestion that the teachings of Christ are to be regarded as acceptable because some of the things He taught were also taught by founders of other religions. His teachings are not to be regarded as right in so far as they agree with those of others, instead of their teachings being regarded as right in such points as happen to harmonize with His doctrines. The teachings of Christ are not to be tested by comparison with those of others. All other teachings are to be tested by comparison with His. His authority is divine, and supreme for all who profess to be Christians,

From the ethical point of view the opinion you attribute to Confucius is less perfect than the teaching of Christ. The answer to the question: "If you return good for evil, what will you return for good?" is easily perceived. One must return good for good also. The fact that you have treated a man well who has treated you badly does not make it impossible for you to treat a man well who has treated you well! The teaching that it is better to return good for good and justice for evil is not as noble an ethical standard as that of Christ who bids us rise above mere justice to forgiveness and generosity. I say "to rise above justice," for the Christian ideal is in no way against justice. Justice does not insist that we must always press our own rights; nor does it forbid our forgiving injuries and exercising generosity by bestowing favors on others who have so little deserved them. There is a magnanimity or greatness of soul suggested by the teaching of Christ which is absent from that of Confucius.

If that be true, so much the worse for modern psychology!

That ought not to disturb you. For you can be sure that if you do not know much about it, nor do they. Ask them when and by whom it was established, what was its constitution and mode of procedure, what were its terms of reference, what the particular nature of its jurisdiction and for how long it flourished, and you will find them floundering and compelled to admit their own ignorance.

Christ gave that teaching, stressing the fact that a man's goodness depends upon his inner character. If a man has mastered his evil tendencies, he is a good man. If he has let them master him, he is an evil man.

You are quite mistaken.

Sound modern psychology does not tell anybody that. If any particular form of psychology does so, then it is a quack psychology, not worth the paper on which it is written.

Far from reflecting ideas current at the time, He was refuting the ideas then held by the Scribes and Pharisees, although on another subject altogether from the one to which you wish to apply His words.

You have quite wrong ideas on this subject. Sound modern psychology i§ in no way opposed to resisting any conscious desire. When it speaks of repressed and buried complexes, it means impulses and desires of which we are not conscious at all. The psychiatrist has to try to get them up from the sub-conscious to the conscious level, precisely that we may be able to deal with them. Resisting an evil conscious desire never did anyone any harm yet. And it is necessary to resist such evil desires if we are to come to any good at all.

Your carefully chosen words cannot conceal your plea for a permissible solitary or promiscuous immorality. You are, of course, illogical. For according to your own principles the repression of impulses even in the direction of anti-social sins such as murder or theft would warp a man's character, creating buried-complexes in his sub-conscious life. But people overlook logic when their main purpose is to justify immorality by indulging in sins of the flesh. And it is chiefly on behalf of that form of self-indulgence that a few modern quack psychologists urge their views.

You mean, of course, that if people are disturbed in conscience when they do what they believe to be wrong, the road to peace of mind is to be found, not in ceasing to do wrong, but in getting rid of conscience. But that will not work for anyone who retains a trace of Christian faith. I go farther and say that it will not work for any reasonable human being, faith or no faith. Conscience may be ignored, but it cannot really be reduced to utter silence. Even if a man accepted your theory intellectually, his conscience would have none of it. With every indulgence in immoral impulses, his conscience would protest against such defilement, paying no attention to the new psychology. It would vindicate the teaching of Christ that evil things from within an evil mind and heart defile a man as often as they are allowed to have their way. Such a man may have hardened himself into paying no attention to the voice of conscience; but he knows quite well that if he listened to it, it would condemn his conduct.

It would take too long here to go through them all in detail. In general, He said: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matt., XIX, 17). In the Sermon on the Mount, and in various parables, He insisted on the necessity of practicing the virtues of faith, hope and charity,, which are known as the theological virtues; and also prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, which are known as the cardinal virtues. He also insisted upon our obligation to observe the laws of the Church He established, to which He gave the power to legislate in His name when He said: "Whatsoever you bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven" (Matt.,;i XVIII, 18). Our immediate guide as to what we are to do, religiously and morally, is the Catholic Church. In Catholic doctrines and precepts we will find the truth to be believed and the way to be followed, as prescribed by Christ.

That is an over-simplification, for the Catholic at least believes in the authority of all three, Bible, Conscience and Church. The Catholic knows; that he must be true to his conscience. But he knows also that his conscience will be a right conscience, and not a mistaken one, if it is in harmony with the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church. That the teachings of the Catholic Church contain the authentic interpretation of the natural moral law and of the revealed law of God as set forth in the Bible he knows with all the certainty of divine faith.

It is true that the first Protestant reformers, having rejected the infallible teaching-authority of the Catholic Church, declared that henceforth the Bible only, as the infallibly-inspired Word of God, was to be their guide.

During the 400 years since the Reformation Catholics have been saying precisely that, only to meet with heated denials from Protestant controversialists who insisted that any person had but to read the Bible for himself to get all the guidance he needed. The result has been, of course, all the conflicting views among Protestants, together with widespread moral confusion. It is good to hear that you yourself realize the insecurity of relying on the Bible alone. As you say, it needs an interpreter. But whilst the Catholic has an official and reliable interpreter in the infallible Catholic Church, you can offer nothing of that kind. What you have to offer we shall discuss later

An enlightened conscience is our guide but it is of course no sound test of morality to say that, just because others around us do a thing, it must be right for us to do it also. If a practice be in itself sinful, it does not cease to be sinful merely because it has become popular and widespread.

That is certainly true. People can persuade themselves that wrong things are right just because they want to do them. By such self-deception they attempt to save their self-respect whilst having the unlawful object of their desires. There are hosts of people proficient in this science of feeling good whilst being bad, distorting conscience to suit their conduct instead of conforming their conduct to the demands of a true conscience.

Again one must agree, although this supposes a sincerely mistaken conscience, not a deliberately distorted one. The conclusion is that conscience, unless rightly educated, is not a safe guide as to what is right or wrong.

What they should mean is that the sense of right and wrong in general, and of the obligation to do what is right and avoid what is wrong, has been implanted in man's very nature by God, and to that extent is a manifestation of His will.

No. It dictates that what is morally right ought to be done, and what is morally wrong ought to be avoided. It does not dictate precisely what actions are morally right and what actions are morally wrong. Thus people often wrongly imagine a thing to be good whereas it is not good, or think a thing to be evil when it is not evil. Man needs a moral guide other than himself to teach him the moral law. That moral law conscience bids him observe.

Conscience is not the voice of God in the sense that it is God telling us that whatever we happen to think right at any given moment is certainly right. It is the voice of God in general, in so far as our conviction of a moral obligation implies a moral law we did not make, and which in turn implies a Supreme Lawgiver, God Himself. All people know that what is morally right ought to be done, and that what is morally wrong ought not to be done. But in judging whether a particular action is right or wrong conscience needs education; and it is here that people with an ill-informed conscience are liable to judge differently from those with a well-informed conscience. A little child may be excused for thinking it right to do a thing which every normal adult knows to be wrong. But although an ill-instructed child might be mistaken as to whether some particular action is right or not, the child is not mistaken in thinking that it ought to do what is right. And it is that conviction which is the voice of God.

I agree. It follows, therefore, that if some people have right ideas of what conscience requires in certain particular actions, those who contradict them have wrong ideas on the subject. In other words, it is possible to have an erroneous conscience where it is a question of the practical application of the moral law in particular cases.

The very fact that people differ in their judgments as to what is right or wrong shows that they are at least convinced that there is such a thing as right, as opposed to what is wrong. They would not argue about it otherwise. All men know that there is a difference between right and wrong. The two words exist in every language. And they do not mean merely what is convenient or inconvenient. The right thing to do is not always the pleasant or useful thing to do. And the wrong thing is not; always inconvenient. Often there is every inducement to do things every normal person would brand as morally wrong.

Naturally I would wish that, since I believe the Catholic Church to be the true Church. But with the people in our country so divided religiously, and the majority of them non-Catholics, official recognition of any individual Church is not practicable as being the Church of the Nation. The problem, therefore, can be postponed until we Catholics have succeeded in persuading our fellow citizens to embrace the Catholic religion. There is no immediate prospect of that; and it certainly will not come in the lifetime of this present generation, nor of many generations yet to come.

Conscientious people do not act like that. They feel an obligation to do what is right; and that makes them think out beforehand, in all serious matters, where what they contemplate doing is morally justified or not. All men have a conscience which makes them uncomfortable when they realize that they are doing wrong. If some people, who have hardened themselves against its protests, boast that conscience never makes them uncomfortable, you can be quite sure that it did at one time, and that it will again in the future. It is possible to drug one's conscience into a temporary state of coma. It is not possible to silence it permanently.

Yes, provided the belief be absolutely sincere and, if mistaken, the mistake be through no fault of our own. A person must be able to say that what he did, he did in all good faith. St. Paul says: "All that is not of faith is sin." Rom., XIV,23. He meant that all that is done with a bad conscience is sin. What is done with a good conscience is not sin for the person doing it, even though the thing done, in itself, be actually opposed to the objective moral law.

In many aspects of moral conduct thai is true. For whilst everybody's conscience declares in general that good ought to be done and evil avoided, not everybody's conscience is safe in judging what is the good thing to be done and the evil thing to be avoided in all particular cases. To say that conscience is always to be obeyed is not to say that conscience is always right. One can have a mistaken conscience. The truth is, then, that conscience must not only be obeyed, but that it must be educated and enlightened. No one surely would deny that children must be taught their moral obligations, that when they do wrong things not knowing them to be wrong parents and teachers who know better must correct them, and instil right ideas on the subject. Catholics, of course, know that the teaching-authority of the Catholic Church is their ultimate guide to the true requirements of Christian morality; and that they are sure of doing the will of God if they conform their judgment to the standards put before them by their Church. People who refuse to accept the authority of the Catholic Church, on the other hand, are left to their own resources; and whilst in many things, owing to the lingering influence of a Christiance tradition, they may happen to hit on the right thing, in many others they either arrive at positively wrong conclusions, or remain in a state of perplexity, unable to say what is morally right or morally wrong.

They would not be morally responsible if they had never had any reason to suspect that what they had been taught was not right; or, granted no teaching, if they did not suspect, through their own lack of knowledge, that they might be doing a morally wrong thing about which they should have made inquiries of better-informed people. Granted a doubtful conscience, they would be guilty if they took no steps to solve their doubts before acting. The will to risk doing a morally wrong thing is already an evil will. Where morality is concerned, we are obliged to make sure as far as we can that we have a right conscience before we act. People who do whatever they feel inclined to do, and then pretend to themselves that it was only the right thing to do because they wanted to do it do not escape responsibility in the sight of God.

That is not true. For, firstly, if people really want to do the will of God, they do not want to do the wrong thing through ignorance. If they really do not want to do the will of God, their dispositions are already bad, apart from the particular matter involved. Secondly, as I have already explained, there can be a guilty ignorance which does not excuse from guilt. People who suspect that what they want to do might be wrong, yet deliberately neglect to make any effort to enquire about it for fear that they might find that it is indeed wrong, are not acting in good faith. They are responsible for their own ignorance. They are not excused from guilt. And for them it is folly "not to be wise."

Not for one who has right ideas of the Chqrch as founded by Christ and as described in the New Testament; and who also knows both by reason and faith that the Catholic Church is that Church. I admit that there are great difficulties in the way of regarding any of the non-Catholic Churches as unfailing moral guides. For not one of them even claims to be an unfailing guide, whilst all of them are in a state of confusion themselves as to what is morally right or morally wrong. Thus, in his book, "The Christian Way," published in 1950, a Protestant clergyman named the Rev. S. Cave says, on p.5, "Outside the Roman Church there is now no consensus Of opinion in regard either to the method or the content of Christian ethics."

You are thinking of all the different and conflicting religious denominations which claim to be Christian as constituting "The Church." But that cannot be. Protestantism began by the breaking away from the Catholic Church of the various Protestant sects; and they could not break away from the Church and still belong to it. There are no divisions in the Catholic Church, which outnumbers all the different and conflicting Protestant sects taken together. An Australian Methodist clergyman, the Rev. Alan Walker, recently returned from a trip to America and said sadly that there are no less than ,265 different Protestant sects there. Later, speaking at the N.S.W. Methodist Conference, when pleading for more discipline and authority in his Church, he said that "American Methodism worked with a unity unknown in Australia." Yet under the heading "Methodist Bodies" the "World Almanac" lists 19 different denominations in U.S.A., all claiming to be Methodists!

Had you said: "Of the various Protestant Churches," you would have done justice to the situation. And this confusion and conflict amongst non-Catholic Churches, as contrasted with the unity and consistency of the Catholic Church, removes rather than creates a difficulty in knowing which Church should be followed. Catholics have every reason to trust their Church as an unfailing guide in matters of faith and morals. But non-Catholics have no grounds for reliance upon any one of the hundreds of conflicting Protestant denominations.

Much here depends on the school at which people were taught such rules and regulations. Catholic children in Catholic schools are taught the ten commandments of God and also the precepts of their Church; and they know they are not mistaken in doing all they can to live up to such teaching. In public schools, committed as they are to secular education, it would be difficult to find any definite set of rules and regulations for moral conduct. All my own early education, in my Protestant childhood, was done in public schools; and it was only with a vague "Boys be Brave: Girls be Good" code of ethics that we left school and faced life!

But that is just what He did do. God is the God of order, not of chaos. He appointed physical laws for the regulation of the visible universe, and moral laws for us to observe in our conduct.

God has made us physically free, so that our destiny may be in our own keeping. But He has not left us morally free to do evil. And if, as you say, He has given us hearts to be obedient, to what are we to be obedient? Obedience supposes precepts of some kind, or rules and regulations. Nor is it true to say that we are to search and find out for ourselves what the right rules and regulations should be. Both in the Old and in the New Testaments God has revealed His precepts, commanding His people to observe and teach them to their children. Moreover—and we have to keep coming back to this—Christ established His Church, commanding it to teach all nations and giving it authority to legislate in His name.

Do you really mean that it is part of morality to struggle to find the right yet not to find it, so that one may remain suitably perplexed? Are We to say that that is right which leaves you perplexed as to whether it is right or not? It is true that morality does impose upon us an obligation to do our best to find out what God's law requires of us. But that does not mean that to be perplexed and not to know is part of morality. It does not mean that there are no rules and regulations which we are bound in conscience to observe. It does not mean that God has made us free to ignore any obligations save those we think out for ourselves and are willing to impose upon ourselves.

Love of the Person of Jesus and the desire to follow Him may be the motive of our wanting to do what is right; but it does not solve the problem as to the right thing we must do and the wrong thing we must avoid because of that motive.

I can only ask you where we are to go to find His mind and example and life? If you say that we find them described in the New Testament we are back again at the Bible which you have already rejected as a sufficient guide, declaring that the Bible itself needs an interpreter! All who reject the teaching-authority of the Catholic Church are doomed to wander around in such circles.

It is not true that it is impossible to know any moral truth without knowing Jesus. Confucius lived centuries before Jesus set foot in this world, yet be certainly showed a knowledge of moral truth when he declared lies, theft, dishonesty of any kind and hypocrisy to be of their very nature evil things. But that is by the way. Taking your own thought, tfre fact that Jesus declared Himself to be the way, the truth and the life does not solve the problem of right and wrong for the perplexed person who wonders what way he should follow, what truth he must believe, and what kind of a life he must live in order to make Christ Our Lord his way and truth and life. The need for interpretation still remains.

In the New Testament we are told three very important things. Firstly, we are told that it is a wrong principle to rely on one's own private interpretation of Scripture (II Peter I, 20), and that many through doing so have made shipwreck of the faith (II Peter III, 16). Secondly, we are told that Scripture must be interpreted in accordance with divine traditions handed down in the Church (II Thess., II, 14). Thirdly, we are told that authoritative decisions of the Catholic Church are to be accepted as our official guidance to the right understanding of divine revelation.

In very many cases only by accepting divine revelation, which receives its authentic interpretation in the official teachings of the Catholic Church. By supernatural revelation, given us gradually through the Prophets of old, and finally through the Apostles, God has told us of many things we ought to have learned from our study of the natural moral law, and also of other things beyond those we could discover for ourselves; things to do not only with our duties connected with life in this world, but also things connected with our eternal destiny in the next world. The true and full meaning of that divine revelation can be known with absolute certainty only by those whose faith in the Catholic Church brings into their lives the blessing of her definite and consistent guidance. There is no other way to certainty.

I have. And surely the contrast is evident to every, thinking man who has devoted any attention to the matter. In 1948, during the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, the London "Daily Express" stressed the contrast in an editorial under the caption: "Who Lacks Leadership in Britain?" It declared that certainly "Roman Catholics" did not, saying, "Their values and standards of conduct are those of Christendom, out of which most that is good in our civilization was evolved. They are not easily seduced by the men who scoff at things of the spirit, and who built their dream-worlds on envy, greed, and ambition." Thus even this secular newspaper felt impelled to pay its tribute to the definite guidance the Catholic Church offers its members as contrasted with the Anglican Church. And other Protestant Churches are even more confused than the Anglican Church where moral theology is concerned.

I could quote many of their conflicting utterances in support of my contention. But for the moment I will content myself with quoting the words of Bishop Kirk, Anglican Bishop of Oxford, in his book, "Conscience and its Problems." He there writes: "Not Anglicanism alone, but all the reformed Churches, lost their grasp upon these time-honoured rules of prudence. To that fact may be attributed, in part at least, the steady and ever-increasing failure of these societies to guide their members in the recurring particular problems of the Christian life in any manner which the ordinary man could appreciate."

Again I could point to many of the peculiar opinions Protestant ministers have expressed on various moral problems. I quoted one case recently in which a Methodist minister expelled a Sunday-school teacher for buying an ice-cream for a child on Sunday! However, take the general verdict of Dr. Hensley Henson, Protestant Bishop of Durham. Writing in his book, "The Group Movement," he deplored the excesses of the Buchmanites in their public "sharing" of sins at their houseparties. He declared that the better practice is for Anglican clergymen to hear confessions privately. But on that subject he added: "We must indeed sorrowfully admit that the English clergy are, in too many parishes, ill-qualified for the difficult and delicate work of hearing confessions. Their training has not included any sufficient preparation for the work."

In his book, "Christian Morals," Canon Lindsay Dewar, Principal of an Anglican Clergy College, says: "It so happens that the study of moral theology has been for the most part carried on by theologians of the Roman obedience. . . In recent years an attempt has been made to study the subject from the standpoint of Anglican theology." That book was published in 1945. In 1947, Dr.; R. C. Mortimer, Regius Professor of Moral Theology at Oxford, published a book entitled, "The Elements of Moral Theology." In his Preface he writes: "I have been told more than once by persons responsible for the teaching of ordination candidates that there is great need for a book of this sort. . . There is no Anglican manual of moral theology. I hope this book may afford a starting point for the compilation of an Anglican manual. I have necessarily made great use of Roman manuals, especially of Prummer and of Merkelbach."

If the four problems mentioned are new to Anglican clergy, then there is something very wrong with a training for the ministry which sends out clergy unable to give definite guidance to their people on such vital issues! "We're still working it out" is not very helpful to people applying for advice to their ministers. None of the problems mentioned is new to Catholic priests. Every Catholic text-book of moral theology deals with all four problems; .and there is not a Catholic priest in the world who could not at once give the definite reply concerning them required by Christian principles.

The Puritan Movement arose in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. During her reign many Englishmen who had fled to the Continent during the time of Mary, came back full of Protestant ideas drawn from Calvinism and Lutheranism. These argued that Elizabeth Avas not going nearly far enough in the direction of Protestantism. And they aimed, so they said, at "purifying" the new Church of England, making it more Protestant than it already was. They not only waged war on surviving Catholic ideas of worship, but adopted John Calvin's grim and gloomy outlook, condemning jesting, dancing, sport, and the most innocent forms of recreation and amusement, seeking to prevent others from doing what they did not want to do, and showing intolerance towards all views except their own. As Lord Macaulay put it: "The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." Many of the Puritans, despairing of making the Church of England what they wanted it to be, abandoned it and founded independent Congregational Churches. But others remained in the Church of England, hoping to influence it from within, and forming a Low Church Party of Anglicans. The extremely narrow views of the early Puritans have, of course, been greatly modified; but their influence still lingers on amongst many good Protestants in the form of an unreasonable intolerance of things; not evil in themselves, but against which they happen to be prejudiced. Strangely enough, whilst stressing things that really do not matter, things, not morally evil in themselves, they shut their eyes to seriously wrong, things such as those advocated by Bishop Barnes, and are silent about them; or they even go so far as to express positive approval of them.

Not all kinds of worldly pleasure. Pleasures which are definitely sinful the Catholic Church absolutely forbids; and she always forbids excess and abuse even in things otherwise lawful. But she refuses to com: demn indulgence with due moderation in things not sinful in themselves* whilst neglecting "the weightier things of the law." Christ Himself spoke of "blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." Matt.,XXIII,24^ That condemnation certainly cannot apply to the Catholic Church. Puritan ethics are not taken seriously by the world today, but the insistence of the Catholic Church on the things that really do matter draws upon herself a bitter and undying hostility.

That is because the maxims of the Catholic Church are the maxims of the Gospel, maxims which cannot be reconciled with the maxims of the world, the accepted standards of a corrupt society. That brings you to the cross-roads where you yourself must choose between them.

To that I would say: "So much the worse for the world, at least ultimately." I am well aware of the opposition you mention; and I agree that to live a thoroughly Catholic life in the environment of today is almost as difficult as the early Christians found it in the pagan atmosphere of ancient pagan Rome. But we must beware of exaggerations.

It is too extreme to say that almost everybody infected by the poison of materialism, and regards the neglect of religion and even the denial of God as normal. Also, where it is a question of divorce and remarriage, or of contraceptive birth control, there are still very many non-Catholics who condemn them equally with Catholics. However I have to admit that, with the ever-increasing driftage from religion outside the Catholic Church, the idea that there is nothing morally wrong with the abuses you mention is becoming more and more widespread. But we must keep in mind that what is morally wrong in itself does not cease to be morally wrong in itself merely because it becomes widespread and popular,

That is too sweeping. That there are a lot of unscrupulous men in the business world who would allow no moral principles to interfere with their schemes for gain I admit. But they do not constitute the whole of the business world by any means.

If that were true, then I would have to agree that no man could be a good Catholic, yet survive in the business world, Rather than adopt the immoral methods of his rivals he would have to close down, And there are individual eases where good Catholic men have gone out of business rather than resort to immoral and dishonest practices. But I could quote case after case where good Catholic men, who have positively refused to forsake sound Christian principles, have succeeded in their professional and business livesï¿½certainly sufficiently well for all practical purposes. It may be that they have had to watch unscrupulous rivals attain to a more spectacular success; but they have remained quite contented with their own lot, feeling more than compensated by peace of conscience in the religious fidelity to the law of God,

That is true in certain cases and to a certain degree; although we must not take it for granted that all who do as they please without regard to the moral law are not guilty, Many are conscious that they are doing wrong. Many, not so clear about things, half-suspect that their conduct is wrong but refuse to think about it, yet they are as obliged before God as are Catholics to do what is right, even though it means sacrifice and suffering. They lack the will to serve God as they should; but no good Catholic could envy them that!

That idea is based on a wrong outlook altogether. If a person loves God he desires to know and to do God's will, even though it involves self-denial. He does not envy those who do not know God's will, who do not do it, and who give themselves up to self-indulgence of all kinds; without scruple. Again, such an outlook is based only on thoughts of the obligations of the Catholic religion, forgetting the privileges and consolations attached to its fervent practice. One cannot envy those who have freed themselves from the obligations of the Catholic religion at the expense of forfeiting its privileges. Thirdly, in his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul declares that the penalty of irreligion is to be delivered up to darkness of mind and a reprobate sense which no longer esteems the moral law; and this he describes as God's just punishment of such irreligion. (Rom., I, 18-24). Where is the injustice that those who try to be faithful to God are not also delivered up to that darkness of mind and indifference to moral obligations? If you say that, whilst Catholics cannot do so, other people can sin with impunity, one can only ask who wants to be able to sin with impunity? A genuine Christian is not one who wants to live like a pagan but who refrains from doing so only through fear, and because he cannot do so with impunity. He is one who wants to do God's will, and who is therefore happy both to know that will and to make the self-sacrifice necessary to fulfil it. For the rest, where others seem to be able to sin with impunity, if they do sin it will not be with impunity; whilst in particular items, in which ignorance of the moral law excuses their wrong-doing they will have to account to God for their ignorance itself. And even if they are not blameworthy for their ignorance, their comfortable non-observance of God's law will forfeit the eternal merit and reward, very great in heaven according to Our Lord, due to those who have heard the Word of God and kept it. You can safely leave it to God to see that all the requirements of justice will be fulfilled.

You would become a Catholic properly if you received due instruction, attained to genuine faith in the Catholic religion, and were duly received into the Catholic Church by any priest. Then it would be for you to try to live up to the ideals of the Catholic religion in practice. You should, of course, have the intention of doing so to the very best of your ability, although you would soon find that success does not come all at once. But you would also find a definite and sure moral and spiritual guidance which would leave you in no doubt as to what God wants you to do. You would also find put at your disposal means of assistance in your efforts of which you have not hitherto had experience. And you would realize that the dogmatic authority of the Catholic Church in matters of faith and morals, to which so many ill-informed people object, is indeed one of the greatest blessings God has ever bestowed upon humanity.

It is true that enemies of the Catholic Church have written book after book, attacking what they are pleased to term her "power-complex"; but they are laboring under a delusion.

I do. I insist that, according to Sacred Scripture, Jesus Christ must be accepted as God, and that He established, commissioned and guaranteed one Church as His own. Moreover, He conferred legislative authority upon that Church, enabling her to make such laws for the good of her members as the changing circumstances of history might render necessary. To her, in the persons of the Apostles, He said: "Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven." Matt., XVIII, 18. I also insist that according to Scripture, history and logic, that Church is the Catholic Church, which is therefore the true Church of God.

To a certain extent that feeling is justified, and it is a reason why one should become a Catholic, not a reason for refusing to do so. For the real position is this. The Catholic Church seeks no control over her members in purely political matters which do not conflict with religion or morality. In the field of religion and morals, she does seek to control the very lives of her members. She wants them to live as good Christians, tells them how to do so, and insists on their obligation before God to do so. But to quarrel with that is to quarrel with the Catholic Church for behaving precisely as one would surely expect the true Church to behave.

Christ chose the Apostles in order to establish His Church, and was giving them powers necessary for the Church. That Church He called a kingdom on earth; and a kingdom needs a constitution. The basic constitutional powers of the Church had to include the power to legislate in order to meet whatever new needs might arise in the ages to come. Without such authority the Church could not possibly maintain unity of any sort for very long. Christ therefore conferred upon the Apostles as officials of His Church the constitutional power to make necessary laws as occasion demanded. And that power had to remain in the Church as long as it lasted. But Christ declared that it was to last till the very end of the world.

The power to work miracles was not intended to be part of the constitutional powers of the Church. The essential commission of the Church was to teach all nations the truth, to preserve order and unity within itself by legislative authority, and to labor for the salvation and sanctification of souls. To commend the mission of the first preachers of the gospel, God directly intervened by working many miracles through them. Thus St. Mark says, in the last verse of his gospel: "They, going forth, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs that followed" (XVI, 20). In his Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul stresses the fact that not all had the same powers, but that different powers were manifested by different people, as God willed. And he told them, in Cor.,XIV, 22, that such signs were not for believers, but for unbelievers. No Christian should look to the Church for such temporal benefits. To heal the sick and cure all manner of diseases were not part of the constitutional powers of the Church. In his instructions to Timothy and Titus, whom he had appointed as Bishops, St. Paul speaks of their duty to teach sound doctrine, to rule well over their flock, and to work for the welfare of souls. Nowhere does he tell them that part of the mission of the Church is to heal the sick miraculously. As a matter of fact, as the Church became more and more solidly established and the need for miracles as special signs of its truth diminished, God intervened less and less frequently in such a way. But the power of the Church to make laws continued and has continued in all ages, according to the changing times and circumstances for which Christ made no specific provision personally. He left future legislation to His Church as need arose, whether by making new laws, or by repealing old laws. That was the only possible thing to do for a Church, which had to go on existing till the end of time through all the fluctuations of history. To deny that this Apostolic authority was to continue in the Church is opposed both to Scripture and to reason. And there is no parallel between that permanent and abiding authority, and the transitory power of miracles as God chose to bestow it, now upon this person, now upon that, in the early stages of the Church.

They are, but that does not mean that they have only human authority. Since Christ delegated His own authority to the Apostles and through them to the Church of which they were the foundation, it follows that He exercises His divine authority through the Church. Laws of the Church made by lawfully constituted ecclesiastical authorities in I any given age have not only human, but divine authority. Surely you will not deny that God can exercise His authority either immediately, or ] through chosen human agents, just as earthly rulers can exercise their authority either personally, or through chosen ambassadors. There is no contradiction between the statements that certain laws are formulated by the Church authorities, and that those laws are of God. For God sanctions the laws which result when the Church exercises the authority He gave her.

He tells you that you are not under the Mosaic Law as a religion, nor subject to all its details. But you are obliged to observe the basic moral laws embodied in it which are part of the natural moral law; and you are obliged to observe the prescriptions of the Christian religion. Membership of the Church established by Christ, and obedience to that Church, are essential to the Christian religion.

It would apply to everything necessary or useful for the welfare of the Church according to the purposes for which Christ established it. Matters outside the scope Christ intended for His Church do not come under her authority. That the Apostles knew that they had received authority to make laws apart from those specifically laid down by Christ personally is evident from Holy Scripture. Throughout the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul you will find all kinds of rules and regulations concerning problems of worship and discipline that arose from time to time, and for which Christ had not expressly legislated. The very words used by the Apostles in publishing their decision at the Council of Jerusalem show that they acted with a divinely-given authority. "It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us," they said, "to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things" (Acts, XV, 28).

That statement is due to his insular English nationalism and a complete misconception of the supernatural character of Catholicism. Although the present Pope happens to be an Italian by birth, the Vatican is not in the least "Italianized." The Vatican has ever proclaimed its independence of Italy. Italy itself was forced to acknowledge the Vatican's independence. Nor does the Vatican think in terms of Italy. The Vatican thinks in terms of the universal Church. Had Mr. Dark lived in the first century, would he, noting that the Apostles were all Jews, have dismissed their claims to authority as hard and arrogant, declaring that he, an Englishman, could never submit to a Church with such an entirely judaized body of leaders? Logically, he would have to do that, according to his present attitude. So, too, in the 14th century, he would have been able to reject the same Catholic Church on the score that the Popes were French, and that he could not submit to the hard arrogant claims of an entirely Gallicized Avignon Papacy. It is evident that he is thinking in terms, not of Christianity, but of his English nationalism. Not without reason, an American radio commentator, Edward Murrow, said recently: "The English are a religious people, but their religion is England."

That is true. Our Lord said to the Apostles not only: "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven," but: "Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven."

What I have said could in no way justify such a belief. The Catholic Church does not make laws only to break them. She would not bother making a law she did not expect to be observed. If, in special circumstances, she uses her authority to dispense a particular person from an ordinary and normal rule of conduct for Catholics which she herself: made, there is no question of that law being broken. The law is repealed for that particular person in his or her particular circumstances. And there is no law forbidding the Church to grant a dispensation from her own ecclesiastical legislation. I might add that dispensations are not granted whenever it suits any members of the Catholic Church to want them. The many Catholics who have applied for dispensations in various matters yet have not obtained them would soon disillusion you on that point.

You are right in that. But you omit one vital factor. A law is a law only in so far as it is the manifestation of the will of someone in authority. It ceases to be operative in so far as the legislator ceases to will that it should apply. And a dispensation means that the legislator no longer wills the law to apply in a particular case. A person who receives a dispensation, therefore, breaks no law when he acts upon it.

To that statement, rightly understood, no reasonable person could object. Every definite society, so long as it remains a definite society, must claim the right, not only to have its rules and regulations, but to insist upon their observance. And that right means coercive power. Were I, as a priest, to behave scandalously, giving public disedification by my conduct, would you hold that the Church should just be passive, making no effort to stop me from continuing in such evil conduct? Are there to be no canonical penalties which the Bishop could impose upon a recalcitrant priest? Has he not the right to bid me reform or be expelled from the Church? Yet to speak to me in such a way is to exercise coercive power. Laws without any power to enforce them would not be laws at all, but only optional advice.

You at least see the necessity of civil society possessing the coercive power to enforce the observance of civil law.

That is because you do not believe in the necessity of the Church as an organized religious society. That is the problem we need to discuss before discussing consequences which presuppose it; and for that I must refer you to earlier chapters in this book. But granted that God chooses to act through the organized religious society established by His Divine Son, that society must have the religious power to insist upon the observance of its laws; and that means coercive power in the spiritual order, even as the State has coercive power in the temporal order.

As regards our freedom to choose or reject God's laws, it is necessary yo distinguish between physical and moral freedom. We may be physically free to violate God's laws, but we are not morally free to do so. As for coercion, in her efforts to secure the observance of God's laws, the Church relies upon moral coercion. Moral coercion can always be ignored if the person concerned lacks sufficient faith or goodwill to be impressed by it. For example when, back in the 1940's, the Princess of Bourbon-Parma contemplated marrying King Michael of Rumania, the Catholic authorities warned her that if she, a Catholic, did not marry according to Catholic rites, but accepted the rites of the schismatic Orthodox Church to which King Michael belonged, she would put herself into a state of excommunication from the Church. That was moral coercion. She chose to ignore it; and the Church merely tells her that hers is the responsibility. She was not physically forced, either to obey the laws of the Church, or yield to the dread of the penalties in the spiritual order which their violation involved.

That should have been sufficient to show you that when I speak of the coercive power of the Church I am not speaking of physical force, but of moral persuasion. Coercion can have many meanings. A coercive argument is one that carries weight; yet it has no suggestion of physical violence. So, too, a coercive motive is one calculated to induce a person to choose a given line of conduct.

Any idea that St. Paul taught any other doctrine than that of Christ, or differed from Him in spirit, is quite unfounded. Christ Himself, of course, used physical force when He drove the money-changers from the temple with a lash. But He never commissioned His Apostles to adopt such measures. Still St. Paul knew that he had the right to speak with divine authority and to command obedience under penalty of the divine displeasure. When he wrote to the Corinthians: "If I come again I will not spare" (II Cor., XIII, 2), he had in mind, not physical, but moral coercion; though he hoped the Corinthians would rectify their laxity themselves without compelling him to act by official rebukes in the name of Christ and of the Church. His claim to possess such moral and spiritual coercive power was a departure neither from the teachings nor from the spirit of Christ.

You have strange ideas if you imagine that the Church established by Christ ought to be a democracy. The democratic idea may be al I right in politics, where we are dealing with the relations of humai j beings with one another. But religion concerns the relations of humarl beings with God, and those relations cannot be on a democratic basis God is not a kind of political official elected by the people to be the representative! He is the Supreme Creator and Lord, to whose will we are necessarily subject and against whom we have no rights. And the Catholic Church is a society in which all without exception, including the Pope himself, are subject to the will of God.

Religion teaches us, not only what we should know about God and our relationships with Him, but also what God wills that we should do. In other words, it dictates both our belief and our behavior within certain defined limits. This religious control is not by physical compulsion, but by moral obligation. And any man who has a religion at all is conscious that it imposes certain moral obligations upon him. If not, then one who professes a religion has no religion in reality, but merely some speculative ideas about religion - which is a very different thing. A man who really believes that he is a creature of God must believe that the Creator has the right to dictate how the creature should behave; and the ten commandments do not wring from him the protest that no compulsion should be attached to religion. A religion without moral obligations is not a religion.

If, directly or indirectly, your statements of opinion implied a denial of the Faith, or were calculated to do harm to the faith or morals of others, you would be forbidden to publish them. And as a loyal Catholic you would accept the authoritative directions of the Church. If you were not sufficiently loyal to do so, the authorities of the Church would have to weigh the gravity of the matter involved in order to decide whether you could continue to be acknowledged as a Catholic or not.

When that book was first published, some prominent Catholics in England thought its thesis disloyal to the Church and calculated to do harm to the Faith. Reports were sent to Rome and there it was decreed that the book should not be circulated until harmful conclusions in it were corrected. Mr. Noyes declared that his critics had misunderstood him and undertook to write a new preface explaining his purpose and removing grounds for misunderstanding. This was accepted and all was well. The original decree by Rome was a purely disciplinary measure to which only the man who repudiates all authority and discipline would object.

It certainly elicited from him no slightest expression of regret that he had become a Catholic. It probably occasioned for him the exercise of the Christian virtues of humility and patience, but he is as enthusiastic a Catholic as ever, still convinced that for anyone who wants the Christian religion in all its fullness it is to be found in the Catholic Church only. But your concern is to get the Catholic Faith yourself instead of worrying as to whether Mr. Noyes might lose it. If you did get it you would see that it made no difference to you whether Mr. Noyes lost it or not, except of course to pray that he might recover it if he did lose it. A Catholic does not say: "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church because Mr. Noyes believes in it."

That is too vague and general for precise treatment. Possibly you object to a religion imposing any obligations on anybody. If so, it would be necessary to discuss the question as to whether Christ intended His Church to have any authority to teach and to regulate the conduct of its members or not. If you do not think so, then the rules and regulations of the Catholic Church will necessarily puzzle you; and they will continue to puzzle you until you are convinced that Christ did mean His Church to be our guide in religious and moral matters.

In some things, yes; in other things, no. And that same reply applies to everybody, including yourself. You are not competent to judge for yourself in all religious or moral matters any more than you would be competent to judge for yourself in all medical or legal matters. If, when it was necessary, you insisted on ignoring all medical or legal advice, thinking yourself competent to manage for yourself in such matters, you would soon fall into costly mistakes. As for our freedom, that is necessarily restricted by religion, not physically, but morally. I feel quite sure that you yourself feel obliged to observe God's commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Although you are physically free to violate that law, you do not feel morally free to do so. In the same way, Catholics do not feel morally free to violate the laws of God as manifested in the legislation of the Catholic Church. You may say that that would be right if indeed the laws of the Catholic Church are manifestations of the will of God. That again forces us back to the question of the authority of the Catholic Church. Has it, or has it not, a divine authority in its legislation?

The particular law does not really matter for the purposes of your argument, for you are opposed to any legislative power of the Church at all. But if the words of Christ: "Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also, in heaven" (Matt., XVI, 19) are not clear authority for the actual making of laws, what are they? Either Christ then gave the power to make laws as they seemed good or necessary, or His words were simply meaningless.

Your suggestion there, of course, is that Catholics go to Mass, not1 because they fear to be wanting in their duties to the God they love, but only because they stand in craven fear of tyrannical priests. That is quite wrong. Naturally, if Catholics grow careless and do not fulfil the duties of their religion, any true priest will be concerned about their neglect and will do his best to bring them to better dispositions. He will visit them, plead with them, warn them that they are offending God and doing harm to their own souls. But a priest is not a "Dracula" or a "Franken-1 stein." I am a priest, an ordinary typical priest, yet never have I seen in .j any Catholic, good, bad or indifferent, any least sign of dread in my j presence.

That is not true. If any priest says anything opposed to the teachings of the Catholic Church, or behaves in a way forbidden by the laws of the Church, no Catholic is obliged to approve of what he says or does. In fact, he is obliged not to do so, and may even be obliged to report that priest to his Bishop. Of course Catholics, as well as others, are obliged not to judge rashly that a priest's conduct is wrong; and truth as well as charity forbids them to invent or exaggerate faults attributed unjustly to others. The conviction that God Himself will punish sins of that kind is more than justified.

The chief causes of such fear are really insufficient knowledge, false information, and inherited prejudices whether conscious or unconscious. You must remember that all forms of Protestantism are essentially a protest against the Catholic Church. The basic platform of them all is opposition to the claim of the Catholic Church to be the one true Church. Is it surprising that Protestantism should feel it necessary to dispose its adherents against the Catholic Church? And we all know how the will to discredit another very easily gives rise to misrepresentation, detraction and calumny. In our own days, also, totalitarian States, whether Fascist or Communist, have flooded the world with propaganda against the Catholic Church. Such States want complete control of their people, body and soul. The very insistence of the Catholic Church that there is a higher authority than their own, that of God, is sufficient to enkindle their enmity. So Hitler did all he could td discredit the Catholic Church and boasted that he would destroy it from the land. And Communists, opposed to all religion, have concentrated their attacks upon the Catholic Church as being the foremost defender of the rights of God and of religion. And only too many, with no sympathy at all for the cause of Communism, have been affected by such propaganda, and have been filled with an unreasonable dread of Rome.

The Catholic Church has survived as a religion through various stages of history whether with or without temporal possessions. For the first 300 years, until the advent of Constantine, the Catholic Church suffered almost continuous persecution and had no possibility of any form of political power. In later centuries, small territories were granted to the Popes to guarantee their independence of political rulers; and even when these territories were forcibly confiscated, the Catholic Church as a Church went on as usual, as it will do till the end of time, whatever its vicissitudes in this world.

In a way, that would be impossible. For whilst there are some matters which are purely religious and others which have no connection with religion at all, there is a vast field of human activities which involve both spiritual and temporal interests/Domestic, commercial, professional, social and political life cannot be declared absolutely exempt from all ethical principles. And where these phases of life are affected by the moral teachings of the Catholic Church, a Catholic has no choice but to accept the guidance of his Church as to the way he will conduct himself in such activities.

Religion - Yes or No

The Christian Church

"This Shall Be the Sign"

Dogmatic Authority of the Church

The Power-Complex Illusion

Life-Or-Death Social Problems

Those Exclusive Claims

Religious Liberty

Are Only Catholics Saved

Catholic Apologetics in Question & Answer Form

Religion - Yes or No

The Christian Church

"This Shall Be the Sign"

Dogmatic Authority of the Church

The Power-Complex Illusion

Life-Or-Death Social Problems

Those Exclusive Claims

Religious Liberty

Are Only Catholics Saved

QUESTIONS IN VOLUME 4

601. I maintain that all children are born good.

602. Man's innate tendency is to do the right thing.

603. Man is more and more coming to realize that badly regulated conduct is not morally evil or sinful, but simply stupid.

604. To account for evil, side by side with the dogma of original sin, the mediaeval Church invented the existence of a devil running riot in our midst.

604. I have read that the idea of torturing people in the Inquisition was to cleanse them of their sins.

605. Will you agree with the definition of immorality and sin as the inflicting of suffering on others to gain one's private ends?

606. Must a sinner intend consciously to flaunt his proposed act in the face of God before it can be a sin?

607. The Catholic Church still promotes the lowest form of morality by teaching the old type of heaven and hell mythology.

608. This reward and punishment motive is a most dangerous incentive even as regards morality itself.

609. Why is it that the experience of the centuries has shown that theological reprobation, even the fear of hell, is a pitiably feeble deterrent from sin?

610. Does this not mean that the fear of death provides the chief motive for Christian morals?

611. You claim absolute authority for the teachings of the Philosopher of Galilee as to what things are just and good and pleasing to God?

612. Research into the ethical principles of all religions will discover that, in all lands and all faiths, the emphasis is upon those taught by Christ in Palestine 1954 years ago.

613. To this extent most people would be willing to respect the moral teachings of Christ.

614. One point. Christ said: "Return good for evil." Confucius said, with a better ethical sense and 600 years previously: "If you return good for evil, what will you return for good? Is it not better to return good for good, and justice for evil?"

615. To my mind the teachings of Christ do not fit in with modern psychology.

615. Again and again, when discussing the matter with non- Catholics who throw the argument at me I have to admit my ignorance on the subject.

616. According to the gospels He taught that not what enters a man from without can defile a man, but the things that come out of his heart, if his heart be evil, defile him.

618. Modern psychology tells us that it is unhealthy to prevent the natural outcome of our instinctive life.

619. The opinion of Christ, of course, probably reflected the ideas of his time.

620. If impulses are not allowed out of a man by self-expression, but are consciously repressed, they are driven down into the sub-conscious life, to become a buried-complex doing more harm to a man than ever.

622. They are the wrong ideas inherited from Christian teachings such as those I have suggested which have caused most of the distress of neurotic people.

623. If Christ has given us principles according to which we must regulate our conduct, what exactly and in detail are those principles?

624. Broadly speaking, people have turned to three places of authority to find out what is right and wrong, to the Bible, or to Conscience, or to the Church.

625. The Protestant Reformation substituted an infallible book, the Bible, for an infallible Church.

626. Although I am a Protestant, I see the weakness of this claim. The Bible itself cannot speak to us, and on many issues it has to be wrestled with, if it is to be understood. Its guidance is not quickly and easily found, and it needs an interpreter.

627. I find similar difficulties when people say that Conscience is our guide. It may be merely the echo of mob opinions amidst which we live.

628. Again, the so-called "Inner Light" may be nothing more than a reflection of our own desires.

629. History shows that some of the world's darkest deeds have been done by men who believed they were following their conscience.

630. I feel that this conscience business needs much more thought than is usually given to it. What do people mean when they say that conscience is the voice of God?

631. Does conscience dictate what is right and wrong?

632. If conscience is the voice of God it should be the same for everybody. Why does it say one thing in some people, yet quite another in other people?

633. Contradictories cannot be equally true.

634. Can it be said that there is anything right or wrong when people so differ in their judgments about it?

634. Will you be frank enough to admit that if the State did recognize any Church officially in our country, you would want it to be the Catholic Church and no other?

635. The confusion is so great that many people do not bother asking whether a thing is right or wrong, but just go ahead with whatever they feel inclined to do.

636. Would you say that we are answerable to God for our conduct only in proportion to what we believe our conduct ought to be?

637. So a person's conscience can work correctly only provided it has been rightly trained?

638. People who have had the wrong training, or none at all would not be responsible in that case for the evil they do.

639. It looks to me as if it is a case of where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise.

640. The Bible and Conscience both being unsatisfactory guides, the suggestion remains that we turn to the Church for instructions on moral conduct. But there are great difficulties in the way of regarding the Church as an unfailing guide.

641. To begin with, the divisions of the Church make it rather difficult to know which must be followed.

642. The teaching of the various Churches is varied, even contradictory.

643. The inevitable conclusion seems to me to be that we are wrong, in our moral perplexity, in looking for a set of rules and regulations such as were given us as children at school.

644. God did not make His world to run by rules.

645. God has made us free, with minds to search out the truth, and with hearts to be obedient.

646. The very perplexity, the very struggle to find what is right is to my mind part of morality.

647. This brings us to the heart of the question: How does one know what is right? Finding and doing what is right is not obeying a set of rules, but consists in following a Person; the Person of Jesus of Nazareth.

648. It is in His mind and example and life that we find the right.

649. nowing moral truth is impossible without knowing Jesus. He Himself said: "1 am the way, the truth and the life."

650. Has God ever given any instructions about the laws of interpretation? If so, what are they?

651. How, amongst such a welter of conflicting opinions, can any man have certainty that any proposed line of conduct is right?

652. On several occasions you have contrasted the definiteness of Roman Catholic guidance in moral matters with the nebulous character of that given by Protestant Churches.

653. You have said that the Protestant Churches are very weak in moral theology, implying that they are incompetent. What grounds have you for such a statement?

654. How do you know that candidates for the Protestant ministry receive inadequate training in moral science, as you asserted on one occasion?

655. You even said that there is no Anglican text-book of moral theology, and that ministers have to have recourse to Roman Catholic text-books.

656. Commenting on Bishop Barnes' support for euthanasia, contraceptive birth control, suicide and abortion, our local Anglican spokesman, The Rev. W. J. Coughlan said that because these are new problems the clergy are still working out the question of their moral or Christian significance.

657. Did not the Puritan Movement aim at even stricter standards than those of the Catholic Church?

659. I admit an enormous gap between what is expected of a Christian by the Catholic Church and the attitude of society in general.

660. The Catholic Church, though you may not know it, has terrific opposition. One has only to listen to everyday conversation. It is quite impossible to reconcile the general outlook of the world with Catholic standards.