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Published: December 22, 2008
Another pro-abortion Kennedy
Sweet Caroline not sweet on unborn babies
On Dec. 16, the New York Times reported that Caroline Kennedy made “a series of rapid-fire phone calls” to New York politicians, including New York Gov. David Paterson, to declare her interest in the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton.
 Times sources reported that Kennedy, 51, is a clear front-runner for appointment to the seat by the New York governor. “The upside of her candidacy is that the 2010 ballot will read Kennedy-Paterson," the Times quoted a Paterson adviser as saying.
How does Kennedy stack up on the right to life for unborn babies?
According to Wikipedia, the only political candidate Kennedy had endorsed had been her uncle, Ted Kennedy (in 1980), before endorsing Barrack Obama in Janurary, 2008. The Guardian (UK) reported on Dec. 18 that one of Kennedy’s “first calls on Monday (Dec. 15, the day she telephoned Patterson) was to an abortion rights group, indicating she will be strongly pro-choice.”
"I really do see her as someone who could take up the mantle that Hillary has sort of started in terms of commitment to reproductive health care,'' Kelli Conlin of pro-abortion NARAL in New York said of Kennedy.
LifeSiteNews pointed out on Dec. 18 that Kennedy spoke at NARAL's Power of Choice Luncheon in October as a representative of the Obama campaign.
Most revealing of Kennedy’s attitude is the book The Right to Privacy (1995), which she co-authored with Ellen Alderman. The chapter dealing with abortion and how its enshrinement by the U.S. Supreme Court developed from privacy rights is mostly a statement of the cases, but the drift is obvious. Justice Harry Blackmun, the original author of Roe, is glowingly quoted warning about the need to defend Roe v. Wade: "I fear for the darkness as four justices anxiously await the single vote necessary to extinguish the light."
Significantly, the book's reviewers got Kennedy’s point about privacy rights (and hence abortion rights). Publishers Weekly: “Alderman and Kennedy here present a pithy and practical casebook on our shrinking right to privacy.” The Library Journal: “Privacy, although not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, is held by most people to be a basic and fundamental right and a right that is under siege today. Using a series of well-selected court cases, the authors compile a catalog of horrors that represent attacks on privacy… Alderman and Kennedy chronicle the vigilance necessary to protect a cherished right.”
Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 2:26 AM By AnnCA
**Justice Harry Blackmun, the original author of Roe, is glowingly quoted warning about the need to defend Roe v. Wade: "I fear for the darkness as four justices anxiously await the single vote necessary to extinguish the light." **
A classic example of inversion.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 4:29 AM By JPeterman
The Kennedy's are heretics, at least every single public figure from that family is. That's no judgment on my part either, that's just based on their public pro abortion stance among other heretical statements. I resent the fact that the media frequently references them as the voice of Irish Catholic Americans. They DO NOT, HAVE NOT and WILL NEVER represent this Irish Catholic American.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 4:49 AM By Anita
The Church is responsible for all these 'murdering Catholics' because she has failed in her job to ex-communicate them. Not only that but embrace them and give them their big weddings and funerals and not deny them the sacraments. The world is going to hell and the fault lies at the steps of the 'church'.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 4:52 AM By Ron
Just what this country needs. Another pro-infanticide Kennedy on capitol hill. I hope she can drive better than Uncle Teddy. Another so called "catholic" for true Catholics to pray for and try to over-come the damage she will do to our Church and our Country. God Bless and Merry Christmas.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 5:20 AM By Fr. M.P.
"...our justices anxiously await the single vote necessary to extinguish the light." "...abortion and how its enshrinement by the U.S. Supreme Court developed from privacy rights." A good example of how evil makes any excuse to rationalize its ends according to erroneous human reason. One can murder in private. Isaiah 5:20 "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!"
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 6:43 AM By BJ
The Kennedys are a long time out of Ireland and have obviously lost the 'spirit'. Ireland is one of the few remaining no go areas in Europe for the butchers of abortion. Power does indeed corrupt.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 7:27 AM By Peter Noyes
A sad commentary on the current state of the Kennedy family. Some years ago Ethel Kennedy and other members of the clan roundly denounced abortion rights. But like Teddy, Caroline puts poliitics ahead of conscience.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 7:33 AM By JLS
Looks like she might have a new doll house to play with.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 8:13 AM By Mark from PA
This is so sad. I did not know that Caroline Kennedy was so strongly pro-abortion. It would be nice if the Pope could talk to her and instruct her on Catholic teachings on the sanctity of human life. If she could be "converted" on this issue I feel that she could be a strong advocate for our children including the precious unborn. We can only pray.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 9:15 AM By Eileen
Verkola and John F. Maguire, Pray for the conversion of Caroline Kennedy. Everyone remembers John-John Kennedy saluting his father's casket and his sweet looking sister Caroline saying good-bye to their father. It is so spiritually tragic to see the world famous and sweet little Caroline grow up to choose evil and squander her wealth. Caroline Kennedy reminds us all of the importance of good or bad stewardship. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man dies and was buried in hell. The rich man lifts his eyes and sees Lazarus resting in the bosom of Abraham and he cries out, Father Abraham have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water to to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, to the rich man that thou in life received good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now Lazarus is comforted whereas thou are tormented. The rich man said, "Then father, I beseech thee to send him to my father's house for I have five brother's that he may testify to them lest they too come to this place of torments. And Abraham said, "They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hearken to them. But he answered, "No Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. But Abraham said to him "If they do not hearken to Moses (5th Commandment) and the Prophets, they will not believe even if someone rises from the dead." The purpose of this parable is to teach us the evil result of the unwise use of one's opportunities in this life.. Lazarus was not rewarded because he was poor, but for the virtuous acceptance of poverty. The rich man was punished not because he was rich, but for the vicious neglect of the opportunities given him by his wealth. Verkola and John F. Maguire, this also applies to intellectual wealth.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 9:31 AM By Fr. John Peek
Oh yea, this peculiar 'right' in the name of privacy is supposed to satisfy the question of what is human life. We must treat this ruse as an insult to basic human intelligence. Pagan societies that killed unwanted children, before or after being born, were more honest. They just simply ignored the value of human life without any hypocrisy.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 10:00 AM By June V
I so very much agree with Anita, it is the Catholic Church, it's Cardinals, Bishops and Priests that have failed in their duties to Our Lord to chastise these people in the best way they can....excommunicate ...... publicly so that the rest of the world knows that mortal sin is still mortal sin and giving scandal to others is still not accepted.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 10:53 AM By OneoftheSheep
We have enough sheep in the House and Senate. What we need are leaders with moral courage, wisdom and compassion. Does Caroline fit the bill? I think not. Too bad for us that she is such a poor example of the Catholic faith. I can't see converts pouring into the church based on her style of Catholic Cafeteria religion. Is she better than Hillary? Hillary is ignorant of the faith but Caroline will be held eternally accountable for her heresies.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 11:07 AM By Fulminator Ski Ven
I wonder what kind of doll houses abortion supporters get for their children? Probably a doll house that would not be much different from a Jeffry Dalmer action figure play set. They'll probably have a "hero" that is called something like working Molly and a "villain" called "fetus" Phil that is a threat to the life of working Molly unless he is killed. If people who promote such horrible evil didn't get it from the environment they grew up in, where else could they get it from?
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 1:23 PM By Eileen
Fulminator of the Fullness of Truth, The minute that the supporters of abortion learned that the word "fetus" means "little one" in Latin, they would earnestly scramble to hide this potentially thought provoking truth or knowledge. They would immediately recall the "fetus" dolls with a false claim of a manufacturing defect that could harm their child. They would re-submit a request to the the dollhouse manufacturer and demand that Working To Break The Glass Ceiling Molly's villain child be re-named "Punishment"! After all, that is the name that president elect Obama selected?Since the majority of voters including Catholics agreed enough to vote for Obama, the dollhouse collection should be huge sell-out that matches the sell-out of their faith.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 1:29 PM By Miguel
The Older Joe Kennedy's daughters renounced the Catholic church when he was ambassador to England. They wanted to marry their Anglican suitors. So, they have a history of contempt against the church. So is there any surprise at the latest episode.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 1:32 PM By Central Valley
The last "catholic" Kennedy was Rose, who put up with her husbunds unchristian antics. The children have turned heretical years ago.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 2:41 PM By PAPAMAC
Just another HERETIC, A good fit in the Obama administration. MGB
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 2:48 PM By Vince R.
This Caroline Kennedy matter is just another instance of that familiy's outrageous hubris. She is no more "entitled" to that senate seat any more anyone else is "entitled" to it or anything.
The problem is that we are living in the Age of Entitlement. Consider the bailout mess where failures and thieves are more than amply rewarded for their incompentence and greed by that den of thieves, the U.S. Congress. Their motto: the taxpayers be damned.
Finally, where are the Catholic leaders speaking out on the issues. They would lose their tax exempt status? So what, Catholic Charities now get $2 billion in federal funs. Tell me who calls the shots?
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 3:53 PM By Dr. Bob
The Kennedy clan is only ostensibly "Catholic," even though they received the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Communion, Penance and, presumably Extreme Unction. Remember, by holding themselves out, with all of the outward signs of Catholicism, they ensured each family member, starting with JFK with his election as a Congressman, the Boston Catholic vote. Of course, appearing in public the "Princes of the Church" like the late Cardinal Cushing and Bernard Law also added to that family's so-called "Catholic legitimacy."
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 4:31 PM By Patricia
Will the ArchBishop of the New York Diocese refuse her communion? She should have been refused a long time ago. It is time for our Sheperds to tamp down on these heterodox views. Will the ArchBishop be up to the task?
Probably not.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 5:07 PM By Elizabeth
Rose Kennedy MUST BE ROLLING AROUND IN HER GRAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 5:43 PM By OneoftheSheep
My gift to her as she assumes "her rightful and righteous seat of power"in the United States Senate is:
A copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
I'm sure she'd like to read what she will be fighting against.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 7:25 PM By John F. Maguire
Only if Caroline Kennedy or Maria Shriver had formally renounced their baptismal title to the name *Catholic* would one or the other of these Catholic women lose title to the name *Catholic*. In the meantime, the most that can be said--always, however, on real evidence--is that these women have involved themselves in certain self-contradictions as--and precisely as--Catholics. ~ The following point has already been made on this site, but bears repeating: A lay blogger has no standing to act as an *episcopus externus* and adjudicate on his own motion the right of persons to the title *Catholic*. Such a notion runs contrary to (a) the good order of the Church and (b) the ordering of the good of the Church.
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 8:16 PM By John F. Maguire
That Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis should have communicated to her daughter Caroline an interest in the right to privacy is perfectly understandable. That, in consequence, Caroline Kennedy, with her University of Columbia law degree, should team up with Ellen Alderman to write a book on _The Right to Privacy_ is perfectly understandable. What is, in my opinion, less understandable is the puzzling hiatus between 1995, the year of the publication of the Alderman/Kennedy book, and 1992. To explain: It was in 1992, three years before the publication of _The Right to Privacy_, that the U.S. Supreme Court stripped the _Roe v. Wade_ decision of its anchoring (or supposed anchoring) in the right to privacy. The Court did so by way of the joint plurality opinion that Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, Souter delivered for the Court in the case of _Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey_ , 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Joseph Dellapenna explains: "Nor [in _Casey_] did the joint plurality opinion even mention the right to privacy that was so central to the reasoning of the Court in _Roe_, except in a phrase ('[i]f the right of privacy means anything...') that seems to suggest that the concept is meaningless, at least in the abortion context." Joseph Dellapenna, _Dispelling the Myths of Abortion_ (2008). Now in the light of _Casey_, decided in 1992, one would have thought that the Court's plurality decision to JETTISON the right-to-privacy rationale of _Roe_ would have been STRESSED by Caroline Kennedy as a legal historian--writing in 1995--on the right to privacy. That, however, did not happen. Why not? Did Caroline Kennedy's commitment to the privacy rationale for _Roe_ distract her from reporting the real legal history of the Court's treatment of the right to privacy in the abortion context?
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Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 10:34 PM By JLS
A Catholic has to prove the label, for that is the only way into Heaven. If all the Catholic bishops were to say in unison, "Anyone who supports in any way abortion is not Catholic and shall not receive Holy Communion", then guess what? In various periods of Church history Her bishops have seen fit to assign penances designed to separate the sheep from the goats, and to restrict Holy Communion to very select and bona fide Catholics. But there are such weak and or faithless Catholics in name only ... they'd call Judas Iscariot a Catholic even at the moment he hanged himself.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 7:47 AM By JLS
Law schools have the capacity of training people to manage the law, not create it from scratch. But too much of the public is busy creating rights from scratch, a law granted them by their elected rulers and also by their unelected rulers that it is willing to be led into ever more slavery to sin. The Kennedys are sin masters, and their devotees are the sin slaves. Hopefully I'm not slurring the Kennedys by overstating the obvious.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:06 AM By John F. Maguire
In my CCD post of 12/22:8:16 PM, I placed in question Caroline Kennedy's privacy-law interpetration, but is Caroline Kennedy--"sweet Caroline, the last child of Camelot"--a formal heretic, as has actually been suggested on this website by the usual crew of trigger-happy bloggers? Caroline Kennedy's tone of approval of Justice Blackmun's statement--Justice Blackmun wrote the _Roe_ opinion--that _Roe_ not be overturned, is no proof of formal heresy on Caroline's part, even were we to construe her tone of approval as tantamount to "an opinion suspected, or savouring, of heresy (sententiae de haeresi suspecta, haeresim sapiens). No, let's follow St. Thomas's advice and resolve to be careful in this matter. Quoting St. Augustine, Thomas writes: "As Augustine says...'By no means should we accuse of heresy those who, however false and perverse their opinion may be, defend it without obstinate fervor, and seek the truth with careful anxiety, ready to mend their opinion, when they have found the truth,' because, to wit, they do not make a choice in contradiction to the doctrine of the Church." We are not in a position to prejudge Caroline Kennedy on this matter, which, in fine, is an episcopal matter. However, we should know that what makes a theologically erroneous opinion formal heresy is PERTINACITY, i.e., an obstinate and studied adherence to a theological error that is already materially heretical. In my prior post, I adduced evidence that Caroline Kennedy is not much of a studier in the first place. On the other hand, though no formal heretic, Caroline Kennedy--and I am sorry to see it--appears to be as confused and incrusted on the question of the right to life of pre-born infants as both she and Ellen Alderman have shown themselves to be confused and incrusted on the legal history of the right to privacy.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:21 AM By John Zakharia
Please do call me a Conspiracy guy. But the political is so corrupt that the left finds left wing Catholic politicians and raises them to power to mock the Christian Community.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:30 AM By Dan
Caroline Kennedy some years back celebrated the removal of the 10 commandments from Judge (Ray?) Moore's courthouse with a profile in courage award to the federal judge who ordered its removal. Let us pray that when she is judged by that law by its Lawgiver, as we all will, her mindset will have changed significantly.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 2:41 PM By John F. Maguire
Requiring as it does proof of pertinacity, the sin of heresy is, as St. Augustine and St. Thomas show, NOT always obvious; far from it. In the first place, what is theologically erroneous is not always obvious. In the second place, when it is clear that a statement is theologically erroneous, not all theologically erroneous statements are materially heretical.
In the third place, in order for a statement to be formally heretical, it must always already be materially heretical. ~ In my post of 12/23: 9:06 AM, I quoted St. Thomas quoting St. Augustine on this matter, but Thomas, in point of fact, clips the full quote from Augustine. Since I think that this full quote helps illuminate Caroline Kennedy's real situation (illuminates her situation rather than brickbats her as a heretic), here again is St. Augustine: "Those are by no means to be accounted heretics who do NOT defend their false and perverse opinions with pertinacious zeal (ANIMOSITAS), especially when their error is not the fruit of audacious presumption but has been communicated to them by seduced and lapsed parents...." Here is the point: By extension, an avuncular seduction and lapse would qualify here as well. Which is an additional reason I want to cite in support of my thesis that Caroline Kennedy, however theologically mistaken she is, nonetheless is not a formal heretic. Still, the avuncular question remains. In this connection, I do not think that the canonist Marc Balestriere was mistaken in giving at least some consideration to filing a canonical action against both Ted Kennedy and John Kerry--and not just, as he finally decided, against Kerry alone.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 5:51 PM By JLS
C. Kennedy is not being prejudged, but pointed out, discerned, observed, defined by her own actions; that is what we are tasked with doing, and pointing out to others that such evil people need to take notice of the reality of God's eternal judgment of their lives.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:18 PM By JLS
These people who rule stuff dream that they rule everything and not just one thing. The worst of them dream that they rule God, and they begin to try and materialize this dream by attempting to wrest control over God's Church.
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Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 11:58 PM By JLS
Maguire, who cares if C. Kennedy is a heretic? It is not relevant. What is important is to describe her nature so that she and her handlers will not have an easy time in their efforts to subvert and seduce the Church. Problem with relying upon high falutin' protocol in stopping bad characters in high level politics is that it does not work. The only way to do it is to appeal to the good will of the public, which is not being done sufficiently, for as we all can see, the public is still wallowing in the mire of its sinful delights, and cares not a whit about the tyranny they are bringing down on us all.
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Posted Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:57 AM By Vince R.
It's high time that the Church crackdown on the Kennedys and tell them to shape up or ship out. Will the first high ranking prelate please stand up!
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Posted Wednesday, December 24, 2008 1:08 PM By John F. Maguire
"Who cares if C. Kennedy is a heretic," you ask. But, JLS, *you* do, since you want to "describe [Caroline's] nature so that she and her handlers will not have an easy time [of it]...." I am sorry, but such an intention as that, reduces a person to a mere means to an end--and cynically too (Who really cares if these descriptions of her "nature" are true?). You, JLS, ought to care that there are bloggers on this website who have given themselves permission to hurl the label *heretic* at Caroline Kennedy when, had these bloggers really cared whether she was or wasn't a heretic, expectably would have taken the trouble to sort out the various meanings of heresy and its various degrees, the better to see if there is dispositive evidence--any evidence--to back up their hunches. Not to engage in such inquiry before sounding off in public, is sloth. The upshot of sloth such as this, is published calumny. Whereupon, JLS, you venture to ask, "Who cares...?"
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Posted Wednesday, December 24, 2008 2:49 PM By JLS
C. Kennedy is just another ruling elite ... these people have no Catholicism in their souls. It's all hype. Look at the forest instead of the trees. These rulers have helped institute and manage the abortion of millions of babies in the western world. If they were Catholics, then this would not happen. So, Maguire, keep swatting those mosquitos. Nero, the emporer of Rome did this in the way of playing his fiddle. What is the difference between that ancient world emporer and the present batch? "Heretic" is just a label. What difference does it make what particular outfit the devil wears in any of various situations? None. So call the managers of the world, the flesh and the devil anything you want, soothsay them any way you choose ... it doesn't matter. What matters is whether you help stop abortion. Tradition would seem to indicate that while Nero's Rome was burning, the Catholics were not up on his balconey with him whispering sweet nothings in his ear, ostensibly to get him to reconsider his decisions.
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Posted Friday, December 26, 2008 9:49 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: It is a fundamental principle of the moral order that the end never justifies the means. One should always meet one's obligations in the defense and promotion of the common good of persons, including pre-born infants; but no, the end does not justify the means. To impute formal heresy to someone who is not a formal heretic,
"however false and perverse [her] opinion might be" (Thomas Aquinas), is to employ an illegitimate means of action. Such employment is never justified; the end never justifies the means. Nor does the plea that "'Heretic' is just a label" wash. The end never justifies mis-characterizing someone--let alone mischaracterizing that person cynically ("'Heresy' is just a label').
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Posted Friday, December 26, 2008 11:45 AM By JLS
Maguire, you just fail to comprehend that neither you nor I are bishops ... we are laymen, and thus are free to do so. As for your "holy scripture verse", the end never justifies the means, in truth God is the end and He justifies the means. Our obligation is simply to use means which do not contradict His means. Again, your error is in putting the Catholic religion into print ... it's traditionally called "God in a box". Jesus and OT prophets over and over again teach that this is abjectly wrong. God is the living God. We receive Him in the Eucharist. This unites us to Him ... some more than others. It is part of life to always try to improve this unity both in ourselves, our neighbors and our community. Silence does not accomplish this goal, rather defeats this goal and brings on oppression ... marked by such things as 40 million abortions sanctioned by the US population and many Catholic clergy who do not find it important to stop. Your reductionism will always be futile.
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Posted Friday, December 26, 2008 1:21 PM By Paul
The Church teaches: "A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means."
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Posted Friday, December 26, 2008 3:59 PM By William
Re Caroline Kennedy: I think a statement from St John Vianney sums it up best: "you are what God thinks you are and nothing more" . It does not matter what you say, God will judge and deal with her. However, she would do well to read a sermon given by St Leonard of Port Maurice on the fact that few are saved. St John Vianney also said that the numbers of the saved are as few as the numbers of the grapes left after the pickers have passed. Pray for her, it doesn't at this time look promising for her.
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Posted Friday, December 26, 2008 6:41 PM By JLS
Lying is not intrinsically disordered. The Commandment qualifies matters. If lying were intrinsically disordered, then all combat would be intrinsically disordered; anyone who has rudimentary experience of fighting ... this includes sports such as football and baseball and basketball ... knows that success often depends upon doing or saying things to disorient the enemy or opponent. Such behavior is lying. Thus, clearly lying is not intrinsically disordered. The Commandment says not to bear false witness (calumny) against one's neighbor ... Notice the qualification "against one's neighbor". If you faced Lucifer, who is not your neighbor, and who is deceptive, would you have the right to lie to him? Or on a deeper level, would it matter what you said to him, since he is deluded anyway? Satan did not positively identify Jesus at first ... Why didn't God inform him right off, instead of letting him continue in his delusion? So, what I have posed here is that simply telling someone not to lie is an ignorant thing to do, unless one provides some context. In any case lying is not intrinsically wrong. Some people preach that anger is intrinsically wrong, which is a lie or a delusion or simple ignorance ... same kind of thing. This is why we have a pope, so that we have certitude as much as possible.
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Posted Friday, December 26, 2008 8:21 PM By Jackie
St. Sillasen, if CCC#1753 says lying is intrinsically disordered, then that's what it says. Here it is: "1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation." Maybe you want to publish your own Catechism of the Church of JLS along with a compendium of all your theories.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 11:08 AM By JLS
The most significant key to understanding the meaning of CCC1753 is "The end does not justify the means." How clear can it get that this points to a limited situation and is not absolutely true? Since God is the end, and God justifies His means, and thus in this case the end does justify the means, then, therefore, CCC1753 serves for some cases but not all. Would you lie to save the life of a child? I would even kill someone if it was to save the life of a child. Now would this violate the Commandment Thou shalt not kill? No. Is killing intrinsically disordered? Since the Magisterium shows us that God has often killed through His servants, either angels or men, then how can killing be intrinsically disordered. Interpretation requires more than a "fundamentalist" type of understanding ... again, it's why we have popes and a living God to lead us. Without our Catholic Church structure and hierarchical dynamic, how would you, Jackie and Paul, resolve an argument such as you are holding forth?
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 11:28 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: You say that my "error is to put the Catholic religion into print." Although I have neither competence nor ambition to put the Catholic religion into print, certainly not in the comprehensive and reflective sense that, say, the magnificent and unequivocal Catechism of the Council of Trent can be said (to be sure, awkwardly and somewhat equivocally) to put the Catholic religion into print, I would hasten to point out that religion, as traditionally defined, is that virtue by which we render God due acknowledgment. In this specific and classical sense, religion surely cannot be put into print. On the other hand, in so describing religion--viz., as that virtue, and just that virtue, by which we render God due acknowledgment--and then tapping CCD's posting-box, I am (anyway it is evident to me) putting something into print, and that something, I hope, pertains to religion.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 12:31 PM By Elaine
JLS, killing is not the same as murder, and distraction is not the same as lying. Killing and distraction can be justified, but murder and lying are intrinsically disordered and always wrong.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 1:17 PM By Elaine
JLS, about your "I would even kill someone if it was to save the life of a child" claim, CCC 2263 says: "The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one's own life; and the killing of the aggressor.... The one is intended, the other is not." And from CCC 2261: "The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere."
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 2:02 PM By John F. Maguire
Grave errors abound, JLS, in your post of 12/27: 11:38: (1) The direct killing of another person is indeed an intrinsically evil act. If however, to defend another's life, I respond with proportionate force, including where necessary, lethal force, that would not be an instance of *direct* killing of another person but rather an instance of a proportionate response to an unjust aggressor. On this point, JLS, you appear to agree, but then you turn around and write as if justified killing relativizes CCC 1753. It does not. (2) You write as if there were such a thing as a *lie* that is just. There is no such thing as a lie that is just. A textbook example will, I think, help clarify this matter: A Jewish child is in my basement and the Gestapo inquires whether there is a child in my house. I answer, and I am morally obliged to answer in a convincing voice, "No." Is this answer a lie? Absolutely not. Rather, it is a justified mental reservation, and a justifed mental reservation is never a lie (though foolish people call it such). What, then, is being "reserved" in this mental reservation? Simply this: What is being reserved-- what one is bound not to speak--is: "...not for your purposes, which are wicked." So in this circumstance, one answers--without lying at all--the Gestapo's question *rightly*, to wit: "No (meaning No [not for your purposes, because you do not have a right to know the answer to your question, and you do not have a right to know the answer because, knowing the answer, you intend wickedness, even murder])." The bracketed words, in Catholic speech-ethics, is called a MENTAL RESERVATION. Now to be sure, such reservations must be justified in the situation to be employed (no one is claiming that all mental reservations are justified). At the same time, the intrinstic evil of lying is never justifiable. As in the textbook example just given, some speech--i.e., speech informed by a justified mental reservation--is obligatory.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 3:49 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: Here, JLS, is a first-class fallacy--a first-class category-mistake--if ever there was one. At issue is the meaning of the moral teaching that the end--meaning: the specific end of any one human action--never justifies the means to that end but rather that those same means must be justified on their own account. As noted, the "end" referred to in this pivotal teaching includes the immense multitude of all human ends within the created order. No end, by itself, justifies the means chosen to attain that end. Yet in your post, you write: "Since God is the end [but wait a minute, here we are talking about the discrete end of any one human act], and [you go on] God justifies His means, and thus in this case the end DOES justify the means, therefore...CCC serves some purposes but not all" (emphasis mine). To the contrary, Jackie is right. For example, "The end [hobbling Caroline's political career] does not justify the means [caluminating her as a formal heretic]." "A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior, such as lying or calumny, good or just" (CCC 1753). Nor does the vaporization of all human ends in the name of the ultimate end of human existence, namely God, justify relativizing--and thereby evading--the basic principle that the specific end of any one human action, in itself, never justifies the means to that end. On this point, it seems to me that Jackie at 12/26: 8:21 PM has read section 1753 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church correctly.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 3:51 PM By JLS
Maguire, print has no power or authority. A bishop has both. What you say in your reply to me, I have no argument with ... it's just a matter of emphasis in explanation. But for good cause.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 5:15 PM By Fr. Tim
JLS: There was an article on lying just this month in The Tidings, the weekly newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, by Vincentian Father Richard Benson, academic dean and professor of moral theology at St. John's Seminary, Camarillo. He cited Cardinal Roberti's Dictionary of Moral Theology where it clearly says: "Lying is intrinsically evil, that is, sinful by its very nature. Hence it is never lawful nor permissible, not even to attain a noble end or to avoid some evil or injury. Whatever is intrinsically evil may not be used as a means to a good end nor can it be justified by a good or noble end" (p. 721). That dictionary is a well-known 1352-page classic compiled under the direction of Francesco Cardinal Roberti, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and edited under the direction of Monsignor Pietro Palazzini, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Council. On the subject of “killing”, if you mean “any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide,” the Second Vatican Council identified those as “acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object.” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 27)
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 6:32 PM By JLS
OK, now we're at the part which I tried to lead into in my post, by bringing up the additional issue of the nature of killing. The concept of killing is parsed out, where some killing is bad, some good. The definition, therefore, of "killing" is not simple. My argument about "lying" depends on its definition. Does "lying" have a simple or complex definition? If someone, eg, says "It will definitely rain today", and it doesn't, were they lying when they said it, were they lying only if it didn't turn out to rain. Does lying depend on intention? Is it possible to lie to the "father of liars", ie the devil? If the high school quarterback makes it appear that he is going to pass the football to the right, with the intention of deceiving the opposing team, and then throws it to the left, is that a lie. Is that move an intrinsic sin? Thus, my contention remains that it is not a document that determines this sort of thing, but a pope, and not in general, but in each specific case ... and that the only reason a pope has the authority and power to do so is through his special relationship with God, not to mention his union (hopefully) with God through Christ.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 6:48 PM By JLS
Maguire, how can you define the issue after the issue is posted and discussed? You certainly are defining a new issue, but now we have two issues at hand, instead of one. Let's see you tackle the first, the one I am hammering out. In the meantime, I will think about the related issue which you have added, although which you mistakenly claim is really the first issue. That is why you see my post as a fallacy, because you have not taken it for what it is but for what you would like it to be. I made this very same mistake of confusing the question and providing a perfect answer ... in my Econ 1 final exam at Univ of Calif from a young prof with his phd from Harvard (and a Quaker as well). I got a lousey "c", and went to his office and raised Cain, heatedly explaining that my answer was perfect and should get me an "a". He agreed that my answer was perfect, but informed me that it didn't exactly match the question. So, I look for this sort of thing all the time, and find it frequently. And, no, I am not immune from it either. But in this case I believe that it is important to come out of a state of somnambulance and do a thorough examination of this very common concept of lying. So far in this post, the issue is far from resolved. And I wonder how it shall become resolved, if at all. Once, it came to me that the hardest thing to do is to tell the truth. If this is correct, then is everything else we say a lie?
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 6:50 PM By JLS
And, yes, Maguire, I agree with you that Jackie read ccc1753 correctly, but that she has not applied it correctly.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 7:51 PM By JLS
I just pulled up "lying" in the CCC, and what I read there pretty much corresponds to my argument, that there is a necessity of intention to effect some evil on someone else. For example, lying is a falsehood with the purpose of deceiving one's neighbor. So, as I keep posing, lying in itself is not intrinsically sinful, but only lying which has a malevolent intention. 2485 indicates that the offense against the purpose of speech which is to convey known truth to someone else is malevolent. So, here we have to understand what known truth consists of: Is it a statement sans the rest of reality, such as is the basis of an ages old heresy which sees no goodness in the material world? Or is truth the person, Jesus Christ? Note that I constantly hammer this point, that the faithful are united not joined to God in Jesus Christ. My point here is to demonstrate that truth gets deeper and deeper, beyond the complete grasp of human beings. For lying to be intrinsically sinful, it has to contain an evil intention, an intention meant to prevent Jesus from being known. This is why I contend that a lie meant to save a baby, is not a sin ... because it does not carry an intention of preventing Jesus from being known. As I said, deciding these things is the purpose of the popes, not documents. Documents assist us; whereas, popes rule us.
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 8:54 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: Remaining in your post is the question of death. From whence comes death? The answer can be found within the data of revelation. Specifically, for example, the answer can be found in Wisdom 2:24: "But by the envy of the devil death came into the world." True, human cooperation played a collaborative role: "By one man sin entered the world and by sin death" (Romans 5:12). But death, although it falls within the permissive will of God, is NOT authored or caused by God: "For God made not death" (Wisdom 1:13). Death takes place within God's providence in accord with God's permissive will, but God is not the cause of death. See J. Maritain, _God and the Permission of Evil_ (1966). God, then, is absolutely innocent of evil. ~ Here, JLS, I would urge you to revisit the distinction between God's permission of evil, on the one hand, and divine causality, on the other. You write: "God has often killed through his servants, [through] either angels or men...." You even attribute this God-as-killer view to the teaching authority of the Church. Such an attribution is an enormity. There is nothing whatsoever in the teaching of Holy Church that denies God's absolute Innocence; there is nothing whatsoever in the Magisterium of Holy Church that contradicts Wisdom 1:13: "God made not death."
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Posted Saturday, December 27, 2008 11:22 PM By Joe
JLS, if the quarterback only makes it appear that he's going to pass the football to the right, what has he actually told you versus what you think he's told you? He hasn't actually told you that he's in fact going to pass it to the right. Rather, he's truthfully saying, in the context of football, "I want you to think I'm going to pass it to the right." It's ambiguous whether he's actually going to pass the ball to the right. If you interpret his ambiguous expression as telling you that he's actually going to pass to the right but then he doesn't, that's your mistake. You chose the wrong interpretation. He didn't say, "I am going to pass the ball to the right." That was simply your interpretation based on appearances, your guess. It's like when a contestant on a game show presses the buzzer before the host finishes asking the question. If it turns out what you thought the host was asking wasn't what he actually was asking, it doesn't mean the host has lied, even if the host deliberately worded his question with the reasonable expectation that you'd jump in and guess wrong.
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 8:53 AM By Woody Westwood
JLS, on the basis of my UCLA experience, the exam instruction that professors most insist upon is that we as students answer the question asked, and not some other question. Only when we can't answer the question asked, do we sometimes have permission to make up our own, hopefully a question related to the question that stumped us.
We are urged to ask and answer our own substituted question in order to avoid failing to reply to the original question altogether, thereby losing points big time. *** JLS, you admit that in your Econ. 1 class you neglected to answer the question asked, inadvertently answering another question, so I'd say you should count yourself lucky to have gotten a "C" rather than one of the sub-academic grades. For students, the real lesson is stick to the question asked, but also own-up when one's answer to that question is wrong.
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 1:56 PM By Sister Act
JLS, when a quarterback--say, for example, on a play-action pass--fakes in one direction and throws the football in another direction, no lie could possibly be involved in this play-action pass because, by the agreed gamesmanship that defines the very game of football, the opposing team does not have a RIGHT TO KNOW which way the play is going to go. It's a part of the very game of football for the opposing team to guess where the upcoming play is heading. Now since the team on defense does not have a right to know where the next play is heading, the quarterback is exercizing--playfully--a mental reservation, that is, he is reserving to himself the real meaning of his fake-out gestures. One has to be off one's rocker, JLS, to suppose, even tentatively, that such fake-outs of this sort involve the form of deception that is tantamount to lying. Lies are intrinsically immoral. The fake-out in a play-action pass, by contrast, is a perfectly innocent mental reservation on the quarterback's part. Ask Joe Montana.
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 6:48 PM By JLS
So, Sister Act, you're claiming that lying is relative and not absolute? Did you look up "lying" in the CCC, as I suggested? It does not agree with what you have said about it. BTW, I know how to fake people out. The question, as also found in CCC, is the intention of the fake out. A lie, to be intrinsically evil, has to have the intention to avert the truth. Not all lies have this intention; therefore, this is why the CCC specifies intent to direct away from the truth.
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 6:58 PM By JLS
Woody Westwood, UC professors not infrequently gave me c grades when they could not figure out what I was talking about, writing it off as passing due to hard work in the books. I don't know how it is now, but back in the day I discovered that I could get by simply by convincing them that I was intelligent, while not learning much of their courses. After my first quarter I made the dean's list (the one with a gpa less than c), and even then he wanted me to be a grad student. There is an important lesson here if you want to consider it: Every soul has a yearning for the truth; but society has long tended to penalize those who seek it. Universities are not founded nor run for finding the truth, but for finding out facts and ways to cook them. A student who cares less about facts than about truth is dissed one way or another. Most succeed at the fact game because it brings home the bacon. There is nothing wrong with this; moreover this is necessary and good. But the problem is that those who control the bacon farm do not like the truth to be told. Tell it and suffer. Jesus poses this very issue; the Enlightenment has sought to rise above this dilemma.
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 7:01 PM By JLS
Joe, what does Jesus teach us about loving our neighbor as ourself? And here you would allow your neighbor to misinterpret you? The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would they to you"; do you want others to do things so that you will misinterpret them?
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 7:09 PM By JLS
Maguire, God is both innocent and kills. Killing without intent to do evil is not a sin. Jesus told Pilate that His Father could send a legion of angels ... The OT shows us that God has sent angels to kill not only some, but many, even 183,000 in one instance. What could be more obvious than that killing can be good? Or was it an evil legion of angels that Jesus could have called for? Or were the two angels that smote Sodom and Gomorrah evil angels? Scripture calls them angels of God, doesn't it? As for God not making death, I have not said that He did; you seem to be equating death with killing. These are two different things. Have you looked up "lying" in the CCC? #1753 is not an orphan, but has many siblings to be found in this Magisterial work, a bunch of them under "lying" (use the CCC search engine).
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 7:27 PM By JLS
Woody W., to be clear on that specific illustration: In my particular case (1967), I had memorized the answer from the text. I did not understand how it applied, and I did not understand the dynamics of what I was supposed to have learned on that point. I got the "c" because I was in the ballpark ... ie, I recognized a link between the question and what I had memorized. I was never, and remain this way, primarily grade motivated. That professor succeeded in getting me to understand why I blew the question and answer ... Academics involves two domains: one is "screening" and the other is "educating". These two domains are manipulated by those who rule the education organizations. I've experienced being at the top of one little heap or another, and also in the middle or at the bottom of various other little heaps: I know what it feels like, and I've seen what it does to those who have no clue as to how others can so easily understand something and come up with the right response or answer. I've been and continue to be on both ends of this stick. I've run into people who are always on the short end of the stick. It is important to help them find a stick which they can be on the long end of ... often this never happens, but sometimes it does. Human nature requires absolutlely honest leaders, but we can see how far from this goal the leaders of this world have strayed. Is it not about time that all Catholics and others of good will insist on leaders who follow the Commandments and do not play the loopholes? Who live according to faith in Jesus Christ?
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Posted Sunday, December 28, 2008 10:09 PM By Sister Act
JLS: I said lying was intrinsically evil. How can that be saying that lying is relative to the situation in a reductive sense? However, in the specific situation of a football game, a quarterback fake is deceptive--at least Joe Montana's were--but in no sense are such fakes lies, as I've already shown by invoking what is always crucial in communications-ethics: the notion of mental reservation. *** You've got this matter totally backwards. All lies do intend to avert the truth; but not all avertings of truth are lies--for example, the mentally reserved "No" to the Gestapo hunting for the Jewish child; etc.
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Posted Monday, December 29, 2008 1:43 AM By John F. Maguire
Whoa, JLS, your reminiscence of a UCLA economics professor whose best advice to you was to stick to the question at hand rather than substitute a new one, comes powerfully to mind as, even today, you seem to want to switch from the question at hand, to wit, (1) "From whence comes death?" to another question, (2) What is the providential role of Christ's angels? I've answered (1) by quoting Wisdom 2:24: "By the envy of the devil death came into the world." Question (2), however, requires special elaboration. For starters, Ludwig Ott writes: "God does not (per se) desire physical evil, for example, suffering, illness, death, that is not for the sake of the evil or as an aim. Wis. 13 et seq.: 'For God has not made death: neither has he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things that they may be.' However, God wills physical evil, natural evil as well as punitive evil, per accidens, that is, as a means to a higher end of the physical order (for example, for the acquisition of a higher life), or for the moral order (for example, for punishment or for moral enlightenment)." Ludwig Ott, _Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma_ (1974 [1952]), pp. 45-46. Again, Ott's formulation is only the beginning of a fuller answer.
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