Category Archives: Theology

Justification, Salvation

Justification


-The Harrowing of Hell as depicted by Fra Angelico, 1441-1442, please click on the image for greater detail


-by Karlo Broussard

“One thing that divides Catholics and some Protestants is the understanding of justification, a theological term that’s generally used to signify a Christian being in a right relationship with God—meaning he is no longer subject to condemnation on account of sin.

The Council of Trent taught that “not only are we reputed [that is, considered “righteous” or “just” by God] but we are truly called and are just, receiving justice within us” (emphasis added). The late R.C. Sproul, however, denies the latter part of Trent’s teaching, stating, “It is not the change in our nature wrought by regeneration [Trent’s ‘justice within us’] or even the faith that flows from it that is the ground of our justification [being declared justified]. That remains solely the imputed righteousness of Christ.”

What Sproul is saying is that God considers Christ’s righteousness as our own (“the imputed righteousness of Christ”) and thereby declares us just, and that’s the only way we can consider ourselves just. Whatever interior change happens within us—a change from a state of ungodliness to a state of godliness—it plays no role in our justification. That interior change would be regeneration, which results in a state of sanctification, something that Protestants like Sproul see as essentially different from justification. No, we’re justified only on God’s say-so.

So how can we defend the Catholic Church’s teaching on justification as regeneration? In other words, how can we back up our insistence that the interior change that happens within us when we become Christians plays a role in us having a right relationship with God?

A full refutation of Sproul’s view would require us to do two things: 1) show that the Bible sees the interior change that is wrought by regeneration at least as grounds for our justification, even if not the only grounds, and 2) show that the grounds for our justification are not the imputed righteousness of Christ. This would suffice to refute Sproul’s claim. Further argumentation, however, would be needed to fully prove the Catholic position that the interior change wrought by regeneration (via sanctifying grace, given initially in baptism) is the sole ground for our justification, or what the Council of Trent called the “single formal cause.”

Due to the limited space that we have here, we’re going to focus only on the first of the two parts of our refutation of Sproul’s view. The passage to focus on is Romans 6:17-18:

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

The first thing to note is that the Greek word for “righteousness” is dikaiosunē, which is related to the verb (dikaioō) that Paul uses throughout his letter to the Romans when he talks about Abraham “being justified [Greek, dikaioō] by faith” (Rom. 5:1; see also 4:2), a faith that God reckoned as “righteousness” (Greek, dikaiosunē—4:5). So, for Paul, the state of being “slaves of righteousness” is a state of being justified, like Abraham.

Now, according to Romans 5:1, the justification that we Christians have in Christ is another way of describing the “peace” that we have with God—again, a peace similar to what Abraham had with God. Paul writes, “Since we are justified by faith [like Abraham], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What does it mean to have “peace with God”? It means to be in a right relationship with him. It means we’re no longer subject to condemnation from him.

So the state of being “slaves of righteousness”—the state of justification—is a state of being at peace with God, or having a right relationship with him.

The next thing to note about the above passage is that Paul describes two states, both of which are preceded by and contrasted with the same state of slavery to sin. First, he speaks of becoming “obedient from the heart,” as opposed to being “slaves of sin.” Second, he speaks of “slaves of righteousness” who were “set free from sin”—which is to say his addressees went from being slaves of sin to being slaves of righteousness.

Given this “common denominator” of slavery to sin, it’s reasonable to conclude that Paul is describing in two different ways the same state that is opposite of being a slave to sin. This being the case, Paul doesn’t see a hard divide between the state of “obedience from the heart” and the state of being “slaves of righteousness.” In fact, he conceives of them as one and the same.

Here’s where the Catholic understanding of righteousness (the interior change wrought by regeneration) comes into play. Consider that obedience to God (“obedience from the heart”) entails the mind and the will being rightly ordered to God’s will—being disposed to believe as true what he says and to do what he commands. That’s an interior state, a state that’s constitutive of our character.

It’s this interior state of the heart and mind, a state that God brings about within us by grace, that Paul identifies as the state of being “slaves of righteousness,” which, as we saw above, is a state of justification, like that of Abraham. Therefore, interior righteousness at least is a ground for our justification.

This interpretation of associating the interior state of “obedience from the heart” with the state of being “slaves of righteousness” is further supported by verse 7 of this same chapter. Paul writes, “For he who has died [the death of baptism] is freed from sin.” The Greek verb for “freed” is dikaioō. So, the text can be literally translated as, “he who has died [the death of baptism] is justified from sin.”

Here, Paul explicitly ties this freedom from slavery to sin, which, as we saw above, is the interior state of “obedience from the heart,” to the state of being justified. It follows, therefore, that in Paul’s mind the state of being justified is not divorced from the interior state of “obedience from the heart,” a state where our hearts and minds are rightly ordered to God, or what the Council of Trent called the “justice within us.”

We can agree to some extent with those Protestants who, like Sproul, say that God declares us just. As Trent states, “not only are we reputed [righteous, or just] but we are truly called and are just”—the implication being that we can affirm that God reputes or declares us just. It’s just that, according to Paul, such a declaration corresponds to an objective reality: our interior state of righteousness that God brings about within us—what Paul calls “obedience from the heart.”

Again, as mentioned above, it takes further argumentation to establish that the interior state of righteousness constituted by sanctifying grace is the sole ground of our justification, or the “single formal cause.” But at least we can say that Paul doesn’t draw a hard divide between our state of being justified (being at peace with God and thus having a right relationship with him, whereby we are no longer subject to condemnation) and our interior state of being rightly ordered to God in obedience. In fact, he conceives of them as the same. And if that’s how Paul conceives of justification, then so should we.”

Love & His peace,
Matthew

Eschatology, Hell

The Reality of Hell


-Medieval illustration of Hell in the Hortus deliciarum manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (about 1180), please click on the image for greater detail


-by Pat Flynn

“The Catholic Church has condemned what is sometimes called strong or hard universalism, the idea that we know that everybody is saved. Perhaps weak or soft universalism may be true, which is to say, perhaps everybody, at the end of the day, just so happens to be saved, though it could have been otherwise. So far as I’m aware, Catholics can maintain the soft or weak (or hopeful) universalist view. Whether there are good reasons to is a debate I will not enter now.

On the other hand, there is “infernalism,” a pejorative term for the traditional doctrine of hell. But how can hell be compatible with an all-good God? Let’s see.

Some universalists suggest that hell is impossible because of infinite opportunities for people to repent. In other words, in some sort of war of attrition, God will inevitably win us over. But this ignores a classic position—namely, the postmortem fixity of the will. The idea is that we eternally separate from God and thus eternally will the consequences and punishments thereof. Thus, properly understood, hell is not an infinite consequence for a finite sin, but rather an eternal consequence for an eternal act (orientation) of the will.

In simple terms, the account of postmortem fixity is this: to change our minds, we must either come across new information or consider the information we have from a new perspective. But a traditional understanding of the human person maintains that neither of these conditions attains upon death, when the intellect is separated from the body. In effect, we “angelize” upon death, and the orientation of our will at that point remains thereafter. Nothing “new” or “different” is going to come along to get us to consider things afresh. Although God could perform a “spiritual lobotomy” on everybody who makes the faulty judgment of willing against Gain, God—in His perfectly wise governance—orders things toward their end in accord with their nature. And our nature is one of a fallible liberty—we are free, and we are free to make mistakes, which we do.

God is not going to constantly override our faulty (though culpable) judgments, as that would amount to the constant performance of something on the order of a miracle, which would make nonsense of generating nature (particularly human nature) to begin with. And God isn’t the business of nonsense.

In my experience of introducing the concept of postmortem fixity to universalists, several of them have not only seemed unaware of this traditional teaching, but responded by calling it “strange.” The teaching, however, is not strange; rather, it follows straightforwardly from a traditional metaphysical understanding of the human person, as Edward Feser explains in this lecture. It appears to be a highly probable, if not inevitable, consequence, of good philosophical analysis of the human person.

Now, I said that our nature is one of a fallible liberty, and this too is an important point. Only God (who is subsistent goodness itself) is his own rule; God alone is naturally impeccable, always perfect. Nothing else—neither man nor angel—is like this, and so every being of created liberty must be capable of failing to consider and subsequently apply the moral rule in every instance of judgment, and therefore be capable of sin. In other words, God could no more have created an infallible free creature than he could a square circle.

To appreciate this fact is to appreciate why God, if wanting to bring about creatures like us, necessarily brings about the possibility of our sinning and turning from him. In this sense, love—which requires the uniting of free independent wills—is inherently risky, especially when only one will (God’s) is incapable of sinning.

Now, if we apply the notions above—fallible liberty and postmortem fixity—to God’s mode of governance, we can see why God not only permits our moral failures in this life, but would continue to permit our moral failure to love him in the next life. God is under no obligation to override our moral miscalculation, even if he could. Nor is God any less perfect for not doing so, since it is a matter of Catholic dogma that everyone receives sufficient grace—that is, everything he needs to love God and reject sin. Nobody fails to love God because of what God doesn’t give him; people fail to love God because they indulge in voluntary and therefore culpable ignorance (that is, fail to consider what they habitually know, and really could consider), deciding instead to love some inferior good. If that is the final choice they make, God respects it.

Again, it is not enough for the universalist to dismiss these notions as seeming archaic or strange or what have you. The claim of many universalists, after all, is that universalism is necessarily true, but these notions show that that is not the case. If we have strong independent reason to think universalism is not true—say, from Scripture and Tradition—then all we need are possibilities (not certainties) for why God allows hell and its compatibility with God’s goodness. My suggestion is that a proper understanding of finite fallible liberty, God’s being a perfectly wise governor, and the possibility of the postmortem fixity of the will provide the necessary conceptual resources we need to show the compatibility between an all-good God and the doctrine of hell.

Let me address two other arguments. I’ve heard it said by universalists that God could not be perfectly joyful if anybody were in hell, but God is perfectly joyful; ergo, there can be no one in hell. But if this argument proves anything, it proves too much. After all, if God cannot be perfectly joyful if somebody is in hell, then how can God be perfectly joyful in light of any sin or evil? The answer, obviously, is that he cannot be, and so the position makes God dependent upon creation. If that’s the case, God is no longer really God , who should be in no way dependent upon creation for his perfection. So that argument is not a good one.

Finally, justice and punishment. Part of what motivates universalists are faulty (or at least non-traditional) notions of both. Traditionally, punishment, even eternal punishment, has been seen as itself a good, itself an act of mercy and justice. Boethius stressed this point strongly: it is objectively better for a perpetrator to be punished than to get away with his crime.

As put in The Consolation of Philosophy, “The wicked, therefore, at the time when they are punished, have some good added to them, that is, the penalty itself, which by reason of its justice is good; and in the same way, when they go without punishment, they have something further in them, the very impunity of their evil, which you have admitted is evil because of its injustice . . . Therefore the wicked granted unjust impunity are much less happy than those punished with just retribution.”

If Boethius is right, then hell could—perhaps even should—be seen as God extending the most love, mercy, goodness he can to someone in a self-imposed exile. Ultimately, what would be contrary to justice (giving one what he is due) would be for somebody to eternally reject God and get away with it.

PS: For an extended rebuttal of strong-form universalism, see my recent conversation with Fr. James Rooney.”

Love & His mercy,
Matthew

Apologetics, Trinity

Save your soul: study the Trinity


-Most Holy & Undivided Trinity, detail from the altar of St Ignatius Loyola by Andrea Pozzo in the church of Il Gesù in Rome, please click on the image for greater detail


-by Br Bertrand Hebert, OP

“Augustine occupies a privileged place among the Western Church Fathers that Aquinas invokes. Despite their affinity, some have proposed a division between these great theologians. Augustine’s theology is often characterized as “affective” while Aquinas is labeled merely “rational.” This distinction is misleading in many ways, and it implies that Augustine’s theology lacks reason or that Aquinas’s theology is lifeless.

For both of these theological giants, affection and reason belong together. Theology is not just something nice to think about. It matters what you think, precisely because our salvation is mediated through the mysteries of the faith.

We can see this approach in both Augustine’s and Aquinas’s writings on the mystery of the Trinity. Bridging the “gap” between reason and affect, Trinitarian theology is both an intellectual and spiritual exercise. Augustine and Aquinas both modeled this, as Father Gilles Emery, O.P. explains in his essay “Trinitarian Theology as a Spiritual Exercise in Augustine and Aquinas.” Both Doctors show how understanding the complexity of man’s mind and heart reveals an intimate relationship between us who know and love and God who is the Knower and Lover. This theological investigation can be difficult; it “exercises” the soul in a real sense. But it also prepares the soul for communion with the Triune God whose very being is Truth and Love.

For Augustine, elucidating the mystery of the Trinity requires great mental effort, but it also demands devotion. Our efforts to understand God must be informed by love because “the more one loves God, the more one sees Him” (Emery, 7). Because we are seeking the most supreme truth in such an endeavor, our souls must be trained through a kind of “spiritual gymnastics.” This theological regimen strengthens us to rise to the heights to see God and is purified through prayer, penance, and a life of virtue. Moved by God’s grace, theological study prepares us to see God in a limited way in this life and propels us to behold Him in the beatific vision. 

In his theology, Aquinas follows Augustine’s approach and builds on it. He delves into the mystery of the Trinity through speculative study, in order to enable believers to grasp the truth of God more deeply. Growing in knowledge of the Trinity both aids our contemplation and provides us with the means to defend the faith against error. Aquinas understands that by studying God, we come to recognize that our own knowing and loving is a mirroring of God Who is Knowing and Loving. This realization gives spiritual consolation to those who dwell in the darkness of this passing world, yearning for the light of the life to come.

As Augustine and Aquinas both demonstrate, true theology requires rational precision, but also an affective inclination to God. As the theologian—indeed any believer—rises to grasp the lofty mysteries of the Trinity he becomes ever more conformed to the God he seeks, and he receives already a foretaste of that vision he hopes to enjoy in glory.

Studying the Trinity stretches our minds. Theology that is both loving and rational lifts the soul in sacred study and puts one in contact with God. The shared theological approach of Augustine and Aquinas—integrating both reason and affection—is a model for teachers and students today. By seeking God through both wisdom and love, our deepest desire for God can be satisfied. God has made us for Himself, and both our hearts and minds are restless until they rest in Him (cf. St Augustine).”

Love,
Matthew

Moral, Theology

Self-defense


-by Karlo Broussard

“It’s immoral to kill an innocent human being. That’s because we all have a “right to life”—a moral claim on one another not to be killed.

But some might say that this approach creates a conflict with our general intuitions about justified lethal self-defense. Does the right to life extend even to an aggressor whose behavior will kill me (and I have no other means to effectively preserve my life)? It would seem so.

Think about it: if every human being has a right to life, and the aggressor is a human being, then the aggressor has a right to life. To deliberately kill him in self-defense, therefore, even if there is no other means of saving my life, would seem to be just as much a violation of justice as would be the deliberate killing of an innocent human person. And if that’s true, then it would be immoral to deliberately kill the aggressor.

For most of us, that doesn’t seem right. It runs contrary to our common intuitions. But long held intuitions are being washed away with the tides of modern thought—so we need to ground our intuition in something more stable. So why is it morally permissible to kill in self-defense?

We can start with an idea that we’ve looked at elsewhere: equality with other human beings in behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of life, called the “equality of relations” (Summa Theologiae II-II:79:1), is naturally due to human beings. In other words, I owe it to you not to kill you—to be innocent in my behavior toward you. The same applies the other way around. St. Thomas Aquinas calls this the “equality of justice” (ibid).

Here’s where the rubber hits the road when it comes to self-defense. The obligation not to kill arises from an order of relationship that requires not only that we be innocent in will (what philosophers call “formal innocence”), but also that we be innocent in behavior (“material innocence”). When an aggressor attacks me with a behavior that by nature is going to kill me (even if the behavior is not voluntary, like in the case of a mentally crazed person), assuming that I didn’t attack him first, his behavior is no longer innocent. It has disrupted the equality in behavior that nature demands—in particular, the behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of life. This being the case, the behavior is outside the order of the “equality of relations” that nature requires for the “equality of justice” and therefore is defective or disordered. How can I owe him anything then? The “equality of justice” rises or falls with the “equality of relations.”

Consider, for example, a father who tells his son, “Go into the store and steal me a beer!” Must the son obey? Absolutely not! Why? Because the father’s command is outside the proper order that nature requires for a father’s command—an order where the command directs his son to do good and avoid evil for his perfection as a human being.

And so, just as the son doesn’t owe obedience to the father’s disordered command, I don’t owe behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of life as a response to the aggressor’s disordered act of aggression (an act of the kind that kills). In other words, it seems that I can defend myself by deliberately killing him without violating justice.

Not only does this seem so. It must be so. Why? To say otherwise would entail nature being defective with regard to necessary things. It would be self-defeating (Summa Contra Gentiles, 3.129).

Consider that if the aggressor’s right to life were so strong that I couldn’t kill him in the above scenario, nature would be practically safeguarding the aggressor’s behavior that thwarts the natural order for his life as a social animal. On this supposition, nature says that I can’t stop him. Remember: in this scenario there’s no other means for me to stop the behavior other than a lethal blow, and we’re assuming here that there’s no proper authority to turn to in the moment. And so there would be no one to stop the aggressor. That’s a self-defeating move: directing a human being to pursue his perfection as a social rational animal but also safeguarding him thwarting that perfection.

Also, the whole purpose of nature’s demand for another human being to refrain from killing me is to protect my life. If nature forbade me to kill the aggressor in the above scenario, then nature’s design would involve a space where there is no possibility for the protection of my life. That’s also self-defeating: setting out to protect my life while at the same time demanding that my life not be protected.

Someone might counter, “Well, there’s the possibility of proper authorities protecting your life.” But what if it’s those in authority who are trying to unjustly kill me? In this scenario, there would be literally no possible way to protect my life. My right to life would become a “duty to die.” And this would be due to nature’s design, which would be absurd.

Bottom line: it’s self-defeating for nature to give us a natural right we can’t protect. Philosopher Timothy Hsiao sums it up nicely: “If I possess the right to life, then I must also possess the corresponding right to secure or protect my life.”

Now, this doesn’t mean that I can kill an aggressor in any circumstance where his behavior violates the “equality of relations.” What I owe him (or don’t owe him) will depend on the degree of the inequality he creates with his attack.

For example, if the aggressor’s attack is such that it only limits my use of some good—e.g., he tries to steal my iPhone—I’m not thereby justified to kill him. The relation is unequal only with regard to the free use of personal goods—something that’s pretty far removed from the good of life. (Although it wouldn’t be just to kill him in order to get my iPhone back, it would be just to wrestle him to the ground [ST II-II:41:1].)

In other words, my defense must be proportionate to the inequality caused by the attack. As Aquinas puts it, “an act may be rendered unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end” (ST II-II:64:7).

We started with the question, “Does the right to life extend even to an aggressor whose behavior lacks innocence to the degree that it’s not naturally consistent with the exercise of life?” As we’ve seen, human nature says no! The right to life extends only as far as nature allows it.

Nature sets boundaries that circumscribe a moral space in which another human being can rightly demand, in justice, that I not kill him—it’s a space of innocence, a space where there exists an equality of behavior that’s naturally consistent with the exercise of life. But those same boundaries reveal nature’s design for what I don’t owe the other person—namely, a duty to die.

So nature has given us a moral recipe for killing. Deliberately killing an innocent human being is an injustice, and therefore immoral. Deliberately killing an aggressor whose behavior will kill me, when there are no other means to preserve my life, is not an injustice—and, therefore, it’s morally permissible, and in some cases obligatory. Self-defense, therefore—even lethal self-defense—certainly can be compatible with the right to life.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Sin

Preaching against sin


-by Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

“We used to laugh at a famous story about President Calvin Coolidge, a man of few words. After returning from Sunday services, his wife asks him about the preacher’s sermon. “Sin,” Silent Cal replies. His wife pleads, “What did he say about it?” “He was against it.”

Alas, modern culture no longer allows us to oppose sin, except for those politically correct transgressions such as being “judgmental” and emitting too much carbon into the atmosphere. But do priests and others have a choice to remain faithful to Jesus?

There is an interesting correlation between our culture—including Catholic parishes—and our recognition of sin. It was easier to talk about the wages of evil in a stable culture imbued with Christianity. As secularism crowds out the influence of Christianity on culture, some Church authorities—in response to the hypersensitivities of many Catholics—place too many restrictions on preaching sin and conversion from the pulpit. Whiplash changes in the culture often challenge the prudence of thoughtful Catholic preachers.

A century ago, Church authorities, including moralists and seminary professors, were reticent in speaking—even reading—about sexual sin. The four-volume Moral and Pastoral Theology manual by Professor Henry Davis, S.J. (first edition, May 1935) illustrates pastoral prudence in questions of human sexuality. In an otherwise easy read (in English) on the natural law and the Ten Commandments, Davis writes the chapter dealing with various types of sexual sin in Latin. The readers must be priests or mature seminarians trained in the mother tongue of the Church for their preparation as confessors. But a good confessor, though he always avoids impure speech, must understand—and occasionally carefully discuss—lascivious behavior.

As the sexual revolution of the 1960s transformed popular culture, orthodox Catholic moralists relaxed the prudential censorship and discussed the details of many sexual sins to confront pervasive errors. Pope John Paul II’s “theology of the body” formed the foundation of John Paul II institutes on marriage and the family in Washington, D.C., and Rome. The institutes taught and wrote freely, providing the clergy and laity alike a firm foundation on the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.

Dissident moralists went farther. Human Sexuality, published by Anthony Kosnik in 1977 under the auspices of the Catholic Theological Society of America, justified sexual debauchery ranging from contraception and masturbation to sodomy and even bestiality. Today, senior prelates and friends of the pope openly speak about the likelihood of segments of the hierarchy approving “gay unions” soon. Several German bishops, including high-ranking ones, have declared their support of overhauling Catholic moral teaching to approve unions based on sodomy.

At the same time, many orthodox priests feel pressure to dodge these topics. They often avoid the issues not only from the pulpit, but also in church bulletins. Indeed, the culture and senior Catholic churchmen place us at a disadvantage. Irish bishop Ray Browne’s recent public apology for the sermons of Fr. Seán Sheehy on mortal sin is baffling, incomprehensible. Cross-dressed and occasionally mutilated males (so-called “transgender females”) conduct drag-show displays for children. As senior Catholic prelates call for gay unions, old-fashioned pastoral decorum prevents orthodox priests from asking obvious questions in the same public forums. (Here is an example of a forbidden question, with apologies to Latinists: An commercium ani vel fellatio vetatur post unionem gay agnitam vel ante tantum? Our moral manuals need an update.)

It is important to remember that the protection of the innocent must be a prime objective of every priest. Such conversations from the pulpit do risk violating Catholic prudence, especially with children present. Fr. John Hardon, S.J., refers in his Catholic Dictionary to the “latency period”: “The term mainly applies to the years between five and twelve, when children do not unless abnormally and unwisely aroused, react to sexual stimulation. The Church advises parents to cultivate this period for teaching children the principles of faith and training them in the moral habits they will need as the foundation of their adult Christian life.” So care is certainly called for and recklessness to be avoided.

Jesus is prudent but doesn’t mince words: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28). St. Paul provides a similar perspective: “The men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error” (Rom. 1:27). He adds, “For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of” (Eph. 5:12). And he divorces Catholics from those who shamelessly promote willful debauchery: “But now I have written to you, not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one, not so much as to eat” (1 Cor. 5:11).

Hence, the venues of preaching against sin determine the propriety of the language of Catholic morality. One size doesn’t fit all. What a moral textbook, theological article, scholarly monograph, episcopal encyclical, or even a popular internet piece permits may not be suitable from the pulpit. But carefully using Scripture as a rhetorical template accomplishes much.

So it seems that warnings against contraception, fornication, adultery, mutilation, and the gay agenda are well within the prudential rhetoric of Jesus in the Gospel and Paul in his letters. We need not expand the vocabulary to include the intimate details of sexual behavior. Indeed, for the most part, penitents in confession need not go beyond confessing such acts. The priest does not need to know—nor should he inquire about—the details.

But it is a great disservice and a violation of the Gospel for a priest to neglect the condemnation of sin, especially mortal sins that lead to the fires of hell. It’s always best to measure our rhetoric by the words of Jesus and the New Testament letters. Calvin Coolidge’s example of direct simplicity helps, too.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Modesty, Theology of the Body

Christian M-word


-by Christine Flynn

“As I walked out the door to meet my boyfriend’s parents for the first time, my mom called after me, “That skirt’s a little short, isn’t it?”

I stopped. A discussion on the appropriateness of dress had never occurred so this sudden mention, when I was eighteen years old, was surprising and confusing. “What does it matter?” I said, honestly curious.

At the time, I received an unsatisfactory answer to that question—“because!” But the way we dress and how we comport ourselves certainly does matter. Modesty is a virtue worth cultivating, most especially in the teenage years, when habits really dig their roots in, for better or for worse. This is true of everyday life, as well as during special events, such as homecoming dances and formals, when the norms of regular dress and behavior are often, in reality or expectation, stretched or broken.

It’s homecoming season now, which means many practical lessons in what makes a modest dress. But, perhaps surprisingly, modesty is not all about the clothes we wear. Fr. John Hardon writes in the Modern Catholic Dictionary that modesty is “the virtue that moderates all the internal and external movements and appearance of a person according to his or her endowments, possessions, and station in life.” This includes how we dress but also much more—our general behavior, anytime, at any occasion.

We aren’t modest for the sake of modesty, or to hold up some stodgy religious standard. Modesty goes beyond those things and plants itself in the love we have for our God-given dignity and in the love we bear for the mystical body of Christ, our Christian brothers and sisters who are striving for holiness. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity” (2521).

Appropriate clothing and behavior fall under this definition, though the Catechism mentions dress only in passing. Why? Because what we present outwardly reflects our inward disposition and how we respect and care for “the intimate center of the person.” Do we care interiorly that God has gifted us with bodies that, per His law, form sexual relationships within—and only within—the bounds of marriage? Do we care interiorly that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and that we ought to help lead souls to heaven , and thus guard those of the opposite sex who may be tempted to inappropriate thoughts or behavior by the way we dress and act? Do we believe that virtue is a habit worth cultivating, not something to work toward only when it is convenient?

The earnest person of faith would answer these questions in the affirmative. So how is modesty practically applied?

It is unnecessary to believe that modest dress must be somber, unattractive, or dowdy. And though modesty in dress and decorum certainly is not required only of girls, attire for girls breaks the bounds of modesty more regularly than clothing for boys. Rev. George Kelly’s advice in his 1959 book The Catholic Family Handbook still applies, more than a half century later: “A young girl need not walk about with stringy hair, a plain, pale face, or in the clothing of a widow; she can make herself attractive, using appropriate cosmetic aids and colorful fabrics. Above all, if she has a smiling, friendly disposition, it will be reflected in her appearance, and will make her more attractive than any product from the beautician’s laboratory.”

We cannot overlook the need to strike a balance in our dress—not wearing immodest clothing for our own vanity, nor seeking recognition or applause for how modest we are. As Dr. Brian Besong writes on modesty in An Introduction to Ethics, “we should restrain ourselves according to the circumstances of our culture and environment, not flouting social norms in order to stand out, or ignoring the social setting (such as who we are around) in choosing what to wear.” So if the social setting is a homecoming dance, girls can tend to their appearance with the care that the formal occasion demands, but not to the point of vanity or pride.

A proper understanding of modesty also brings us to true Christian charity, meaning that in all areas of our lives, we follow the two greatest commandments as outlined by Jesus: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. When it comes to loving our neighbors, we are to will their good, the greatest good being heaven. How we dress and behave can certainly assist our Christian brethren in their pursuit of the beatific vision . . . or hinder them. True, it is our own responsibility to practice purity and to avoid “voyeurism and illusion,” to paraphrase paragraph 2525 of the Catechism. But in that same paragraph, the Church advises the media to exercise respect and restraint. We should apply that advice to ourselves—what we do, how we behave, and yes, even what we wear.

If a person is enthusiastic about respecting and protecting our brothers and sisters in Christ, and yet still desires to dress immodestly, it’s worth getting to the root of why. Pride or vanity is probably playing a role. The same can be said if a young person “must” wear this or that style of clothing because she can’t bear what others will think of her if she is dressed modestly—or if she wants to feel sexual or elicit those thoughts in others. Running through a kind of “self-audit” to understand our inclinations over certain subjects, including clothing, can reveal things that we might not pay much mind to otherwise.

Simply answering “because!” doesn’t cut it in matters of faith. We need to pay attention—though not to the point of scrupulosity—to our human motivations and desires. Only then can we ascend beyond those factors and attain lasting happiness, far beyond the reaches of what we do or do not wear.”

Love & Christian modesty, Deo gratias,
Matthew

Sin

Mortal sin

A sin is considered to be “mortal” when its quality is such that it leads to a separation of that person from God’s saving grace. Deprived of that grace by their own free will and the free will choice to not repent of it ultimately in sacramental confession, a person places themselves outside of God’s salvation, since God is all grace and cannot stand any imperfection of that grace in His presence. In literal fact, the person choosing to deny themselves God’s saving grace becomes unrecognizable to God and therefore cast into perdition outside of God’s grace.


-by Joseph Heschmeyer, a former lawyer and seminarian, he blogs at Shameless Popery.

“Everyone knows—or almost everyone does—that there are morally good actions and morally evil actions. But when is an action not only wrong, but sinful? And particularly mortally sinful? After all, as St. John says, “all wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal” just as “there is sin which is mortal” (1 John 5:16,17). A mortal sin is one that “destroys in us the charity without which eternal beatitude is impossible. Unrepented, it brings eternal death” (CCC 1874). That’s what makes it “mortal,” or deadly: it cuts us off from God forever, unless it is “redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness” (CCC 1861).

Thanks be to God, not every evil action is mortally sinful. So how do we know which is which? Just as there are three ingredients in evaluating a moral action (the object, intention, and circumstances), so there are three ingredients in a mortal sin: (1) “grave matter,” (2) “full knowledge,” and (3) “deliberate consent.” And the Catechism is clear that all “three conditions must together be met” (1857).

If all three are met, it’s mortally sinful. Otherwise, “one commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent” (CCC 1862). That’s still a problem, since venial sin “weakens charity” and “impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good,” and “deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin,” but venial sin does not (of itself) “deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness” (CCC 1863).

What does “grave matter” mean? It means that the sin is serious. But how do we evaluate the seriousness of a sin? The Catechism is explicit about the grave nature of particular sins, including sacrilege (2120), blasphemy (2148), perjury (2152), deliberately avoiding Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation (2181), murder (2268), hatred of neighbor “when one deliberately desires him grave harm” (2303), prostitution (2355), sexual relations outside marriage (2390), and adulation that “makes one an accomplice in another’s vices or grave sins” (2480). St. Paul likewise gives lists in Galatians 5:19-21 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 of sins whose practitioners will not “inherit the kingdom of God.” But none of these lists is exhaustive.

More broadly, the Catechism says that “grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments” (1858), pointing to Jesus’ words to the rich young man. When the man asks him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”, Jesus answers, “You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother’” (Mark 10:17,19). Jesus’ clear implication seems to be that those who do commit adultery, steal, etc. shall not inherit eternal life.

Even here, there are two important caveats. On the one hand, not every violation of the Ten Commandments is a mortal sin. For instance, the person who steals a dollar is not necessarily damned. On the other hand, not every mortal sin is a direct and obvious violation of the Ten Commandments. St. Thomas Aquinas considers this objection directly in considering the sin of gluttony: “Every mortal sin is contrary to a precept of the Decalogue: and this, apparently, does not apply to gluttony.” Aquinas argues that gluttony is an indirect violation of the Third Commandment (keeping the Sabbath holy) by turning us away from holiness. That’s a strange answer, but he explains: “Mortal sins are not all directly opposed to the precepts of the Decalogue [Ten Commandments], but only those which contain injustice: because the precepts of the Decalogue pertain specially to justice and its parts.” In other words, the Ten Commandments lay out “the first principles” of the moral law; they’re not an exhaustive list of every serious sin. The right question is this: is this the kind of behavior that places something else above God or turns me away from God? If so, it’s grave matter.

In considering whether or not a sin is mortal, circumstances matter. For instance, the Catechism points out that “one must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger” (1858). Likewise, stealing from the excess wealth of a millionaire is less evil than stealing the food of a starving man. Taking the example of lying, the Catechism explains how to determine the gravity of a sin: “The gravity of a lie is measured against the nature of the truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims. If a lie in itself only constitutes a venial sin, it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity” (2484).”

Love & His mercy,
Matthew

7th Day Adventist, Anti-Catholicism, Antinomianism, Apologetics, Assemblies of God, Baptist, becoming Catholic, Ecumenism, Episcopalian/Anglican, Evangelical, Grace, Heresy, Jehovah's Witness, LDS, Lutheranism, Non-denominational, Presbyterianism/Calvinism, Salvation Army, Sola Fide, Theology, Unitarianism, United Methodism

Works-Righteousness & Antinomianism


-by Fr. Samuel Keyes, raised Baptist in Mississippi, Fr. Samuel Keyes became an Anglican/Episcopalian after college. He served parishes in Massachusetts and Alabama, and then Saint James School in Maryland, before being received into the Catholic Church in 2019 and ordained in 2020–21.

Fr. Keyes is currently a professor of theology at JPCatholic and parochial administrator of St. Augustine of Canterbury, an ordinariate community in San Diego County. He is married to Gretchen with five kids.

“Whether or not you noticed the collect for today’s Mass, let me point it out:

May your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works.

It’s a clear, pithy prayer that in a single sentence summarizes God’s saving economy: grace goes before our actions, assists our actions, and follows our actions. One wonders if a serious meditation on this collect—which has been part of the Roman Rite for very many centuries—would have prevented some conflict in the Reformation era among those fretting over the supposed opposition of “grace” and “works.” Those of us raised in certain quarters perk up our ears at any mention of “works” as being good. Yet the collect places all such works well within the sphere of God’s gracious providence. In the Divine Worship missal for the Anglican Ordinariate, we pray at every Mass that we should do “in all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in.”

I point all this out, in part, because when I first glanced at the propers and readings for this Sunday, I was struck right away by the “good works” of the collect and the stories of grace and gratitude we hear in 2 Kings and Luke: the stories of Naaman (2 Kgs 5:14-17) and the ten lepers (Lk 17:11-19). It seemed interesting that the Church would simultaneously propose to us an implicit exhortation to good works and a reminder that in holy baptism—which is of course prefigured by Naaman’s ritual washing in the Jordan—we are washed clean and elevated to the life of grace by no merit of our own. But in the end, there is no real conflict between grace and good works, mainly because all good works are fundamentally graced: before, during, after. Part of God’s gift to us is the gift to do something with what we have been given and for this work to matter.

There are, at the same time, good and bad ways to respond to the gifts of grace. In both 2 Kings and Luke, the narrative gives special attention to the gratitude of the former lepers. The Samaritan leper in Luke, the one grateful man out of the ten, is a foreigner like Naaman the Syrian. So, a foreigner shows more gratitude than the people who claim this power as their birthright. Why is that?

There’s a very immediate connection we should make with the expansion of the covenant to the Gentiles through Christ. Naaman and the Samaritan are also both figures of Cornelius the centurion, who in Acts 10 receives—with awe and gratitude—the gifts of the Spirit in a way that is at first shocking and even confusing to the Jewish disciples. But we can also wonder if Jesus means to suggest here something of the default Jewish attitude towards divine grace. However final and permanent God’s promises were to the people of Israel, none of those promises translate grace into something owed. It seems almost as if the nine men in Luke think of their healing much in the way that so many modern Catholics think of the sacraments: obviously I deserve this; of course God is providing this for me; no need to make a big deal out of it.

Of course there is a real element of truth in that attitude: the sacraments are a given, in a certain sense. God has given them to us and he is not going to take them back. He is not going to send an angel from heaven and declare to the pope, “No more baptisms, we’re full up!” But their givenness, their enduring reality, does not mean that we should take them for granted any more than the people of Israel should have taken their ethnic heritage as a guarantee that they were full participants in God’s saving covenant.

That kind of entitlement really can become a “works righteousness,” wherein life becomes an accounting game I play with God. Let’s see: did first Friday devotions (check), said the rosary every day this week (check), asked for a number of Masses to be said (check) . . . so why hasn’t God given me what I want? Or, as someone asked me not that long ago, “Where did all those graces go?” And my response (internal, at least, because I’m not quite that mean) is: are we aiming for the beatific vision, or are we aiming to win some kind of cosmic video game?

There is the opposite approach, (maybe) less common among Catholics, but still a real danger, where we take for granted not the system of grace but the whole generic enterprise. This is antinomianism, the idea that what I do doesn’t matter in the least because God loves me, and He understands, and my heart is in the right place, etc.

I wonder if the principal remedy against these two opposing vices is the gratitude and thanksgiving that we see in the Samaritan and in Naaman. Because here’s the thing: on one level we might say that this healing is nothing extraordinary. It’s just what the Lord does; it’s in his nature, so to speak. But that is not the same thing as saying that I deserve it, or that I should act like it’s somehow par for the course.

It’s no coincidence that the central act of the Church for the last two millennia has been an act of thanksgiving, of Eucharist. We talk about this as the source and the summit, as the sacrament of sacraments, because it is the place where Christ Himself is present in His Church. But it is also where the Church does the thing that most characteristically makes her the Church: she gives thanks. She says, “Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.”

Our calling as Christians, however else we might imagine it, is first to be grateful, to give thanks. The Lord has put away our sins, he has called us to his service, he has given us the power to follow him in this world. Thanks be to God. Everything else follows that.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Theology of the Body, Yoga

Catholics & yoga?


-by Alexander Frank, a former US Army Ranger and a graduate of Yale Law Schoo, converted to the Catholic faith in 2019 from Kashmiri Shaivism, a sophisticated form of yoga and the origin of its modern form.

“Secular society adores yoga, and not a few Catholics are fond of it, too. Revenue for the yoga industry runs in the billions of dollars, according to Statista.com, and the number of participants is estimated to be in the tens of millions.

I myself dived into yoga, drawn to the idea of personal enhancement without ethical constraints. After years of studying yoga and its associated systems—mindfulness, Buddhism, magical shamanism—I had completed a teacher training retreat, spent three months in a Zen monastery, and studied under one of the best yoga spiritual directors in the United States. Over the course of my studies, and as my spiritual searching eventually led me to the Catholic Church, I learned that there is much more to yoga than Western pop culture implies.

In analyzing whether it is prudent for Catholics to practice yoga, the place to start is in determining what yoga is. The term yoga means “to yoke” in Sanskrit. This “yoking” connotes a spiritual unity, rooted in a kind of servitude. Now, Christ calls us to bear his yoke (Matt. 11:30), but what kind of yoke does yoga put on practitioners? Or in other words, what kind of servitude does yoga bind its practitioners to?

We can start by looking at the poses. Take some examples:

  • The three-part Warrior pose invokes the god Virabhadra, who was created by another god, Shiva, to murder Shiva’s father-in-law. The three poses imitate the sequence of the murder.
  • Matseyadrasana and Gorakshasana are named after Hindu gurus who founded the style that led to modern yoga. According to the foundation legend, they used their occult powers to commit theft, adultery, fraud, rape by deceit, corpse desecration, the murder of Matsyendra’s son, and cross-dressing.*
  • According to the founder of Rasa yoga, Sianna Sherman, Goddess pose “invokes” the dark goddess Kali, known for making clothes out of the body parts of slain enemies. Yoga devotees sacrifice children to her in India to this day.

What about the purpose of yoga? It goes beyond postures that honor problematic Hindu gods and gurus. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs says, “Yoga is essentially a spiritual discipline based on an extremely subtle science which focuses on bringing harmony between mind and body. . . . The practice of yoga leads to the union of individual consciousness with that of the Universal Consciousness.” So yoga is at its essence a spiritual discipline. That spiritual work is rooted in a belief that consciousness, or more simply awareness, is the vehicle to the divine. The ultimate goal is a dissolution of our individual identity and a realization of our “true Self,” to fuse our consciousness with a sort of hive mind.

Many other sources say similar things. Judith Lasater, perhaps the most prominent American yoga teacher, describes “the true essence of the practice” as enlightenment, to “experience reality not as our various parts, but as one unified being.” Anusha Wijeyakumar, another prominent yoga teacher and writer, says that “the ultimate goal of yoga . . . is samadhi—final union with god and divine consciousness. . . . Yoga is much more than asana [physical postures].”

One mantra, a Hindu prayer that accompanies the physical postures, is “I am what I say I am.” Considering how God identifies himself in Exodus 3:14, this looks very much like an attempt to make human beings into God. It is a radical philosophical claim that gives rise to a specific type of spirituality.

By contrast, St. John of the Cross describes how the soul in love with God will reflect God’s light to such an extent that it appears to be God, but it remains ontologically separate. Cardinal Ratzinger, examining forms of Christian meditation, wrote in 1989 that “all the aspirations which the prayer of other religions expresses are fulfilled in the reality of Christianity beyond all measure, without the personal self or the nature of a creature being dissolved or disappearing into the sea of the Absolute.” Union with the divine is a noble aspiration, but the Eastern paths diverge significantly from the Christian one.

Now, the most common argument in favor of yoga is to throw out the deeper “spiritual” side and zero in on the physical action of stretching. Catholic advocates for yoga insist that just doing “postures”—that honor morally questionable Hindu gods and have always been a Hindu spiritual practice—is good as long as we intend only to get exercise. But does this argument hold water?

To find out, let’s ask whether it is true that an act—say, striking a yoga pose—has no meaning beyond the intentions of the person committing that act. St. Thomas Aquinas argues that in fact, actions do have an objective meaning: “The goodness or malice which the external action has of itself . . . is not derived from the will, but rather from the reason” (ST I-II, q. 20, a. 1). Actions have their own nature: the quality of the external act is derived from rational inquiry rather than from the intent of the actor. Similarly, the Catechism teaches that, for an act to be good, it has to have a good moral object, which is intrinsic to its nature and independent of intent. “A good intention . . . does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered good or just” (1753).

Is the “behavior” of yogic stretching “intrinsically disordered”? What is the “moral object” of these poses? Yogis themselves point to it, even if they are not very forthright. The postures aim to awaken kundalini, energies of the soul, associated with the Hindu gods. That energy starts dormant at the base of the spine, depicted as a “sleeping serpent goddess.” Yoga practice sends the snake up the spine to take possession of the soul so that the practitioner can realize his “authentic Self,” yoking himself to those gods. Bikram Choudhury, the founder of one of the most common types of yoga, says what happens with his posture sequence is that “you awaken kundalini. You become Jesus Christ. Or Buddha. My yoga formula works for everybody.”

One of the main gurus to bring yoga to the west, BKS Iyengar, writes that a true yoga asana “is that in which the thought of [the Hindu supreme god] flows effortlessly and incessantly through the mind of the [practitioner].” Judith Lasater says that “the intrinsic nature of yoga is that you cannot separate the asanas from other aspects of practice.” Alexandria Crow, a prominent yoga “expert,” says, “The poses are really a vehicle to teach [yoga’s] philosophy.” According to a staff writer for Yoga Journal, the most prominent yoga source in the U.S. in terms of internet traffic, the reason for this is an innovation by the father of modern yoga, Krishnamacharya, who “made the postures an integral part of meditation instead of just a step leading toward it.”

Significantly, subjective intent has a way of conforming itself to the moral object through repeated practice. Two scientific surveys show that, although most people start yoga for the health benefits, many stick with it to attain this spiritual actualization. Fr. Joseph-Marie Verlinde, who went deep into yoga before converting, told his then-guru that Westerners mostly practice yoga for relaxation. The guru “laughed furiously” and then said, “That does not prevent yoga from having its effect.”

In short, it should be uncontroversial to say that the system that gave rise to yoga, including the poses, honors Hindu gods and aims to spiritually yoke the practitioner to them. Meanwhile, Scripture tells us that “all the gods of the Gentiles are idols” (Ps. 96:5—older translations read “devils” instead of “idols”), and the Church takes a strong stance against idolatry (Exod. 20:1-4; CCC 2110). It is unlikely that many Catholics would rush to a gym to perform the “Ba’al lunge,” yet the “idols” or “devils” of Hindu spiritual practice get a shrug of the shoulders.

But are we really opening a door to demons just by setting our bodies in certain poses, like in the satirical Babylon Bee article where the plumber accidentally gets possessed? Well, Norman Sjoman was a scholar who practiced under and studied the father of modern yoga, Krishnamacharya. He concluded that “what makes something yoga is not what is done, but how it is done.” And many poses in yoga come from Western gymnastics and are similar to postures in normal fitness. Similarly, eating a circular piece of bread outside Christian practice does nothing spiritually, but receiving the Eucharist in a Catholic Mass invokes works of grace (or divine condemnation) beyond the intent of the practitioner. So doing these poses in the context of yoga, as part of the practice of yoga, regardless of subjective intent, turns them into a way to further yoga’s spirituality. They become a sacrament, in the loose sense of the term—a visible sign of deeper spiritual work.

So yes, strictly speaking, the poses done in isolation are almost certainly fine. But my personal experience in the yoga world does not recommend participating in it, nor does the immense spiritual baggage associated with it. It is almost impossible to avoid participating in the spiritual parts of yoga, which are problematic if we are to stay away from honoring murderous gods and opening ourselves up to yoga’s spiritual beliefs.

There are many ways to get physically fit that do not carry that baggage, most notably Pietra fitness, that give the same fitness benefits while drawing practitioners into a relationship of love rooted in truth with God. Why choose yoga instead, when the risk is so high and the benefit so comparatively low?

* For the gruesome details, see Christopher Wallis, Tantra Illuminated: The Philosophy, History, and Practice of a Timeless Tradition (Audible Audiobook Edition, 2016), ch. 100, 12:47:08; James Mallinson, The Khecarividya of Adinatha: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of an Early Text of Hathayoga, (New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 186, note 129; and David White, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 236-237. (“Goraksha kills and skins the boy, scrubs his skin like a washerman to remove all its bodily impurities and hangs his skin on the roof to dry, like the hide of some skinned beast.”)”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Theology

Divine Justice – “Dismissing divine wrath as poetic sentimentalizes divine mercy.”


-by Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

“Many years ago, a famous pop star said she left the Catholic faith at age 15 because she couldn’t imagine anybody condemned for an impure thought. Misunderstanding the basics of sin, conversion, and forgiveness, the woman was content mocking God and took pride in gravely sinful behavior. Her life became an open book of debauchery.

Many Catholics—laity, clergy, perhaps the majority of German bishops promoting a change in Church teaching on human sexuality—agree with the pop star. But God’s mercy complements His justice. More than that, each is inseparable from the other. “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other” (Ps. 85:10). Dismissing divine wrath as “poetic” sentimentalizes divine mercy.

We generally accept punishment on terms we understand. Parents discipline their children to correct misbehavior. Society arrests and imprisons criminals. War is a self-inflicted punishment for the solidarity of sin. Violations of natural law upset God’s natural order, and we suffer. “God forgives; men sometimes forgive; but nature never forgives.” This truism reasonably frames much of human suffering and the reasonableness of punishment.

Alternatively, we are often too lenient in administering justice. Many consider righteous punishment a reactionary embarrassment. Modern comforts anesthetize and distort the necessity of punishment, which gives way to sensitivity training, procedures, and workshops “to ensure this-or-that never happens again.” Therapy has its place, but it cannot substitute for the deterrent value of discipline administered justly.

The ancient Romans were methodical in their punishment. They commonly marched on offending vassals, killed the disobedient and rambunctious rulers, handed the keys to the next in line, and warned them not to make the same intransigent mistakes. The promise of a violent return visit multiplied the force of the military intervention, enhancing Roman power (see Force, Power, Strategy: Skillsets for a Second American Century by Richard Vigilante). This is not to say that every form of punishment devised by man is the correct one. But our inclination to punish—and to punish for the purpose of maintaining the natural human order—does not come from an evil place.

God’s wrath is also a force multiplier. It deters evil, restores justice, and enhances His power and majesty. “See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of My hand” (Deut. 32:39). God gives life, and he destroys it. His punishment is terrible but purposeful. He destroyed the world (sparing Noah and his family) because of human wickedness. He extinguished entire armies that threatened the faith of His Chosen People. His agent—Elijah the prophet—slashed the throats of 450 apostate prophets.

Notwithstanding the language of the pandemic, suffering and death are not the ultimate horrors. The brutality of God’s violence, as a warning and a metaphor for eternal punishment, foreshadows the even greater horror of the wages of sin and disobedience to His will. Jesus warns, “I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire” (Matt. 5:22). His words are chilling: “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus depicts a prosperous man oblivious to Lazarus and his plight. The rich man dies and languishes in hell. In response to his cry for help, Abraham says, “Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us” (Luke 16:25-26). Just as there is the Mystical Body of Christ destined for heaven, there is an alternative immoral universe: hell, “the mystical body of evil.”

But Scripture does not reveal the eternal destiny of those killed by God—neither of those who deserved His wrath nor of the innocents swept up in temporal violence. The wrath of God in the Old Testament prepares the way for the mercy of Jesus the Redeemer, Who forgives the repentant and saves us from the eternal fires of hell. Jesus fulfills the prophecies of Isaiah: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them” (Luke 7:22). But this is merely the beginning of His mercy.

Aside from cleansing the Temple of the moneychangers, Jesus rarely punishes in the Gospels. “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17). Jesus rebukes James and John, the “sons of thunder,” for their eagerness to call down fire from the heavens to destroy their Samaritan enemies (see Luke 9:54-56). Jesus is Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant,” enduring the ignominy of the cross and overcoming sin, suffering, and death in His glorious resurrection. He redeems mankind, saves us from our sins, opens the doors to heaven, and bequeaths the sacraments to sustain us in His grace.

Divine wrath and violence express God’s perfect justice, but as long as we live on this earth, the fullness of the truth thereof will remain beyond our grasp, cloaked in mystery. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord” (Isa. 55:8). We have no choice but to accept the limits of human reason and heed St. Paul: “God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

The last book of the Bible, the Apocalypse, prophesies the final chapter of God’s temporal divine wrath. Only divine mercy can explain God’s wrath. The inseparable mercy of Jesus provides the proper perspective for divine justice.

For our salvation, we dare not deny divine justice as too harsh—or, in so doing, downplay the urgent necessity of humbly seeking divine mercy.”

Love, and His mercy; Lord, be merciful to me, for I am a sinful man,
Matthew