On the murder of George Tiller

I have seen a number of Catholics question whether the killing of the child-murderer George Tiller was actually an act of murder. In more than one place I have seen an analogy drawn between the act of the killer and the assassination of Hitler planned and attempted by Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. The thinking seems to be that, since both Hitler and Tiller were mass murderers, if killing one can be justified, so can killing the other. The analogy not only fails, but it does dishonor to the memory of Colonel Stauffenberg by associating him with a murderer. I will take the time to spell out why and in what ways the analogy fails for the sake of honoring a true German patriot and hopefully shedding some light on some bad moral philosophy and theology.

First, the analogy fails because Stauffenberg did not attempt to assassinate Hitler simply qua mass murderer, but qua tyrant. And even this can be argued as potentially suspect, since tradition has generally held that a tyrant by usurpation can be justly killed but a tyrant by oppression must be deposed by legal, not extra-legal, means. Indeed, the Syllabus of Pius IX condemned the proposition that, "It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to rebel" (prop. 63). See the article from the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia for more information.

Now, it can be argued that a tyrant by oppression can become a tyrant by usurpation when they extend their power in a manner that is contrary to the law and constitution of their nation. As far as I can see, such an argument appears sound. Thus Hitler would have been a tyrant by usurpation after illegally taking the presidential power for himself following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, if for no other reason - and I'm sure that at least a few more, if not many, could be found. But even given this, the analogy fails.

The second reason the analogy fails as follows: even if one is acting against a tyrant, one is only justified in acting if doing so will do less harm to the tyrant's subjects than the tyrant's continued rule (Summa Theologia (hereafter ST), II-II, q. 42 ad 3). Even if Tiller where somehow analogous with a tyrant qua tyrant, this does not hold. The potential lives saved - and they are only potential, since we neither have evidence that anyone who was signed up for an abortion with him would have gone through with it, nor that he would not have eventually been stopped by legal means due to performing abortions after it was legal to do so, nor that the grace of God would not have moved him to repentance, nor that some other doctor will not now willingly step in and take his place due to the fact that the pro-abortion crowd can now treat him as their own twisted version of a martyr - these potential lives saved do not seem to outweigh the potential lives lost due to the marginalization of the pro-life message that will be attempted following the act, a marginalization that will further set back the legal battle against abortion.

But even if the lives saved do potentially outweigh the lives lost, the analogy still fails for a third reason. Tiller was not a tyrant. He did not have any special authority over the abortion laws of his state or of the union. Indeed, he willingly violated those laws that did exist. He was an evil man, but no private individual has the right to take the life of an evil man of his own volition. This authority rests with those people who have responsibility for maintaining the common welfare of society, and here only through those means as set out by the law (ST II-II, q. 62, a. 3c).

Finally, some have offered a hypothetical situation: suppose we find out that the man who killed Tiller was acting in the defense of a child or grandchild who was scheduled to be aborted by Tiller later that week? Even if this hypothetical is true, the act would still be murder for at least two reasons.

First, because self-defense must be proportionate to the threat (ST II-II, q. 62, a. 7c). Since the hypothetical child we are speaking of was not immediately under Tiller's knife, the violence used was not proportional to the immediate threat to the hypothetical child's life. Tiller's attacker could have first attempted to convince the mother of the hypothetical child not to go through with the abortion. Failing that, he could have restrained her until she gave birth. Such an act would have been illegal, but the attacker apparently had no qualms in breaking the law, and such an act would have been proportional to the threat at the time.

Second, even if the physical force used would have been proportional to the threat, a private individual still cannot intend to kill an attacker, only to repulse the attack with the force necessary for doing so (ibidem). To intend otherwise would be to violate the aforementioned rule forbidding private individuals from taking the life of an evildoer of their own volition.

There is no analogy between Tiller's killer and Colonel Stauffenberg. The tradition of Catholic moral philosophy and theology clearly appear to condemn the killing of Tiller as an evil act of murder. We may not do evil that good may come of it. And of those who say we can, I offer only the words of St. Paul: damnatio iusta est, "their damnation is just" (Romans iii.viii).

As for the fall-out of this act, my opinions have already been written. They once again boil down to this: "Unfurl the black banner. Quarter neither asked for nor given. No Surrender, no retreat."

I know that, given the ludicrous, hysterical and void of documentation Homeland Security Report we found out about not two months ago, I may be suspect as a "domestic terrorist" simply because I called a spade a space and said that Tiller was a murderer and evil, even though I did it while condemning his own murder. But I already had a Ron Paul bumper sticker on my car, so I was suspect long before writing this. I plan to become even more suspect by eventually adding a Gadsden flag bumper sticker, a Bonnie Blue flag bumper sticker, a 1st National flag bumper sticker, and maybe even a Jolly Roger bumper sticker. So color me not all that frightened.

Indeed, given that same report, and the fact that the last such murder or attempted murder was over ten years ago, I am not yet certain that this whole thing is not simply a false flag. But I take heart in the fact that today is the memorial of St. Justin Martyr. To quote the saint: "For as for us, we reckon that no evil can be done us, unless we be convicted as evil-doers or be proved to be wicked men; and you, you can kill, but not hurt us" (First Apology, Chapter 2). "You can kill, but not hurt us." Words to remember when things seem darkest.

The true nature of our conflict

I would encourage anyone who wants to better understand the true nature of our conflict to read this lecture by Fr. Thomas Crean O.P. It discusses the meaning behind the idea of the two cities, the City of God and the city of man, using the thought of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Popes.

I Love Our Pope

Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Concerning the Remission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops Consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre

A highlight:

The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life (Emphasis added).

And another:

The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects (Emphasis added).

And finally:

At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint (Emphasis added).

Martin Mosebach on the Pope and the SSPX

Martin Mosebach, author of The Heresy of Formlessness, has an article on the Pope's lifting of the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops in the German magazine Der Spiegel. An English translation of the article has been posted on the blog of the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny and can be found here.

Hat tip: Fr. Zuhlsdorf, who offers his own comments of the article here.

On religious liberty

If one actually wants to understand the "plain meaning" behind the Church's teaching on religious liberty, one might want to look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2104-9) and follow up on its footnotes. One would then be pointed towards Leo XIII's Immortale Dei and Libertas praestantissimum; various writings of Pius XII in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis; Pius XI's Quas primas; Pius IX's Quanta cura; and Pius VI's Quod aliquantum. One might find one's self surprised at how many restrictions on false religion can fall under "due limits" when prudence properly takes into account the objective moral order.

Catholicism is true and other religions are false. The truth is owed duties that falsehoods are not. I know such an idea is radically contrary to modern pieties, but it is true none the less.

Abortion and government

There are those who feel that it is acceptable to vote for a pro-abortion politician if their other positions appear to benefit the common good and help reduce the number of abortions. The problem with this position is that reducing the number of abortions, as important as this is, is not enough. If abortion could be completely eliminated in fact but was still legal, then the task is not finished. This is because the legality of abortion is itself an attack on the very foundations of the rule of law and the common good.

As Blessed Pope John XXIII taught in Mater et Magistra, "individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution" (219). The legality of abortion is a direct assault on the foundation and purpose of the political community itself. The rule of law and the common good are meaningless concepts if innocent human beings are allowed to be legally murdered.

This teaching is reaffirmed and made even more explicit in Servant of God Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae: "Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good" (72). One cannot truly work towards the common good by ignoring the legality of abortion. The legality of abortion necessarily undermines the common good.

A candidate who runs on a pro-abortion platform essentially states that he will not work towards the purpose of government, i.e. the common good. He renders his administration incapable of benefiting the common good in any way except accidentally. This is because the very nature his administration's position attacks the common good by enabling the legal attack on the lives of the unborn.

Any attempt to put forward a pro-abortion politician as an acceptable candidate fails. A candidate who promises to attack the very foundation and purpose of government, the good of life on which all the rest of the common good depends, can never be acceptable.

More "wymynpriest" nonsense

Read this article from the Associated Press.

"It has also raised fears that women might abandon the Roman Catholic Church for other branches of Christianity that allow female priesthood."

The only other “branches of Christianity” that have real priests are the various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. None of those ordain women to the priesthood either.

I’m assuming the article is referring to various Protestant denominations that "ordain" their ministers, some of which are even called "priests." If that is what is being referred to, then it seems these women care more about that special feeling one gets from a public ceremony and being allowed to wear special clothes than they do about the ontological reality of ordination. Which justs goes to show that it would be wrong to ordain them even if women could be ordained.

Faith is not and cannot be private

Who has not heard a Catholic politician say something along these lines: "I am a Catholic, but I cannot let my faith unduly influence my actions as a public official because my faith is a private matter."

This is a pernicious falsehood. It is the duty of all Catholics to publicly live their faith and it is especially the duty of the laity to live their faith in the public sphere.

This is first and foremost made clear in Sacred Scripture. Our Lord makes this explicit to His followers: "You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5: 14-6; Cf. Mark 4: 21; Luke 11: 33-6). Similarly, St. James tell us in his epistle that "faith without works is dead" (James 2: 20, 26).

One can find this clear teaching reiterated by the Church. I do not know what the so-called "spirit" of Vatican II says about it, but the texts of Vatican II explicitly state that it is the vocation of the laity to carry their faith into the world through their actions:

Each individual layman must stand before the world as a witness to the resurrection and life of the Lord Jesus and a symbol of the living God. All the laity as a community and each one according to his ability must nourish the world with spiritual fruits. They must diffuse in the world that spirit which animates the poor, the meek, the peace makers-whom the Lord in the Gospel proclaimed as blessed. In a word, "Christians must be to the world what the soul is to the body" (Lumen gentium, 38).

Thus it seems clear that no Catholic can be faithful to the teachings of the Church while holding that his faith is merely a private matter. The Church explicitly teaches otherwise. Faith cannot be something we simply hold privately. Rather, it should be the source of our actions, giving birth to hope and charity, and motivating us to conform all the things and actions in our lives, whether they be public or private, to Christ.

The one, true love story

The one, true love story is the story of the love that exists between God and the soul. All other love stories are reflections or distortions of this one.

A bit on the last things

The source of the chill might have been an understanding that our only choice is pyre or pyre, that we live and breath to be consumed by fire or fire, not just now and at St. Bartholomew's, but always and anywhere. Consumed or purified by fire. ~Dean Koontz, Brother Odd, c.5

I've been thinking about the four last things a bit lately. I remembered the preceding quote from Dean Koontz's Brother Odd, and since I had written it down in my notebook market "Quodlibet," which is currently sitting on my desk, I thought I'd use it as a place to begin.

I think, when you get right down to it, that our only real choice is how to burn. Will we burn like great saints, full of the fire of the Holy Spirit, the tongues of flame that fell on the Apostles and Our Lady at Pentecost? Will we burn with the fire of the Fathers, the Doctors, the Martyrs and all the other great saints whose learning, mysticism and, most importantly, love of God and faithfulness to Christ Jesus the Church holds up to us as examples to follow?

Will we burn in the purifying fires? Will we burn with a mixture of pain and joy? Pain from our purification, but joy from the knowledge that every moment of this pain brings us that much closer to seeing God face to face.

Or we will burn forever, in the fire set aside for the devil and his angels, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched?

In the end, this is what all our choices in this life boil down to: how will we burn? Will it be with the fire of eternal life, the fire of sanctity and purification, the fire of the Holy Spirit and the burning bush, the fire of divine love, the Flame Imperishable? Or will we burn with the fire of eternal death, the death of joy, the death of hope, the death of love, the fire that consumes every illusion we thought was good and leaves us only with pain and the knowledge that we have freely chosen it?

How will we burn? For burn we surely shall.

A foolish "philosopher" in need of reproof*

Hail, O Reproof of foolish philosophers! ~Akathist Hymn to the Virgin Mary

Sedes sapientiae, ora pro me!

(With a tip o' the ol' beanie to The Sci Fi Catholic. His post on the issue first brought it to my attention.)

So apparently there is a Christian girl named Gina DeLuca. She attends school at Suffolk County Community College. She is taking an Introduction to Philosophy course. Apparently her "philosophy" professor has used the course as an opportunity to belittle her and her Christian faith and has, it seems, given her poor grades because of her faith. Needless to say, she contacted the American Center for Law and Justice to defend her freedom of religion and to seek a just grade.**

Now, I do not have enough information to competently judge Gina's performance in the course. Maybe the professor is a fool and at the same time Gina actually deserved to be graded poorly rather than the professor's foolishness causing him to act unjustly in giving her a poor grade. That is between Gina, the professor and the school; and now--for better or for worse--the legal system.

The ACLJ's letter to county attorney Christine Malafi can be found here. (WARNING! PDF!) The letter contains some choice quotes from the professor. These I do have the knowledge to competently judge. And so, in the interest of the truth of things and defending the faith, I shall.

To Gina's comment that she "can KNOW the material, without having to BELIEVE it," the professor responds as follows:

[I]t is clear that knowledge is linked to belief and that KNOWLEDGE is a justified true belief. If you do not believe that X is true then you can not claim to know that X is true. What you do is to deceive yourself and others by claiming that "I can KNOW the material, without having to BELIEVE it." What you do is MEMORIZE and REPEAT without understanding. You have no understanding of what it means to know something.***

This is obviously false.

In offering my critique of what the professor says, I will accept the definition of knowledge that he offers, viz. justified, true belief. But even with this definition of knowledge being accepted, the professor is still wrong. He is either guilty of the fallacy of equivocation or of holding to absurdity. The professor is either not addressing the same knowledge that Gina is or he is violating the principle of non-contradiction.

Gina is saying that she can know what a philosopher or school of philosophy taught without having to believe that said philosopher's or school of philosophy's principles, conclusions &c. are true. It is perfectly possible for Gina to believe that some philosopher or school of philosophy taught X, to justify her belief by the reading of primary and secondary sources and for her belief to be true. Thus she would have justified, true belief.

The professor is arguing that Gina cannot know some position of a philosopher or of a school of philosophy is true without believing it. This is equivocation, since it was not at all what she was talking about. Moreover, if the professor actually was talking about knowing what a philosopher or school of philosophy taught rather than knowing that what they taught was true, then his position is absurd. For example, one could not know both what Hegel taught and what Kierkegaard taught, since--according to what the professor has said--knowing what Kierkegaard taught would require holding his positions as true, while knowing what Hegel taught would require holding his positions as true. But this is an impossible absurdity, because Kierkegaard's teachings include teaching that Hegel was wrong! One cannot hold both that Kierkegaard's teachings are true and that Hegel's teachings are true, since Kierkegaard's teachings are that Hegel's teachings are false. One cannot hold both A and not-A at the same time and in the same respect, and that is exactly what the professor is arguing for if he is not equivocating!

The next quote from the professor states the following: "There are problems with any single being having all the properties traditionally assigned to the deity of the Western religions." He then goes on to give some examples of what he believes these "problems" are. There is nothing to indicate that he has any idea that these problems have been answered, nor to indicate that if he knew of these answers he engaged them in some way to show why he believes them to be false. Perhaps he has done so and this was simply not quoted in the letter. Since, however, the letter is all most of us will see of his thoughts on the subject, I will now attempt to answer them point by point.

Objection 1: "If the deity is ALL POWERFUL would it not have the power to create beings that would know what GOOD was without knowing or committing EVIL? If this is not possible then how is the being ALL POWERFUL?"

Reply to Objection 1: According to the Catholic tradition, God did exactly that. Our first parents, in their state of original justice, knew good and not evil. This is because they were human, and thus they had the power to possess intellectual knowledge. Now, that which is primarily known is being. And in knowing being, they also would come to know it as desirable, i.e. as good.

Now, evil is nothing except privation, the lacking of some good in a being that should have that which it lacks. Thus, evil is not being per se, but only per accidens, since it can only exist through something that has being.

Now, the professor is here speaking of moral evil. A moral evil is a human action that lacks the fullness of being proper to it. Ever action can be said to have being insofar as it exists, even though it exists per accidens. To deny that actions have being would be the equivalent of saying that no action ever existed. But if no action ever existed, then no effect of an action could ever exist. This is absurd, so we must admit that actions are beings. In their state of original justice our first parents had not yet committed any actions that lacked the fullness of being proper to human actions. Since evil only exists per accidens, it can only be known through that which exists per se, since that which exists per accidens only exists through that which exists per se. But until our first parents committed an action that lacked the fullness of being proper to human actions, no moral evil existed, since moral evil can only exist through some moral agency, viz. the moral agency of our first parents. Thus, until our first parents committed the original sin and lost for themselves and their posterity original justice, they knew the good, including moral good, without knowing moral evil.

Now, the professor seems to mean not only the actual knowledge or moral evil, but even the potential knowledge of moral evil, since he speaks also of committing evil. Why, if God is all powerful, did He not create beings who did not have the potential to commit moral evil?

To this we must reply as follows: to say that God is omnipotent is not to say that the divine power is capable of bringing into existence all that can be thought. It is to say that the divine power is capable bringing into existence all that is possible to be brought into existence. Now, those things which violate the principle of non-contradiction cannot be brought into existence, because that would require they both exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect, which is absolutely not possible.

To create a moral agent that is incapable of moral evil would violate the principle of non-contradiction. To wit: A being either possesses its end, the fullness of its existence, its perfection either per se or per accidens. God is ipsum esse subsistens, the fullness of existence itself. Thus only He possesses the fullness of existence per se. All other beings must possess their end and perfection per accidens. This is because any being that is not its own act of existence is a being that receives existence limited by some potency. Now, that which has some potency is capable of possessing accidents. Thus, the perfection of a being that is not its own act of existence is through superadded accidents which actualize its potentialities in proper proportion to its nature. For example, man is perfected by acquiring those habits called virtues.

But insofar as a being is capable of possessing accidents of certain modes, it is not only capable of acquiring and possessing those accidents which bring about its perfection. It must also be capable of not acquiring those accidents that would bring about its perfection--as man is capable of not possessing grace--or of possessing accidents that are contrary to its perfection--as man is capable of possessing those habits called vices that are contrary to virtue. Thus any being that is not its own act of existence, that does not possess its perfection per se, must be capable of failing to achieve its perfection. Now, any limited moral agent possess potentiality insofar as it is limited. Thus any limited moral agent must not just be capable of acting to acquire the accidents that are its perfection, but also of acting in such a manner as to fail to acquire said perfecting accidents or to acquire their contraries. And thus the existence of a limited moral agent that is incapable of doing moral evil is a contradiction, since to be a limited moral agent is to be able to do moral evil by definition.

Now, the professor might ask "Why then did God not create unlimited moral agents?" But this to would be a contradiction. Beings are differentiated by their potency. A man, for example, is differentiated from other men by his particular matter. But matter is that which is in potency, since it is capable of receiving many different substantial forms. In the same way, immaterial beings are differentiated by their essences, since essence relates to existence as potency relates to act. Only God is unlimited and possesses no potency, since He is ipsum ese subsistens, the subsisting act of existence itself. For God to create another unlimited being would require that He create another being that possesses no potency, another God. But this is impossible, since the only way to distinguish between God the creator and the created God as different beings would be if the latter contained an admixture of potency. But any being with an admixture of potency is neither God nor unlimited by definition. Thus the creation of unlimited moral agents would violate the principle of non-contradiction, since said created unlimited moral agents would have to both possess potency and not possess potency at the same time and in the same respect.

Objection 2: "If the being must make EVIL to make GOOD then how is the being ALL GOOD?"

Reply to Objection 2: Good does not require evil to exist, but rather vice versa, as was explained above. This suffices to reply to the objection.

Objection 3: "If the being is ALL KNOWING and thus knows in advance that there will be a use of FREE WILL that produces EVIL and then goes and creates FREE WILL then the being has made EVIL and is not ALL GOOD."

Reply to Objection 3: The effect of a middle cause can only be reduced to the first cause insofar as said middle cause is subordinate to the first cause. Insofar as a middle cause goes outside the order of the first cause, the effects of said middle cause are reducible only to the middle cause, not to the first cause. For example, insofar as a student gains knowledge, said knowledge can be reduced to the teacher as first cause, since the teacher teaches in order to bring about knowledge in the student. But insofar as the student remains ignorant, said ignorance is reducible only to the student as cause, since the failure to gain knowledge is outside the order established by the teacher.**** Thus, since evil is, by definition, outside the proper order of things as established by God, evil cannot be reduced to God as cause, but only to the immediate agent.

Objection 4: "Another problem with the deity being ALL PERFECT is that the being would need to possess all perfections and if freedom is a perfection or a good thing as opposed to its opposite being not god [sic] then the deity that is all perfect would also need to be free and yet it cannot be free as it is not free to be or do anything that is less than perfect or the very best possible. As it cannot be free it is NOT ALL PERFECT."

Reply to Objection 4: This does not follow. Something is not said to lack freedom because it is not able to do what is not in its nature to do or be what is not in its nature to be. For example, man is not said to lack freedom because he is not capable of flight under his own power. Nor is man said to lack freedom because he cannot be a stone. Thus God cannot be said to lack freedom because He is incapable of doing what is not in His nature to do and being what is not in His nature to be.

Now, the professor might respond that this answer is opposed to the divine omnipotence, but this would be speaking falsely. As was stated above, the divine omnipotence consists in being capable of bringing into existence all that which is capable of being brought into existence. And as was also stated above, that which is not capable of being brought into existence is that which violates the principle of non-contradiction. For God to do what is not in His nature to do or be what is not in His nature to be would violate the principle of non-contradiction, since it would require Him to both be and not be God at the same time and in the same respect.

Here ends the professor's objections and my replies to them.

The professor states that "there are problems with the SET OF BELIEFS associated with the one deity of the Western religions." But if this is true it certainly does not follow from the arguments he has presented.

The final statement of the professor quoted in the letter is as follows:

Now for those who believe in the GOD of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition they must believe in a single being with characteristics of being: SUPREME, ALL POWERFUL, ALL GOOD, ALL PERFECT, ALL KNOWING, ETERNAL etc... Why must they? Well, because they have no choice either they believe in the GOD of those traditions or else they make up their own ideas and they are then actually moving out of those traditions and are giving good example of the post modern relativistic, subjectivist tradition of the Twentieth Century. The religions of the West have very clear ideas about the DEITY they have at the center of their beliefs. These religions have doctrines and dogma that the faithful must accept.

How would I respond to this?

I would agree with it. Insofar as I am Catholic "I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God." That is what it means to be Catholic. But what of it? Nothing about this makes what I believe absurd or illogical. The professor has certainly not, as far as I know, written anything that demonstrates my faith to be such. Indeed, in my own personal life I spent a large part of my undergraduate studies slipping away from the Catholic Church and the faith of my fathers because other things provided more immediate and powerful enjoyment. I was a deist at best, an agnostic at worst. It was not until I began the study of philosophy that I realized that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church possessed the fullness of Truth. The idea that philosophy and reason are opposed to faith is absurd, as any competent study of the history of western philosophy would show.

I do not know if Gina has a case against her professor for being unjust in his grading. But she certainly has a powerful case for his being a fool.*****

* I say "philosopher" because error is not philosophy. It is rather the abuse of philosophy, as the Angelic Doctor says in his In Boeth. de Trin, q. II, a. 3c.

** N.B. Apparently the chief council for the ACLJ has come out in favor of waterboarding. This is bad, since torture is intrinsically evil (See Gaudium et Spes, 27; Veritatis Splendor, 80). It does not, however, undermine the justice of Gina's claim.

*** All formatting as in original letter.

**** This example assumes that the teacher truly and properly teaches.

***** "Fool" being taken in its philosophical definition, viz. "one who does not possess wisdom."

On Syncretism

A quote that I thought bore repeating:

For syncretism, those who are saved are the inward-looking souls, whatever the religion they profess. For Christianity, they are the believers, whatever level of inwardness they may have achieved. A little child, an overworked workman, if they believe, stand at a higher level than the greatest ascetics. "We are not great religious personalities", Guardini once said; "we are servants of the Word." Christ himself had said that St. John the Baptist might well be "the greatest among the children of men", but that "the least among the sons of the kingdom is greater than he." It is possible for there to be great religious personalities in the world even outside of Christianity; it is indeed very possible for the greatest religious personalities to be found outside Christianity; but that means nothing; what counts is obedience to the Word of Christ.*

Amen.

* Jean Daniélou, SJ, Vom Geheimnes der Greschichte, pp. 133f. Quoted in Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, pp. 42-3. Emphasis added.