Apropos of an essay titled, "Ramblings," we begin with a digression. In our just-previous essay, we invented covenantal subsidiarity, which identifies a "holy subsidiarity that is similar among the Persons of the Trinity, between the Bridegroom and His bride, between God and His Creation, and between Heaven and earth."
Not to put too fine a point on it, but covenantal subsidiarity, especially as combined with the "historical analogy of being" identified in Vol. III of Covenantal Theology, seems able to serve as the outline of an analogy that can serve as a radically historical, covenantal, Eucharistic foundation for the project and inquiries of covenantal moral theologies, fully replacing the insupportable -- in fact, the radically contradictory -- rationally necessary or "natural" continuum between the Absolute and the relative known by the schools as the "natural" analogy of being. If true, that would be both significant and exciting -- a real accomplishment of our previous essay.
On the other hand, this present essay? We title it "Ramblings" for a reason. (Although, by accident, in our Ramblings here, we do eventually stumble through to identify with clarity, from a historical, sacramental, eucharistic, covenantal perspective, the source and font, the nourishment and trellis, of morality; so there's that).
In his 2011 work Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas, author Michael Dougherty provides a useful definition of "moral dilemma": "any situation in which an agent cannot fulfill all genuine impending moral obligations."
Talk of "obligations" is of course unexceptionable for covenantal moral theologies. However, for covenantal moral theologies, the word 'obligation' has meaning solely within the sacramental, radically historical kinship relations of The Way; it has no meaning with reference to nonhistorical laws or principles -- but that is the context assumed by traditional moral theologies: "obligations" refer to a moral agent's duty to fulfill (potentially conflicting) necessary, unfree, time-less, nonhistorical binding laws or principles.
We stress here the radical incompatibility between the premises of the former moral theologies and those of covenantal moral theologies.
For covenantal moral theologies, the premises which set up discussion of "moral dilemmas" within the schools are so impenetrable, so methodologically baffling, that covenantal moral theologies cannot respond to the "moral dilemmas" defined by the schools at all, let alone "answer" them.
It is possible for competing theories to be so much at odds that they are systematically impervious to one another. By way of illustrative example, the phlogiston theory understood combustion as a decomposition or escape of the "fiery" principle from matter. Although the theory did gift us with one of the more remarkable words in the English language -- "dephlogisticated" -- the first step out the door of the phlogiston theory of combustion turned out to be in the wrong direction.
Combustion is now understood to be a more-or-less-rapid union of a fuel and an oxidant -- not in any way the decomposition of a fiery 'principle'.
As a result, even to formulate a question about combustion (let alone answer it) from the perspective of the current theory of combustion requires a denial of the givens of phlogiston theory -- and vice-versa.
Because of this, neither theory can be "translated" into the other; they are radically incompatible, systematically mysterious to each other.
We will shortly have more to say in these Ramblings about how a similar radical incompatibility in priors plays out regarding "moral dilemma" according to the schools, and according to covenantal moral theologies.
From the perspective of covenantal moral theologies, Michael Dougherty's depiction of 'moral dilemma' within the writings of commentators and glossolators from "Gratian to Aquinas" (and continuing on to Johannes Capreolus (1380-1444) on the point), making reference also to the writings of philosophers since, demonstrates that philosophical discussions of 'moral dilemma' both ancient and modern are philosophical merely, and not at all theological, since their first step out the door is in the wrong direction: they begin by assuming that the Eucharist has nothing to do with it.
The non-Eucharistic priors of philosophers are, by now, many and various. The relevant point for our purposes is the taking up by the schools of the same non-Eucharistic Greek priors which we have criticized within former moral theologies several times before; namely, that there is kosmos, time-less ordering Law, and -- eternally antagonistic to kosmos -- there is khaos.
Within this literal dichotomy, Reality is only substantial and comprehensible as dependent on a time-less, a-sacramental "dehistoricized cosmology" -- all forms of which Covenantal Theology proves are unCatholic to their core -- or reality is insubstantial, unintelligible, imprisoned in the endless and inconclusive flux of events (a position obviously also unCatholic to its core). The free responsibility of Jesus the Lord of history is thus excluded from before the outset.
In his book, Michael Dougherty found that traditional moral theologies more and more asserted, and increasingly comprehensively, that there can be no true moral dilemmas.
From the standpoint of covenantal moral theologies, the reason for this result is that scholastic moral theology increasingly systematically posited that kosmos, necessary, ordering Law -- order on the hoof -- by definition cannot be dis-ordered, unintelligible, contradictory, since reality would then simply belong to khaos, possessing no intelligibility or substantial being.
Thus, since it is impossible for kosmos to be contradictory, it must be that if we but understood correctly, we would perceive that there can be no conflict among moral obligations within the absolute unity of Necessary Law. Hence traditional moral theologies explicitly or implicitly may resort to the vantage of an omniscient being who is able to find the right course between any (seemingly conflicting) principles of necessary Law.
To say it again: the implicit argument of scholastic moral theologies is that time-less, necessary, ordering Law, from which the being and intelligibility of everything flows, cannot be dis-ordered or contradictory in any way; and from this, all else regarding apparent 'moral dilemmas' follows.
On the other hand, from the standpoint of covenantal moral theologies, since the entire discussion of 'moral dilemmas' within traditional moral theologies takes for granted pagan (and false) priors, then whatever its value for philosophers, there is nothing of theology in it.
For covenantal moral theologies, morality is a praxis "incapable of comprehension in any theory whatever." Mark well: covenantal moral theologies do not make the mere claim that, as limited human beings, we will never be able to articulate a theory of morality that completely comprehends unified necessary time-less moral Law.
For covenantal moral theologies, there simply is no unified necessary time-less moral Law at all. Such a thing is a "dehistoricized cosmology," ruled out as completely pagan, as entirely unCatholic, from before the outset. There is no nonhistorical, noncovenantal Law whatever 'behind', 'beyond', 'buttressing', 'founding' morality, because a Law like that simply does not exist, nor did it ever exist. There is no Eternal Rulebook In The Sky -- to which, therefore, even the Lord of history is subject.
As a matter of method, covenantal moral theologies are unable to characterize the activity of the Lord Jesus, His "silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking" [CCC 516] as 'examples' of Law more lordly than He, prior even to Him.
Morality is a praxis incapable of comprehension in any theory whatever. So, what is the infallible source and font, the nourishment and trellis, of this morality which just is a praxis?
Covenantal moral theologies find themselves methodologically unable to answer that question as formulated. Instead, they ask, Who is the infallible source and font, the nourishment and trellis, of this morality -- the sole real morality there is -- which just is a praxis? Then covenantal moral theologies are able to answer, thoroughly and completely: He is the Lord Jesus.
Thus, when our Lord Jesus was a darling little baby, His infant cries, His smiles, His suckling upon His Mother's breast, satisfied no 'principle', fulfilled no Law 'above', 'behind' themselves. But that does not imply that His infant blubberings were not moral. More than this: even then, even as a darling little baby, His "praxis," as it were, even His cooing, even His naps -- even His spit-ups and poops -- was morality per se, was blessedness per se, was holiness per se.
And similarly, the sacraments are the continuing work of the risen Lord with His bride, One Flesh in the One Sacrifice; thus they are not infallibly 'moral' -- they are morality. The sacraments are not instances, examples, 'accidents', of time-less ordering Law or 'principles' at all; they are a radically historical praxis that cause what they signify ex opere operato. They are morality; they are holiness.
Thus every breath of the Lord Jesus on this earth, and continuing with His sacraments with His bride, just is morality, just is holiness "in itself and not in anything else." They are a radically historical praxis with zero foundation in any dehistoricized cosmology, in any time-less necessary Law, in any kosmos whatever. They are gifts, the work, of a Lord Who with His bride is freely responsible. They are the continuing sure font and source, the nourishment and trellis, of all morality, of all holiness; for the gifts of the Bridegroom with His bride, One Flesh in the One Sacrifice, are meant not only to be shared but also to be multiplied.
A Catholic in good standing is consubstantial with the substantial human being of our Lord and His mother and bride. Thus, so long as that man has not in his own kinship history substantively refused The Way by which he is consubstantial with them and with all their adopted kin, each and every one of his breaths is by covenantal subsidiarity factually "like Christ" -- like the very breath of Christ His brother -- hence is a worship, and is not 'moral' but is morality; and that man's gifts offered as part of that worship can be so authoritative, so extensive, so telling, so much like Christ's, that out of the abundance of his adopted Mother's mercy, as her adopted son, the mute bare gift of that man's death can remit all temporal punishment for his sins.
We reiterate: any free responsibility whatever, let alone any covenantal subsidiarity, is a reality inconceivable within the context of kosmos and khaos, since for the Greeks, "freedom" belongs entirely to khaos, to disorder, to unintelligibility, and "responsibility" means accepting one's binding within necessary Law, kosmos.
Covenantal moral theologies thus have no business setting supposedly "covenantal" principles over against moral principles elucidated by the schools. As a basis for moral reflection, the moral principles expostulated by the schools are to be refused, not engaged. There simply is no 'natural' Law universally available to 'right reason.'
Morality is not founded, or even foundable, on any principle or Law whatever, but just is a praxis, and it is so infallibly in the praxis that is all morality's source and font, its nourishment and trellis: first, every breath in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Lord; and second, His continuing work in history with His bride and mother, the sacraments of Holy Catholic Church.
Jesus's radically historical continuing work with His bride simply refuses the jungle that is khaos and the cage that is kosmos. His work with her alone transcends both kosmos and khaos and alone unites the primordial with the historical with the eschatological.
Yet the sacraments are in no way arbitrary: they are 'this' and not 'that', without at all being bound by Necessity, without at all descending into relativism or unintelligibility.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus Himself is 'this' and not 'that'. He is not a 'type', an 'example' out of an infinity of "possible objects." He is concrete, specific, historical, free. The Catholic faith is that Jesus of Nazareth alone is the crucified and risen Lord; He alone is the only begotten Son of God, One Flesh with His unique mother and one-and-only bride in the One Sacrifice, by which Eucharist alone we are redeemed. It is a hard saying, but from the standpoint of covenantal moral theologies, a Catholic faith absent a freely responsible 'this' and not 'that' has no room even for Jesus Himself; it is not Catholic at all.
Borrowing from ancient Catholic terminology, we have called The Way that concrete kinship history -- that concrete life -- of participation in the Catholic Church's sacramental rites, of profession of her dogmas, and of specific personal activity, by all of which together a man is consubstantial with the substantial humanity of the Bridegroom and His bride and with all their adopted kin. This specific, concrete, free, unique personal history in ecclesia of gifts, works, and obligations is not an 'example' of some time-less 'essence' 'before', 'beyond' that man's personal kinship history in ecclesia, it is his substantial human being, it is his personal name, it is him.
As we have noted:
... at the very least, the charge of "irresponsibility" cannot be applied to such a radically historical morality, at least in its own terms, for the meaning, the existence, the personal name, of all persons within the kinship group just is their personal history so far within the history thus far of the particular specific bonds of obligation, work, and gift that is their family, their kin. This is as close to the opposite of "arbitrary" ("Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules") as it may be possible to get.
The Ten Commandments are thus not an expression of a nonhistorical ideal kosmos. What they are is literally inconceivable within the moral theology of the schools. First of all, they are the Word of God as read and received in Catholic worship; which is to say, they are the Word of God as historical, as covenantal, as Eucharistic.
Second, as a result, they are part of the 'this' and not 'that' which is literally -- not ideally, not 'figuratively' -- constitutional of The Way, of the actual kinship history by which we are consubstantial with the Bridegroom and His bride in the One Sacrifice, and by which we share in substantial human being, human dignity, human solidarity, human flourishing.
And by using the word, "constitutional," we want to emphasize that we radically mean the life-or-death concreteness of The Way, outside of which, there is no salvation. There is no such thing as an infinity of "constitutions" out of which this particular "constitution" of The Way has been selected, any more than there can be some other Jesus.
God did not select the 'this' and not 'that' of The Way out of an infinity of "possible objects." The bread and wine offered in the Eucharist cannot be replaced by, say, dirt and razor blades. There is a concrete historical particularity about the rites, the dogmas, and the lived practices of Catholics that cannot be translated into, replaced by, anything else.
This is what we mean when we say that the 'this' and not 'that' of The Way is constitutional of The Way, and similarly, that a baptized man's refusal of the concrete historical specifics of The Way, whether of its rites or its dogmas or in his practical activity, just is the diminishment, or even the loss, of that man's substantial reality.
Fr. Keefe notes that the "natural theology" tractates have a fundamental, a systematic, problem with a freely responsible 'this' and not 'that'. They instead
...affirm a God bound by immanent necessities. These dog contemporary theology in such suppositions as require God to choose one actual creation out of the infinity of "possible objects of creation" which the rationalization of infinite freedom, as if limited rather than expressed by election, ascribes to the divine ideas supposedly underlying divine creative omnipotence.
CT Vol. II, Appendix, p. 657
For covenantal moral theologies, God's freedom is "expressed by election" -- which is to say, completely contrary to the view even of "contemporary theology," His freedom is not limited by concrete historical particularity but rather is expressed by it.
Thus for God's freedom, thus also for man's. Accordingly, we have found that Eve "had, and expressed, her freedom by means of concrete historical particularity, within a Gift."
Recall that in the bounty of the Garden there was only one fruit that Adam and Eve should not eat. But the devil told Eve that there is no such thing as free responsibility: any self-respecting god regards even the tiniest specific responsibility to be an offense against his freedom.
To the contrary, what God offered Eve was the opportunity to express her freedom concretely, by giving God Himself a gift, a gift that to the devil makes no sense, can never make sense, a gift that would give herself in her free refusal to put herself above holiness.
...
It was the devil who led Eve away from any notion that she had, and expressed, her freedom by means of concrete historical particularity, within a Gift. By implication, the devil urged Eve to think that particularity itself -- 'this' but not 'that' -- intrinsically enslaves; and that God was aware of this, as any self-respecting god would be.
...
And we know all this about Eve, because Mary did exactly the opposite.
But what, exactly, did Mary do that was "exactly the opposite" of what Eve had done? On this point, covenantal moral theologies would differ with the schools. Thus, we consider that Fr. Keefe would concur that, in effect, moral theology eventually agreed with Eve -- not with her "non serviam," but in its acceptance of her implicit characterization of God's terms for her continued life in the Garden: Eve's "[h]istorical faith, precisely because it requires a concrete, historical expression, is seen to invoke a servile blind obedience...."
When finally in the early fourteenth century the metaphysics borrowed from Plato and Aristotle was beginning to be seen to have failed, in fact to have turned in the hands of those who employed it for theological ends, the cosmological pessimism which it had embodied still dominated the theological imagination of the West. The burgeoning nominalist movement now relied upon the abstract and nonhistorical formality of logic as the prior norm of all rationality, and on that ideal base concluded to that dissociation of the free truth of the Christian faith from reason, and that modern divorce of freedom and intelligibility from concrete historical reality which, anticipated by the Latin Averroists, is now nearly instinctive to pagan and Christian alike. Historical faith, precisely because it requires a concrete, historical expression, is seen to invoke a servile blind obedience, whether as that trusting "leap in the dark" which the faith entailed for Kierkegaard, or as the irrationality of the sacrificium intellectus rightly condemned by Paul Tillich, the heir of liberal theology--although in the absence of an unambiguous historical ground Tillich's systematic rigor could avoid Kierkegaard's blind voluntarism only by that devaluation of history as which is at bottom simply another return to the cosmological pessimism inherent in all such reliance upon a supposedly autonomous rationality.
[ CT Vol. II, ch 4, p. 385 ]
Hence, from the point of view of covenantal moral theologies, later moral theologians, now relying upon "the abstract and nonhistorical formality of logic as the prior norm of all rationality," could have argued that God, in warning Eve to refrain from eating that one specific fruit, thrust upon her the necessity to make a very particular concrete historical choice.
However, naked 'this' and not 'that' is by nature neither free nor intelligible in itself. Yes, God told Eve that that fruit, out of all the infinite "possible objects of creation," was dangerous. But Eve simply had to take God's word for that.
And indeed (here deliberately deploying for our own ends the nonhistorical perspective of former moral theologies) if the pre-fallen Eve, her reason unweakened, her faculties completely intact, had been able to see for herself that that fruit was poisonous, she would have dismissed the devil as an obvious liar the moment he showed up.
Thus, regarding the particular fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God required of Eve the humble, indeed servile, "blessedness" of an unreasoning blind obedience to His warning, "whether as that trusting 'leap in the dark' ... or as the irrationality of the sacrificium intellectus."
But Eve refused to give that, and was condemned.
These same moral theologians might have continued that Eve, confronted with a 'this' and not 'that' which by nature her reason could not encompass, could still have reasoned that since God is all-knowing, all-loving, etc., she should have done what God told her to do. In other words, Eve should have reasoned that her unreasoning blind obedience to God was rationally necessary. But moral theology eventually made itself oblivious to such ironies.
(For those readers who protest this characterization: take it up with Fr. Keefe's writing, for that is what he wrote; we do not innovate, we merely make the obvious connection to Eve. We do confess to sneaking in the word, "blessedness," which we insist is at least consistent with what Fr. Keefe wrote, and ties in to our following discussion of Mary.)
By contrast, Mary was seen to have blindly and unhesitatingly assented to God's commands, and is blessed.
The 1990 Instruction Donum Veritas, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, does not explicitly support the position that Mary is "blessed" (and in addition "shows us the way to accept and serve the Word") because she assented to the binding of her freedom by means of her servile blind obedience to a concrete historical particularity that "by nature" can neither be free, nor intelligible on its own. But the Instruction certainly does not refuse such a stance, either.
42. The Virgin Mary is Mother and perfect Icon of the Church. From the very beginnings of the New Testament, she has been called blessed because of her immediate and unhesitating assent of faith to the Word of God (cf. Lk 1:38. 45) which she kept and pondered in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19. 51). Thus did she become a model and source of help for all of the People of God entrusted to her maternal care. She shows us the way to accept and serve the Word. At the same time, she points out the final goal, on which our sights should ever be set, the salvation won for the world by her Son Jesus Christ which we are to proclaim to all men.
Donum Veritas even goes so far as to ignore the actual sequence of Mary's response to the angel Gabriel. As Luke recounts, Mary, before giving what Donum Veritas calls her "immediate and unhesitating assent of faith," asked the angel Gabriel, "How can this be?" -- a response that may indeed have been "immediate" and "unhesitating," but is easy to characterize as free sheer wonder, and difficult to characterize as "assent," particularly in the light of her very much subsequent "Let it be according to thy word."
Donum Veritas, as all the texts issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in that era, very deliberately makes no attempt to innovate, but rather endeavors to summarize longstanding understandings within the Faith and within Catholic theology for the benefit both of the episcopate and for all Catholics.
It is therefore tempting to view Donum Veritas's bowdlerization of Luke as an effort to "clarify" the longstanding common theological understanding that Mary is "blessed among women" not because of her unique primordial and continuing, freely responsible, highly concrete and very particular, intelligible, and authoritative nuptial Covenant with her Lord and Bridegroom, but rather that her "blessedness" is instead characterized by an unreasoning blind obedience perfectly typified by "immediate and unhesitating assent" to whatever concrete historical particularity it pleases God to require -- an immediate and unhesitating assent which, we remind ourselves, even the Lord Jesus Himself did not always give, as at Gethsemane.
The Way -- Who is Jesus Himself, to begin with -- just is 'this' and not 'that.' Covenantal moral theologies can only regard the "modern divorce of freedom and intelligibility from concrete historical reality" as a denigration of 'this' and not 'that' -- of Him -- so extensive as eventually to become a refusal of the concrete historical particularity of covenantal reality per se.
As we will see a little later in this essay, to be "Catholic" may then eventually become a matter of expressing some elusive nonhistorical "essence" which -- a feature, not a bug -- since it is never quite definite, cannot serve as the basis for any concrete responsibility in history.
To continue our Ramblings, we have discovered that we have already discussed one of the classic 'moral dilemmas' Michael Dougherty examines in his work: that of the "Persecutors of Christ" (the Jews who sought the Lord's death); except that we broadened the discussion to include the conflict between what Pontius Pilate considered to be his obligations and the obligations the Jews said were theirs.
To take an example at random: One kinship history of gifts, works, and obligations sees a man as a harmless, inconsequential loon, while another finds the same man dangerous, vile, and obviously guilty of the most heinous capital crime:
When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him." The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God." [ Jn 19:6-7 ]Within which kinship history of gifts, works, and obligations was Jesus seen correctly: that of the Romans, or of the Jews? Which was 'right'? And we recall that from within the two histories, these are the only choices: either He is a man who can comfortably -- take your pick -- be ignored or ridiculed ('innocent' in that sense merely), or He is an outrageous criminal worthy of the most excruciating and humiliating death.
In the matter of the "Persecutors of Christ," the tracts, of course, not only take the vantage of an omniscient being who just knows that Jesus is God; they assert that such knowledge is 'naturally' available to 'right reason'.
In the same essay just mentioned, (again, without knowing it at the time) we made a reply to the school's answer to the "moral dilemma" outlined in the "Persecutors of Christ":
"Rational" morality claims to be able to 'step outside' the particularities of historical moral conflicts and find in each case the time-less 'natural' one real truth. It contends that it is only man's occasionally clouded intellect, and especially, his sinful and wayward will, that accounts for man's failure to do what his 'natural' intellect tells him is 'naturally' and obviously and clearly good. For "rational" morality claims to be universal, and universally available to autonomous reason ('right reason'), in all times and places. This universal and universally-available "rational" morality is the 'natural law' written in every man's heart.
In a previous essay, we have not merely challenged, we have refuted, that contention, Not only "rational" 'natural' morality, but also any 'natural' morality whatever, must found itself, and therefore, break itself, upon the radical contradiction at the heart of any 'natural' analogy of being.
In a word, the priors of the schools are systematically mysterious to covenantal moral theologies, and vice-versa. As a result, there can be no translatable discussion of "moral dilemmas" between them. Even to formulate a question regarding "moral dilemmas" within one is to deny the givens of the other.
We now pretend that the preceding ramblings represent a Preface to a respectable discussion of Moral Dilemmas. In reality, although the preceding will be seen to have relevance to such a discussion, there was still much of rambling in it. In the second place, what follows will not be a systematic or comprehensive discussion of Moral Dilemmas, merely some illustration of how covenantal moral theologies might approach such matters.
What can covenantal moral theologies say about Moral Dilemmas? First, that if -- contrary to what the schools eventually concluded -- there be real Moral Dilemmas: "any situation in which an agent cannot fulfill all genuine impending moral obligations," then any true resolution of them will be entirely sacramental; in other words, it will be entirely historical -- specifically, it will be foundationally Magisterial.
Which is to say, if Holy Orders is not a sacrament, then we are simply lost: no 'principle', no omniscient vantage, is coming to our rescue.
Which is more impossible to believe? Transubstantiation, or that the Magisterium actually protects the Church -- that the Eucharist will nourish and raise up enough (observably far from omnicompetent, hardly omniscient, and no-fooling sinful) men under Holy Orders, as well as, under Baptism and especially under Matrimony, enough intrinsically puny, though creative, supportive, or stubbornly resistant laity, to somehow protect the Church, even at times despite themselves?
Which brings us to a remembrance of those simpler days (c. 1972) when American Catholic hospitals were often still under at least the nominal control of Catholic religious orders, were not being willy-nilly sold off to whoever would take them, and their Boards of Directors at least occasionally thought of themselves as responsible to the Magisterium; and American Catholic theologians formed Commissions and thought to instruct American Catholic bishops on how to Get With The Program regarding what 'medical' procedures American Catholic hospitals "ethically" should and should not allow inside their walls.
In those bright days of 1972, nuance has finally become available to Catholic thought: "we" are at long last witnesses to the birth of Modern Times; and this New Fact introduces potential Moral Dilemmas:
14. ... contemporary Catholic teaching has shown us the way toward a positive evaluation of pluralism. Prior to Vatican II, official Catholic teaching regarded pluralism as an unfortunate situation which had to be tolerated at best and actively opposed if possible. This view placed Catholicism in a defensive position: guidelines of minimal cooperation governed our civil and religious postures as an institution, lest cooperation in a pluralist setting be taken to mean compromise of religious and ethical principles.
17. The consequences of pluralism profoundly affect the very notion of our hospital ethics, for they raise the question: Can Catholic hospitals, on religious and ethical grounds, continue to justify the refusal of certain health services which are legally permitted, commonly accepted in the medical world, and, at least in some cases, not morally harmful according to the judgment of many prudent men?
Commission on Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals (1972) "Catholic Hospital Ethics," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 39: No. 4, Article 7. Accessed (2024).
Of singular note in the above is the common theological supposition -- quite contrary to those of covenantal moral theologies -- that there is something called "ethics' which is not the morality that just is a praxis, a life, a kinship history with the Bridegroom and His bride that is confessional, historical, foundationally sacramental and ecclesial, but instead is a set of time-less, a-sacramental, "natural" 'principles' available universally to "right reason." Hence the matter-of-fact appeal "to the judgment of many prudent men" (implicitly) even over against the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic church.
Ah, those halcyon days when it was still not quite possible for "Catholic" institutions, by all manner of devices, to simply make Catholic teaching and praxis ignorable....
Golly Gee Whiz, we professional theologians have just identified potential new Moral Dilemmas! Borrowing Michael Dougherty's terminology, "we" now have "genuine impending moral obligations" -- to what the Commission calls "pluralism" and to "the judgment of many prudent men" -- which may be in at least apparent opposition to the obligations in the end imposed as a matter of religious submission, of servile blind obedience, by the (pre-Vatican II) Catholic church.
Even as early as 1973, Fr. Keefe was having none of it.
We note especially his calling-out of still-common theological priors: That "rationality" is "natural," a-sacramental, 'before', prior to, The Way, to the Lord Jesus Himself. That morality is not a life, a praxis. That there is no such thing as free responsibility. That instead freedom is limited by instead of expressed by election. That "freedom" is inherently antagonistic to the 'this' and not 'that' of The Way.
Fr. Keefe also strongly objects to the implicit position of the Commission, that the free responsible choice of the believer for The Way is not his life-and-death existence in substantial human being, but rather, that the 'this' and not 'that' of Catholic praxis and teaching can easily become an impediment to an a-sacramental, universal rationality capable of including all "prudent men," and for this reason, such a "defensive" traditional Catholic stance must be readily adaptable, even disposable.
(In the following, the brackets, and all emphases, are entirely ours).
Here the supposedly authoritarian impact of the [1971] Directives [which, according to the Commission, "...left the earlier (1955) version virtually unchanged, in spite of some very noteworthy medical, ethical, social and theological developments experienced in the intervening years."] is seen as depersonalizing; their abandonment will permit that which now does not exist, a community whose values, etc., being freely chosen rather than submitted to, will blend into a single consensus all men of good will, of whatever faith. The vision of this paragraph is integral with that of the rest of the Report; Catholicism, insofar as it is valid, insofar as it is free and personal commitment, is historically indistinguishable from that of other men in the pluralist community. This is a parody of Rahner's notion of the anonymous Christian, and should not be confused with that valid theological insight. We have here its Kungian deformation, consistent with the ecclesiology which marks the Report. The facile supposition that freedom in religious commitment can exist only where all voices of authority are stilled is made rather too blandly, here as elsewhere in the Report.
...
The bishops are not magicians, they cannot say what the Church does not know, and only a vital involvement of all Catholics in the existential burden of worship will sustain a truly historical moral conscience in the Church, a conscience truly responsive to the presence of Christ in the Church and in the world. Only in this way can the impasse between moral fundamentalism and moral relativism be transcended, by that entry into salvation history which is worship, which is authentic human symbolism, the human truth made effective in history, the imaging of God. For this, there is no rationale; it is a life, not a theory. Out of it emerge convictions as to the decency of human deeds which rest upon no demonstration and even permit no positive formulation; they are a communal recognition of the holy, and reach expression most clearly when most clearly challenged, when the human symbol is threatened by subordination to an alien god in whose image it was not created, whose worship is not life but death.
"A Review and Critique of the C.T.S.A. 'Report'" (of the Commission on Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals, established by and reporting to the Board of Directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America), Hospital Progress, February, 1973, 57-69.
The 1972 Commission was aware that the pre-Vatican II church did at times opt for trade-offs (for example, for "guidelines of minimal cooperation") rather than try to find a time-less "solution" to the problem of how to deal with the non-Catholic world.
We have earlier noted that the schools gradually agreed that trade-offs were never necessary for real moral dilemmas, since there can be no such things as real moral dilemmas; but that scarcely means that the schools were unaware of prudential judgments, in which by definition no firm moral obligation is strictly opposed by any other.
This is part of the wedge by which the Commission inserts its own arguments.
The moral theology of the schools, no less than the 1972 Commission, posits the existence of kosmos, the nonhistorical, non-Eucharistic time-less necessary ordering Law "naturally," hence universally, available to a supposedly autonomous rationality. In this way, every man is able to discover and adhere to the good which is God's will for men. (Such an appeal to a universal "natural" ethics was -- putting it mildly -- scarcely unheard of within the schools, thus has for centuries been regarded as fully part of respectable Catholic theology.)
The monumental difference, of course, is the insistence by the schools on Catholic obedience (if necessary, servile blind obedience) to the clear and constant teaching and praxis of the Catholic church as the infallible expression of God's time-less necessary ordering Law.
On the other hand, the Commission would deny any charge by the schools of valuing a "freedom" which is nothing more than khaos, relativism, the shifting -- excuse us, the "evolving" -- ways of The Current Thing.
Instead, the Commission proposed the resolution of any apparent conflict between the concrete practices of Catholics and those of the world by appeal to a Vatican-II-ratified improved understanding of the eternal time-less unchanging necessary Law: the same "natural" ethics remains universally available to right reason, but now our understanding of it has undergone "development" through interaction with "pluralism" and "the judgment of many prudent men."
Thus, from the standpoint of covenantal moral theologies, the Commission implicitly takes advantage of a longstanding vulnerability in moral theology: kosmos is substantial reality; it is nonhistorical, time-less order that is unified and intelligible "in itself and not in anything else," and the 'this' and not 'that' of Catholic praxis is ... not.
Concrete historical particulars are not substantial reality, intelligible in themselves, but rather have been chosen by God out of an infinity of "possible objects" to be expressive of His binding necessary Law.
The Commission then argues -- rather explicitly -- that the deeper post-Vatican II New Understanding of God's time-less Law may ethically and morally necessitate the incorporation, or at least the toleration, of some additional particulars, in order to bring the Church into a more comprehensive conformity with God's unchanging Law.
Only within the narrow confines of a pre-Vatican II "defensive" posture could these additional particulars be characterized as genuinely contradicting Catholic moral obligations; in reality they should be understood either as prudential trade-offs with the practices of other men of good will or even as a desirable expansion of Catholic practice in accord with the more inclusive Understanding of God's unchanging Law that was ratified by Vatican II.
The schools certainly have the resources to assert that the name "Catholic" has no meaning absent adherence to the teachings of the Magisterium -- 'this' and not 'that' in that sense.
However, in articles published around that time, particular members of the Catholic Theological Society of America took great umbrage at even the idea of such naked obeisance to the American episcopate and in particular to its revised 1971 Directives for Hospitals, though criticism of the Directives in the Commission's Report was -- at least by comparison -- much more muted. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that many members of the C.T.S.A. made it more than clear that the Argument From Obedience simply wasn't going to fly any more.
It is not only beyond our brief here, it is wildly beyond our competence, even to imagine what an American bishop could actually do, not only in the face of "professional Catholics" simply refusing to obey him, but also in the face of the same "professional Catholics" actively working with others to create "Catholic" institutions that can institutionally, as it were, ignore any bishop.
However, distinct from undoubtedly more relevant concerns, such as how the American episcopate might have effectively applied the real language understood by the C.T.S.A. -- money, status, etc. -- in opposition to the C.T.S.A.'s designs, the schools are unable to offer any additional theological reasons the American episcopate might have proffered for assent to the 1971 Directives for Hospitals, and more broadly, to the 'this' and not 'that' of The Way, beyond those reasons that the members of the C.T.S.A. already knew backwards and forwards, and had rejected.
And the Commission certainly has no wish to argue in favor of the sheer unbridled 'this' and not 'that' of Catholic teaching and praxis. Instead, the Commission argues for the episcopal adoption of the Commission's own new-and-improved Understanding of unchanging, rationally necessary, universally applicable kosmos, an Understanding ratified by Vatican II as a genuine development, which calls for a fresh, "non-defensive" look at, an Improvement in -- after all, the always-potentially-improvable -- particulars expressive of God's will for man.
Thus the camel's nose under the tent.
In the instance, would it have helped American bishops to have had additional strictly theological resources to defend the teachings and praxis of the Catholic church? Probably not.
Moreover, from the point of view of covenantal moral theologies, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the conclusions of former moral theologies regarding what American Catholic hospitals should and should not do.
It would have been just fine if an episcopal appeal to "positive" as well as "divine" Law would have been sufficient to keep the boards and administrators of Catholic hospitals adhering to a "certain, definite, concise, clear cut" code, a concrete historical 'this' and not 'that' whose expression and practice was visibly, responsibly, and unapologetically Catholic.
Nonetheless, covenantal moral theologies would argue that the a-sacramental, nonhistorical, noncovenantal priors of the schools, coupled with the theological position "now nearly instinctive to pagan and Christian alike" that concrete historical reality -- 'this' and not 'that' -- is "naturally" dissociated from freedom and intelligibility (which practically out loud would therefore define "blessedness" as servile blind obedience), render "contemporary theology" systematically unable to provide the bishops with stronger strictly theological resources to defend the teachings and praxis of the Catholic church.
As a matter of method, the schools are unable to name every particular breath and silence and suffering of the Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, and His continuing specific sacramental work on this day with His bride, One Flesh in the One Sacrifice, as being the radically historical praxis of 'this' and not 'that' which ex nihilo, out of no prior possibility, just is the New Covenant.
This sacramental, covenantal, radically historical praxis of 'this' and not 'that' in ecclesia just is the dignity, freedom, intelligibility, To repeat: this kinship history with the Bridegroom and His bride and with all their adopted kin is "in itself and not in anything else" the very life, morality, and holiness, the free, unique, dignified, authoritative, intelligible personal name and the substantial human being, of every believer.
As we have shown in the case of the 1972 Commission, so-called "neo-modernism" is well able to take advantage not only of "contemporary theology's" continued dependence on a nonhistorical noncovenantal necessary Law, but also of its now-longstanding ambivalence towards the sheer historical particularity of 'this' and not 'that'.
Neo-modernism's modus operandi verbally acknowledges the same unchanging noncovenantal necessary universal kosmos posited by generations of theologians, but proclaims a "deeper understanding" of it.
Then -- perhaps while gratefully acknowledging the work of generations of theologians in times past -- it takes advantage of the longstanding theological position that 'this' and not 'that' is "naturally" dissociated from freedom and intelligibility, to justify the displacement of any "defensive" 'this' and not 'that' in favor of a new-and-improved 'this' and not 'that', represented as more comprehensively faithful to God's unchanging Law.
God's will for man? The good for man willed by an all-loving God? Human dignity? Human unity? Human flourishing? Neo-modernism can then proclaim that its New Understanding represents a deeper, better expression of all of these.
The charge of covenantal moral theologies is thus that "contemporary theology" is not up to the theological challenge presented by neo-modernism, since neo-modernism deploys the very language and method of "natural theology."
Not that contemporary proponents of the "natural theology" tractates could ever acknowledge that "natural theology" has turned in their hands; for them, the framework, priors, and method of "natural theology" just are the intellectual language of the Faith, unchallengeable per se.
To the contrary, we have argued that while contemporary proponents of "natural theology" have demonstrated that they are well able to criticize, on canonical or juridical grounds, the conclusions of neo-modernism, "natural theology" is unable to criticize neo-modernism's theological methods, since these are either identical to those deployed by "natural theology," or similar enough to render outright methodological criticism muted. But this does not -- we might argue, cannot -- register.
So, when the prospect of damnation seems far off, even ludicrous; when "[h]istorical faith, precisely because it requires a concrete, historical expression," is seen even by 'professional Catholics' "to invoke a servile blind obedience" that is intellectually paltry -- nay, contemptible -- in theory and ignorable in practice; and the 'this' and not 'that' of The Way is not the radically historical praxis that just is morality, that just is holiness, then, if for some reason one still wishes to grasp at the name "Catholic," to be "Catholic" may become a matter of going 'beyond' mere concrete historical particulars in order to express some far more noble nonhistorical "essence" whose vagueness renders it able to be adjusted to whatever end, while simultaneously it remains sufficiently illegible to never require any definite accountability from proponents.
(Postscript. Fifty years later (2024), guess who won? In a 2019 article in Health Progress (the renamed Hospital Progress), Ron Hamel, "former senior ethicist at the Catholic Health Association," in the very title of his piece distinguished the "ethical" from the "religious," and in the body of his article not only lauded the 1972 Commission's Report as a milestone of progress, but also -- the cherry-on-top of the Commission's complete triumph -- matter-of-factly commented that "one might not totally agree" that the "distinguishing mark" of a Catholic hospital is a "certain, definite, concise, clear cut" code outlining -- "else why do we exist?" -- the concrete historical particulars the hospital must adhere to, the 'this' and not 'that' which make the hospital Catholic, and implicitly, by which a hospital's non-adherence would call it out as no longer Catholic.)
In a 1947 issue of Hospital Progress, Rev. Lawrence Skelly wrote: "Whatever else may be said, certainly there is a need, a crying need, of a certain, definite, concise, clear cut Catholic Code for our Catholic hospitals. . . . Certainly if there should be one distinguishing mark of a Catholic hospital, it should be its code of ethics--else why do we exist?" While one might not totally agree with Fr. Skelly's claims, there is no doubt that it underscores the importance of "the code" for Catholic health care.
Hamel, Ron. "100th Anniversary - The Ethical and Religious Directives: Looking Back to Move Forward." Health Progress, November-December 2019. Accessed (2024).
Before we end these Ramblings, first, we point out that covenantal moral theologies are able to make more readily apparent not only the very marked methodological and theological similarities between the age-old assumptions of the schools and those deployed by the 1972 Commission, but much more to the point, also the stark difference between the unyielding, though scarcely omniscient, defense of the The Way by the schools, and the sly evil attempted (successfully, as it turns out) by the 1972 Commission.
Second, we note that we have regarded the question of whether there are real moral dilemmas -- genuinely opposing moral obligations -- to be unanswerable, even unformulable, within any dehistoricized, a-sacramental framework, such as those posited by the moral theology of the schools.
Much worse, we snuck in what may be one of the hardest sayings of all: that if real moral dilemmas exist, any resolutions of them are entirely historical, resolutely sacramental, thus foundationally episcopal; that is, if Holy Orders is not a sacrament, then we are simply lost: no 'principle', no omniscient vantage, is coming to our rescue.
Third, we have a little more to say about "servile blind obedience."
As we have attested, The Way is not a collection of (non-existent) necessary, time-less, a-sacramental, nonhistorical "natural" 'principles' universally available to 'right reason', but is instead a kinship history, a radically historical praxis of participation in the Catholic Church's sacramental rites, of profession of her dogmas, and of specific personal activity by which a man is consubstantial with the substantial humanity of the Bridegroom and His bride and with all their adopted kin.
So, is there something intrinsically wrong with a servile blind obedience to the praxis of The Way, whether by a "leap in the dark," or by a sacrificium intellectus? Covenantal moral theologies are bound to say, No.
For one thing, the testimony of many saints would be against it; for another, realistically, that's all we may be able to manage. As a practical matter, then, blind obedience, however "servile," is not undignified, not contrary to the kinship history with the Lord and His mother and bride that is substantial human nature, not contrary to The Way.
But for moral theology to require a servile blind obedience even of the Lord Jesus, and of His mother and bride, is a bridge too far. Similarly, it is a leap too far for moral theology to circumscribe even the most lowly, sinful Catholic entirely within a servile blind obedience.
Much to the contrary, that Catholic's intrinsic dignity and authority is personal, covenantal, eucharistic, ecclesial, and thus extends far beyond the "blessedness" of a slave's instant obeisance, because, for one thing, as we have just pointed out, such servile blind obedience was not displayed, at least summarily and perpetually, either by the Lord Jesus or by His mother; and for another thing, the lowliest Catholic is so important in the scheme of things that even the greatest saint cannot replace or subsume even one of that man's breaths, even a syllable of one of his Hail Marys.
The sacraments ever found the free historical responsibility of 'this', not 'that' within which we live; and it is from within the liturgical, thus radically historical, worship of the Church that we most certainly seek and choose the 'this' not 'that' which constitute the free history of free gifts, works, and obligations that is our personal name, which is our life as moral, as historical, as freely responsible.
If we wish, we may in fact choose dis-integration, but still we do that in history. If we make that choice, the time-less is not someday going to hunt us down and make us pay. After all, the time-less is most decidedly not the Person through Whom time is unified, made integral, redeemed.
For we are freely redeemed in history, by the free responsibility of the Lord of history with His bride; or we deny Him, and her with Him, freely, historically, responsibly, in the freedom and even more than the freedom gifted to Adam and Eve.
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