"Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by..."

People are ignorant. This is a permanent part of the human condition (we have limited intellectual capacity, limited resources for developing those capacities, and limited will to do so). Thus, ignorance, just in itself, is not at all a moral defect. (In itself ignorance is purely intellectual, that is, in itself ignorance is not imputable to the will).

But people are not wholly ignorant (again, we do at least have limited intellectual capacity, limited resources for developing those capacities, and a limited will to do so). So ignorance, together with the concrete circumstances in which it arises, very often is connected to moral defect. (It very often does involve a defect of the will, i.e., evil choices.)

A priest-friend commented earlier this week to a small group of us that he simply couldn’t understand how so many people could go through life ignoring God, not praying, not seeking the truth, not seeking to know God’s will and plan for them. It utterly baffled him! His simply confessed bafflement made me smile and chuckle a bit, I’m not entirely sure why, but I suppose I felt a kind of delight because his bafflement, so frankly and simply expressed, is in fact so well justified: no matter how confused and ignorant people are (including, often, the seemingly most clever people), at bottom it is that simple and there’s nothing complicated about it: God is important and it’s very difficult to come up with any good excuses for failing to recognize that and do something about it.

“Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not in fact occur? When did we put up one moment's real resistance to the loss of our faith?”

(C.S. Lewis, “The Great Divorce”)

Environmentalism and intrinsic evil

What should we say about someone who, faced with the option of voting for a Nazi candidate, urges careful consideration of the pros and cons? “We should avoid violent anti-Semitism and such. But we also need to promote effective strategies for national stability and security through economic recovery. We face very difficult choices.” Hopefully we would not be impressed. Why? Because such a person fails to recognize that you cannot promote or cooperate with something that is intrinsically evil (violent anti-Semitism) in order to gain something that is good (economic recovery).

What should we say about someone who, faced with the option of voting for a Nazi candidate, urges careful consideration only of the pros? “The Nazis have an effective plan for restoring our ruined economy. It is very important that we get out and vote.” Such a person appears not to even care about the intrinsic evil being promoted by the Nazis. In this case, even more than in the first, anyone who has a well-formed conscience should be disgusted and angry in the face of such rhetoric.

The first case here is analogous to that of the CCCB’s shameful and useless “Election Guide” (http://www.cccb.ca/site/eng/).

The second is analogous to the agenda promoted by Development and Peace (https://www.devp.org/en).

The second also corresponds to the recent urging of our parish D&P rep to "get out and vote because we need change" (the clear implication for us being, for anyone with even the slightest mastery of logic: get rid of our incumbent pro-life Conservative candidate!). And the change that we need is what? The only issue she mentioned was what? Saving planet earth! To think that that is compatible with the gospel of Christ is gravely erroneous and surely betrays a malformed conscience.

Of course, I am aware of Pope Francis’s Laudato si, wherein he points out that the earth is our common home and that we must care for it and exercise responsible stewardship. These general points are true and indeed obvious, although it is not at all obvious, and certainly not within the authoritative competency of the pope as such, how best to go about actually exercising responsible stewardship (to insinuate otherwise is either grossly naïve or simply disingenuous). But to think that Laudato si constitutes an excuse for those who would completely ignore basic issues regarding intrinsically evil acts (abortion, contraception, euthanasia, violation of conscience, etc.), in order to promote highly debatable and tendentious prudential recommendations directed towards exercising responsible stewardship of the earth? Surely no one could seriously believe this!

It is not always possible or obligatory to do good (ponder well the words of St Paul: “created nature has been condemned to frustration”); but it is always possible and obligatory to refuse to do evil. In the words of Pope Saint John Paul II (Veritatis splendor, §52): “It is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil.”* And for those who want to ignore this, who want to promote good by ignoring and cooperating with intrinsic evil, consider directly the gospel of Christ: “What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.” Or another translation: “Woe to the world, for the hurt done to consciences! It must needs be that such hurt should come, but woe to the man through whom it comes!” (Matthew 18, 7)

*[This idea is powerfully evoked by Dostoevski in The Brothers Karamazov:  “Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last [perhaps even saving Mother Earth!], but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature – that little child beating its breast with its fist, for instance – and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.”]

So go ahead and consider Laudato si; or, if you like, consider this synod intervention of Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles: “I believe that the church must present a new evangelical catechesis on creation, as an essential element of the new evangelization. We must proclaim the beauty of God's plan of love for creation, for the human person, and for the human family. Our new evangelization must proclaim an integral human ecology that reveals the nature, vocation and theology of the human person as created by God.” Would such statements in any way suggest that we may now ignore and cooperate with intrinsic evil, in order to promote this ‘integral human ecology’? Of course not! That would be an absurd suggestion. Any Catholic with a well-formed conscience must clearly understand that an integral, indeed the most fundamental, part of any authentic ‘integral human ecology’ must be the recognition of the intrinsic dignity and inviolability of all innocent human life, from conception until natural death. To promote more recycling and energy-efficient practices at the expense of ignoring this fundamental imperative is unconscionable. It is utterly incompatible with both the natural law and with the gospel of Christ, the revelation handed down through the apostles, the deposit of faith.

Any Catholic who thinks to appeal to Pope Francis to justify some other view should ponder this: “The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in order that, by his revelation, they might disclose new teachings, but so that, by His assistance, they might devoutly guard the revelation handed down from the apostles, the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth” (from the Decrees of the First Vatican Council). In the words of St Paul: “Friends, though it were we ourselves [the apostle Paul himself!], though it were an angel from heaven that should preach to you a gospel other than the gospel we preached to you, a curse upon him! I repeat now the warning we gave you before it happened, if anyone preaches to you what is contrary to the tradition you received, a curse upon him!” These are strong words, but the Church and the world urgently need clarity here: in promoting some project that we think is good, we are not permitted to promote, cooperate in, or ignore intrinsic evil.

"My kingdom is not of this world" - but vote! (or not)

"My kingdom is not of this world" - but vote! (Unless you are young and/or foolish and have no understanding of the important issues, have a poorly formed conscience, etc. - in that case, don't vote!) We have recently had a couple of spiels after mass from our parish D&P rep. I wrote the following as a response:


“My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18)

“Created nature has been condemned to frustration.” (Romans 8)

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his very soul?” (Mark 8)

“To live the life of nature is to think the thoughts of nature; to live the life of the spirit is to think the thoughts of the spirit; and natural wisdom brings only death, whereas the wisdom of the spirit brings life and peace. That is because natural wisdom is at enmity with God, not submitting itself to his law; it is impossible that it should. Those who live the life of nature [e.g., of amoral environmentalism] cannot be acceptable to God; but you live the life of the spirit, not the life of nature; that is, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (Romans 8)

“I am astounded that you should be so quick to desert one who called you to the grace of Christ, and go over to another gospel; this can only mean, that certain people are causing disquiet among you, in their eagerness to pervert the gospel of Christ. Friends, though it were we ourselves [the apostle Paul himself!], though it were an angel from heaven that should preach to you a gospel other than the gospel we preached to you, a curse upon him! I repeat now the warning we gave you before it happened, if anyone preaches to you what is contrary to the tradition you received, a curse upon him! Do you think it is man’s favour, or God’s, that I am trying to win now? Shall I be told, now, that I am courting the good will of men? If, after all these years, I were still courting the favour of men, I should not be what I am, the slave of Christ.” (Galatians 1)

Our gospel, the Christian gospel, the gospel we have received from our Lord Jesus Christ and from his apostles, is not about saving mother earth. It is about saving souls! A curse upon those who are eager to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Here is a powerful prophetic voice from the poor, joyously evangelical Church in Guinea, a country that is 85% Islamic and currently at the centre of an ebola epidemic. Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments:

I say frankly that in the previous Synod, on various issues one sensed the temptation to yield to the mentality of the secularized world and individualistic West. Recognizing the so-called “realities of life” as a locus theologicus means giving up hope in the transforming power of faith and the Gospel. The Gospel that once transformed cultures is now in danger of being transformed by them. Furthermore, some of the procedures used did not seem aimed at enriching discussion and communion as much as they did to promote a way of seeing typical of certain fringe groups of the wealthiest churches. [This obviously refers to people like German Cardinal Kasper, who wants to dismiss the voice of the Church in Africa, but also to organizations like Development and Peace.] This is contrary to a poor Church, a joyously evangelical and prophetic sign of contradiction to worldliness. Nor does one understand why some statements that are not shared by the qualified majority of the last Synod still ended up in the Relatio and then in the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum laboris when other pressing and very current issues (such as gender ideology) are instead ignored.

The first hope is therefore that, in our work, there be more freedom, transparency and objectivity. For this, it would be beneficial to publish the summaries of the interventions, to facilitate discussion and avoid any prejudice or discrimination in accepting the pronouncements of the synod Fathers.

Discernment of history and of spirits

A second hope: that the Synod honor its historic mission and not limit itself to speaking only about certain pastoral issues (such as the possible communion for divorced and remarried) but help the Holy Father to enunciate clearly certain truths and useful guidance on a global level. For there are new challenges with respect to the synod celebrated in 1980. A theological discernment enables us to see in our time two unexpected threats (almost like two “apocalyptic beasts”) located on opposite poles: on the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between “gender ideology and ISIS”. Islamic massacres and libertarian demands regularly contend for the front page of the newspapers. (Let us remember what happened last June 26!). From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West through quick and easy divorce, abortion, homosexual unions, euthanasia etc. (cf. Gender theory, the ‘Femen’, the LGBT lobby, IPPF …). On the other hand, the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, child marriage etc. (cf. Al Qaeda, Isis, Boko Haram ...)

Several clues enable us to intuit the same demonic origin of these two movements. Unlike the Spirit of Truth that promotes communion in the distinction (perichoresis), these encourage confusion (homo-gamy) or subordination (poly-gamy). Furthermore, they demand a universal and totalitarian rule, are violently intolerant, destroyers of families, society and the Church, and are openly Christianophobic.

Who is Cardinal Sarah referring to here? Is he concerned about greenhouse gases, ‘carbon footprints,’ more recycling? No. Remember: Cardinal Sarah is from Guinea, a country that is 85% Islamic and currently at the centre of an ebola epidemic. He doesn’t care about currently fashionable bourgeois crusades like that. He has far more urgent concerns. This is a man who comes from a truly poor people, who sees and understands acute suffering. He is also a man of faith, a true Christian. We should pay attention to his concerns.

First of all, no doubt he understands that “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in [non-Christian] religions.” [see Nostra aetate, Vatican II’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions”] But the African Cardinal is not interested in diluting the gospel of Christ, turning away from Christ towards native religions or new-age environmentalism, or in putting the two side by side as if there was some kind of parity between them.

On the political side of things, our D&P rep (like D&P in general) has urged the parishioners of OLMM to make a difference by listening to her urgent message about making a difference to 'save the planet' - and voting as if this should be our primary concern! It is well-known that Development and Peace – like the Church in general – has long been infested by certain bearers of a false gospel, committed to promoting world-wide acceptance of abortion, and population control through promotion of intrinsically evil (and environmentally harmful!) methods like the birth control pill. Obviously this is not the case for every person working for D&P, but this is a major systemic problem for that organization. Abuses have been so bad and so scandalous that in recent history a number of our usually very forebearing Canadian bishops have been moved to suspend promoting collection of funds for D&P!

Now what is the situation in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (our federal riding), politically? What are our choices? We have Pierre Lemieux, a father of five, a solidly pro-life Catholic family man, representing the Conservative Party. This is the guy that the D&P people (in particular our parish rep) pretty plainly imply we urgently need to oust, lest we “destroy our planet.” Obviously I’m not so sure we should believe the simplistic rhetoric we hear from D&P and the eco-alarmists – I’m pretty sure Mr. Lemieux does not want to destroy mother earth, leaving his five beloved children with no decent place to live. But what are the alternatives to Lemieux, the Conservative candidate? Not one of the other parties would allow a decent believing Christian man like Pierre Lemieux, who believes in and promotes the dignity of all innocent human life, anywhere near running for them. They are all, in the words of Cardinal Sarah, “violently intolerant, destroyers of families, society, and the Church, and are openly Christianophobic.” – Of course, they are also liars, because they sometimes like to pretend that their views are compatible with Christian and Catholic faith, when they plainly are not. They openly, intolerantly, and aggressively promote the killing of innocent babies as a human right! And they want to spread this gospel of death to every corner of the world.

As for the Election Guide put out by the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, this document is useless and shameful. It presents all issues as being on par: it marks no distinction between the imperative to obey the fifth commandment and a completely morally neutral issue like “honouring international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” The document reads as if these two issues (and there are many such examples) are morally equivalent! This is absurd and shameful.

 

For those who are fixated on a quixotic mission of ‘saving the earth from destruction,’ and never mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent children that we rich westerners tear to pieces in their mothers' wombs, please read and ponder some Dostoyevski:

“Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly."
"And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"
"No, I can't admit it."

Fr Hunwicke on Archbishop Durocher and Fr Rosica

Fr. John Hunwicke is a rare and precious combination of courage, erudition, intelligence, and wit.  I wonder if Fr. Tom Rosica will be suing him? A recent post from Fr. Hunwicke's blog:

Oct 7, 2015

MORE BORING been there and done that

(1) Some daft Canadian Archbishop [Gatineau's Paul-Andre Durocher] wants women deacons. That is how, in Anglicanism, people were softened up for women priests.

(2) That poisonous fellow Rosica, whose duties seem to include telling the Synod Fathers what they should think, says that the admission of the remarried divorced to Communion should be decided regionally. As Anglicans, our technical term for this was Provincial Autonomy. It's a brilliant way of perverting the Faith ... you get some perversion started in one place and then you rely on a combination of bullying and creep to spread it. 

Can the Devil really think he can get away with these games in the Catholic Church when the evidence of what it all leads to is so obviously displayed to view in Anglicanism? But he seems to, and he has a history of success.

Truly we should pray for more priests of Fr. Hunwicke's calibre.

[I apologize to all of my faithful blog readers who anxiously await my post every month: I seem to have forgotten to post in July, August, and September.]

Oh, Obergefell! What have you destroyed?

Here's one kind of rather typical comment on the Obergefell decision: "The US Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is to the sexual revolution what the execution of Louis XVI was to the French Revolution. It has destroyed the mystique of marriage. No longer is marriage a pre-political reality which pre-dates the US Constitution, a sanctuary from government planners. This decision asserts that the government can define marriage in any way that it sees fit." (See article by Michael Cook here.)

So, says Cook, the US Supreme Court has destroyed the mystique of marriage. Please. What a dumb narrative. What "mystique of marriage"? If the mystique of marriage is a real thing, then SCOTUS doesn't have the power to destroy it.

You might as well say that Roe v. Wade-type decisions destroy the mystique of conceiving a new human life (i.e., at - when else? - conception). That's obviously silly. Even if a woman knows she can legally kill her newly conceived child, this fact does nothing to change the enormity and the wonder of the experience of discovering that a new life - your own child! - has come into being as a result of your own life-giving activity.

Or again, the Dred Scott case did not destroy the mystique of the idea that people of African descent born and permanently residing in America should indeed be recognized as bona fide American citizens, and that slave-holding was something that should be understood to be wrong, irrespective of the legal deliberations and contrivances and pronouncements of the certainly-not-almighty-and-all-wise Supreme Court of the United States.

Similarly in the case of same-sex couples obtaining the legal sanction of the state to pretend to be 'married' to each other: as if this law somehow actually makes such 'marriages' 'equal' to or the 'same' as a real marriage. That's like thinking that a law recognizing corporations as legal 'persons' actually makes it the case that corporate 'persons' are 'equal' to or the 'same' as real persons. Are there really people out there not bright enough to recognize that the same word can have different meanings in different contexts? Just because the same word is used, it doesn't mean that the same reality is referred to - the 'stars' in Hollywood are not the same as the 'stars' in the sky, you know?

It's true that there are plenty of people running that very rhetorical line in regard to same-sex 'marriage.' But it's a very obviously stupid argument. It's true that the general population of humanity contains a lot of very sheepish people who will believe any dumb line they're told to believe, because the easiest thing is to fit in and to conform to whatever the other sheep are doing and saying. (As the evolutionary psychologists would say, "Evolution made me do it!"). But that's not a state of affairs that was brought about by any court or legislature.

So enough with this kind of absurd narrative about SCOTUS destroying the mystique of marriage, with its implicit sub-narrative endorsing the mystical power of the courts to effect such destruction. The courts have no such mystical power - never have, never will. The real lesson to be insisted upon here is that those whose narratives presuppose this kind of mystical power of the courts are being silly.

On the other hand, thanks to the general sheepishness of human nature, the courts do have considerable power to impair the general population's understanding of an issue. But this is only in concert with the much greater power that is exercised in this regard by the mass media. So it behooves any intelligent, well-intentioned person contributing in any way to the mass/social media narrative to try to get this basic framing issue right: the poorly-reasoned opinion of five not particularly wise or good people may happen to carry great legal weight, and can have a serious impact on important affairs in the real world; but to think that it carries any weight in actually defining reality outside the Wonderland-domain of legal fictions wherein they exercise their arbitrary power? Destroy that mystique!

Attack of the gay lobby! (Revenge of the 'gay lobby'-alarmists!)

So in case you hadn't heard, the 'gay lobby' is still hard at work: according to the LSN headline, "Christian jeweller made gay couples’ rings but still got targeted by gay lobby" (see story here).

The first thing to note is that, yes, homofascists are still homofascists (angry, violent, irrational, mob-mentality types). But hopefully we understood that already.

The second thing to note is that the lesbian quoted in the story seems to be quite reasonable.* Aside from the intrinsic unreasonableness of her actual view of marriage, there is nothing unreasonable about her not wanting to do business with a jeweler who publically posts, right there in his business, his support for a view of marriage which she opposes. If a business-owner wants to mix business and politics, that's his right, but he shouldn't complain if he doesn't like the impact it has on his business.
[*Whether or not she had a binding contract after putting down her deposit is a different matter, which I will set aside. It is a technical legal matter. (fwiw, I don't think her breach of contract was reasonable and it sounds like it was not legal either - but apparently the jeweler decided to let the homofascist mob settle the question).]

Rod Dreher's comments, on the other hand, are not so reasonable. (I would note that Dreher's writing is, generally speaking, pretty intelligent and interesting.) He writes: “Is a fundamentalist Christian permitted to send her osso buco back to the kitchen if she discovers that homosexual hands cooked it? Of course not. Some delicate snowflakes are more delicate than others.” Please. What a bad analogy. A better analogy would be, "Is a fundamentalist Christian permitted to cancel her order of osso buco and leave the restaurant if she notices a pro-gay-marriage sign in the window?" And if we again set aside the breach of contract issue, the answer should be, "Of course." That is, we have a fundamental right to avoid doing business with business owners who use their businesses to promote things that we find offensive.

Another serious problem with Dreher's analogy is that it seems to suggest that the fundamentalist Christian's aversion is just visceral, to the ickiness of homosexual hands, as opposed to based on any kind of reasonable, principled objection. That would hardly be defensible, and would only make sense as an analogy if the lesbians didn't want to do business with the jeweler merely because of the ickiness of his pro-marriage hands. But that was not the case. They just didn't want to do business with a businessman who used his business to promote beliefs about marriage which they rejected. The old-fashioned term for this is 'boycott.' Thus Dreher mischaracterizes the situation when he talks about “the next phase in the March of Progress. You must not only bake the cake, or arrange the flowers, or make the ring, you must hold the correct opinion when you do it.” This is no 'next phase' of anything. It is just the ordinary right to freedom of association.

And it's just common sense that business owners shouldn't antagonize those whom they want as customers. I would certainly be within my rights to avoid a jewelry store that publicly promoted a perverted view of marriage. And yes, - pace Weatherbe, the LSN author (see article) - when it comes to freedom of speech and association, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

So yes, business owners should be free to post signs promoting their political views and allegiances (and they should be able to do so without being threatened by a fascistic mob, even if it's just on FB). And of course customers should be free to patronize whichever businesses they choose. And, for that matter, people should be free to post short slogans and assertions on Twitter. But whether such a mode of political discourse ('sloganeering') is really a good idea, whether it actually contributes to the formation of a well-informed citizenry and a healthy polity, is another question entirely. It is, in any case, rather sad to observe people who seem unable to form or follow thoughts more than 140 characters long. That's something that all people should work to overcome, regardless of their views about marriage.

Bourgeois radicals

A young person I know, whose views are generally far off the deep-left-progressive-end of things, likes to dismiss my views and arguments as "worn out topics" and "old redundant arguments" and intone stuff like "it's a new world - we all have to make adjustments - you'll get used to it." Of course she never seems to actually understand my "old redundant arguments" and certainly never makes any credible attempt to explain wherein they are mistaken - thus the resort to preciously trite remarks about our "new world," etc. So why does she do this? What to make of such rhetoric?

Here is one among many possible answers: She is simply quite blind to the possibility that one need not define oneself by the Zeitgeist, by whatever are the fashionable views of one's day. In other words, this apparently radical leftist-feminist-existentialist-etc. type in fact seems to be deeply motivated by the demand for a kind of elitist-bourgeois respectability, and assumes that this demand is strongly motivating for others too. As Allan Bloom describes Rousseau's conception of the bourgeois: "To describe the inner workings of his soul, he is the man who, when dealing with others, thinks only of himself, and on the other hand, in his understanding of himself, thinks only of others." Indeed. And so it just seems obvious to this young oxymoron, this bourgeois radical, that if the Zeitgeist has spoken, then we must all adjust. We will get used to it. For surely we have no choice but to learn to accept this new understanding of ourselves which has been dictated by the others?

Bishop Conley: "Preach from the Rooftops" - rational conversation vs. evangelization

James Conley, bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, has published a very pithy, read-worthy piece at Public Discourse: Preach from the Rooftops: Evangelium vitae at Twenty - I'd recommend reading the whole thing. Conley's explicit theme is John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life); but substantive issues that we'd naturally think of as more properly belonging to Fides et ratio (Faith and Reason) are clearly just as relevant and crucial for the development of Conley's thesis. Taking up Conley's train of thought at about the two-thirds mark, Conley notes the generally decayed state of moral understanding and moral conviction of most Catholics, as well as of Americans in general (not to mention Canadians, etc.):

We have not successfully convinced most Catholics, or anyone else for that matter, that contraception has grave social consequences. Nor have we yet convinced enough Americans that abortion is a real social injustice. Until we do that, we can expect to see the contraceptive mentality continue to foster and encourage libertine social tyranny, religious persecution, and family disintegration.

This is a powerful statement: in the absence of widely shared moral conviction rooted in the truth - an absence exemplified, for Conley, by "the contraceptive mentality" - we are left with libertine social tyranny, religious persecution, and family disintegration. (Conley provides specific examples of such things further up in his piece.) And this is what we currently generally have: instead of widely shared moral conviction rooted in the truth we have relativism. So relativism is a problem; but what to do about it? Conley writes:

But relativism is not immediately overcome by rational conversation in the public square. Rational conversation is important. But among the effects of relativism is a popular culture increasingly less capable—and less willing—to engage in rational discourse at all.

While it leaves us with plenty of unpacking to do, this point is, in certain respects, well put: There is, obviously enough, a natural, inherent affinity between, first, adopting the proposition: "there is no truth of the matter on this subject, just various perspectives and opinions" (relativism); and then, as a result of adopting relativism, being less capable of - or at least less open to - considering non-relativistic propositions: "there is a truth of the matter on this subject (even if the truth is complicated and an understanding of it can only be achieved at the cost of considerable effort, and probably also some luck); and the truth of the matter is this: ..."

It seems obvious enough that the adoption of the relativistic claim will likely leave the resulting believer-in-relativism less capable of considering non-relativistic propositions in an open-minded and intelligent way. Without the prior adoption of the relativistic proposition, one would simply be confronted with a proposition of the latter form, a proposition of a kind which serves as an invitation, and a provocation, to actually think; to embark on the potentially difficult undertaking, with no guarantee of success, of trying to sort through the arguments and evidence for different views in order to discover which is fairest and truest. But with the prior adoption of the relativistic proposition, one confronts propositions of the latter form with a ready-made, catch-all defense, an ideological filter: "of course, that's your opinion, so it's 'true for you'; but we all have our own equally valid opinions and perspectives - and that's all there is: heaps and heaps of equally 'valid' opinions and perspectives." Which is to say: relativism is the opiate of the intellect, a powerful medicine for inducing intellectual apathy. And intellectual apathy, or laziness, leads to intellectual dishonesty, and eventually to a more or less generalized state of bad conscience.

In Conley's quite justified view, then, relativism is bad, something to be overcome. But how?

According to Conley, "Rational conversation is important. But..." That is, Conley admits that rational conversation is 'important'; but this 'importance' is qualified. How, exactly?

Clearly enough, I think, Conley has in view, at least principally, the instrumental importance of rational conversation. The importance of rational conversation, here, seems to lie principally in its instrumental role in convincing people of moral truths - such as the truth about the morality of contraception and abortion. If, however, cultural conditions are such that rational conversation can no longer effectively serve this, its instrumental purpose, then what becomes of the presumed importance of rational conversation? One could get the unfortunate impression in reading what Conley has to say here that rational conversation has no intrinsic importance; and that if cultural conditions are such that the instrumental value of rational conversation seems to have been effectively suppressed, then the importance and value of rational conversation itself will have been effectively nullified - at least relative to that particular social context...

Having thus - implicitly, and perhaps disastrously - argued for the effective nullification of the importance of rational conversation in our relativism-ridden culture, Conley proceeds to provide an (ostensible) alternative to it, namely, evangelization. This move, however, I would argue, is one that is dangerous, misleading, and even self-defeating.

Very briefly: It is dangerous because it would seem to feed the flames of irrationalism already blazing in our culture, and especially in the Church. To the contrary, we must be very clear: "rational conversation" is not of merely instrumental value, it is intrinsically valuable, and morally imperative. It is misleading, because evangelization, like worship (see Romans 12:1), should be a form of "rational conversation," certainly not opposed to it. And it is self-defeating, because it implies - just as does relativism! - that the value of "rational conversation" is merely relative. Ironically, the call to evangelization, when framed as an alternative to rational conversation, ends up having the same effect as relativism: it promotes a culture wherein people - especially people of faith - are "less capable - and less willing - to engage in rational discourse at all."

Let's examine what Conley has to say about the 'evangelization' option:

Evangelium Vitae made clear that the dignity of human life is best understood by disciples of Jesus Christ. The Holy Father’s proposal for eradicating the social evils of abortion and contraception—and their profound social consequences—is evangelization.

Okay; but is JPII's "evangelization" rightly understood as something that steps in to fill the breach when "rational conversation" has proven ineffective in a particular cultural situation?

Well, fundamentally Christians believe that "at the fullness of time God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law" (Gal 4, 4-5). This is the Gospel, and this is very different from saying "at a random time and place God sent his son, born of a random woman into a randomly selected culture, in order to redeem some randomly selected group of people." (Think about it.) The point is, the Christian gospel is organically rooted in its Jewish, Judeo-Hellenic, Judeo-Roman roots. The Christian gospel in fact claims to transcend history, but only and precisely from within history, from out of the divinely chosen and prepared historical (cultural, religious, intellectual, etc.) setting of the incarnation and life of Christ, which thereby becomes a definitive reference point and centre for the whole history of man and human culture.

The other way of putting this is to say that grace builds on nature. Grace does not substitute for nature; nor does it make nature - history, culture, intellectual and political environment, etc. - irrelevant or worthless. Grace elevates nature. But natural wounds still need natural cures. Grace does not save us from the natural ill effects of an unhealthy diet, nor does it save us from having to put in the work to develop and use our natural intelligence in order to avoid and counter the intellectual errors to which we are susceptible in our particular (relativistic) culture. That is, evangelization cannot and must not replace rational conversation.

Conley continues:

The Gospel of Life is the Christian gospel. John Paul said that we only understand human dignity in this life if we understand the human potential for eternal life.

"...we only understand..."? Or we most fully understand? Again, don't we need some distinctions here, in regard to the complementarity of nature and grace, reason and faith, rational conversation and evangelization?... (In this context, how can we ignore the opening line of JP II's Fides et ratio: "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth..." - the point being, it's rather difficult to fly with only one wing!) In any case, for Conley's purposes here, "the human potential for eternal life" is certainly too vague of a phrase; it is not the kind of thing that we can or should forthwith associate specifically with evangelization (i.e., with the Christian gospel). After all, even many relativists will understand (in some sense or other) "the human potential for eternal life," so this kind of Gospel of Vague won't really get us anywhere in regard to the fundamental issues Conley is trying to take on.

Conley concludes:

I remember vividly John Paul II’s homily in Denver, at World Youth Day in 1993, less than two years before he wrote Evangelium Vitae. I was a young priest who had traveled there with pilgrims from Wichita, Kansas. John Paul outlined the culture of death’s grave social dangers. And he proposed this solution:

Do not be afraid to go out on the streets and into public places, like the first Apostles who preached Christ and the Good News of salvation in the squares of cities, towns and villages. This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops!

Evangelium Vitae proposed the urgency of transforming human hearts—and human culture—through the Gospel of Life. Cultural transformation will take time. It is likely that successive generations will be called upon to re-Christianize the western cultural tradition. But restoring Christian culture must begin by restoring hearts—through transformative, kerygmatic encounters with Jesus Christ. Recognizing that fact was the truest genius of Evangelium Vitae.

No doubt this is a stirring invocation. But taken as a proposal to turn away from rational discourse and towards evangelization, it is also undoubtedly profoundly impractical. If people don't want to hear the truth in the context of a rational conversation, why, pray tell, are they going to listen when some zealot climbs on the roof and starts preaching to them? Or again, speaking about "transformative, kerygmatic encounters with Jesus Christ" sounds profound and edifying. But what does such a phrase actually refer to, concretely - other than some form of "rational conversation"? Why would Conley want to imply that "evangelization" refers to something that is fundamentally not a form of "rational conversation"? Surely this kind of implicit separation of faith and reason - at least at the level of Conley's specific rhetoric, if not his general practice - in fact risks falsifying the gospel and ignoring and discounting that complementarity of faith and reason we find proclaimed and defended in JPII's Fides et ratio. Rhetoric which sets up a false dichotomy, where we seem to be encouraged to opt for faith instead of reason, looks more like a symptom of the dictatorship of relativism than a cure for it.

"First world problems"

The world can be a cold, lonely, confusing place, where maturity and sanity are too often elusive and fleeting. But at least we've got Weird Al on Youtube to help us ground and lighten our perspective! (Check out Al's video ("First world problems") if you don't already know the tune - the second line below is definitely one of my all-time favouritest Weird Al lines):

“...I couldn’t order off the breakfast menu, cause I slept in till two

Then I filled up on bread, didn’t leave any room for tiramisu!

[On no! Some stranger on FB didn’t like an analogy I drew, so she got real mad, started a slander campaign, and had her husband threaten to beat me up!]

CHORUS

“I got

First world, first world problems (first world problems)
…”

I love you, Weird Al!
...and you too, irascible FB-friends, who in real-life are strangers - peace be with you.

"Stop that misogynistic 'March for Life'"

On a poster at the University of Ottawa: “Let’s get out and stop that misogynistic ‘March for Life.’”

My first reaction: Right; ‘misogynistic’ - that’s like someone who thinks that it’s okay to enslave members of ‘inferior’ races calling abolitionists (who, yes, do tend to believe in racial equality) ‘white-haters’: "Stop that white-hating 'March against Slavery'"...  

My second reaction: What it is with these radical feminist types? What is their problem, most fundamentally?:

Is it intellectual? (They’re stupid and/or brainwashed?)

Or is it psychological? (They’re deeply wounded, fixated, overwhelmed and driven by irrational rage?)

Or is it spiritual? (All their silliness is fundamentally an outgrowth of bad conscience?)

No doubt it's a mix, and the answer will vary from individual to individual…

Fr. Longenecker and the Death Penalty

The estimable Fr. Dwight Longenecker has written a short summary of C.S. Lewis' essay The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, by way of a preface to arguing in favour of a recent, rather jejune joint editorial from four "national Catholic journals" calling for an end to the death penalty (Longenecker's piece here). I'd say this is not one of Fr. Longenecker's finer performances, whether as an exponent of Catholicism, or simply as a thinker. Let's analyze:

Longecker's case against the Humanitarian Theory of Punishment

Lewis' essay, which Longenecker aims to summarize, treats of three reasons offered by contemporary 'humanitarians' justifying punishment: deterrence, protection, and rehabilitation. Longenecker rejects these reasons. Let's analyze his arguments:

Regarding deterrence, Longenecker writes:

if deterrence is the reason for punishment, then the sentence should be as severe as possible to scare others from committing the crime.

Longenecker is being sloppy here: the premise here simply won't get you to that conclusion. The premise would instead need to be: "If deterrence is the only reason for punishment, and deterrence is an objective that trumps all others, then..." But at the very least, the humanitarian at least believes in rehabilitation and protection, as well as deterrence, so the humanitarian will want to find a balance with those other objectives, he has no reason to absolutize deterrence, and Longenecker's argument here clearly doesn't work. (His argument against deterrence as one of the reasons grounding the application of a particular punishment for a particular crime is also decidedly un-Catholic, that is, opposed to the clear Catholic tradition, as Stephen Long has pointed out here.)

Regarding rehabilitation, Longenecker writes:

Likewise, if rehabilitation is the reason for punishment it can end in injustice and cruelty. If a person is to be imprisoned or punished in some other way until he is reformed and changes his mind he might stay in prison for a very long time and therefore suffer a great injustice. 

Well, indeed: I suppose he might. But it seems obvious that the humanitarian could reply that the person might also be reformed and change his mind and therefore obtain a great benefit - and indeed, this is what the humanitarian hopes and/or expects, so it isn't fair to simply ignore that. And the same kind of analysis would apply to Longenecker's next argument:

Conversely, he may feign rehabilitation in order to attain early release and that too would be unjust.

Well, yes, that might be unjust, and certainly, the humanitarian would agree, it would be undesirable, but that is a practical matter, not one of principle. This is no argument against an emphasis on rehabilitation as such. Longenecker continues:

If the person is imprisoned for an ideological crime he may never recant because to do so, for him, would be to sell his soul. Let’s imagine that a pro life demonstrator was jailed and told that he would only be released if he agreed that abortion was okay. In resisting such “rehabilitation” he would have to be imprisoned forever because he will never recant.

Here the humanitarian could surely object that he no more wants to forceably rehabilitate merely 'ideological criminals' than Longenecker would want to (justly) punish them. Longenecker concludes:

Rehabilitation, therefore, as a motive for punishment leads to injustice.

One problem here is that Longenecker's formulation, "rehabilitation as a motive for punishment," tends to basically misrepresent the humanitarian position. While punishment might still serve as a tool for rehabilitating someone, what the humanitarian fundamentally wants is to replace punishment with rehabilitation, to replace the 'Criminal Justice System' with 'Correctional Services.' He at least wants to thoroughly subordinate punishment - which is a response to past crimes - to his humanitarian goals - which are resolutely future-oriented. Rather than 'punishment' properly speaking, with its connotations of justice, rehabilitation is strictly about 'efficacious conditioning.' In any case, while admitting that abuse of rehabilitative processes might lead to injustice, this doesn't seem like a real reason to reject rehabilitative measures as such, or a reason to retain justice as a more fundamental public objective than rehabilitation.

Thirdly, Longenecker offers his argument against protection:

Likewise if protection of the public is the reason for punishment great injustice may occur. A person who has committed a minor but dangerous crime might be locked up forever if the judge deemed him to be irreformable and a constant danger to the public. If protection of the public is the reason for punishment most anyone could be locked up if the authorities deemed them dangerous.

Here it's not clear how a 'minor' crime could be so dangerous as to justify locking someone up forever. It may be true that an irreformably dangerous person could get locked up forever, but the humanitarian will want to know why that is a bad thing, why it is a "great injustice."

Longenecker then offers his own preferred theory: retribution should be the basis for punishment:

The judge has a list of crimes and he puts that next to the list of punishments and the criminal gets what’s coming to him. No more and no less. The judge then has authority to lengthen or shorten the sentence according to extenuating circumstances and motivation.

Here the humanitarian will likely wonder how this list of crimes and punishments has been constructed. What makes this (or that) list a fitting instrument of fundamental justice? He might cite historical examples that would suggest that such lists may in fact allow "great injustice" to occur, and wonder why it is that when - and only when - expounding his own theory, Longenecker simply ignores the "possibility of great injustice" problem.

Longenecker's case against Capital Punishment

Now for Fr. Dwight's case against capital punishment. He first frames his argument in relation to the three afore-analyzed 'humanitarian reasons.' First, deterrence:

Capital punishment as a deterrent has not been shown to be effective, but the main argument against it is that the deterrent factor should not be the motivation for capital punishment in the first place. If punishment is meted out for its deterrent factor then let us stop complaining about Muslims lop of thieve’s hands, stone adulterers and throw homosexuals from rooftops.

As we have seen, besides being un-Catholic, Longenecker's argument here doesn't work: the humanitarian obviously doesn't - and logically couldn't - absolutize deterrence in such a way that this analysis would make any sense. Deterrence can certainly be one motivation for meting out some particular, harsh punishment, without it being the only or the overriding motivation. Regarding Longenecker's examples, it's hardly clear that they show the wisdom of his own approach: unless it is in fact the case that Muslims, say, lop off thieves' hands strictly for 'humanitarian' reasons (in particular for the purpose of deterrence), then such examples are irrelevant; and if, as may well be the case, Muslims regard such punishment as compatible with Longenecker's "list of crimes-list of punishments" retributive approach, then the example would positively tell against Longenecker's theory of punishment.

Second, rehabilitation:

Capital punishment obviously has nothing to do with rehabilitation except that the imminence of the electric chair, the injection room or the firing squad may prompt repentance and remorse. However, even then it is not always the case as plenty of death row prisoners face their end either spitting with rage and rebellion or strutting in with false bravado and a defiant gesture.

Of course, Fr. Dwight's claims about what may be the case and what is not always the case are correct, but they don't establish anything about the general relative effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of capital punishment vs. long-term imprisonment for purposes of 'rehabilitation' (i.e., repentance and remorse), and thus doesn't tell us anything about the case for or against capital punishment vis-a-vis the goal of 'rehabilitation.'

Third, protection:

It is arguable that capital punishment protects the public by removing a threat permanently, but incarceration accomplishes that without the killing.

This may be so for the most part; except that people who are incarcerated may well in fact continue to pose a threat, living lives of violent and sometimes murderous thuggery even while in prison. Longenecker simply ignores this fact/possibility.

Longenecker concludes with an assessment of capital punishment in light of his own, retributive theory of just punishment:

It remains then to ask whether the execution of a criminal fulfills the demands of retributive justice. Are there crimes so heinous that we must execute the criminal simply because that is what is just?

We should note at the outset that Longenecker has started by posing the fundamental question in a misleading way: The real question is not about whether we must execute certain criminals; the question is whether we may legitimately do so. In positively advocating for an end to the death penalty, for its abolishment, one must establish not only that capital punishment is not a must; one must establish that we must not have recourse to it, no matter how heinous the crime. In any case, let's look at Father's reasoning:

Some would say so. I used to believe so. I no longer do.
Here’s why: it is certainly arguable that one who cruelly and deliberately takes an innocent life should forfeit his own life in return. But a life in prison is also a way to lose one’s life. Perhaps those who are so in favor of the death penalty have never visited a prison or met a man serving a life sentence. I have, and I can tell you that a life sentence is a long, slow death.

This may well be; but then why should we think that a "long, slow death" is preferable to a quick one? Surely Fr. Longenecker needs to explain this.

The life prisoner has a lifetime to learn remorse. He has a lifetime to count the cost. He has a lifetime to make amends. He has a lifetime to give a life for the life he took.

This is true; but it is true regardless of how long the prisoners lifetime is, and regardless of whether that lifetime is cut short by execution or ended by natural death. There is no fundamental principle, I dare say, that the longer we take to learn remorse and to make amends, the better. So again: this is no real argument against the death penalty.

There is, therefore, no good argument for the death penalty.

And to this conclusion I would have to retort: There is, therefore, no good argument against the death penalty - at least none that Fr. Longenecker has offered.

Longenecker ends with the general statement, "This is why I support the editorial in our four Catholic publications today." It is worth noting that when one reads the editorial, this claim looks somewhat ironic, insofar as a number of the reasons given in the editorial are ones which Longenecker himself has just undertaken to refute in the course of offering his own views on the legitimate principles of just punishment. Cardinal O'Malley talks about 'protection'; there is talk of spending resources more efficiently so as to prevent crime in the first place (this would fit in the 'deterrence' portfolio); and there is mention of working for "restorative justice" (albeit only in the case of lesser criminals for some reason... - anyway, I guess, this would fit the 'rehabilitation' portfolio). As for Longenecker's 'just retribution,' I didn't notice any mention of that.

Confirmation: "empty words and cold language"

Conclusion of the Roman (Tridentine) Catechism's section on the Sacrament of Confirmation:

Admonition: Let this, then, serve as a summary of those things which pastors are to expound touching the Sacrament of chrism. The exposition, however, should not be given so much in empty words and cold language, as in the burning accents of pious and glowing zeal, so as to seem to imprint them on the souls and inmost thoughts of the faithful.

How many pastors these days have gotten this memo?: when you're talking about Confirmation, "empty words and cold language"... to be avoided!

Ontario Physicians' "Professional Obligations" - feedback time

Re.: "Professional Obligations and Human Rights" – draft policy
Date: Feb. 20, 2015

To whom it may concern:

Following are some of the basic concerns that I urge you to consider in regard to the above-mentioned document (see here).

Sincerely, 

Yours truly





Lines 4-5: “The fiduciary nature of the physician-patient relationship requires that physicians act in their patients’ best interests.”

Since ‘ought’ implies ‘can,’ this statement is, to speak precisely, certainly false. A fiduciary relationship may well entail an ethical obligation to aim to act in accordance with whatever elements of trust are invested in that particular relationship, which elements are derived from whatever responsibilities are rightly considered to be entailed by that relationship. However, a fiduciary relationship as such certainly does not entail a requirement of actually acting in the best interests of the beneficiary in the relationship. This is not a minor issue. To state the issue in the way the draft proposal does obscures the crucial and quite unavoidable element of the exercise of discretionary judgment on the part of the trustee (the physician) in determining what is in fact in their patient's best interests. Such judgment, since it is fallible and will in some cases be irreducibly controversial, cannot serve as the basis for any kind of straightforward "requirement to act in a patient's best interests." What is at stake in the fiduciary relationship between physicians and patients is precisely trust relative to making these kinds of unavoidably fallible judgments (which judgments may lead to actions which in fact turn out not to be in the patient's best interests). Obviously one crucial point to retain in seeking to enunciate an intelligent and just policy regarding professional obligations is the fact that different individuals will have different judgments as to what constitutes “acting in the patient’s best interests,” and that these diverse judgments are from the nature of the case necessarily logically prior – and thus prior in the order of ethical analysis – to any obligations to act in accordance with any (putatively) objective standard of acting. From the start, the CPSO draft policy appears to systematically ignore this crucial point.

 

 

Lines 14-15: “The key values of professionalism articulated in the College’s Practice Guide – compassion, service, altruism and trustworthiness – form the basis for the expectations set out in this policy.”

 

This claim seems to be pure bafflegab. It should be obvious to anyone who considers the matter that these “key values” are far too vague and subject to diverse interpretation to actually form any real, substantive basis for the various specific expectations set out in the draft policy.

 

  

Lines 138-141: “Where physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs, physicians must communicate their objection directly and with sensitivity to existing patients, or those seeking to become patients, and inform them that the objection is due to personal and not clinical reasons.”

 

Implicit in this statement is the judgment of the CPSO that any "not clinical" reasons must be "personal" reasons. This is vague at best. It would seem to be clearly beyond the competence of the CPSO to make such an implicit determination about the general nature of reason-giving: that reasons must be either “clinical” or “personal.” If this is a merely stipulative use of the word “personal” – i.e., by stipulation any “non-clinical” reason will be called “personal” - then the CPSO should clarify what is meant by this distinction and attempt to offer some justification for choosing to express itself in terms of such an arbitrarily prejudicial dichotomy in this context. The governing council of the CPSO may well have some more-or-less collective "personal" view about the general nature of the "non-clinical" reasons that physicians inevitably have, and in accordance with which they may be unwilling to provided "certain elements of care." But this "personal" view of the CPSO council – and to be clear, the view is clearly "non-clinical," it has nothing whatsoever to do with medical expertise, it is a highly controversial ethical and meta-ethical question - is not one which the CPSO has any right to impose on its members and their practise, or on their patients, who also have a stake in being able to rely upon the integrity and autonomy of their physicians, without this integrity and autonomy being compromised by seemingly groundless thought-policing from the physicians’ professional organization. Certainly, if the CPSO does wish to arrogate to itself the right to dictate to its members certain ethical and meta-ethical positions in accordance with which its members must practise, then it has the obligation to communicate to its members and to the general public the reasons by which it holds itself to possess any such right, and why it holds itself justified in promoting, under threat of sanction, whichever particular ethical and meta-ethical suppositions it chooses to promote. The current draft policy does not provide, nor even attempt to provide, any such justification. In fact, it seems highly unlikely that the CPSO could justify claiming for itself such an aggressively ideological mandate, but if this is how the CPSO wants to behave, for the sake of consistency it must at least communicate the grounds for its judgment. Failure to do so is a failure of the CPSO to act in a way that upholds the dignity and autonomy of both physicians and patients, who prima facie should not be subjected to the seemingly whimsical behest of the decidedly "non-clinical" judgment of the CPSO in controversial ethical matters.

 

  

Lines 143-144: “In the course of communicating their objection, physicians must not express personal judgments about the beliefs, lifestyle, identity or characteristics of existing patients, or those seeking to become patients.”

 

Again, this claim is hopelessly vague and far too categorical. Besides the problem of failing to define what it is that constitutes a “personal judgment” as such, the scope of what might fall under the description of “expressing personal judgments about the beliefs, lifestyle, identity or characteristics of patients” is far too broad. To insist that physicians “must not” do this very broad and ill-defined thing is not only silly, in light of its vagueness, but would also seem to suggest that physicians’ responsibility to avoid saying anything that their patients might find disagreeable is more important than their responsibility to provide the care that, in the professional judgment of the particular physician, is in the best interests of the patient. Such a policy would seem to undermine the specific fiduciary relationship existing between doctors and patients, rather than safeguard it.

  

 

Lines 152-153: “Physicians must provide information about all clinical options that may be available or appropriate to meet patients’ clinical needs or concerns.”

 

This claim is again too categorical – “Physicians must…about all…” – in relation to the vague requirement it enjoins – “that may be…to meet patients’ clinical needs or concerns.” In reality, physicians must exercise judgment, first in assessing the “clinical needs or concerns” of patients, and then in providing information about the relevant, available clinical options of which they are aware, and which they actually deem to be appropriate. A categorical insistence on informing patients of all options which just may be available or appropriate obscures this reality.

 

 

Lines 155-160: “Where physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs, an effective referral to another health care provider must be provided to the patient. An effective referral means a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician or other health-care provider. The referral must be made in a timely manner to reduce the risk of adverse clinical outcomes. Physicians must not impede access to care for existing patients, or those seeking to become patients.”

 

This statement is again vague and smacks of a needless ideological imposition upon the integrity, autonomy, dignity, and professional judgment of physicians, which imposition, again, will tend to impair the fiduciary relationships of physicians with patients. The draft does not appear to present any principles upon which this policy could be grounded or justified. The statement is plagued by the usual vagueness: What is meant by “certain elements of care”? Does this refer to “elements of care” in the general sense of effective options for addressing genuine medical issues, i.e., issues pertaining to the health of the patient? Or does “elements of care” refer to particular procedures that patients might request, regardless of the necessity of that procedure for addressing any genuine health issue? Unless the CPSO has a great deal more to offer in terms of relevant principled justification, the draft should be amended so that the latter, unreasonably aggressive construal of the fiduciary duty of physicians towards their patients is clearly excluded.

 

  

Lines 168-169: “Physicians must provide care that is urgent or otherwise necessary to prevent imminent harm, suffering, and/or deterioration, even where that care conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs.”

 

This statement is again too categorical. The point of balancing rights is that everyone’s rights matter. To say to someone, “I don’t care how wrong you think this is; you must do it,” might be justified in some very rare circumstances; but to effectively make this kind of demand in a blanket way, in relation to such vague conditions, is certainly an overreach and a grave imposition upon the conscience and professional judgment of physicians. In making this kind of statement the drafters of this policy seem to have forgotten the basic necessity of prudential judgment in the matter of balancing conflicting rights, as well as their own fiduciary duties towards their professional members, which must surely include a duty to respect the autonomy, dignity, trustworthiness, etc. of those members.

  

Knowledge is scary

There may be certain things about the world or about yourself that you don't want to know. So if someone points out these things, maybe you get angry with the person pointing it out - the old story: don't like the message, shoot the messenger. Surely this is really quite remarkable: people are afraid of knowledge. Ponder that. Boko Haram and the like are just the extreme manifestation of something you can see everyday on Facebook - or even, too often, in the aggressively 'progressive' and 'tolerant' environment of many university classrooms (i.e., the supposed enemies of Boko Haram). People are afraid of knowledge; especially self-knowledge. But they still grasp that knowledge is a genuinely good and desirable thing. That's why they lap up absurd, self-righteous narratives about how enlightened they are, in comparison to all the people who have thought or do think differently from themselves and their narrow set - even when they have no idea of what those other people thought or think and why they thought or think it. And so they get angry if you question their absurd, self-righteous narratives. If they're 'progressive' types, they'll often go so far as to angrily dismiss you as a bully or a bigot - why? - because you have dared to challenge them to think critically about their precious 'progressive' viewpoints... and somehow they fail to see the irony! So do you laugh or weep? What a waste of time even trying to talk to such people! And yet, they remain fellow citizens and fellow human beings. We still have to live together. So even though it so often seems like a waste of time, we are not absolved from the responsibility to at least try to make positive contributions to public discourse. (And that's what your 'personal' FB page is: if people can see it, by definition it's public.)