1. A GENERAL CONCEPTION OF CHRISTIAN MORALS

Before confronting the issues concerning moral deviations and imprecisions that followed the Second Vatican Council, I believe that it is important to outline a description that may bring us closer to the concept of Christian morals. Christian morals are specifically based on the person of Christ, the source from which morals spring, because He is the full revelation of the love of God that is extended to all mankind. He is consequently the practical and universal rule for every moral action.

Hence, the life of Christ is celebration and action. It celebrates the redeeming work of God, announced by the religions and the morals that do not belong to the Bible, fulfilled by the promise and the law of the Covenant, accomplished with the sacrificial gift, the resurrection of Christ and the communication of the Holy Spirit. Christ directs the love of the Father towards the world, achieving the totality of that love and making us the children of God. In this manner, Christ, the prototype of perfect obedience to the Father, and the Holy Spirit lavished upon those who believe, transfigure our sinful freedoms. The example set by Christ and the grace of the Spirit provide us, the Church, with the capacity of undertaking a moral activity, personally and socially, that aims for the perfection of charity and is also inclined to compassion.

2. THE DEVIATION OF CHRISTIAN MORALS

I found that it was appropriate to make a list of the possible doctrinal deviations that have appeared after the Second Vatican Council, in particular as far as fundamental morality is concerned. It is without doubt equally appropriate to consider specific morals, meaning social or sexual morals, but in view of the limited amount of time available there will be no reference to this. However, the presuppositions for fundamental morality are so important that they necessarily involve also those of the other two.

1. A FIRST APPROACH

Everyone is aware of his Holiness John Paul II ‘s pastoral preoccupation in this sense, expressed in the Encyclical Veritatis Splendor. From the very first words of this Letter, he is telling us that: "Today, however, it seems necessary to reflect on the whole of the Church's moral teaching, with the precise goal of recalling certain fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine which, in the present circumstances, risk being distorted or denied. In fact, a new situation has come about within the Christian community itself, which has experienced the spread of numerous doubts and objections of a human and psychological, social and cultural, religious and even properly theological nature, with regard to the Church's moral teachings" (N. 4).

Veritatis Splendor wishes therefore to be the Magisterium of the Church’s answer to the crisis of theological-moral meditation in the post-Council period, as stated by number 5: "with the intention of clearly setting forth certain aspects of doctrine which are of crucial importance in facing what is certainly a genuine crisis, since the difficulties which it engenders have most serious implications for the moral life of the faithful and for communion in the Church, as well as for a just and fraternal social life".

The "crisis" occurred above all in the framework of so called "fundamental" or "general" moral theology, in two different cultural environments: the philosophical one and the theological one. In the cultural-philosophical aspect, that however has immediate effects on the Christian community and on theological-moral meditation, the fundamental problem stands out concerning the relationship between freedom and truth, a problem that has been and is still now solved by referring to the claim for the human autonomy of morality as its central issue, and to the dissociation of freedom and truth as the final choice. This is why his Holiness’ Encyclical states that: "It is no longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine, on the basis of certain anthropological and ethical presuppositions. At the root of these presuppositions is the more or less obvious influence of currents of thought which end by detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth. Thus the traditional doctrine regarding the natural law, and the universality and the permanent validity of its precepts, is rejected; certain of the Church's moral teachings are found simply unacceptable; and the Magisterium itself is considered capable of intervening in matters of morality only in order to "exhort consciences" and to "propose values", in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices". (No. 4).

From a more theological point of view it becomes necessary to stress the trend to separate morality from faith: on one hand it is a question of the natural evolution of the claim for human autonomy from morals, and on the other the positions that have repercussions on the problem concerning the competence of the Magisterium of the Church in moral matters, because this body has not been recognized has exercising an effectively doctrinal competence. Hence the Encyclical: "and the Magisterium itself is considered capable of intervening in matters of morality only in order to "exhort consciences" and to "propose values", in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices (...)Also, an opinion is frequently heard which questions the intrinsic and unbreakable bond between faith and morality, as if membership in the Church and her internal unity were to be decided on the basis of faith alone, while in the sphere of morality a pluralism of opinions and of kinds of behavior could be tolerated, these being left to the judgment of the individual subjective conscience or to the diversity of social and cultural contexts." (No. 4) If these are the origins and the essential contents of the "crisis" for which the Encyclical wishes to provide an answer, one immediately understands how important it is for the Magisterium to continue to intervene. The Veritatis Splendor states this explicitly, formulating two extremely serious questions concerning morality: "In particular, note should be taken of the lack of harmony between the traditional response of the Church and certain theological positions, encountered even in Seminaries and in Faculties of Theology, with regard to questions of the greatest importance for the Church and for the life of faith of Christians, as well as for the life of society itself. In particular, the question is asked: do the commandments of God, which are written on the human heart and are part of the Covenant, really have the capacity to clarify the daily decisions of individuals and entire societies? Is it possible to obey God and thus love God and neighbour, without respecting these commandments in all circumstances? (No.4)

Especially in chapter II of the letter, entitled "And be not conformed to this world" (Romans12,2), there is the wish "in order to help man in his journey towards truth and freedom." (No. 27), to stimulate him to be vigilant and capable of discriminating. In realty, within society and also in the Christian community, a different kind of answer is circulating instead of the answer given by the Teacher to His Church. The Church’s mission is to supervise matters so as to maintain clear and intact the doctrine of the Teacher. Hence the church has the mission of creating a "distinction" among the various trends of current moral theology, so as to convalidate the positive aspects and denounce, or even to refuse, those that are problematic and negative.

These are trends that return once again to insist on the concept of freedom, but that do not always preserve the fundamental bond with truth, which is the condition and the path for achieving freedom. The claim for freedom unconnected from and also against the truth involves negative consequences especially in the following four contexts.

The first context is that of natural law: either one refuses it because freedom itself is transformed into a "Source of values", or one "falsifies" it because one interprets it in a reductive manner, as if it were a biological law, or else one "deforms" it because it is incompatible with the uniqueness and unrepeatability of the person (universal law) and with the person’s history (unchangeable law) (See numbers from 35 to 53).

The second context is that of the conscience, understood as "decision" – essentially unique, non-censurable and infallible – of the individual person in a certain situation in life, that – so they say – cannot be understood and consequently regulated by a universal law valid for everyone in all its elements. However, the "healthy doctrine " expresses itself in a very different manner: The conscience is the "judgment" of individual reason that applies universal law – meaning, the requirements of the real good of man – to his own situation, an application that takes place in an extremely personal dialogue with God, in the firm belief that the conscience also can be mistaken and that, consequently, must be constantly formed. (See numbers 54 to 64).

The third context originates in freedom which finds its strongest and most radical expression in the fundamental option – that of faith and of charity – with which man decides about the totality of himself in the presence of God; it is always a choice that is not dissociated or beyond the "individual" choices concerning actions and behavior. If opposed to the "healthy doctrine", meaning opposed to the deep unity of man corpore et anima unus, one must remember that the fundamental option cannot be debated by opposing individual choices, and consequently, one must consider that the morality of an individual – the person’s goodness or malice – resides entirely and only in the general intentions and interior attitudes, and not, concretely, in each single choice that might have for an object a certain kind of behavior. (See numbers from 65 to 70).

The fourth and last context is related to moral action, that can be directed towards God and towards the authentic good and happiness of the person. This classification of course depends on the intentions of the person acting, according to a morality that depends also on circumstances, and in particular on the consequences of the concrete action. There are also however actions that in virtue of their structure, cannot be ordered towards God and also contradict the real good of the person: these are actions that are "intrinsically evil", meaning that they are evil in themselves, to the extent that morality is decided by their object, leaving out of this consideration intentions and circumstances. From a moral point of view, they are irredeemable. The negative rules that forbid them are absolute, they count semper et pro semper, meaning with no exceptions whatsoever. However this "healthy doctrine" is today contradicted by "teleological" ethical theories (advocates of consequentiality and of proportionality), according to which the morality of actions can be adequately defined always and only on the basis of their effects and foreseeable consequences of their proportions. Such theories "maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behaviour which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values (indicated by reason and by the Revelation)" (No. 75) (See numbers from 71 to 83).

2. A FEW IN DEPTH STUDIES

The methodology adopted by the Encyclical is one of critical discernment "a discernment capable of acknowledging what is legitimate, useful and of value in them, while at the same time pointing out their ambiguities, dangers and errors" (No. 34). The Pontiff’s letter however wishes to compare: "The human issues most frequently debated and differently resolved in contemporary moral reflection are all closely related, albeit in various ways, to a crucial issue: human freedom. (No. 31) and its relation with truth. However, by carefully reading the Encyclical, we will observe that the compulsory comparison of the relation between freedom and truth necessarily places us in front of a problem that is eminently anthropological, indicating the very identity of man and the human person. Hence ethics presuppose and express anthropology, and anthropology is intrinsically linked to theology and Christology. It is in the light of the mystery of the Word become flesh that one discovers what man is (See GS, n. 22).

We are now faced with a fundamental question: are freedom and the law allies or are they opposed one to the other? This question is evident when one considers freedom itself as an absolute and as a source of values, although there are also other schools of thought that, strangely, debate this matter (See numbers 32 and 33). According to John Paul II this opposition does not exist and offers us the basis for his belief with a concise answer: "the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone. (...) God's law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom." (No. 35). At a later stage the Encyclical analyses some of the trends of current moral theology, offering a critical analysis.

1. Starting with the tendency of the absolute autonomy of freedom to generate the truth, a number of theologians have reached the conclusion that there must be an absolute autonomy, in a rational context, for the elaboration of moral rules and that these rules are exclusively those of a "human" code, hence man autonomously rules himself (See No. 36). Consequently a number of Catholic moral theologians established a clear distinction between ethical order and that of redemption; according to them in this order "only certain intentions and interior attitudes regarding God and neighbour would be significant" (No. 37), consequently denying that the revelation possesses a certain moral content and that the Magisterium has specific doctrinal competence concerning the norms related to the so called "human good" (See. No. 37). The Encyclical recognizes the free creation of man as the participated theonomy, through which he is called upon to govern the world; it also states that: "also man himself has been entrusted to his own care and responsibility. God left man "in the power of his own counsel" (Sir 15,14), so that he might search for his Creator and freely attain perfection. Attaining such perfection means personally building up that perfection in himself. (No. 39). Therefore man possesses a moral autonomy related to his own truth, but more radically related to the truth of his Creator, God: "man's freedom is not negated by his obedience to the divine law; indeed, only through this obedience does it abide in the truth and conform to human dignity (...) (No. 42).
2. The natural moral law. The formulation offered by the Encyclical proposes this natural law in the light of the Eternal Law, in the sense of a participation of this Eternal law to that of the reasoning being, therefore proving "the essential subordination of reason and human law to the Wisdom of God and to his law." (No. 44). There is still today an intense debate open between the scholars of ethics and the moralists concerning the accusations of physicism and of naturalism moved against the traditional concept of natural law, since in the light of these the idea is supported stating that the traditional concepts profess to present as moral laws those that are in reality simply appear to be biological laws, attributing an unchangeable character to human behavior, from which immutable and universally valid norms derive. Some theologians believe that this biologically related subject is present in a few of the Magisterium’s documents, especially in the fields of sexual and matrimonial morality and they believe that it "fails to take into adequate consideration both man's character as a rational and free being and the cultural conditioning of all moral norms." (No. 47)

 

These accusations however turn against the accusers themselves, because after all what they use is a dualistic form of anthropology that dissociates man in his dimension of body and soul, totally exalting the soul (freedom) and reducing the body to something extrinsic to the person. On this subject the Encyclical states that: "A freedom which claims to be absolute ends up treating the human body as a raw datum, devoid of any meaning and moral values until freedom has shaped it in accordance with its design. Consequently, human nature and the body appear as presuppositions or preambles, materially necessary for freedom to make its choice, yet extrinsic to the person, the subject and the human act. Their functions would not be able to constitute reference points for moral decisions, because the finalities of these inclinations would be merely "physical" goods, called by some "pre-moral". To refer to them, in order to find in them rational indications with regard to the order of morality, would be to expose oneself to the accusation of physicalism or biologism." (No. 48). Therefore the result is clear: "In this way of thinking, the tension between freedom and a nature conceived of in a reductive way is resolved by a division within man himself." (No. 48).

The Magisterium, supported by the Holy Scriptures and by Tradition want to once again proclaim, so as to present a correct understanding of natural law, the uniqueness of the human being: "This moral theory does not correspond to the truth about man and his freedom. It contradicts the Church's teachings on the unity of the human person, whose rational soul is per se et essentialiter the form of his body (...)The person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts. The person, by the light of reason and the support of virtue, discovers in the body the anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator." (No. 48). And it is according to this intrinsic unity that the morality of the human person is structured.

3. The universality and the immutability of natural law. These two fundamental aspects of natural law have both been contradicted by new positions, according to which universality is contradicted by the uniqueness and the unrepeatability of each human being, while the immutability is considered debatable because of historicity and personal cultures.

In realty, "This universality does not ignore the individuality of human beings, nor is it opposed to the absolute uniqueness of each person. On the contrary, it embraces at its root each of the person's free acts, which are meant to bear witness to the universality of the true good." (No. 51). The human being’s relational characteristics and its capacity for dialogue and for entering communion with others is what creates the common bond, it is human nature, and it is only based on this common characteristic that the uniqueness and unrepeatability of the person can be developed, that is undoubtedly unique and unrepeatable. But related to who? Submitting to a common law is like creating the real communion of people, expressed on the negative rules of the natural law, rules that are universally valid and binding for each of us in every circumstance "because the choice of this kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbour. It is prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. They oblige everyone, regardless of the cost, never to offend in anyone, beginning with oneself, the personal dignity common to all." (52).

As far as the immutability of natural law is concerned, the Encyclical clarifies that the concept of historicity also requires an immutable reference point: man within his permanent structural elements, Jesus Christ "Who is always the same: yesterday, today and forever and ever". "Moreover, the very progress of cultures demonstrates that there is something in man which transcends those cultures. This "something" is precisely human nature: this nature is itself the measure of culture and the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of any of his cultures, but asserts his personal dignity by living in accordance with the profound truth of his being." (No. 53), without however denying the need to translate the authenticity of the universal rules in different cultural contexts.

As you can see, I have examined in depth only a few elements, because of the limited time available; however, I believe that it is worthwhile continuing to read in detail the magnificent document by his Holiness John Paul II, who has explicitly intended to underline a number of mistaken moral theories.