Month: May 2016

We are the barbarians: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 31, 2016 • In the News; Moral Theology; Pro-Life Issues

 

An arti­cle at Rare yes­ter­day points out that some of the ear­li­est and most vocif­er­ous crit­ics of the atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki were con­ser­v­a­tives writ­ing for Nation­al Review. Imag­ine that. No less a per­son than Rus­sell Kirk wrote in 1945: “We are the bar­bar­ians with­in our own Empire.” That’s much stronger than any­thing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma said, and yet Joel B. Pol­lak at Bre­it­bart called for Con­gress to cen­sure him for it. Now, if Mr. Pol­lak were a con­sis­tent man, he would also con­demn Rus­sell Kirk and Nation­al Review.

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Mercy and not judgment on suicide.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 26, 2016 • Apologetics; Moral Theology

 

On my Face­book wall this past week­end, we were dis­cussing this top­ic: Let’s have com­pas­sion on peo­ple who com­mit sui­cide and not judge them. As is typ­i­cal, some­one some­where said some­thing stu­pid and mer­ci­less (in this case about a per­son suf­fer­ing from sui­ci­dal ideation); I got wind of it; and made a post. I did no more than quote the Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church: “Grave psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tur­bances, anguish, or grave fear of hard­ship, suf­fer­ing, or tor­ture can dimin­ish the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the one com­mit­ting sui­cide.”

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Three verses that don’t prove sola scriptura.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 20, 2016 • Apologetics; Exegesis; sola scriptura

 

In con­ver­sa­tions with Protes­tants, the top­ic of sola scrip­tura will almost always come up. Accord­ing to those who are per­suad­ed by this idea, the Bible — six­ty-six, not sev­en­ty-three, books — is the sole infal­li­ble rule of faith and prac­tice for the Church. What­ev­er is not specif­i­cal­ly in the Bible, or may be log­i­cal­ly inferred from it, is not bind­ing upon Chris­tians. The idea is actu­al­ly self-refut­ing when asked this sim­ple ques­tion: “So where is sola scrip­tura in the Bible? If it is not to be found there, then the teach­ing is self-refut­ing: What­ev­er is not in the Bible is not bind­ing on Chris­tians.

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Let’s please all take a breath about “women deacons.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 12, 2016 • Church History; In the News; Pope Francis

 

Let’s get one thing straight here before peo­ple rush through the streets throw­ing con­fet­ti in the air; or plung­ing dag­gers into their chests and pitch­ing them­selves over the near­est cliff. What Pope Fran­cis is talk­ing about is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reviv­ing the ancient order of dea­coness; which no one, ever, thought of as female “cler­gy.” So when you hear words like “ordain women,” or when you read breath­less arti­cles that “women dea­cons” will soon be serv­ing in one and the same capac­i­ty as male dea­cons, your cow detec­tor should be moo­ing at a loud pitch.

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Does Amoris Laetitia contradict the Council of Trent? Part 5 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 10, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

How­ev­er one reads AL 301, he can not read it in such a way that it would deny what the pope had said just six para­graphs ear­li­er. The pope does not think that “the com­mand­ments of God are impos­si­ble to fol­low,” for he says in AL 295 that “every­one with­out excep­tion” can do so. Dr. Brug­ger does not men­tion this part. So what is the pope say­ing in AL 301? The first thing that must be kept in mind, when answer­ing that ques­tion, is the con­text: In 301 the pope is dis­cussing var­i­ous fac­tors that can mit­i­gate cul­pa­bil­i­ty when grave mat­ter is present.

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Does Amoris Laetitia treat the moral law as a mere “ideal”? Part 4 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 10, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

I wish Pope Fran­cis had not used the word “ide­al” at all in ref­er­ence to the moral law; if for no oth­er rea­son than its poten­tial to mis­lead. I can be frank about that. The word can sug­gest that a moral life is no more than a goal; God prefers that you achieve it, but strict­ly speak­ing you can do with­out it if you fall short. But that is not what Pope Fran­cis meant to imply. And to know he didn’t, we need look no fur­ther than AL 295, where he speaks of the Law of Grad­u­al­ness. The moral law is “objec­tive”; it is “for every­one with­out excep­tion”; and it “can be fol­lowed.” Thus says Pope Fran­cis.

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Is Amoris Laetitia inconsistent in its treatment of conscience? Part 3 of a response to Dr. E. Christian Brugger.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 4, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; Moral Theology

 

Per­haps one may not, overnight, be able to aban­don a sin into which one has fall­en and com­mit­ted for a long peri­od of time. Things you do by habit you often need to aban­don in stages. Yes, I avail myself of the con­fes­sion­al; I make a firm pur­pose of amend­ment; but per­haps in three days I fall again. The “most gen­er­ous response” is to rec­og­nize the error, return to con­fes­sion, and try again. God does not say, “I want you to keep sin­ning.” He does say, “If you can’t aban­don your sin overnight, I want you to move in that direc­tion.” That’s why the pope uses words like “for now.”

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Now, if Life Site News could correct the record. (Again.)

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 2, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia; False Report

 

Wouldn’t it be prop­er to explain that, accord­ing to Schon­born — the man Pope Fran­cis says has the right under­stand­ing about com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried — AL is actu­al­ly to be read in har­mo­ny with FC 84,? Wouldn’t it clear up a lot of poten­tial con­fu­sion to say, Now, Schon­born spec­i­fies that the “cer­tain cas­es” in are those which the cou­ple has agreed to prac­tice celiba­cy? The very sec­tion of FC 84 that Mr. West­en quot­ed to show that Amor­is is a depar­ture, was Schon­born quot­ed to explain how Amor­is is con­sis­tent.

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Cardinal Schönborn gives clarification on communion.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • May 1, 2016 • Amoris Laetitia

 

I became aware of the video embed­ded at the bot­tom of this post by a read­er who post­ed it in the com­ments here. The video was uploaded to YouTube on April 20. My read­er post­ed it because he seemed to think that Schonborn’s dis­cus­sion of Amor­is Laeti­tia 305 sup­ports the view of Prof. Spae­mann and oth­ers: name­ly, that the pope per­mits com­mu­nion for Catholics in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage. That is to say, the pope per­mits adul­tery. So always will­ing to check out the truth of what is claimed, I watched the video myself. I learned that Car­di­nal Schon­born says the very oppo­site.

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