Should we argue about Live Action?

John McNichol, whose opinions I respect immensely, says lay off the criticism.  Peter Kreeft, not exactly a lightweight in the catholic moral thinking department, says you have to be pretty stupid not to recognize that what Live Action did was okay.  Francis Beckwith argues that while all lying is wrong, not all falsehoods are lies, as not all killing is murder.  Rahab is becoming a household name in the process.

I think Beckwith is on to the pivotal question.  But I don’t think the answer is obvious, and I think the firestorm in the catholic blogosphere is Exhibit A in proving my point.  When a whole host of professional catholics — intelligent, educated people who are in the business of explaining the catholic faith in their various ways —  cannot agree on a question, that tells me the answer is not yet clearly defined by the church.  And for that reason, it deserves debate.

Exhibit B is the stunning silence of the Catechism.  The church has managed to figure out two things for certain:

1) Lying is wrong.

2) You don’t have to tell everybody everything.

And that’s it.  Take a look at, say, murder or contraception, and you get lots of in’s and out’s.  This _____ is sinful, this ______ is not.   This ______ is horribly tempting but you mustn’t do it no matter what, even though you really really want to and we understand that it isn’t easy to resist.  The church is quite good about knowing all the crazy stuff we’ll think up, and heading off at the pass as many scenarios as possible.

–> It is no secret that people wonder how to handle all the situations where you might reasonably think lying is a legitimate solution.  And yet the church provides astonishingly little guidance.  The 8th commandment is apparently just not that well understood.

Which is par for the course.   Our understanding of the moral life develops over time.   Meanwhile, we argue.

***

There are a few arguments being thrown around though, that I think are a distraction.

You just know what the right thing to do is. This is Kreeft’s argugment, and an awful lot of people were no doubt thrilled to hear him say it.  I don’t think it holds.   In the face of tremendous danger in extreme situations (literally: the Nazi scenario), sincere Christians have followed their intuition and come to different answers.  Intuition is helpful, yes.  But firm moral principles are developed by starting with intuition, and seeing where it leads.  Not by sitting in the starting gate.

Lying is the only workable solution in certain situations. This is an argument about tactics.   Well, we can have a debate about tactics, but only after we know which are admissible and which are not.  If we know that lying is acceptable in ______ situation, we can proceed to the discussion of whether or not to use that particular tool.  Should I run or stand and fight?  It’s a discussion I can only have once I know that both running and fighting are legitimate choices.

Bible Heroes and Great Saints did it. People who don’t read the Bible talk about what a great collection of moral tales it contains.  So when I first started reading it, I was very confused.  Here’s what: Biography is not morality.  Biography tells me who did what.  It does not tell me whether everything my heroes ever did was in fact morally sound. Including the way they foiled the enemy this time or that.  We canonize saints without thereby proclaiming that their every action was objectively sinless.

But if you didn’t lie, horrible things would happen. I think this is where Beckwith and Tollefsen (who disagree with one another) are on the right track.  There are situations in the moral life where the only moral choice is the “no-win” — the one with disastrous consequences.  Is lying like apostasy?  Must we tell the truth at all cost, the way we must be willing to witness to Christ at all cost?  Or is lying like killing, where there are situations where it is an acceptable option?

–> The fact that horrible things will likely happen if you don’t lie, does not prove that lying is permitted.  (It does drastically lessen any potential culpability.)

[Kreeft agrees, by the way, that there are certain situations in which you must permit horrible things to happen to the people you ought to be protecting, because apostasy is worse than allowing that horrible suffering.  He doesn’t think lying ranks with apostasy.]

***

I was pretty happy with the Live Action videos when I saw them.  Horrified by what they uncovered, and thrilled that Live Action had the courage and cleverness to bring to light the evil going on.  It did not occur to me to question the methods — seemed, as many are saying, like a variation on the police tactics that catholics have not been questioning.  (Again, the silence of the Catechism is deafening.  And for my own part, in the ‘legitimate authority’ debate, when in doubt I tend to err on the side of giving rights to private citizens.)

And I agree with John McNichol that Lila Rose certainly doesn’t deserve to be singled out.  But I think this not only because, as JDM observes, she has more guts than all the internet critics combined, but also because it isn’t obvious that she’s doing anything wrong at all.  The church, it appears to me, is still way up in the air on this one.

And for that reason, I think we should argue.

Safety & Christianity

Nice essay here, thanks to the Rollings in Haiti.  Not long, either.  Nice pre-lenten warm-up.

Lying – A Quick Tutorial on 2 Topics

Yesterday I read through a good bit of the great debate over the morality of Live Action’s Planned Parenthood stings.   I wanted to address two errors I’m seeing in the comboxes that deal with just the basics on lying and telling the truth.  One is the question of social lies (“Do you like my haircut?”), and I’ll answer that one second.  The other is this:

“No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it.” (CCC 2489)

Now there’s quite a lot of noise about how the catechism was revised back in paragraph 2483 to clarify the definition of lying, specifically to remove the qualifer “to those who have a right to the truth”.  But 2489 stands as written.  Because here’s what: Withholding the truth from someone does not require lying!

–> What the catechism is saying, is that we don’t have to live in a talk-show tell-all universe.  Everybody doesn’t have a right to know everyone else’s private business.  Scrupulous followers of the 10 Commandments might have thought otherwise, thinking that the commandment to tell the truth means we have to tell the whole truth to anyone who asks and a lot of people who don’t.  Not so.

***

This is an everyday practical topic, and if you have grown up in a culture that considers lying AOK, you might want some tips on ways to legitimately withhold the truth from someone who has no right to know.  So here are some choices for you:

• Say nothing at all.  My husband has a right to know how our income taxes are coming along.  I have an obligation to discuss the situation truthfully and completely.  In contrast, if a friend of mine shares some private detail of her personal life, and asks me to keep it strictly confidential, (we are assuming it has no bearing on anything to do with my husband), my job is to just keep my mouth shut.   I probably shouldn’t even mention the conversation at all, if I can help it.
• Refuse to answer. SuperHusband was interviewing a contractor, and inquired what kind of wages the guy’s workers earned.  (The concern: Are they earning a fair wage?  It was a field where workers are often not paid decent wages.)  The contractor answered very simply, “That is none of your business.”  Fair enough.  Takes guts to say that sometimes, so go ahead and practice.  Gentler options are, “I’m not at liberty to say”, “that is a private matter”, “I’m afraid I cannot answer that”, “that is not something I can discuss with you”.  No further explanation required.
• Answer the underlying question. My son comes to me demanding to know whether his little sister got a piece of Halloween candy.  What he really wants to know? Did I get cheated, mom?  Are you favoring her? So I’m entirely within my right to simply answer, “Everyone will get a fair amount of candy.”
• Answer a more relevant question. Same child comes to me asking, “Where is my Halloween candy?”  I reply with the more pertinent topic: “Where is your math homework?”
• Provide a suitably general answer. A student needs to be excused from class to attend to an embarrassing situation.  Everyone of course wants to know where she’s going.  (Keep in mind in the classroom, usually students raise their hand and give a reason they want to be excused — bathroom visit, drink of water, etc.).  It may be more considerate to the embarrassed student to provide a true but vague answer.  “She needed to go to the restroom”, not “she was about to throw up all over the place”.  “I needed her to tell something to the DRE for me”, not “She was about to burst out crying about a family situation”.  “She needed to leave early tonight”, not “She has really bad cramps and wants to go home”.  It’s nobody’s business why she needs to go the ladies’ room, speak to the DRE, or call her mom to pick her up early.   There is nothing dishonest about keeping private situations private, and no lie is required.  The 8th commandment does not require us to tell every detail.

There you go.  Five ways you can legitimately withhold the truth from people who have no right to know.

***

Social Lying.  This is the other one people have been tossing about as a way to somehow prove that it’s fine to lie under this or that circumstance.  Now we can debate all day whether undercover operations or visits from the Gestapo are situations where lying is acceptable.  But there is no sting operation involved when your co-worker asks “Do you like my new shoes?”  And I don’t care what time of the month it is, your wife is not a Nazi when she asks what you think of her outfit.

So don’t lie.  Just don’t.  It’s a bad habit, and it builds unhealthy relationships.

If the relationship is insecure, you need to work on the underlying problem. A woman who feels loved, is confident of your respect for her, and has a strong sense of her own style, doesn’t get all paranoid about her looks.  If the person you are married to is constantly going berserk because you don’t recite long poems in honor of her new shade of lipstick, maybe you need to work on the relationship a little?  Maybe you need to back off on the unsolicited “constructive criticism”, ratchet the genuine compliments up a notch, and reassure her in word and action that you are absolutely hers.

Answer the underlying question. For the most part, women who show you a new outfit just want to share their joy.  She is beautiful, so tell her so.  She has a sense of style all her own, just go with it. She’s not asking you to wear the fuchsia shoes for goodness sakes, how hard is it to enjoy them on someone else?  That’s not lying.  “I wish I had a hat just like that,” is lying.  “It’s totally you,” that’s the truth.

–> This is confusing for men, because they ask for help getting dressed because they really don’t know what to wear.  Like, they really don’t even know if their jacket and slacks have the same color brown in them.  This is why men dress exactly the same as each other.   Your wife is generally not asking for a technical inspection.  If she is, she’ll ask a very specific question, such as “does this blouse clash?” or “do you think the long skirt or the short one works better?”  So the rule is this: Specific question = specific answer.  General question = general answer.  Your wife is beautiful.  It isn’t lying to tell her so.

Pleasantries. Pleasantries aren’t lying.  It is understood they are social conventions that have contextual meaning.  When the secret police come to your door and ask if you are hiding any refugees, it goes like this:

“Good morning, Mrs. Fitz.  How are you today?”

“Fine thank you.” <– Nobody is under the illusion I am fine.  The secret police are at my door.  I am not fine.  But it isn’t a lie because we all know this is a social convention.

“You don’t happen to have this man hiding in your attic?” (Shows picture of the man who is hiding in my attic.)

“________________” <– That’s where I’m supposed to answer something.  If I lie, it is likely at most a venial sin.  (Assuming I am hiding an innocent man, etc etc.)  But I shouldn’t kid myself that it’s a social convention. He didn’t ask if I liked his uniform or what I thought of the weather.  He’s looking for a clear answer.  Now he doesn’t have the right to know the truth, so I can choose to use one of the options above.  But lying would be lying, and in our moral analysis we shouldn’t confuse it with some other thing.

3 more quick takes for today

Finishing up all I’m going to manage in the Sts. C&M lovefest:

Entropy reminds me to post this, which she wrote last week and I really really liked:

. . . When you’re mired in mortal sin because you’re a weak little weakling and yet you believe that what the Church teaches us is true, even though you seem unable to follow it (hypocrite!), you might latch onto another teaching of the Church that is more doable for you. Something you can follow and hope that by following that you can make up a little bit for being such a total and utter failure at being good. You might think that you’re at least not adding more sins on top of the ones you’ve already got and why haven’t I gone to confession yet? . . .

It’s an important distinction: You can insist that sin is not sin.  Understandable if you haven’t heard of forgiveness.  Who wants to be condemmned?  I remember shortly before I returned to the church, desperately justifying myself to the office secretary one morning, because I couldn’t accept the reality that *I* had done something wrong, even so small as forgetting to give her whatever form it was I owed her.  And she kept saying “I forgive you, I forgive you . . .”, and I had *no idea* what she was talking about.  The idea that you could do something bad, and someone would just . . . let it go?  Incomprehensible to me then.

Entropy uncovers something more beautiful:  Sinning and knowing you’re sinning, and trying to at least hold onto what moral territory you can, even though it feels like complete holiness is beyond your ability.

Well it is.  That’s why we have forgiveness.  A God who isn’t out to condemn us.  He lets us know we’re in the mire, because He’s there to give us a hand out of it.

***

On the topic of forgiveness and people who know how to forgive, here is my friend Charity’s blog.  It’s  a normal-person blog, kind of like Paris Daily Photo only it’s western Kansas captured by phone-camera.  Just normal life.  4-H, kids playing basketball, cats on the couch.

***

Which is why this post by Eric Sammons is perfect for today:

I was recently reading an account of Game Six and I was struck by a quote from Fisk regarding this home run:

Other than being the father of two children, this was the greatest thrill of my life.

Think about what Fisk said for a moment. He just compared something that only 14 men have ever done – end a World Series game with a home run – with something that millions of men throughout history have done. Hitting a walk-off World Series home run takes a unique combination of skill, hard work and luck; having a child takes no special skill or ability. Just about every boy dreams about hitting a home run to win a World Series game – and Fisk did it in one of the most thrilling situations – yet the Red Sox catcher said that one of the most common activities known to man – having children – was more thrilling. So what does that tell us about parenthood?

 

 

Tollefsen on Live Action, part II

Full disclosure: I am an unabashed fan of both the professors Tollefsen.

So I was very happy when the Pulp.It pointed me towards Chris Tollefsen’s stomping grounds.  Where you can read a series of essays debating the morality of Live Action’s undercover Planned Parenthood sting, including Tollefsen’s latest response this morning.

 

 

 

Vocations, Catechesis & Discipleship

Father V. directs us to this article on “Why Vocations Programs Don’t Work”.  Naturally I think the article is pure genius, since it says thing such as:

If youth ministers and, more specifically, priests take the time to teach their young people how to pray alone, in community, liturgically, before the Blessed Sacrament, with an icon or crucifix, in nature, with Scripture, or with a journal, disciples will emerge. Don’t be fooled; young people desire to learn to pray and to pray well, and they want their leaders to teach them.

Yes.  My kids beg to pray.  Even in my very rough start as a first-year teacher with no training, the day we set a dozen fifth graders loose in the church with brochures on How to Pray The Stations of the Cross, they were all over it. No groovy music, no splash, no drama.  Just a quiet empty church and a prayer card, and the chance to move from station to station and pray.  It was good.  Stunningly good.

Moreover, it’s all too common that those working with youth soft-step around difficult or controversial Church teachings in an attempt not to drive young people away. Gone are the days of young people defining themselves as liberal or conservative Catholics. The stakes are much higher today: either you believe in God or you don’t. As the Southern novelist Walker Percy said upon his Catholic conversion, these days it is either “Rome or Hollywood,” there is no more middle ground. As such, young people want to be challenged. They want to think and understand and wrestle with big ideas. So why not spend time teaching them about the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Paschal Mystery, the Liturgy, and the Last Things? It is no secret that the Church’s teachings on sexuality are counter-cultural, but this is precisely the draw for so many young people—that the human person is more than simply an object of pleasure, and that there is something beautiful about God’s creating us male and female, in his image and likeness, and that there is a divine plan for the way we express ourselves.

To which I say: Preach it, Father.

And yes, all these things need not wait until the kids are 17 and “mature”.  I teach a 100% G-rated class.  Boys and girls know they are boys and girls.  They know that babies come from mothers and fathers.  They know that families are good, and they desperately want to grow up to be like their parents, to live in a home where they are loved by both parents . . . they understand good whether they themselves get to experience it or not.  We who are afraid of controversy, are just afraid of telling the kids what they already know deep down.

And in any case, how exactly does free pizza and a trip to the amusement park prepare a young man for seminary?

–> Would you really promote, say, engineering majors, by hosting a high school engineering club that shied away from any of that frightful math and science  stuff?  Don’t teach the kids to solve equations!  If they truly feel called, they’ll embark on their own quest to discover the value of the unknown!  We don’t want anyone intimated by rigid adherence to the number line!

I’ll stop there.  I have this vocation I need to tend to.  But one of the combox requests at Fr. Ference’s article asks for more detailed “how-to’s”.   At the risk of over-promoting a mighty good blog, I send you to this enjoyable and insightful article on teaching about the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.  Which includes a lovely vocations twist I for one had never noticed.

Meditation & Imagination Update

Update Round-up:

Christian sends in this link from his blog, on the topic of imagination, art, and catechesis.  Smart people would read his blog regularly. He has a really fun post up right now about language and the Egyptian revolution, for fellow word geeks.

(Am I the only one who wishes the wordpress spellcheck function would learn the word “catechesis”?  Every time I see that red squiggly underline, I get nervous, and have to go check my dictionary to make sure it is a real word. It is.)

Jeffery Miller (the Curt Jester) posts about pantheism and “centering prayer”.  Including this handy link to a This Rock article on the topic.  So let’s make sure we are super clear: “meditative prayer” as described on this blog and used by reputable catechists, is not “centering prayer”.  Not.  NOT.

Here’s what the Catechism has to say about meditation:

II. MEDITATION

2705 Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of creation, and that of history the page on which the “today” of God is written.

2706 To meditate on what we read helps us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves. Here, another book is opened: the book of life. We pass from thoughts to reality. To the extent that we are humble and faithful, we discover in meditation the movements that stir the heart and we are able to discern them. It is a question of acting truthfully in order to come into the light: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

2707 There are as many and varied methods of meditation as there are spiritual masters. Christians owe it to themselves to develop the desire to meditate regularly, lest they come to resemble the three first kinds of soil in the parable of the sower.⁵ But a method is only a guide; the important thing is to advance, with the Holy Spirit, along the one way of prayer: Christ Jesus.

2708 Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.

THAT is what we’re teachin’ the kids.  Just so ya know.  And they like it.

And speaking of teaching the kids:  Dorian’s got week up one of Ask A Catechist, and I am an utter slacker in getting my own my comments posted.  But that’s okay, because hooooweeee that was a hairy question, and did I really want to answer it?  But don’t worry, my shutting up powers aren’t that strong.  I’ll be there soon.  Meanwhile I’ll just put this stylish graphic in my post, so that you’ll know that yes, I really am participating.

See.  A box.  With answers inside.  Click and find out more.

Dear Lent-a-Claus,

UPDATE: Christian LeBlanc adds his list in the combox – classic catholic novels version.  More additions welcome.

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Actually I’m not planning to ask Lent-a-Claus for any books this year.  I already own copies of the two I should be reading, and I’ve got a backlog of other good stuff sitting around.  But if you need ideas, here are my three top picks from what I’ve read in the Good Catholic Books department lately.

All three are good enough I personally may do a re-read for lent.  Not many books qualify for that.  And all three are entirely suitable for normal people. How often does that happen?  So sit up and take notice:

The Gargoyle Code by Fr. Dwight Longenecker.  See the shiny ad in the sidebar?  You can get one, too.  I already own a copy, so unlike my usual will-work-for-books ethic around here, I actually volunteered to post the ad purely because it is a good book. (And no, I don’t belong to Fr. L’s parish either, so I’m not sucking up.  It’s just a good book. Did I mention it’s a good book?)  If you liked the Screwtape Letters, this is a very enjoyable catholic counterpart.  Highly readable and edifying.  It will be serious Lenten mortification to make yourself read just one entry a day, rather than staying up to finish the book in a single sitting.

Who is Jesus Christ? by Eric Sammons.  Here is the link to my review, in case you missed the part about how You Should Definitely Buy This Book.  Impeccably written, meaty, and it will push you in your faith.  After reading my copy (courtesy of the Catholic Company), I visited my local Catholic Bookstore to purchase a second copy to use as a loaner.  The owner told me, “No, we don’t have it in stock.  Should we?”  Yes, I told her.  I lent her my copy.  She read it, and that is how it became the store’s next Book Club book.    So yes, it’s that good.

Why Enough is Never Enough by Gregory S. Jeffrey.   It’s the book I keep reviewing without ever reviewing.   The topic is money, and if you struggle with trusting God about how to manage your money, this is your answer.  There are other (worthwhile) books on the topic of getting out of debt and keeping a budget.  This is not that book.  This is about the deeper picture — developing a proper relationship with money, and learning to use the amount you have in a way that helps you grow in happiness and holiness.   Unqualified buy recommend.

***

I’ll post more recommendations if any particularly suitable additions come to my attention.  Meanwhile, if your book made the top three and you didn’t already send me a sidebar linky-picture-widget, feel free to do so.  It doesn’t seem fair that my readers should only be made to read book reviews.  They should also have to look at pictures.

Prayer, meditation, and imagination

Meditative prayer, which my 5th graders love so much, asks you to use your imagination.  When we pray the rosary, we do this.  We think about the mystery, we imagine the mystery, we let our mind’s exploration of the mystery show us things we hadn’t seen before.

But if you have fallen into the hands of weirdness before, you can become scared of imagination.  When someone says “It is okay to use your imagination to help you pray”, we fear what they mean is “it’s okay to make up pretend stuff about God, or whatever it is you choose to believe that suits your fancies”.

No.  Not that.

But abuse does not disprove right use.

Father L. makes the case for right use of imagination. Go read.  It’s not just me and my woozy liberal friends* making this stuff up.  But for goodness sakes if it makes you nervous, just stick to the rosary for a start.   About as good a ground for rehabilitating your imagination as you could hope.

****************************************************************************

*Ahem.  I’m not claiming me or my meditative-prayer liking mentors in the catechetical hierarchy are in fact woozy liberals.  Which would be laughable.  I’m saying, maybe when you see me post about these things, you fear that is what we are.  Nope.  Not.  But yeah, I will totally, yes TOTALLY lead a room full of ten-year-olds through a meditation on the gifts of the Trinity as explained in the Apostle’s Creed.  Salvation, all that.  With candles. And reflective music.

It’s almost as if kids want to spend time with Jesus.  Cultivate a prayer life.  Go figure.

More on the Economics of Ordination

Last night SuperHusband observed that one reason protestant ministers struggle so much with employment, is that there is a glut of bible-college and seminary graduates.   You want your child to attend a Christian college.  Christian colleges specialize in preparing students for church work.  Christian students are eager to do church work. Ten years ago in a boom economy, the roofing companies knew it and circled like vultures*.

Celibacy is a definite barrier to entry.  You may have had an inkling.

So we asked ourselves last night, what would happen if you did open the gates to ordaining married men?  Would the catholic church face a vocations-glut the way protestants do?

We suspect what we would see is a significant jump in late vocations.  The inability of a priest to re-marry is a strong discouragement for younger men with families, for good reason.  Men rightly don’t want to find themselves with a brand new baby and no mother to care for it.  If your wife dies, you need to have a plan B for who is going to help you rear your children, and remarriage is a pretty good plan B under ordinary circumstances.

These exact reasons are why young, pious catholic married men aren’t rushing off to become deacons.  Who are the deacons?  Older men whose children are grown.  Or at least grown enough, and the wife past the age of childbearing.

So that’s what we guess.  Open the gates of priestly ordination to married men, and we’d expect to see a vast conversion of deacons-into-priests.  Not 100%, necessarily.  But that is where the married priests would mostly come from — or reasonably should come from.

Economically there all sorts of interesting implications, but I’ll refrain from more crass calculating.   Suffice to say that celibate young men are still your best value per sacramental-salary-dollar.

***

FYI Even though I can see the practical benefit to ordaining a significant percentage of our permanent deacons to the priesthood, I’m not convinced it is “the solution”.

Two reasons:  One is concern that the former-deacons will end up in an employment vortex of a similar nature to what our protestant kin suffer.  And that reason alone is enough to proceed very cautiously.    The other, more pressing, is concern that ordaining the permanent deacons is a band-aid of a solution.  Maybe even a bad band-aid.

My sense is that our shortage of vocations is caused by a deeply spiritual wound in the church.  One that can only be healed by precisely the kind of self-abandonment  and commitment to the gospel that lifelong celibacy entails.  We as a church suffer from a case of “Do you really mean what you say?”

A young man willing to pass over all the joys of marriage in order to serve Christ?  That’s a guy who means what he says.

 

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*In our area, since that time we’ve had a surge in immigration.  The would-be youth pastors have been supplanted by workers even more cash-hungry.  The best of whom are strong, competent, hard-working, loyal, and unlikely to be called off to the mission field without notice.  And legal, too.  Good for the roofing companies, not so great for the bible students.