A Utilitarian Campaign for Voting in a Utilitarian Democracy is Blinded by Utilitarian Mediocrity
Holy Mother Church compels Christians to exercise the right to vote to promote the common good within a democracy that is just and authentic. A Christian is not obligated to vote in an unjust and inauthentic democracy. Disordered utilitarianism attacks the conscience with a clever appeal to the lesser evil. This offense is dishonest.
The Christian is called to holy communion. Love commands that the common good be the aim of a democratic society. This is the basis for the Christian duty to vote. Deceptive intimidation campaigns for the Catholic vote rarely, if ever, invoke this foundational requirement.
The promoter of the Christian duty to vote exemplifies the utilitarian ethic when she reaches for the lesser evil with her disordered logic of superficial patriotism:
Utilitarians regard the principle of the maximization of pleasure accompanied by the minimization of pain as the primary rule of human morality, with the rider that it must be observed not only by individuals, egoistically, but also collectively, by society. Thus, in its definitive formulation, the principle of utility (principium utilitatis) preaches the maximum pleasure for the greatest possible number of people – obviously with a minimum of discomfort for the same number.
At first glance, this principle seems both right and attractive – it is difficult indeed to imagine people behaving otherwise, to imagine them wanting to encounter more pain than pleasure in their lives, individual and collective. A rather more searching analysis, however, inevitably reveals the weakness and superficiality of this way of thinking and of this principle for the regulation of human actions….. Pleasure is essentially incidental, contingent, something which may occur in the course of action….. Quite obviously, that which is truly good, that which morality and conscience bid me do, often involves some measure of pain and requires the renunciation of some pleasure. The pain involved, or the pleasure which I must forego, is not the decisive consideration if I am to act rationally. What is more, it is not fully identifiable beforehand. Pleasure and pain are always connected with a concrete action, so that it is not possible to anticipate them precisely, let alone to plan for them or, as the utilitarians would have us do, even compute them in advance.[1]
Unjust and Inauthentic Democracies Deform Voters into Becoming Useful Utilitarians. An Appeal to the lesser evil Ultimately Promotes this Evil.
Consideration of the lesser evil is irrelevant to the Christian duty to vote. Warranting the Christian’s participation in an unjust democracy by appealing to the lesser evil ignores the guidance of the Holy Mother Church. Instead of invoking the Christian compulsion to vote in relation to a ballot that promotes the common good, evil is called good and made common, so that the exercise of invincible moral conscience may then be met with derision.
Just as we account for the hierarchy of good in our pursuit of the greatest good, we should account for the hierarchy of evil in our opposition to evil. This should not be confused with a faithless, pragmatic approach to seeking the greatest good by choosing the least evil. It is true to recognize good as good and evil as evil. It is false to calculate good to be evil and evil to be good.
In accordance with divine providence, it is good to be set apart from evil. By God’s grace alone, we may abide in the greatest good, apart from the surrounding evil, and be blessed by the redemptive suffering that is found in the freedom of Christianity.
The rotten fruit of self-determination foolishly uses the lesser evil to conjure the greatest good. This is the original lie that separates light from death. Concupiscence is a blinding darkness of self-affirmation.
Sacred Scripture offers an edifying cure for the temptation of this poisonous medicine:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight![2]
…..abstain from every form of evil.[3]
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.[4]
Evil cannot be called good if we determine that a particular evil is worse than another evil. The lesser evil is not a magical choice of good. Moral hierarchy does not share the meaningless fluidity of demonic democracies.
The utilitarian attempts to intimidate the Christian to vote by a perversion of truth that possesses continuity with Spinoza’s subtle[5] twisting of Aristotle:
PROP. LXV. Under the guidance of reason, we should pursue the greater of two goods and the lesser of two evils.
Proof. — A good which prevents our enjoyment of a greater good is, in reality, an evil; for we apply the terms good and bad to things, in so far as we compare them one with another; therefore, evil is, in reality, a lesser good; hence under the guidance of reason we seek or pursue only the greater good and the lesser evil.
Corollary. — We may, under the guidance of reason, pursue the lesser evil as though it were the greater good, and we may shun the lesser good, which would be the cause of the greater evil. For the evil, which is here called the lesser, is really good, and the lesser good is really evil, wherefore we may seek the former and shun the latter.[6]
The faithful Christian should defer to the authoritative teaching of Holy Mother Church:
Every citizen ought to be mindful of his right and his duty to promote the common good by using his vote…..
Among these duties it is worth mentioning the obligation of rendering to the state whatever material and personal services are required for the common good. Governments should take care not to put obstacles in the way of family, cultural or social groups, or of organizations and intermediate institutions, nor to hinder their lawful and constructive activity; rather, they should eagerly seek to promote such orderly activity. Citizens, on the other hand, either individually or in association, should take care not to vest too much power in the hands of public authority nor to make untimely and exaggerated demands for favors and subsidies, lessening in this way the responsible role of individuals, families, and social groups…..
Christians must be conscious of their specific and proper role in the political community: they should be a shining example by their sense of responsibility and their dedication to the common good; they should show in practice how authority can be reconciled with freedom, personal initiative and with the solidarity and the needs of the whole social framework, and the advantages of unity with profitable diversity. They should recognize the legitimacy of differing points of view about the organization of worldly affairs and show respect for their fellow citizens, who even in association defend their opinions by legitimate means. Political parties, for their part, must support whatever in their opinion is conducive to the common good, but must never put their own interests before the common good.[7]
Holy Mother Church mercifully embraces the human dignity that is found in our Love of neighbor.
Institutions of democracy have a responsibility to ensure that the promotion of evil is prohibited from the ballot box. If a ballot box permits evil, then there is no Christian duty to collaborate with that unjust and inauthentic institution. The Christian is not compelled to collaborate with institutions that are adversarial to the promotion of the common good.
If a municipality that the Christian resides in issues a ballot that votes for either the execution of all strangers or the lesser evil of limiting executions to strangers who are females and/or children, then the Christian does not have a duty to vote.
Sadly, the realities of utilitarian democracies are far worse than this disturbing thought exercise. Pharmacies distribute the execution of children, with the common evil of birth control, at an overwhelming rate that overshadows the murders that utilitarian democracies offer to their voters. These democracies distract the voters with scapegoat sacrifices. The true duty to promote the common good may then be deformed to a compromise of lesser evil. Solemn obligations for prayer and fasting are replaced with voting campaigns that deceptively secure the common evil that is woven into the death cult’s self-assured banners of lesser evil.
There needs to be a Conversion to the Promotion of Common Good, Before These Evil Democracies can Rightly Expect an Obligated Ballot from the Christian
Individuals, families, and the various groups that make up the civil community are aware of their inability to achieve a truly human life by their own unaided efforts; they see the need for a wider community where each one will make a specific contribution to an even broader implementation of the common good. For this reason, they set up various forms of political communities. The political community, then, exists for the common good: this is its full justification and meaning and the source of its specific and basic right to exist. The common good embraces the sum total of all those conditions of social life, which enable individuals, families, and organizations to achieve fulfillment more completely and expeditiously.
The persons who make up the political community are many and varied; quite rightly, then, they may veer towards widely differing points of view. Therefore, lest the political community be ruined while everyone follows his own opinion, authority is needed to guide the energies of all towards the common good—not mechanically or despotically, but by acting above all as a moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility. It is clear that the political community and public authority are based on human nature, and therefore, they need to belong to an order established by God; nevertheless, the choice of the political régime and the appointment of rulers are left to the free decision of the citizens.
It follows that political authority, either within the political community as such or through organizations representing the state, must be exercised within the limits of the moral order and directed toward the common good (understood in the dynamic sense of the term) according to the juridical order legitimately established or due to be established. Citizens, then, are bound in conscience to obey. Accordingly, the responsibility, dignity, and importance of state rulers are clear.
When citizens are under the oppression of a public authority that oversteps its competence, they should still not refuse to give or to do whatever is objectively demanded of them by the common good, but it is legitimate for them to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens against abuses of this authority within the limits of the natural law and the law of the Gospel.
The concrete forms of structure and organization of public authority adopted in any political community may vary according to the character of various peoples and their historical development, but their aim should always be the formation of a human person who is cultured, peace-loving, and well disposed towards his fellow men with a view, to the benefit of the whole human race.[8]
Although the Christian is not Compelled to Vote in an Unjust, Inauthentic Democracy that does not Merit the Right to Exist, the Christian Vocation to Serve the Common Good is Everlasting
Casting a ballot that does not promote the common good is not a promotion of the common good. The common good is not determined by moral hierarchy. The common good does not arise from the hierarchy of evil. The common good finds its meaning in our Love of neighbor. The common good is found in our correspondence to God’s grace and in our conformity to the divine will. If our vocation to serve the common good cannot be fulfilled by the casting of a ballot, then our duty must be fulfilled elsewhere.
If a Godless democracy promotes death, perversion, and hate, then we must promote life, chastity, and Love outside of the ballot box. Our duty to promote the common good is not contained within a box of lesser evils. When we see beyond the box of an unjust, inauthentic democracy that remains demonically opposed to the common good, then we may fulfill our Christian duty to promote the common good outside of the democratic deception:
There is no human law so powerful to safeguard the personal dignity and freedom of man as the Gospel, which Christ entrusted to the Church; for the Gospel announces and proclaims the freedom of the sons of God, it rejects all bondage resulting from sin, it scrupulously respects the dignity of conscience and its freedom of choice, it never ceases to encourage the employment of human talents in the service of God and man, and, finally, it commends everyone to the charity of all…..
In virtue of the Gospel entrusted to it, the Church proclaims the rights of man: she acknowledges and holds in high esteem the dynamic approach of today, which is fostering these rights all over the world. But this approach needs to be animated by the spirit of the Gospel and preserved from all traces of false autonomy. For there is a temptation to feel that our personal rights are fully maintained only when we are exempt from every restriction of divine law. But this is the way leading to the extinction of human dignity, not its preservation.[9]
It is incidental if the lifeless ballot of lesser evil is cast. The consequences of abstaining from casting such ballots are also incidental. However, regardless of the Christian’s choice to or not to participate in an unjust and inauthentic democracy, the responsibility to promote the common good still commands our talents, which are meant to multiply the Love of God:
And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”[10]
When the Christian sees that a democratic government is unjust in its promotion of evil, the Christian is not obligated to exercise the right to vote. It is not a Christian duty to bury the evils of an inauthentic democracy. Much greater is the Christian responsibility to proclaim the kingdom of God.
Thank God, the Splendor of Moral Truth Lives Apart from the Rationalization of Evil
The Church proposes the example of numerous Saints who bore witness to and defended moral truth even to the point of enduring martyrdom or who preferred death to a single mortal sin. In raising them to the honor of the altars, the Church has canonized their witness and declared the truth of their judgment, according to which the love of God entails the obligation to respect his commandments, even in the most dire of circumstances, and the refusal to betray those commandments, even for the sake of saving one’s own life.
Martyrdom accepted as an affirmation of the inviolability of the moral order, bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God’s law and to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man, created in God’s image and likeness. This dignity may never be disparaged or called into question, even with good intentions, whatever the difficulties involved. Jesus warns us most sternly: “What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mk 8:36).
Martyrdom rejects as false and illusory whatever “human meaning” one might claim to attribute, even in “exceptional” conditions, to an act morally evil in itself. Indeed, it even more clearly unmasks the true face of such an act: it is a violation of man’s “humanity” in the one perpetrating it even before the one enduring it. Hence, martyrdom is also the exaltation of a person’s perfect “humanity” and of true “life”, as is attested by Saint Ignatius of Antioch, addressing the Christians of Rome, the place of his own martyrdom: “Have mercy on me, brethren: do not hold me back from living; do not wish that I die… Let me arrive at the pure light; once there, I will be truly a man. Let me imitate the passion of my God.”
Finally, martyrdom is an outstanding sign of the holiness of the Church. Fidelity to God’s holy law, witnessed to by death, is a solemn proclamation and missionary commitment usque ad sanguinem, so that the splendor of moral truth may be undimmed in the behavior and thinking of individuals and society. This witness makes an extraordinarily valuable contribution to warding off, in civil society and within the ecclesial communities themselves, a headlong plunge into the most dangerous crisis that can afflict man: the confusion between good and evil, which makes it impossible to build up and to preserve the moral order of individuals and communities. By their eloquent and attractive example of a life completely transfigured by the splendor of moral truth, the martyrs and, in general, all the Church’s Saints light up every period of history by reawakening its moral sense. By witnessing fully to the good, they are a living reproof to those who transgress the law (cf. Wis 2:12), and they make the words of the Prophet echo ever afresh: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Is 5:20).
Although martyrdom represents the high point of the witness to moral truth and one to which relatively few people are called, there is nonetheless a consistent witness that all Christians must daily be ready to make, even at the cost of suffering and grave sacrifice. Indeed, faced with the many difficulties that fidelity to the moral order can demand, even in the most ordinary circumstances, the Christian is called, with the grace of God invoked in prayer, to a sometimes heroic commitment. In this, he or she is sustained by the virtue of fortitude, whereby — as Gregory the Great teaches — one can actually “love the difficulties of this world for the sake of eternal rewards.”
In this witness to the absoluteness of the moral good, Christians are not alone: they are supported by the moral sense present in peoples and by the great religious and sapiential traditions of East and West, from which the interior and mysterious workings of God’s Spirit are not absent. The words of the Latin poet Juvenal apply to all: “Consider it the greatest of crimes to prefer survival to honor and, out of love of physical life, to lose the very reason for living.” The voice of conscience has always clearly recalled that there are truths and moral values for which one must be prepared to give up one’s life. In an individual’s words and above all in the sacrifice of his life for a moral value, the Church sees a single testimony to that truth which, already present in creation, shines forth in its fullness on the face of Christ. As Saint Justin put it, “the Stoics, at least in their teachings on ethics, demonstrated wisdom, thanks to the seed of the Word present in all peoples, and we know that those who followed their doctrines met with hatred and were killed.”
The Church’s teaching, and in particular her firmness in defending the universal and permanent validity of the precepts prohibiting intrinsically evil acts is not infrequently seen as the sign of an intolerable intransigence, particularly with regard to the enormously complex and conflict-filled situations present in the moral life of individuals and of society today; this intransigence is said to be in contrast with the Church’s motherhood. The Church, one hears, is lacking in understanding and compassion. But the Church’s motherhood can never, in fact, be separated from her teaching mission, which she must always carry out as the faithful Bride of Christ, who is the Truth in person. “As Teacher, she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm… The Church is in no way the author or the arbiter of this norm. In obedience to the truth which is Christ, whose image is reflected in the nature and dignity of the human person, the Church interprets the moral norm and proposes it to all people of goodwill, without concealing its demands of radicalness and perfection.”
In fact, genuine understanding and compassion must mean love for the person, for his true good, and for his authentic freedom. And this does not result, certainly, from concealing or weakening moral truth, but rather from proposing it in its most profound meaning as an outpouring of God’s eternal Wisdom, which we have received in Christ, and as a service to man, to the growth of his freedom and to the attainment of his happiness.
Still, a clear and forceful presentation of moral truth can never be separated from a profound and heartfelt respect, born of that patient and trusting love that man always needs along his moral journey, a journey frequently wearisome on account of difficulties, weakness, and painful situations. The Church can never renounce “the principle of truth and consistency, whereby she does not agree to call good evil and evil good”; she must always be careful not to break the bruised reed or to quench the dimly burning wick (cf. Is 42:3). As Paul VI wrote: “While it is an outstanding manifestation of charity towards souls to omit nothing from the saving doctrine of Christ, this must always be joined with tolerance and charity, as Christ himself showed by his conversations and dealings with men. Having come not to judge the world but to save it, he was uncompromisingly stern towards sin but patient and rich in mercy towards sinners.”
The Church’s firmness in defending the universal and unchanging moral norms is not demeaning at all. Its only purpose is to serve man’s true freedom. Because there can be no freedom apart from or in opposition to the truth, the categorical — unyielding and uncompromising — defense of the absolutely essential demands of man’s personal dignity must be considered the way and the condition for the very existence of freedom.
This service is directed to every man, considered in the uniqueness and singularity of his being and existence: only by obedience to universal moral norms does man find full confirmation of his personal uniqueness and the possibility of authentic moral growth. For this very reason, this service is also directed to all mankind: it is not only for individuals but also for the community and for society as such. These norms, in fact, represent the unshakable foundation and solid guarantee of a just and peaceful human coexistence, and hence of genuine democracy, which can come into being and develop only on the basis of the equality of all its members, who possess common rights and duties. When it is a matter of the moral norms prohibiting intrinsic evil, there are no privileges or exceptions for anyone. It makes no difference whether one is the master of the world or the “poorest of the poor” on the face of the earth. Before the demands of morality, we were all absolutely equal.
In this way, moral norms, and primarily the negative ones, those prohibiting evil, manifest their meaning and force, both personal and social. By protecting the inviolable personal dignity of every human being, they help preserve the human social fabric and ensure its proper and fruitful development. The commandments of the second table of the Decalogue, in particular — those which Jesus quoted to the young man of the Gospel (cf. Mt 19:19) — constitute the indispensable rules of all social life.
These commandments are formulated in general terms. However, the very fact that “the origin, the subject and the purpose of all social institutions is and should be the human person” allows them to be specified and made more explicit in a detailed code of behavior. The fundamental moral rules of social life thus entail specific demands to which both public authorities and citizens are required to pay heed. Even though intentions may sometimes be good, and circumstances frequently difficult, civil authorities and particular individuals never have the authority to violate the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person. In the end, only a morality that acknowledges certain norms as valid always and for everyone, with no exception, can guarantee the ethical foundation of social coexistence, both on the national and international levels.
In the face of serious forms of social and economic injustice and political corruption affecting entire peoples and nations, there is a growing reaction of indignation on the part of very many people whose fundamental human rights have been trampled upon and held in contempt, as well as an ever more widespread and acute sense of the need for a radical personal and social renewal capable of ensuring justice, solidarity, honesty and openness.
Certainly, there is a long and difficult road ahead; bringing about such a renewal will require enormous effort, especially on account of the number and gravity of the causes that give rise to and aggravate the injustices present in the world today. But, as history and personal experience show, it is not difficult to discover at the bottom of these situations causes which are properly “cultural”, linked to particular ways of looking at man, society and the world. Indeed, at the heart of the issue of culture, we find the moral sense, which is rooted in and fulfilled by the religious sense.
Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality, and thus of the commandments, particularly those negative commandments which always and in every case prohibit behavior and actions incompatible with the personal dignity of every man. The Supreme Good and the moral good meet in truth: the truth of God, the Creator and Redeemer, and the truth of man, created and redeemed by him. Only upon this truth is it possible to construct a renewed society and to solve the complex and weighty problems affecting it, above all, the problem of overcoming the various forms of totalitarianism, so as to make way for the authentic freedom of the person. “Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group, or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another.
If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others…. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is, therefore, by his very nature, the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.”
Consequently, the inseparable connection between truth and freedom — which expresses the essential bond between God’s wisdom and will — is extremely significant for the life of persons in the socio-economic and socio-political sphere. This is clearly seen in the Church’s social teaching — which “belongs to the field… of theology and particularly of moral theology” — and from her presentation of commandments governing social, economic, and political life, not only with regard to general attitudes but also to precise and specific kinds of behavior and concrete acts.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that “in economic matters, respect for human dignity requires the practice of the virtue of temperance, to moderate our attachment to the goods of this world; of the virtue of justice, to preserve our neighbor’s rights and to render what is his or her due; and of solidarity, following the Golden Rule and in keeping with the generosity of the Lord, who ‘though he was rich, yet for your sake… became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’ (2 Cor 8:9).”
The Catechism goes on to present a series of kinds of behavior and actions contrary to human dignity: theft, deliberate retention of goods lent or objects lost, business fraud (cf. Dt 25:13-16), unjust wages (cf. Dt 24:14-15), forcing up prices by trading on the ignorance or hardship of another (cf. Am 8:4-6), the misappropriation and private use of the corporate property of an enterprise, work badly done, tax fraud, forgery of cheques and invoices, excessive expenses, waste, etc. It continues: “The seventh commandment prohibits actions or enterprises which for any reason — selfish or ideological, commercial or totalitarian — lead to the enslavement of human beings, disregard for their personal dignity, buying or selling or exchanging them like merchandise. Reducing persons by violence to value or a source of profit is a sin against their dignity as persons and their fundamental rights. Saint Paul set a Christian master right about treating his Christian slave ‘no longer as a slave but… as a brother… in the Lord’ (Philem 16).”
In the political sphere, it must be noted that truthfulness in the relations between those governing and those governed, openness in public administration, impartiality in the service of the body politic, respect for the rights of political adversaries, safeguarding the rights of the accused against summary trials and convictions, the just and honest use of public funds, the rejection of equivocal or illicit means in order to gain, preserve or increase power at any cost — all these are principles which are primarily rooted in, and in fact derive their singular urgency from, the transcendent value of the person and the objective moral demands of the functioning of States. When these principles are not observed, the very basis of political coexistence is weakened, and the life of society itself is gradually jeopardized, threatened, and doomed to decay (cf. Ps 14:3-4; Rev 18:2-3, 9-24).
Today, when many countries have seen the fall of ideologies that bound politics to a totalitarian conception of the world — Marxism being the foremost of these — there is no less grave a danger that the fundamental rights of the human person will be denied and that the religious yearnings which arise in the heart of every human being will be absorbed once again into politics. This is the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life and, on a deeper level, make the acknowledgment of truth impossible. Indeed, “if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
Thus, in every sphere of personal, family, social, and political life, morality — founded upon truth and open in truth to authentic freedom — renders a primordial, indispensable, and immensely valuable service not only for the individual person and his growth in the good but also for society and its genuine development.
Even in the most difficult situations, man must respect the norm of morality so that he can be obedient to God’s holy commandment and be consistent with his own dignity as a person. Certainly, maintaining a harmony between freedom and truth occasionally demands uncommon sacrifices and must be won at a high price: it can even involve martyrdom. But, as universal and daily experience demonstrates, man is tempted to break that harmony: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want” (Rom 7:15, 19).
What is the ultimate source of this inner division of man? His history of sin begins when he no longer acknowledges the Lord as his Creator and himself wishes to be the one who determines, with complete independence, what is good and what is evil. “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5): this was the first temptation, and it is echoed in all the other temptations to which man is more easily inclined to yield as a result of the original Fall.
But temptations can be overcome; sins can be avoided because, together with the commandments, the Lord gives us the possibility of keeping them: “His eyes are on those who fear him, and he knows every deed of man. He has not commanded any one to be ungodly, and he has not given anyone permission to sin” (Sir 15:19-20). Keeping God’s law in particular situations can be extremely difficult, but it is never impossible. This is the constant teaching of the Church’s tradition and was expressed by the Council of Trent: “But no one, however much justified, ought to consider himself exempt from the observance of the commandments, nor should he employ that rash statement, forbidden by the Fathers under anathema, that the commandments of God are impossible of observance by one who is justified. For God does not command the impossible, but in commanding, he admonishes you to do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and he gives his aid to enable you. His commandments are not burdensome (cf. 1 Jn 5:3); his yoke is easy and his burden light (cf. Mt 11:30).”
Man Always Has Before Him the Spiritual Horizon of Hope, Thanks to the Help of Divine Grace and With the Cooperation of Human Freedom.
It is in the saving Cross of Jesus, in the gift of the Holy Spirit, in the Sacraments which flow forth from the pierced side of the Redeemer (cf. Jn 19:34), that believers find the grace and the strength always to keep God’s holy law, even amid the gravest of hardships. As Saint Andrew of Crete observes, the law itself “was enlivened by grace and made to serve it in a harmonious and fruitful combination. Each element preserved its characteristics without change or confusion. In a divine manner, he turned what could be burdensome and tyrannical into what is easy to bear and a source of freedom.”
Only in the mystery of Christ’s Redemption do we discover the “concrete” possibilities of man. “It would be a very serious error to conclude… that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an “ideal” which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man, according to a “balancing of the goods in question.” But what are the “concrete possibilities of man”? And of which man are we speaking? Of man dominated by lust or of man redeemed by Christ? This is what is at stake: the reality of Christ’s redemption. Christ has redeemed us! This means that he has given us the possibility of realizing the entirety of our being; he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence. And if redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act but to man’s will not avail himself of the grace that flows from that act. God’s command is, of course, proportioned to man’s capabilities, but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given, of the man who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
In this context, appropriate allowance is made both for God’s mercy towards the sinner who converts and for the understanding of human weakness. Such understanding never means compromising and falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances. It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good so that he can feel self-justified without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy. An attitude of this sort corrupts the morality of society as a whole since it encourages doubt about the objectivity of the moral law in general and a rejection of the absoluteness of moral prohibitions regarding specific human acts, and it ends up confusing all judgments about values…..
…..Evangelization is the most powerful and stirring challenge that the Church has been called to face from its very beginning. Indeed, this challenge is posed not so much by the social and cultural milieux that she encounters in the course of history as by the mandate of the Risen Christ, who defines the very reason for the Church’s existence: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15).
At least for many peoples, however, the present time is instead marked by a formidable challenge to undertake a “new evangelization”, a proclamation of the Gospel which is always new and always the bearer of new things, an evangelization which must be “new in its ardor, methods and expression.” Dechristianization, which weighs heavily upon entire peoples and communities once rich in faith and Christian life, involves not only the loss of faith or, in any event, its becoming irrelevant for everyday life but also, and of necessity, a decline or obscuring of the moral sense. This comes about both as a result of a loss of awareness of the originality of Gospel morality and as a result of an eclipse of fundamental principles and ethical values themselves. Today’s widespread tendencies towards subjectivism, utilitarianism, and relativism appear not merely as pragmatic attitudes or patterns of behavior but rather as approaches having a basis in theory and claiming full cultural and social legitimacy.
Evangelization — and therefore the “new evangelization” — also involves the proclamation and presentation of morality. Jesus himself, even as he preached the Kingdom of God and its saving love, called people to faith and conversion (cf. Mk 1:15). And when Peter, with the other Apostles, proclaimed the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, he held out a new life to be lived, a “way” to be followed, for those who would be disciples of the Risen One (cf. Acts 2:37-41; 3:17-20).
Just as it does in proclaiming the truths of faith, and even more so in presenting the foundations and content of Christian morality, the new evangelization will show its authenticity and unleash all its missionary force when it is carried out through the gift not only of the word proclaimed but also of the word lived. In particular, the life of holiness which is resplendent in so many members of the People of God, humble and often unseen, constitutes the simplest and most attractive way to perceive at once the beauty of truth, the liberating force of God’s love, and the value of unconditional fidelity to all the demands of the Lord’s law, even in the most difficult situations. For this reason, the Church, as a wise teacher of morality, has always invited believers to seek and to find in the Saints, and above all in the Virgin Mother of God, “full of grace” and “all-holy”, the model, the strength and the joy needed to live a life in accordance with God’s commandments and the Beatitudes of the Gospel.[11]
[1] Karol Wojtyla (Saint John Paul the Great), Love & Responsibility, pp 35-36.
[2] Isaiah 5:20-21
[3] 1 Thessalonians 5:22
[4] Romans 12:21
[5] Genesis 3:1-5
[6] Benedictus de Spinoza. Ethics
[7] Vatican Council II, Gaudium et Spes, #75.
[8] Vatican Council II, Gaudium et Spes, #74
[9] Vatican Council II, Gaudium et Spes, #41
[10] Luke 9:60
[11] Saint John Paul the Great, The Splendor Of Truth, 91-104, 106-107.
