Sāncta Māter Ecclēsia, Tē Amō.

Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

— Matthew 13:17.

The more discussions I have about Sacred Scripture, the more I realize how much confusion exists regarding it. How often does one read a passage and wonder, "What exactly does this mean? What exactly is God trying to say to us here?"

There are certain moments in which I am granted the gift of a partial realization of how lost I would be without the guiding light of Holy Mother Church. One of these moments came in my discussions with others about the recent decision by the Supreme Court constituting an attempt to alter the unchangeable definition of marriage — a definition which, I should say, is unchangeable even by Holy Mother Church, Herself. In a conversation with someone who was defending the Court's decision, I was taken aback to realize that some are going so far as to make efforts to contort Scripture in such a way that would allow for such alterations:

... from a biblical standpoint, I have been engaged in healthy debates about whether the "homosexuality" Paul may have been railing against had more to do with casual same sex adultery and pederasty than what we see today. ... if [the homosexual act] is a sin (which is debatable), ... stopping the marriage part will not affect the thing some consider to be the sin. ... there is no compelling argument even within the faith community, that justifies the opposition of Gay Marriage.

— An Interlocutor, defending the Court's decision.

It is in moments such as these that my deep appreciation and love for the guiding magisterial light of Holy Mother Church grows deeper. How lost I would be without Her.

I encountered one particular passage in the Gospels a few days ago that caused me some confusion. It was in Luke 19, when Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, and the disciples are rejoicing and praising him, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord!" The Pharisees then tell Jesus to rebuke his disciples, to which He replies,

I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.

— Luke 19:40.

What does Jesus mean by this, "the very stones would cry out"? Well, in such situations when I am confused about a particular passage of Scripture, I've found the commentary from Navarre, under the auspices of Josemaría Escrivá, to be quite helpful. Quoth the Navarre,

The Pharisees, maybe because they fear a riot, criticize Jesus for allowing the demonstration. He replies in a phrase which sounds like a proverb: so obvious is his messiahship that if men refused to recognize it, nature would proclaim it.

— from the Navarre Commentary on Luke 19:28-40.

I must say, yet again: how lost I would be without the guidance of the innumerable well-trained theologians of the Church, lead by the Holy Spirit. I have little doubt that, without them, it is quite possible that I would be among those subscribing to the untenable — to be sure, patently ludicrous — conclusions such as those of my interlocutor above, or even that I would be engaging in snake-handling based on what we read in Mark 16:18. Indeed, we should not take lightly what Jesus tells us in Matthew 13:17. Many great men — even "righteous men" — have lived and died without having heard and understood the words of Jesus. But for the grace of God, working through the teachings and sacraments of Holy Mother Church, there go I.

Quaerimus, "Father, how should we deal more with the Holy Spirit in our ordinary life?"

St. Josemaría Escrivá responds,

In your ordinary life, by seeking -- I am sure that you do so -- the presence of God who is within you. You receive Him in Holy Communion. The gastric juices in the stomach function in their natural way, the sacramental species disappear and with them the presence of Jesus Christ. But then, the Holy Spirit remains behind and continues to act. Together with Him, the Father and the Son also act, because there is only one God. But it is the Holy Spirit who acts in the souls of Christians. And you, who are a tabernacle of God, you go into yourself many times a day and say: "Lord, how can I do this in such a way that it is more pleasing in your sight?; Lord, I am feeling this tempation, and that one, these bad inclinations ... " Don't get frightened, Ok? All of us have a beast inside of us. Even older people. In this regard, we are all the same, and it is one of the marvels of God's goodness, because if we did not know we could fall into all kinds of miseries, we would be very proud. In this way, not being proud, we will tend a little towards humility. If only we could tend a lot more towards humility.

— St. Josemaría Escrivá (✝1975).

St. Josemaría Escrivá, pray for us and our nation, having long faltered.

Etiamsi oportuerit me mori tecum, non te negabo.

Servant of God Fr. John Hardon, S.J.: Six Key Excerpts

Aside from the men and women of heroic virtue who have been canonized as Saints by the Church over the centuries, there are others whose lives are under close examination by the Church for the purpose of considering that they also may be recognized as Saints. We say that for such men and women, the cause is open for their canonization. The stages for canonization include designation of the individual as a Servant of God (e.g., Fr. Michael J. McGivney (1852-1890), founder of the Knights of Columbus), as Venerable (e.g., Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)), as Blessed (Beatification) (e.g., Mother Teresa (1910-1997)), and finally as a Saint (Canonization) (e.g., Thomas More (1478-1535)).

It is worth considering the lives of the men and women whose causes are open but who are in the earlier stages of the investigation. Part of the canonization process is the detailed examination of miracles alleged to have occurred following an individual or group requesting a certain individual's intercession, so it is worth the time to consider requesting the intercession of individuals who are recognized by the Church as having lived particularly holy lives. Note that it is, in some cases, centuries before the Vatican finally determines that an individual should be beatified or canonized. Consider the case of Bl. John Duns Scotus -- known for his famous defense of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception -- who died in 1308 but was not beatified until 1993 (it is apparent that the Vatican is diligent in the study of its long-kept records of certain individuals' lives!).

Among the individuals whose causes are open is the Jesuit priest Fr. John Hardon (1914-2000), currently designated as a Servant of God. As will be more frequently the case for men and women with open causes, many of Fr. Hardon's writings and lectures are available online for our study and edification. Those interested in getting to know Fr. Hardon through his own works can visit the archives over at therealpresence.org to browse the texts, audio recordings, and videos.

After listening to a small portion of the lectures posted, I came across a few excerpts that I thought were especially worthy of being written down and shared here. I will offer a brief thought before each clip.

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First are two excerpts from a men's retreat Fr. Hardon gave in 1999. He speaks here on the importance of our own personal spiritual writing.

As you know, during the retreat, it is customary to make a good confession. ... Also, I recommend that those who make the retreat do some writing. What you write is more surely remembered than what you just think about in your mind.

— Servant of God Fr. John Hardon, S.J., from A Retreat for Men, July 14-18, 1999.

...we go on with this important, shall I call it, an exultation. I urge every one of you to do some writing: maybe your daily reflections; maybe your spiritual insights; something you read or heard. During my four years of undergraduate theology, I would write down what I thought from books I was reading deserved to be remembered. By the time I was ordained, I had over five thousand quotations.

Now we get closer to our subject: What is spiritual reading? We can begin by describing it in terms of what it is not. That's easy. Spiritual reading is not secular reading. And more positively, spiritual reading is that reading whose purpose as writing is to assist the believer to better know, love, and serve God and thereby become more God-like, which means more holy, especially in his life of prayer and the practice of Christian virtue.

Whatever I would recommend during these, I'll say, four days of the retreat: in God's name, write. That's the imperative: write.

— Fr. John Hardon, S.J., from A Retreat for Men, July 14-18, 1999.

The remaining clips are from a two-semester course on the Catholic Faith Fr. Hardon gave beginning in 1978. In the first clip, he offers a story to illustrate the difficulty that we all must face as a result of original sin: detachment from the things of this world and the willingness to sacrifice anything if it is God's will. I suspect that many, if not most of us struggle often with the specific temptation that the woman in the story was able to overcome through heroic fortitude: namely, the temptation to put affection for another person over one's devotion to God.

...and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Whether it was a physical apple is not important, but it seems somehow Adam took a piece of what she gave him -- whatever it was. He loved Eve more than God. All I know is one of the hardest responsibilities in life is to sacrifice human affection for God -- that's hard. The hardest thing in life is to give up what or especially whom you love when it's God's will that you do so.

Like the woman in Indianapolis: I came a week after the event on supply at a parish -- a week after one of my Jesuit confreres had been on supply, as we say, at that church. And it seems after the eleven o'clock Mass as he was going into the rectory though the front door -- from the church to the front door, he just stepped inside, when the woman was running up the rectory steps, rang the doorbell in great distress, and just as he opened the door, two shots rang, and the woman fell into his arms. She was killed. She was taking instructions for the Catholic Faith, was living in adultery with another man -- or the husband, well, of another woman's, in other words, another wife: he had another wife. She was told she'd have to give up this man to become a Catholic. You have a man who was divorced and felt he wanted this woman. "But I'm becoming a Catholic." He threatened her life. So during the course of instruction, she was going from church to church in Indianapolis to try to avoid him, because she was scared. She realized he meant business. This Sunday he saw her coming out of the church. Instead of shooting into the crowd, at the risk of killing somebody else, he waited till she was alone. And luckily for him, she -- well, she saw him, and she panicked. She was killed. ... And how often -- how very often -- in our lives this lesson has got to be lived: to give up what we love because we love God more.

The consequence, therefore, was not only for Adam, but, as we know, for the rest of the human race.

— Fr. John Hardon, S.J., from A Course on the Catholic Faith, 1978-9.

We live in a world today in which the consecrated religious life of Catholicism, from the perspective of the mainstream culture with its egocentric principles likely seems impractical or even nonsensical. I try to make it a point to recall often that in the Catholic Faith, the consecrated religious are indispensable -- are necessary. Fr. Hardon emphasizes this point beautifully here. Let us consider these words carefully and continue to pray for those who have given nothing less than their entire earthly existence to know, love, serve, and grow in deeper union with Our Lord.

...the Christianization of Europe is unintelligible without a flourishing monastic life. It is not only that the monks and nuns were the ones who both evangelized and prayed Europe, you might say, into the Faith, but that ever since, a good barometer of the strength of the Church in a given country or part of the world is the strength of its religious institutes. The Church is no stronger or weaker in any given period or place than are Her religious institutes: which, by the way, says something very serious and significant about the condition of the Church in our country.

— Fr. John Hardon, S.J., from A Course on the Catholic Faith, 1978-9.

Fr. Hardon next highlights the necessity of devout women for the preservation of the Faith, especially in nations such as ours that are in spiritual and moral decline.

...my Jesuit brethren ask me, "Whatever possessed you to get so involved with sisters, with nuns?" Well -- humanly speaking -- speaking mainly to sisters: this would not have been my choice. But, I know that if we can keep the women in the Catholic Church sound, we can preserve the Faith. If you let the Church down, even God -- barring a miracle -- will not save it. The Church needs you.

— Fr. John Hardon, S.J., from A Course on the Catholic Faith, 1978-9.

In the lectures, Fr. Hardon sets forth detailed expositions of several of the various mysteries pertaining to Mary, Our Mother. The veneration of Mary expounded upon in the lectures, along with the material such as that given in the previous quotation, emphasize important aspects of the Catholic teaching on the special dignity -- or "genius," to quote Blessed Pope (soon to be Saint) John Paul II -- of women that would likely be foreign to many in the mainstream.

Absolutely speaking, Christ might have been conceived by carnal intercourse. It is not absolutely impossible, of course, for God. Nevertheless, in order to both emphasize Christ having only a divine paternity -- to emphasize Christ's divine eternity -- to show that those who are conceived and born in sin are conceived and born in sin through paternal generation: it's the father who is the source of the sinful contagion with which the rest of us are conceived and born. Mary, then, conceived Christ virginally, and miraculously she gave him birth...

— Fr. John Hardon, S.J., from A Course on the Catholic Faith, 1978-9.

Could an institution that is considering for veneration a man who has taught such things be justly labeled as misogynistic? I will leave that to you to decide.

Servant of God Fr. John Hardon, pray for us.

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July 24 is the feast day of Sts. Christina of Bolsena († 3rd century) and Christina the Astonishing († 1224).

Orate pro nobis.

An Open Letter to Friends of the Dominicans: On Aristotle and Induction

I was recently conversing with a friend who was telling me about her current enrollment in a class covering Aristotle. Given that it is all too easy to dismiss such course material as simply a dull and pedantic undertaking, I wanted to offer some thoughts that emphasize the importance of his role in the history of thought: particularly in the intellectual tradition of the Dominicans. As it turns out, I was visiting with this friend and others in the company of two Dominican sisters recently, and a conversation came up in which there arose a question regarding the distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning.

Well, I was listening to a lecture series by Prof. Daniel Robinson the other day, and by a seeming coincidence, he discussed both of these topics in a single lecture. Here is an open letter to friends of the Dominicans regarding what I learned -- and found quite interesting. I hope that you will, too.

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Dear Friends of the Dominicans,

Regarding our recent conversations on various interesting topics -- particularly Aristotle, deduction versus induction, and those amidst ongoing discussions about the Dominicans -- I wanted to share with you my recent discoveries on these topics contained within some enlightening lectures by Prof. Daniel Robinson. Upon reading this letter, I hope that you will come to see the following:

1. The significance of Aristotle, which cannot be overstated -- particularly within the intellectual tradition of the Dominican Order.
2. Evidence to support the rejection of the Conflict Thesis, widely promoted by Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918).
3. The emphasis placed on inductive reasoning by Christian thinkers in the High Middle Ages, in anticipation of the founding of modern science.

Before we begin, a few words are in order about Prof. Daniel Robinson, whom I will be citing in this letter. He taught at Georgetown University for 30 years and is currently a philosophy professor at Oxford, where he has been on the faculty since 1991. Within the lectures I'll be referencing, he associates himself with no particular religion. At times, he gives comments that would likely be taken by the general public to be praiseworthy of various religious figures in history. At other times, he gives scathing criticisms of certain religious groups. With regard to the Catholic Church in particular, it is worth noting that he devotes an entire lecture to excoriating the Catholic Church for Her dealings with the Malleus Maleficarum in the fifteenth century. Hence, I consider him to be a neutral source when it comes to the area of religion.

Two of the lectures focus on some of the great thinkers of the Scholastic tradition during the High Middle Ages. Prof. Robinson begins with Peter Abelard (1079–21 April 1142) and continues on to cover to varying degrees Robert Grosseteste (1175–9 October 1253), Roger Bacon (ca.1214–1294), John Duns Scotus (ca.1266–8 November 1308), Albert the Great (1193/1206–November 15, 1280), and Thomas Aquinas (1225–7 March 1274). Over the course of the discussions of these figures, we can see the intellectual foundations being laid for the great achievements to come in the following centuries. And whom do we meet at each step along the way, playing a vital role in guiding each of these important thinkers? None other than our dear friend, Aristotle. We begin with Peter Abelard.


Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Consider Peter Abelard whose life stretches from 1079 to 1142 and whose celebrated teaching earned him the title of ... Peripateticus Palatinus. A "palatine" here suggests a form of lordship, and the "peripatetics": that was a term historically assigned to the school of Aristotle. So here you have a "lordship" in the domain of Aristotelian thought. Abelard's own teacher was the philosophically acute Anselm whose instruction was a staple in Roman Catholic higher education...

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from The Reappearance of Experimental Science

Note that the Anselm mentioned above is not St. Anslem (ca.1033-21 April, 1109), the Benedictine monk and Doctor of the Church.

From Abelard, we move on to Robert Grosseteste, who served as Bishop of Lincoln and was influential as a scholar in the fields of philosophy and theology. In a DCMission video (available here), we have presented a brief consideration of his accomplishments in the field of natural philosophy. Grosseteste leads us then to his student Roger Bacon, a Franciscan whose Opus Majus covered a wide range of topics, including the Scriptures, moral philosophy, mathematics, optics, and others.

Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253)

Roger Bacon (1214-1294): Statue at the Oxford University Museum

Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Let me return to the thirteenth century when, again, thanks very much to Islamic commentaries on Hellenic texts, the West begins to recover Aristotle the natural scientist and sees in these Aristotelian works the possibility for genuinely progressive knowledge. Two figures of immense importance are found at the already thriving University of Oxford: both members of the Catholic clergy and both among the most instructed minds of their century. In Robert Grosseteste, the bishop of Lincoln, we find a scholar as much at home with optics as with theology. His dates are 1175 to 1253. His commentaries on Aristotle were authoritative well into the sixteenth century. Significantly, in addition to commentaries on the ethical treatises, he also studied and wrote on Aristotle's Physics. And by the time of his death, he had created at Oxford an interest in science in which his young student, Roger Bacon, would come to call experimental science. Now, Roger Bacon's great work, his Opus Majus, is one of the foundational works in the modern scientific movement.

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from The Reappearance of Experimental Science

Robinson's mention here of the Islamic philosophers' roles in the study of the ancient Greeks is worth highlighting, as such points in the history of philosophy indicate the importance of Islamic thinkers oppose popular trends among Christians that attempt to cast Islam as an intrinsically anti-intellectual religion. The works of such Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna and Averroes are discussed briefly by Fr. Frederick Copleston, S.J. in Volume 2 of his well-known series, A History of Philosophy. Note that these Islamic figures by themselves offer evidence against the Conflict Thesis, in that thinkers such as a Avicenna and Averroes, while not Christian, are reported to have conducted studies into the natural sciences, while at the same time being religious men.

Robinson goes on to quote an excerpt from Roger Bacon's Opus Majus which highlights the fundamental importance of experience in the pursuit of Truth. We see here that the foundations for the experimental study of nature are being further developed. Note well that, although he lived 1600 years before, we see the influence of Aristotle at play here as Bacon is laying these foundations.


Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Aristotle had taught that "proof is reasoning that causes us to know," and Bacon understood that this required as a proviso that the proof is accompanied by its appropriate experience and is not to be understood as the bare proof of a syllogism. Thus he says, "He, therefore, who wishes to rejoice without doubt in regard to the truth's underlying phenomenon must know how to devote himself to experiment." What an incredible statement of purpose. What a pedagogically rich, instructive, guiding precept [from Roger Bacon's Opus Majus, ca. 1267]."

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from The Reappearance of Experimental Science

Following Roger Bacon, we encounter Duns Scotus (ca.1266-1308). Scotus was born around the time that Bacon's Opus Majus was authored, and we see that he picks up where Bacon left off in the emphasis of the role of experience in the acquisition of knowledge. As a component of Scotus's contributions, Robinson mentions his recognition of the use of inductive reasoning in the process of cultivating order within experience-based knowledge.


Bl. John Duns Scotus (1266-1308)
It is worth noting that, within Catholic contexts, I suspect that one is more likely to hear the name of Bl. John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. (beatified by Bl. John Paul II in 1993) mentioned not as a precursor to modern experimental inquiry, but rather for this Franciscan's indispensable contributions to Catholic Mariology. On this point, the Catholic Encyclopedia at NewAdvent.org states the following:

The famous Duns Scotus (d. 1308) at last (in III Sent., dist. iii, in both commentaries) laid the foundations of the true doctrine so solidly and dispelled the objections in a manner so satisfactory, that from that time onward the doctrine prevailed. He showed that the sanctification after animation — sanctificatio post animationem — demanded that it should follow in the order of nature (naturae) not of time (temporis); he removed the great difficulty of St. Thomas showing that, so far from being excluded from redemption, the Blessed Virgin obtained of her Divine Son the greatest of redemptions through the mystery of her preservation from all sin.

— Catholic Encyclopedia, from the article "Immaculate Conception"

Returning to Robinson and his thoughts on Scotus:


Click Here to Play Audio Clip

The great medieval Christian philosopher Duns Scotus put the case in yet another way. "As for what is known by experience, I have this to say. Even though a person does not experience every single individual, but only a great many - nor does he experience them at all times, but only frequently - still, he knows infallibly that it is always this way and holds for all instances." Now, you know what he's getting at here, don't you? This is a forerunner of what is now called the "frequentest probability approach (probabilistic knowledge)," establishing an inductive inference as a permissible mode of knowledge. Once you've sampled a number of cases and you see that things work out - remember Aristotle's hôs epi to poly: "by and large," "for the most part," "in general" - well, you don't have to wait for an infinite time to consult every single instance. By inference - by logical inference - by a plausible, rational mode of thought - you can lay claim to understanding how this will be under all circumstances, no matter how many times it's sampled.

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from The Reappearance of Experimental Science

Robinson goes on to explicate how Scotus's emphasis on inductive reasoning played such an important role in the intellectual developments within the studies of nature in the following centuries. He goes so far as to say that we are seeing through Scotus an "actual philosophy of science" beginning to appear, along with a "justification for experimental science itself."


Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Put another way, in the words of Duns Scotus again, "Whatever occurs in a great many instances by a cause that is not free is the natural effect of that cause. This proposition is known to the intellect even if derived from erring senses." You see what's going on here. There is an actual philosophy of science being developed in these texts. Here's a justification for experimental science itself - a justification if I ever saw one. What the proposition is is this. You take a fairly large sample. You see what the general pattern of outcomes is. You have every right to conclude by inference that there is a general law controlling these things. You know that you can't observe every event for all time to come. Nonetheless, your knowledge is infallible when the pattern is so securely repeated a given number of times.

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from The Reappearance of Experimental Science

To conclude his thoughts on these men, Robinson ends with a point that, to many today, could very well come as a bit shocking. This work by the Christian Scholastics -- which prefigured the experimental sciences -- at this time in history did not occur in spite of their faith, but because of it. The reasons for this takes us all the way back to beginning of Genesis itself. The creation gives insight into the creator. The depths of the mysteries within the natural world are seemingly impenetrable, but the intelligibility of these mysteries tell man something about himself and his own rationality. Through an increase in his knowledge about the natural world and the resulting increase in knowledge of his own nature, man - being made in God's image - discovers something about God Himself.

Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Duns Scotus, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon: they're defending a mode of thought in the Scholastic period that is characteristic of that period, though also original and groundbreaking. There's something quite commonsensical about it all, even amidst the analytical rigor and the formal arguments. This comes about, in a very considerable measure, as a result of Christian teaching itself: the requirement that we know God through His creation; an inquiry into our own nature, because by way of imago dei, to know oneself is to know something of God. So, again, this is not an age hostile to the senses, indifferent to experimental modes of inquiry.

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from The Reappearance of Experimental Science

Now, lest Christians become too proud of this heritage, it is important to note that the aforementioned Islamic thinker Averroes in the 12th century is reported to have held an interest in the sciences, such as astronomy, for example. And of Avicenna before him, even in the first millennium, it has been said that "before he was sixteen he had mastered what was to be learned of physics, mathematics, logic, and metaphysics; at the age of sixteen he began the study and practice of medicine..." (from the Catholic Encyclopedia article "Avicenna"). Having been men with interests also in theology, it would seem to make sense to speculate that they understood this connection between inquiry into the natural world and knowledge of the Creator. Here we have further evidence which works contrary to the anti-religious sentiments expressed by those subscribing to the Conflict Thesis.

Avicenna (980-1037)

Averroes (1126-1198): Pictured reading over the shoulder of Pythagoras (ca.570 - ca.495 B.C.) in Raphael's The School of Athens (1511)

Born around the same time as Roger Bacon was a man who was to become one of the greatest minds in history, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a Dominican and Doctor of the Church. His teacher, St. Albert the Great (ca.1206-1280) - also a Dominican Doctor of the Church - was a great thinker in his own right. His Opera Omnia (available online here), which is a compilation of his written works, consists, in one translation, of thirty-eight volumes and covers a multitude of topics including theology, philosophy, the physical sciences, psychology, anthropology, and many others. In Prof. Robinson's lecture, Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law, he offers us an eloquent introduction to Thomas and Albert.

Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Thomas Aquinas, Tommaso d'Aquino, the famous and great Doctor of the Church. The great thirteenth-century Dominican figure whose Scholastic philosophy continues to dominate thought within the overall religious philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. He was a prolific writer. He was not, however, the most promising of students. At least legend has it that he was a large and rather lumbering chap called by his classmates, "the Dumb Ox," and his celebrated teacher, Albertus Magnus, was persuaded that when that ox started making sounds, the entire world would quake. And in this, Albertus Magnus was correct - in this and in many other things.

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law

St. Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280)
It is worth noting that when one looks a bit deeper into Albert's works, he might come to see an influence from none other than Avicenna, the Islamic polymath mentioned earlier. The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us:

A favourite principle of Avicenna, which is quoted not only by Averroes but also by the Schoolmen [i.e. the Scholastics], and especially by St. Albert the Great, was intellectus in formis agit universalitatem, that is, the universality of our ideas is the result of the activity of the mind itself.

— Catholic Encyclopedia, from the article "Avicenna"

This brings us, then, to St. Thomas Aquinas himself. Allow me to illustrate the supreme dignity of St. Thomas anecdotally. I was visiting a Dominican convent recently, and I noticed a painting of a Dominican standing at the foot of the Cross. I asked one of the sisters, "Is that St. Thomas?" She responded, "No, it is St. Dominic [i.e. the founder of the Dominican Order] -- but he would have no problem with you mistaking him for St. Thomas." Hence, one cannot overestimate the rank of St. Thomas within the Dominican tradition. What Robinson will illustrate to us now is that neither can one overestimate the rank of Aristotle within the works of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Click Here to Play Audio Clip

Now, Thomas Aquinas's deep and enduring respect for Aristotle has him invariably referring to Aristotle not by name, but simply as "the philosopher": Aristotle as a philosophical guide and often, but not always, a philosophical authority. Recall that Thomas Aquinas is going to become Saint Thomas Aquinas. He's a Dominican priest. His mission in life is service to the Church. What he's attempting to get right is the spiritual dimension of human life; the obligations we have to God: conducting our lives in such way as to be worthy of the salvation secured through the death of Jesus Christ. So this is not someone seeking tenure in a philosophy department, and he certainly isn't going to settle, once and for all, for the philosophical musings - no matter how deep and penetrating they might be - of a pagan philosopher who died in the fourth century BC. To make the point briefly, then, I should say, we don't want to read Thomistic philosophy as a gloss on Aristotelianism. The stakes are different, and the stakes - at least for Thomas Aquinas - are much higher.

— Prof. Daniel Robinson, from Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.): As depicted in Raphael's The School of Athens

And this brings us to the end of our journey through the High Middle Ages. We've met several monumental minds from Christianity and Islam who were forerunners to the great founders of modern science. All along the way, we've seen the influence of a man who, although he lived about 1500 years earlier, played an undeniable role in the intellectual lives of each of these men. The spirit of each is, in a real sense, present with us today in a world enriched with scientific inquiry. But the question for us remains: how will Aristotle, the great "philosophical guide," affect each of our lives?

Pax Christi Vobiscum,
Patrick
Laetare Sunday
Dominica IV in Quadragesima
Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste
On the Date of the Dedication of Our Lady, Help of Christians Parish in Huntsville, Alabama, by Most Rev. Robert Baker, Bishop of Birmingham



My Meeting with Dominican Sisters at the
2012 March for Life, Washington, D.C.

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Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste († 320).

According to St. Basil [ca.329-379], forty soldiers who had openly confessed themselves Christians were condemned by the prefect to be exposed naked upon a frozen pond near Sebaste on a bitterly cold night, that they might freeze to death.

Domina Nostra, Auxilium Christianorum
et Quadrāgintā Sānctī Martyrēs, orate pro nobis.

Catholics and Contraception: Blind Acceptance of Authority?

I recently was speaking with a protestant who intimated an understanding of Catholics' opposition to contraception as being just another instance of our blind acceptance of an authoritarian rule established by the Catholic Church that has been added to the Bible arbitrarily. Here, I present four perspectives - in brief form, conveniently tailored for our ADHD culture - in response to this claim to illustrate that it is unsubstantiated and unequivocally false.

A Brief Historical Note: For Centuries, Protestants Rejected Contraception
The first important point is that although protestants depict the Catholic opposition to contraception as a teaching through which the Church exercises its supposedly totalitarian control over those subscribing to the Catholic Faith, the truth of the matter is that the founding members of the protestant movement - including Luther and Calvin - also openly opposed contraception. In fact, Christianity was unified in its opposition to contraception for centuries, until the early 20th century when the Anglican bishops convened at the Lambeth conference in 1930 to establish some exceptions to their opposition to the use of contraception. Hence, if the Catholic Church is in this case, as many protestants say, simply adding arbitrary rules to those established in the Bible, then so were the protestants for all those centuries.

To this conclusion, the pro-contraceptive protestant may respond, "Fine - the protestants were wrong all those years. It took this long for us to realize that contraception is indeed morally permissible." Ignoring the unabashed brazenness of this claim for the time being, I will respond by saying, "OK, but the evidence above still eradicates the grounds for holding the position that the Catholic teaching on contraception is just another instance of Catholic authority flexing its muscles of totalitarian control over its people through the establishment of principles that were (it is alleged) without good reason added to those principles found in the Bible, when in fact all of Christianity, including protestants, taught and abided by a principled opposition to contraception for centuries."

For more on the history of the Christian opposition to contraception, which dates back to the infancy of Christianity (about two millennia ago), see Fr. Mitch Pacwa's article on the subject: link.

A Response to the Claim that the Catholic Teaching on Contraception is an Authoritarian Rule Created by the Pope that is Blindly Accepted by Catholics
One of the many works by Christian figures giving a reasoned opposition to the use of contraception is the great book Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla (who later was to be elected Pope John Paul II). Upon mentioning that such works exist, the protestant whom I mentioned earlier made it clear that she understood that such works are simply instances of Catholics blindly accepting the authoritative teachings of Church leaders.

Such an understanding is, to be frank, a gross distortion of the truth of the situation. In fact, in Wojtyla's introduction to Love and Responsibility, he establishes clearly that the book was not written to be taken as doctrine - that is, as an authoritative teaching of the Church. It was, in fact, written 18 years before he was even elected pope. (Note that there are many other books by people who aren't even priests that establish through reason the immorality of contraception. I mention Love and Responsibility here only because it is the best one I have read.) If it helps the protestant reader, you may think of Love and Responsibility as similar to a sermon written by the pastor of your own church, in which he (or she) discusses his (or her) understanding of how one is to rightly live out the Gospel. You as a member of that church may accept or reject that understanding based on your own reasoning. I could say more on this, but I will leave it to the reader to study for himself the introduction to Love and Responsibility, which is available in its entirety in the preview of the book on Google Books (link).

(The reader will note that the above analogy between the teachings on contraception contained in Love and Responsibility and a protestant pastor's sermon is somewhat inaccurate, in that the faithful Catholic cannot in good conscience refuse to accept the Church's teaching on contraception, since this teaching has elsewhere been stated authoritatively (for example, in Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae). However, this point is tangential to the current discussion, as my objective here is to establish that non-authoritative works, such as Love and Responsibility, do indeed exist and establish the immorality of contraception based on reason alone, without relying upon authority.)

A Note from a Prominent Protestant Leader of Today on the Catholic Opposition to Contraception
Although many protestants have since 1930 rejected the centuries-held Christian opposition to contraception, there are still prominent protestant leaders who are not vehemently opposed to the Catholic teaching on the matter and who actually see great value in it. This fact by itself is further evidence that this teaching is based on reason, and is not accepted solely because it is taught authoritatively. Consider the thoughts of the Protestant pastor Russell E. Saltzman on this topic: link.

A Note from the Perspective of a Young Lady
A video was produced recently by a young lady (in her teenage years, I would guess) that offers her case for opposing contraception. Although less intellectually rigorous than the above references, it is more lighthearted and was received well by priests I know, so it may be helpful for some.

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On the General Calendar, August 9th is the feast day of St. Edith Stein (1891-1942), Carmelite nun, prominent Catholic intellectual, convert from Judaism, and martyr of Auschwitz. On the Traditional Calendar, it is the feast of St. John Marie Vianney (1786-1859), patron of parish priests. Orate pro nobis.

Fr. Pacwa, S.J. on Verbum Domini #38: On the "Spirit" of Sacred Scripture

One of the many features of the Catholic Church that I cherish is that the greatest biblical scholars are Catholic. It is a popular misconception that it is protestants who best know Scripture and that their extensive knowledge of it is something that Catholics should learn from them. But the evidence of the unrivaled excellence of Catholic biblical scholarship is readily available, now that we have in recent decades broken ground upon the Digital Continent and have access to the great writings and commentaries on Scripture by popes, bishops, and priests over the centuries. Although it may be true, in general, that the average protestant has more Bible passages memorized than the average Catholic (although even this fact may be debatable), rote memorization of the letter of Scripture is limited in usefulness if one has not begun to attain a spiritual comprehension of Scripture. But what exactly does the "Spiritual" comprehension of Scripture entail? Fr. Pacwa here has given us a discussion which addresses this very question.

I found this discussion to be particularly important today, as the idea of the "spirit" of the law - both in the context of Scripture and elsewhere - has been greatly misconstrued. We often hear of people referring to the "spirit" of the law as a means to relax the strictness embodied by a written rule when interpreted literally.

For example, let's consider a situation in which a police officer finds his friend's car parked illegally over the lines in a parking lot with no other cars in it. In such a situation, one might not be surprised if the officer were to pardon the offense on the grounds that, although the letter of the law has been broken, the "spirit of the law" allows him to excuse it. Although this may be permissible on the grounds of common courtesy, the truth of the matter is that such a pardon opposes both the letter and the spirit of the law, in their true senses.

To consider an ecclesial example, we hear frequently of certain questionable activities in the Liturgy being justified on the grounds that they are being done in the "spirit of Vatican II" (a talk by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in January on this topic can be found here). For one who has an apprehension of what the "spirit of the law" really means, this is quite confusing when it is used to permit actions that are not supported by the Council's texts themselves. Even more perplexing are cases in which the actions permitted by the "spirit" of the Council go so far as to contradict what is written in the conciliar documents. A particularly noteworthy example of this is the common practice of the complete elimination of the use of the Latin language from the Mass, a practice which is allegedly justified by the following of the so-called "spirit of Vatican II," while being expressly forbidden within the documents themselves (see Sancrosanctum Concilium, #36).

The truth regarding the "spirit" of the law - as presented by Pope Benedict in Verbum Domini, Fr. Pacwa here, and Eric Moore elsewhere - is that it builds upon and even transcends the letter - rather than working in opposition to it - and it is vital that we grasp this point.

Toward this end, in this episode of Threshold of Hope, Fr. Pacwa gives a discussion of paragraph 38: The Need to Transcend the "Letter," from Pope Benedict's apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini. You can follow along with Fr. Pacwa by reading the document online here.

Fr. Pacwa begins by emphasizing what is needed to gain a "Spiritual" comprehension of Sacred Scripture, which requires that one understands the text in four senses:

1. The Literal Sense: To understand the "meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture" (CCC 117) - "All other senses ... are based on the literal" (St. Thomas Aquinas).
2. The Allegorical Sense: To understand what we believe, the doctrines.
3. The Moral Sense: To understand right from wrong.
4. The Anagogical Sense: To understand life and the after-life, or what happens when we die.

As Fr. Pacwa mentions in the previous episode of Threshold of Hope, these four senses are presented in greater detail in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #118.

Two important points Fr. Pacwa goes on to make are that:

1. The "interplay between the different senses of Scripture is essential in order to grasp the passage from letter to spirit" (4:38).
2. "...this is not an automatic passage, and it is not spontaneous - it takes some work." (4:55)

Fr. Pacwa then begins a discussion of what such an understanding of these senses entails. He emphasizes that we must look at the passages of Scripture in context: that is, "not only the context of the other words around it, but also to see various elements of the Bible in the context of the whole of Scripture and the whole development of the history of the people of Israel from Abraham forward..." (12:39). Hence, we see here the importance of not only the Scripture itself, but also of Sacred Tradition, which is rejected by many heretical teachings today. In this paragraph of Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict explicitly highlights the importance of Scripture through a reference to Pope Paul VI's 1965 dogmatic consitution Dei Verbum, and through making this reference, implicitly highlights the importance of Sacred Tradition. In opposition to this fact regarding the emphasis that the Church has placed on the study of Scripture, some protestants have propagated the falsehood that a distinguishing feature of Catholic Church history is that the Magisterium has discouraged or even forbade people from reading Sacred Scripture. To counter this, Fr. Pacwa mentions Pope Leo XIII's (R. 1878-1903) order to print in every Catholic Bible that Catholics would receive indulgences for reading Scripture (19:55). Although there may have been Catholic individuals who were discouraging laypeople from reading the Bible, this has not been the official teaching of the Church.

So we see here that the interplay of these two contexts illustrates the timelessness - manifesting itself through temporal universality - of the Truth embodied within Christianity. The Tradition of the Faith was an inextricable component of the Councils of the early Church at which the Bible was compiled, as it continues to be an inextricable component today, and will continue to be in the future life of the Church. However, this vitality of Scripture within the Church does not sustain itself automatically, but rather requires a volitional participation of learning and living the Scriptures from each of its members. Fr. Pacwa, quoting Verbum Domini, states, "There is an inner drama in this process, since the passage that takes place in the power of the Spirit inevitably engages each person’s freedom" (13:23). This deep level of understanding of Scripture will necessarily involve an act of one's will and will affect his daily decisions as he lives, "demanding full engagement in the life of the Church" (9:48, quoting Verbum Domini).

July 3 is the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle († 72) (General Calendar) and Pope St. Leo II (R. 682-683) (Traditional Calendar). Orate pro nobis.

Rev. Michael Orsi of Ave Maria School of Law on Principles of Catholic Identity for Law Schools

Rev. Michael P. Orsi, Chaplain and Research Fellow of Law and Religion at Ave Maria School of Law has written an article for the most recent issue of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly (available here). Motivated in part by the trend of weakening Catholic identity among law schools in the country that were originally founded as Catholic, he presents principles on which a law school should be based to sustain its Catholic identity. At the core of the blueprint he gives for such a law school is that in "maintaining equilibrium" it must find a balance between "the natural and the supernatural." The four principles he gives are:

1) Teachings on supernatural revelation should be made available to the students. He mentions specifically that material from Church documents (he names Veritas Splendor, Evangelium Vitae, and Fides et Ratio in particular) should be incorporated into the coursework.

2) At least 90% of the faculty should be practicing Catholics.

3) The chaplain should work closely with the dean and play a strong role in ensuring that the Catholic identity of the school is sustained and respected.

4) 3 out of 4 students should be Catholic.

Rev. Orsi also lists a few threats against which a Catholic law school must defend itself. He mentions specifically that there is the danger of a law school being too heavily influenced by political movements among students, but we must remember that Catholicism is not a "political theory or a political party." Libertarianism, he notes, is gaining popularity among conservative law students, but "administrators must be vigilant that their school is not taken over by such an ideology."

Another danger he discusses is the threat of "uber-Catholicism," stating that the school must not "allow the ultra-orthodox to gain hegemony."

He goes on to state that the school should not extend permission or funding to student groups with principles that oppose Catholic teaching. He gives the example of a Democratic club that was allowed only under the stipulation that support for abortion be excluded from the club's constitution.

Rev. Orsi has presented a bold vision for law schools in the U.S. seeking to maintain their Catholic identity. These will surely be positive forces in preparing the next generation of Catholic lawyers for the growing threats to the common good in our nation. Let us hope that more schools take on such a vision built upon the principle that "in the end, a Catholic law school has the obligation to help its students become saints."