At times, it gets truly sad, what supposed Catholics will stoop to in their effort to pretend that we don't need to react to the problems in the world; especially those who have, or think they have, an audience.
I won't say the name of this particular Catholic, partly because I don't know it, but my father pays attention to what he says from time to time, and I can't say I'm pleased by that, since I've often found him to be unwilling to speak the hard truths. Today, however, he crossed a couple of big lines.
The subject under discussion was whether or not government should have more surveillance authority over its citizens, or something along those lines. I think the issue is an important one, but not the reason I'm making this post.
First, this Catholic seemed to be implying that the bible contains conflicting accounts of "government." In other words, that there are passages that imply that government is our friend, and is appointed by God, and passages that see the government as an evil, consuming beast.
Putting aside the fact that this is an independent interpretation of these passages, and therefore carries no weight -in the Catholic Church,- such a statement gives the impression that the bible is filled with irreconcilable contradictions, and it's precisely this kind of careless language that once encouraged me to turn to agnosticism (the worst ten years of my life.)
In reality, of course, scripture passages that -seem- to contradict, actually don't, and instead, are used to draw attention to subtle distinctions in God's law, and in our world. For example, there are passages of the bible that speak of -specific- governments doing -specific- evil things, and passages that speak of the loyalty that we owe to those appointed by God to serve in governing others, but no scripture passage says that "government," as such, is our friend, and no scripture passage says that -all- governments are good or evil. These things depend on the circumstances, and a really good discussion could be had on this subject alone. Just so long as we can avoid implying that the scriptures are full of contradictions.
But of course, that's not enough. We also need to imply that the -doctors of the Church- are full of contradictions as well. This individual claimed that Saint Augustine saw the government as evil, which Saint Thomas Aquinas saw it as chosen by God, and then said that obviously, one of them thought one thing, while the other thought something different.
This is, in fact, far from obvious. After all, Lucifer was chosen by God for an -exceptionally- high position, and he turned out to be evil, didn't he?
I simply fail to see any contradiction between an authority figure being chosen by God, and the same authority figure being evil. Look at King Saul; the first king of Israel. It's -repeatedly- said that he "did evil in the sight of the Lord." Yet, he was clearly God's appointed. No contradiction is obvious, to me, between Augustine and Aquinas on this subject. In fact, Saint Thomas Aquinas quoted Augustine incessantly in his masterwork; the Summa Theologica. More than anyone else.
Worse yet, however, is the attempt to paint St. Thomas as the kind of man who rolled over when the government was doing evil. Nothing could be further from the truth. St. Thomas Aquinas was well aware of the existence of unjust laws. In fact, on the subject, he said the following...
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"On the other hand laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good,"
"Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to anything else contrary to the Divine law"
"The like are acts of violence rather than laws; because, as Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5), "a law that is not just, seems to be no law at all."
"Wherefore such laws do not bind in conscience, except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance"
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Now, here we see quite clearly that not only does Saint Thomas acknowledge that some laws are fundamentally unjust and are therefore not laws, and aren't binding on our consciences, but he quotes Saint Augustine in support of this claim. Therefore, there is no contradiction here.
But perhaps the most damaging thing said by this Catholic, at least from the section that I heard, was that "Catholics are good at self-examination," implying that this is the method that we should use to find answers to these moral questions.
If any Catholic turns to self-examination to figure out whether something is moral or immoral, he's missed the point of being a Catholic. We -have- people to determine whether things are moral or immoral. They're called the Pope and the Magisterium. We -have- a reference document for what things are moral or immoral. It's called the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Telling people that they should look within themselves for the answers instead is not only wrong; it's dangerous. People are not as isolated from the secular world as they like to think, and without a firm connection the the rue-bricks of our Catholic faith, we will all be lost.
Normally, I'd take a moment to question the loyalty of this person to the actual teachings of the Church. After all, if we're not going to refer to the Church's teachings on difficult, moral questions, then what, precisely, is the point of having a Catechism in the first place?
I can understand that everyone makes mistakes, however, and I'll be charitable and suppose that's all it was. That said, if you're Catholic, and you've got a public voice, beware of this kind of thing. Your slightest misstep can speak volumes to those hovering on the edge.
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