Father Rob gives a BRILLIANT essay on the seamless garment philosophy and moral relativism.
Some excerpts:
But, in the eyes of some, making moral distinctions between abortion, the death penalty, and the War in Iraq is reminiscent of Clintonian equivocation.
However, making moral distinctions is something we must do as responsible adult Catholics. We must distinguish where we may act as well as where we must act. We must distinguish between areas of dogmatic teaching, where, as Catholics, our consciences are bound, and matters of prudential judgment, where Catholics of good will can disagree.
If we treat all matters of moral judgment as having equal weight and equal binding force, that will lead us to moral absurdities. For example, if, as some commenters claim, “killing is wrong in every form”, that would make a cop who kills an armed perpetrator about to shoot someone the moral equivalent of Wanda Holloway, the infamous Texas “Cheerleader Mom”, who murdered her daughter’s rival for the cheerleading squad. Such an equivocation, of course, does not stand up either in Law or morality. After all, the Church teaches that defense of innocent life is not only permissible but a duty, which admits of the use of lethal means if necessary (CCC 2264-65).
To make such distinctions is not “moral relativism”, as one commenter accused. It is an obligatory part of discovering the truth about any action.
My favorite part:
The one thing prohibited under Just War theory is a war of aggression. And there is simply no rational way to characterize the war in Iraq as such, even if it is misguided. If you believe that George Bush got us into the war in order to get even for his father, or to enrich his buddies in the oil business, or to gin up fear to enable him to institute a right-wing dictatorship, then I would urge you to join the “black helicopter” crowd and take your suspicions to the Art Bell Show or the forums of MoveOn.org. You’ve departed the bounds of rational discourse. And I’d remind you that before 2003 everyone thought Saddam had WMDs: the Clinton adminstration thought he had them, the UN thought he had them, and John Kerry, along with most of Congress, thought he had them.
************
Then Patrick has wisdom beyond his years in this offering.
Even if you don’t share my conviction (and I believe the arguments are on my side) that this is the death of a human person deserving protection, you must acknowledge that something has gone awry with a society in which one out of every four women eventually has an abortion. Maybe you think the best answer is the right kind of sex education, or financial care to women who want to bear their child, or a better organization of the adoption system, or something totally different. But you have to admit that 4,000 abortions every day represents a problem that we are ignoring. And NARAL and Planned Parenthood refuse to do this, and they lobby against anything that might have an effect (say, parental notification) because to try and address a problem requires a public acknowledgement of its existence.
Please feel free to leave a comment under the posting, or sign my Spiritbook (guestbook) and chat on the tag board at the bottom of the page.
