Archive for the ‘Morality’ Category

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My Opposition to the Death Penalty in Contemporary America

Sunday, August 12th, 2018

I was recently offered a polite challenge to my opposition to the death penalty, and on the spot I did not spell it out well. My current thinking is based on three considerations

Social. In a former age, the criminal guilty of a capital crime was, in my opinion, more guilty of his outrageous behavior. Within my lifetime, however, the educational, judicial, and political systems have become more complicit in these crimes. The legal system has expelled religion and religious morality from the public school system in which the vast majority of American youth are educated. To paraphrase Romans 10:14ff, how can we expect people to believe and to do what is right if we do not instruct them? Public education has not only become complicit but teaches an intellectual and moral vacuum in which there is no objective truth, everything is subjective and there are no moral absolutes. Yes, the natural law is still written in the heart of every person, but the dominant cultural forces are combined to treat the silent entreaties in the heart as old fashioned taboos. The judicial system still permits the killing of the most innocent citizens at will; in fact such permission to kill the innocent is a foundation of the current Democratic Party. This combination has given us a culture that is toxic to basic morality. As Dostoyevsky had one of characters say, “If there is no God, you can do anything.” Thus society at large has to bear the burden of the humane imprisonment of those who commit capital crimes.

Repentance. I publish a rosary booklet (The Seven Day Bible Rosary) and offer it free to prisoners. I have distributed hundreds of these and have received only one letter saying “I didn’t do it,” and that was from a man on death row. Another death row prisoner made no such comment. Others have told me specifically that being sent to prison was the best thing that has ever happened to them. Without being specific, they admit that they had been living sinful lives. Now they are reading a Catholic newspaper in which I advertise and asking for something to help them pray the rosary. Some of these have had their first encounter with the Catholic faith in prison; others were raised in Catholic families but ignored what they were taught. Some have told me that it has taken years for them to get to this stage of repentance. Life imprisonment gives some prisoners the time they need to repent and grow in holiness.

Spiritual warfare. There is a spiritual warfare going on between the Lord Jesus and Satan for every person. Jesus gave his life for my sins, the sins of everyone who reads this, and also for the sins of every other sinner, some of whose sins are not only very serious but also public knowledge. I do not want Satan to win any of these battles— which he might do if some criminals are put to death before they repent.

The bottom line: Please join many prisoners who are praying the rosary every day as Our Lady of Fatima has asked us to do—for world peace, for the conversion of Russia, and for the conversion of sinners all throughout the world. I can hear it already, “Those folks have nothing but time on their hands but I am too busy.” It is a rare day when a person who wants to honor Mary’s request cannot find the time to do so. The daily commute provides many with plenty of rosary time. And the list of opportunities goes on.
The above was first written November 27, 2015. Obviously, I am in great agreement with some of the thinking of Pope Francis.

However, when he changes the text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reflect this, I have to interpret that in the way stated by a Dominican theologian who says the changed text is a pastoral statement, not a matter of doctrine. That is, it may be considered widely applicable in developed economies which have prisons in which inmates can live out a lifelong sentence. That may not hold true in some developing countries that would have a very hard time providing food, shelter, medical attention, and sufficient security for a life-sentenced criminal. It may not always hold true even in developed countries when a convicted murderer manages to murder one of his guards. Perhaps the certainty of a death at a certain date might help such a person prepare to meet his Creator and Judge.
—John F. Kippley, August 5, 2018,
https://johnkippley.com/the-seven-day-bible-rosary/

Posted in Education, Morality, Priests & Parishes | Comments Off on My Opposition to the Death Penalty in Contemporary America

Sex and the Marriage Covenant

Sunday, July 29th, 2018

Sex and the Marriage Covenant
Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, Fall 2006
Reviewed by Thomas P. Scheck, Ave Maria University

John Kippley has been courageously defending traditional Christian sexual ethics in a Roman Catholic context since 1963. In this second edition of his book, Kippley argues that since self-giving is the essence of marital love, contraception contradicts the very essence of the marriage covenant. What too many people are unaware of is the reality set forth in the opening statement of the book: “Up until 1930, Christian churches had been unanimous in teaching that it was immoral to use unnatural methods of birth control” (vii). The Church of England was the first to break with traditional teaching, and was followed by all Protestant denominations. The Catholic Church has never caved in to this departure from traditional sexual morality. After the Anglican innovation, Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the previously universal teaching against contraception in his encyclical Casti Connubii (1930). Paul VI did the same in Humanae Vitae (1968), and John Paul II in his persistent teaching. These popes were simply affirming what all Christian churches had previously believed and defended up to 1930: namely, that it goes against natural law to use contraceptive drugs, procedures and behaviors.

The present book is divided into five parts. In Part One: The Covenant Proposal, the author discusses the theological meaning of covenant and its implications for human sexuality. Here Kippley articulates and explains his thesis, that God intends sexual intercourse to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant. From this it follows that the marriage covenant provides the criterion to evaluate the morality of every sexual act. Kippley’s theological contribution here is creative, but not innovative; he is thought provoking, but not abrupt. However, in my view, Kippley seriously understates his own qualifications and stature as a Catholic theologian. No one who reads Kippley’s critique of the weak and intellectually bankrupt arguments used by dissenting theologians to defend contraception will gain any respect for their learning, in spite of their doctoral degrees. It is simply impossible for a reader of this book to conclude that Kippley is less academically qualified than revisionist scholars, still living in 1968, who want us to believe that the Popes of the Catholic Church have been theological dilettantes. Part Two: Conscience deals with fundamental aspects of forming a correct conscience and the question of infallibility. Part Three: Pastoral Considerations covers Natural Family Planning, practical pastoral policies, hard cases, and sterilization. Part Four: The Context of the Controversy discusses the history of birth control controversies in the 20th century and a critique of the arguments for contraception. Finally, Part Five: The Historical-Traditional Teaching lays out the biblical foundations and ecclesiastical documentation for Catholic sexual ethics. In brief, there is very little in this book that is not intensely relevant to anyone interested in marriage, sexuality and family issues.

My favorite anecdote in the book occurred in Kippley’s discussion of Genesis 38.10 and the account of Onan. The scriptural text says that Onan practiced withdrawal, spilling his seed on the ground, in order to prevent pregnancy from occurring. The Bible then states: “What he did was evil in the sight of the Lord, and [the Lord] slew him” (Gn 38.10). Until very recently in the history of biblical exegesis, an anti-contraceptive interpretation of this passage was universal. Both Catholic exegetes as well as the Protestant reformers, Luther and Calvin made this very clear. Luther went so far as to say that Onanism (contraceptive behavior) was “worse than Sodomy.” But in recent times, a “Levirate-only” interpretation of this passage has emerged, i.e. the view that Onan’s only sin was his failure to comply with his duty to raise up offspring for his deceased brother. Kippley endeavored to determine when the change in interpretation occurred. He reports that he consulted by phone a modern Scripture scholar and asked him when the anti-contraceptive interpretation was dropped from the discussion of Onan. The nameless scholar did not answer the question, but simply pontificated: “We just don’t do it that way anymore.” Kippley comments: “It would be hard to imagine a reply that gave more evidence that the Levirate-only interpretation is without merit, an interpretation of expediency” (p. 331).

To conclude this brief review, I will say that this book is exceptionally clearly written and easy to read. It is filled with information and documentation. This book should be required reading for Catholic (and Protestant) couples preparing for marriage. Indeed, I wish I had read this book fifteen years ago in my own pre-marital preparation. The back cover of Kippley’s book carries an endorsement by William E. May, one of the Catholic Church’s leading moral theologians, who calls it a “must read for anyone concerned with marriage, sexuality and the family.” It is also worth noting that Scott Hahn reports that his reading of the first edition of this book played a big role in his conversion to the Catholic position on the issue of contraception. That in itself is a significant legacy for Kippley’s book [Sex and the Marriage Covenant] and a strong recommendation.

Posted in Covenant Theology, Humanae Vitae, Marriage Covenant, Morality, Priests & Parishes | Comments Off on Sex and the Marriage Covenant

Karl Rahner, Paul VI and John Paul II regarding morally difficult situations

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016

The real issue raised by the ambiguous statements of Pope Francis and Father Lombardi is this: Are there situations when you can do something that is morally evil in order to accomplish some good? Can you do something your regard as a lesser evil in order to avoid what you regard as a greater evil? This is certainly not a new question. Karl Rahner S.J. addressed this issue in general terms; both Paul VI and John Paul II addressed it specifically in terms of marital contraception.

Let’s start with a quotation from Father Karl Rahner, SJ. It’s in the section on situation ethics in Sex and the Marriage Covenant, Chapter 11, “The Hard Cases,” p. 205.

“If we Christians, when faced with a moral decision, really realized that the world is under the Cross on which God himself hung nailed and pierced, that obedience to God’s law can also entail man’s death, that we may not do evil in order that good may come of it, that it is an error and heresy of this eudomonic modern age to hold that the morally right thing can never lead to a tragic situation from which in this world there is no way out;

if we really realized that as Christians we must expect almost to take for granted that at some time in our life our Christianity will involve us in a situation in which we must either sacrifice everything or lose our souls, that we cannot expect always to avoid a “heroic” situation, then there would indeed be fewer Christians who think that their situation requires a special ruling which is not so harsh as the laws proclaimed as God’s laws by the Church, then there would be fewer confessors and spiritual advisors who, for fear of telling their penitent how strict is God’ law, fail in their duty and tell him instead to follow his conscience,

as if he had not asked, and done right to ask, which among all the many voices clamoring within him was the true voice of God, as if it were not for God’s Church to try and distinguish it in accordance with His law, as if the true conscience could speak even when it had not been informed by God and the faith which comes from hearing.”
—Nature and Grace: Dilemmas in the Modern Church, pp. 55-56, copyright 1964, Sheed and Ward. Permission granted to quote in Sex and the Marriage Covenant.

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Pope Paul VI regarding difficult situations

The following quotation comes from that same chapter in Sex and the Marriage Covenant in a section titled “The end does not justify the means” p.206:

JFK text: “The majority report of the papal birth control commission had rationalized that acts of contraceptive intercourse could be made morally good by occurring within a marriage that had some non-contraceptive acts of intercourse. Pope Paul VI specifically rejected this hypothesis in Humanae Vitae, and in doing so he reiterated the moral principle that the end does not justify the means. For convenience, the passage is repeated here in the translation of Fr. Marc Caligari, S.J.

And to justify conjugal acts made intentionally infertile one cannot invoke as valid reasons the lesser evil, or the fact that when taken together with the fertile acts already performed or to follow later, such acts would coalesce into a whole and hence would share in the one and the same moral goodness. In truth, if it is sometimes permissible to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or to promote a greater good, it is not permissible, not even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom. One may not, in other words, make into the object of a positive act of the will something that is intrinsically disordered and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family, or social goods.     —Humanae Vitae, n,14.

 

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Saint John Paul II on difficult situations

A Vatican II document on the constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium, teaches when the Pope’s teaching must be accepted as an authentic exercise of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. In section 25, it lists several requirements and specifically states: “His mind and will in the matter may be known chiefly either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.” St. John Paul II more than fulfilled these requirements, and Chapter 7 of Sex and the Marriage Covenant lists a significant number of his documents and talks.  Here I will quote only the summary on page 148.

“In his manner of speaking, John Paul II has left no room for doubt that the doctrine of marital non-contraception reaffirmed by Casti Connubii, Humanae Vitae, and Familiaris Consortio must be believed . He has taught that

● to hold out for exceptions as if God’s grace were not sufficient is a form of atheism (September 17, 1983);

● denying the doctrine of marital non-contraception is ‘equivalent to denying the Catholic concept of revelation’ (April 10, 1986);

● it is a teaching whose truth is beyond discussion (June 5, 1987);

● it is a ‘teaching which belongs to the permanent patrimony of the Church’s moral doctrine’ and ‘a truth which cannot be questioned’ (March 14, 1988);

● it is a teaching which is intrinsic to our human nature and that calling it into question ‘ is equivalent to refusing God himself the obedience of our intelligence’ (November 12, 1988); and finally,

● ‘what is being questioned by rejecting that teaching . . . is the very idea of the holiness of God’ (November 12, 1988)” italics in 1988 original.

It should be noted that his teaching on November 12, 1988 was given to a group of some 400 moral theologians. In that address he also referenced the doctrine of the Cross of Christ in 1Cor 1:17.

All of the above summary statements are fleshed out in detail earlier in that same chapter.

Allow me to put in a plug for my book, Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality published by Ignatius Press in 2005. It is useful because of its quotations; it also addresses other issues that have been raised again in the light of the ambiguous comments of Pope Francis.

John F. Kippley, February 23, 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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