By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE
Part 1
(Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, patron of the Order of Malta, delivered the following address to the Church Teaches Forum, Louisville, Ky., on July 16, 2016. It is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved. Because of its length, we are presenting it in two parts; the second part will appear in next week’s issue.)
+ + +
Your Eminence Cardinal Arinze, Your Grace Archbishop Kurtz, Your Excellency Bishop Choby, my brothers in the Sacred Priesthood, consecrated brothers and sisters, my brothers and sisters in Christ,
Introduction
For some time already, our society, both in the United States and in Europe, has been confronting a serious challenge to its Christian identity. The challenge has philosophical roots in a false understanding of man which alienates him from his origin and his destiny in the immeasurable and unceasing love of God, manifested most perfectly in the Incarnation of God the Son.
According to the erroneous philosophy which underlies the challenge, man is no longer accorded the respect due to the only earthly creature created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of God the Son Incarnate, in order to be God’s steward in the care of the world.
At the same time, conscience, the privileged forum in which God speaks to the heart of man, revealing His law for the safeguarding and fostering of order in society and in the world, is no longer respected as the infallible norm for the actions of man. Rather, man himself pretends to be the author of life, determining for himself the nature of human life, its beginning and its end.
Human law is no longer subject to divine law; it no longer respects the order which God has placed in His creation and in the heart of man, and, thereby, becomes irrational and arbitrary. In such a setting, the critical decisions about human life are no longer governed by Divine Law but by the relative judgments of whoever happens to be in power in any given society or nation.
The situation reminds me of the words of Pope St. John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae about the transformation of society and culture by forming consciences “with regard to the incomparable and inviolable good of every human life.” Commenting on the necessity of reestablishing “the essential connection between life and freedom” as “two inseparable goods,” he further observed:
“No less critical in the formation of conscience is the recovery of the necessary link between freedom and truth. As I have frequently stated, when freedom is detached from objective truth it becomes impossible to establish personal rights on a firm rational basis; and the ground is laid for society to be at the mercy of the unrestrained will of individuals or the oppressive totalitarianism of public authority.”
We are presently witnesses to the totalitarianism which is the fruit of the alienation of freedom from the objective truth about the world and about man, in particular.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about such totalitarianism in his homily during the Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff, celebrated before the conclave during which he was elected to the See of Peter. In his homily, he spoke of how “the thought of many Christians” has been tossed about, in our time, by various “ideological currents,” observing that we are witnesses to the “human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error,” about which St. Paul wrote in his Letter to the Ephesians.
He noted that, in our time, those who live according to “a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church” are viewed as fundamentalists, as extremists, while relativism, that is, “letting oneself be ‘tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine’,” is extolled. Regarding the source of the grave moral evils of our time, he concluded: “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”
The implications of the crisis in the understanding of man and of conscience in our society are clear for religious liberty. The Declaration on Religious Liberty of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dignitatis Humanae, defines religious liberty as follows:
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”
“The Council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.
“It is in accordance with their dignity as persons — that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility — that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom.
“Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.”
Religious liberty thus understood has been protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Regarding religious liberty, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that it “is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.”
In recent years, there have been serious threats to religious liberty in the United States particularly because of the mandate under the Affordable Care Act, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which requires employer health plans to include free contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of moral or religious objections. Employers are forced to provide services that may directly contradict their religious beliefs or face significant penalties. While the HHS Mandate provides for a “religious exemption,” its definition is so narrow that it excludes apostolates such as education, health care, and other services.
The topic which I wish to address pertains to the law as servant of justice and truth, especially in what pertains to religious liberty. In speaking about the law, I must first acknowledge the contemporary fragility of the rule of law, upon which any stable form of society and government depends. Such fragility seems to be owed, in good part, to a profound confusion regarding the rule of law and its foundations. For that reason, I think it important for us to reflect upon the fundamental question of the law’s service of truth and justice.
Political Life, Virtue, And Law
Aristotle’s reflection on the political life and his preference for the republic as a form of government help us to understand the foundational importance of the rule of law. Commenting on Aristotle’s reasons for favoring a republican form of government, combining good features of both oligarchy and democracy, Msgr. Robert Sokolowski, renowned professor of the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., underlines the essential relationship between a stable political life and the respect for the norm of law. He writes:
“In a republic, a large middle class — middle in both an economic and an ethical sense — is established between the rich and the poor, and the laws and not men rule, and they do so for the benefit of the whole city, not for any particular part. To live this way is a great human accomplishment. It is a truly exalted exercise of reason for citizens to allow the laws to rule, to have the strength of reason and character to subordinate themselves to the law, which they allow to rule for the benefit of the whole. Not all people have the civic habits and public vision to let the laws and not their own partisan interests rule over the whole; not all people are immediately capable of being citizens.”
The stability of any society or government depends upon the education of the people in the civic virtues which respect the rule of law for the good of all.
If democracy, for example, is “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln described the United States government during the time of the great struggle to eliminate the evil of slavery, it cannot be reduced to the rule of the majority. While the rule of the majority can be qualified, according to a literal understanding, as government “by the people,” it may well not be government “of the people” and “for the people.”
In other words, the majority of the people may lose respect for the rule of law in its essential relationship to the common good. Then, the majority aligns itself with partisan interests and supports laws which deny the recognition of fundamental rights to a certain class of people, for example, a law denying to the members of a certain class the right to life, because they are seen to be a hindrance to the pursuit of the individual interests of those in power. Government, in that case, cannot be said to be “of the people” and “for the people.”
Pope Benedict XVI addressed the question of the foundations of law in his presentation to the Bundestag during his Pastoral Visit to Germany in September of 2011. Taking leave from the story of the young King Solomon on his accession to the throne, he recalled to political leaders the teaching of the Holy Scriptures regarding the work of politics. God asked King Solomon what request he wished to make as he began to rule God’s holy people. The Holy Father commented:
“What will the young ruler ask for at this important moment? Success — wealth — long life — destruction of his enemies? He chooses none of these things. Instead, he asks for a listening heart so that he may govern God’s people, and discern between good and evil (cf. 1 Kings 3:9).”
The story of King Solomon, as Pope Benedict XVI observed, teaches what must be the end of political activity and, therefore, of government. He declared: “Politics must be a striving for justice, and hence it has to establish the fundamental preconditions for peace. . . . To serve right and to fight against the dominion of wrong is and remains the fundamental task of the politician.”
Pope Benedict XVI then asked how we know the good and right which the political order and specifically the law are to safeguard and promote. While he acknowledged that in many matters “the support of the majority can serve as a sufficient criterion,” he observed that such a principle is not sufficient “for the fundamental issues of law, in which the dignity of man and of humanity is at stake.” Regarding the very foundations of the life of society, positive civil law must respect “nature and reason as the true sources of law.”
In other words, one must have recourse to the natural moral law which God has inscribed upon every human heart.
Referring to a text of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans regarding the natural moral law and its primary witness, the conscience, Pope Benedict XVI declared: “Here we see the two fundamental concepts of nature and conscience, where conscience is nothing other than Solomon’s listening heart, reason that is open to the language of being.” Further illustrating the sources of law in nature and reason by making reference to the popular interest in ecology as a means of respecting nature, he observed:
“Yet I would like to underline a point that seems to me to be neglected, today as in the past: there is also an ecology of man. Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.”
Reflecting upon European culture which developed “from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome — from Israel’s faith in God, the philosophical reason of the Greeks, and Roman legal thought,” he concluded: “In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it [European culture] has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history.”
While Pope Benedict XVI’s reflection is inspired by a concern for the state of law in the European culture, his conclusions regarding the foundations of law and, therefore, of order in society are clearly universal in application.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress