As the estimable Larry Chapp recently put it on his blog, Gaudium et Spes 22, “the deepest, most important, most contentious, most divisive, and most destructive debates [after Vatican II] surrounded moral theology, especially after Humanae Vitae and the massive dissent from it that followed.” Dr. Chapp also notes that you had to have lived through those debates to grasp, today, their volatility.
For the dissenting theologians (and the bishops who tacitly or overtly supported them) were gobsmacked by Pope Paul VI’s re-affirmation of the Church’s longstanding ban on artificial means of contraception — and even more so by the moral reasoning by which he reached his decision.
For the “birth control debate” during and after Vatican II was never just about the morally acceptable means of exercising the moral responsibility to regulate fertility. It was also about the theological guild’s determination to enshrine the theory known as “proportionalism” as the Church’s official moral theology. Dr. Chapp again:
…’[P]roportionalism’…taught that there can be no absolute moral norms since moral actions are largely determined … by the concrete circumstances in the life of the person committing the act … [which were] almost always … fraught with the ambiguity of ‘difficult and mitigating’ circumstances. It is a bit of a caricature, but for the sake of a useful shorthand … proportionalism is a subspecies (in Catholic drag) of situation ethics.
How did otherwise intelligent people come to the absurd conclusion that there are no absolute moral norms that might not bend before “difficult and mitigating”
circumstances? (What about murder, rape and torturing children?) That’s a long story, involving the Sage of Königsberg, Immanuel Kant, and the Edinburgh philosopher David Hume. Suffice it to say that what many regarded as Kant’s destruction of metaphysics (i.e., the idea that there are deep truths built into the world and into us that we can know by reason) and Hume’s demolition of the claim that we can reason our way from a fact (e.g., there are innocent human beings) to a moral truth or value (e.g. innocent human life is inviolable) played starring roles in this drama. And, as always, ideas had consequences.
The Catholic debate over proportionalism ought to have been settled by two of John Paul II’s encyclicals. In 1993, Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth) rejected proportionalism as a legitimate Catholic method of doing moral theology by authoritatively teaching that there are, in fact, intrinsically evil acts that are absolutely forbidden morally.
Two years later, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) illustrated that point by authoritatively teaching that the willful taking of innocent human life, abortion and euthanasia are always gravely evil, irrespective of difficult and complicating circumstances.
But the theologians’ guild never conceded defeat and is now promoting proportionalism in, of all places, Roman universities.
Thus in May 2022, Father Julio Martinez, SJ, gave a lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University (a hotbed of proportionalist thinking during the post-conciliar debates); there, he charged that Veritatis Splendor had tied knots (his phrase) in Catholic moral theology, completing a process of knot-tying that had begun with Humanae Vitae, which did not “discern and consider the circumstances [of]….marriage and family life…in an accurate way.”
Father Martinez also complained that Veritatis Splendor was ill advised in insisting that the Church’s magisterium has the responsibility of “teaching morals in a very precise and clear way.” The good news was that Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia had “introduced discernment” (formerly a method of spiritual direction) into the Church’s approach to the ethics of human love in “the concrete circumstances of marriage and family life,” which is “a really new thing in moral theology.”
Whether or not that is what Amoris Laetitia did (or intended to do), Father Martinez was endorsing proportionalism as a superior method of moral reasoning that would “untie the knots” created by Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor — irrespective of the latter’s authoritative rejection of proportionalism’s bottom-line claim that there are no absolute moral norms because there are no intrinsically evil acts.
Cue George Orwell: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Proportionalism’s return has had effects beyond the theologians’ guild. It has played an influential role in the German apostasy and in the commentary of various bishops on LGBT issues. The great Dominican moral theologian Servais Pinckaers once wrote that moral theology is “the meeting place of the Church’s theory and practice, thought and life.” So these are not just games intellectuals play.
Which is why this degradation of moral theology, and its effects, will not go unremarked in the next papal conclave.
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George Wiegel cites the correct sources of Proportionalism including the Pontifical Gregorian [Gregoriana] and its orthodox adversaries Fr Servais Pinckaers, John Paul II Veritatis Splendor.
If I may add the following. Embroiled in the Humanae Vitae debate was then high profile theologian Fr Charles E Curran, signatory to the critique of Humanae, twice removed from his Lecture status at Catholic University, now professor SMU.
Curran mistakenly applied the principle of double effect, frequently and correctly referenced in medical care when a proportional greater good, let’s say saving a limb, requires a lesser good, amputation of a gangrenous foot. Here we’re dealing with the physical, not necessarily the moral [moral issues arise when for example a woman wishes her breasts removed when there’s a minute chance of ca].
Fr Curran argued that moral questions, such as the use of contraception to prevent conception apply in proportion to the good effect, here the prevention of childbirth when financial, other conditions provide a burden. He concluded moral issues are fundamentally physical issues. An example is found in his position that euthanasia for a suffering terminal patient is indistinguishable from the removal of life support. Pius XII in Address to Anesthesiologists 1957 said it is a patient’s right to refuse medical technology if there’s a spiritual burden. That, “A more strict obligation would be too burdensome for most men and would render the attainment of higher, more permanent good too difficult. Life, health, all temporal activities are in fact subordinated to spiritual ends”.
A moral difference in Curran’s view and Pius’ teaching is that Euthanasia involves delivery of a deadly agent to the patient, whereas removal of a technology which keeps an otherwise suffering, terminal patient alive allows death to follow its natural course absent an act of killing.
While all moral issues encompass physical questions, the imposition of a deadly agent, or agency, or direct interference in the transmission of human life are essentially moral matters because a higher principle in the natural order is at stake, which is the sacred dignity of human life.
Fr Charles Curran studied at the Gregoriana in Rome where a school of German Jesuit theologians, including philosopher Rahner a guest lecturer, Joseph Fuchs lecturer and others were promoting proportionalism.
Removal of an act of killing from what is morally illicit in theology and revelation, that is, making killing justifiable eulogizes the 1920 Authorization to End Life Unworthy of Life [Karl Binder jurist Alfred Hoche psychologist] Germany’s doctrinal rationale adopted by the Nazi’s for the murder of innocent life. It provides justification for abortion, euthanization, and ominously more.
The ghost of Josef Fuchs lives on and will not die.
And so, too, the question–of Laudato si (2015)–whether the conflated “integral ecology” is an exploitable ambiguity toward global proportionalism, at the expense of the “human ecology” which is interrelated with but also distinct from the “natural ecology.” Distinct as in Humane Vitae (1968), Evangelium Vitae (1995), Veritatis Splendor (1993), and Centesimus Annus (1991).
How to evangelize two interrelated truths rather than only a conflated and blurred half-truth? Vastly beyond the scope of the Jesuit spirituality…
I’ve commented previously about my conversion from having previously been a pro-life atheist in my youth, which was eventually overcome by the grace of meeting my grace-filled late wife. Overcoming atheism was accomplished by my own discoveries of intelligent design in physics, but a final conversion on my own was delayed by reading about so many idiotic prominent theologians defying common sense figuring how could a Church be guided by God produce so many idiots. Didn’t these ordained men ever even hear of the concept of the sin of pride? Don’t they know people lie to themselves about how they interpret their “experiences?” Don’t they know God would never condemn His creation to tortuous moral confusion where it would be impossible to know right from wrong? Don’t they know that there is no such thing as a new idea about how to think of moral decision making that clever evil doers haven’t been attempting for thousands of years? Didn’t these “brilliant” theologians have any sense that their rationalizations of doing evil to achieve good is not in any way different from the thought processes of mass-murderers like Hitler, Stalin, and that great thinker Charles Manson? Orwell noted several variations of what Weigel quotes including his more bluntly stated “some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals can have them.”
«So these are not just games intellectuals play.»
In 2003 as I recall, Prof. Weigel used ‘proportionalism’ in helping to get rid of Sadam Hussein. As admiring biographer of St JP11, Weigel would have been expected to tell us what JP11 had to say about the Iraq war. He did not. Nor did Weigel tell us that the promise to rebuild Iraq was phony, just like the weapons of mass destruction. This was, in my opinion, dishonesty in the service of a good cause… which did not turn out well. In 2021, in the service of fighting paganism and supporting some US business interests, Weigel made dishonest remarks about climate change and managed to contradict three popes and the world’s greatest scientific enterprise, NASA. This again was proportionalism: dishonesty in the service of a (dubious) cause. This reminds me of the «mote and the beam». ref Gaia, False Gods, and Public Policy, May 2021. Weigel
You’re being very dishonest about dishonesty, a vice that requires intention. There is not a shred of sound honest evidence for manmade activity causing climate change, a phenomenon of nature meant to exist by the God who created the solar system. The climate changes every second of every day. Contending that such a baseless theory of manmade climate change as established fact requires dishonesty. It matters not at all if ideologues with degrees agree to lie. It requires dishonesty to believe them. Equally dishonest is a failure to understand that any prudential judgment of what constitutes justification for military interventions are always based on approximations of probabilities and never on certitude and most certainly do not require any obligation to coincide with the limitations of judgments by any prelate within the Church, no matter who they are. And why would anyone go to a phony extreme to call the massive rebuilding of Iraq at American taxpayer expense, despite constant sabotage by Iraqis themselves, as “phony?” Even if your accusations were not false, they have no connection at all to what is meant by the moral theory of proportionalism.
The world’s greatest scientific enterprise, the NASA, carefully documents the rise in temperature of the earth over the last hundred years and explains that this is due to rising levels of CO2. If you do not trust NASA (in science not theology) you should throw away your cellular phone, never fly in an airplane and ignore weather reports. All of the above use NASA’s satellite technology. Three popes have warned us about climate change in relation to CO2, obviously not ‘ex cathedra’, but statements worthy of respect, which a Catholic should not dismiss without thorough research which you have clearly not done. If you are a climate change skeptic I hope you read NASA on climate. As for Iraq, massive destruction, including the destruction of the Christian community in Iraq was not proportionate to the benefits of getting rid of S Hussein and I submit that JP11 agreed.
You need not talk down to me. I have a doctoral degree in physics and three other degrees in scientific fields. Individuals at NASA have no basis for taking sides in a disputed theory, even among their own ranks, and present it as their own. Regardless, CO2 levels currently are considerably lower than they have been for most of the earth’s history, dangerously low. Scientists who are not prostituting themselves to political ideology know full well that a slight rise in atmospheric temperature over the past century has very little if anything to do with human activity and is most certainly caused by a cyclical period of solar activity (a periodical “hotter” sun).
Sober reflection on climate change hysteria is due to one thing and one thing only. It is not on any failure to institute social engineering designed to attenuate human activities that create human prosperity. The hysteria is a subterfuge for repressed guilt that the overwhelming majority of the human race, baptized Catholics included, have experienced for both active and passive support of crimes against humanity by treating life as a utilitarian commodity of convenience where particular exterminationist population policies, including particular evil U.N. policies for which Francis has expressed support, seem benevolent rather than evil. It is human nature to want to have one’s evil seem to be a positive good, and this propensity can be collectivized. This is why we have wars.
We are a bit off the anti-proportionalism track here. I have fewer degrees than you and I apologize if I sounded condescending. One purpose of NASA is to discover how the Earth and its atmosphere work: NASA is obliged to study CO2 and NASA contradicts you (https://climate.nasa.gov/). I deplore your insulting and dishonest remarks about Pope Francis.
There was no reply button by your response of 4/19, so I’ll take a liberty here. I fail to follow the logic that assumes that the expressed goals of an institution can never be dishonestly applied. NASA takes a dishonest position when they claim consensus for their own scientists regarding manmade climate change which they do not have. Politicizing science is a profound evil. And I don’t especially care that you choose to remain ignorant of the long history of professional duplicity by scientists, who as human beings, are as capable of mendacious evil as anyone else. Neither do I care about your dishonesty in remaining oblivious to the many episodes of Pope Francis’ vocal support for the activities of many of the world’s most amoral environmentalists knowing full well that their activities include the promotion of abortion within authoritarian regimes. Whether his thought might involve a proportionalist application of false morality in support of his perceived greater good of environmentalism, who knows? His moral sense seems to change day to day, month to month. I submit you are dishonest in your assessment of Francis and, well, me.
Observing what we purport to be our “Catholic principle “ tjat “theology is faith seeking understanding,” it seems fair to conclude and assert that the problem in evidence is not one of a “lack of intelligence,” as alluded to above, but somet more serious: a “lack of faith” animating those men and women who propose these “immoralities” under the “veneer,” (or perhaps more precisely put, under the “negligée”) of their “Pontificate-Francois-theologizing.”
This is what comes from fashioning and cultivating a 50-year-long alliance with outright apostate, heretical Bishops and theologians, and letting such men vote in conclaves for Pontiffs and cherry-pick other like-minded apostates as Bishops. Men such as “the apostate-against-the-resurrection” Cardinal Walter Kasper, who the Catholic Church leadership (under of all people Pope John Paul II), made a Bishop and a Cardinal, all the while knowing that prior to such appointments, in 1974, he had published a “popular-theology-textbook” (Jesus the Christ) in which he denied Jesus’ resurrection. Kasper’s only creed is that Jesus “obtruded in the spirit.” The notion of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is termed “mythology,” “unhistorical” and “grotesque.”
What Adam DeVille calls “our infantalized Church” is a delicate flower is it not? We must all pretend that reality wasn’t happening since 1974, and did not persist through 1984, and 1994, and 2004, and 2014, is that the approved way of thinking?
It takes us 50 years for “mainstream conservatives” to call a spade a spade, is that what we are expected to amount to?
Very, very delicate we are…
I agree with all that Mr. Weigel has to say here. His quoting of Dr. Chapp’s definition of proportionalism -” moral actions are largely determined … by the concrete circumstances in the life of the person committing the act …” is right on.
My difficulty is reading this in comparison to his CWR article of September 30, 2020, “Truman’s Terrible Choice” regarding the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He concluded the article with the words, “it was the correct choice.” His reasoning seems to be that it was better to directly kill a hundred thousand non- combatants than to suffer more causalities than that with an invasion of Japan. This sounds a little like proportionalism, and even the end justifies the means.
Also, given Mr. Weigel’s strong adherence to Vatican II documents we have this from Gaudium et Spes:
“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”(GS 80)
I am sure that Mr. Weigel would have some thoughts on this, and I would be most interested in reading them.
Tragically, Nagasaki had the highest concentration of Catholics in Japan. The alternative to bombing them might well have been for the US and its allies not to have invaded Japan. Japan, by then, posed no threat.
The fathers of Vatican 2 should never have abandoned the original 19 schema. A counsel should be short, directed, precise. What V2 became was anything but what it actually should have been.
Precisely. The documents needed to be perfect. Pretty good was not good enough. One good theologian working alone, not acquiescent to progressives, could have done a better job.
Wednesday night, the Kansas City Royals were in Texas playing the Rangers. Bobby Witt, Jr. hit a foul ball some distance down the right field line. Tens of thousands of fans witnessed this. So, who managed to secured the baseball? His father got the souvenir, after grabbing it from the empty seat in front of him — (a former Ranger pitcher). This might be described as a baseball miracle, that serves to alert our unbelieving humanity to the possibility of an unseen spiritual reality. Sports have replaced theology, after all.
I have seen numerous examples of highly improbable events happen. One thing that they have in common: people ignore them. We need a metaphysics revival that is based on seeking to know and to serve God. (Jer. 31.34) We should experiment with the idea that promoting “the elements of sound nutrition,” and the Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health (modern methods of natural birth control) education methods are high on the list of God’s will for our planet. These experiments involve seeking revelations (in the form of signs) from God. See Acts 2.22,43)
You could view the baseball miracle video at the Official Kansas City Royals website.