FEAR
The unknown author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews speaks of us as “subject to bondage all [our] lifetime through fear of
death” (2:15). Of course, the
author intends to point his readers to eternal life obtained as a gift of God,
received through faith in Christ.
It is not necessary to think in terms of the faith that he is proposing
to recognize that even without reference to Christ, his description of us human
beings is unfortunately all too true.
There is a bondage that comes through fear of death: violence, terrorism, diseases,
accidents, and, ultimately, old age.
In the general population, this fear of death is not necessarily explicit
or a constant accompaniment. It
more commonly presents itself in terms of fear of lesser evils, evils that can
be mitigated, but not permanently defeated, as it has been for all human beings
during so much of our history. We
lose our hair, our slender figure;
our skin becomes flabby, our jowls and chin sag. These flaws can be addressed by
cosmetics and spa treatments and, even more dramatically, by plastic
surgery. Those who provide such
temporary relief must know that it is only temporary, and those who purchase it,
often at great cost, surely realize it as well.
Now something more dramatic is on the
scene. According to a front-page story in the International Herald
Tribune in mid-August,
while most Americans have problems with overweight, a small group of earnest
people already below normal weight are practicing a serious program of
systematic undernourishment in the expectation that it will permit them to live
longer. It has been proved in mice,
it seems, and it may be true for us as well. The headline referred to a “quest for
immortality” and quoted one very slender lady who voiced her intention to keep
running in marathons until the age of ninety and to go on living until one
hundred and forty. That would be a
remarkable achievement, and if it can be shown that regular and strict fasting
will bring it about, perhaps large numbers of people will be willing to live
that way. The misleading
element lies in the headline. One
hundred and forty years is not immortality. If one fasts in the hope of remaining
active and living longer, well, but if one somehow dreams of attaining
immortality by such a method, one is surely deceiving
oneself.
Strict and continual
fasting in the hope of prolonging life is probably not going to affect a large
segment of the human population; it
surely appeals most to those who can afford whatever they want to
eat.
If
the fear of dying too soon moves many people to fast, some good may come of it
and no harm is done. More serious
on the social level is the degree to which our fears of terrorist assaults, even
of weapons of mass destruction smuggled into our harbors or airports, are
causing governments to undertake vast measures of uncertain effectiveness and
persuading the majority of our population to submit to new regulations,
regimentation, surveillance, and controls in an effort to ensure something as
close to security as possible.
On a
return flight from Vienna to Washington’s Dulles International Airport, this
editor observed how it took over two hours for two hundred passengers, having
cleared the earlier security checks, to pass the final gate to enable them to
board the aircraft. Visa holders
arriving in the United States on that flight were required to be photographed
and fingerprinted before passing immigration controls. Because we are unwilling to resort to
profiling of any kind, it is necessary for every passenger to be treated exactly
alike and, therefore, for each one to be more and more thoroughly checked and
examined.
It
is to be hoped that this increased surveillance will lessen, if not totally
remove, the danger of a terrorist action in an airliner. Even if it does not, its thoroughness
offers passengers a certain sense of security. But even if successful, the most
thorough passenger checks, like cosmetic surgery and even systematic fasting,
can provide only a temporary increase in security, improvement in appearance, or
extension of life. It is well and
good to take such measures, but something more must be done to address that
bondage to the fear of death of which the epistle speaks. To address that fundamental fear, so
long a basic constituent of human existence, now somewhat muffled by all of the
measures of security, surgery, and fasting, something more than those expedients
is required.
As
we pass through the security checks under the sometimes scowling gaze of the
inspectors, we do well to realize that for each of us these measures may secure
momentary safety, but for eternal security, much more is required. The best-known of the Psalms, the
twenty-third, offers a more stable and lasting hope of safety: “Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me”
(v. 4). The most stringent, careful, skillful,
and abstemious regulations, treatments, and fastings that society can provide
are not to be shunned, but religion can offer more if these words of the
Psalmist are to be trusted. Each
time we pass those electrical metal detectors, we should remember that they are
temporary measures; the rod and the
staff of the Shepherd are durable.
The
Big Tent and the Camels
The Republican National
Convention that began in New York August 30 has begun under very inauspicious
signs: apparently the leadership
intends to make appeal to the concept of the “big tent,” “with room for
everyone, for pro-abortionists and gay marriage advocates,” of course, but not
for those who favor the right to keep and bear arms. Does a national party read into the
Constitution the right to have unborn children terminated before birth, but
cannot read the words of the Second Amendment, which specifically protects the
right to keep and bear arms? We are
familiar with the argument that this right is intended to be only for the
militia, which has now been transformed into the National Guard, but whatever
one may think about guns and gun control, it is explicitly there in the Bill of
Rights, and there is no reference to a physician’s right to kill an unborn
child.
The
big tent theory has begun with speeches by prominent Republicans who favor “gay
marriage” and abortion, while opposing the right to bear arms. Are the Republican leaders not wise
enough to see that this will hardly win them the support of NOW and GLAAD, while
it certainly will discourage those who thought that the GOP was offering a moral
choice that differed from the opposing party. In recent conventions, the Democrats
have denied pro-life Democrats such as the late Governor Casey of Pennsylvania
the right to speak, thus making their dedication to absolute abortion liberty
very clear. The Republicans have
appeared to offer a different moral position, but if they are serious about the
big tent, they will alienate enough of their base of supporters to guarantee
that which they most dread, a Democratic sweep. The views sometimes presented by
speakers such as Vice- President Cheney on "gay marriage" and by former mayor
Giuliani on abortion are camels.
Those views did not make their appearance at the RNC, but if they are
allowed into the big Republican tent, they will foul it and make it totally
odious to voters who want to be offered a moral choice. Neither party would dare to run a
candidate who belongs to a racially or religiously exclusive club. And neither party should run candidates
who believe that the unborn child has only the right to
die.
COLONIAL WARS, AGAIN 
The
material that your editor garners from Le Monde Diplomatique and its
lead writer Ignacio Ramonet seems to set some readers’ teeth on edge. Scarcely was the previous issue off the
press than readers began to charge this Report with claiming that the
United States are colonizing Iraq.
It is possible to shift the blame for any such implication to M. Ramonet,
but even he did not charge America with creating a colony, which would have been
false, but with experiencing some of the pains and the frustration that
colonizers of the past experienced, which is true. Our forces do have this in common with
those of colonial powers: they are
strangers in a strange land. It is
dreadfully easy for individuals or small groups of terrorists to circulate among
the general population, like the fish in the sea, to use Mao’s expression, and
to slink anonymously back into it once they have struck.
The
problems that we are experiencing in the territory that our forces have
conquered and in which we hope to usher in a free and democratic system of
government should not come as a surprise to us. Britain gave decades of education during
its colonial rule in Africa, yet the transition to true democracies after
independence is far from complete.
In a few short weeks, our coalition forces eliminated a monstrously
cruel, tyrannical regime. Now,
after having turned the reins of government over to a transitional regime, we
are still deeply involved in trying to prevent the rebellious, sometimes
fanatical elements present in the society from sabotaging and ruining our
constructive efforts. It was not
and is not America’s goal to establish an American colony in conquered Iraq, but
the problems that we are encountering are distressingly similar to those
encountered by European colonizers in Africa and Asia. The task of extricating ourselves from
the conquered land and leaving something durable, stable, and free behind is a
tremendous challenge.
LET THE EUROPEANS VOTE!
If the
United States presidential election were to be held in Europe, there is no doubt
about who would win: John
Kerry. During the Democrats’
national convention, almost all of the major German newspapers featured Senator
Kerry and John Edwards on the front page, many for three days, as well as giving
the Democrats pages of favorable coverage elsewhere in the same issues. Exactly why the Europeans place such
trust in Kerry is unclear. By late
July, Bill Clinton’s apologia, Mein
Leben, was on
sale all over Germany: price,
ED28.00 or about $33.60. Part of the
reason for the incessant criticism of Mr. Bush and the paeans of praise for
Messrs. Kerry and Edwards lies in the fact that a good deal of what is printed
in Europe is recycled from the U. S. media. Newspapers that have their own
correspondents in America, such as Figaro (France),
are often more discriminating, and editorial comment in major journals, such as
the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich)
and the Berliner Zeitung, sometimes shows more
sympathy for Mr. Bush than editors in the major U. S. dailies. CNN, which is available on television
screens all over Europe, is flagrantly hostile to Mr.
Bush.
There is little doubt
that Kerry and Edwards would win easily if the election were held in
Europe. Should we draw the
conclusion that the candidate the Europeans favor is the one that America should
choose? Well, only if we assume
that the Europeans want only what is best for the United States. Is that plausible? If Americans were allowed to vote for
the president of France, most people would not know who was running. European politics play nothing like the
role in the United States that American politics play in Europe. Most Americans would not know much more
than that we do not like M. Jacques Chirac. Americans cannot put themselves in the
shoes of the president of France; they cannot understand or even imagine why M.
Chirac seems to think that France has the right to act in ways that it thinks
are in accord with French interests.
Ah, there’s the rub:
Europeans cannot understand why any American president, and especially
George Bush, should think that America is entitled to act in her own interests
rather than those of Europe, the European Commission, or the United
Nations.
Passionate Cheering for
Kerry
“A formative election
for the world,” writes one major German daily. But perhaps not, says a columnist in the
Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s best daily newspapers. Europeans dislike Bush (dislike may be
too mild a word) and love Kerry and Edwards, neither of whom they know
well. A Kerry administration might
well try to re-cultivate friendships with European nations and seek to involve
NATO and the U.N. in American projects, admits the writer, but they would still
be America’s projects. A new
American administration would continue to make its own decisions in terms of
America’s perceived self-interests.
Americans, on the whole, seem unable to understand that not all people
agree that what’s good for the U.S. is good for the world. Sometimes it is; often it has been in
the past, but even then, not necessarily for the entire world, but only for that
part of it with which we agree or which we like.
In
Europe today, a tacit Franco-German alliance seems to call the shots, and both
France and Germany have been hostile to the U.S. intervention in Iraq. There have been occasions when we
supported France against Germany, two major ones, i.e., World Wars I and
II. Because the crushing of Nazi
Germany permitted the rise of a democratic Germany from the ashes, Germans today
may appreciate much of what the U.S. did in World War II — not, of course, the
toll exacted at their defeat — the loss of one-quarter of their territory,
including cities such as Konigsberg and Breslau — today, Kaliningrad, Russia,
and Wroclaw, Poland. They may not
appreciate the firestorm bombing of Dresden, Germany’s most beautiful, still
undamaged city, weeks before the end of the war with over 100,000 killed. And, of course, thirteen million ethnic
Germans were expelled from their homes in central Europe.
Adolf Hitler declared
war on the United States right after Pearl Harbor. This was a most ill-advised act, as it
made Germany’s defeat inevitable.
Germany was required by her alliance with Japan to join forces with Japan
if the Japanese were attacked, but not if Japan attacked someone else. The entry of the United States into the
First World War was a response to German provocations, but it also expressed
President Woodrow Wilson's desire to “make the world safe for democracy” by
joining in the “war to end war.”
The entry of the United States stopped any inclination Britain and France
might have had to agree to compromise peace. The Treaty of Versailles turned the
“armistice” of November 11, 1918, into a conquest. Germany was plundered, required to pay
reparations that would have put her in debt for half a century or more, and to
accept responsibility for her alleged guilt in starting and waging the war. Today it is widely acknowledged that the
Treaty of Versailles made World War II a virtual certainty. President Wilson disapproved of the
treaty, which made a mockery of his Fourteen Points, and the United States did
not sign the treaty, but the will of the British and the French prevailed, and
the damage was done. President
Wilson’s interest in national or ethnic self-determination promoted the
dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, which for several centuries had been a model
of multiculturalism and diversity, creating artificial states such as
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, since broken up themselves. Millions of ethnic Germans were left
stranded in Bohemia, Italy, and Romania.
After World War II,
despite objections from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the formerly
independent Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were left in the
hands of the conquering Soviet Union.
A large part of Poland was granted to the U.S.S.R. without consulting the
Poles, forgetting that it was the alliance between the U.S.S.R. and Germany and
the Soviet participation in the invasion of Poland that made World War II
possible. In the Nuremberg War
Crimes Trials, several of the top Nazis were condemned, and many were executed
by a tribunal on which sat representatives of the U.S.S.R., whose crimes against
its own and other peoples were at least as grievous as those of the
Nazis.
The
French had Napoleon, the Germans had Hitler, the British had “Bomber” Harris,
and we, too, have deeds and policies that do not look so good in the light of
history. This editor contends that
in the past century, the United States have been less guilty than most other
great nations, but our nation’s garments are certainly not without
stains.
So, Therefore, Let Them
Vote!?
Even as we in the United
States ruefully acknowledge some of our past faults, such as Negro slavery and
our behavior towards Native Americans, many Europeans think themselves qualified
to point out and to magnify real and imagined crimes and misdemeanors of which
we are unaware. While U.S. voters
may be divided on the 2004 presidential election as we have been in the past,
the Europeans are not. They are
convinced that they know which candidates will be better for themselves, for the
world, and incidentally for the U.S., as well. Should we really let the Europeans
vote? Only if we prefer the
unsolicited “good advice” of others to looking responsibly after our own
national interests. Let the French
vote for their own presidents, and let us vote for ours.
CATACOMBS AND THE LESSER EVIL
The regular appearance
of a self-styled witch at town board meetings in the little South Carolina
community of Lake Wylie has, with the aid of the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation
League, led to the prohibition of the type of prayer with which the meetings
have been opened, prayer in the name of Jesus. A witch takes offense at prayer in that
name (rather naturally, from the Christian understanding of witchcraft). The
result is the abolition of prayer at council meetings, as the chairman is
unwilling to pray in any other name or in no name at all. This is one more example of the practice
of “rule by taking offense,“ a principle that is gradually turning the United
States into a bland, colorless, and characterless mass. Those who wish to pray in the name of
Jesus must learn to do as the early Christians did and descend into the
catacombs, where no one will be present to take offense at their expressions of
religious
belief.
In
The Epoch of Secularization, the late Italian
sociologist Augusto Del Noce wrote that Christians, unless they are willing to
change their faith to accommodate the secular culture, may need to descend into
what he calls “moral catacombs.” By
this he does not mean literally going underground, but rather something like
what anti-Nazi Germans called “inner emigration.”
For
most of their history, the Jewish people have had to live in that way, dwelling,
working, and sometimes achieving great status in the surrounding society, but
consciously maintaining a consciousness of their own identity, their religion,
and their language, knowing that complete assimilation to the surrounding
Gentile world would mean the end of their own identity as Jews. Gentile Christians, living in a majority
Christian culture, forgot their own distinctive role as citizens of a spiritual
commonwealth, assuming that all of the others were in the commonwealth as
well.
Today, as the
surrounding culture of what used to be called Christendom is becoming explicitly
hostile to distinctive Christian faith and practice, Christians must learn to
cultivate their own distinctiveness.
By simply going with the flow, they will soon be submerged. In Del Noce’s vision, the moral
catacombs are for self-understanding and moral development. They are not for permanent and total
withdrawal. First of all, they make
possible spiritual survival in an aggressively materialistic world, but this
survival is not an end in itself.
Del Noce sees three tasks for Christians outside of the catacombs:
intellectual, moral, and political. The intellectual task is to fight
continually against those views that undermine and destroy basic principles of
Christianity: for example, the kind of evolutionary doctrine that proclaims that
we are the products of chance and necessity only, and by no means are we made by
God in his own image. The moral
task is to help the masses see the degree to which the ethics of the State is at
odds with the ethics of Christianity and, by doing so, perhaps to help members
of the general public to prefer the catacombs to the expanding social
sewer. The political task is
consciously to choose the lesser evil among political rivals, not in the
expectation of creating a perfect society, but in the hope of retarding the
deterioration of the society that exists.
For some conservatives, Christians and others, this last bit of advice is
particularly timely in an election year, for some — too many — have so many
questions and objections about Mr. Bush that they are threatening not to
vote. We do not like to think in
terms of a choice between two evils, for example between the evils of war and
the evils of unrestrained abortion,
but however we analyze the situation, it is our responsibility to
vote. It is far too easy to become
disillusioned with both parties, but one of the two will prevail. It is to be hoped that as
voters we will not abdicate by simply sitting the election
out.
STRONG MEASURES
Vienna,
August 13. So-called
“gay marriages” performed by the mayor of San Francisco (4,000 in number) have
been declared null and void by the California Supreme Court. In Austria, loud voices demanding
absolute rejection of any such “travesty” of real marriage are being
increasingly heard. On the same day
that the Vienna press reported “a conservative counter-revolution” in the ÖVP,
the Austrian People’s Party, against suggestions even to consider authorizing
such unions, the Vatican took action against the theological seminary at St.
Pölten, where accusations of homosexual behavior among teachers and students
created an uproar in mid summer.
Bishop Klaus Küng from Voranlberg, Austria’s westernmost state (Land),
was sent as a papal “visitator” to outrank the diocesan Bishop Kurt Krenn, who
had been trivializing reports of misconduct in his seminary. According to Die
Presse
(Vienna), Bishop Krenn has been trying to deal with the shortage of priests by
putting “quantity above quality” and admitting almost everyone who applied,
without even requiring him to go through the usual preparatory year before being
admitted.
Bishop Küng closed the
seminary at once, sending all 36 students currently attending to be examined to
determine whether they are suited for the priesthood. Küng called this a “heartfelt decision
made jointly by Bishop Krenn, the Vatican, and himself.” Küng added kind words for the embattled
St. Pölten bishop, who was being accused of extreme laxity in the oversight of
the seminary, saying that “he is very trusting; that’s his nature.” Before this problem broke, Bishop Krenn
was seen as a dynamic defender of conservative causes in the Roman Catholic
Church and was appreciated for this by the Pope. Bishop Küng stated that homosexual men
are not to be admitted to study for the priesthood. Should a priest discover homosexual
leanings in himself, he must practice self-control and be
abstinent.
The
rapidity and decisiveness with which the Vatican dealt with the problems in St.
Pölten won respect in the Austrian press.
Even the International Herald Tribune covered the St. Pölten
affair. The IHT reported that a Polish
student from the seminary was to be arraigned on charges of possessing and
distributing child pornography, an offense that can bring a prison sentence in
Austria. Evidently the Vatican is
no longer going to adopt a “wait and see” attitude towards homosexual behavior
among priests and students, as it had done for rather a long time when scandals
broke in the Archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere in the
U.S.A.
Waking
Up
Can it be that at least
some people somewhere are waking up to the implications of “gay marriage”? In Christian history, marriage as a
covenant between man and woman was likened to the relationship between Christ and the
church (Ephesians 5:23-25).; there are similar metaphors in the Hebrew
Scriptures. Therefore the concept
of divorce was terrifying, for to make it possible for a man to divorce his wife
would imply that Christ could also cast his church off. Concubinage and even bigamy were
preferable to divorce, because they did not destroy the conviction that a
covenant like that between God and Israel or between Christ and the church could
not be abrogated. In the early
twenty-first century, divorce is common, and widespread divorce no longer seems
to threaten consequences of apocalyptic dimensions. Divorce, especially as widespread as it
is today, leaves the institution of marriage flawed, but it does not destroy
it. To define union between two
members of the same sex as marriage will devastate it. Whatever legalized,
same-sex unions may be, they are not marriage. To call them marriage does not modify
the institution; it destroys it.
In
Austria, the little Green Party, allied with the ruling Socialists, is talking
about creating something called “marriage light” (using the English word light).
The more conservative, Catholic-oriented People’s Party (ÖVP) has suddenly begun
to wake up. The legitimization of
homosexual conduct is based on the presupposition that every individual has the
right to the development and self-expression that he or she chooses. The absolutization of individual rights,
taken to an extreme, gives to individuals the right to reshape and remake the
most fundamental institution of society, the family, as they individually see
fit. This will soon mean that there
will no longer be a standard, common-sense family, and then no society, in the
sense of a covenantal structure
between individuals and between generations. Instead of belonging to a stable
society, humans will inhabit an aggregate without binding ties between each
other. This will create Hannah
Arendt’s “atomistic mass” and lead to tyranny.
In
the United States, Roe broke the strength of
the natural covenant between mother and child; three years later, Planned
Parenthood v.
Danforth destroyed the rights
(but not the duties) of a father towards his unborn child, for the father has no
say whatsoever when his pregnant wife or lover chooses to “terminate” his unborn
offspring.
The
degree to which Danforth implied the abolition
of marriage as a one-flesh union has not been generally recognized. The establishment of “gay marriage” as
actually marriage will mean the end of the concept so beautifully stated in the
Book of Common Prayer, that marriage is “an
honourable estate, established by God, regulated by His commandments,” and turn
it into a legal fiction, established by the courts and regulated by their own
fancies. When the natural covenants
are done away with, nothing will tie anyone to anyone else in any durable way,
and the road will be clear for the arrival of the Total State. Austria’s ÖVP leaders have begun to
recognize this. Americans have not
yet seen it and continue to quarrel about Iraq and prescription drugs even as
the structure of society degenerates around them.
CONGRESS, OBEY!
On August 26, Federal
District Judge Richard Casey of New York added his opinion to that of Federal
Judge Phyllis Hamilton of California, destroying the work of Congress and the
President in their attempt to hinder prenatal infanticide.
The
Charlotte Observer headlined the story
thus: JUDGE BLOCKS PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BAN. This makes it sound as though Judge
Casey’s decision was benevolent and to be applauded by all right-thinking
people. The
Observer could have headlined it
like this: JUDGE OKAYS PRENATAL INFANTICIDE, or even more graphically, JUDGE
PERMITS KILLING OF ALMOST BORN INFANTS.
Towards the end of his opinion, Mr. Casey wrote, “Congress must obey the
Supreme Court.” It is to be hoped
that some Americans will finally wake up to what is happening. If it were not so serious, it would be
ludicrous. If only the judges could
set it to music, they could transform a song, “We are peers of highest station,”
from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Iolanthe” like this:
Judges we of highest
station,
Our decisions rule
your nation,
Bow, bow, ye
legislative asses,
Bow, O President,
bow, ye masses
For your sov'ran
judges now are here.
Judge Casey,
before reminding Congress that it must obey, acknowledged that the “partial
birth” procedure is gruesome, but no matter, the Court has spoken and its will
must prevail.
NATURAL LAW AND THE NATURAL FAMILY
The first
commandment given to the first humans was “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill
the earth” (Genesis 1:28).[1] As portrayed in the Bible, this command
precedes the subdivision of humanity into races and tribes: it precedes the
birth of the Hebrew tradition and the development of all of man’s different
religions and cultures. The
creation of man and woman in the image of God (Genesis 1) is complemented by the
detailed creation of Eve as a helpmeet for Adam in the next chapter, which is
followed by what we may call the oldest love poem, in which Adam says, “This is
now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because
she was taken out of Man” (2:23).
Mutuality and multiplication thus were part of the divine plan for man
and woman. Thus what we call the
natural family may be said to have a supernatural warrant in the opening
chapters of the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e. of the Bible.
The account in this form
was not known to most of the world’s earliest societies. Nevertheless, they all recognized the
central importance of the family, and generally created laws and structures to
reinforce and protect it. Explicit
divine revelation was not necessary, because the family can be established and
to a large extent regulated by natural law. By natural law in this context, we
understand principles and patterns of human conduct that are derived from our
perceptions of the order of nature, perceived through what is called common
sense. Common sense in this context
does not mean simply “good sense “ or “prudence,” but rather the common
understanding of most human beings.
Is there a shared understanding of things, so that most people will have
a similar understanding of good and evil?
Indeed, there is. It is
evident that nature itself, the way things are in the world, does give us
certain guides for structuring our human society. If they turn out to be very much the
same as what biblical revelation teaches, it is no doubt because God is the
author of nature.
All living beings
naturally seek to preserve their own life and to propagate their species. Sometimes the desire to propagate is so
strong that a mother or father will sacrifice her or his own life for the sake of
the offspring. It is self-evident
that the conjoined activity of one member of each sex is necessary for
propagation; indeed, as Salvador de Madriaga wrote, without this conjoined
activity life is neither possible nor agreeable. Does nature prescribe monogamy, that a
husband should have one wife? This
is not self-evident from the need to propagate the species, for a man could have
more than one spouse, and in many cultures this has been common, especially for
rulers and other highly placed men.
Nevertheless, in the
human race as a whole, men and women, boys and girls, are present in nearly
equal numbers. Polygamy, if widely
practiced, would leave many males stranded without mates, a situation that can
generally be counted on to produce disorder in society. Homosexuality, if widely practiced
instead of normal heterosexual unions, will not propagate the species. Thus when theologians call homosexual
conduct contra naturam, they are not
expounding a theological doctrine, but simply stating a
fact.
It is self-evidently
part of the natural order for human parents to remain together for years, even
decades, because the human baby takes so long — so dreadfully long, some might
say — to become self-sufficient and even longer to become truly mature. Some larger mammals, especially the
herbivores, can walk almost as soon as they are born. A human baby will take several months or
a year to learn to toddle. There
will always be exceptions to this and every other rule of natural law in
practice, but it seems abundantly evident that nature intends for human families
to be stable for a long period of time.
For at least a few of her childbearing years, a mother certainly can use
a male protector for herself and her children. The woman knows whether a child is hers,
but the man can be confident that his spouse’s child is his own only if he can
trust her faithfulness. Hence, we
can say that the principles of marital faithfulness and the prohibition of
adulterous relationships, common in human societies, are quite consistent with
the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.
As Cicero wrote in De Republica, it is a sin to attempt
to change these laws and impossible to abolish them. The efforts being made in our own and
other contemporary societies to do so can only bring disorder, confusion, and
individual and collective misery.
As the late geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune used to say, “Only God truly
forgives, man sometimes forgives, nature never forgives.”
IN ADDITION TO WHICH
-
In the weeks and days remaining until the 2004
elections, poll after poll will be taken: “Bush leads by 3 percent... Kerry
surges... Bush drops back... etc. etc....”
It sounds rather like a horse race: “As they round the first bend, Easy
Money is leading Rascal Raider by a length. Last Chance is third, You Bet is
fourth. Rascal Raider is
gaining. Easy Money still leads by
a nose….” There is one major
difference: in a horse race, the finish is the consequence of the previous
positions, but in an election, it is only the last “poll” that really counts,
the one that takes place at the ballot box.
