Suchergebnisse

The right to life of the person and its various applications in different political situations is one of the most debated subjects of our day. This question is important today for a number of reasons: the widespread demand for abortion, the drive for the right to die, and the challenge to capital punishment. The debate seems at times to be confused: those opposing all forms of war and capital punishment seem to approve of abortion; while others vehemently opposed to abortion, approve of war and capital punishment. But this inconsistency disappears once an absolute view of man's right to life is recognized. Under an absolute view of man's right to life, capital punishment is never justified. This article hopefully contributes to the philosophical-moral debate on the question of the human right to life. It first exam- ines various international covenants and philosophical schools and their ambiguous conceptualization of man's right to life. The article, in the context of capital punishment, then develops a theory of man's absolute right to life. The right to life is con- sidered absolute because it is necessary to maintain two essen- tial characteristics of man, his mystery and his priority-setting ability. Because capital punishment denies these essential char- acteristics, it is never justified.

I think there are certain situations and events in human life that are so horrendous and evil that a sensitive human being is left speechless and painfilled to the point of numbness. Such were the actions at Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dachau, Dresden, Bataan, Sharpeville; now we may add another name in the long list of human brutality of the twentieth century —My Lai.It is easy to condemn the particular men who perpetrated this crime against God and man, just as it was easy for the Germans after World War II to stand apart from what their government had done, to insist that it was not they who released the gas jets; so too Americans today are horrified and condemn some few men as scapegoats since it is clear that it was not they who gave such orders or who pulled the triggers of the M-16's and the 50-calibers. In both cases, this facile rationale is an escape by a whole people from the responsibility for crimes committed in an atmosphere which, by their tacit or vocal consent, made it more likely that such crimes could be committed.

After centuries of discussions and disputes over the church-state relationship, it would seem that there is little to say about the "Christian and politics." The reality is that the relationship is more disputed today than it has ever been. Nor has the theology of the secular, so extensively developed over the past few years, increased the area of agreement about the perspective from which the Christian should look at the political order, how he can speak to it and to what extfent the emphasis should be placed on "Christian" or on "politics."There have been few political systems in man's history which have not appealed to God in one way or another for their justification or foundation or mission.

The metaphysics of violence has been wrongly restricted to describe illicit and illegal application of physical force. In the common estimation of men, violence is associated with "riots in the streets," muggings, rape, murder, and other such forms of injury. These are certainly forms of violence but they are the symptomatic forms of violence arising from deeper, more underlining causes, both covert and overt.

I suppose I should start this piece by clearly stating that I do not believe in the draft in any form. I happen to hold with Benedict XV that it is an abomination among free men. Yet, if we must have a draft, it must be as equitable as humanly possible. There must be no privileged groups in a truly democratic society; it is, therefore, unjust that seminarians and clergy be exempted from the draft.Before going into the specifics of the argument, I take it as an accepted political as well as theological fact that the absolute pacificist must be exempted from active military duty as long as he is willing to make his contribution to his countrymen in another capacity. This principle was upheld by Vatican II (Pastoral Constitution, par. 79°) and, as such, rejoins a pacifist tradition of the Church almost entirely forgotten for some sixteen hundred years.

In his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, Pope Paul VI wrote that atheism "is the most serious problem of our time." The reason is that an ideological atheism denies God and oppresses the Church, and that it is often identified with economic, social and political regimes, among which atheistic communism is the chief. Dialogue in such circumstances is admittedly very difficult, for any group which is persecuted seeks first and foremost its survival and the survival of values it thinks essential.The Christian, however, cannot despair, for two reasons. First, he must seek out his enemy to do him good, to return benevolence for malevolence, to seek what binds and heals rather than what separates and destroys. The Christian knows that even when he must resist the injustices of his enemy there are bounds of morality beyond which he may not go; he knows he must never discontinue the sometimes discouraging attempt to seek peace and an atmosphere of trust and confidence.

There can be little doubt that the omission on the part of John XXIII to speak of communism in either of the two greatest encyclicals of our time, Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris, has caused grave consternation in various Catholic circles.This consternation has gone as far as Vatican II. The Council from the beginning was born on a note of positive confrontation with the modern world in the open spirit of John XXIII. It was taken for granted that from the opening words of John to the Council Fathers, there would be no anathemas and condemnations.