September 25, 2008
Bishops Flunk Test as Theologians
By Daniel C. Maguire
The
letter from Bishops Murphy and DeMarzio (NYTimes 9/24) and the
"Forming
consciences for Faithful Citizenship" to which they refer, make
a categorial
error, using the misleading and outmoded term "intrinsic
evil."
Some
words are by usage encoded with a negative moral judgment: e.g.
murder. Murder
denotes and means unjustifiable homicide. Some words are
morally neutral, with
no moral judgment imputed, e.g. homicide. Thus we
can speak of justifiable
homicide but not justifiable murder.
The term racism is encoded with a
negative moral judgment: it means
hostile discrimination against persons because
of their race. There is no
justifiable racism. You don't need the outmoded
category of "intrinsic
evil" to explain it. The same is true of sexism
and, a term unknown to
the bishops, heterosexism. These terms denote unconscionable
bias.
The word lie, by accepted usage, also encodes a negative moral judgment.
Yet
there may be good reason to speak falsely. The citizen of Amsterdam
who when
asked told the Gestapo the Frank family had left
Holland-although that citizen
was bringing them food on a daily basis-was
speaking falsely but not lying.
A lie is when you deny the truth to
someone who has a right to the truth.
The
bishops treat "abortion" as a word like "murder,"a word denoting
an
unjustifiable action. This is wrong since there are spontaneous abortions
that
are not judged as moral or immoral. Indeed if, like the bishops, you
consider
the fertilized egg to have personal status, most do not implant
and are spontaneously
aborted. (In terms of a theistic natural law this
would make God the prime
abortionist.)
Bishops are pastors and administrators, not professional
theologians.
Their errors here illustrate that.
Daniel C. Maguire
is a Professor of Moral Theological Ethics at Marquette University, a Catholic,
Jesuit Institution and President of the Religious Consultation on Population,
Reproductive Health and Ethics. Dr. Maguire has a degree in Sacred Theology from
the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, one of the world’s major Catholic
universities.