An immoral morality?
Kaufman, Philip S.
I PROBABILISM & THE RIGHT TO KNOW OF MORAL OPTIONS
4
An immoral morality? PHILIP S. KAUFMAN I N MATTERS OF morality, the Roman Catholic church has tended to speak inconsistently to...
...This approach was soon accepted by many theologians, especially by the Jesuits, who adopted it as their official position...
...These were, we thought, America per- sonified, history with a little push...
...Defenders of a call for absolute obedience to all such teaching would hold that the doctrines taught were correct for their own time and circumstances, but that changed conditions and further enlightenment led to the formulation of new positions...
...the loss of credibility in a magisterium to which the faithful should be able to listen with reverent confidence...
...Otherwise he leaves them alone, even though he may not like them...
...Frequently a person is not certain whether a particular course of action is lawful or unlawful, forbidden or permitted...
...And ff this is true, is it not immoral to attempt to conceal such knowledge from the faithful, to present the official decisions, in Rahner's words, "as though there were no doubt whatever about their def'mitive correctness and as though further discus- sion about the matter by Catholic theologians would be inap- propriate...
...On the one hand, there has been emphasis on the role of conscience in decision making...
...An example from early church history illustrates the problem and two contrasting solutions...
...periodic continence, their effort, according to Father H~ring, "received the applause of the majority of the council...
...Are their articles and books taken seriously...
...Affirmed by Pope Martin I in 650, this decree became part of the Western church's collec- tion of canons...
...7 had a less fortunate sequel...
...that is, to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being" (Humanae Vitae, #14...
...In a doubt of fact, such as whether the moving object in the bush was a deer or another hunter, one could not shoot until the doubt had been resolved...
...This would help explain a strong tendency on the part of the hierarchy to emphasize law and order at the expense of concern for Christian liberty and the legitimate rights of individual conscience...
...Of it, Richard McCormick writes: "In broader perspective, probabilism -- by what ever name it is called --remains a tribute to the claims of human freedom against all systems or ideologies which would attempt unduly to restrict this freedom...
...clopedia explains: "Probabilism has been described as the moral system according to which in a doubt of conscience about the morality of a particular course of conduct a person may lawfully follow the opinion for liberty, provided it is truly probable, even though the opinion for law is definitely more probable...
...In 1866, after slavery had been abolished in the United States and several Latin American countries, the Holy Office issued an instruction reaffirming the moral justification of slavery...
...The vast majority of American priests certainly accept this dissenting opinion as validly probable for use in the confes- sional...
...For centuries theologians did not question the morality of slavery but only debated whether the firmly estabfished teaching was deride or merely theologi- cally certain...
...Pope Paul III in 1548 "abrogated the privilege of the conservatori of Rome to emancipate slaves...
...No matter what one's personal conviction in the controversy between probabilists and probabiliorists may be, every conscientious confessor must be a moderate probabilist in the sacrament of reconciliation...
...Is there a sufficiently probable opinion contrary to the teaching of Humanae Vitae which the faithful may adopt in their own decisions in conscience...
...Is this one of those open questions in moral theolog)¢ to which Rahner alludes...
...How do they rank with their peers...
...According to this opinion, once the pope or a Roman congregation has taken an official position, there is no longer room for the legitimate doubt upon which probabilism is based...
...It will be said that this attempt to close the ranks by imposing doubtful teaching is done in good faith for the honor of God and the preservation of holy church...
...He taught that slavery is contrary to the "fast intention" of nature but not contrary to the "second intention" because . . . nature has the desire that everyone should be good...
...Perhaps no clearer case of erroneous moral teaching can be cited than the authentic teaching of the Roman magisterium on slavery so ably documented by John Francis Maxwell ("The Development of Catholic Doctrine Concerning Slavery", World Justice, XI, December 1969 and March 1970...
...Slavery in the Catholic Church, London, 1975...
...It was then the amazing event that at the end four-fifths of the priests, and almost one hundred per cent of the laity, came to the result that there is no essential difference between the calculated use of temperature-calendar tests in the periodical continence and more simple methods of birth regulation, as dia- phragms or anti-fecundity pills...
...The pope, as Father H/idng explained, then enlarged a small sub- commission, previously set up by John XXIII, in order to study with frankness and liberty the whole problem of birth regulation, responsible parenthood...
...No" is the answer of those who contend that there can be no probable opinion opposed to a clear teaching of the Roman magis- terium...
...To them Paul VI spoke with great f'lrnmess and clarity: "Each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life...
...Opponents were Cardinal Ottaviani, then head of the Holy Office...
...The rigoristic, heretical sect of the Novatians claimed that second marriages (after the death of a spouse) were forbidden by the divine law...
...In faith, unity...
...in omnibus, caritas...
...How reputable are the schools in which they teach...
...and to bring their persons into perpetual slavery...
...The opposing system known as "probabiliorism" holds that the opinion for liberty could be followed only if it was clearly more probable than the opinion for law...
...Three years later in Rerum Novarum Leo XIII finally took a position which, while not speaking of slavery by name, made-it clear that slavery was incompatible with universal and fundamental human rights...
...H~.ring, in his early work, The Law of Christ, gives examples where this limitation would prevent the use of a probable opinion: "If the life of our neighbor is liable to be imperiled by actions of ours, we must choose the safest course of action so as to avoid this evil effect...
...There is another tradition, however, much older and much more widely accepted in Catholic moral thinking, which leads to much the same conclusion...
...We never understood that the moment of our triumph was the start of our demise...
...When, in the last session of Vatican Council H Cardinals Suenens, Alfrink, and l.~ger and Patriarch Maximos IV ,~ spoke out for means of contraception other "Someone's in luck...
...If you are slaves, stay slaves...
...In our day there is serious dissent by competent theologians from the authentic teaching of the Roman magisterium on several moral issues.Contrary to the response of the Doctrinal Congregation on the sterilization question, not only should such dissent constitute a "theological source" for confessors, it should also be a valid and available source for the faithful in the formation of their consciences...
...The physician, for example, is obliged to make use of the safest remedies possible...
...Since you will soon be joining me out here in the cold of political exile, let me do what I can to smooth your path...
...Only one quarter of the priests in the country in 1970 were willing to refuse absolution to those who would not promise to stop artificial contraception...
...This would be a doubt of law...
...Alphonsus is the obligation to avoid serious harm to others...
...Archbishop Thomas Morris of Cashel, Ireland, and Bishop Carlo Colombo of the Univer- sity of Milan...
...Among a group of theolo- gians carefully chosen to reach a conservative conclusion, after thorough study a very large majority recommended a change in the church's teaching on birth control...
...Recognizing the existence of dissent from the official position on the part of theologians, it then "denies that doctrinal significance can be attributed to the fact as such so as to constitute a 'theological source' which the faithful might invoke and thereby abandon the authentic magisterium, and follow the opinions of private theologians which dissent from it...
...There is an ancient adage, attributed to St...
...For two centuries Catholic moral theology was embroiled in a battle between the supporters of these two systems, the Dominican probabiliorists and the Jesuit probabilists...
...pfUotlUtrie£aRadiaC~Silieke wYS;lofoke~;~hegkeaseths~21utbricatsseduethse supplied the energy...
...In the conflict between law and order, on the one hand, and liberty and the rights of conscience, on the other, writers as prominent as St...
...John's Abbey, Collegeville, and director of St...
...Over six hundred theologians in the United States signed a dissenting statement.Twenty lead- ing European theologians issued a dissenting statement from a meeting in Amsterdam, called expressly to comment on Humane Vitae...
...Sixteen bishops, including seven cardinals, were added for the fifth and final session of the "'Papal Commission on Popu- lation, the Family, and Natality" which met from April 13 to June 28, 1966...
...They cannot dissociate the pope from the whole of the church...
...He will deal only with social issues to the extent that they block his preaching...
...Paul...
...Could the faithful, influenced by such facts as these, conclude that there is a highly probable opinion opposed to the pope's teaching which they could legitimately follow in conscience...
...It is true that the New Testament never explicitly condemns slavery, but neither on the other hand does it attempt to justify the institution...
...The degree to which probabilism has come into possession in the practice of the church can be illustrated by another quotation from The Law Of Christ: "In the tribunal of penance the confessor is never permitted to refuse absolution to any peniterit who holds and follows an opinion proposed by prudent and learned moralists, even though the confessor himself looks upon it as false...
...Alphonsus was greatly enhanced when he was declared a doctor of the church in 1871 and, later by Pius XH, made patron of confessors and moralists...
...The really important thing is that you believe in Christ...
...This is "prob- abilism," a tradition whose history and continuing relevance 1 would like to examine in some detail...
...After the siJppression of the Society of Jesus, he continued in the same pattern, but in order to avoid too strong opposition from the mighty traditionalist wing, from then on he called his always moderate probabilism 'equiprobabilism.' " The influence of St...
...He wrote that human labor is "personal since the active force inherent in the person cannot be the property of anyone other than the person who exerts it, and it was given to him in the fast place by nature for his own benefit...
...Christ is coming soon...
...War with its dire consequences may not be waged on the ground of probable right...
...In response to those who would allow the use of artificial con- traception as the lesser of two evils in a conflict situation he wrote:"It is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom...
...He can basically let people stay slaves...
...The sixties were proclaimed to be my time, just as the eighties are said to be yours, and by the same media...
...and yet "are nonetheless presented in such a way as though in fact they are definitive...
...in doubtful matters, liberty...
...The local Council of Gangra in A.D...
...Centuries later St...
...W~HEN THERE IS CONFLICT between the "authentic magis- ' terium" and "the opinions of private theologians which dissent from it" how do we determine whether the private theologians are indeed "prudent and learned...
...Pius X, the silencing of scholars like Teilhard de Chardin, John Courtney Murray, Yves Congar, to mention a few recent examples...
...Opposed to that teaching is a massive response of competent theologians...
...The NORC study of 1970, as reported in Andrew M. Greeley's The American Catholic, showed that: "Sixty per- cent of the priests do not think that all artificial contraception is wrong, and only twenty-nine percent are certain that it is wrong...
...The faithful have a right to that "other information" for the formation of their consciences...
...One limitation on the use of probabilism in the teaching of St...
...They have to study it, consider it, but not alone, not isolated...
...Twenty years ago, the left was the cutting edge--I think that is what they called it--of the ALAN WOLFE teaches sociology at Queens College, New York, and is the author of The Rise and Fall of the 'Soviet Threat' (Institute for Policy Studies...
...Is there any way to protect the faithful from the often eccentric (off center) opinions of pop moralists who are able to gain attention and apparent credibility through the media...
...Alas, you will not be able to claim it...
...Yet the harm done by the decisions on moral issues seems to be of a different order: the imposition of excessive moral burdens on those trying to please God...
...I PROBABILISM & THE RIGHT TO KNOW OF MORAL OPTIONS 4 An immoral morality...
...This canon was later incorpo- rated in general church law...
...Furthermore, it has indirectly benefited the science of moral theology itself by preventing premature closure of difficult moral questions...
...Augustine of Hippo: "Infide, unitas...
...However, the commis- sion was set up, at least regarding the theologians, with all assurances for a conservative majority...
...The history of moral theology provides ample reason for modesty on the part of all who teach on moral issues...
...Pope Alexander III at Third Lateran in 1179 and Pope Innocent III at Fourth Lateran in 1215 authorized enslavement for captured Chris- tians who had aided the Saracens...
...I remember going South in the early 1960s, before civil rights was a popular cause, to do what I thought was right, and it still amazes me to recall the rush when an American president, and his brother, the attorney general, seemed to take our cause as their own...
...For us, the goals were clear: greater equality, social justice, and world peace...
...It was a commission of about sixty-five men, one-third priests and two-thirds laity...
...The Ninth Council of Toledo in 655 attempted to enforce clerical celibacy by enacting that the penalty of enslavement be imposed on the offspring of offending clerics...
...The list of moral questions on which the authentic teaching has changed is long...
...There was no question that our objectives would be reached...
...I suggest that the criteria should be those used to judge the competence of scholars in other intellectual disciplines: economists, sociologists, biologists, physicists, etc...
...That Rome subscribes to this position is well illus- trated by a response from the Doctrinal Congregation, March 13, 1975, on the subject of sterilization...
...Probabilism is based on the second phrase, "in dubiis, libertas...
...Since there are reputable theologians who defend positions on moral issues contrary to the official teach- ing of the Roman magisterium and since in the accepted discipline of the church confessors must allow their penitents to follow such probable opinions, do not the Catholic faithful have the right to know of the existence of such options...
...Supporting the morality of slavery right down to the middle of the present century were some of the greatest names in the then accepted moral theol- ogy, Lehmkuhl, Pr/immer, Merkelbach, G~nicot, and Father Zalba, the latter being one of the four theologians on the"birth control commission" who voted against change in the church's teaching on birth control and who continued to justify the morality of slavery as late as 1958...
...Even the apparent condemnation in 1888 by Leo XIII in his letter to the bishops of Brazil "is not at all the forthright condemnation of slavery that it might appear to be at first sight...
...Alphonsus Liguori.Trained by a rigoristic probabiliorist of the Dominican order, his pastoral experience turned him toward the Jesuit probabilists...
...What is this "system" which moral theologians like Richard McCormick and Bernard H~iring affirm as "still of great actuality" for the church...
...Paul's pastoral approach in Philemon and his statement in Galatians that in Christ there is neither slave nor free helped create the atmosphere in the West which led to the gradual elimination of slavery...
...the only controversy seemed to be over the proper speed...
...As H/iring points out, there was a radi- cal change in the social context...
...Presumably, therefore, Catholics have the right to knowledge of legitimate options if they must make enlightened decisions on controverted moral issues...
...Paul's apparent toleration of an evil institution which was to end with the imminent coming of Christ would be used by the magisterium to justify its active support for slavery as an essential element in the structure of society...
...nor, afortiori, infanticide, in the case of a hopelessly retarded newborn child...
...Only by giving the faithful convincing reasons for rejecting what we hold to be false ideas...
...Several episcopal conferences issued statements which clearly modified the papal position...
...the guilt of those unable to meet the rigorous demands of what are essentially doubtful laws...
...in all things, love...
...Christ is coming soon and that relativizes the evil social institu- tions of the time...
...B UT CHRIST DID NOT come as Paul expected and the magis- terium absolutized a message which Paul intended for a radically different situation...
...Probabilism safeguards the individual in the exercise of his or her conscience from rigoristic confessors...
...Paul's apparent toleration of slavery in I Cor...
...Father Bernard H~ring was a member of the commission set up by Pope Paul to study the birth control question...
...PHILIP S. KAUFMAN I N MATTERS OF morality, the Roman Catholic church has tended to speak inconsistently to its members...
...However, the needs they were devised to fill have always existed...
...The level of dissent from Humanae Vitae is well known...
...Today's "pop moralist" may be a prophet...
...John's University House of Studies in Minneapolis...
...As H~ring writes: "Fundamentally, it con- cerned the tension between law, traditions, church authorities, and confessors on the one side and, on the other, the individual conscience...
...Slavery is a definite particular punishment and is a matter of positive law and is derived from natural law as a precision of it...
...This is Bernard H~iring's point when he says that "to allow others to manipulate one' s conscience" is to sin against liberty and sanity...
...Speaking at Holy Cross Abbey of those who had difficulty with the teaching of Humanae Vitae Father H/iring said: "Those who are doubtful whether they can accept it have to study it thoroughly, have to read it with good will, but they also have to accept other information in the church...
...We were in a hurry...
...Paul is a highly missionary writer and preacher and his basic idea is to get people to believe in Christ...
...The New Catholic EncyFATHER PHILIP S KAUFMAN,O.S.B.,is a monk of St...
...Bonaventure and William of Auxerre resoh:ed doubts in favor of the law...
...The Birth Control De- bate, ed...
...340 anathematized those who taught slaves to despise their masters and withdraw from their service...
...H/king speaks from a personalist, relational posi- tion which is, relatively speaking, an innovation in Catholic thinking on morality, and is regarded with misgivings by many in the church...
...Yet, on the other hand, the Roman magisterium issues authoritative statements on specific moral issues, statements which, as Karl Rahner has said "can make no claim to be definitive...
...For those of us who recognize the human reality of the unborn child and its consequent rights, the existence of a probable opinion justifying abortion on demand could not be followed...
...I than total or slapped two commandments...
...H OWEVER, THE ISSUE addressed here is not the reaction of the clergy, but what information and insights may be legitimately used by the faithful in the formation of their consciences...
...The "systems" were designed to help resolve such doubts...
...20-2...
...The resolution of the conflict between prob- abiliorists and probabilists and the general adoption of prob- abilism throughout the church was due largely to the influence of St...
...The truth is that the penalty of slavery is imposed by law which ordains the preservation of the natural order and prohibits its disturbance...
...As the liberals we elected began almost immediately to wage war and to appease injustice, we felt violated, fodder...
...in dubiis, libertas...
...According to this.instruction, slavery, considered as such in its essential nature, is not contrary to the "natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery.., it is not contrary to the divine law for a slave to be bought, sold, or given, provided that.., due conditions are observed...
...You, as I recall, hated the media then, and I must say that I am not particularly fond of them now...
...Pope Nicholas V in 1454 granted to King Alfonso V of Portugal and his son, Prince Henry the Navigator, "full and free permission.., to capture, conquer and subjugate all Saracens and pagans whatsoever and other enemies of Christ...
...and so slavery was intro- duced as a penalty for sin...
...As Raymond Brown has pointed out: Paul has very little social teaching...
...Birth control is a moral issue on which the papal teaching is clear and specific...
...In 1577, Bartholomew Medina, O.P., laid the foundation for the moral system of probabilism when he wrote: "It seems to me that if there is a probable opinion, it is lawful to follow it, even though the opposite is more probable...
...Reported as "doubtful" were Cardinals John Heenan of London and Valerian Gracias of Bombay and Archbishop Leo Binz of St...
...Gregory of Nazianzus wrote that they could be allowed since the prohibition was doubtful...
...but in consequence of human sin nature also has the inclination to provide a penalty for sin...
...Gregory the Great's condemnation of pleasure in marital intercourse, Innocent IV's teaching on witches and the use of torture in judicial interrogations, or Pius IX's, in Quanta Cura, condemning "that erroneous opinion which is especially injurious to the Catholic church and the salvation of souls, called by our predecessor Gregory XVI deliramentum (derangement), namely, that freedom of conscience and of worship is the proper right of each man, and that this should be proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society...
...I saw that look of anticipation in your faces...
...This is the same good faith which produced the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, the biblical decrees at the time of St...
...Pope Paul immediately removed the issue from the council...
...Thomas Aquinas attempted to" combine Augustine's justification of slavery as a penalty for sin with Aristotle's teaching that slavery is accord- ing to nature...
...by Robert G. Hoyt, pp...
...To deny that right is objec- tively immoral...
...Augustine of Hippo began to develop the theological justification for slavery as the pen- alty for sin...
...Ronald Reagan will be as much a letdown to you as John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were to me...
...I YOU'D BETTER GET READY--FOR DISAPPOINTMENT Open letter to Republic, an conservatives ALAN WC) LEE T O YOU WHO ARE ABOUT to be disappointed, my sym- pathies...
...But we must be on our guard...
...In such cases the serious rights of others are involved...
...We felt that we were defining the terms of the political discourse in those days, and in a sense, we were...
...There is no record of an attempt to correct this interpretation...
...For we established the ideals that a generation of politicians would set out to betray, just as you are currently setting the standards which the political system will never reach...
...Our concern is not so much with the teaching of the theolo- gians as with the Roman magisterium, which accepted this theological justification in theory and in practice...
...The erroneous doctrine so firmly held and promul- gated by the Roman magisterium for so many centuries was finally corrected by the Roman magisterium in 1891...
...Of the fifteen actually taking part in the discus- sions nine reportedly favored the "majority" report which allowed the use of artificial means of contraception: Cardinals Julius Doepfner of Munich, Leo Josef Suenens of Malines-Brussels, Lawrence Shehan of Baltimore, and Joseph Lefebvre of Bourges, France...
...T HIS BRINGS US BACK tO the issue raised at the beginningof this article...
...Hence the state of slavery belongs to the"jus gentium," and to the natural law only in the second degree and not in the In'st...
...You worked long and hard to have your man nominated...
...As our American bishops have stated, ours is a spiritual tradition which accepts "enlightened conscience, even when honestly mistaken, as the immediate arbiter of moral decisions...
...On the slavery issue there weren't even pop theologians, only Quakers and other so-called heretical sectarians...
...Quite obviously in Phile-mon he would prefer that a person not be a slave, But still he's not going to wrestle with that problem...
...W HY DID A MORE rigoristic approach take over in the medieval period...
...As late as 1839, Gregory XVI's widely cited condemnation of the slave trade could be interpreted by the bishops in the southern United States as referring only to the transatlantic slave trade and not to domestic slavery...
...The birth control issue illustrates the problem in an area of great practical concern to the laity...
...You quite rightly look forward to your reward...
...Forit is only a re-statement of the view held in the middle ages concerning the 'first intention' or 'first disposition' of nature under which slavery was forbidden, while under the later disposition of the 'jus gentiura' slavery became morally law- ful...
...This permission the pope granted "by our Apostolic authority and from sure knowledge, from the plenitude of Apostolic power...
...There were three people, Bishop Reuss, Canon de Locht, and to a modest extent myself, who dared to speak out for new solutions...
...These systems of moral theology are of fairly recent origin within the church...
...Many Catholic couples "find themselves in circumstances where at least temporarily the size of their families should not be increased" (Constitu- tion on the Church in the Modern World, #51...
...Such a justification can hardly be applied to Pope St...
...At Holy Cross Abbey in Cation City, Colorado, shortly after the promu[gi~t]on of Humanae Vitae H/iring revealed some of the historical background ~ of the encyclical...
...Archbishops John F. Dearden of Detroit, Jean Zoa of Cameroon, Jose Rafael Pulido Mendez, Merida, Venezuela, Claudius Dupuy of Albi, France, and Bishop Joseph Reuss, auxiliary of Mainz, Germany...
...The system of probabilism is not a favor granted to the church by a benevolent ruler but a hard-won victory of the forces.of compassion over a rigoristic authority...
...Pope Urban II at the Synod of Melfi in 1089 imposed the penalty of enslavement on the wives of clerics who violated the law of celibacy...
...In the meantime St...
...I watched you as you gathered in Detroit...
...To treat moral issues as closed when actually they are still open, thus depriving ,Catholics of the knowledge of legitimate choices in their moral decision-making, or leav- ing them under the impression that only the behavior stipulated by Rome would be morally correct, would itself seem to be objectively immoral...
...Many popes and bishops gave more time to administration in the temporal sphere than to the spiritual care of their flocks...
...the estrangement of many from the church...
...Equally signifi- cant is what had happened in the commission which the pope himself set up to study the issue...
...In De Civitate Dei, XIX, 15, he wrote that "the state of slavery is understood to be a just imposition on the sinner...
...In reaction, Pope Alexander VII, in 1656, called upon the Dominicans to defend probabiliorism...
...It doesn't make any difference...
...In our day of massive communica- tions and a well-educated laity, only a voice which is recog- nized as completely open and honest will be trusted...
...Such a position can be maintained only if the Roman magis- terium has never been in error in its authentic moral teaching...
Vol. 107 • September 1980 • No. 16
