Pastoral Letter of the Bishops of Malta on IVF

Many posts today and yesterday--hope you can catch-up.

Malta is officially in recession, but, praise God, the bishops finally made a definitive statement on IVF.

UPDATE: Since I posted this, the official website of the Diocese of Malta has put this on their website. I give the link, as this translation is better and more complete than the original one I posted here. Here is the link. Please take time to read it. The letter is very moving.

http://maltadiocese.org/lang/en/news/pastoral-letter-celebrating-human-lifepastoral-letter-celebrating-human-life/

Answering an e-mail query on sin and responsibility

A good reader of this blog noted Garrigou-Lagrange's note that "Weakness and ignorance do not take away culpability for sin".  What the good priest is saying here can be broken down into various points. I shall write more on this later.


One, if one is a Catholic, one is responsible for learning the Faith. We have the CCC and the long, 2,000 years of history of the Catholic Church for information. In this information age, there is no excuse for not knowing something. More than 60% of households in Great Britain, Ireland and America are connected to the Internet. We can buy plane tickets, order food, order clothes, find mates and chat with our friends daily. We can also read the Vatican website and the CCC online, as well as other excellent sources, such as EWTN and others. Even children can find out the truth and I now at least four very young children (ages 8-12) who chose to be Catholics when their parents were not. 


Two, the Natural Law, embedded in all humans by the very fact that they are human tell us when something is right or wrong, unless we have lived a life of perversion and keep choosing that over truth. Again, if we are sensitive, our natural consciences will dictate what is immoral and what is moral. The Greeks and Romans knew this and the early philosophers wrote on what was human and what was sub-human behavior. It is the errors of Modernist heresies which have deadened natural law philosophy, especially in the States, where is it no longer taught in some law schools.


Three, the habit of sin must be broken. And, the longer we are in sin, the harder it is to break those habits. Guilt is not a bad thing regarding habitual sin. Habitual sin becomes addictive and addictive sin is living in sin. St. Thomas Aquinas says that it takes one year to break a habit of sin, such as lying, and only three months to develop a virtue. I think he had personal experience of this. We cannot make excuses for habitual sins of any type, such as masturbation or lying. These must be taken to Confession weekly, and with a good, orthodox Confessor, can be broken. Sometimes healing is necessary and both a spiritual director and a counselor who is Catholic and sound can be very helpful. But, the sin must be broken. This is what is means to carry the Cross of our weaknesses. But, tendency, which is concupiscence, is not an excuse. We all have concupiscence because of Original Sin.


Four, temptation is not sin. Sin is the dwelling on the temptation or the action. If an idea crosses our mind of something sinful, we can actively say "no" to the thought and deed.


Five, we all have weaknesses. These our both our Crosses and our way to holiness. Weaknesses are both in the body and in the will. We must practice the strengthening of the will. Weakness equals concupiscence. Modern society does not see weakness in itself as an occasion of sin, but it is.


I can give an example. A good woman I knew years ago had a compulsion for shopping. She spent money and used her credit card to the point of bad stewardship. She got into debt. Thankfully, she was a praying Catholic and realized one day that she just could not go shopping. She had to avoid the malls and shops. She did that and succeeded in overcoming her desires. She also prayed for the opposite virtue of these sins of gluttony and vanity by practicing "custody of the eyes". She did not look anymore at Vogue, or other fashion magazines. She controlled her eyes when on the street. She asked God for humility and simplicity. She prayed to Mary and did this on her own. She succeeded in overcoming the need, the compulsion, the sin of vanity. I admire this person and hope that she can overcome pride in other areas of her life. She is very open about this and knows that the life of virtue will lead her to heaven, eventually.


When one gives in to sin, one creates a habit and, possibly, an addiction. If one has an addictive personality, to pornography, for example, the first cause of divorce in the States today, one needs to be very strict with one's self. We have lost the idea of discipline. But the only way to overcome such is through prayer, fasting, the sacraments, the opposite virtues.


Six,  sins and weaknesses are OBJECTIVE not SUBJECTIVE. Once society forgets that there is objective evil, sin becomes rampant. Herein lies our culpability. Stealing. adultery, masturbation. sodomy, etc. are objectively evil. Therefore, each person has some level of culpability. Even the young person who has been abused must accept the fact that he or she does not have to live a life of abuse or sexual promiscuity because of that abuse. This is the fact of heroic virtue. One chooses the hard way. A person may have the strength of will to do this on his own, but he needs Catholic, orthodox help is the will is weak. We are never without some responsibility for sinning. And being sinned against is no excuse for sinning. I speak from experience in that regard. 


Sadly, Thomistic philosophy has not been taught for years in seminaries, so many priests are confused themselves on the overlap of sin and will. I cannot see that masturbation as explained in the CCC is never sinful. It is always sinful, always, as is any addictive behavior which destroys the body or the soul.  If one is that weak in the will, the will must be made strong again. Culpability is lessened, but to stop taking that sin to Confession will only add to the problem. Weaknesses must be confessed on a regular basis. Here is a quotation from an excellent section which I recommend to all readers:

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."¹³⁸ "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."¹³⁹

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

That passage does not deny sin. The levels of culpability should change as one becomes more aware, more holy. But, one does not need to be trapped in sin all one's life. That is the beauty of the Sacramental Life.

A good simile is from St. Teresa of Avila, who wrote that as we become more holy, the light of grace shines in us and shows us the smallest sin as a great shadow. The brighter the sun, the longer and more dark the shadow. That is the type of conscience we are called to in the life of the virtues. She said: One venial sin can do us greater harm than all the forces of hell combined.

Last point, which is seven. Grace is greater than nature or nurture. To deny that grace changes us is to deny the Teaching of the Catholic Church. Christ gives us this grace daily, and those who have addictions can win the battle by daily Communion, weekly Confession and good friends and companions. 


We must fight against mortal sin. We must then fight against venial sin. We must then fight against imperfections. Otherwise, we shall never see God. We do not fight alone, but with the help of grace and knowledge, we can win. God never abandons us.




God bless my good reader.

St. Joachim and Private Revelations

St. Joachim, whose feast day is shared with his wife, St. Ann (see below) like other married saints, has an interesting name according to the Catholic Encyclopedia online. It means "God Prepares". I highlight him today with St. Ann in order to invoke them to help me with a point I have been making regarding private revelations.

St. Peter Damian, along with other saints mentioned below in Garrigou-Lagrange's book, warns against curiosity about things which are not in the Scriptures. At this time, I cannot stress this point enough. We have many things upon which we can ponder, in the Scriptures and in the CCC, for example. We can meditate on the lives of the saints in our modern times, whose lives have been documented clearly.

We should not read the fake "gospels" for meditations, as these are not inspired by God. Here is a bit from the same article on St. Joachim where I happily found the reference to St. Peter Damian.


Tradition has it that the parents of the Blessed Virgin, who, apparently, first lived in Galilee, came later on to settle in Jerusalem; there the Blessed Virgin was born and reared; there also they died and were buried. A church, known at various epochs as St. Mary, St. Mary ubi nata est, St. Mary in Probatica, Holy Probatica, St. Anne, was built during the fourth century, possibly by St. Helena, on the site of the house of St. Joachim and St. Anne, and their tombs were there honoured until the close of the ninth century, when the church was converted into a Moslem school. The crypt which formerly contained the holy tombs was rediscovered on 18 March, 1889


We can assume the relics were destroyed, except for those few which had already made the journey into Europe.

On the lunge line...

I have had feedback from readers who want me to go through the list of Garrigou-Lagrange's sins and categories. I did that on two yesterday. I shall try and define the rest, using the texts of the Catholic Church as much as possible. Both the sins and the virtues must be understood.

Now, most Catholics have never heard, unless they have read this blog, that the Life of Virtue is the way we are to be living daily. It is not enough to be broken from habits of mortal or venial sin. It is not enough to stop sinning. That is only the beginning of our walk to and in holiness.

Following the breaking of habitual or even repeated venial sins is the whole new world of the virtues. How many sermons have you heard on the development of the virtues on a daily basis in order to attain heaven and in order to bring about the Kingdom of God, and to support the Church in Her mission of evangelization?

The life of the virtues begins when a child is born. Children vary as to what age they reach the age of reason, but the Church has consistently stated that this age is seven. No excuses can be given for not understanding right and wrong through nurture, as nature gives each one of us this ability. Natural law is part of being human.

Many children show signs of a conscience much earlier than seven. In fact, I know one child who was allowed to make his First Confession at the age of five as he clearly understood good and evil, sin and virtue, right and wrong, even grace, in age-appropriate language.

Many parents will admit that their toddlers "get it" when corrected and the breaking of the will, not the spirit of the child, is a role a parent must accept. If a child is taught virtue early, she has a chance for great holiness.

This sounds like heresy to some parents, but if anyone has ever trained a horse on a lunge-line, you will understand my metaphor. Look at my post on March 27th for this discussion.
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/on-lunge-line.html

The will comes into submission through grace and the life of the virtues begins.

I shall try and share the definitions in the weeks to come.

Down with the charismatic presidents--Thomas Sowell's thoughts

Thomas Sowell: worth reading.

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

Even squirrels know enough to store nuts, so that they will have something to eat when food gets scarce. But the welfare state has spawned a whole class of people who spend everything they get when times are good, and look to others to provide for their food and other basic needs when times turn bad.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution prescribes "equal protection of the laws" to all Americans. But what does that mean, if the President of the United States can arbitrarily grant waivers, so that A, B and C have to obey the laws but X, Y and Z do not -- as with both ObamaCare and the immigration laws?

Two reports came out in the same week. One was from the Pentagon, saying that, in just a few years, Iran will be able to produce not only a nuclear bomb but a missile capable of carrying it to the United States. The other report said that the American Olympic team has uniforms made in China. This latter report received far more attention, both in Congress and in the media.

People who lament gridlock in Washington, and express the pious hope that Democrats and Republicans would put aside their partisan conflicts, and cooperate to help the economy recover, implicitly assume that what the economy needs is more meddling by politicians, which is what brought on economic disaster in the first place. (Skeptics can read "The Housing Boom and Bust.")

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as "racists."

One of the arguments for Medicare is that the elderly don't want to be a burden to their children. Apparently it is all right to be a burden to other people's children, who are paying taxes.

Those who talk as if more people going to college is automatically a Good Thing seldom show much interest in what actually goes on at college -- including far less time spent by students studying than in the past, and a proliferation of courses promoting a sense of grievance, entitlement or advanced navel-gazing and breast-beating.

One of the most dangerous trends of our times is making the truth socially unacceptable, or even illegal, with "hate speech" laws. It is supposed to be terrible, for example, to call an illegal alien an "illegal alien" or to call an Islamic terrorist an "Islamic terrorist." When the media refer to "undocumented" workers or to violence committed by "militants," who is kidding whom -- and why?

After the charismatic -- and disastrous -- Woodrow Wilson presidency, the voters did not elect another president in the next decade who could be considered the least bit charismatic. Let us hope that history repeats itself.


For more than two centuries, the U.S. military never had a public celebration of anybody's sex life -- until the recent "gay pride" event under the Obama administration. Here, as elsewhere, the gay political agenda is not equality but privilege.

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Then he proceeded to generate fear among businesses for years on end, with both his anti-business rhetoric and his anti-business policies. Barack Obama is repeating the same approach and getting the same results -- namely, an agonizingly slow economic recovery, as investors hang on to their money, instead of risking it in a hostile political environment.

If we wake up some morning and find some American cities in radioactive ruins, courtesy of a nuclear Iran, nobody is going to care whether the president who lets this happen is the first black president or the last WASP president. But, in the meantime, many people will keep on voting for symbolism, as if an election is a popularity contest, like choosing a college's Homecoming Queen or Parade Marshal.

There seems to be something "liberating" about ignorance -- especially when you don't even know enough to realize how little you know. Thus an administration loaded with people who have never run any business is gung-ho to tell businesses what to do, as well as gung-ho to tell the medical profession what to do, lenders whom to lend to, and the military how to fight wars.

Meteor Shower Coming Soon

On the night of August 11th into the morning of the 12th, one can watch the Perseid Meteor Shower. I was in Kent for the last one and saw many meteors. As a young friend of mine states, in London, the stars live indoors, so I am not sure I shall be able to see these.

However, I shall try.

Happy Feast of St. Ann

Happy Feast Day of St. Ann, one of my name-patrons. God bless all my friends who have the name of Ann, all my friends who have birthdays today, and all mothers and grandmothers.

We must not forget that her holiness was instrumental in the life of the most perfect woman to ever live, Our Blessed Virgin Mary.