For Christ's Sake. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

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СКАЧАТЬ that a person is faced with a moral choice, but it is a choice between two morally good things, with neither option involving a moral offence or harm to other persons. The person takes the matter seriously and goes through a very careful process of conscience, eventually choosing Option A. From heaven, five scholars and six saints have observed the process and agree that Option B would have been better. Granted that no moral offence or harm to others is involved, it may still be argued that the careful process of conscience and taking responsibility makes Option A better for this person, for it is the whole process, and in a particular way the taking of personal responsibility, that brings about the moral growth and goodness of the person.

      There are persons who, because of fear or laziness, do not want to take personal responsibility for moral choices. They want either the Bible or Church authority or a charismatic leader or popular opinion or a peer group to take the responsibility for them, so that all that will be left to them is to follow this authority. This cannot be called ‘the very dignity’ of these persons, for they have not truly taken personal responsibility for their decisions and will not grow as they should. Mere obedience, to either religious authority or popular opinion, is not ‘the very dignity’ of a person.

      Many moral decisions are easy, so it is easy to take responsibility for them. The more difficult the matter we are dealing with, the more difficult it will be to make the decision and take responsibility for it. But it is also true that, the more difficult the issue, the more we will grow through the process of taking true responsibility for our actions.

      This need for personal responsibility is fully in agreement with Catholic teaching.

      • ‘By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness.’¹⁵

      • ‘Freedom makes us responsible for our acts to the extent that they are voluntary.’¹⁶

      • ‘The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person.’¹⁷

      • ‘Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed.’¹⁸

      Thus it is important that we take personal responsibility for our decisions and it is also important that we get them right. We will not grow unless we take personal responsibility for our actions. But, even if we do take personal responsibility, we will still not grow if our decisions harm other people or our own true good; for growth, both of these elements are essential. Any adequate understanding of the meaning of the word ‘morality’ must, therefore, contain both elements.

       MORAL CHOICES

      Many times each day we make choices between right and wrong. Most of these choices are minor, though major choices sometimes present themselves. Through these choices we take responsibility for each of our actions. Then, through the sum total of all these choices, big and small, we gradually and imperceptibly begin to take personal responsibility for the moral direction of our entire lives and to determine our moral identity. Over a long period of time we gradually determine whether we are basically just or unjust persons, kind or unkind, truthful or untruthful, honest or dishonest, loving or selfish. We determine at which of the six levels of morality mentioned earlier we habitually act.

       Virtues and Vices

      Most of the actions we perform each day are the result of moral choices we made long ago and of the habits that were formed as a result of those choices, so that we do not need to think about the morality of the action each time we perform it. There are, of course, right habits and wrong habits. Rights habits are called virtues and wrong habits are called vices. A person possessing the virtue of justice will, from long practice, instinctively react justly in every new situation. A person possessing the vice of injustice will, from equally long practice, instinctively seek an advantage over others without caring whether they might be hurt. A truly moral person is one who has worked so hard and long at forming good habits (virtues) that things such as justice, love, compassion, truth, honesty and integrity are a natural part of that person’s instinctive reaction to any new situation that presents itself.

      The hardest moral struggle occurs when we have deliberately chosen something wrong in the past and must now fight against the wrong habits that have been formed, e.g. if we have constantly told lies or spread gossip or been dishonest.

      Experienced policemen would say that for almost all people a first murder is an overwhelming experience, but that if the same person goes on to commit further murders, even murder can become easy: that is, a habit or vice. In any particular field, whether it be murder or stealing or anything else, the first sin is the hardest one to commit; after that, the sin becomes easier to commit and the habit becomes more and more entrenched.

      There are times when we must struggle against habits even when the habit has involved no deliberate wrongdoing on our part. This happens whenever in our upbringing our elders transmitted to us habits of thinking and acting that we later came to realise were morally wrong. Among these unjust attitudes that we may have innocently inherited are those of:

      • men towards women

      • white people towards people of a different colour

      • Christians towards Jews and Muslims

      • people born in a country towards immigrant peoples

      • people of richer countries towards those of poorer countries

      • people of today towards people of the past through a sense of pride and superiority, or towards people of the future through destruction of the environment.

      At times we can be forced to reassess our most simple actions. For example, we long ago accepted that it is morally right to eat with a knife and fork and we have done this all our lives without a single further thought about its morality. But what about all the disposable utensils (and packaging) that are thrown away each day, including disposable knives and forks? Can the thought of all this waste of limited resources cause us to think again?

       The Basic Choice (the ‘Fundamental Option’)

      Through many choices between right and wrong we gradually and imperceptibly form our moral identity. In this process we can then find that in our inmost core we have made a choice, not just between right and wrong, but also between goodness and badness. Note:

      For the sake of clarity I prefer to use the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of persons and the terms ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ of thoughts and actions. As I shall use the terms, persons are good or bad (that is, this is the choice they have made in their inmost core), while thoughts and actions are right or wrong (that is, their particular thoughts and actions can be right or wrong).

      Much of Catholic morality comes originally from the Latin language and there the word malum means both ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’, while the word bonum means both ‘right’ and ‘good’.

      Thus the distinction between good and bad on the one hand, and right and wrong on the other, has no real history behind it, and this should be kept in mind in reading any books on Catholic morality.

      Furthermore, the word malum is all too frequently translated into English as ‘evil’ and this word is too easily applied to many actions. In most cases all the Latin text meant to say was that a certain action is wrong, and it is misleading to translate it as ‘bad’, let alone as ‘evil’. ‘Evil’ is a powerful English word and it should not be used СКАЧАТЬ