When the Only Option is Heroism
One
Church’s Teaching on Intrinsic Evils
The Catholic Church teaches that some actions are wrong always and everywhere, no matter what you just can’t do them. The reason is that some actions, by their nature, based on what kinds of actions they are, are just attacks on human goodness, human functioning, human flourishing. And that’s what moral evil is.
And of course, that all sounds right but it really gets tough when you get into the nitty-gritty of human life. Because we can say that abortion is always wrong, or that contraception is always wrong, or that euthanasia is always wrong, or that homosexual acts are always wrong. But what happens when people come to us with heartbreaking scenarios? What do we do then?
Two
The Challenge of Brutal Situations
Human life can be brutal, and the situations it presents us with can be heartbreaking. People will come to us with these situations, and they will make us feel heartless for maintaining the Catholic teaching.
These are the stories and scenarios you will hear:
You’ll hear someone say, “My wife and the baby will die if we don’t have an abortion. They’ll both die. Do you understand?” Or someone will say, “I’ve tried abstinence, God knows I’ve tried. I’m just not strong enough. But my wife’s told me she’ll leave me if I don’t wear a condom.”
You’ll hear someone say, “My son loves this man. He really loves him. He’s been unhappy for so long, and now, after all the pain and the self-loathing and the despair, he’s finally found someone where he feels at peace. And you’re telling me we can’t condone this relationship?”
You’ll hear someone say, “Look at him. He’s old and he’s in pain and he’s never coming back. Look at how he shakes! The doctor says we can make it all go away right now with one quick injection.”
Or someone will say, “My brother-in-law died in 911. And you’re saying we can’t torture these monsters to make them tell us what new horror they have in store for innocent people?”
What can we say in the face of such difficulties? How can we make our principles, our stance against intrinsic evil, more than just abstract rules when people come to us with such difficulties?
Three
Our response – don’t attack the good
We have to remember that moral evil is evil because it attacks some basic human good. We don’t hold these moral truths for no reason, we don’t forbid certain actions for no reason, we hold them because we value the goodness of the persons involved. In each scenario, in every difficult case, there is always a good that you shouldn’t attack.
The baby in the womb is good, don’t attack it through abortion. Your sick spouse or parent is good, don’t attack him through euthanasia. Your fertility is good, don’t attack it through contraception. Your son’s masculinity is good, don’t attack it by pretending he’s not a complete man, and that it makes sense for him to be completed by another man. A terrorist may have a very perverse will. But he’s still in the image of God by grace of his intelligence and freedom: don’t attack the image of God in him by attacking his intelligence and freedom through torture.
Morality is about the good. Even in tough situations it’s about the good. And about being resolved never to attack it.
Four
Preparing for Difficult Scenarios
It’s always a mistake to formulate your moral principles based on difficult cases. Difficult cases are emotional and make it harder to think straight about anything, including right and wrong.
That’s why we must understand the Church’s teaching before difficult cases arrive. We have to understand the goodness of the human design, and the goodness of that design in each and every individual human being. Once we understand that, then we can stand true to what’s right, even when it’s a brutal situation.
We won’t have to feel cold or abstract about it either. We will be standing up for the goodness in the person involved, this goodness, here and now. We will say, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll help in any way I can. But don’t ask me to participate in the violation of this person’s humanity. This person is too good for that. I can’t take this person – you, your friend, your spouse, your parent, your kid – this image of God, saved by Christ and bound for glory or horror – I will not help rip him apart, degrade him, do anything to make him less fit for God and Heaven. God have mercy on all of us, but I will not do it.”
That’s how you stand on principle, not for the sake of the principle, but for the sake of the people you care about.
Five
When the Only Option is Heroism
Many of us have this idea in the back of our minds that there should be three options in every situation: The heroic, the okay, and the sinful. But what really difficult moral situations show us is that, actually, there are some cases where there’s no middle option. There’s no response to the situation that’s just “okay.” There’s only sin and heroism.
When those situations arise, God grant us the grace to do the right thing, not because we want to be heroes, but because we love God and our neighbor too much to be willing to sin.
Beware of formulating your principles based on really difficult cases alone. We all want to believe that in every scenario there are three options but in some cases there is no third option. There is only heroism or sin, one which upholds goodness and one which attacks the goodness of some person.