#45,
Well, this gets us closer to the heart of the matter. Besides the usual platitudes against violence, while completely disconnected from the real world of consequence… I found this sidebar on clarity’s blog of interest because it illuminates the clarity blog’s premises:
Veritatis Splendor on Torture
“Reason attests that there are … acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed “intrinsically evil” (intrinsece malum)…”there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object”.
The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: “Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide…”
“Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II”
“Homicide’ in its broadest definition is the taking of someone else’s life.
(hom·i·cide n. 1. The killing of one person by another.)
Justification aside, certainly war is conducted with the premeditated intention to, as needed, take someone else’s life. And being killed in war is certainly ‘hostile’ to one’s life. As whether justified or not, you are just as dead.
Therefore, by the Catholic Church’s reasoning, no violent response is justified and pacifism/surrender the only morally acceptable response to aggression.
That is a formula for suicide and a perfect example of Burke’s “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Pope John Paul’s reasoning is a direct extension of “Just War Theory and Doctrine” which in turn extends from Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas attempts to reconcile justification of war with Jesus’ instruction to “turn the other cheek”.
I also find it of passing interest that for the condition of ‘clarity’ to exist, one must be intellectually honest. A condition that requires the willingness to face the consequences of one’s reasoning. Any bets on either Clarity’s or the Church’s willingness to face the inherent, real-world consequence of their philosophical reasoning?
