Catholicism 101: Forever Learning and Living the Faith
Learning the Catholic Faith is a lifelong process. For many of us, it may have had a rocky start from a lack-luster classroom experience, being a disinterested student, or a lack of exposure to the teachings of the Faith. Catholicism 101 is here to fill in the gaps from your Religious Education experience as well as serve as an aid in your lifelong learning of the Faith. Not only will we talk about WHAT the Church teaches, but WHY she teaches it. Hopefully along the way we will find ourselves falling deeper into the heart of Christ as we learn more about His heart for us.
"Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope." 1 Peter 3:15
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Emily Gipson | Director of Catechetical Formation - St. Mary of the Woods Catholic Church | Whitesville, KY
Catholicism 101: Forever Learning and Living the Faith
E12: The Heart of Catholic Morality (with Fr. Larry Hostetter)
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Join Emily Gipson and Fr. Larry Hostetter, President of Brescia University, for a discussion about what really constitutes the heart of Catholic Morality.
Is God a law-giving tyrant out to suppress our freedom and happiness, or is He a loving Father who wants what’s best for us?
All this and more in this month’s episode of Catholicism 101!
Have a question about the Faith you’d like to have answered on the Podcast? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/zorQwuUGtSdukzjc6
Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. And I am so excited today because I have a guest with me, and it is Father Larry Hostetter, who is the president of Brescia University. So, Father Larry, do you want to introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Thank you for having me here today. As you said, I'm uh Father Larry Hostetter. I've been a priest now 37 years and president of Brescia for the last 17 years. Most of my priesthood has been in education in some fashion or another, having started in Catholic High in uh 1990, and then ever since then being involved in education in some fashion, including pursuing my doctorate in the years between 95 and 2000, when I uh uh did that in uh in Rome uh at the Alphongian Academy, which is known for moral theology, and that's what I got my doctorate in.
SPEAKER_03Beautiful. So you're the perfect guest for today to talk about how um as Catholics we we just really need a new perspective of what morality is. And I feel um the the things I've encountered is I feel like a lot of times people will see um the the Ten Commandments and the church laws and the you can't do this, you can't do that. They'll see it as a repression of freedom. And um, I recently was able to take this class where we learned, you know, that our our idea of freedom is just not really authentic, what freedom really is. And so, therefore, what we think morality is, it just all gets twisted up and it's not really true to what the church actually says it is and what um the church teaches about who we are as human beings.
SPEAKER_02So um, that's especially true, I think, for American Catholics, because we are built as a culture on this hyper-individualism that cherishes freedom at all costs, and sometimes a freedom that doesn't really take into account the common good. It's about me and what I want and nothing else but what I want. And the Catholic understanding of freedom has always been much broader than that, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so let's let's start there with um what what does the culture say our freedom is? You know, that that that freedom of indifference versus what the Catholic Church says freedom is and where it comes from.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, freedom, I think, is probably at the core of who we are as intelligent uh beings who've been endowed with with free will. And ultimately, we've been given free will so that we might choose the good, uh, so that we might create uh a good place for our own self and for the world around us. Um and I think the reason why God does that is so that we're not robots. Um, you know, so we do have the ability to reject the good. That's part of freedom, um, but that's really not what it's for. That's kind of a misuse, as you said, of freedom. Ultimately, our freedom is is to is to love. And you can't love unless you're free. I mean, that you know, the Jesus' call uh in the Gospels is to love one another as we've been loved. I think it might be the only commandment, you know, real commandment that Jesus gave, you know, in Matthew, it's you know, love God, and then the second is as is is is just as like, which is love your neighbor as yourself. And um you you can't love if you're not free. I mean, if you uh are forced to do good by another, to treat somebody else with compassion, with mercy, with justice, uh, that's not really freedom, it's not really love. Um, it might produce good results, but it's not love. Love can only come out of a free heart.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I often I find myself giving the example, um, especially to uh confirmation and first communion kids, of like, you know, freedom, freedom is not just the ability to choose between this or that. Like, yes, that's part of it, but um it's it's an inclination to choose the good.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03It's an inclination to choose the good, and which is ultimately beatitude and just heaven with God.
SPEAKER_02Right. And and St. Thomas Aquinas talks about we have that spark within us. It was translated as Cinderasis, and there's all sorts of controversy about exactly how it was translated and such. But you know, already from centuries ago, he said that spark within us uh is what motivates us to the good. We are naturally created for the good, to do the good, uh, to love the good, and to love as good. Um but again, you you have to be free to do that. But there's a consequence to that. So God took a risk when when that God created us that way. He said, I want I want my beloved creatures to love, to know love and and to love, but and I want them to do it freely. It wouldn't be love if it wasn't free. But there's a consequence to that. There's a risk to that. Uh the risk is that we could go in the opposite direction. We could choose not to love or anti-love, to hate. Um and that I think is at the core of Catholic morality. And when we talk about what we should do and shouldn't do, I think that's at the heart of who we are as uh as moral beings.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, beautiful. And so, like I could I could be like, Father Larry, listen, I'm pretty cool. I think you need to be my best friend. And if I had the power, you know, to force you to be my best friend, you would not really enjoy that. Exactly. And so I I feel like we often give these examples to kids of like, you know, you hate cleaning your room because I'm forcing you to, um, or whatever it may be. But oftentimes it's it's it's authentic love is not forced.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03And that's a lot of that's where our freedom comes from. It's because he loves us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think when you said authentic love, I think there's a a lot of um truth to that because we we in our culture can confuse love uh in in many different ways. And love is ultimately about giving, the giving of self. Um not to the exclusion of self uh or the exclusion of loving oneself, but it is a gift of self.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so let's let's kind of like turn what uh let's go let's go back to that's I feel like that's freedom for excellence, you know, being able to that's what the church teaches is that we're free to choose the good and it's not um a repression of who we are, how it it is a power of our will rather than like the core of who we are as human. Do you you do you get what I mean? Um like it it flows from who we are as human and it's not in an in its essence what makes us human, like the Rene Descartes, I think, therefore I am. That kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02You're saying that freedom, how we choose, does not define us. Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_03And in in in a in a way, yeah. The the the fact that I guess more of what I'm saying is the fact that we can choose between this or that, but it it there's a difference between um understanding where our freedom comes from rather than like what makes me human is the fact that I can choose between this or that. And any um inclination or suggestion or repression of my ability to choose between this or that is an in an like an infringement upon my freedom, and therefore it's an infringement on who I am as a person.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, I think I I I get what you're saying. Um, and I think, yeah, there's some there's some truth to that. Um I think what I what I would want to be careful of is I think by definition, human beings are intelligent and free. That's kind of what separates us from the rest of the created world. Um and our freedom is something that is inherent to who we are, not how we choose to use that freedom, but our the the fact that we are radically uh free, but we're radically free to love. Um and and I think um without that freedom, we wouldn't be able to love. And so I do think it is part of who we are as human beings to say that we we are free. Uh but I also think that that freedom is not something that it well, it is something that can be abused. It is just like the intel and your intelligence can be. You know, you can use your intelligence for all sorts of nefarious things in a way that's not intended. Um and and I think with our with the freedom that we have as free, intelligent, free will, um it is part of who we are. You know, if you look at the history of theology, you have different uh groups that emphasized one over the other, you know, emphasize the intellect over the will, and it's within our will that freedom resides. Um but it I think both of them are are necessary. Uh both of them can be abused. But that's kind of the beauty of what it means to be human, is that we have we can focus on one or two things. We can focus on freedom as an instrument for doing bad things, and focus exclusively on all the horrible things that human beings have done with their freedom, and there are a lot of them. Or we can focus on the good that humanity has done with their freedom, and I think more importantly, on the potential for good that still exists within humanity as time moves forward. And and that none of that is possible except that we are free, and I I'd I'd want to say it's part of who we are as human beings. But I think I know I understand what you're saying, though, that you can't define the the ability of saying this or that um and and though this or that being equal is not what defines us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, that yeah, I you put it much more eloquently.
unknownI hope so.
SPEAKER_02This is an area where you can really get into some, you know, real abstract kind of thinking that just listening to it, you might go, What are they talking about?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's okay. Um I I think at the core of it is um there's just this natural human tendency to resist authority. Um, you know, there there is also that natural human tendency to like flock towards authority, but there is also that in that in our sinfulness and our brokenness, there is that tendency to reject authority. And so when the church says you can do this, you or you can't do this, you can't do that, um, a lot of people will kind of take it as, well, the church is trying to restrict my happiness, the church is trying to restrict my joy, the church is trying to restrict my freedom. Um, and you know, in some sense it is a restriction of freedom, it's it's more so a suggestion. But I uh what I really want to get into is, you know, what is at the heart of Catholic moral theology, you know, um God as father rather than just a tyrant who just gives laws because he can.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. And I think that's at the heart of that, and I would take it one level deeper of God as love, uh, which St. John is the predominant preominant way that he defines uh a God. Um, and of course, from Catholics we often see that as a paternal uh expression of love. But I'm gonna just take a step back to what you just said because I just triggered something about we have a tendency to run away from authority, but also towards authority. And it occurs to me that when we run towards authority, we're often running away from another authority. And it it's like we're choosing who to align ourselves with. And I think this is another area where freedom is really important. And maybe I would side a little bit more on the individualistic side, in that ultimately I have to decide. Ultimately, I have the responsibility of deciding that to place myself um uh as as a Catholic uh under obedience to an extent to uh the church as the body of Christ. Uh I've done that as a priest. Um but it has that has to be a choice as well. So when someone says, as you indicated, you know, somebody says, the church is restricting my freedom, it's really not. You still have to make the decision.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and you're still free to, you know, all the church can say is here's what in our experience of 2,000 years, what we find works and doesn't work as we move towards the happiness here in this world, but the happiness eternal as well. Um, but ultimately you have to decide. So, you know, in my work as a priest, people will often come to me with moral dilemmas and they want to know what to do. And I'll say, This is what the church has consistently taught about this or that situation. And sometimes I'll say, Here are some that disagree with that, and and you know, and here's why, and others want to do it. And I we just kind of talk about that, but then and then I say, but I can't tell you what you should do, because you're going to have to make up your own mind as to whether or not to follow what the church recommends in in a given situation. Um, I would hope that we would, you know, that we would see the what makes sense. Um, but ultimately we have to follow our own conscience in in all of that. Uh but that means listening to the church. It means prayer, it means uh doing all sorts of things, you know, before you can come to that kind of a decision. Uh but then to get back to the the thing you brought up earlier, now what is at the heart of Catholic morality, I think I think that's it. I think that freedom, that love, but also that each of us has the responsibility of being self-directed, uh, understanding ourselves as uniquely made, self-directed with gifts and talents, and we have a call to use our intelligence in a way that helps us to see what we should do. And and ultimately, that's how you know St. Thomas defined conscience primarily as a rational activity. That it's something that where we are in a situation and we use our reason uh to discern what is right and wrong, and we do that with natural law, with what the church teaches, with what maybe the tradition says, as Aristotle would say, listening to our wise friends, you know, friendship is an important part of that, talking to pastors, talking to you know, people that we know make good decisions, and putting all of that together in terms of making our own decisions. Um, and I think at the heart of Catholic morality, that's what we have, is that discernment that we're called to do, guided by the Holy Spirit, of making uh moral decisions. From the church's point of view, and you alluded to this, I think um we can ask the question, why does the church want us to be moral? And I would say it's it's not just the church, but it goes way back to Aristotle as to the meaning of life, is to be happy. That morality is about happiness in this world and in the next. Now, it's not the happiness of where you're going around, you know, gleeful and everything's wonderful and I'm riding on a high all the time. It's that deep-seated recognition that um I I feel like things are where they need to be. I'm not where I need to be, but for right now, there's a deep sense of of peace. Um and we we don't always have that, but that is the ultimate goal, I think, of of morality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it just takes me to um the Beatitudes. Beatitudes in Matthew, and how oftentimes um, you know, we it's the our translations say, Blessed are they. Um and I I've heard that if you go back to like what the original language is and you look at like the more literal translation, it's really happy, are they? Um and so the great moral teaching of Christ, he's not um he he came to fulfill the law. And so he he he's giving us guidelines for how to be happy. And like you said, not just like running around gleefully all the time, right? But that deep interior joy and peace and happiness.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah, yeah. You know, I uh we try to build this into our curriculum at Brescia. Um, we call it our Caritas Initiative, which of course is the Latin word for love, but it it's an understanding of um I would always want my students to to figure out, first of all, who am I as someone loved by God and called to love? Um that's the first step. Second step is what do I need to know as someone loved and called to love? And then what do I need to do as someone loved and called to love? And that's where the morality piece comes in. But the morality piece can't really work unless you have the first two in place. You know, you have an understanding of who you are, uh, because our anthropology, how we understand ourselves is is why there are differences in ethics. You know, if you if you just look at the variety of ethical positions in in the world today, it's because they have different understandings of who we are as human beings. And then what do I need to know? Who do I need to listen to? And then what do I need need to do? And ultimately, it's about allowing God to love us and then taking that into action. What does that mean for me then? How do I need to live? With the ultimate goal, of course, as you said, the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It it it sounds like this, it's the St. Paul, you know, Christian, know thyself.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Uh you you can't um it it makes me think of like the the journey of the interior life and also a vocational discernment where you you first have to know yourself, and then you have to own yourself, and then only then can you give yourself.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03Um so it yeah, the moral and then sometimes you have to go back. Yeah, it's it's not just a perfect.
SPEAKER_02I've forgotten who I am, you know. I mean that's I think that's a big part of the moral life, and one reason why as Catholics we hold the sacrament of confession, of reconciliation so dear, is that it kind of makes us go back to reminding us of who we are, a child of God, and this is how a child of God behaves. Um, and this is how a child of God should strive to live. Um, and it's not not always easy. So I think that's probably at the heart of who we are. One of the books that influenced me uh a great deal uh when I was doing my doctoral studies was Alistair McIntyre's book, After Virtue, in which he argued that our whole, and he's he's not a theologian, he's a philosopher, but um his idea was that the whole ethical foundation that we have, or the way we do ethics, is flawed because we've forgotten the foundation. And he wanted us to return kind of to an Aristotelian model where virtue was most important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And not rules. Rules have their place, um, but ultimately it's it's got to be about virtue, both rules and virtues. And virtue, in case anybody's just wondering what do you mean by that, is a good habit. It's something where we do repeatedly to such an extent that we don't even have to think about it. You know, you practice honesty so much that you can't even tell a lie because you've consistently told the truth. And the opposite is true for a vice. You consistently tell a falsehood, eventually it just becomes second nature to lie. Um, but anyway, he was saying, you know, we've got to move away from this rule-based ethics to a more virtue-based ethics. Now, both rules and virtues have at their core a value. So the rule, um don't cheat on a test, is the value there, is honesty. Um, so a rule is anytime you take a value and you make it into a statement. A virtue is that same value but integrated into your character, made part of who you are and and and a habit. And I think that's so important, you know, especially for people who are wanting to raise their children to be moral adults, is you want them at some point to get beyond the rules. You know, you teach your kids the rules, you know, share, don't lie, say thank you, say please. But at some point you want them to be, you know, to say thank you and please, not because it's a rule, but because they're thankful people who that that that value of gratitude is so deeply embedded in who they are and their character that that just comes right out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, I virtue based ethics is yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to get at whenever I'm talking about freedom for excellence, you know. Um that there's this saying that those um who have like integrated the law into their hearts. Are no longer bound by the law. You know, you don't have you don't need the guardrails up when you're bowling if you're professional at bowling.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so I kind of I feel like oftentimes we see, for example, the Ten Commandments. Um, I I don't know about you, I don't really have a compulsion to try to murder people. Right. So I'm not really bound by that law. Praise God. Um but if you know, maybe lying or stealing, maybe that's something that hasn't fully integrated into my heart. And so I need that law to kind of be my guardrail to remind me, like, hey, you can't be doing this. Your heart wants to do it, but you can't be doing it.
SPEAKER_02I think the rules are still important because achieving virtue is a long process and it requires practice. It's like muscle memory if you play a sport or if you play the piano, you have to practice it and practice it and practice it until you don't almost you know don't even think about it anymore. But I think the rules are still important because sometimes we're tired and virtue's not kicking in. We're fed up, we're stressed out, um, and even though I might have the virtue of patience, I'm not feeling it today. So I go back to the rule, you know, treat each other with kindness, you know, might be might be the rule. Because I'm not feeling particularly kind right now, you know. So the rules are still important because they kind of go back to that. I have a I always lead a session for um uh the Leadership Kentucky and Leadership Owensburg, I'll be doing it in a couple weeks, um called Rules to Lead by, Rules and Virtues to Lead by. And so I created when I became president of Brescia, I created a series of rules for me uh that I always wanted to be sure that I followed. You know, simple things like accept responsibility, um don't try to spin out of a crisis, you know, be transparent. Those kinds of things that are good for leaders to have. Now I would hope the values behind all those rules are integrated in into my work as a leader. But I know myself, and I also know that there are times when I'm not feeling it. Um and I need to go back to that rule and just remind myself, don't forget this is important. Even when you don't feel like it, you this is what you should be doing. And so I think rules and virtues are work together, but I think ultimately what we want, what we're pursuing is a virtuous life. Um, but the rules help us get there. Uh they're tools to the virtuous life, and they're tools to to sustaining the virtuous life, because sustaining the virtuous life is also a lifelong practice, you do not something that just happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. We boy are we weak. Boy, are we weak, and we we we need those rules. Um yeah, like you said, uh we find those those times where we're tired or we're we're stressed out, we're burnt out, um, and our heart is just not in it. And that's whenever we kind of fall on the virtue of discipline. Um that's whenever you know the the importance of the virtues kind of fluctuate depending upon the state you're in.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so I feel like there, there's often an argument made that um in the time of like these moral manuals and an over emphasis on the law and like a legalistic mindset of uh the most important virtue becomes discipline. And then you kind of swing the pendulum too far, and it's like, no, everything is based on my heart and like where my heart's at. And like, yes, that's good and true, but we can't swing the pendulum too far on either side, and that itself is is is balancing virtue in itself.
SPEAKER_02You know, I think uh the important thing, and I I find this sometimes, um, especially with younger, very devout Catholics, beat themselves up a little too much when they quite aren't getting it right. I I I feel like they're that they're and and it's normal, you know, you you you're on fire with you know the the spirit and you want to do what's right and you love the church and you love the teachings of the church, and it's and and then as is inevitable, you mess up, and I find that sometimes young people are really, really hard, young, devout Catholics, not all young people, are really hard on themselves. Um and it it's a reminder to us that we don't save ourselves. It's a very humbling experience, you know, and it it should just be okay, yeah, I messed up, now I'll move on. You know, God still loves me. I throw myself before God, and and and you know, it it's not one of those things where you perfection is maybe a goal, but it's not gonna be achievable. Nobody achieves perfection in this life. I mean, we have we can pursue perfection, but even that, I'm I'm a little concerned when people say they're pursuing perfection because um just pursue who you are and who God calls you to be and recognize there are gonna be trips and wayfares and misdirections all along the way. Um, but God expects that. I mean, you know, we God expects us to sin. I don't want that to sound wrong, but I think God expects us to sin. Um, otherwise, why would we have confession? Why would we have the sacraments? And and confession is not the only sacrament of reconciliation, it's always receiving holy communion, you know, for sins that are not um that haven't separated us from God. Um so uh it God always is trying to reconcile us, uh, is always the one uh looking out for the prodigal uh to come home.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and real I you said the prodigal son, and I I've been recently introduced to a new interpretation of it that really focuses on morality and you know the who we are as human people, um, and how the younger son, the prodigal son, he left because he was hungry, but he didn't trust the father to fill his needs. And so his hunger is what drove him away, but at the end, his hunger is what brought him back. Um when he was like, Okay, I've done all I can do in my own power, and it we we often get self-reliant, um, and then we see it doesn't end us up in a good place. And so it just a very humbling reminder that we are saved by grace.
SPEAKER_02And I love the the section in that gospel where it says the father saw him from a great distance, which means he was looking for him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, so uh knew he would come back. I mean, he I think he knew he would would come back at at some point. And I and I like to think that all human beings eventually come back in some fashion. Might be the way that we think people will come back, but you know, the call uh to unity with God is something we're we're born with, we're conceived with, and it's always there no matter what we do or how we live our lives. And um, you know, I it we should never underestimate God's power to um bring somebody back home. Um we don't have that power. Yeah, but I think sometimes we we act like we should. Um we don't have that power, uh, but but God does, and we just have to trust that God will do so in the way that God chooses to do it. It might be the last breath of that person's life, you know. So um that that they respond to that call.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02That's why we've never condemned anybody to hell. I mean, nobody has ever been by the church condemned, even when we were doing lots of hellfire and brimstone, you know, uh in sermons and things, nobody has ever actually been formally declared to be in hell the way we've formally declared people to be in heaven.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Which is so powerful. It is so powerful. And again, I I I just sense this own tendency within myself to take it to the extreme on either way, you know. It's like, well, we could like for Judas, for example, we can read, you know, it'd be better for that man if he never lived. And so we're like, bam, he's in hell. There's no question about it. And then we we say things or we hear and we know things, like the church has no formal process for declaring that, and so we're like, oh, okay, so no one's in hell.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03And it's like, no, you you can't go to that extreme either.
SPEAKER_02Um we just really don't know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we really just don't know, and it's it's all I feel like a lot of it, and it's something I I even struggle with of like having that posture of I am creation and he is my creator, and like I I do not get to know everything. I may want to know everything, but I don't get to know everything. I don't always know what's best for me. Um, I don't always have all of these virtues integrated into my heart, and so like I need him to tell me what to do. And you know, even though there is that rebellion deep within me, right? Um, and it can even be like well-intended rebellion sometimes. It's like, Lord, I want to do, I want to serve you the best I can, and I think this is the best way, right? Rather than, you know, following Mary's example and being like, Lord, be done unto me according to your word, and everything is you have a good plan.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah. Do you think rebellion is ever good?
SPEAKER_03I think it depends on who you're rebelling against.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Sometimes I think we have the f we've have the gift of freedom to resist injustice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and that that is also a task we're called and that form form of rebellion. Like you said, we resist some authority, accept other authority. Um the problem with that, of course, is that sometimes people, when they fight against injustice, embrace another injustice on the other side. You know, think of the French Revolution or those kinds of things. Um human beings are incredibly complex. So no easy way to understand us.
SPEAKER_03Um so the last thing I kind of wanted to end with was um I feel like we're in kind of this uh environment in the church where um we see a lot of people, and like ourselves included, we we tend to be on either side of the pendulum. Either where, as we were kind of saying, discipline is the highest virtue and the greatest virtue, and um kind of where we fall into the do this because God said so, right. We and we're not curious as to why. Um, you know, there is a value in the curiosity, and so sometimes people will take that to the other extreme and be like, no, just you know, follow your heart. There's you know conscience, but there's no such thing as a malformed conscience. You know, we can be on both sides where there's both truth and falsity.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so something that's kind of been in coming to my attention lately is um when we look at morality as like a list of you shall nots, you shall nots, and we see them as like infringements or at least attempting to be infringements on our own freedom. Um, and I think of like the moral manuals and the Council of Trent and the quick formation of the seminary program and how they're like, we gotta get these textbooks out there. And so um, when they did that, or at least this is my understanding, is when they did that, they had um like nominalism kind of slipped in there and like a rigidity kind of slipped in there. And so we had all these priests almost formed in on the side of the pendulum that discipline is the highest virtue, right? Rather than incorporating it into your heart without taking it too far and being loosey-goosey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I think that's why it's so important to have a good understanding of the entirety of Catholic theology and how it's evolved. Uh, because it has evolved. I mean, there is definitely an evolution. I think there's some fundamental truths that stay eternal, that you know, fundamental theological values that are across all things. But I was just reading this morning um to remind myself of a it was an 18th century, 1700s debate that kind of flowed out of what you were saying. Um, and St. Alphonsus Liguri, who is the patron saint of moral theologians, um, doctor of the church, um, his one of his big contributions was the creation of a concept of equipalism. Are you familiar with that?
SPEAKER_03I haven't really I'm not.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so what happened in in about the 1700s was again this debate of moving away from that rigidity to how do we deal with the real world? You know, a real rigid framework breaks. You know, you you can't sustain that because you still have to live in the world. I mean, we're not all Cistercian monks, and even Cistercian monks have to exist in the world. Um, so the church in in all of these centuries has come to some really good wisdom with moral theology. But one of those wisdoms occurred in that in that 18th century when uh in the Jesuit tradition, they the this notion that was developed was called probabilism. And probabilism was when you're faced with a moral choice, this or that, and there are, and both of them are probable, in terms of the both have somebody who's arguing this is a good way to do this, you know, from and and maybe it's a the two theologians who disagree with each other. But one theologian has more probability than the other, you can go with the lesser as long as it's probable, as long as there's a probable, you know, that this is the right way to do things. That was uh dealt with by another uh group that came out with probabilism, which is probabilism that adds an I. And probablyorism basically said you should go with the what's more probable. So if you have both are probable, you have to go with what's more probable. And then around that same time was Jansenism was still, uh, which is a very rigid form of Catholicism, probably puritanical Catholicism. Uh they had a philosophy called tudiorism. And tudiorism basically said, just don't even worry about it, just do what you have to do, you know. Worry about it, but always take the more difficult route. Don't if if it says this is what you should do, don't look for an out. Take the most rigid way and the strictest interpretation of the law. Then um Alphonse Alphonsus said, okay, let's look at equipalism. What if there are two things that are equally probable? He said, then you can choose either. But you had all these moralists and manualists at the time who would weigh in on a situation, because they would take a situation, you know, my neighbor uh uh is starving and their family's starving, I've got more chickens than I need. If they steal my chicken, is that wrong? You know, um, one of my chickens, that kind of thing. And um, so you'd have different moralists weighing in on that. And and St. Alfonso said, if you have two that are equally probable, uh, then you could you could do that. Now, I always had the question, how do you know what's equally probable? And nobody has ever been able to answer that for me. But the point of that is that we have a very rich tradition of trying to figure things out. You know, we we have principles that have emerged over the decades that help us to figure out very complex situations. Um, you know, give as an example. Uh uh the vaccinations during COVID. You know, there was one strain that was apparently developed through a fetal cell line of uh fetuses that had been aborted way back when. It was a long time ago. Chicken pox vaccine and some other vaccines have been developed from those fetal cell lines as well. So, you know, can you participate in that? And, you know, there are certain principles and other things that had emerged in the life of the church that said, yes, with certain conditions, you know, that there, and it's it's basically about uh cooperation. Can we cooperate in what is a sinful act? Um and it's basically an acknowledgement of a messy world. The clothing we wear are largely produced often in the developing world by people who are getting, you know, below living wages, barely able to survive. Can we wear those clothes? You know, what what to what extent is our participation in some of that? So we've got a lot of answers to those kinds of very difficult questions through these principles, but the two extremes that you mentioned don't really want to listen to that. So, you know, you had some people, let's take the vaccine situation, for example, that said, do whatever you want, it really doesn't matter. You don't even need to ask that question. Just don't worry about it. If it's there to help you, science developed it, we don't have to worry about how it was developed. And then you had another group on the other side, and there were Catholics in this group that says, I don't care what the church says, I am not subjecting myself or my children to any vaccines that were developed through fetal cell lines, even though the church has said for decades and decades and decades now that there are circumstances when you can. Both are examples of being unwilling to listen to a certain wisdom that has emerged from the moral theology of the church. Both of them are, I think, as recalcitrant as each other. Because in the middle, where the church lives, because we've got, what, over more than a billion people, you know, that are Catholics, not counting other Christians, where the church lives is in those lives of trying, you know, it can't live in the life of we're gonna separate ourselves completely from the world like the Amish do, nor are we going to immerse ourselves completely in the world as maybe a pure secularist would. We're gonna live in the world doing our best with the principles and Catholic values that we have, with the gospel that we have, and especially with the command to love one another. And it's messy. But that's part of the task of moral theology. You said you like moral theology. It's a tough discipline because you have to try to balance all of those things out. And so, you know, we've developed principles for okay, in this issue, you could you could receive a vaccine if these situations and circumstances are in place, and you advocate for creating vaccines that don't use problematic cell lines. Um but it's it's trying to live in that middle, that middle space, and it's not an easy thing to do. And not everybody agrees with it. Um, but you know, that's again, they're free not to. Um, but I think they're missing out on a lot of the wisdom that the church has developed over centuries and centuries.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I've been given the wisdom um of you know you're doing the correct Catholic thing if both sides come at your throat.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_03But it's like if if not just half the people hate you, but if everyone hates you, then you're doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_02Probably in the right, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's it just makes me think of um like the Lord.
SPEAKER_02Right. But I think also we tend to, you know, then, especially those of us involved in parish leadership, we have a responsibility to articulate church teaching or to be representatives of the church, is we get the slings and arrows from both of those sides, but we forget the vast majority of people are right there with us in the middle. Um, and and it's it's the slings and arrows that come to us are often more on the fringe side. The people that are with us in the middle are people who just hungry for meaning and wanting to know how can I live my best? How can I do my best?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it it just it's not only formation of like the intellect of like what are these rules, like you said, but it's also the integration of how can I, how can these, how can I allow the Lord and open up to let the Lord infuse these into my heart.
SPEAKER_02Right. Because the rules will only take you so far because there are going to be situations where you go, okay, I have the rule, but it doesn't fit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02This doesn't take account from the fact that this is happening and this is happening. What do I do? And that's when you hopefully have developed the virtue enough to know I'm going to do this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I I feel like we just kind of need to finish with, you know, all of this, I feel like at the heart of Catholic morality is learning to just open yourself up to being wrong, being wrong and understanding that, you know, I don't always know what's best for me. And I have to kind of humble myself in the side of the Lord and recognize that if I put myself in that place where I can hear his voice and like just allow the Lord, you know, and even in this, I'm I'm trying to navigate and stay off the sides of the riverbanks and stay in the stream. Um but allow the Lord to transform our hearts while still accepting that we can't be perfect, and He knows we're gonna fail, and He's gonna meet us right there. And He's gonna meet us there, but not leave us there.
SPEAKER_02Right. And when we're walking with others, the best we can do sometimes is not to lecture them or to try to think that we have the answers for them, because maybe we don't. Um all we can do really, as Pope Francis says, is accompany them with who we are as Christians, um, but allow God to work in their lives. We don't want to be the ones working in their lives. Um I I I'm always nervous if somebody says, Thank you for being the one who did this for me, and it's like I really didn't want to do anything for you. I just wanted to be with you and hopefully allow the Lord to do for you. Um, because we can't control that. We can't control how the Lord might be working in somebody else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Beautiful. Well, thank you so so much. This is this has been tickling my brain and my heart. Well, uh, yes, thank you again, Father Leary, and thank you all for listening. I hope um this was this conversation was of great help to you. Uh maybe you have questions. Maybe maybe you're a little confused and you need to listen to it a few times. That's okay. I probably will too.
SPEAKER_01Me too.
SPEAKER_03Um but until I speak you through all again, I hope you have a blessed day.
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