The Hungry Ghost Festival: Some Catholic Thoughts

I have actually been thinking about this for some time and the hungry ghost festival presents certain interesting theological questions.

The ghosts/spirits are believed to be released on the 7th month to roam the earth, something like a "free pass." These ghosts are "hungry" in the sense that they do appreciate human beings entertaining them and giving them food etc.

From a Catholic theological perspective, there do exist "hungry ghosts". They are the Holy Souls in purgatory. They are ultimately hungry for God's love, longing and fainting for the courts of the Lord as the psalmist would say. We help them of course through offering prayers and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for them to satiate their hunger. And within Catholic tradition, these souls in purgatory do get to appear to human beings in the forms of apparitions to certain select individuals. A book entitled "hungry souls" by Dr Gerard Van den Aardweg provides fascinating material of this phenomenon. There is even a Church in Italy with a "purgatory museum" storing artifacts which have been touched by these souls a visible reminders of their visit. A bit spooky but within the boundaries of Catholic teaching.

As such, in inter-religious dialogue, this can be a good starting point to share with those who practice traditional chinese religion.

However, from a Catholic theological perspective, all we can say is that God has not revealed to us that there is a special month where souls are released from purgatory to roam the earth to beg for prayers. That would be in the category of natural human religiosity.

In anycase, we have all souls day, a day dedicated to pray for these hungry souls. There seems to me no harm per se for Catholics coming out of a Chinese religion background to intensify prayers and offer masses during the month of August should they so chose. Of course the elements not in keeping with Catholic teaching have to be slowly weaned away.

Catholics sometimes report that they feel "oppressed" during this season. Some of a more traditional/charismatic bent advocate spiritual combat. What then should one do?

For one thing Catholic teaching is clear that there is only one "King of hell", i.e. Satan. He tempts human beings all the time and will use whatever historical circumstances to bring that about. Since the hungry ghost festival is in the category of natural human religiosity, truth is often mixed with error. Hence it is very possible that satan and his minions makes use of this period of time the "hungry ghost festival" to burrow into human religious practices and cause spiritual disturbances.

Then again, God could also permit the holy souls in purgatory to be "more active" in seeking the prayers of the living during this month. If that's the case, he seems to be drawing good out of natural human religiosity.

In any case, while we can't be absolutely certain, we can draw some guidelines.

The bottom line for Catholics is Mass, the rosary and other approved devotions directed to the Holy Souls in purgatory or minor exocrisms designed to drive away infestations. According to Dr Gerard van den Aardweg, souls in purgatory when they do appear to human beings, will sadly beg for prayers, help and compassion. Damned souls/demons do not.

A Catholic knows that any attempt at placating a soul with food, entertainment, joss paper etc is while done with good intentions, is ultimately not helpful.

Worst still if Catholics attempt at placating demons via the usual hungry ghost practices.

That's one category of intelligent beings we absolutely don't negotiate with.

Body Shop and Natural Family Planning

You’re beautiful whatever your quirks… It’s about making the best of yourself without having to try to hard but sometimes you may need a helping hand… we unearth nature’s ingredients the secrets of timeless regimes and we bring your products bursting with effectiveness… we do this while respecting the planet, the communities who depend on it and standing up for causes that are important to the world we live in because we believe that is only one way to be beautiful, nature’s way.”
Nope this is not the latest commercial by the Couple to Couple League or the Australian Council of Natural Family Planning but by BodyShop the second largest cosmetic franchise in the world. Yet this text could have easily been transposed into an advertisement promoting Natural Family Planning. Indeed, if Dame Anita Roddick’s successors were to declare to the world that they have designed a product that is suitable for sophisticated first world women and poor third world women in whatever stage of their lives, and in whatever physical condition to understand and responsibly manage and monitor their reproductive health which is simultaneously natural, drug free, low cost, environmentally friendly, effective in both postponing and achieving pregnancy, helps in marital communication and a more enjoyable sex life , and actually acts as a protective factor against divorce, they might actually win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Considering the contemporary wave of enthusiasm for natural, organic and sustainable products, it would seem that the Church will do well to promote Natural Family Planning as an environmentally friendly lifestyle choice. After all, most people would react to a reminder to lead a healthy lifestyle with a grudging nod of the head. And on the other hand, most who promote healthy lifestyles do make allowance for an occasional indulgence in food dripping with trans-fat. Yet Church’s teaching has always been that the use of Natural Family Planning is not merely a healthier lifestyle choice, i.e. the difference between eating processed or natural foods, but the only morally legitimate choice for couples intending to space their families and that only for serious reasons. It considers the use of the contraceptive pill and any and all forms of contraceptives not simply as a physical evil akin to ingesting a high dosage of cholesterol into your body but a moral evil, which done with full knowledge and consent of the will constitutes mortal sin which can cut one of eternally from union with their Creator.

Can this teaching be rationally defended? I think so and in my next post, I will share how…

Studies at John Paul II Institute

Whew! Its been a month already since i arrived in Melbourne and I am really enjoying my studies at John Paul II institute.

Classes are usually about no more than 10 people thus giving a sense of community and opportunity for free flowing discussion. We are a mixture of clergy and laity from different walks of life united however with a basic conviction and love for the Catholic church and a desire to engage the culture at large in a rigorous and thorough manner. You might be surprised but there are quite a number of Asians studying at JP2!

There are two singaporeans (myself and Gregory who's dad Thomas is active in Marriage encounter and who was a former exco member of Family Life Society). Gregory brought his wife Elizabeth and his five month old son Nathan along to melbourne. he is studying for a graduate diploma and shared that studying theology was what he always wanted to do.


Another two fulltime students are Simone and Jasmine. Simone is from Australia and she is often seen in the chapel praying before the lessons. She studied theology at graduate level and is now pursuing a masters.

Jasmine is from HongKong and she is here because she was inspired by another Hongkonger Peter Ho who is doing his PhD examining the understanding of the virtue of chastity in scripture.

Among the clergy there are Korean, Thai, Mauritian and Vietnamese priests. The Vietnamese priest Fr John Baptiste Nguyen is having a bit of a struggle with English and i try to help him by sharing my notes. He is determined though to succesfully complete his studies in bioethcis as he has been given a scholarship and will not want to disappoint his Bishop and his benefactor back home. I really admire and respect his determination. One thing i notice is a total lack of clericalism on the part of the clergyman. After all we are fellow students who are engaging the same material and i think that's healthy.
We also have a sprinkling of other students who are doing courses part time and for audit. They are mostly australian. There is a Canadian student Peter Baklinski who is doing his PhD examining the vexed question of portraying the human body in art. He graciously invited me to his place for dinner. His wife and three kids came with him all the way from Canada and we had interesting conversations about beauty art and philosophy. He is also an accomplished pianist and has actually produced a CD of piano pieces inspired by the Theology of the Body. You can actually visit his website and have a look. They are quite good, i bought an MP3 version of it myself =)

http://www.resonanceofthegift.com/resonance_of_the_gift/Welcome.html

The lecturers are really top notch in their field. In terms of teaching method, Dr Adam Cooper is the best and is a really good teacher, able to breakdown complicated concepts into understandable portions. Aristotle and Plato are easier to understand with him around. Dr Tracey Rowland the Dean has very important things to say as well and is very generous and helpful in freely lending her collection of books an articles to students who may want to use them for reference. Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filipini teaches the NFP module and is the associate dean and head of the Bioethics Department. He is a quiet superhero really. He has been going for dialysis for many years and thus, his reflection and teaching on bioethics has a very personal bite to it.

Bishop Peter Elliot who teaches the Marriage in the Catholic Tradition module and who is the Institute's director is humorous and wise and happily weaves in apologetics when he talks about the history of the Christian understanding of marriage.

So yes am enjoying the company very much. It does get a bit lonely at night though when i am back home but i guess that's part of the experience of living overseas.

 

I've got a couple of blog posts i intend to write, a series of reflections on what i have learnt so far and its relevance for contemporary culture. I've got the titles for them, "Aristotle's classification of knowledge and the modern confusion of the practical and theoretical", "Plato's cave - thoughts for a modern day apostle", "Duns scotus: On the right way to worship and not getting yourself into metaphysical trouble" "Contraception: it's been around...we've just got better at it. "Marriage abortion and infaticide: The revenge of the Romans", "Speciesm, if man is a naked ape, then plants are capable of screaming"

 

Just need to get down to writing them. Stay tuned!

My First Days In Melbourne

As some of you know, I will be commencing studies at the John Paul II Institute beginning 15th Feb 2010. I will be there until Nov 2010. Am really looking forward to this.

Just like to introduce you to two people whom i am sharing the same accomodation with.

The first is my landlady Shirley Low. She's a Singaporean who has been staying in Melbourne for close to six years already. A mandarian and teochew speaking evangelical christian who accepted Christ a number of years ago she loves gospel music (in chinese of course) and plays it when she is at home and in the car. When i asked her about her conversion story, she simply said that there was a time when she really needed help and she prayed to Jesus and soon realised that He truly was the true and Living God.

                                                                                                                       Shirley reading the Bible

The second is "auntie susan" as we call her who is renting a place (like me) from Shirley while looking to buy a new house. She was originally from Cambodia and arrived in Australia in 1983. An australian citizen, i found out today that she was one of the vietnamese boat people who packed into boats by the 100s, drifting into open sea and hoping to be rescued, in the hope of escaping communist oppression and for a better life. In her case, she fled cambodia for vietnam in 1975 when the Khemer Rouge took over her country and had to flee again in the early 1980s when life under communist rule prove unbearable. In a matter of fact way, she told me that escaping from Vietnam was a gamble. If you win, you get rescued by boats and may be able to fin asylum in a friendly country. If not, you get drowned when you boat capsizes. What was not an option (at least for her) was continued stay in Vietnam. She is grateful to Australia for accepting her and proudly recounts how her two children are now successful in life. Her son is a professor at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) while her daughter has her own business. She too became an evangelical Christian but only a couple of months ago.

So i have a landlady and a fellow tenent who prefers to speak Mandarin and Teochew. Devout Christians both, i am very happy to be here and will surely be developing my faith, and chinese langaguage skills while i am here!

A first in my 28 years as a Catholic: A homily explaining the church’s teaching on contraception.

Today is the 4th October 2009. It is also the 27th Sunday in Ordinary time if you are liturgically minded.

So what’s so special about today?

Well, of course Sunday is always special. After all, it’s the Lord’s day and we should take the time to worship, rest and relax (in that order).

What makes it a bonus of course, is when you hear a homily which inspires and uplifts.

Well that was what I heard today. The parish was St Joseph’s Church (Bukit Timah). The mass was 11am. And the homilist was Fr. Alex Chua, Vocations Director and Chaplain for the Universities, Archdiocese of Singapore.

And he chose to preach about contraception, and why Catholics who use contraception should go to confession for they would be guilty of serious sin.

To be honest, it was simply a typical Sunday Mass for me. I arrived just in time, settle down to the pew, tried to follow the Gloria and the Kyrie as best as I could and sat down to listen to the readings.

The first reading was from Genesis 2, 18-24 where we heard that God created man and woman and that a man shall leave his father and mother and unite with his wife and the two shall be one flesh.

The Gospel was from Mk 10,2-16 where Jesus spoke against divorce and quoted Genesis 2, 18-24 to demonstrate God’s original plan for man and woman.

Fr. Alex Chua read the Gospel and proceeded to give the homily.

Fr Alex then recounted an incident where a woman who had three children complained bitterly to him that because of her “stupid husband”, she is now pregnant with her fourth child. She resents that and asked Fr Alex, “where in the bible does it say that couples cannot use contraception”.

And for good measure, she informed Fr Alex that she did ask a priest about this and he gave such a convoluted answer that it was of no help at all.

I cringed at the beginning of the homily, wondering where all this would lead. Would Fr. Alex proceed to attack the Church’s teaching on contraception? Would he disparage the clear teaching of Humane Vitae?

I saw my parish priest, Fr Edmund, a man known for his orthodoxy and fidelity to church teaching (he is never seen without his roman collar), squinting his eyes and listening attentively to what would be preached.

My fears were unfounded. What followed was a wonderful homily on the truth of marital love and conjugal union that I nearly wept for joy.

Fr Alex proceeded to give a learned scriptural exegesis on the Bible’s description of the conjugal union as a one flesh union.

“In the conjugal act”, preached Fr Alex, “it is an act of total and unreserved self giving.” “You are attempting to be one flesh with your spouse. How can you be one flesh when you refuse to give your spouse your sperms or eggs?”

Fr proceeded to share that the conjugal act possess two meanings, union and procreation. By separating the procreative dimension from the unitive, couples would fail to unite themselves completely too and that is a recipe for selfishness.

“Contraception is death dealing”, insisted Fr Alex, “we are people of life and true union is the goal of every marriage, especially in the conjugal act.” “What happens in the bedroom will affect what happens in the day to day of married life. If there is no union there, there would not be true union in a marriage.”

Fr proceeded to assure couples that the church does not insist that you must have as many children as possible but insists on responsible parenthood. “Every couple who marries ought to know about natural family planning. Please check with the parish secretary for NFP information.”

He subsequently shared that the woman who challenged him admitted that he did know the scripture after all.

And to end it all, he urged couples who are contracepting to throw away their contraceptives into the rubbish bin, begin dialogue with each other and come for confession and be reconciled with the Church.

Wow!

Now I am paraphrasing what I remembered from Fr Alex’s homily and his homily is much better than what I have recalled. Will try to get the full text and post it in this blog.

And when i congratulated Fr Alex on a beautiful homily, he humbly said "well, with today's reading, what else should we priests preach on."

If you would like to thank Fr Alex, you can write to him here. SingaporeDiocesanVocation@gmail.com

Thank God for a courageous and compassionate priest! Deo Gratias!

Beware also of Intolerant Secularism: On PM Lee's National Day Rally

I would give the Prime Minister 85 out of 100 for his national day rally speech on race and religion.

First the good points.

It was good that the Prime Minister praised religion, as “a positive force in human societies… provid[ing] spiritual strength, guidance, solace and a sense of purpose to many, especially in our fast-changing and uncertain world”.

Also, it is always a good thing to remind religious Singaporeans and their religious leaders (85% of the population by the way) of the need to be tolerant, rational and grow the common space so that all can live harmoniously.

When then, you may ask, does he score only 85 marks at least in the mind of this Singaporean (whatever that grade is worth to the PM of course)?

That’s because, in the PM’s attempt to “assess progress” and “recognize trends”, he has somehow neglected to include a sector of Singaporeans (about 15% of them) in his analysis; namely Singaporeans who identify themselves as professing no religion, and who describe themselves variously as freethinkers, secularists, atheists or agnostics.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against such Singaporeans. I count a few of them as my friends. While not being religiously inclined themselves, and sometimes looking at their religiously inclined Singaporeans (I am one of them) with a certain amount of bemusement, they are, mostly tolerant, rational and also value the harmonious multi racial and multi religious society that is Singapore.

My “gripe” with the PM (if I can use that word), is very simple actually. Why is this group of Singaporeans somehow exempt from scrutiny, and from the need to be reminded by our national leaders that they too must play their role in striving towards a harmonious Singapore?

It is true. Some religiously inclined persons are susceptible to intolerant and irrational ideas and need to be put in their place.

But are so called “non-religious” persons, by virtue of their non-religiosity, naturally immune to the plague of intolerance and irrational behaviour?

I would think not.

In a speech about a year ago, Anthony Fisher, auxillary Bishop of Sydney coined the term “dogmatic secularism” to describe secularists who are “uncomfortable with pleas of immunity on religious or other conscientious grounds.”

Bishop Fisher should know. The State of Victoria, Australia, recently passed a law not only legalizing abortion up to 24 weeks but also mandating that doctors and other healthcare professionals who object to abortion on religious or conscientious grounds “refer women who approach them to other healthcare professionals”. Not only that, they are required to perform the abortion in case of an emergency. Failure to do so would result in a lost of their medical license.

This is a clear case of dogmatic secularists griped by intolerant behavior.

But surely secularists in Singapore are different. We will never go the way of the West.

I hope so but I am not so sure.

Indeed, if one is to browse through any major bookstore in Singapore (Borders and Kinokuniya comes to mind), one would quickly discover books with titles that are, to put it mildly, provocative.

We will quickly discover, titles like “God is not great: Why religion poisons everything” by Christopher Hitchens. Or if you prefer, there is also “the God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins (who by the way called the teaching of religion to children by parents a form of child abuse and has gone on record to call for government intervention). And if you are still in the mood “the atheist manifesto” by Michael Onfray, who for good measure, subtitles his book “the Case against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.”

Books do not appear on the shelves of major bookstores unless there is a market for them. And judging by their prominent locations (very often in the religion section of all places), there is a sizeable demand.

Nor is this appetite for books advocating dogmatic secularism simply read as a pastime.

We see intolerant secularism actually rearing its ugly head in concrete actions.

Take the question of homosexuality for instance. If you disagree in public, even in Singapore, where homosexual sex acts are technically illegal, that the homosexual lifestyle should be promoted as a normal or a neutral thing, you had better be prepared to face being called "fundamentalist", "Christian Taliban" "hate monger" and other types of inflammatory language which, if used in other contexts, will risk bringing down the power of the sedition act on you for inciting racial and religious tension.

Or if you are a religiously inspired organization, who intend to raise money for a children’s learning centre by tying up with a local bank, but happen to also hold views on sexuality deemed by secularists to be politically incorrect, you risk facing a campaign waged against you demanding that Singapore’s largest bank stop its tie up with you.

Or if you are a parent concerned about what’s being taught for sexuality education in schools, you might be accused of “have[ing] an inflated sense of your own worth in society” “a selfish, ignorant fool” and “a menace to society”. (Oh yes this was published in a mainstream newspaper’s blog before it was thankfully taken down. If you want the full text of this so called journalist’s vile writings, please email me separately).

But nevertheless kudos to you, Prime Minister. It was good of you to remind our religious leaders and religiously inclined Singaporeans to be vigilant and not allow racial and religious intolerance to boil over.

It would have been even better if you have reminded the 15 percent of non-religious/secular Singaporeans that the same rules which apply to religious groups also apply to them.

Now I know that dogmatic secularists might accuse me of making a mountain out of a molehill and that they are fundamentally nice people and that I am engaged in scaremongering. (after all, that’s what religious people are often good at).

For the sake of this country, I hope for once that they are right.

Saruman at Notre Dame

Commentary: Saruman at Notre Dame
By Thaddeus J. Kozinski

President Obama's masterful speech was widely applauded -- but what did he actually say?

"Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell. For some the spell lasted only while the voice spoke to them, and when it spake to another they smiled, as men do who see through a juggler’s trick while others gape at it. For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were far away, and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them. But none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it." ~ “The Speech of Saruman,” J.R.R.Tolkien, The Two Towers

Towards the middle of his May 17th commencement address at Notre Dame, President Barack Obama asked the following questions:

Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Essential and vital questions, these, and the concise and straightforward manner with which he proposed them reveals Obama’s rhetorical brilliance. But Obama did more than propose thought-provoking questions to his Catholic audience; he provided definite answers to these, at least for those in the audience not entirely spellbound. Obama’s answers, along with the philosophical and theological principles they presuppose, were deftly hidden behind his rhetorically honed, magical words; and when they are exposed to the light, they reveal a different incantation than the one that appeared upon the exquisitely polished linguistic surface.

In the middle of the address, Obama recounts the story of a Christian doctor who informed him that he would not be voting for him for President in the upcoming election, due not to Obama’s pro-choice position, but to the uncivil, ideological language in which this position was expressed on his website. Obama then told the audience how he immediately changed the wording, expressing his hope that “we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all.” This anecdote, I think, provides an interpretive key to understanding not only the essential point of Obama’s Notre Dame address, but also his entire political project as expressed in his many addresses, writings, and acts since President.

Reconciling the Irreconcilable

The anecdote is a microcosm of Obama’s macro-political vision: a multitude of people with irreconcilable religious and moral convictions living together in peace and reconciliation. “Irreconcilable” is not my word, mind you, it’s Obama’s. From the Notre Dame address:

Understand — I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Of course, by definition there can be no “reconciliation” between irreconcilable views, but Obama means something entirely different here. In light of the doctor story, what it means to “reconcile the beliefs of each with the good of all,” is not to change or encourage others to change views on an issue, but simply to change the way the view is articulated, so as not to “caricature” any opposing view.

The doctor’s “humble” request for rhetorical civility, and Obama’s ready acquiescence to it, is the model for such reconciliation. “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion,” Obama quotes the doctor as saying, “only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

A question arises, here, though: Why would someone who believes abortion to be the deliberate murder of a fully human and innocent person, as the pro-life doctor does, not ask everyone they meet, let alone a President with the most power to see it criminalized, to oppose abortion! That is, why would someone with such a “passionate conviction” judge the “fair-mindedness” of pro-murder language more important than truth, than speaking in such a way as most effectively to stop the killing? We are talking, after all, about a life and death issue here, not one’s view on the estate tax.

Can Values be Aligned Without Changing Them?

In the speech, Obama urged all Americans to “align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age,” that is, not to change our values and commitments, whether secularist or religious, but merely align them. What this alignment entails must have something to do with the exchange between the doctor and Obama, our models of American virtue.

Allow me to change the anecdote a bit to help discover the connection. The year is 1834, and the issue is slavery, not abortion. There is a law that allows a slave to be killed by its master for any reason whatsoever, and thus thousands of innocent slaves are killed every year. The “pro-life” doctor opposes this law, but his senator advocates it. The doctor, after mystically hearing Obama’s future Notre Dame speech in a prophetic dream, is mesmerized by Obama’s “fair-mindedness,” and recognizes that the “demands of the new age” require that he and every other opponent of the murder of slaves refrain from asking pro-slave-murder persons to change their views, but ask only that they improve their rhetoric. The senator has the same dream, which causes him to recognize that his highest obligation is being fair-minded when he supports the murder of slaves so as not to “caricature” any opposing views.

I think the point is made: if being rhetorically civil were the extent of the required “alignment” for the 19th century America citizen, we would still have legalized slavery, not to mention the genocide of tens of thousands of African-Americans. Needless to say, there would be no President Obama. Suppose the situation were a President proposing a mass genocide of “less-than-human” Jews. “Okay,” assures the President to the doctor, “I’ll be fair-minded and say that they are quite human while we kill them.” One gets the point.

Irony, Faith and Doubt

I said at the outset that the questions in Obama’s speech at Notre Dame could be mined not only for Obama’s answers, but also for the theological and philosophical principles his answers presuppose. More space would permit me to treat these in some depth; for now, allow me to shed light on what I consider to be the central philosophical/theological reason that Obama would advocate a social and political ideal favoring conversational fairness over truth, and use as his main example what the majority of Americans consider to be a life and death issue. Here is the master key, as it were, that unlocks Obama’s speech:

But remember too, that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt... This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame.

I propose this more philosophically and theologically transparent translation:

Whatever “values” and “commitments” we may hold to be true, those that stem from or involve in any way our “faith” must be held with a certain amount of irresolvable doubt—for the “truth” in these sorts of matters can never be known. And this is why we should seek above all to continue, not ever resolve, the “moral and spiritual debate,” whose quite attainable goal is not the truth of any political matter, no matter how life-threatening, but “fair-mindedness.”

I think this interpretation, or something like it, is best able to make sense of why a pro-life Christian doctor revealing his tolerance of the mass-murder of baby-humans in the womb is held up by the President of the United States as a model of civic virtue to a group of graduating Catholic college students. Needless to say, such a relativistic notion of faith and truth is completely irreconcilable with any genuinely religious worldview, and according to Obama, that means over 90 percent of the American people.

What “fair-minded” voices, then, would be permitted to speak in this sort of “vigorous debate”? Would those who refuse to accept its relativistic presuppositions, and who say so plainly, be “caricaturing” their opponents? The kind of debate Obama’s “faith” would “compel” us to undertake is a mockery of debate, for it denigrates the point of any debate, the discovery of truth, and therefore it denigrates the human beings who participate in it, for our greatest desire is to know, love, and act upon the truth.

But with truth eclipsed by “fair-minded” rhetoric as the political summum bonum, what is to prevent the strongest and must ruthless – but, of course, rhetorically “fair-minded”—from exerting power over the weaker? Sure, the pro-life doctors would be speaking quite nicely with all the pro-abortion abortion doctors, while the baby humans are slaughtered in their wombs.

Pace the president of Notre Dame, I, fair-mindedly, or perhaps not, decline to participate in Obama’s “renewal” of political life, in solidarity with all the baby humans killed in the past and who will be killed in the future due to the amoral cultural, spiritual, and political climate only exacerbated by Obama’s cleverly cloaked relativism, wherein the weakest and most defenseless are given a, not-so-fair-minded, silent treatment. Obama asks us not to caricature other American citizens—fine—but let us ask, nay, demand that he not allow them to be murdered.

This article by Dr. Thaddeus J. Kozinski, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Trivium at Wyoming Catholic College, in Lander, Wyoming, was originally published on MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons Licence. If you enjoyed this article, visit MercatorNet.com for more. http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/saruman_at_notre_dame/