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Contributors
J.F. Kelly, Jr. - Contributor
J.F.
Kelly, Jr. is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who
writes on current events and military subjects. He is a resident
of Coronado, California. [go to Kelly index]
 When
Moral Codes and Laws Collide
The Schiavo tragedy…
[J. F. Kelly, Jr.] 3/23/05
Man-made laws often derive from religious principles but not
always, nor should they necessarily. Religions differ greatly
and their rules should never be imposed on non-believers or on
each other. Separation of church and state is a good thing and
our Constitution wisely guards against establishment of a state
religion. It also, however, provides for the right of all citizens
to practice their religious beliefs freely so long as they do
not attempt to impose them on others.
Sometimes the differences
between God’s laws as seen
by the religious faithful and man-made laws are basic and substantial
as, for example, those regarding abortion, stem cell research,
euthanasia, cloning, homosexual acts and same-sex marriage. Two
current examples may serve to illustrate.
Terri Schiavo, whose smiling, upturned countenance has appeared
on newspaper pages and TV screens for months, had her feeding
tube removed by order of a Florida court. Ms. Schiavo is not
brain dead nor is she on a respirator. She is in what is referred
to as a persistent vegetative stage (PVS) and cannot care for
herself in any way. Without the feeding tube she would starve
to death. A state may consider such action as humane but to true
followers of many religions, including the Catholic Church, it
is murder.
President Bush and
Republicans in Congress returned to Washington in an unprecedented
attempt to intervene in this case and save
Ms. Chiavo. Democrats, by and large, opposed this intervention,
as did many advocates of the so-called right to die. It’s
incredible to me that this issue can come down to Democrats vs.
Republicans or liberals vs. conservatives but that seems to be
the case nowadays with most of the major moral issues. It’s
perfectly understandable, however, that traditional religions
like the Roman Catholic Church that consider all life sacred,
oppose so-called mercy killing. For them, no compromise is possible
on this issue. To accuse Mr. Bush and his Republican colleagues
of political motives for intervening in this case trivializes
the possibility that they are acting purely to save a human life
in accordance with deeply felt religious and moral beliefs.
A second illustration
involves the recent decision by Bishop Robert Brom of the Catholic
Diocese of San Diego to deny a Catholic
funeral to a man that reportedly owned two gay businesses. The
decision was denounced by family members, friends, the gay community,
a major daily newspaper and indeed by many who described themselves
as Catholics, as narrow-minded and mean spirited. Wasn’t
the Catholic Church supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner?
But some of the arguments missed the central point entirely.
The Church does in
fact hate the sin and love the sinner, so much so that it wants
the sinner to repent the sin, confess it
and receive absolution through the Church’s sacrament of
Reconciliation or penance. “How convenient for sinners,” skeptics
might say but that would convey an ignorance of the Church’s
condition that the sinner must also resolve to sin no more.
On the other hand,
a person who practices or promotes, as normal and wholesome,
activities which their Church defines as sinful,
including homosexual acts, and does not repent and obtain forgiveness
through the sacrament of Reconciliation can be denied the other
sacraments including final rites. That may be considered to be
harsh and discriminatory by critics, but religions have a constitutionally
protected right to follow Biblical teachings regarding homosexual
acts so long as they do not violate their civil rights or other
laws or seek to impose their beliefs forcibly upon others. Bishop
Brom’s ruling was entirely consistent with Catholic teachings
and is not subject to the rules of political correctness.
My fellow Catholics
who disagreed so vocally with Brom’s
ruling simply cannot have it both ways. The comments of some,
including so-called gay Catholics, do nothing to change the Church’s
teachings on this issue. There is a huge difference in credibility
on this matter between practicing Catholics and those who crowd
the church pews only on Christmas and Easter and selectively
follow their Church’s teachings.
The point of all
this is to argue that it may be valid to criticize religions
and the so-called religious right whenever they attempt
to impose their beliefs forcibly on others but it is pointless
to attack the beliefs themselves. I was critical of the attempts
by some Catholic leaders to impose Church sanctions on Sen. John
Kerry for his refusal to condemn a woman’s freedom of choice
regarding reproductive rights and on Catholic voters who supported
him but I am equally critical of those who would attack any church’s
right to regard mercy killing, homosexual acts, embryonic stem
cell research or abortion as sinful behavior. tOR
copyright
2005 J. F. Kelly, Jr.
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