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Cardinal Newman Catechist
Consultants — 24th May, 2017 — HANDOUTS n. 146
“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
What's gone wrong and how to fix it
How to fix SIN and ERROR from Satan
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WHAT’S
GONE WRONG
THE
MESS we are in is very much the product of an upbringing without God and
without morals.
People
in parliaments and its bureaucracies, many schools (state and Catholic)
have set morals aside. Values clarification, as taught
in schools, was situation ethics and therefore relativism.
Before
the 1960s, state schools upheld natural morality and, although “free,
compulsory and secular”, upheld God and patriotism. In the 1940s primary
school we chanted, “I honour my God, I serve my King, I salute my flag”.
But not any more...
LAURENCE KOHLBERG, 1927-1987
Kohlberg,
a USA atheist psychologist, persuaded teachers to use dilemma situations.
Students were to progress (or regress!) through his Six Stages of
Cognitive Moral Development. This high sounding verbiage, like
bright colours, was alluring. In the 1970s, it seduced many schools in
Australia. State and Catholic schools embraced it. They were teaching
moral error and leading students into sin.
Kohlberg’s
Sixth Stage was Moral Autonomy: auto=self (e.g.
automatic cars or pistols): nomos=law. It meant “1 am a law unto
himself.” “I make my own morality.” The supreme virtue is “doing my own
thing.”
Individualism is an illusion, a fur-lined mousetrap. “No one can tell me
what to think. No one can make me do things. I’m autonomous...”
When
citizens in a democracy lack the virtues required to make democracy
workable, they become slaves to rigid conformity, to Political
Correctness, to error, sin and Satan. Thus individualism produces its
apparent opposite: enslavement by dictatorial governments such as Marxism
or fascism. That’s where we are heading...
Then
Kohlberg did an about-face. He found that students were
lying in lectures and cheating in exams. So he reversed his prohibition
on teaching right and wrong — at least for lying and cheating.
It
is this vicious individualism, along with Margaret Mead (1901-1978) and
others, Australian society, including Catholics, has been left without
moral standards and without religion that demands virtues.
Restraint is no longer self-imposed by conscience. Until the 1960s,
the better formed mothers, fathers, schools, media and citizens, mostly
believed and upheld the difference between good and evil. Now all that is
sneered at. It is not Politically Correct.
Restraint
is now merely external, imposed by police surveillance, burgeoning
bureaucracies, and government inquisitions run by un-elected Change
Agents (see
.Handouts n. 145), They have replaced personal conscience.
Psychological fragility abounds. How is it that a country
with free speech and university students with academic freedom need
trigger warnings? Weaklings!
HOW
TO FIX IT
THERE is only one solution to the problem of sin: Repent and believe the Gospel of
Jesus Christ
Reflect
on the apostolic Church of the first century. In Jerusalem, at Pentecost,
St Peter could quote the Old Testament to Jews. They
firmly believed it.
At
Athens, St Paul used the Idol to an Unknown God to turn
the less proud philosophers towards Jesus. There are some similarities in
our situation today.
At
Corinth, he reminded pagans of sin and their need of a Saviour, To
synagogue Jews of the Diaspora and Greek converts to Judaism (and
probably to curious pagans), he proclaimed Jesus was the Messiah.
Later,
he talked with Felix, Festus and Agrippa about morals, and they heard his
speeches to the Jews.
It
is in the Acts of the Apostles we hear of the initial
evangelization. Epistles were for those already converted, with
a few mentions of earlier conversion.
But where should we start the new Evangelization?
*
We pray and worship God, and encourage each other.
* We are friendly, helpful and win the confidence of
pagans.
*
We give to all an outstanding example of virtue.
*
We talk to people starting from where they are at: other
people in their lives; where they live; what they work at; their hopes
(everyone has hopes); their purpose in life; whence comes free will and
the power of choosing.
*
As for bringing up children, we contribute our own 7Rs:
Religion, Respect, Reason, Responsibility, and (the old 3Rs) Reading,
Writing, 'Rithmetic.
* And we can always begin with today’s moral issues: marriage,
family, sex, reproduction, pleasure; death and afterwards; euthanasia,
abortion, contraception; terrorists, wars and rumours of wars soon to
come.
*
We must know our Bible: the noblest ideas and ideals ever heard, taught
by Jesus Christ Who died and Resurrected.
*
We must know the Ten Commandments: as natural law,
natural moral law, natural morality; as foundations and authority for our
present civil law,
*
We must be aide to explain why we believe in God and the soul;
of rights and duties; of life as a testing time; of judgement to
come; of Heaven and Hell.
*
We must give them Jesus and His Church.
*
We expect opposition to be stirred up by Satan.
*
We must be known for our love and kindness for sinners, and cheerfulness
and encouragement to all.
*
We must be known for rejecting all false ideas/ideals from
unGodly & unfriendly governments, media and academics, all of whom
claim to have authority to control our thinking and choosing. They aim to
keep us quiet with hand-outs, “bread &. circuses”, cake
& promiscuity — with persecution for those who refuse to worship, to
engage in the new idolatry and bow the knee to the Baals.
Blessed
are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’s (virtue’s) sake:
theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
8th Beatitude: Matthew
5:10-11
Fear
not, little flock, your Father will give you a kingdom.
Luke 12:32
“Without a vision, the people perish”
SEE, JUDGE AND ACT
Catholics
and other Christians can live by and witness to the Good News of Christ
in the face of the new paganism in Australia, USA, EU. (See Handouts
n. 145).
Christian
Doctrine underpins Christian morality.
Christian
Morals means living by doctrinal truth. Actio
sequitur esse, “Action flows from being.”
Christian
spirituality is a perfection of Christian morality.
Without it, no one perseveres in vocations like matrimony, priesthood or
Religious Life.
Today’s
tragic collapse of marriage & family, priesthood & Religious
Life, was occasioned by VCII, but not caused by it. It
is the evil fruit of doctrinal neglect and promotion of heterodoxy. The
catechetical wars since the 1970s flowed from false religion in priestly
and Religious formation plus many infernal seminars.
The
way forward? Restore orthodox doctrine, hence morality, hence
spirituality, and vibrant Christian living. We have so much to offer:
·
God and His revelation through His Divine
Son.
·
Moral encouragement: Good Samaritan, Prodigal
Son.
·
Practical ideals: bodily and spiritual
works of mercy.
·
A solid foundation for human moral life:
the Decalogue,
DECALOGUE = TEN COMMANDMENTS
The
Ten Commandments, Exodus
20 and Deuteronomy 6,
are the natural moral law, natural morality, built-in to
human nature in our power to discern good & evil. Other religion
lacked such complete insight into it.
No one
can reverse in-built morals said Cicero,
pagan Roman lawyer, 106-43 11.C.
IF
IT WERE not grounded in nature there would be no justice, and all virtues
would cease to exist.
How
otherwise can magnanimity, love of one’s country, pietas,
meriting the good opinion of others and honouring obligations, exist? For
these arise from the fact that we are by nature inclined to love
our fellow men. This is the foundation of justice. Were this not so, then
respect for our fellow men, and for the ceremonies and religions of the
gods would cease — things that must be preserved, not out of fear but
because of the link that exists between man and god [in coniunctione
quae est hommi cum deo]. If what is just is decided by the
will of the people, or by decrees of princes or sentences of judges, then
thievery could be lawful, as could adultery and perjury — if
such were determined by the votes or opinions of the mob. Were such power
to arise from the opinions and commands of unwise people, then by their
will the very nature of things would be turned on its head. What is to
stop such people declaring evil and pernicious things to be good and
sound? If such ‘law’ [based on opinion] can make unjust things just, what’s
to stop it making evil things, good? Nature is the norm that enables us
to distinguish a good law from a bad one. And it’s not only justice and
injustice that are judged by their nature, but also, of course, what is
honourable and what is dishonourable. For, as common sense makes clear to
us, and instills in our minds from our very beginnings, honour is derived
from virtue, and dishonour from vice. It would be madness to think that
their reality is determined by people’s opinion rather than by their very
essence.
Cicero, De Legibus, Liber Primus §§ 43-45
transl. by Father Paul Stenhouse MSC,
Annals Australasia 2/2017
St
Paul proclaimed objective moral goodness as the law “written
in our hearts” (Romans 2:15).
Cicero speaks of it again in another passage:
There
is in fact a true law, namely right reason, which is in accordance with
nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal. By its
commands this law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its
prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong. Its commands and
prohibitions always influence good men, but are without effect upon the
bad.
To
invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor is
it permissible ever to restrict its operation and to annul it wholly is
impossible. Neither the Senate [of ancient republican Rome] nor the
people can absolve us from our obligation to obey this law, and it
requires no Sextus Aelius [a famous politician] to expound and interpret
it. It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will
it be one rule today and another tomorrow. But there will be one law,
eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times and upon all peoples; and
there will be, as it were, one common master ;md ruler of men, namely
God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter and its sponsor.
Cicero,
Republic III, 22 (trans. by Brother Christian Moe FSC)
Further
persuasion comes from common sense:-
LOGICAL SEQUENCE in the Decalogue
Memorize the Ten Commandments by understanding their
logic: three for God. then seven for man.
God
must be honoured in thought, word and deed: so nn. 1, 2
and 3 are on God, His Name, His Day.
Next
to God, parents must be honoured, n. 4: They teach us out duties to
others, in deeds, words, thoughts.
Deeds:
nn. 5, 6 and 7 protect Life, Marriage and Property: no murder, adultery
or theft.
Words must not be lies, n, 8: no false witness.
Thoughts must be pure on marriage & sex, n. 9; and against greed,
n. 10.
DEFENCE of the TEN COMMANDMENTS
·
Why
negatives? “First do no harm” is the surgeon’s motto.
·
Telling
what not to do is best not learnt by injury or death!
·
They’re
duties, with rights only implicit lest we forget duties.
·
Christ
ratified each and raised it to a nobler standard of virtue.
·
Virtues
imitate God’s goodwill: by them we will be judged.
·
Then
context is the covenant with God: a doctrine.
·
Civil
law has its foundation in them and just adds detail.
OTHER APOLOGETICS — explain, don’t argue There is no event from 2000
years ago better attested than the Resurrection of
Christ.
LEARNING TO PRAY and listen to God
We
can help the modern pagans and lapsed Christians to pray daily — morning
and night, at least, the Our Father.
Later,
the Creed, to bring us to the Blessed Trinity:- Father,
of majesty immense;
Thy
true and only Son, to be adored; also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
N.B.
The way to get lapsed Catholics back to Sunday Mass is to help them to
pray. Many have forgotten how and why!
INSTANT MEDITATION
O
Almighty God! O Blessed Trinity! O Incarnate Son! (and before the Blessed
Sacrament) O Real Presence of Jesus Christ!
Father James Tierney
© The Rev. B.J.H. Tierney. Handouts
are free and may be copied for any non-profit teaching purpose.
However, donations to defray costs are welcome and should be made to the
publisher and distributor, the Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc. PO
Box 359, St Marys NSW 1790; phone 02 9673 2235; fax 02 9623 3181 email <fr@eardinalnewman.com.au>
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