MUSING: #memalang
1. Some acts are in themselves evil that no amount of reason or circumstance can change, e. g., abortion, corruption, oppression (directed esp to the poor), peddling lies, EJK, etc. Circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by its object into an act “subjectively” good or defensible as a choice (Veritatis Splendor #81).
2. Political issues are moral issues. This is obvious in many magisterial documents. Issues may evolve, but that does not necessarily mean we cannot evaluate their moral bearing. We don’t have to wait for a nuclear bomb to explode to know that it can erase an entire barangay, to say the least.
3. It is morally permissible to pass judgments on human acts and if deemed evil, violators should be held accountable. Mercy builds on justice, not at the expense of it.
4. You cannot make a good jar from petrified clay unless you put a good amount of water on it. Yes, we are all a work in progress, only and only if we allow ourselves to be formed by what is true and good. Resistance and cover-ups will just thwart or even make “progress” impossible.
5. When we anchor our moral appreciation of human acts on “evolution” and “fluidity,” that ushers us into the threshold of relativism and situation ethics which the Church rejects. “It would be a very serious error…to conclude that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an “ideal” which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man” (Veritatis Splendor #103).
6. We can only accompany and help those who, in the first place, have accepted that they need help or are at least open to help and accompaniment. We cannot force ourselves on people. Even Our Lord didn’t do that. We can only help someone in as much as he/she is open to help and accompaniment.
7. Yes, Christ gave greater attention to sinners. But His attention was also a scrutinizing one. “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner,” said St. Peter (Lk. 5:8). “Lord, I will give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount,” Zacchaeus said to Jesus (Lk. 19:8). Part of this giving greater attention is the call to repentance and reparation.
8. The “man” we want to be saved is not a disembodied spirit. That ”man” is a substantial union of body and soul. Therefore, the approach should be integral. While our goal is heaven, we should not be blind to the injustices around us or indifferent to the plight of others, or unconcerned with the proliferation of lies. We cannot hail Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life while unabashedly doing the opposite because that forfeits the salvation of man you project to care so much.
9. We have domesticated Jesus; He’s so tame and sweet. But that is not the Jesus in the Gospels. He was compassionate but uncompromising. He was gentle, but he called spade a spade.
10. Never use Our Lord to hide one’s true political color or to defend the morally reprehensible and the indefensible. These are not part of the work of God (opus Dei).
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