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Abortion, Aggression and Libertarianism

Libertarians would seem like natural allies of the preborn. The fundamental principle from which libertarianism is deduced is non-aggression axiom. This axiom is simple: it is never right to commit aggression (violence) against another person, except in the case of self-defense. Common sense would seem to dictate, then, that abortion, the most grievous kind of aggression, would be opposed, but that is not the case for the majority of libertarians.

The Libertarian Party platform itself is pro-choice, saying the government has no place intervening between the woman and her womb's occupant. It's a private matter, they say, and a woman has the right to her own body, ignoring the claims of the preborn person to life, liberty and his/her own bodily integrity.

Morality, PoliticalMichael GormleyNovember 3, 2010Abortion, libertarianism, pro-life

How to Find Freedom from Lust

IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!!I was two years into my parish-based youth ministry job when we decided to do a middle school (EDGE) night on pornography. We would talk about it from a positive and life-affirming view of human sexuality. We split the guys and girls up so that we could talk more freely.

I took an anonymous poll with these 85 seventh and eighth grade boys. Out of 85 boys, 83 had seen porn at some point in their lives; 78 had seen it in the last 2 months; 76 in the last 2 weeks; and around 71 out of 85 had seen porn in the last 2 days. Talk about a train wreck!

Pubescent drives are intensely powerful, but they do not have to define us. The sins of lust are probably the most difficult to break once a habit has been established. Some young men progress from occasional use to habit to addiction to full-on compulsive behavior. My hope is to break the habit. Addictive and compulsive behaviors are way above my pay grade. But always remember the words of Pope John Paul II: "You are not the sum of your weaknesses and failures, but rather, you are the sum of the Father's love..."

Morality, SpiritualityMichael GormleyOctober 29, 2010Sacraments, fasting, pornography, prayer

passing thoughts: Election Time

Texas election time is right around the corner and this constantly brings up the old debate about voting your conscience. The Church teaches that it is one of the highest obligations for an individual to follow his/her conscience. But first and foremost, one has the prior obligation to form one's own conscience, so that when you follow it, you are not only being true to yourself, but to God.

Truth is not really a tricky thing, although 2,000 years ago an abusive and whiney tyrant named Pontius Pilate asked a particular bearded Savior "What is truth?" It would seem that politicians will try anything to escape accountability, even if it means denying that truth itself exists! ("what is 'is'?")

All I am asking of Catholics this election is that we place first things first.

Pro-life means just that, we are for life. We are not against it. We ought not to fight abortion and ignore euthanasia. We ought not to fight the death penalty, but avoid ending warfare. Each and every person has the right to life because of what/who they are substantially, not accidentally.

Morality, PoliticalMichael GormleyOctober 28, 2010Catholic Vote, Election, pro-life

passing thoughts: abortion exceptions?

Baby Samuel reached out and grabbed the surgeons finger during a crucial in utero surgery. The photographer became a pro-life activist after this.I can still remember my first pro-life rally. I was a pleasantly plump fifth grader with my family on the steps of the Oklahoma City courthouse, holding our Knights of Columbus pro-life signs, showing our support for all human life, separated only by the accident of birth.

Because of the Catholic Church's consistent stance against abortion and my family's pro-life commitment (my dad is a sidewalk counselor), I grew up assuming that if you were Christian, you must be anti-abortion. I could not understand how one could reconcile the Sermon on the Mount with abortion, though many of my Protestant friends were mostly against abortion, except for the "hard cases".

And this has always bothered me.

Abortion either is or is not the killing of an innocent human person.

MoralityMichael GormleyOctober 28, 2010Abortion, hard cases, pro-life

Christian Morality: Happiness

Is there such a thing as "Christian morality", as in, a morality that is shaped by the Christian faith? If morality is universal, how can any religion or sect or belief claim to have a morality all to themselves, or claim that their morality is morality as such? As Catholics we have a strong belief in what is known as the moral law, or the natural law, or, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, the "natural moral law", that is written on the hearts of every human person and is echoed in each conscience. Is Christian morality, then, an extra superimposed or added on to the already existing super-structure of natural law morality?

These are questions that have bothered me over the years. I think this is what drove the Enlightenment project of Immanuel Kant. He sought to remove from morality any supernatural basis and ground everything in the individual's practical reason, that is, in the capacity for rational thought about human action.

Morality, TheologyMichael GormleyOctober 20, 2010Morality, beatitude, happiness

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