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Till Christ Be Formed in Every Heart
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Posts in Morality
Heaven and Catechesis

Talking about Heaven is not all that fashionable these days, and I am not sure that Hell has ever been fashionable to talk about (except in the odd-ball crowds).

Recently, Rob Bell, a famous evangelical preacher, author, and all-around good guy, has caused some controversy with his new book, Love Wins, which many suppose he is positing a "universalist" view of the afterlife, which is just a fancy theological way of saying that, in the end, Hell will be empty and everyone will be in Heaven.

Whether or not it holds is outside the point of this post.

People have started talking about Heaven and Hell and their importance in communicating the Faith. I am loving this new conversation. Heaven and Hell are crucial in evangelization, and I want to share some thoughts on the matter.

I am a nerd for Catholic morality, made so by the works of Fr. Servais Pinckaers, a Swiss moral theologian who wrote the book Sources of Christian Ethics, whereby he placed the desire for happiness and the Beatitudes of Christ back in their proper place in Christian morality, which is prior to the Commandments.

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Catechesis, MoralityMichael GormleyHeaven, Hell, Rob Bell, beatitude, happiness
A Topic for a Ph.D. Dissertation

I am thinking about going for my Ph.D. in Catholic Studies. It is a 4 to 6 year process of research on a topic of my choosing that, once approved, I will work on every day for half a decade. All of this depends on employment opportunities, only one of which supplies enough income while allowing ample room for pursuing the degree.

I am most excited to write a dissertation, to focus on a narrow topic if interest and develop it into something new and creative. I was told that most doctoral dissertations are dull, and not to make too much out of it, but I do not care. To me, the work of research, reading, and writing are always exciting challenges, even if the outcome is 200 pages of yawn-fest for anyone other than me.

In deciding on a topic I wanted it to be something that I am passionate about, something that is crucial, that I struggle with personally, and that will keep me up at night seeking answers. 

But the thought of writing about catechesis for 4-6 years is not all that appealing to me. Nope, I think I came up with another idea, something that has been bothering me since I was 14 and something that I am constantly seeking an answer to, and constantly running into self-doubts, intellectual brick walls, and a lot of current argumentation in Catholic circles.

I think I am going to write about the relationship between ethics and economics, focusing particularly on Catholic Social Teaching from the Popes, the Distributism fostered by the Chester-Belloc School, and the small-but-growing Austrian School of Economics. 

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MoralityMichael GormleyPhD, economics, ethics
moral short cuts and legislation

Chesterton once accused the Puritans "Not of having too much morality, but too little." It seems to me that the neoPuritans, those secular busybodies that try to legislate their version of good and clean living, are stricken with the same malody.

It is not that they have a robust morality that provides vision, energy, and purpose to human life, but that they have a weak and feable structure, hardly capable of being principled, ordered, or systematic. In order to buttress up their little morality they attempt moral short cuts, the biggest of which is federal legislation.

Lobbying for laws against all things that they deem bad, unfit, or unhealthy, they seek to impose a grand appearance of their morality, but it becomes, like Bilbo Baggins so artfully said, "thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scrapped over too much bread." It is thin, and thus prone to distortions, corruptions, and ripple-effects that were unintended, but necessarily follow.

NeoPuritans try to take moral short cuts. They want the nation to be better, so instead of convincing every man, woman, and child to be better, they simply legislate away those things they believe are making our country worse. They think that national policy and law make people better versions of themselves because it saves them from themselves.

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Morality, PoliticalMichael GormleyMorality, Puritanism, law
Blessed are the peacemakers...

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9

It is hard to talk openly about war being just or unjust while your own country happens to be in the middle of one (or two, or five). But, hey, if Christianity were easy, everyone would be doing it.

War is a tricky thing because, though most of the humanity’s dark history is filled with unjust and evil wars, every single one of those wars had people cheering them on, justifying them with all sorts of clever rationalizations and emotionally charged propaganda.

That means we Catholics need to be on our A game when it comes to this whole “Just War” idea, so that we are not caught on the wrong side of God’s desire for peace and thirst for justice.

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Morality, PoliticalMichael GormleyWar, justice, pro-life