www.Restore-DC-Catholicism.com
THE NOTRE DAME ARRESTS AND THE CATHOLIC MORAL
PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT
There is no doubt in the
mind of any serious Catholic pro-lifer that Notre Dame University forfeited its
right to be called a Catholic institution of higher learning when it allowed
Barack Hussein Obama, current resident of the White House to come on campus and
to be honored. He sullied the ears of
the graduates with his unabashedly pro-abortion screed. They rendered banal their doctorate degree of
law when they bestowed that on Obama.
Notre Dame’s forfeiture of honor may well be irrevocable.
Just prior to Obama’s
arrival, thousands of decent people tried to prevent his coming on campus,
utilizing various means. Time forbids a
long litany of the methods of protest used.
One such method, however, evoked considerable controversy, even in
Catholic and pro-life circles. I am, of
course, speaking of the arrests deliberately undertaken by several hundred
protesters. There are some key factors
to consider when examining this method as used at Notre Dame; there are real
problems with the arrests, and these problems are not that obvious.
Some brief background is in
order. There were many protest
efforts. The earlier efforts were just
outside campus (or, over campus, with the planes flown by the Center for
Bioethical Reform). Bishop D’Arcy had
asked that protesters stay off campus. Father
Jenkins made clear that protesters venturing onto the campus would be arrested. Enter Randall Terry and
Let me say at the onset that
I do not believe for one second that this breach was deliberate. Due to the relatively poor teaching we’ve all
received, it is understandable that such mistakes could be made. I myself would have been unaware of this, had
I not recalled some taped lectures that I had procured, in an attempt to
correct my own ignorance. The lectures
to which I refer are a series called “Fundamentals of Catholic Moral Theology”,
given by the late Msgr William Smith, of Keep the Faith (producers of The Latin
Mass magazine). I would highly recommend
that all procure this lecture series (now available for download in MP3 format)
from www.keepthefaith.org. I found it to be very lucid and easy to
understand for a layperson.
Particularly relevant to
this topic is Msgr’s discussion of the Principle of
Double Effect. This principle follows
from the truth that “the ends never justify the means”. This principle deals with actions that we may
place, that have both a good effect and a bad effect. It lists four criteria whereby we may
evaluate the permissibility of such a given action. They are listed below (taken from the online
Catholic Encyclopedia):
·
The act itself
must be morally good or at least indifferent.
·
The agent may
not positively will the bad effect but may permit it. If he could attain the
good effect without the bad effect he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes
said to be indirectly voluntary.
·
The good effect
must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality,
though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words
the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect.
Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never
allowed.
·
The good effect
must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad
effect”
In his discussion of this
principle, Msgr Smith used the example of a fireman deciding whether or not to
venture into a burning building. In one
case, the fireman had reason to believe that someone was trapped inside. The action to be considered was the venturing
into the burning building. The potential
bad effect was him getting burned, perhaps fatally. The potential good effect was the rescue of
the other person. Let’s run through the
criteria. The act of going into the
building is most likely neutral. There
is no other way to achieve the rescue without that action. Of course the fireman doesn’t will the
potential of getting burned. The good
effect won’t happen because the bad effect might happen (just the
opposite). The good effect of another
person being saved does compensate for the risk of the bad effect. However, if we were to take the same
situation and say that not a person was trapped inside, but a family pet was,
the fireman would not be justified in running into the building, since his life
is worth more than that of the animal.
Again, I reemphasize that I
don’t believe those participating in the arrests were aware of this principle
and the moral ramifications of their actions.
However, such lack of awareness in no way renders this principle moot. It is still relevant. I also believe in their honest intentions and
do admire their courage.
The reader of this article
may well be comparing the above criteria with what happened at Notre Dame and
may well be coming to their own conclusions that the deliberated arrests do not
conform with the principle of double effect.
Such were my concerns, as I consulted a number of moral
theologians. I chose priests who were
recommended to me as being orthodox; at least one of them participated in the
Operation Rescues of the late 1980s to early 1990s. Most of them have confirmed my concerns that
the deliberated arrests fail the principle of double effect in all respects.
The first criterion states
that the act to be considered must, in and of itself, be morally good or at
least morally neutral. I believe it to
be morally bad. Now one priest who did
agree with the arrests referred me to a online article
on the “principle of civil disobedience.”
Here is the link: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/ Quite frankly, it’s
off the wall. There seems to be an
unspoken assumption here (and in the thinking of many “civil disobedience”
proponents) that the thinking, writings and actions of Martin Luther King Jr
and Mahatma Gandhi are de facto infallible doctrine. This boggles the mind. Ladies and gentlemen, the problem with that
assumption should be painfully obvious, but I’ll state it anyway. Neither of those two gentlemen were
Catholic! How can their thinking
possibly inform a Catholic conscience?
Their thinking, be it ever so meritorious, must still be judged in the
light of the Magisterium – not the other way around!
It has also been said that Pope John Paul II advocated civil disobedience
in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. I will now quote the pertinent sections. First, from the very end of section 72 and
starting section 73, “Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or
euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil
law. Abortion and euthanasia are thus
crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey
such laws; instead, there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by
conscientious objection.” Later in
section 73 we read, “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law
permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or
to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law or to vote for
it’.” We do read, however, in Scripture,
particularly at the ends of several of Paul’s letters, that we are to obey
civil authority. While on the surface
Paul and John Paul II might seem to contradict each other, a little reasoning
makes clear that they are in fact complimenting each other. Simply put, we must disregard intrinsically
unjust laws – but only those laws. All
other laws, including trespass laws and private property laws, are to be
obeyed. What if human life is in
imminent danger? Well, even civil law
makes clear that trespass laws may be set aside to save someone in danger on
private property. Our fireman in Msgr
Smith’s example is a prime “case in point”.
Twenty years ago, the participants of Operation Rescue did rightly break
trespass laws to save babies in danger; in those cases, the trespass laws were
being utilized to shelter the murder of babies and thus they were morally
invalid laws on their face.
Such was not the case with the Notre Dame arrests. I quoted above Mr. Keyes’ clarion call to
“join us in trespassing.” Trespass does
involve the breaking of law, but that law doesn’t promote abortion or any other
intrinsic evil, especially when it involves the private property rights of a
school as opposed to an abortuary. I do understand that there may now be
question as to whether or not Notre Dame had the right, under canon law, to bar
the protesters. However, should that
question not have been researched beforehand, as opposed to “after the
fact”? Thus, in my opinion, the first
criterion of the principle of double effect was not met by the Notre Dame
arrests.
The second principle states that the bad effect (arrests) must not be
positively willed. Well, obviously they
were. The arrests were not merely
accepted willingly, they were sought. We
already saw that Mr. Keyes made that quite plain. We also read unabashed statements to that
effect in the June 2009 edition of the Defend Life newsletter at this link http://www.defendlife.org/June09Newsletter.pdf. On page 2, first column, we read and I quote
“Of the hundreds who demonstrated, nearly 80 would intentionally get arrested for trespassing, as part of the
effort to focus the nation’s attention.” (emphasis
mine) Other excerpts speak of
individual intentions to get arrested.
The second principle goes on
to say that if the agent could obtain the good effect without the bad effect,
he should do so. The protesters wanted
to draw attention to their message. I
have learned that there were no gates and no fences that separated the campus
from the surrounding areas. There was no
pressing need to go on campus. In fact,
the bulk of the protesters stayed off campus and certainly drew attention. I mentioned earlier that the Center for Bioethical
Reform rented planes and flew advertisements above campus. The second principle was violated.
The third principle that the
good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately as the bad effect
(that is, in the order of causality). The
good effect cannot be caused by the bad effect.
Else, that would be an attempt to justify bad means by good ends, which
is never allowed. It is illicit to place
an action to deliberately cause a bad effect so that a good effect can come
from the bad effect. Catholic morality
does not allow for that. However, that
was the stated plan to garner media attention: walk onto the campus to get
arrested, so that media publicity would be attracted. Someone pointed out to me that there’s
nothing inherently immoral about being arrested. True, but that doesn’t diminish the bad
effect aspect. Recall Msgr Smith’s
example of the fireman; Msgr clearly stated that getting burned would have been
the “bad effect”, although there isn’t anything inherently immoral about
getting burned. The third principle was
violated.
The fourth principle states
that the good effect must be sufficiently desirable for the allowing of the bad
effect. That’s why the fireman could
risk being burned to save another person, but not for an animal. The good effect desired was media publicity
for the pro-life message. I am rather
handicapped in evaluating this, since I don’t watch television. I am, however, in touch with pro-life news
services. For several weeks prior to the
“arrest events” (as
Yes, people were being asked
to take such risks to their health. I
know that for a fact because I was one of those so asked. One of the arrestees, after getting out of
jail, urged me to come to get arrested “for the experience.” I mentioned several reasons why I didn’t
think that wise. Firstly, most of the
local pro-lifers who offer leadership on Saturdays in front of the abortuaries were headed up there. Had I joined them, there would have been
complete absence of pro-life leadership that weekend. Secondly, I do take blood pressure medicines. Anyone with a scintilla of medical knowledge
knows that missing doses of those pills is NOT an option! However, this individual urged me to come
anyway and “just tell the jail guard”. I
respect and love this person dearly, but if I had followed that advice, I would
have engaged in the epitome of irresponsibility – most likely to a sinful
degree. But how much of that occurred
with other people? In my opinion, the
fourth criterion was not satisfied.
Again, I reiterate my
respect for the courage that it took to undergo the arrests. I reiterate also that I don’t believe there
was any culpability for sin, owing to the misinformation that most of us
received. The facts of theology,
though, are not rendered irrelevant by our lack of knowledge of the same. I write this with great reluctance, but I do
so because I feel that the participants (and most likely the planners) were not
informed. Having done some research on
this matter, I feel it incumbent to make known my concerns and findings. Let me also state that I certainly did not
author the principle of double effect or any other facet of Catholic moral
theology. I am, however, bound to adhere
to it, as are all who take seriously their Catholic faith. Now
of course I don’t claim any monopoly on the truth. If I err, I welcome correction.
I realize I am causing some
consternation, but I trust that all will hold my efforts to inform in honor, as
I hold my friends in honor. Some might
take umbrage, opining that Matt 18 requires me to address these thoughts first
to those who planned the events. I think
that would be a misapplication of Matt 18, as that passage speaks about the
handling of personal grievances. I
certainly don’t consider myself personally aggrieved by anyone involved. Rather, tactics and ideas were proposed in
public. Since we are all free and
reasonable people (I hope), we are free to discuss in respectful and rational
manners the merits and/or demerits of the proposed ideas, so that we might all
learn for the future. That, in and of
itself, should be no cause for disquiet.
There might be debate and discussion on this matter. Well and good – let them occur! Any comments can be addressed to webmaster@restore-dc-catholicism.com. We reserve the right to publish any
comments. Thank you.
Janet M. Baker