Veritatis Splendor.

Veritatis splendor, John Paul II's long-rumored encyclical on morality, was issued in Rome on October 5 (Origins, October 14, 1993). The 179page document has apparently gone through several drafts in the six years since it was first announced, but contains none of the bombshells promised by early headlines. It is a long and complex document. It speaks of universal moral norms, the natural law, and conscience, but focuses primarily on the Catholic moral tradition and the deviations by revisionist theologians that the pope describes in some detail but without naming names.

The comments of theologians and ethicists gathered in these pages were written at Commonweal's request; we asked that the writers focus on a particular point or two rather than provide an over-all assessment. For each respondent, it was a hurried reading and the comments serve only as a first reaction. Elsewhere in this issue, the editors comment (page 3) on the encyclical and Dennis O'Brien reviews two new books on Moral Imagination and Moral Sense. THE EDITORS

Lawrence S. Cunningham

Whatever terror may strike the hearts of moral theologians as they study this encyclical will be offset by their delight at its ponderously convoluted and technical second chapter, which will provide ample opportunity for scrutiny, exegesis, distinctions, comments, and modifications of the papal animadversions about "certain trends of theological thinking and certain philosophical affirmations [which] are incompatible with revealed truth" (Veritatis splendor, 29).

John Henry Newman once wrote, to calm the anxieties of a potential convert relative to the imminent definition of papal infallibility, that when a document comes from Rome, two things need occur: the church must receive it and theologians must explicate it. How the church will receive Veritatis splendor is not yet known but that the theologians will comment is beyond discussion.

Veritatis splendor is very much a papal document. John Paul II generally uses the personal pronoun "I" (little of the Olympian "we" here) in addressing himself to the bishops, both to warn about unacceptable moral theories and to urge vigilance over those who propose them. There may well be bishops in the country who will know how to invigilate those who do write, but theirs will not be an easy task as any nonprofessional moralist (like myself) who reads chapter 2 will soon learn.

Be that as it may, some things are quite clear. The pope desires to rehabilitate the distinction between mortal and venial sin; he is insistent that there are fundamental acts which are intrinsically evil (i.e., there are exceptionless norms in human behavior); he warns against any concept of human freedom that results in absolute autonomy without reference to transcendence; he resists the idea that morality can be shaped by an unwarranted appeal to the "behavioral sciences" (a term he returns to more than once); he writes that moral theologians must be at the service of the church in their external and internal assent to the authoritative teaching of the magisterium and, if they are not, they should be removed; that the Christian life makes heroic demands "under the shadow of the cross" and one should not shrink from those demands (chapter 3 has a long brooding meditation on martyrdom as essential to the Christian life).

How characterize this encyclical? To my mind it is this generation' s Humani generis--Pius XII' s 1950 e. ncyclical which pitted the school of theology regnant in Rome against la nouvelle theologie emanating, maximally, from France. That encyclical attempted to block a kind of theology which, in the opinion of Papa Pacelli, undermined the foundations of that faith. By a curious twist of fate, the theological school which fell under papal stricture would triumph a generation later at Vatican II.

Veritatis splendor, while paying lip service to various theological schools, quite clearly opts for one (one could name names), but is cast in the language and vision of the pope's personalism: a heady blend of scriptural eisegesis, phenomenology, and Thomism. When the soundbites fade away, the theological analysis, fought out on the pages of the journals, will begin. One can only hope that the unhappy repressions coming from Rome before and after Humani generis will not be repeated. They probably will not, but who can gauge the chilling effect on theological discussion? Only time will tell if the theological worldview informing this encyclical will stand the test of the future and be received in the church in the way that John Paul clearly intends. One can only pray that the urgent grandeur of his moral vision not get lost in the theological squabbles which are sure to ensue.

Lawrence S. Cunningham, a regular contributor to Commonweal, chairs the department of theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Joseph A. Komonchak

Four men taught me moral theology in Rome in the early 1960s, a Spaniard, a German, a Canadian, and an American. None of them talked about method; and words like "deontology ," "teleology," and "proportionalism" never darkened the doors of the students' minds. I speak on this encyclical, then, tamquam minus sapiens.

I do, however, have some knowledge of magisterial statements, and the one that came immediately to mind as I read Veritatis splendor was Pius XII's encyclical Humani generis (1950), whose subtitle explained its object: "Some False Opinions Which Threaten to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine." Substitute "morality" for "doctrine" and you have the rough purpose of this new papal text.

Humani generis was issued after several years of theological controversy and was widely considered to represent the positions of the opponents of a theology derisively described as "new." What Pius XII' s encyclical said, however, often fell far short of what those opponents had hoped for, and very few of those who were thought to be its targets considered themselves to have been pierced by its arrows. (Henri de Lubac, for example, denied to his dying days that he ever taught what was condemned in Humani generis, even though it was nearly universally believed that he was one of its chief targets, not least of all by de Lubac's Father General.)

I take the primary purpose of this encyclical, like Humani generis, to be that of recalling certain non-negotiable aspects of Catholic teaching as the outer limits within which Catholic theological reflection ought to take place: in this case, that the Christian gospel has certain moral implications, that morality is not a matter of mere subjective decision, that appeals to sincerity of conscience do not suffice for judgments about the goodness of an act, that one's basic life-orientation (fundamental option) has to be reflected in the way one makes one' s particular decisions in one's daily life, etc. I expect that such affirmations are the ones that are most likely to receive general approval, at least within the church.

Like Pius XII's document, the new encyclical describes vague tendencies, but names no names (an old Roman practice). The tendencies are said to lead to clear departures from Catholic truth, but the nature of this implication is not specified (e.g., whether it is logical, psychological, etc.). Bishops are asked to be vigilant lest the tendencies lead to the unfortunate results.

To judge from prepublication publicity, there is a good chance that Veritatis splendor will fall far short of what certain people either hoped or feared. If what happened after Humani generis is any indication, however, there is a danger that there will be people, both in Rome and among those who wish to be more Roman than Rome, who will be eager to supply the names the pope does not name, so that, for example, anyone who has ever used the term "fundamental option" will be considered fair game for official or unofficial harassment. Many people, like de Lubac and Yves Congar, unfairly suffered this kind of injustice throughout the 1950s.

To prevent this happening again, I would like to suggest a simple expedient, the one employed by the Second Council of Constantinople as it struggled to overcome the literally bloody disputes that followed upon the Christological controversies provoked by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Constantinople II set out a list of what might be called linguistic rules of the game: If anyone says that Christ had two natures but denies by this that Christ was one, anathema sit. If anyone says that Christ had one nature but means by this some mixture of divinity and humanity, anathema sit.

If an ecumenical council, for the sake of restoring and solidifying unity in the church, could deal in such a fashion with the solemn formulae of our central faith, surely it is possible to imagine analogous efforts in moral questions. One could then ask: When you defend the supremacy of conscience, do you mean that there are no objective criteria of right and wrong? If you defend proportionalism or consequentialism, do you mean that the intrinsic nature of acts is morally insignificant? If you invoke the fundamental option, do you consider what sorts of particular choices someone makes morally indifferent? Etc.

This could make for a serious conversation, from which the church and society can only benefit. Real and sometimes hard questions would be asked, but those who may wish to ask them would also have to be ready to listen and to learn. Few of us like to have to answer hard questions, and patience and docility are not the most common of virtues. But perhaps such a conversation will be the best way at once to take this encyclical seriously and to prevent it from being used, as Humani generis too often was, as a rude club with which to settle scores.

The Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak is professor of theology at The Catholic University of America.

Dennis M. Doyle

JOHN PAUL II, invoking his authority as the successor of Peter, though not the solemn ex cathedra infallibility of his office, has spoken his mind about contemporary winds blowing in moral theology. The pope discerns that the world has degenerated morally and socially, and he sees a remedy for Catholics in his confident reassertion of the certainty of the gospel and of the church' s teaching regarding fundamental moral truths. Although most of the encyclical is a general treatise on the relationship between law and freedom, the pope makes specific references to abortion, artificial contraception, homosexual acts, euthanasia, genocide, the abuse of workers, and many other prohibitions as examples of negative precepts that can never be violated.

I affirm strongly the basic message of this encyclical, the need for a renewal of moral seriousness. I agree with the pope that human societies are in moral decline, that huge segments of the population do not seem to know right from wrong, and that a moral relativism undergirds our most serious social problems. I also concur that there truly are things that are immoral no matter what the circumstances.

I foresee the biggest source of tension in the reception of the encyclical in that many Catholics will make a personal list of absolutely inviolable moral precepts considerably shorter than that of the pope. For example, a given Catholic might agree that abortion (except in rare cases where the life of the mother is threatened), genocide, the abuse of workers, and adultery are always wrong but think that artificial contraception and homosexual acts can be matters of individual conscience when concrete circumstances are taken into account. Lists will differ somewhat, but many Catholics will be able to affirm the basic reassertion of inviolable moral principles without in conscience being able to embrace the entire list of specific examples.

John Paul, however, teaches that the individual conscience should not play a role in determining which moral principles are inviolable. These principles are determined by the church' s authority through natural law in the light of divine revelation. The conscience should play a role only in applying such principles in concrete circumstances.

Respected theologian Francis Sullivan presents a different point of view. In his book, Magisterium (Paulist, 1983), he holds that Catholics should approach ordinary church teaching with a basic attitude of openness. If, however, a Catholic, after a serious attempt to conform his or her mind and will to a teaching, is unable to do so, what occurs is a legitimate disagreement. This position is in line with widely accepted interpretations of Vatican II and with a later Vatican-sponsored theological commission. It is also in line with the teaching about artificial contraception by several episcopal conferences, which have said that those who disagree should remain open-minded, continue to research and study, retain a basic respect for church teaching, and not try to persuade others away from the official line. Even the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its document on dissent ("The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian," 1990) acknowledged that theologians at times have legitimate disagreements and that authentic doctrinal development can occur (and has occurred) through such disputes.

Although I am always careful to place fundamental beliefs on a much deeper level than doubts and questions, the possibility of legitimate disagreement for theologians and for other believers has been very important to me in my own spiritual life and in my teaching. The pope, however, says:

The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behavior is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbor. It is prohibited--to everyone and in every case--to violate these precepts (52).

If I read the document correctly, the pope is not exactly offering strong support here for legitimate disagreement as an officially endorsed option. He is expressly forbidding it when it comes to negative precepts identified by the church as inviolable.

The autonomy of individual believers is a big issue at stake in this encyclical. The pope believes that the church' s proclamation of the established truth aids rather than inhibits a person' s freedom. As with conscience, there is plenty of room for autonomy after the truth of basic principles has been accepted. In the pope' s mind, any position that does not promote the objective truth prior to practical application suffers from "subjectivism,"

It is precisely the "turn to the subject" and the taking seriously of human experience that,.characterize modern thought. The moral positions dismissed by the pope as subjectivist are often those taken by Catholic thinkers whose life work has attempted a creative synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity. I think of the late philosopher Bernard Lonergan, who said that "objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity." Lonergan argued that objective knowledge is achievable both through the fragile processes of human subjectivity and through belief. From this perspective, the best defense against relativism lies not in confining subjectivity to a neatly defined box, but in exploring the human subject' s capacities and responsibilities. Lonergan took the turn to the subject, which admittedly has led some others to subjectivism and moral relativism, and used it as the foundation for reestablishing human understanding and knowing in a manner that addresses the concerns of the modern mind. The pope has not taken such a turn.

I know from my experience as a teacher that many students are turned off by overconfident proclamations of absolute certitude. I think that the pope could get a lot further in reestablishing basic respect for the ordinary magisterium if he would be a bit more hesitant, if he would share his concerns for certainty with a little less certainty. If the pope would act in a more broadly consultative manner to express the faith of the church, if he would take more seriously the experience of everyday believers, and if he would explain more fully his point about "recognizing the possible limitations of the human arguments employed by the magisterium" (111), more people would take his words more deeply to heart. Would the pope himself be willing to use as an example of the magisterium's limitations the story of how Vatican II reversed the position against religious freedom expressed in the 1864 "Syllabus of Errors" on the basis of a new understanding and appreciation of human autonomy and freedom of conscience?

In the modern world, as in the deepest currents of the Catholic tradition, the willingness to admit faults and wrongs and the need for personal growth is not a weakness but a strength. As it stands, the present encyclical, for all of its many positive and profound elements, may do more to divide the church than to unite it. The pope is following his own conscience, which looks first to principles and only secondarily to consequences. I hope that Catholics throughout the world, no matter where they stand on the spectrum of beliefs, will, out of love for the church, listen respectfully and work out the consequences together.

Dennis M. Doyle teaches ecclesiology at the University of Dayton. He is the author of The Church Emerging from Vatican II (Twenty-Third Publications).

Charles E. Curran

Veritatis splendor belongs to the literary genre of an apology or defense and has all the problems and weaknesses often associated with that genre.

The encyclical deals primarily with moral theories and correctly recognizes that many Catholic moral theologians today disagree with some of the methods and approaches of the manuals of moral theology. From the pope' s perspective, the present reality has to be "certainly a genuine crisis."

The defensive nature of the document comes through especially in its inadequate, caricatured, and even erroneous interpretations of the positions taken by many contemporary Catholic moral theologians. (The document never mentions names or gives citations.) Proponents of fundamental option, proportionalism, and other newer approaches are not treated fairly. At times the encyclical proposes straw persons in order to shoot them down.

The document's "we versus them" mentality fails to recognize that revisionisis or dissenting theologians agree with many of the pope' s presuppositions and approaches. No Catholic moral theologian embraces relativism, subjectivism, positivism, and individualism.

Pope John Paul II sees the root problem as "detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth." No contemporary Catholic moral theologian I know has ever absolutized freedom and/or conscience or failed to point out their necessary relationship to truth. The real question remains the old one--what is moral truth?

The encyclical uses the word "truth" or "the truth" on about every page beginning with the title page. The document never describes what is meant or embraced by truth, but seems to understand truth as an undifferentiated mass of whatever has been taught in the past by the papal magisterium.

The pope never mentions the hierarchy of truths, a very important reality found in Vatican II's documents and frequently developed since. Not all truths are of the same or equal value or importance. Interestingly, the document does not even make the distinction between infallible and noninfallible teaching.

Nothing is said about how the papal teaching office learns the moral truth. Veritatis splendor leaves the impression that the Holy Spirit gives the knowledge and understanding directly to the pope. In reality the hierarchical teaching office enjoys the assistance of the Holy Spirit, but it must use all the human ways of knowing the truth. The Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican II recognized that the hierarchical magisterium learned from the experience of people of good will.

Other examples of defensive caricature include the description of dissent as a form of politics and polemics in opposition to ecclesial communion, and blanket condemnations of opposition to church teaching. Historically, papal teaching has changed because of the differing positions taken by theologians. Paul publicly rebuked Peter in the early church. As a "dissenter," I see myself as serving the ecclesial community through disagreements on some matters that are not core to faith.

The document correctly assumes that many people even within the church will have problems with what is written here and consequently develops a spiritual strategy in keeping with this defensiveness. The second of the three chapters is entitled "Do Not Be Conformed to the World" and the third "Lest the Cross of Christ Be Emptied of Its Power." The truth here contained will meet opposition and rejection as did Jesus.

Such an approach, while having some validity, is strange indeed coming from a tradition which claims its moral teachings are based on human reason and open to convincing all human beings. In addition the Catholic church claims, as the encyclical repeats, to be "an expert in humanity," whose moral encyclicals have lately been addressed to all people of good will.

I expected the basic thrust taken in this encyclical but the actual document itself is quite disappointing. The encyclical does not accurately portray the true picture of Catholic moral theology today. Likewise the pope has no appreciation for a loyal opposition that disagrees on some specific issues but finds itself in basic and fundamental agreement with the core of the Catholic moral tradition. The practical consequences of this document will only come to light in the future, but my forecast for the immediate future is quite bleak.

The Rev. Charles E. Curran is Elizabeth Scurlock University Professor of Human Values at Southern Methodist University.

Janet E. Smith 

Many who do not profess to be Roman Catholic or to have much sympathy for Roman Catholicism nonetheless respect the church's strong stand on universal, inalienable human rights. They laud the church' s insistence that employers pay a just wage and provide decent working conditions. They laud the church' s condemnation of totalitarianism, torture, and genocide. Moreover, the church has always called mankind to heroic witness to these and other moral truths. It teaches that individuals and societies should labor to ensure that all of mankind enjoy fundamental human rights and that we be willing to die, if necessary, in protection of those rights; that we be willing to die rather than to do moral evil willingly.

Veritatis splendor argues that the church's teachings on human rights and moral issues are grounded in a commitment to an objective, universal truth, most fully manifested in the person of Christ. This truth demands our allegiance and our love and our attempt to live in accord with the truth for only thus will we attain eternal life. We must use our human freedom to make the choice to follow the truth rather than to invent truths more to our liking.

The encyclical touches upon many of the primary challenges to traditional morality over the last several decades. It carefully discusses the claim that such acts as "having sexual intercourse with someone against that person' s will" is considered a premoral evil or ontic evil in the view of the dissenters (my example), not to be assessed morally until the intention, circumstances, and consequences are known. It reasserts the teaching of the church that some acts are intrinsically evil (never to be the object of human choice), no matter what the intention, circumstances, or consequences.

The widespread dissent within the church against the church's teaching on intrinsic evil has focused largely on sexual issues. Much energy seems to be put largely in the service of arguing that there should be no absolute prohibitions against premarital sex, contraception, divorce, homosexual acts, for instance. To support this position, some ethicists and theologians make pleas for the autonomous exercise of human freedom and the sovereignty of the human conscience and charge the church with physicalism and biologism. Veritatis splendor addresses these questions directly, though not, of course, exhaustively. It insists that man is not free to manipulate his bodily processes at will and that true freedom and a right use of conscience require man to attend to the natural inclinations of the body, to be attentive to the true human good.

Veritatis splendor strives to show the links between the love of Christ, the Ten Commandments, human dignity, natural law, authentic human freedom, right use of conscience, and human rights. John Paul implores theologians to clarify these matters for the faithful rather than to be sources of confusion. In this sense, those who find the church unpersuasive on sexual questions must come to see that there is a seamless garment in these matters; those who attempt to snip the thread of the church' s teaching on intrinsic evil threaten to unravel the whole, to leave us without defenses against some of the worst evils threatening societies and individuals today. For have we not witnessed sufficient atrocities in our times in the name of good intentions and prospective good consequences? Should we not take up the challenge of the new evangelism, should we not challenge mankind to follow Christ in his loving and law-abiding ways to the point of martyrdom?

Janet E. Smith is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas.

Lisa Sowle Cahill

The lasting contribution of Splendor veritatis is its affirmation of objectivity in moral thinking, against relativism and the absolutization of personal choice. However, the encyclical has multiple agendas, not all well reconciled with the first.

A second agenda is to place moral theology in a faith context, both to maintain the connection between the moral life and religious commitment, and to assert the authority of the magisterium over theological interpretation. A third agenda is to implement magisterial authority by warning pastors of their duties of vigilance toward the purity of doctrine and protection of "the faithful." A few remarks will be offered on each of these agendas in turn. A final word addresses the encyclical's grating use of sexist language.

The first agenda is to place moral freedom in the context of a notion of objective moral truth. This notion is at the heart of the "natural law" tradition. North American culture (at which the encyclical seems in large pan to be targeted) exhibits pluralism, values freedom, and often accommodates moral confusion by resorting to guarantees of free choice and informed consent. Not wanting to be dogmatic or totalitarian, we edge away from difficult and divisive decisions about the morally best action or policy. Hence we find it difficult to advance toward substantive public consensus about the human good or the good society. Examples are rife in debates about bioethics policy, from abortion to infertility therapies to physician-assisted suicide to health-care reform.

Against an overly relativistic respect for pluralism, the encyclical appeals to Catholic moral tradition as established on a confidence in reasonable debate among diverse groups about values they share in common. In fact, the conviction that its moral insights are based on common human values, and not on religious faith or church teaching alone, motivates the Roman Catholic church' s advocacy on a number of social issues, extending at least as far back as the first modern papal social encyclical, Rerum novarum (1891). Splendor veritatis affirms that "the natural law expresses the dignity of the human person and lays the foundation for his fundamental rights and duties. It is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all mankind. This universality, does not ignore the individuality of human beings, nor is it opposed to the absolute uniqueness of each person." But it aims at a "communion of persons" (51). Moreover, the human body itself is a valid point of reference in the quest for moral meaning; the body is not simply "raw material" whose value depends only on our choices about it (46, 48). This is an important insight for sexual and biomedical ethics, as many feminists would agree.

In my view, the encouragement of humane and consensus-seeking public discourse about the relation of controverted ethical issues to the common good, is one of the most important potential contributions of Catholic moral theology in today's culture. Splendor veritatis may give impetus to theologians who are renewing the natural law tradition in service of such discourse.

Unfortunately, the other agendas of the encyclical tend to undermine this contribution. These are to teach that the moral life finds its origins in the divine law and its completion in faith (to which few Catholic theologians would object); and to instruct the bishops to rely on the authoritative moral teaching of the church in identifying and rejecting erroneous moral viewpoints (on which many interpreters in the press and in the church are likely to focus as the "meat" of this document).

Rejected interpretations of Catholic ethics include the "autonomous ethics" of some continental theologians, said to separate the moral law from divine authorship; theories of the "fundamental option," said to make its concrete expression in moral choices irrelevant; and a "proportionalist" weighing of good and evil aspects of acts, viewed as equivalent to subjectivism and consequentialism. The second and third agendas are put forward in a confessional and even fideist mode which pulls the rug out from under the church's and the moral theologians' credibility as advocates of the human and the common goods. The morality of human acts is not to be established by the human sciences, nor by accumulated human wisdom, even of persons of faith, and certainly not by the goodness of intention alone (112). Human nature is so "affected by sin" and "[o]nly Christian faith points out to man the way .... ""It is the gospel which reveals the full truth about man and his moral journey, and thus enlightens and admonishes sinners..." (112). Moral theology and moral reasoning thus become the presentation and justification of Catholic doctrine, whatever the "limitations of the human arguments employed"(165). The encyclical assumes that theologians need a mandate from the local bishop (110), asserts that moral theologians must give not only external but also internal assent to all teaching (165), and enjoins bishops to take away the name "Catholic" from institutions that fail to abide by doctrinal requirements (116).

It will bring shame on the drafters and implementers of this encyclical if it causes further counterproductive accusations and divisions within the church. It is time for Catholics to call a ceasefire on issues like contraception, and spend their energies on making a more attractive case, to the wider culture, for commitment and parenthood as complementary aspects of sexual fulfillment.

At a meeting of a national policy advisory board last month, another member advised me that my reservations about the compatibility of sperm and ovum donation with the human meaning of parenthood were just the result of my Catholic attitudes and hence not at all relevant to the policy debate. The fideist and authoritarian conclusion of this encyclical will increase the marginalization of Catholics who try to enhance the role of human values in our culture's moral sensibilities.

Finally, the sexist language. Many Catholic feminists, and not only so-called "radical feminists," view the church as singularly unresponsive to women' s viewpoints and experiences in defining the human goods of sexuality, parenthood, marriage, and gender-related ecclesial and social roles. This encyclical insists repeatedly that there must be norms prohibiting "intrinsically evil acts," especially in sexual behavior. Yet its stubbornly noninclusive language confirms that such norms are still being defined within a male-oriented mindset. A concluding section on Mary was no doubt meant to add a pastoral angle, but it portrays her in stereotypical feminine terms, as a compassionate and merciful mother to "man." "She understands sinful man and loves him with a mother's love" (121). This kind of thing only adds fuel to the fire of those who claim that the church' s interpretations of our sexual "nature" are simply cultural products, and patriarchal ones at that.

Lisa Sowle Cahill is professor of Christian ethics at Boston College.

Stanley Hauerwas

Veritatis splendor is a unique and remarkable document. John Paul II observes that this is the first time that the magisterium of the church has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of moral theology. That he has done so is a great gift not only to Roman Catholics but I hope to all Christians struggling to discern how we are to live in this strange time between times. That John Paul has written so eloquently on the nature of the Christian moral life is a great testimony to the Catholic ability to withstand the ethos of freedom and accordingly is a service to all Christians.

As one trained in as well as a practitioner of that odd discipline within Protestantism called Christian ethics, I found this document a gold mine of insight and direction. For those who have not been part of the debates in Christian ethics, or what Catholics call moral theology, it might be easy to miss the significance of what the pope has done. Many Christians would naturally assume that in writing on matters moral, one might, as John Paul has, use Scripture as well as take a determinative Christocentric perspective. Yet many trained in "ethics" and moral theology find quite sophisticated ways to separate "ethics" from "theology" in the name of being "responsible" to "society." Happily the pope writes as a theologian profoundly displaying the difference Christ should make not only for how Christians live but also for how moral theologians think.

For example, the commentary the pope provides on Matthew 19:16 is a remarkable way to begin the encyclical. Karl Barth also used the young man' s question, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" as the central focus of his account of Christian ethics in the Church Dogmatics 11/2. I am tempted to make more of this fascinating parallel than is probably justified, but at the very least that Barth and John Paul have found this passage so significant is a wonderful indication that Catholics and Protestants are rediscovering that "ethics" for Christians cannot be separated from the one who has called us into existence.

This is not just a "homiletical point" by John Paul as is clear from his extraordinary Christocentric display of the law. His discussion of the law reminds me of Calvin' s discussion of the Decalogue in the Institutes. Calvin argues there that the command, though put negatively in fact, entails positive obligations for Christians. Thus, it is not sufficient that we not steal from our brother and sister but we are required to give of our own property if we are to live according to the law.

As important as John Paul' s refusal to separate the "ethical order" from the "order of salvation" is his sense of the politics of this move. I am not referring to the tired and uninteresting internal "liberal/conservative" divide in Catholicism, but rather the pope' s willingness to challenge the politics of modernity. John Paul rightly sees we are confronted by social systems and corresponding moralities that cannot help but deny that all creation is teleologically ordered to the worship of God. These systems make freedom an end in and of itself because, as Kant saw, freedom is all that is left once the world is mechanistically construed.

Against that alternative, John Paul reminds us that Christians believe that we are part of a created order that is teleologically shaped to glorify God. Accordingly, freedom, and the corresponding views of morality based upon the assumption of the autonomy of reason, are foreign to the Christian presumption that any freedom worth having is the freedom that comes from truthful service to God. Therefore, recent accounts of natural law, which draw more on Kant' s account of morality than that of Aquinas, are rejected.

As one often critical of those that would present the Christian moral life in terms of natural law, I found little reason to object to John Paul' s account of natural law. That the moral law is "in principle" accessible to human reason, as the pope maintains, I assume any Christian should believe. The crucial issues involve his contention that we must be well instructed to tightly know the "law" of our being. Our problem is that most of us are now so well trained by the practices of "freedom," we are incapable of acknowledging the moral truths that should otherwise be available.

No doubt the discussion surrounding this encyclical will be focused on the pope's upholding that certain acts are always wrong. Even though I have often found the arguments about why certain acts are intrinsically evil unconvincing, I think that John Paul puts the discussion of these matters rightly by arguing such actions cannot be made part of the well-lived life. Thus John Paul avoids a deontological construal of these matters by framing the characterization of the actions within a teleological framework.

I must admit as one who has always found the concept of "fundamental option," and particularly the corresponding idea of "premoral" evil, mystifications, I particularly enjoyed the encyclical's criticisms of those peculiar notions. With that said, however, I wish that John Paul might have said more about the importance of the virtues for the moral life as I suspect that the language of "fundamental option" was the result of the loss of Aquinas' s understanding of the significance of the virtues for Christian moral existence.

John Paul' s refusal to separate ethics from theology is perhaps best displayed in his extraordinary discussion of martyrdora in chapter 3, That discussion is a judgment on many of us who have reduced Christian ethics to the ethos of freedom. For it is, I believe, the pope' s belief that if Christians are to resist the allurements of the ethics of freedom, as well as the politics built on that ethic, which often takes the name of democracy, we may well be called to make sacrifices and to suffer in ways we barely envision. We are, however, in John Paul's debt for helping us get the problem right.

The Splendor of Truth is an eloquent encyclical for which I am grateful. It would have more power, however, if John Paul had embodied it by moving to Bosnia and refusing to leave until the Croatians ceased killing the Muslims. The murder called war in that unhappy place is clearly an "intrinsic evil" that he should see is destroying the souls of the Catholic faithful in Croatia. Let the pope so live and he will discover that the authority he now can only claim will be a reality.

Stanley Hauerwas is professor of theological ethics at the Divinity School of Duke University.

Anne E. Patrick

The first image I received while pondering Veritatis splendor is that of a Khasi leader in Nothern India, insisting decades ago on ancient taboos against cutting wood from sacred groves, but unable to persuade his hearers. Meanwhile rationalists call the ancient wisdom nonsense and "prove" with their axes that "nothing bad will happen" to those who take the conveniently located trees. Indeed, the forest gods do not devour the modernizers on the spot, as ancient stories had threatened, and people use the once-forbidden trees without respect for the interconnectedness of life, or concern for future generations. The resulting desertification is tragic for all concerned, including nonhuman creatures and the earth.

A second image is that of Saint Peter approving change in first-century moral life in a way that respected the essence of the fledgling community's traditional faith. This development of doctrine is described in Acts 10 in terms of a "vision" Peter receives, after which he concludes that the divine will transcends human abilities to codify it. In a dream, Peter is hungry and hears a voice enjoining him to "kill and eat" animals traditionally forbidden. The dialogue remains instructive today: "But Peter said, 'Far be it from me, Lord, for never did I eat anything common or unclean.' And there came a voice a second time to him, 'What God has cleansed, do not thou call common'" (Acts 10:15-16).

Neither image quite fits the substance of this encyclical, but they frame my response. I offer the first because it depicts what is at stake, the tragedy we need to prevent, and the second because it symbolizes the goal we must achieve where human sexuality is concerned before it is too late.

Human sexuality is not the stated theme of the encyclical, but rather the subtext that occasioned and governs this text, which itself offers inspiration for continuing work on two urgent tasks: (1) distinguishing the essential wisdom on human embodiment and interpersonal relations from the classicist casing in which Catholic sexual morality was packaged centuries ago; and (2) communicating it in a way that respects the insight of Vatican II's Dignitatis humanae that the truth we all must seek and obey "cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power." Such power entails conviction, rather than coercion on the one hand or blind acceptance on the other.

The encyclical' s stress on human dignity as a limiting principle for ethics is eminently wise, as is its insistence on an objective moral order. (I do not, however, recognize the positions of such revisionist moral theologians as Bernard Haring, Charles Curran, Richard McCormick, and company in the "teleologists, relativists, proportionalists, subjectivists," and absolutizers of freedom described in this letter.) How bishops and moral theologians respond will be crucial. I believe moral theologians will do well in the future to avoid the kind of dissent condemned in the encyclical, forgoing "carefully orchestrated protests and polemics carded on in the media." If we do, the encyclical gives reason to hope that large-scale withdrawal of mandates to teach and designations of "Catholic" will not occur. I also hope that bishops will understand the deep love of the church and concern for the truth and power of its authentic moral teaching that have motivated recourse to secular media in the past. As the encyclical recognizes, we live in a time of crisis. Its proportions rival that of first-century debates about Gentiles and the Law, and subsequent crises occasioned by Aristotelianism and by modern science, philosophy, and historical consciousness. Because the stakes are so great for life on this planet, we should proceed with energy, caution, and trust in God.

Both bishops and theologians will find in the New Testament many ideas to complement the encyclical, which draws heavily on the love-mysticism of John and the law-emphasis of Matthew. After contemplating the encyclical' s focal story from Matthew 19 about the rich young man who went away sad because his riches kept him from following Jesus, some may observe that "the danger of riches. could apply to wealth and power beyond the material order. Others may suggest that Matthew' s parable in chapter 25 about the buried and invested talents may be instructive where the natural law tradition is concerned. Still others may offer a Lucan corrective to Matthew's preference for "poverty of spirit," insisting that any teaching in Jesus' name must mean good news for the materially poor and oppressed, especially women and children. I believe, for reasons I lack space to develop here, that this last emphasis will eventually mean letting go of some formulas regarding sexual morality that are less universally valid than this encyclical implies is the case. What is urgent is that new formulas, based on a renewed natural law approach that emphasizes justice, be approved soon and that honesty and charity prevail in the meanwhile.

Anne E. Patrick, S.N.J.M., is professor of religion at Carteton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She is currently completing Liberating Conscience: Feminist Explorations in Catholic Moral Theology for Crossroad Publishing Company.