Download Understanding what is Catholic Morality Servais Pinckaers` Morality

Understanding what is Catholic Morality
Servais Pinckaers' Morality The Catholic View, an introduction
Preface: to understand the many different components which are constitutive of Catholic morality in
terms of specifying these differing components or sources and understanding how Catholic theology
has been able to think together these different components in connection with the concrete problems
and difficulties which exist when it comes to concrete human living. The Second Vatican Council in its
Decree on the Training of Priests specifies three conditions or three different requirements:
1) understanding how Catholic morality is grounded in scripture and the teachings of the Church
fathers
2) understanding how Catholic morality is joined to the dogmatics of the Church's teaching as this
refers to the truths of revelation
3) understanding how Catholic theology relates to changes and developments as these have
occurred in the history of human social forms, culture, and science.
How can the Church's teaching be better understood? How can it be applied more wisely? What are its
suppositions and what kind of obligation exists for us as Catholics as we try and cope with new
problems and developments that have yet to be more fully understood?
Part 1
Chapter 1: the Gospel sources
Ancient moral catechesis: responding to questions about what leads to human happiness, what leads to
our salvation, what leads to our human perfection as in “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
1. Sermon on the Mount, Matthew's gospel
Matthew's Gospel has been described as a text that has been written by someone who has had a
rabbinical formation (hence, a gospel which is intended for Jews more than gentiles). Especially with
respect to the Sermon on the Mount, a new law is given: one which supersedes the Old Law or the
Torah although it is also noted in scripture that Christ's new law is not meant to cancel or annul the
traditional Jewish law. Instead, on the authority of Christ's words, we have a new way of living which
exists as a fulfillment, as a perfection of the old law. If sin goes beyond deeds and words to include
thoughts, then the kind of moral good which Jesus' followers to abide by is something which is greater
and more perfect. In the teachings of Jesus, we have a form of radicalization which suggests that, in
one respect, it is more difficult to live as a good Christian than it is to live the life of a good Jew. A
qualification needs to be adverted to since, through Christian belief, Jesus' followers have a point of
departure for a form of access which is to be described as a “living in Christ.” Through belief, through
faith, we can begin to have grace, grace which exists as a form of God's presence, and through this
grace, we can begin to live a life that is more human. As human beings, we can begin to live in a
manner which transcends our limited, created conditions. Later generations distinguished between
what exists as a natural life and what exists as a supernatural life.
2. Paul's Letter to the Romans, chapters 12-15
Paul's letters normally end with a moral exhortation of some kind which is given after a lengthy
dogmatic section which has to do with what exactly should be the true belief of Christians. This
division has served to suggest that dogmatic theology is to be distinguished from what we do when we
do moral theology although, if we attend to the corpus of Paul's letters, it should be obvious to us that
Paul's moral teaching exists as a kind of deduction or consequence, given the truths of faith and
salvation which belong to the new Christian dispensation. From faith in Christ, we have a context for a
new, higher form of living
3. Other scriptural texts
St. Paul as a moral theologian in other letters touches on other themes: the primacy of charity, the
centrality of conversion, and the necessity of humility, obedience, and patience. A life of the flesh is to
give way to a life that is lived in the Spirit. In the teaching of St. Paul, two themes or two emphases are
brought together or perhaps we can say that they are presented in a way which elicits our need to
understand them better in a way which would link and join them to each other. (1) Jesus Christ in his
life and work exists is a new source of morality and (2) what God has created in terms of an inner,
natural law points to the intelligibility of contingently existing things and how, in this law or through
this law, we can determine the good of things and what we are to regard as evil. What exists as sound
moral teaching is only known in the context of living a good moral life as this would exist for the
converted Christian.