THE DANGERS OF CATHOLIC ETHICS
The Catholic Church has often produced a very dangerous morality. The
doctrines of St Alphonsus Liguouri were luridly evil though the Church of his
day had no problem with him spreading it.
The Church agrees with Kant’s malevolent and pharisaic Categorical Imperative
that you should not do anything that you would not will the whole world to do
like lying for example but adds the reason the rule is valid is because to break
it is a sin in the sight of God (page 116, Moral Philosophy).
The Church says that the end never justifies the means because the means are
willed more strongly than the end because the means are closer to you than the
end. They are more immediately willed than the end and so if you do evil that
good may come your will is more strongly into the evil means than the good end.
The Church pushes it as far as the idea that a lie is wrong no matter what good
will result from it (page 32, Moral Philosophy). So if you lie to do some good
you have to commit the lie first and therefore you are surer that the lie will
happen than that the good will happen for you will commit the sin of lying and
the lie is nearer to you in time. You are more sure of what is closer, you know
better what will happen in ten seconds and less better what will happen in five.
If the Church is right then it follows that it is always wrong to care about
consequences. The stress Jesus made on living for today and treating the world
as something that might not be here tomorrow would support this attitude for why
do harm even for a justified purpose when the purpose might never get the chance
to be fulfilled? It would make the means evil.
Humanism believes that even if you have to hurt somebody to help them you will
the end and not the means.
The Church teaches much hypocrisy. The Church says that anger is allowed
concerning public outrages but must be avoided with private ones (page 64, Moral
Philosophy). This makes no sense for the law is a mixture of private and public
stuff and private evil affects the public. The Church could not possibly be
moral for the pope acts like a spiritual king and claims to be the monarch of
the Church (page 327, Moral Philosophy) which gives a divine sanction to the
snobbery and injustice and arrogance of monarchy. Jesus too is guilty of this
crime. The Church also says that a thief has no obligation to turn himself into
the police for it is their business to prove he committed the crime. Would it
not be hypocrisy to report somebody to the police for harming you when you have
committed crime yourself? Why should other people pay and not you? What is so
special about you? Is it upholding the law to hide your crimes? No for hidden
crimes that are not redressed and dealt with by the law mock the law. The law is
meant to protect by bringing pain on criminals and would it be upholding the law
to advise most criminals to avoid detection? That is telling them the law cannot
protect society from their crime. I can’t believe that a Church with doctrines
like this can claim to be relevant today! The Church and Christianity in general
believe that the virtuous or humble man despises an undeserved insult and still
takes it as his due (page 101, Moral Philosophy). It has to teach all this
silliness because insults would be right if they were deserved and it cannot
allow the man to think he does not deserve it for all are sinners and are guilty
of sin even if they are cleansed from it now. It should get rid of the problem
by getting rid of free will. The doctrine of free will prevents Catholic
believers from ever formulating a practical and safe code of right and wrong.
The morality of the Church is incoherent delusion.
A religion with a nonsensical morality cannot unite people. That Jesus commanded Christianity to be united is ironic for his own morality couldn't unite anybody either.
