What is Right and What is Wrong?

Fr. DONNELL KIRCHNER, CSSR. STL

As a retired professor of Moral Theology, I find it very interesting that the words immoral, unethical and others of such ilk are being used so much by politicians and news commentators. What is right, or what is wrong? Who decides?

For centuries we had the Bible, churches and good old common sense to decide such issues. Even if the Truth did not win out immediately, the majority knew what was good and what was wrong. Some experts claim that at least four situations continue to divide American opinion: doctor-assisted suicides, gay/Lesbian relations, abortion and having babies outside of marriage.

Now in our so called Golden Age of communications, we find that the waters seem to be more agitated that the Rio Grande. Critics say Facebook’s latest scandals show it lacks an ‘ethical road map’

So I began to check out and consult some of these issues by using a handy source of information in a nice one volume work which has compiled the wisdom of centuries: The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Among many phrases which stood out is one that says that a person can not do evil so that good may result from it (cf. nos. 1754 and 1761).

What makes something either bad or good depends upon whether the object chosen (the WHAT), or the end (the WHY), or the circumstances (the HOW) are in line with justice, the divine order or common sense. Doing something good for the wrong reasons can nullify an action, like a drug lord or corrupt offical giving lots of money to a charity, seeking redemption from fraudulent activities. Bonhoeffer would call that cheap grace.

Or an evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention – the end does not justify the means!

If all that is too complicated for you to decipher, I looked to Pope Francis’s writings for orientation. He said recently that fear of immigration is making us CRAZY. Or a person who thinks about only building walls and not building brides is not Christian, because this is not in the Gospels.

Or what does St. Augustine, that longtime expert on lying, have to offer? Most would agree that a person should only state what he believes to be true and should not have any intention to deceive. As St. John Paul II taught in Veritatis Splendor: intrinsically evil acts are immoral regardless of intention or circumstances.

If once in a millennium a woman was duct-taped across the mouth and brought across the border, does that mean that there was no misleading lying done?

How many times is one allowed to get marriage straight? Paul Tillich thinks that “The first duty of love is to listen.” I guess if you are always boasting about being number one leaves little time to pay attention to another. Do rich people get three attempts to get it right? Even John Lennon had this great insight, “Love is a promise; love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.”

What can one expect from a leader who rejects all the experts surrounding him, who thinks he knows more about fighting wars than his generals, knows more about the weather and climate change than the scientists, knows more about foreign affairs than the diplomats? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have criticized those who completely refute the idea of any universal truths or values for humanity and instead would have reconfigured Western values which had been used to repress African-Americans and others to create a more free and just human society.

Since any superficial reading and research about American intervention and meddling in Central America will show that we destabilized governments there to protect fruit companies, is it any wonder that “hordes” of children and pregnant women are “flooding” out southern borders, seeking freedom from violence and poverty. Should we patrol and protect our boundaries? Of course. Do we need to separate members of the basic building block of society – the Family? Of course not! Even if you never read Martin Buber’s great work, I-Thou, you instinctively realize that this is a bad way to do things.

Jesus told Peter to go fishing and find a coin in the mouth of a fish to pay their taxes, and St. Paul taught that we should obey just and reasonable laws and acts of government (John is another story). Legitimate tax exemption is one thing; fraud and cheating, another.

Drug companies are supposed to keep us healthy. Right? How come so many people are dying from Opiod overdoses? Were that many doctors ignorant or fooled about its use? Looks like something unhealthy is going on in medical and corporate boardrooms. Can making four billion dollars profit on one drug be legit?

Draining the swamp sounds like an ethical project, so taking your wife or friends on international trips to accomplish your mission is probably not worth arguing over. But can one be the government official to monitor or regulate an industry in which that person has investments, or have holdings in foreign companies which prop up dictators? Should presidents be required to disclose their tax return? Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska thinks that “voters deserve basic information about the financial situation of their potential chief executive.” Or he would prohibit members of Congress from buying or selling stocks while in office. Sasse says, “Voters should not have to ask whether their congressman supported a piece of legislation because it was good for his personal investment portfolio.”

Let’s look at one of our current sacred cows. Many believe that capitalism is a wonderful way of enriching and pulling people up by their boot straps. Why it is true that many have been enriched, yet one of those think tanks came up with some statistics that 26 billionaires hold as much wealth as 3.4 billion people. Something just doesn’t smell right. Can’t there be a better distribution of wealth? The good book seems to teach that the Lord planned enough for everyone to live in dignity and prosperity. Hunger is very immoral.

How long can we continue to rape and plunder certain elements of Mother Earth, with little concern for the ecological damage that our pursuit for economic gain has led us? When is enough the beginning of too much? Pope Francis reminds us that “We received this world as an inheritance from past generations, but also as a loan from future generations, to whom we will have to return it...the earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”

Having freedom of movement, of speech or choice can be seen as signs of a society’s growth and maturity. It can also reveal a selfish, self seeking attitude that encourages people to go as far as they can before flawed laws restrict their actions. Do we want to return to days of Prohibition? But does a 10% alcoholic society mean we have advanced ?

Abortions seem to be reducing in numbers, as new claims of pedophilia. Has our insight into the purpose and use of sexuality, however, grown? Why, then, do we need a ME TOO movement? How many women feel safe from attack or have to use their bodies to scale the corporate ladder?

So let’s continue to discuss what is right and what is wrong, examining all ethical and moral issues.

Father Donnell Kirchner, CSsR, received a degree in moral theology in Rome and taught for 39 years as a Redemptorist priest in Brazil, teaching at a regional pastoral institute in Manaus. He is currently ministering in Baton Rouge, La. Email Donkirchner70@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2019

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