July 24, 2013 (LepantoFoundation) – A dangerous belief is gaining ground, even among Catholics, that a juridical recognition of homosexual cohabitation is the only way to avoid “gay marriage.” “No to gay marriage, yes to the rights of de facto couples and homosexuals” is the watchword of those who want to organise a line of resistance based on the disastrous policy of “giving in so as not to lose.” This is not only a colossal strategic error but also – and above all – a grave moral one.
The cardinal principle, not only of Catholic morality but also of natural morality, is that one must do good and avoid evil: bonum faciendum et malum vitandum. This first principle is immediately apparent to all men in all places and at all times. It admits of no interpretations or compromises. By postulating the existence of good and evil, this principle presupposes the existence of an objective and immutable order of moral truths which man discovers first and foremost in his own heart because this order is a natural law inscribed “on the tables of the human heart by the very finger of the Creator himself” (Romans 2, 14-15).
From the principle that it is necessary to do good and avoid evil, there follows a necessary consequence: that it is never licit for anyone in any sphere, public or private, to do evil. Evil, which is the violation of the natural law, can be tolerated in exceptional cases but it must never be positively carried out. This means that no circumstance and no good intention can ever transform an intrinsically bad act into a good or indifferent human act. An evil act, even a minor one, may never ever be committed, however noble the intentions behind it. The moral system of “proportionalism,” which is today in vogue, rejects the idea of absolute principles in the domain of morals and accepts the idea that a “lesser evil” can be committed in a particular situation in order to obtain a greater good. This theory was condemned by John Paul II in his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, which reaffirms the existence of immutable and unconditional “moral absolutes.” In the late Pope's words, “The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the consequence of an action is not an adequate method for determining whether the choice of that concrete kind of behaviour is 'according to its species,' or 'in itself,' morally good or bad, licit or illicit.” (paragraph 77).
The correct criterion for moral judgement, instead, is that which evaluates as act as “good” or “evil” according to whether it respects or violates the natural and divine law, considering it first of all in and of itself, i.e. in terms of its essence, circumstances and consequences. By contrast, the proportionalist criterion is relativist because it evaluates an act as “better” or “worse” according to whether it improves or worsens a given situation.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its note of 21 December 2010 on the trivialisation of sexuality, and referring to the misinterpretation of certain passages of Benedict XVI's book, Light of the world, declared, with reference to the theory of the so-called “lesser evil,” “This theory is susceptible to proportionalistic misinterpretation,” condemned by Veritatis Splendor, because “an action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed.” This applies both to personal conduct and to public. It may be impossible for Catholic parliamentarians to implement the greatest good, but they may never promote a law which is unjust in itself, for whatever motive.
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If the principle is accepted that the lesser evil can be committed in order to obtain a larger good, then Catholics would be able to promote therapeutic abortion in order to avoid selective abortion; they could promote homologous artificial insemination in order to avoid heterologous artificial insemination; they could support civil unions in order to avoid homosexual marriage. But, doing this, the whole edifice of morality would collapse because, from lesser evil to lesser evil, every single moral choice could be speciously justified.
There are people who, in order to justify the principle of the lesser evil in politics, refer to a phrase of John Paul II's in Evangelium Vitae, according to which “an elected official … could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law (on abortion) and at lessening its negative consequences.” (paragraph 73). However this sentence cannot be interpreted coherently with Veritatis Splendor or with the moral magisterium of the Church, which teaches that an evil may be tolerated and that one may decide not to suppress it; that one can even regulate an evil in order to reduce its freedom and room for manoeuvre; but that one can never permit or regulate an evil by authorising it, because this would mean approving it and making oneself an complicit in it (cf Ramon Garcia de Haro, La vita cristiana, Aes, Milan, 1995.)
The Pope, in this passage, is not saying that it is licit for a Catholic to propose a bad law, but that it is licit for him to intervene on a law which is being prepared in parliament, and to modify it by means of amendments which either abrogate or restrict its immoral and permissive elements. In this case, we are talking about amendments which prevent certain normative proposals from becoming law. It must however be stipulated that, in our juridical order, laws are not voted article by article, but instead on the basis of overall approval even when laws are complex. However, it would never be permitted for a Catholic parliamentarian to give his final vote in favour of a law which authorised immoral actions, even if such a law included his own amendments.
A Catholic parliamentarian can never, in any case or in any way, cast his final vote in favour of a text which would, for example, authorise the practice of abortion, even in rare and extreme cases. This means that he or she can correct a bill by means of amendments; but he or she cannot approve the final text if certain dispositions remain. In order for a Catholic parliamentarian to be able to give moral approval to a law, it must have its own integritas: this means that it must be totally just, in the sense that none of its provisions must contradict natural and divine law. If a law contains even one provision which is intrinsically and objectively immoral, then it is a “non-law”. A Catholic parliamentarian may never vote for it, for he would then incur moral and juridical responsibility for the whole text. «Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu», as St Thomas Aquinas never tires of repeating. (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 71, a. 5, ad 2; II-II, q. 79, a. 3, ad 4).
In Italy, members of the centre-right and centre-left are finding “wide agreement” that the DICO, the acronym given to a bill on “the rights and duties of persons living in stable cohabitation,” should be exhumed. This bill to give juridical recognition to cohabiting couples was introduced by the Prodi government in February 2007. The project failed then because of opposition from Catholics. Today, by contract, even some personalities from the Catholic world are saying that the recognition of homosexual unions is de facto a “lesser evil” which might be undertaken in order to avoid the “greater evil” of “gay marriage.” But from the moral point of view, the legal recognition of homosexual unions is just as grave as putting them on the same level as marriage. This is why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its document entitled Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons (3 June 2003) and approved by John Paul II, sets down that “respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
Voting in favour of a law such as this is to make oneself complicit in an evil which is in no way destroyed by the supposed “damage limitation.” If there were two laws in Parliament, one which legalised homosexual marriage and the other which recognised the rights of homosexual couples but did not equate their union with marriage, Catholics could not vote in favour of the latter on the basis that it was “less bad” than the first. If the worse law were to pass, then the responsibility for it would fall on those who had signed it. How can one imagine that a Catholic could approve a law which would protect by law one of those sins, that of the Sodomites, “which cries to Heaven” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1867)?
Translated by John Laughland. Reprinted with permission from the Lepanto Foundation.