Masking Morality 101

https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/southeast-texas-doctor-talks-about-recovering-from-covid-19/502-e833549d-0a00-4322-a851-525fe3740377

August, 4, 2020 BEAUMONT, Texas — A Southeast Texas doctor is talking about his recovery from COVID-19, and says he never expected to get it. 

Dr. Ray Callas says on July 27, he had symptoms he'd never felt before.

"I couldn't bend down to tie my shoes. All my muscles and my bones ached and that's never happened before," Callas said.

He tested positive for the coronavirus. 

"My temperature was normal but I had some of the worst chills you could possibly imagine," Callas said. 

He doesn't know where he got it.

"I wore a mask everywhere I went. I used hand sanitizer everywhere I went," Callas said. 

He wants to share his story, letting others know what to do if they test positive.

"They need go get treated right away," Callas said. 

Dr. Callas acknowledges there's no known treatment for COVID-19.

"I also took hydroxychloroquine, and that's very controversial. I just felt personally that I needed to throw the kitchen sink at it," Callas said. 

According to the FDA, doctors can make their own decisions about hydroxychloroquine. 

Dr. Callas also took an antibiotic cocktail that included Albuterol, vitamin C and zinc.

He believes the medications helped him recover.

"It gets rough very quickly and a couple of times last week I was concerned about going to the ER. The shortness of breath is very scary and you just letting it sit in your body, and you think it is going to go away is not the right away to approach," Callas said. 

The story brings up a point that has concerned me from the beginning of the restrictions: the effectiveness of the measures in preventing the spread of the virus to any given individual. If an individual has known comorbidity, the morality of the risk of exposure becomes subject to more scrutiny. Prudence in such circumstances requires a close examination of the true efficacy of the personal equipment one is using, not only for the protection of others, but for the protection of oneself, primarily. This is simply a very basic application of the principles of morality. One cannot knowingly expose oneself to the threat of deadly disease without a sufficient reason. This is a perplexing moral issue because there has been so much confusion coming from so-called experts. Indeed, from a moral point of view, some things we have heard have been wrong and accepting of the ignorance of the people to whom this is directed. This method of operation is not the stuff of moral action. Indeed, duress, ignorance, and fear all reduce the moral quality of an act. My impression is that many people are still of the opinion that by wearing a mask they are protecting themselves. In fact, however, the scientific literature up to this point disputes that point. There are different types of masks and the masks that we don are allegedly more effective at preventing the spread of the disease agent from the wearer to others than they are at preventing the wearer from becoming infected. According to the Mayo Clinic surgical masks and cloth masks "may" protect others by reducing exposure to the mask wearer's secretions. https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449. This is why it is often asserted that wearing a mask is an act of kindness or charity because by doing so one is preventing another person from being exposed to the virus. Of course, the mask may mean nothing at all as a disease preventative. Wearing a cloth mask only has a real pragmatic effect, to whatever degree, if the wearer is carrying the disease and is capable of spreading it. Moreover, there are many other factors that would suggest that one with comorbidity must exercise great caution. There are reasons that most of us are not permitted to visit our relatives in the hospital who have COVID-19. For those of us who are permitted to go in to a patient's room, the type of equipment is very specific. It is designed to prevent the wearer from contracting the disease and it is far more extensive than a mere mask. This is certainly our experience as priests. I would suggest that everyone in healthcare knows this. No professional would send one of us into a COVID patient's room with a homemade cloth mask.

Under the circumstances, the mask mandate gives concrete expression to two assumptions, one that is somewhat well-suited to the purpose while the other is a social control measure. The first assumption is that wearing a mask lessens the chance of expelling the contagion though the nose or mouth. This is a morally acceptable position though the degree to which such is effective is far from clear. The best the Mayo Clinic seems to muster here is by suggesting that it "may" be effective. The second assumption is that the only way to control the spread is to assume that everyone is contagious and should, on that basis, be required to wear the cloth mask. As I have said before, that is a social policy determination. It is not a medical or scientific conclusion. The degree to which a society should enforce the action based upon that assumption is a matter for public debate. There could be other factors that mitigate against it. This is the reason that there are health exemptions from the mandate. Without better scientific evidence, we simply trust the one with the authority to make such mandates. And while we might, for a time, concede that such authority exists, we still do not know why a particular individual should or should not be forced by political authority to wear a mask. Or, to put it another way, we do not know why it would be more dangerous for one individual to be permitted an exemption than to risk spreading the disease. How, exactly, is that calculation made? Does anyone know? Of course, not. It is a public policy estimation at this point.

We do not know the degree to which the social whole is protected by the universal wearing of cloth masks. We think it will help. As the experts say, it "may." The degree that it alleviates the spread of the contagion is completely unknown. 

Much to Adam's Relief: The Resurrection

We can come across an idea or insight that completely changes the way we think about something.  We could be in a terrible place in our life and not even know it.  The Resurrection is a good place to find new meaning.

The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a vast and underdeveloped piece of real estate for gaining direction in our lives.  There is an unfortunate tendency in the Church today to think that the resurrection of one’s body is of little consequence for the way we ought to live.  Of course, seeing the world in a predominantly spiritual way is the right thing to do. We think of life on earth and eternal life through the eyes of the Spirit we might say.  Unfortunately, however, the complete elimination of the importance of the meaning of the human body from the concept of human salvation is not an authentic Catholic approach.  Practically, many of us make the mistake of thinking that it is enough to let Jesus Christ bear the cross on which He battles against evil, while we remain bystanders. 

Are we to expect the salvation of our souls without living righteously for Him while here in our mortal bodies?  Jesus manifests His wounded, side, hands and feet to the Apostles thus showing them and us that sin has a lasting effect.  Doesn’t He mean that we too must bear this fight in our own bodies? On a more positive note, when He eats fish in front of them, isn’t this action reinforcing the fact that the human body, with its affections, is important in the Resurrection, in Eternity?  Even if Grandma is experiencing perfect happiness in Heaven, her happiness will increase when she gets her body back.  Our bodies have meaning.  Everything about the human body has meaning. And the harm done to the human person, both body and soul, is something that must be healed by the power of the grace of Christ.  The Great Physician gives us the medicine of salvation, but in and through our bodies we must follow our Divine Doctor's orders: “You must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” (Mt 16:24)

Here is another point to ponder.  Isn’t it interesting, as the Acts of the Apostles says, that the Son of Man’s life was exchanged for the life of a murderer?  Peter said, “You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.” (Acts 3:14) What an indictment that is!  What does a murderer do?  He kills the body.  So the one who saved the human person through the Resurrection of the body, through restoring life to the body, is put to death instead of one whose true crime was killing the body.

It has been quite clear since the beginning of time that sin destroys the body.  This was always Satan’s intent.  He hates the human body.  Jesus was put to death in the body on account of sin and conquers Satan through this as He rises from the dead.  Sin enters into human history as a rejection of God at the same time as its bite injects its deadly poison into the human body.  The first sin is disobedience to God born out of distrust for His creation.  He created the human person, masculine and feminine, with all their differences and with each of their bodies being gifted for their proper roles on earth. 

Adam would have understood immediately the meaning of the wounded side of Christ.  We can surely imagine Adam gazing upon the Crucifixion as the lance opened Jesus’ side. The Old Adam would know and understand the importance of this because it is from his side that the first woman came.  From the side of Christ, the New Adam, flow the blood and water that give life to the bride of Christ, the Church.  He would know that this New Man does not run.  He does not shrink from the protection of His bride and He most certainly does not cause her to sin.  He helps her avoid sinning, all the time.  Even now, we can almost hear the sigh of relief as Adam witnesses, first hand, the undoing of his failure.

So Adam, where are you? Man of today, where are you?  Are you an old Adam or a new Adam?  Where are you, Adam, when your bride, your Eve, is subject to the threat of losing her soul through disobedience to God? Is she going to suffer anew on your account? Her body is at risk of suffering for all eternity because you would allow her to be used for an immoral purpose.  You Christian men, today, do you respect your wives, your beloved, your female friends and acquaintances? Are you like the old Adam or the new Adam, Jesus?  Do you distrust her body?  Do you seek to distort the feminine beauty of her body by pressure to do things below her human and feminine dignity? Do you distort the truth of love for the female body? Do you women distrust your own bodies? Do you fall prey to the domination that came from the fall so present in our culture?  You see, this is the root of the current crisis that the bishops are battling with the President.  That is why there is such a moral problem with contraception and sterilization.  They are sins against the body.  They are sins of distrust of God and his creation of the body.  These acts are choices for the life of the original murderer, the ancient serpent, over the life of the Savior whose body is given up to nourish the Church. They are sins against the Resurrection.

The power of the Resurrected Man, Christ, the New Adam, gives us, also, the model of the Church, the mother of those baptized into Christ.  When we approach Him at the altar, He gives us His body, consummating His love for His Bride, the Church.  Members of the Church must let this Lord lead them to a new respect for the body and human love.  Let Him be the model of relations between man and woman.  Science supports us in this. There have been many advances in the sciences in recent decades that fully support the way human beings were made, male and female, and are consistent with Christ’s teaching in the Church.  This new knowledge will allow you to live in accordance with God’s plan for your life.  This will help you faithfully and intelligently plan your family without offending God.  Please contact me if you want to learn more. 

This is your second chance, Adam.  Do not let the serpent bite you again.

For more information  check this website:  http://www.popepaulvi.com.

God Who Saves the Weak--Or a Weak "god"? Purity Makes the Difference

There is a huge difference between the God who saves the weak and a god who is created out of human weakness.

On its face, the account of the Transfiguration of Jesus teaches us that Jesus is God.  Seeing Jesus transfigured, taking on the radiance of His Divine Nature, speaking to Moses and Elijah, Jews like Peter, James and John would understand the meaning of this.  The Law, represented by Moses, and the Prophets, represented by Elijah, testify to the truth of Jesus, the one who stands before them.  What they see is God unveiled, not hidden, but God, awe-inspiring and majestic, just as Moses witnessed on Mt. Sinai.  This is the One, as St. Paul writes, Christ Jesus, who is at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.  This is the Beloved Son, who speaks for God and is God, the One to whom we are to listen.

There is, at the same time, in the account of the Transfiguration, a meaning that has practical significance for our spiritual journey during Lent.  It is about the discipline with which we approach it through prayer, fasting and giving alms.  It is about repentance, which only comes about when first we recognize that we have sinned.  The Beatitudes teach that the pure of heart are blessed; they shall see God.  The Jesus encountered on Mt. Horeb is the one we must make every effort to encounter ourselves.  Lent is designed to assist us in that quest as we seen to purify ourselves of all that is not of God in order to receive Him with a pure heart.  We are deceived in this world and this culture of death. As St. John’s first letter says: 1 John 2:15-17  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides forever.  Again, recall the Beatitude, “blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” 

We are being put to the test like Abraham who was told to go sacrifice his son.  Our Lenten test is much easier, however.  Our goal is to be purified, to put to death worldly desires.  Abraham was put to the test to see if he valued the one true God above even his own son.  In passing the test, Abraham gave us an image of God the Father who sacrificed the Christ for our sake.  Abraham, thus, walked with God.  St. Paul suggests that Abraham knew Christ even though he lived centuries earlier.  Abraham’s vision was pure.  His trust in God was not marked by anything less than the goal of eternal happiness.  His example, unique in salvation history, nevertheless is an example to us to be purified lest we not gain an eternal inheritance in the land of the living.

Let us ask ourselves, why do we not see this Lord in his glory?  Why is it that we refuse to lay aside everything in order that we might walk constantly with God and see his glory?

For the most part, God is not forcing the issue with us as he did with Abraham.  But this does not mean that we are left without opportunities to step out in faith.  We have Lent to voluntarily remove from between the Lord and each one of us the desires that cloud the vision of our minds and hearts and prevent us from ascending the mountain, that prevent us from seeing Jesus Christ as do the pure of heart.

If we are honest with ourselves we would have to admit that, on account of our desire for pleasure, our rebelliousness, our stubbornness, our pride, our laziness, or our greed, that we find the price of seeing God too great, much like the Israelites who fearfully refused to ascend the mountain with Moses in his day.

The Church today is in turmoil.  Publicly, Catholics openly deny the truths of the faith.  Where is the one who accepts in the heart that the Church speaks for God? Often, matters related to purity separate them from the Church.  Many Church leaders, those charged before God to protect the integrity of the faith, do nothing about politicians who are teaching falsehood and even claiming a greater authority than the bishops, or for that matter, than Christ himself. Many teachers of the faith do nothing about the errors that are thrust upon us, choosing instead to run while the wolf devours the sheep.  Catholics are as likely as anyone to fall into the errors condemned in St. Paul’s teaching regarding sexual purity and holiness in marriage.  Out of wedlock births now exceed 40 percent, and in some places, they constitute the majority of births.

If we are to see God, the Beatitudes say we must be pure.  Let me begin with the priests.  Priests must be pure in heart and body--and I speak of myself first--if we are to testify to the truth.  Young men and women must learn again the importance of purity of heart and of body.  They must learn to respect their bodies as God’s temples if they are not to lose their souls on account of the evils the unruly desires unleash.  The culture of death is against them. Who will rise up to protect them? Husbands and wives need to begin again to respect the proper role of purity and chastity in their marriage, be open to life, not contracepting, but trusting in God’s plan.  If God gives Abraham a son, cannot he not also provide for him?  Spouses can learn the sacred signs of fertility and space births scientifically and morally according to the way God made the body.  Learn to love and respect each other as God intended and the true Christ, radiant and powerful, will be part of marriage again.  You do not have to go to Mt. Horeb to see Jesus transfigured.  You can see him everyday in your homes if you, like Abraham, are willing to believe that God is all-powerful and put him first instead of some anemic god created out of human weakness.  There is a huge difference between the majestic God who comes to save the weak and a weak god created out of human frailty.

Patients in a So-called Vegetative State are Aware

19% of Patients in a Vegetative State are Aware

Lancet has published articles in the past which have indicated that patients who are said to be in a vegetative state are aware in many cases.  Of course, this has not slowed down those who wish to deprive them of life-sustaining treatment.  Many of these patients are given the poorest of treatment and many are dehydrated to death.  I have seen first hand what is done in such cases.  I was involved in one case in which a court turned the control over to a wife who stopped the feeding and hydration of her husband after she had apparently lost all affection for him.

Pelosi, Sebelius, Kennedy, and other Errant Catholics

Speaker Pelosi , Governor Sebelius (soon to be Secretary Sebelius) and Representative Patrick Kennedy, among a whole host of politicians who claim to be Catholic, are getting a great deal of awful theological advice and, in their own way, have become errant theologians themselves. We have all heard Nancy Pelosi's foolish remarks about abortion. Recently, some correspondents have sent statements made by Gov. Sebelius and Rep. Kennedy.

Gov. Sebelius has said,

My Catholic faith teaches me that all life is sacred, and personally I believe abortion is wrong. However, I disagree with the suggestion that criminalizing women and their doctors is an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the number of bortions in our nation.

There is another way. By working in support of the common good we can better protect human life and the dignity of all people.

If we work hard and match our rhetoric with our actions, we can create a culture that is more welcoming of mothers and treasuring of our children. We must redouble our efforts on prevention and personal responsibility. We must stand with women who feel so alone that abortion seems like their only choice. These women need people to walk with them, not cast stones at them....

If we truly wish to reduce the number of abortions further, we need to work together to truly promote a culture of life, by helping women and families get the support they need when facing unexpected pregnancies and to continue to reduce the number of abortions. Health care, child care, job opportunities, affordable housing—they are all the building blocks of a culture of life and we can use them to build a future where abortion is extremely rare.

In response to a constituent who wrote to ask him to vote against the Freedom of Choice Act, Patrick Kennedy wrote:

As you may know, the Freedom of Choice Act would codify into law the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which ensures a woman's right to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. In addition, this legislation also attempts to preserve a women's right to choose by preventing any legislation that would interfere or cause undue burden. I support the primary purpose of the Freedom of Choice Act, which is to ensure a woman's right to choose by making it public law, so that the national dialogue in regards to women's reproductive health and abortion may take a more fruitful course than in the past.

Regardless of where each of us stands on the issue of abortion, we can both agree that no one wants a woman to be faced with the choice to terminate her pregnancy. As former President Clinton has said, 'abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.' Therefore, I believe the dialogue of this nation should be centered on how to prevent unintended pregnancies, so that the need for abortion is greatly reduced. One important step we can take in addressing this issue is by ensuring comprehensive sex education, which instills in youth and young adults the merits of abstinence and safe-sex.

These Catholic politicians, like so many others, have all been mislead into believing that one can support laws which uphold the so-called right to abortion as long as one is personally opposed to abortion or wishes to reduce the number of abortions somehow through some unspecified social policies. The theologians behind this coaching are no doubt, themselves, badly mistaken about the meaning of freedom and the nature of law. One wonders if these theologians are the same ones that were on the list of President Obama's Catholic Advisory Council.

The statements made by these politicians demonstrate an absurd notion of human freedom, one that is completely inconsistent with human nature. Consider carefully what they are saying. A person has a right to abortion because it is a free choice. A woman has a right to kill her unborn child because of freedom. But, would reason not dictate, rather, that killing innocent human beings is not consistent with human freedom? Indeed, since we are speaking of freedom which properly belongs to human beings, would it not be more correct to say that the proper exercise of human freedom excludes the killing other innocent human beings? The mental deformity that allows one to believe that freedom includes the right to kill the innocent is so completely depraved that it should be called uncivilized and barbaric.

The codification of this notion of freedom in a national law permitting abortion is the creation of the worst kind of injustice in codified law. Since such a law sanctions the attack upon innocent human life, it makes law, which is supposedly for the common good, an enemy of the fundamental good of human life. There is no reasonable proposition that would justify the sanctioning of the destruction of the good of the life of one in the name of the good of freedom of another. How could one human's authentic good, in this case freedom, possibly be the cause for permitting the annihilation of another person's right to live? If such a law cannot be considered unjust and, indeed, barbaric, by all reasonable people because it contradicts the good of human life, on what basis would any law against human killing be based? There are only two elements in the equation--freedom of choice and defenseless human life. Is it that none of the theologians giving this bad advise to these politicians see the unreasonableness? If all they are asserting in the end is some political notion of freedom and rights, then, are we not saying that any form of human oppression can be justified in the name of freedom?

These theologians and politicians have contributed to the continuing downhill slide into an anarchical tyrrany of relativism.

Revisionist Moral Thought: Proporotionalism, Consequentialism, Relativism

This post is going to depart from the line of posts on Politicians and Holy Communion. I was asked recently by a priest to help with some questions he had about the various revisionist moral systems that had developed in recent years. I thought blog readers might want to consider some of the points I made in response.

"The first point I should make is that the problems with some of the new moral systems are fundamental problems that are essentially anthropological. I will explain this briefly. Morality is always about the pursuit of Happiness. In the Gospel, Jesus preaches the Beatitudes as His answer to the question about human happiness. Happiness, in this context, is the experience of the reaching the goal of human existence, and in Catholic theology, this goal is something we are attracted to and not something imposed upon our nature by extrinsic rules. Our supernatural end is obtainable only by grace.

"The problem for many modern systems is that they do not have a clear concept of human nature. There is no clear “starting point” for reasoning about what constitutes authentic human goods. Without a beginning point, it rather difficult if not impossible to describe how to get to one’s end or goal. In other words, it would be impossible to identify definitively what constitutes authentic or true “goods” for human beings since, under such systems, there is no clear idea of what would constitute human happiness. In Catholic thought the good is identified with those things that contribute to the fulfillment of human nature. On the other hand, revisionist moral theories are preponderantly dependent upon the subjective intention of the moral agent. In authentic Catholic thought, what the agent is actually doing can be clearly identified as contrary to man’s ultimate end in some cases. With intention as the primary determinant of right or wrong in revisionist theories, however, everybody can have their own subjective morality. The idea of the common good becomes nothing more than an idealistic platitude sometimes sought in democratic processes.

"This lack of a foundation in revisionist theories leads to conflicts in modern theories between the moral law (inscribed on the heart, which the Church helps to identify with moral definitions) and freedom, between freedom and nature, between salvation and morality, and between conscience and the moral law. (Servais Pinckaers is my source for this) The list goes on. But in the Church’s moral theology, since all of these things flow out of the creation of man in the image and likeness of God, there is no conflict among these, all of them having the same source. To put it another way, for revisionists, since there is no such thing as the human good, an act is not morally judged by its conformity to the good of human nature. It is judged by some other means of valuing such as the maximum expression of freedom, or a calculation of the consequences, or whatever one judges to be the best outcome in a particular situation, and so on. So one can see that one of the pervasive weaknesses revisionist systems is that there is not clear theory of value.

"So, modern theories attempt to explain human freedom, conscience, and law without them being tied to the concept of the “good” understood as that which is fulfilling of human nature. In Catholic doctrine and theology, freedom, conscience, law, etc., all derive from a common origin, that is the creation of the human subject. The moral law, in its many forms is an expression of the wise and providential ordering of the universe by the Creator. Moral law defines goods that human freedom and conscience seek as a means of attaining authentic human happiness when human nature is fulfilled.

"Relativism emphasizes the ability of the subject to decide what is good for himself. Consequentialism evaluates behavior on the basis of a calculation of the positive and negative effects of an action, though there is little agreement on how far one has to go with this or how one is to judge what is positive and negative. Proportionalism evaluates the act on the basis of the pre-moral or physical good outweighing the pre-moral or physical evil. All three of these deny the idea that, in theory, something is always evil. Thus, some revisionists have had to admit, for example, that one can never say that rape is always and everywhere evil, according to their thought, until one knows the circumstances and the intention. Catholic doctrine holds that rape is always morally evil no matter the circumstances or intention, even though the subject might not be morally culpable.

"It is out of that context that I can recommend certain reading. All of these books are available online.

The Splendor of Truth: Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology, eds. Augustine di Noia and Romanus Cessario, Scepter Publishers

Morality: The Catholic View, by Servais Pinckaers

There is a good introductory textbook which is suitable for high school use which contains brief descriptions of these systems.
It is Our Moral Life in Christ, Aurelio Fernandez and James Socias."