Catholic Moral Tradition
Questions:
1) If you were teaching a class, what would be your top three primary and most
important rules that you would give to your students?
2) What is an example of a rule that you followed when you were younger that you didn't
like, but looking back on it now you realized it was good for you to do?
Throughout the Church's history there have been two main schools of thought about
morality.
1) Rules and punishment
2) Discipleship
1) Rules and Punishment Approach
- Morality is about avoiding sin - “The first step on the road to right conduct is to avoid
evil.”
- Focuses on a person's actions and what people do. Conscience becomes less
important. There are certain actions that we should stay away from completely.
- We need rules and laws to guide us, the 10 commandments are very important.
- Focuses on the 7 deadly sins.
- Morality is about defining what is right and wrong in all situations.
- Focuses on the idea of a Judgment Day to discourage people from sin (Judgment of
Nations Matthew 25:31-46)
- A person's heart or interior is the source of vice and sin (Mark 7:20-23)
- We can become better people by avoiding sin. Actions can be categorized and
labeled as being different kinds of sin.
- You can change and reorder your interior to make it better and more loving if you form
good habits and avoid bad habits.
- Rules help to shape our habits.
- Even if we only follow the rules for reasons that are not moral like just to stay out of
trouble and we only do good things simply because we get some kind of reward, the
idea is that if we do these things enough we will eventually transform our hearts to be
more virtuous and will do good things for moral reasons.
- Exceptions to rules can be dangerous. What kind of message does it send if you allow
people to break a rule in certain situations?
2) Discipleship Approach
Morality is about our response to God’s love.
- Focuses on the intent, the reason behind the choice and not just the action
-Looks to Scripture and Jesus' example for guidance.
-Encourages the development of virtues.
- Doing the right thing is its own reward and brings us happiness.
- Jesus' New Commandment is what we need to follow instead of the Commandments
(Matthew 22:40)
- Looks to the Beatitudes as guidelines to help us find happiness and moral living.
- A person's conscience is necessary in helping them to be a good person.
- Sin is rooted in our failure to love, not necessarily our wrongdoing (bad actions)
-"When pushed, most people are able to recognize their wrongdoing. We can easily
recognize and label our sin when we cause harm by hurtful actions like lying, cheating,
stealing and name calling. However we don't usually recognize our sin as when we fail
to love others. In Scripture the one who sins is often blind to the sinning (K Himes)."
- Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) Jesus condemns the priest and levite not because
they performed any hurtful action but because they did not care for or show love for the
injured man. Sin is about not bothering to love.