Veritatis Splendor

Introduction

Yearning for truth in the depths of man's heart: question of the meaning of life, what must I do? (1)

Christ as answer to every one of man's questions (2)

Need today to reflect on the whole of the Church's moral teaching, recalling certain fundamental moral truths (4)

• Danger of systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine on basis of certain presuppositions, esp. the detaching of human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth.
• Natural law is rejected, Magisterium can only "exhort consciences," while each individual must make his or her own life choices.
• Questioning of "intrinsic and unbreakable bond between faith and morality," pluralism of moralities

Aim of encyclical = treating the issues regarding the very foundations of morality, which foundations are being currently undermined; to set forth the principles of a Catholic moral teaching and to shed light on the presuppositions and consequences of current dissent (5)


Chapter 1

Question not about rules but about the meaning of life: the good sets freedom in motion (7)

Christ as Teacher, the one who reveals the Father's will (8)

Only God, who is Goodness Himself, can answer the question about what is good: moral question is a religious question (9)

Purpose of life = to strive to make each of our actions reflect the splendor of God's glory (10)

God makes himself known in his Law (10)

"The moral life presents itself as the response due to the many gratuitous initiatives taken by God out of love for man. It is a response of love." (10)

Acknowledging the Lord as God is the heart of the Law, from which particular precepts flow and towards which they're ordered. (11)

Natural law = the law inscribed in our hearts, "the light of understanding infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done and what must be avoided. God gave this light and this law to man at creation." (12)

God's commandments show man the path of life and lead to it. (12)

The Decalogue is "the interpretation of what the words 'I am the Lord your God' mean for man." (13)

Commandments are meant to safeguard the good of the person by protecting his goods (13)

Commandments as the beginning of freedom, to be free from crimes . . . (13)

Without love of neighbor, made concrete in keeping the commandments, genuine love for God is not possible (14)

Christ is the living fullness of the law: interiorizes the demands of the Commandments and brings out their fullest meaning, invites others to follow him (15)

Beatitudes are not rules but basic attitudes and dispositions (16)

• Promises from which there flow normative indications for the moral life
• Self-portrait of Christ

Perfection demands that maturity in self-giving to which human freedom is called (17)

The precepts of the Law are at the service of the practice of love (17)

"Those who live 'by the flesh' experience God's law as a burden, and indeed as a denial or at least a restriction of their own freedom. On the other hand, those who are impelled by love and 'walk by the Spirit', and who desire to serve others, find in God's Law the fundamental and necessary way in which to practice love as something freely chosen and freely lived out. Indeed, they feel an interior urge--a genuine 'necessity' and no longer a form of coercion--not to stop at the minimum demands of the Law, but to live them in their 'fullness.'" (18)

"Come, follow me" = the new, specific form of the commandment of love of God (18)

"The way and at the same time the content of this perfection consists in the following of Jesus, sequela Christi, once one has given up one's own wealth and very self." (19)

Following Christ is the essential and primordial foundation of Christian morality. It involves holding fast the  very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father (19)

Jesus' way of acting and his words, his deed and his precepts constitute the moral rule of Christian life. (20)

To be a follower of Christ means to become conformed to him--this is the effect of grace, and makes one a member of his body, the Church (21)

To live out Christ in our members is not possible for man on his own strength alone: we need Christ's gift, which is his Spirit, the first fruit of which is charity. (22)

Pedagogical function of the Law: by enabling sinful man to take stock of his own powerlessness and by stripping him of the presumption of his self-sufficiency, the Law leads him to ask for and to receive "life in the Spirit." Only in this new life is it possible to carry out God's commandments. (23)

• "The law was given that grace might be sought; and grace was given, that the law might be fulfilled." (Augustine)

The New Law is not content to state what must be done, but gives the power to do it. (24)

"The Church is in fact a communion both of faith and of life; her rule of life is 'faith working through love.'" (26)

Harmony between faith and life: the Apostles decisively rejected any separation between the commitment of the heart and the actions which express or prove it. (26)

Need for the Church to interpret God's precepts in light of current historical situation: guided by the Holy Spirit (27)


Chapter 2

Essential elements of revelation regarding moral action: (28)

• Subordination of man and his activity to God
• Relationship between the moral good and eternal life
• Christian discipleship as the way to perfect love
• Gift of the Holy Spirit as source and means of the moral life

Sacred Scripture remains the living and fruitful source of the Church's moral doctrine (28)

"Moral theology is a reflection concerned with 'morality,' with the good and the evil of human acts and of the person who performs them; in this sense it is accessible to all people. But it is also 'theology,' inasmuch as it acknowledges that the origin and end of moral action are found in the One who 'alone is good' and who, by giving himself to man in Christ, offers him the happiness of divine life." (29)

Need for a more appropriate way of communicating doctrine: there is a difference between the deposit or the truths of faith and the manner in which they are expressed. (29)

"The faithful should live in the closest contact with others of their time, and should work for a perfect understanding of their modes of thought and feelings as expressed in their culture." (29)

Magisterium does not intend to impose particular theological system, but has the duty to state that some trends of theological/philosophical thought are incompatible with revealed truth. (29)

Crucial issue of today = freedom (31)

• Right to religious freedom and respect for conscience increasingly perceived as foundation of the cumulative rights of the person
• Positive achievement of modernity

Individual conscience as absolute: "To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and 'being at peace with oneself.'" (32)

• Connected to crisis of truth, no universal truth about the good applied by conscience to this specific situation; rather, conscience determines the criteria and acts accordingly (individualism)

There can be no morality without freedom, since it is only in freedom that man can turn to what is good. But what sort of freedom? (34)

Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known: "Conscience has rights because it has duties." (34)

Negative tendencies in contemporary moral theology are "at one in lessening or even denying the dependence of freedom on truth." (34)

I. Freedom and Law

Alleged conflict between freedom and law--freedom would thus be able to 'create values' and would enjoy a primacy over truth, to the point that truth itself would be considered a creation of freedom. (35)

Some people, disregarding the dependence of human reason on Divine Wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for Divine Revelation as an effective means of knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order, have actually posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world. (36)

• Rather, God is the author of the natural moral law, which man participates in by his reason

Certain moral theologians [cf. Fuchs] have introduced sharp distinction between ethical order (human in origin, of value for this world alone) and order of salvation (for which only certain interior attitudes and intentions are necessary): denial that there exists in Divine Revelation a specific and determined, universally valid moral content (37)

"God willed to leave man in the power of his own counsel, so that he would seek his Creator of his own accord"--sharing in God's dominion, man's dominion extends in some way over himself (38)

The teaching of the Council emphasizes, on the one hand, the role of human reason in discovering and applying the moral law: the moral life calls for that creativity and originality typical of the person, the source and cause of his own deliberate acts. On the other hand, reason draws its own truth and authority from eternal law, which is none other than divine wisdom itself. (40)

• The rightful autonomy of reason means that man possesses in himself his own law, received from the Creator; it does not mean that reason itself creates values and moral norms.

Human freedom and God's law meet and are called to intersect, in the sense of man's free obedience to God and of God's completely gratuitous benevolence towards man. Hence obedience to God is not, as some would believe, a heteronomy, as if the moral life were subject to the will of something all-powerful, absolute, extraneous to man and intolerant of his freedom. (41)

God's eternal law = "the reason or the will of God, who commands us to respect the natural order and forbids us to disturb it." (Augustine) (43)

God cares for man not 'from without,' through the laws of physical nature, but 'from within,' through reason, which , by its natural knowledge of God's eternal law [good and evil], is consequently able to show man the right direction to take in his free actions. In this way God calls man to participate in his own providence, since he desires to guide the world--not only the world of nature but also the world of human persons--through man himself, through man's reasonable and responsible care. (43)

Natural law = "participation of the eternal law in the rational creature" (Aquinas) (43)

"Conflict" between nature and freedom: "The penchant for empirical observation, the procedures of scientific objectification, technological progress and certain forms of liberalism have led to these two terms being set in opposition, as if a dialectic, if not an absolute conflict, between freedom and nature were characteristic of the structure of human history." (46)

Some moralists "frequently conceive of freedom as somehow in opposition to or in conflict with material and biological nature, over which it must progressively assert itself. Here various approaches are at one in overlooking the created dimension of nature and in misunderstanding its integrity (nature = what is not freedom) (46)

Human nature is reduced to and treated as a readily available biological or social material. This ultimately means making freedom self-defining and a phenomenon creative of itself and its values. Indeed, when all is said and done man would not even have a nature; he would be his own personal life-project. Man would be nothing more than his own freedom! (46)

Objections of physicalism and naturalism have been leveled against the traditional conception of the natural law, which is accused of presenting as moral laws what are in themselves merely biological laws. Consequently, in too superficial a way, a permanent and unchanging character would be attributed to certain kinds of human behavior, and, on the basis of this, an attempt would be made to formulate universally valid moral norms (e.g., sexual ethics). . . . In this view, man, as a rational being, not only can but actually must freely determine the meaning of his behavior, over against biological limits and cultural conditioning. (47)

God made man as a rationally free being; he left him "in the power of his own counsel" and he expects him to shape his life in a personal and rational way. Love of neighbor would mean above all and even exclusively respect for his freedom to make his own decisions. (47)

Question of correct relationship between freedom and human nature, in particular the human body. (48)

A freedom which claims to be absolute ends up treating the human body as a raw datum, devoid of any meaning and moral values until freedom has shaped it in accordance with its design. Consequently, human nature and the body appear as presuppositions or preambles, materially necessary, for freedom to make its choice, yet extrinsic to the person, the subject and the human act. Their functions would not be able to constitute reference points for moral decisions, because the finalities of these inclinations would be merely "physical" goods, called by some "pre-moral." (48)

Forgetfulness of unity of the human person, body and soul: "reason and free will are linked with all the bodily and sense faculties. The person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of  body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts. The person, by the light of reason and the support of virtue, discovers in the body the anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator. . . . [T]he human person cannot be reduced to a freedom which is self-designing, but entails a particular spiritual and bodily structure." (48)

Reduction of the person to a "spiritual" and purely formal freedom. (49)

Natural law = "man's proper and primordial nature, the 'nature of the human person,' which is the person himself in the unity of soul and body, in the unity of his spiritual and biological inclinations and of all the other specific characteristics necessary for the pursuit of his end. 'The natural moral law expresses and lays down the purposes, right and duties which are based upon the bodily and spiritual nature of the human person. Therefore this law cannot be thought of as simply a set of norms on the biological level; rather it must be defined as the rational order whereby man is called by the Creator to direct and regulate his life and actions and in particular to make use of his own body.'" (50)

Only in reference to the human person in his 'unified totality,' that is, as 'a soul which expresses itself in a body and a  body informed by an immortal spirit,' can the specifically human meaning of the body be grasped. Indeed, natural inclinations take on moral relevance only insofar as they refer to the human person and his authentic fulfillment. (50)

Inasmuch as the natural law is inscribed in the rational nature of the person, it is universal, making itself felt to all beings endowed with reason and living in history. (51)

These universal and permanent laws (e.g., honor your parents) correspond to things known by the practical reason and are applied to particular acts through the judgement of conscience. The acting subject personally assimilates the truth contained in the law. He appropriates this truth of his being and makes it his own by his acts and the corresponding virtues. (52)

The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance . . . because the choice of this kind of behavior is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbor. (52)

On positive precepts vs. prohibitions: "The commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, but it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken. Furthermore, what must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the other hand there are kinds of behavior which can never, in any situation, be a proper response--a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person. Finally, it is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil." (52)

It must certainly be admitted that man always exists in a particular culture, but it must also be admitted that man is not exhaustively defined by that same culture. Moreover, the very progress of cultures demonstrates that there is something in man which transcends those cultures. This "something" is precisely human nature: this nature is itself the measure of culture and the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of any of his cultures, but asserts his personal dignity by living in accordance with the profound truth of his being. (53)

II. Conscience and Truth

In the depths of his conscience man detects a law which he does not impose on himself, but which holds him to obedience, always summoning him to love good and avoid evil. Man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man. (54)

The voice of conscience, it is said, leads man not so much to a meticulous observance of universal norms as to a creative and responsible acceptance of the personal tasks entrusted to him by God. In their desire to emphasize the "creative" character of conscience, certain authors no longer call its actions "judgments" but "decisions": only by making these decisions "autonomously" [or, "authentically"] would man be able to attain moral maturity. (55)

Double status of moral truth [cf. Fuchs?]: Beyond the doctrinal and abstract level, one would have to acknowledge the priority of a certain more concrete existential condition. The latter, by taking account of circumstances and the situation, could legitimately be the basis of certain exceptions to the general rule and thus permit one to do in practice and in good conscience what is qualified as intrinsically evil by the moral law. [In this case] the norm of the individual conscience . . . would in fact make the final decision about what is good and what is evil. (56)

Conscience in a certain sense confronts man with the law and becomes a witness for man of his faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Conscience is the only witness, since what takes place in the heart of the person is hidden from the eyes of everyone outside. Conscience makes its witness known only the person himself. (57)

Conscience is the herald and witness of God himself, whose voice and judgment penetrate the depths of man's soul. Moral conscience does not close man within an insurmountable and impregnable solitude, but opens him to the call, to the voice of God. It is the sacred place where God speaks to man." (58)

Conscience functions as a moral judgment about man and his actions, a judgment either of acquittal or of condemnation, according as human acts are in conformity or not with the law of God written on the heart. (59)

Whereas the natural law discloses the objective and universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the application of the law to a particular case; this application of the law thus becomes an inner dictate for the individual, a summons to do what is good in this particular situation. Conscience thus formulates moral obligation in the light of the natural law. (59)

In the practical judgment of conscience, which imposes on the person the obligation to perform a given act, the link between freedom and truth is made manifest. Precisely for this reason conscience expresses itself in acts of "judgment" which reflect the truth about the good, and not in arbitrary "decisions." (61)

It is always from the truth that the dignity of conscience derives. In the case of the correct conscience, it is a question of the objective truth received by man; in the case of the erroneous conscience, it is a question of what man, mistakenly, subjectively considers to be true. It is never acceptable to confuse a "subjective" error about moral good with the "objective" truth rationally proposed to man in virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an erroneous conscience. It is possible that the evil done as the result of invincible ignorance or a non-culpable error of judgment may not be imputable to the agent; but even in this case it does not cease to be an evil, a disorder in relation to the truth about the good. (63)

We are called to form our conscience, to make it the object of a continuous conversion to what is true and good: knowledge of God's law in general is certainly necessary, but not sufficient--what is essential is a sort of "connaturality" between man and the true good. (64)

• Magisterium helps to form conscience, brings to light truths which conscience ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith.
• Church is at the service of conscience, helping it to attain the truth with certainty and to abide in it.

III. Fundamental Choice and Specific Kinds of Behavior

Freedom is not only the choice for one or another particular action, but also, within that choice, a decision about oneself and a setting of one's own life for or against the Good, for or against the Truth, ultimately for or against God. (65)

According to certain authors [e.g. Fuchs], the key to the moral life is the "fundamental option," brought about by that fundamental freedom whereby the person makes an overall self-determination, not through a specific and conscious decision on the level of reflection, but in a "transcendental" and "athematic" way. Particular acts which flow from this option would constitute only partial and never definitive attempts to give it expression; they would only be its "signs" or symptoms. The immediate object of such acts would not be absolute Good (before which the freedom of the person would be expressed on a transcendental level), but particular (also termed "categorical") goods.

A distinction thus comes to be introduced between the fundamental option and deliberate choices of a concrete kind of behavior: "good"/"evil" refer to the transcendental decision only, "right"/"wrong" refer to particular choices.

There thus appears to be established two levels of morality: the order of good and evil, which is dependent on the will, and specific kinds of behavior, which are judged to be morally right or wrong only on the basis of a technical calculation of the proportion between "premoral" or "physical" goods and evils which actually result from the action. (65)

Fundamental decision = faith, total and free self-commitment, submission in obedience of intellect and will (66)

• This capacity is actually exercised in particular choices of specific actions, through which man deliberately conforms himself to God's will, wisdom and law. (67)

The so-called fundamental option, to the extent that it is distinct from a generic intention is always brought into play through conscious and free decisions. Precisely for this reason, it is revoked when man  engages his freedom in conscious decisions to the contrary, with regard to morally grave matter. (67)

The morality of human acts is not deduced only from one's intention, orientation or fundamental option, understood as an intention devoid of a clearly determined binding content or as an intention with no corresponding positive effort to fulfill the different obligations of the moral life. Judgments about morality cannot be made without taking into consideration whether or not the deliberate choice of a specific kind of behavior is in conformity with the dignity and integral vocation of the human person. (67)

The fundamental orientation can be radically changed by particular acts. (70)

IV. The Moral Act

It is precisely through his acts (in which man's freedom confronts God's law) that man attains perfection as man (71)

We are, in a certain sense, our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our decisions. (71)

The eternal law is known both by man's natural reason (natural law) and, in an integral and perfect way, by God's supernatural Revelation (divine law). Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man's true good and thus express the voluntary ordering of the person towards his ultimate end: God himself. (72)

The rational ordering of the human act to the good in its truth and the voluntary pursuit of that good, known by reason, constitute morality. Hence human activity cannot be judged as morally good merely because it is a means for attaining one or another of its goals, or simply because the subject's intention is good. (72)

The moral life has an essentially teleological character, since it consists in the deliberate ordering of human acts to God, the ultimate end (telos) of man. This ordering does not depend solely on one's intentions, but on whether such acts are in themselves capable of being ordered to this end. (73)

What does the moral assessment of man's free acts depend? What is it that ensures this ordering of human acts to God? Is it the intention of the acting subject, the circumstances--and in particular the consequences--of his action, or the object itself of his act? (74)

Consequentialism/Proportionalism: Weighing of non-moral or pre-moral goods to be gained and corresponding non-moral or pre-moral values to be respected with the aim of achieving best state of affairs for all concerned, maximizing goods and minimizing evils (74)

• Consequentialism = calculation of foreseeable consequences deriving from a given choice
• Proportionalism = proportion between good and bad effects

The values or good involved in a human act would be, from one viewpoint, of the moral order (in relation to properly moral values, such as love of God and neighbor, justice, etc.) and, from another point of view, of the pre-moral (non-moral, physical, ontic) order (in relation to the advantages and disadvantages accruing both to the agent and to all other persons possibly involved, such as, for example, health or its endangerment, physical integrity, life, death, loss of material goods, etc.). In a world where goodness is always mixed with evil, and every good effect linked to other evil effects, the morality of an act would be judged in two different ways: its moral "goodness" would be judged on the basis of the subject's intention in reference to moral goods, and its "rightness" on the basis of a consideration of its foreseeable effects or consequences and their proportion. The evaluation of the consequences of the action would regard only the pre-moral order, while the moral specificity of the act (whether it is good or evil) would be determined by the faithfulness of the person to the highest values of charity and prudence. (75)

• Affinity to scientific mentality (calculation), seek to provide liberation from constraints of a voluntaristic and arbitrary morality of obligation which would ultimately be dehumanizing. (76)

Love of God and neighbor cannot be separated from observance of the commandments of the Covenant. (76)

Consideration of consequences is not adequate for determining whether this concrete choice is "in itself" morally good or bad, licit or illicit. The foreseeable consequences are part of those circumstances of the act which, while capable of lessening the gravity of an evil act, nonetheless cannot alter its moral species. (77)

Exhaustive rational calculation of the consequences of an act is impossible. (77)

The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the "object" rationally chosen by the deliberate will. By this object, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person. (78)

The reason why a good intention is not itself sufficient, but a correct choice of actions is also needed, is that the human act depends on its object, whether that object is capable or not of being ordered to God, to the One who alone is good and thus brings about the perfection of the person. (78)

One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of proportionalism, that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned. (79)

Whether an act is capable of being ordered to the good is grasped by reason in the very being of man, considered in his integral truth, and therefore in his natural inclinations, his motivations and his finalities, which always have a spiritual dimension as well. It is precisely these which are the contents of the natural law and hence that ordered complex of "personal goods" which serve "the good of the person": the good which is the person himself and his perfection. These are the goods safeguarded by the commandments. (79)

Intrinsically evil acts = those which are per se gravely wrong, independently from circumstances

While it is sometimes lawful to tolerate a lesser evil to avoid a greater evil or to promote a greater good, it is never lawful to do evil that good may come of it (80)

If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain "irremediably" evil acts; per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person. (81)

We must not be content merely to warn the faithful about the errors and dangers of certain ethical theories, but must first of all show the inviting splendor of truth which is Jesus Christ himself. In Christ, man can understand fully and live perfectly, through his good actions, his vocation to freedom in obedience to the divine law summarized in the commandment of love of God and neighbor. And this is what takes place through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, of freedom and of love: in him we are enabled to interiorize the law, to receive it and to live it as the motivating force of true personal freedom. (83)


Chapter 3

Only the freedom which submits to the Truth leads the human person to his true good. The good of the person is to be in the Truth and to do the Truth. (84)

The saving power of the truth is contested, and freedom alone, uprooted from any objectivity, is left to decide by itself what is good and what is evil. (84)

Each day the Church looks to Christ with unfailing love, fully aware that the true and final answer to the problem of morality lies in him alone. In a particular way, it is in the Crucified Christ that the Church finds the answer to the question troubling so many people today: how can obedience to universal and unchanging moral norms respect the uniqueness and individuality of the person, and not represent a threat to his freedom and dignity? The Crucified Christ reveals the authentic meaning of freedom; he lives it fully in the total gift of himself and calls his disciples to share in his freedom. (85)

Human freedom is real but limited. It is at once inalienable self-possession and openness to all that exists, in passing beyond self to knowledge and love of the other. Freedom then is rooted in the truth about man, and it is ultimately directed towards communion. (86)

Within his errors and negative decisions, man glimpses the source of a deep rebellion, which leads him to reject the Truth and the Good in order to set himself up as an absolute principle unto himself: "You will be like God." Consequently, freedom itself needs to be set free. (86)

Christ reveals, first and foremost, that the frank and open acceptance of truth is the condition for authentic freedom. Furthermore, he reveals by his whole life that freedom is acquired in love, that is, in the gift of self. (87)

The full meaning of freedom = the gift of self in service to God and one's brethren. (87)

Jesus is the living, personal summation of perfect freedom in total obedience to the will of God. His crucified flesh fully reveals the unbreakable bond between freedom and truth, just as his Resurrection from the dead is the supreme exaltation of the fruitfulness and saving power of a freedom lived out in truth. (87)

The attempt to set freedom in opposition to truth, and indeed to separate them radically, is the consequence, manifestation and consummation of another more serious and destructive dichotomy, that which separates faith from morality. (88)

Growing secularism, men and women live "as if God did not exist," faith loses its character as a new and original criteria for thinking and acting in personal, family and social life. (88)

Faith is a lived knowledge of Christ, a living remembrance of his commandments, and a truth to be lived out. A word, in any event, is not truly received until it passes into action, until it is put into practice. Faith is a decision involving one's whole existence. It entails an act of trusting abandonment to Christ, which enables us to live as he lived. (88)

Through the moral life, faith becomes confession, not only before God but also before men: it becomes witness. (89)

Martyrdom rejects as false and illusory whatever "human meaning" one might claim to attribute, even in "exceptional circumstances," to an act morally evil in itself. Indeed, it even more clearly unmasks the true face of such an act: it is a violation of man's "humanity," in the one perpetrating it even before the one enduring it. Hence martyrdom is also the exaltation of a person's perfect "humanity" and of true "life." (92)

The voice of conscience has always clearly recalled that there are truths and moral values for which one must be prepared to give up one's life. In an individual's words and above all in the sacrifice of his life for a moral value, the Church sees a single testimony to that truth which, already present in creation, shines forth in its fullness on the face of Christ. (94)

Church is accused of lacking understanding and compassion, yet genuine understanding and compassion mean love for the person, for his true good and authentic freedom. This does not result by concealing or weakening moral truth but by proposing it in its most profound meaning. This must be joined with tolerance and charity, as Christ himself showed in his dealings with men. (95)

Because there can be no freedom apart from or in opposition to the truth, the categorical--unyielding and uncompromising--defense of the absolutely essential demands of man's personal dignity must be considered the way and the condition for the very existence of freedom. (96)

At the heart of the issue of culture we find the moral sense, which is in turn rooted and fulfilled in the religious sense. Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality, and thus of the commandments, particularly those negative commandments which always and in every case prohibit behavior and actions incompatible with the personal dignity of every man. The Supreme Good and the moral good meet in truth: the truth of God, the Creator and Redeemer, and the truth of man, created and redeemed by him. (99)

If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interest or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. (99)

Despite the fall of communism, there is still a danger that the fundamental rights of the person will be denied and the religious yearnings of man will be absorbed into politics. This is the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and on a deeper level make the acknowledgment of truth impossible. Indeed, if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism. (101)

Man's history of sin begins when he no longer acknowledges the Lord as his Creator and himself wishes to be the one who determines, with complete independence, what is good and what is evil. (102)

Only in the mystery of Christ's redemption do we discover the "concrete" possibilities of man. Christ has redeemed us! This means that he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence. And if redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ's redemptive act, but to man's will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act. (103)

Today's widespread tendencies towards subjectivism, utilitarianism, and relativism appear not merely as pragmatic attitudes or patterns of behavior, but rather as approaches having a basis in theory and claiming full cultural and social legitimacy. (106)

Revealed truth beckons reason--God's gift fashioned for the assimilation of truth--to enter into its light and thereby come to understand in a certain measure what it has believed. (109)

Moral theology = scientific reflection on the Gospel as the gift and commandment of new life, a reflection on the life which "professes the truth in love" and on the Church's life of holiness, in which there shines forth the truth about the good brought to its perfection. Moral theologians are called to develop a deeper understanding of the reasons underlying the Magisterium's teachings and to expound the validity and obligatory nature of the precepts it proposes, demonstrating their connection with one another and their relation with man's ultimate end. They should be deeply concerned to clarify ever more fully the biblical foundations, the ethical significance and the anthropological concerns which underlie the moral doctrine and the vision of man set forth by the Church. (110)

The affirmation of moral principles is not within the competence of formal empirical methods. While the behavioral sciences develop an empirical and statistical concept of 'normality,' faith teaches that this normality itself bears the traces of a fall from man's original situation. (112)

Christian morality is extraordinarily simple: it consists in following Jesus Christ, in abandoning oneself to him, in letting oneself be transformed by his grace and renewed by his mercy. (119)