2nd Ammendment

Just this morning the US Supreme Court reached what is considered a landmark decision in the interpretation of the US Constitution's Second Amendment.

For the moment, we will not go into the implications of the decision. My current interest is the negative response that the decision received from those who are politically liberal. The mayor of Chicago will be taken as a case study of one of their primary objections. A more detailed account of some of his comments can be found here. However, I would like to primarily focus on this comment:

"If they think that's the answer ... they're greatly mistaken. Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, you have a gun and I have a gun, and we'll settle it in the streets if that's they're thinking."

Underlying this argument, if you can call it that, is the belief that laws can solve all/most problems. If you could only pass enough and the right kind of laws, then all/most problems could be eliminated.

The problem here is that no finite cause/good can cause the will to act necessarily. Thus, while laws can be a good thing, they do not by themselves cause a problem to go away. If it is illegal to have handguns, only criminals will have handguns. They can still get them quite easily from other municipalities that do not have as strict of gun regulation, or they can acquire from other criminals. Laws against owning handguns might prevent some violent crimes, but for many others these laws will only add a minor offense to the more serious one committed with the gun.

Additionally, the lack of a particular civil positive law does not mean that everyone will do the wrong thing in a given situation. Man is fallen, but he is not completely evil. The natural law at least generically guides man to do the right thing in civil matters, and even men with less than perfect motives will do the right thing because it is practical.

Contrary to the mayor of Chicago, I do not see the US returning to the Old West because of this legal ruling. Those who have guns should be trained to be responsible with them, but these same individuals do not become crazed gunslingers just because they own a handgun. The will is a complex thing, and the errant position of the mayor of Chicago tries to reduce the will to a simple thing that is directly motivated by civil positive law.

Dissention in the Ranks: Part III

St. Louis has had its own ongoing controversy over the last few years...well, I suppose it has been going on for much longer than a few years, but it has gained notoriety in the past couple of years.

A polish parish has been confused about the ontological order of the Church for some time now. Instead of seeing their pastor as having power in virtue of his ordination and authority in virtue of being delegated by the ordinary, the parish council saw the priest's authority as coming from the democratic judgment of the parish council. As you may have guessed, the Archbishop of St. Louis did not concur with the parish council on this matter. The parish council was given a period of time to consider their position, and when they did not return to the orthodox position, they incurred the penalty of excommunication. Having lost their appeal to Rome, the parish council is still working on establishing an acceptable position.

While the St. Louis predicament may seem unique, I think its error is more widespread than one might think. In a country that has been built upon democracy and thus the will of the people, religion has also tended toward congregationalism. Each community desires to define the whole in virtue of the beliefs of the individuals. While this may not seem too bad, it has direr repercussions. Once the priority is shifted from the universal Church to that the believing individual, what is believed shifts from an objective truth handed down from the apostles to a subjective truth as held by a particular individual or set of individuals. It is still possible for these two sets of beliefs to be congruent, but it is my no means necessary. The individual can enter into error, and often does. This comes out even more strongly in many Protestant circles, where one goes "church shopping" to find a church or pastor that most clearly believes what the individual believes, and having found a church to belong to, the individual's beliefs may still remain distinct from those of this church. Further, even in well meaning and well catechized Catholics, the individual will still be required to believe many truths implicitly that the universal Church holds as true explicitly.

The correct understanding of the Church can be drawn out of a variety of texts. The first that comes to mind is Mt. 16:18, where Jesus speaks of founding his Church upon the sure foundation of Peter. Jesus is speaking of founding a Church and not merely sending the Apostles out in a disorganized evangelization. Second, in the Pauline texts, the Church itself is spoken of as the bride of Christ. The individual is not directly wed to Christ. Rather, Christ is joined to the individual in virtue of the individual's membership in the Church. Thus, the universal Church has an ontological priority to the belief of the individual.