The Christian Vanguard

The following is a paper I wrote for my medical ethics class. The topic is lying. I had about 20 footnotes, but a simple copy-paste action won't carry those over, so, I'm not claiming to be original here or anything.  In this paper I will argue that lying to a patient is wrong because lying simpliciter is always wrong. This will be distinguished from other acts, such as reservation and deceit, in which the patient does not receive the truth but may be permissible. Cases will be considered which it may seem beneficial to lie to the patient and to lie for the patient. I will be drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas and other philosophers that interact with the Thomist tradition.  I begin with the assumption that man is a rational animal. That man is a kind of animal is not controversial, for the whole field of medical science deals with the reality of that animality, and how to treat it. That man is also rational also seems to be uncontroversial as shown by the medical fields...

Why do lingering feelings of guilt, shame, doubt still haunt us after we have confessed our sins which we think are the cause for such feelings? St. Thomas Aquinas may have some insight into the issue here when he says, "...passion is properly to be found where there is corporeal transmutation." Which is just basically to say that when you have a certain emotion, there is a corresponding bodily change. When you feel fear, your heart races, you begin to sweat. When you see the woman you are infatuated with, you have a slight pain in your stomach. When you see your wife walk over to the bed to fulfill marital duties, you also have an appropriate physical response.  And is well known, there is a difference between your passions and your intellect, or your will, in this case. When our intellect craves for something, we don't "feel" it like we feel our emotions. If I feel hungry, I have a bodily reaction to it, and is very immediate. When I feel sad, I have an ...

Years ago, when I was still a Protestant, I attended a panel discussion at my school on the topic of homosexuality. One woman, a mother of a lesbian, and a professed Catholic, said that a topic that the Catholic Church does not like to bring up concerning homosexuality is that of conscience. Since the Church teaches that we should obey our conscience, and for some, and participating in the homosexual lifestyle is in accord to ones conscience, one should continue being homosexual. This clearly would make some Catholics uncomfortable. So, what's going on here? First, terms. Conscience is our judgment of what is right and wrong, and it is our only contact with the moral realm. This is why we must always obey our conscience, because to disobey our conscience is to disobey what we judge to be right. It is saying that we will to do evil, and we should never will to do evil. If conscience is a judgment of what is right and wrong, it is possible that our judgments can be incorrect. It ...

Some Catholics and Protestants believe that error has no rights, and errors concerning the faith most certainly do not have right. Errors, and some egregious sins, ought to be punished by law, with some practical exceptions. So here is a question for that position. If doubting the faith were a sin, should doubt be prosecuted? It isn't so easy to say that doubt isn't something we can control at will because faith is often regarded as a virtue. Both of these are mental states of the same sort, so if faith can be praised and be credited to us, then so can doubt, so doubt is in some sense in our control. And doubting the faith is wrong, and so is a sin, which can be susceptible to punishment. I tend to lean to a more classically liberal view on this issue. 

I received Fr. Robert Sirico's book for free from a promotion I saw on Facebook from the Acton Institute . Here is my review .

You've heard the dating cliche that like attracts like. I used to think this was silly. It could be true or it could be false, but they were true or false in ways that didn't matter, as in personality. But I think I've changed my mind, or at least, I'm willing to agree with this in a very serious way.  The way we are, the way we act, how we carry ourselves and the spirit that we own, we are responsible for this. It is also true and known to most people that good people tend to associate with good people, and that evil tend to associate with other evil people. So, in this way, maybe I agree. But since this can be extended to romantic relationships, then the cliche holds true, but not because it is romantic, but because in general people tend to associate with like minded people.  This is serious because this tells us about our moral character, which is vitally important when it comes to romantic relationships. Now, consider the situation, which I seem to be in, ...