The Catholic Thing

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The Catholic Thing is a daily column rooted in the richest cultural tradition in the world, i.e., the concrete historical reality of Catholicism.

  1. 22h ago

    Cardinal Cupich and the 'Seamless Garment'

    By Richard A. Spinello The amorphous doctrine of the "consistent ethic of life" continues to inspire some Catholics while disturbing others. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago introduced this principle in a speech at Fordham University in 1983 – and proclaimed it zealously until his death in 1996. Most recently it has been revived by his successor, Cardinal Blase Cupich, who traveled to Fiera di Primierio, the ancestral home of Cardinal Bernardin's parents, to deliver a speech paying homage to the Cardinal and his famous theory. According to Cardinal Cupich, this moral framework is a useful corrective to our polarized political and social climate. In his estimation, Cardinal Bernardin's idea continues to be one of the most influential frameworks in modern American Catholic social thought. Cardinal Cupich goes on to declare that his predecessor's framework anticipated the holistic moral vision proposed by Pope John Paul II in his landmark encyclical Evangelium vitae: "John Paul II validated Bernardin's broader synthesis by explicitly placing the direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, alongside broader structural threats to human life, including war, poverty, and ecological degradation." These remarks invite us to consider two key questions: what does the "consistent ethic of life" really mean, and did John Paul II validate this theory? The first question is not easily answered, since Bernardin's theory can be interpreted in several different ways. Stripped of nuances, it suggests that Catholics must develop a comprehensive and balanced moral outlook on abortion, euthanasia, unjust war, capital punishment, poverty, environmental degradation, and so on. They should not defend human life in one context while being indifferent to threats to life in others. The framework is designed to challenge pro-lifers who are passionate about abortion but are divided over other life-related issues. At the same time, it challenges those who care about poverty and the environment but are lukewarm and noncommittal about abortion. Catholics are called to promote and champion the dignity and quality of life of every person across a whole spectrum of threats. Accordingly, following the lead of Cardinal Bernardin, Cardinal Cupich argues that those who defend the right to life of the unborn must be equally visible and vocal in confronting other life-and-death issues such as health care, the "scourge of racial injustice," and the ominous threat of climate change. He also cites Pope Leo XIV who observed that "one cannot consider themselves pro-life because they oppose abortion and yet are for the death penalty or not opposed to the inhumane treatment of migrants." For Bernardin as for Cupich, this "quality-of-life posture" translates into specific political and economic positions on various social welfare policies, health care, and the environment. The major flaw with this theory, however, is that it obscures the crucial distinction between intrinsically evil acts and prudential moral issues, between moral absolutes and affirmative responsibilities. For example, there is a clear asymmetry between issues like abortion and infanticide on the one hand, and environmental degradation on the other. As philosopher John Finnis points out, moral absolutes such as "it is always wrong to take innocent human life" are immediately applicable and therefore directly translate into unambiguous social policies. But affirmative responsibilities like "protect the environment" allow for exceptions and qualifications and different approaches to social and economic policies. Several norms and prudential considerations come into play. Corporations, for example, must balance the valid moral and social demands for environmental integrity with value creation. Therefore, we cannot equate moral absolutes with affirmative responsibilities since these obligations have a different moral structure and cannot be directly converted into social polic...

  2. 1d ago

    Forever Freedom Fighters

    By Elizabeth Edwards Spalding As America goes to the voting booths, it is good to remember a heroic instance of resistance to tyrannical socialism. In 1956, for almost two weeks, a Communist regime was overthrown behind the Iron Curtain. Hope and resolve began on October 23, ending in anger and pain on November 4 – exactly 70 years ago tomorrow. Soviet tanks and infantry crushed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The West stood by and watched – a sad reminder of what happens when good people do nothing in the face of evil. Time's January 7, 1957, issue named the Hungarian Freedom Fighter as 1956's "Man of the Year." "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," goes the saying. But moral equivalence has no place when it comes to freedom fighters against a dictatorial regime. In 1956, resistance began as roughly 20,000 students protested – in part supporting a preceding workers' uprising in Poland – and expanded to some 200,000 Hungarians marching through the capital city and gathering outside the Hungarian Parliament and the Magyar Radio buildings (about a mile and a half apart). They peacefully protested the one-party Communist state that was imposed by Kremlin overlords and implemented by the Hungarian Working People's Party, the secret police (AVH), and the Hungarian People's Army. The AVH responded by opening fire on the peaceful protestors outside the Magyar Radio building. One of their demands was the dismantling of a large monument to Joseph Stalin, at the edge of Budapest's main park. Communist Hungary built the memorial as its official gift for Stalin's 70th birthday celebration in 1949. It took 100,000 Freedom Fighters – including engineering students and welders with tools and trucks – to take down, deface, and disassemble the statue. They left behind its boots. That was but the first day. As the uprising continued and grew, some Hungarian military units defected, and the Freedom Fighters acquired rifles beyond what they had seized on their own and exercised the right to bear arms against a tyrannical regime. Over 25,000 civilians (including many of Budapest's 15,000 industrial workers) and 2,000 military personnel fought with the resistance. From a previously secret arms factory, workers distributed at least 1,000 rifles. A ceasefire was announced on October 28, and Soviet military units began withdrawing from the capital on October 30. According to moral equivalence, the justification for an armed uprising is a matter of opinion. But as Americans would say, by the laws of nature and of nature's God, this was a just uprising. Hungary was not governed according to the rule of law and fundamental rights that are a priori guaranteed rather than granted by the state. The one-party Communist state imposed ideological, totalitarian, and thus unconstitutional rule. It was unjust in its unfreedom. The very first freedom – religious liberty – was central to the Hungarian Revolution and undergirded its constitutional goals and the just nature of the armed uprising. During the heady days between two rounds of active fighting against Soviet tanks and troops, when Hungarians dared to dream that they were winning, about 8,000 political prisoners were released. Most notable was Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, who had led his people in resisting both fascism and communism. During World War II, Mindszenty was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. Several years later, at the hands of the Communist party, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial. When Mindszenty was released, jubilant crowds in villages and towns welcomed him along the way to Budapest. Cardinal Mindszenty was the highest moral, spiritual, and even political leader of the Hungarian Revolution. Endorsing the armed resistance and blessing and meeting with its leaders, he believed that the course of the revolution – and Hungary's future – must be set by the Freedom Fighters rather than the Communist reform government. His public and pr...

  3. 2d ago

    'Woe To Me If I Do Not Preach'

    By Fr. Benedict Kiely I'm not sure whether Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, the Archbishop of Algiers, has read the satirical poem "Absolute and Abitofhell" by Monsignor Ronald Knox. The poem describes the Oxford dons and clergymen of his day, who were enamored of theological liberalism, the kind of churchmen that, St. John Henry Newman said, he had spent his life combatting. The lines from that poem that come to mind about our man in Algiers are as sharp as vinegar: "When suave politeness, temp'ring bigot zeal / Corrected 'I believe,' to 'One does feel.' " Cardinal Vesco has recently said several things that were more than merely polite to his Muslim neighbors. His initial statement condemned "proselytism," which he described as "poison" – and has been challenged by Bishop Robert Barron, who knows a bit about evangelization. Something of an internet storm has now erupted, with the usual suspects, the Knoxian dons, as one might call them, condemning Bishop Barron and reminding the world that the Cardinal ministers in a difficult situation – i.e., among Muslims. The usual apparatchiks of syncretism claimed that the words of the Cardinal had been misunderstood: he was not denying the "Great Commission" to preach the Gospel to all nations, nor the call to conversion. Cardinal Vesco has attempted to clarify his earlier statements but has dug an even bigger hole. The Church, he said, is "not there to convert," and has "better things to do" than seek converts from what he called the other "monotheistic religions." The Church in any country where Islam is dominant is, indeed, in a difficult situation. Where is the great See of Hippo today, or the town of Thagaste where St. Augustine was born? Its ancient Christian population is gone, attacked first by barbarian hordes, and then finished off forever under Islam. It is difficult to proclaim Christ in conditions of hostility, as I know only too well from more than ten years helping persecuted Christians across the Middle East. So, the question arises: If it's not the job of the Church to convert, for what does She exist? For the first three centuries of Christian history, all Church members, hierarchy and people, were in overwhelmingly hostile situations. Ten of the twelve Apostles died for the Faith: Judas committed suicide, and only St. John lived to a ripe old age. Martyrs – men, women, and children – witnessed to the truth of the Christian faith. They believed, along with St. Paul, that there is "no other name under heaven by which we can be saved, than by the name of Jesus." Today, in the lands where my charity works, families are killed and priests are martyred in an overwhelmingly hostile place. They are forced from their homes, they leave all their possessions, their businesses are destroyed, because they believe the words of the One who proclaimed Himself to be the "Way, the Truth, and the Life." I have met people who have faced death because of their conversion from Islam. One lady, threatened by her own family, said that it did not matter now, because "she knew Christ." Interreligious dialogue is immensely difficult when someone wishes to cut your head off because of what you believe. This might even suggest that "dialogue" of this kind is pointless. Some say the Cardinal only meant to condemn proselytism, a word which has taken on a modern connotation that makes it unfashionable. The modern understanding involves more than persuasion; it suggests some kind of coercion. Contra Cardinal Vesco, the idea that there can be the slightest possibility of coerced or forced conversions in a Muslim country is fanciful. Rather than forced conversion, the Cardinal quite clearly means the very act of conversion itself. Yet the origin of the word proselytism, as was understood for centuries, comes from the Greek meaning "one who has arrived" – a proselyte. Followers of Jesus Christ claimed, in great humility, that they had "arrived" at the truth. The "job" of the one who had arrived at the tr...

  4. 3d ago

    Sapieha's Dinner and the Heavenly Banquet

    By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza Given his decisive role in my priestly vocation, I pay particular attention to the anniversaries of St. John Paul the Great. We ought to call him that, as both his immediate successors argued, Pope Benedict XVI explicitly and Pope Francis implicitly. This year's solemn feast of All Saints marks the eightieth anniversary of John Paul's priestly ordination, conferred by Cardinal Adam Sapieha in the chapel of the venerable residence of the Cracovian archbishops. Thirty years ago, for his golden jubilee, John Paul published a small book for the occasion, Gift and Mystery, which remains a fine gift for any priest or seminarian. It was on his feast day – October 22, the date of his stirring "Be Not Afraid" homily at the inauguration of his pontificate – that a dozen American bishops were enticed to the White House with promises of meeting Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both Catholics. It was misleading from the outset – Vance was in Nebraska and Rubio in India – and ended in manipulation, with the White House ambushing the bishops with an Oval Office audience, during which they were filmed hovering in prayer over the president. It's impossible to control such things in an away game, as it were. Benedict XVI refused to allow himself to be photographed with Nancy Pelosi on one occasion, but he was in his own Vatican ballpark. But the liturgical recurrence brought to mind one of the more vivid images of John Paul's many meetings with civil leaders. In 1983, John Paul returned to Poland for the second time. His homeland was under martial law, declared by Moscow's man in Warsaw, General Wojciech Jaruzelski. When the two met at the presidential palace to exchange formal addresses, John Paul was somber and serene. Jaruzelski, to the astonishment of the assembled entourages and noted by the journalists present, was shaking. Not metaphorically. His hands trembled, his knees knocked. He was afraid. Beholding that pathetic sight, a man of great moral weakness wrapped in political power, I suspect that John Paul's thoughts might have gone back to the "unbroken prince," the "archbishop of the long night of occupation," Adam Sapieha. For forty years (1911 – 1951) as archbishop of Kraków, he witnessed more blood spilled than any bishop in the history of the Church. Two world wars unfolded on his territory, which included Auschwitz. While the influence of Poland's "primate of the millennium," Blessed Stefan Wyszynski, on John Paul is widely known, it is Sapieha who had the greater formative impact. George Weigel's biography, Witness to Hope, opens with dramatic scenes that marked Karol Wojtyła's young years in Kraków. Amongst them is included one of the great dinners in the thousand-year history of Poland. Soon after the German-Soviet dismemberment of Poland in 1939, the Nazis installed Hans Frank as "governor general" in Kraków. The gangster took up residence in Wawel Castle, the ancient seat of Polish kings. Weigel writes that Frank, "evidently looking for some sliver of legitimation, hinted repeatedly that an invitation to dinner at the archbishop's residence would be well-received." Sapieha issued the invitation and seated Frank at the other end of his formal table. He then served him, on the silver plate of the prelate's patrimony, "the people's diet of stale bread and ersatz coffee." The prince-archbishop knew his people's suffering. He thought that Frank should know it too. Years later, John Paul would remind Jaruzelski of the same. It was in that same residence that Wojtyła completed his studies for ordination, in the clandestine seminary that Sapieha operated in his own home. It was there that he learned firsthand the lessons first taught in Kraków by the martyr-bishop St. Stanislaus nearly 900 years earlier. When John Paul stood quietly before a quaking Jaruzelski, it was Sapieha's formation bearing fruit. And what was Sapieha thinking that morning of All Saints in 1946? Perhap...

  5. 4d ago

    The Georgia Martyrs: Dying for the Sanctity of Marriage

    By Daniel B. Gallagher After two years of preaching the Gospel to the Guale people along the coast of modern-day Georgia, Friar Pedro de Corpa had much to be thankful for. Unlike other missionaries, he didn't need a military escort, for he was welcomed peacefully by the natives. He walked among them barefoot, learned their language, and enjoyed greater success than the Jesuits who had preceded him. The Guale even helped him build two mission settlements known as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Tolomato and Santa Catalina de Guale. Among the newly baptized was the presumed heir to the chiefdom, Juanillo. After marrying a woman sacramentally in the Church, Juanillo took another wife. Friar Pedro's public rebuke provoked Juanillo to organize an uprising in 1597. On September 14– the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross – Juanillo gathered a band of tribal warriors and bludgeoned Friar Pedro as he was preparing for Mass. The jubilant war party then severed the friar's head and raised it high on a pike for all to see. Today's Beatification of Friar Pedro and four other Spanish Franciscans in Savannah will be the first in the American South. Bishop Stephen Parkes highlights the significance of honoring men who shed their blood not only for Christ but "for the sanctity of marriage," adding that "we need to continue to promote marriage and family life as a priority for our country, for our communities, for our society." The message of the "Georgia Martyrs" is clear: marriage is worth dying for. The only way to promote peaceful coexistence is to defend marriage, even if it costs your life. It doesn't take a deep dive into Christian history to see how central this has always been to the preaching of the Gospel. Early martyrology shows that dying for Christ was often the act of an entire family. After Saint Getulius was martyred around 120 AD, his wife Symphorosa refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. Her disobedience to the emperor's command cost not only her life but those of her seven sons. A similar story is told of Saint Felicity who died in Rome around 165 AD. The concept of a "domestic church" was virtually indistinguishable from that of the family. "The family," Pope Benedict XVI taught, "is the domestic Church and must be the first school of prayer. It is in the family that children. . .learn to perceive the meaning of God" and "live in an atmosphere marked by God's presence." The message of the Georgia martyrs is integrally tied to that of the early Roman martyrs. The first step to creating "an atmosphere marked by God's presence" is the mutual promise of one man and one woman to "be faithful," "to love," and "to honor" each other "in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health." If it doesn't start there, it won't lead to the heroic witness of a Saint Symphorosa or Blessed Pedro. The beatification of the five Spanish martyrs is a magnificent reminder that marriage is worth dying for. If we think we'll never be called to shed blood to defend Christian marriage, we have only to recall how quickly the tables turned on Friar Pedro and his companions. Hardly anyone foresaw how serious the crisis would be running up to and following the promulgation of Humanae Vitae in 1968. The turmoil surrounding the formulation of magisterial teaching on artificial conception caused Saint Paul VI intense suffering, and it is providential that both miracles leading to his 2018 canonization had to do with the miraculous healing of prenatal life: one in California, the other in Verona. Saint Paul VI's heavenly intercession is no surprise given his relentless mission to promote marriage and family with remarkable vigor while still on earth. "Every attack on the fundamental value of the family," he preached in 1969, "meaning eroticism or violence, the defense of divorce or of antisocial attitudes among young people – is an attack on the true good of man." His words reveal that the polygamy opposed by Friar Pedro and his companions only ...

  6. 5d ago

    The Children Who Have Seen It All

    By John Melnikov There was a time not too long ago when coming into my classroom each day offered me the wonderful challenge of not only teaching my theology curriculum faithfully but in a manner that was energetic, dynamic, and engaging. Today, if I were to set my shoes on fire and ask the students to throw water balloons at me to put them out, there is a better-than-even shot I would become charcoal before the first balloon was tied off. Faces and voices that used to react with excitement, laughter, and genuine interest are firmly buried in the endless blue-light chaos of their devices. While my school has strict policies concerning tech usage in the classroom, teenagers, like water, are naturally adept at finding ways around obstacles. While I have recently been doing a deep dive into the spiritual aspects of tech obsession and addiction among teens, several other concerns have emerged. One of these dangers is that constant digital stimulation is making the real world seem insufficiently stimulating or interesting. The result is a strange kind of youthful listlessness that leads to an overall disinterest in everything. We are raising children with access to endless entertainment who increasingly seem bored by everything. Young children naturally possess a dizzying amount of enthusiasm for the most innocuous and mundane things. A new baseball, a snow day, or pizza all bring about wild fits of energy and joy. Teenagers are naturally more cynical. But even teenage cynicism used to conceal immense energy. Music, sports, romantic relationships, cars, movies, arguments, pranks, and hanging around doing absolutely nothing all used to be part of the teenage ecosystem. And when boredom or moments of meandering disinterest cropped up, they used to produce action. Now, they produce scrolling. Previous generations became bored and therefore did something. They explored, created, fell in love, got in trouble, and discerned who they were and what they wanted out of life. They considered the divine and questioned what role it played in their lives, and what they were being called by their Creator to do. After particularly long days in the trenches of high-school teaching, I naturally analyze what went right and what went wrong. The natural inclination of anyone in a position of authority over kids is to be introspective and mull over the methods employed to instruct. The fact of the matter is that kids today aren't withdrawing because of a lack of stimulation on our part, but because of an overabundance of stimulation. Kids today have access to every song ever recorded, every movie ever produced, every game ever engineered, comedy, sports, pornography, fights, news, and more. The modern American teenager commands a greater degree of entertainment and distraction than any emperor, king, queen, president, or historical figure throughout the history of mankind. And yet they are still bored. The problem is not that reality has become boring. It is that we have recalibrated children's senses of entertainment and expectations of stimulation. Teachers, coaches, and parents cannot tell stories that compete with TikTok's pacing. Sports can't compete with highlight reels, and conversations can't offer the same rush of endorphins as notifications can. Girls are forced to compete with thousands of digitally perfected women, while boys are learning how to be boyfriends by watching salacious material that offers everything except what a man ought to do in order to be a good partner. Even friendship has to compete with an endless stream of more engaging personalities. Kids can merely swipe away what doesn't hold their interest for more than a few seconds, and with each swipe, a bit of what makes being a teen so wonderfully dynamic and formative is eroded. And for a Catholic, it is sobering to realize that Christianity itself relies heavily on the capacities that are currently being erased by endless tech consumption. This situation, however, is not ...

  7. 6d ago

    As All Hallow's Eve Approaches

    By Stephen P. White October is racing to a close and, as is often the case in the federal capital at this time of year, the weather has taken a turn for the sublime. Cool, crisp mornings give way to bluebird skies and pleasantly warm afternoons. The light always seems to be golden for some reason. We haven't had a hard frost yet, but that can't be too far off. In the evenings, the scent of wood fires wafts around my neighborhood. I don't think I've seen a cloud in weeks. Halloween is a big deal in my neighborhood. For the last decade or so, we have hosted an annual potluck in our driveway. We grill a few dozen hot dogs and bratwursts; the other families bring their costumed little ones and a side dish. This year, Halloween falls on a Saturday. Between that and the wonderful weather we've been having, I'm expecting a particularly lively party. Our yard and driveway serve as basecamp for the marauding hordes of trick-or-treaters, and I get to supervise the beer cooler and tend the fire pit. If there's a World Series game to play on the radio, all the better. The kids think we do it all for them; I let them believe it. The truth is I am a reluctant partaker in Halloween festivities. Costumes aren't my thing. (I tell my kids: "I'm dressing up as a middle-aged dad this year.") I generally dislike the trend of elaborately decorating houses for Halloween – giant plastic skeletons, inflatable jack-o-lanterns, spider webs made of spun polyester draped across the landscaping, and other "decorations" of a more genuinely ghoulish sort. I am given to understand that, among a certain younger generation, Halloween celebrations have taken a somewhat gross and lascivious turn in recent years. No thanks. There is a fundamental difference between a festival guided by a spirit of transgression and a night when mischief is more widely tolerated. My idea of a good All Hallows Eve looks something like the one depicted in Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), where packs of feral children run around the neighborhood perpetrating all sorts of pre-approved and socially sanctioned acts of minor vandalism. The hijinks are summed up in this brief exchange as the younger daughters of the Smith family prepare for their evening revels: Mrs. Smith (the mother): "Now, children, when people answer the doorbells, don't throw too much flour. Just a small handful right in their face." Agnes Smith (the daughter): "Mama, that was Mrs. Wilkins. Said she'll leave the hammock on the porch, and will the children please return it…when they're through stealing it?" In the film, the neighborhood children make a bonfire in the middle of the street from old furniture (and intentionally derail a trolley car) so not everything translates well to the suburbs of today. The point is, there exist some forms of mischief that are more wholesome than depraved, and it requires a robust and healthy society to distinguish one from the other and treat each with justice. A less healthy society will privilege the wrong sort of mischief or condemn them both equally. Be that as it may, our own Halloween celebration is one I have learned to love, as I said, somewhat reluctantly. It was my wife's idea, and I confess I did not think it a good one at first. I'm happy to say she was right. The scores of friends and neighbors who end up in our driveway every October 31st would, I think, tell you the same. The gathering provides enough social cohesion (and a critical mass of adult supervision) that young revelers can be afforded more freedom – and perhaps a little more candy-fueled mischief – than they might be allowed on any other night. And that is an important part of Halloween. The macabre side of the holiday, even down to the pseudo-pagan trappings which sometimes attend it, is not about celebrating darkness. Nor is it simply a chance to let off some steam and eat a bunch of sugar. Halloween, when celebrated in the context of the great feasts which follow – All Saints and All So...

  8. Oct 28

    Elections, Conscience, and Catholics

    By John M. Grondelski Many commentators identify the origin of politicians' (especially Catholic Democrats') "personally opposed but" approach to abortion as John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, particularly his September address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Carl Anderson, former Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, insists that's not quite right – at least not in a straight line, though there are similarities. His book, Conscience as a Political Problem, helpfully explains why. Kennedy knew that there was a "Catholic vote," Democrats needed it, and JFK could deliver it. The problem was that the United States had never had a Catholic president. Could a Catholic candidate overcome Protestant prejudices and make the delivery? Kennedy believed he could by invoking "conscience" as his guarantee of freedom from papal interference in the nation's affairs. Anderson argues that, in the context of the time, Kennedy was right. Most Protestants who opposed Kennedy did so out of fear that a Catholic president would send an ambassador to the Holy See and push parochial school aid. But as Anderson notes, those were questions of prudential politics: Catholics were not bound to do either. To the degree that JFK asserted his independence in such policy matters, he was within Catholic bounds. And Kennedy, in Houston, was not parsing theological principles, but just saying what it took to get elected. Where "conscience" became a more serious problem was when issues were not prudential policies but involved permanent moral questions – abortion in particular. That wasn't an issue for Kennedy in 1960; it would be for Ferraro in 1984, Kerry in 2004, and many others since. The main contribution of Anderson's book is not, however, the history – important as that is. It's his recognition that the crucial questions are anthropological and still central: Whom do you say man is? He wrestles with this problem in his final chapter. But far from being the end of the story, I take it as the beginning, an unfinished idea that merits ongoing, comprehensive Catholic engagement. The anthropological problem is twofold. First, it involves a proper definition of conscience. Anderson seeks to do that by invoking John Henry Newman's distinction between a "Christian" and a "secular" or "counterfeit" conscience. For Newman, a Christian conscience is what Catholics rightly understand conscience to be: a power that examines objective good and evil and, guided by the first principle of practical reason ("good is to be done and pursued; evil to be avoided"), makes judgments in light of objective reality. A secular or "counterfeit" conscience gives the appearance of conscience but is, in reality, self-will with an admixture of pious-sounding rationalizations. When 1960s Protestants heard JFK invoke the term "conscience," they heard the hymn's praise of "Our fathers chained in prisons dark / Were still in heart and conscience free." But by the 1980s, the Protestant Mainstream was collapsing, and Evangelicals assumed the mantle of defending that old-time religion. Traditional Protestants began recognizing that the Catholic notion of conscience – accountability before preexistent moral good and evil – was also their own. And many Protestants also began to understand that the political invocation of "conscience" was, often enough, being used to bypass that proper understanding, actually ignoring moral good and evil, and instead substituting a secular counterfeit that imagines that a radically free person actually creates rather than encounters moral truths. Kennedy never tackled the larger conscience question of when political choice and objective moral good clash, at least not in any systematic or thoughtful way. It remains a phantom, haunting how a true Catholic acting in the political realm should bear witness to Catholic principles (and not just pander for Catholic votes), especially since Vatican II insisted on the laity's crucial role ...

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