Jubilee of the Armed Forces, Police and Security Personnel

The days 8-9 February 2025 are indicated as a Jubilee of the Armed Forces, Police and Security Personnel. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn.2310-2311), referencing the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (n.79) teaches:

Public authorities... have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defence.

Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honourably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.

Public authorities should make equitable provision for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms; these are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way.

The life of a French soldier, Marcel Valentin, offers a testimony to a life of military service that was, in different places, at the service of peace. In 1993, he was for six months the commander of the UN Protection Force in the Sarajevo sector during the Serb siege of that city. In 1999, he commanded a NATO force in Macedonia at a time when large numbers of refugees came to Macedonia to escape the conflict across the border in Kosovo. Two years later, Valentin commanded KFOR in Kosovo for 12 months, with a mission to provide a secure environment for the development of a normal society at a fragile time for that region. He finally held commands in his native France, as military governor of Paris and commandant of the Ile-de-France and French overseas territories, where he took a particular interest in promoting contact between the military and civil society.

General Valentin's career is celebrated in a book length interview that was published in 2006: General Valentin "De Sarajevo aux banlieues, mes combats pour la paix". At one point in the interview, General  Valentin is asked how he would define the role of a soldier today [pp.148ff]. He first of all points out an aspect of the role that has not changed - the soldier receives a delegated authority to use force, and not just in legitimate self defence. The soldier is allowed to use force when ordered to do so to attack an enemy who may not represent a direct immediate threat to them as an individual. What has changed is the way in which that use of force must be adapted to the circumstances in which it is exercised. At one time there may have been a well defined enemy (Soviet Russia during the Cold War) and a well defined mission to defend national territory and national populations. Nowadays, soldiers are often deployed among adversaries to bring about the wishes of the international community:

... the soldier is obliged to be a communicator, to address themself towards civilian populations, to be a diplomat. Force is still their principle means but it is necessary to widen their know-how and to use different abilities.

One expression of the commitment of the military vocation in favour of peace is the International Military Pilgrimage which takes place in Lourdes each year. During this pilgrimage, soldiers of many different nations, including nations that may have been in conflict with one another, come together in pilgrimage. Writing in this context, General Valentin describes how the vocation of a soldier has changed in recent times.

Acting more and more on the side of those who have become hostages or victims of crises, (soldiers) find themselves living alongside them, sharing their distress and their misery in which more often than not they are the only ones who can bring some relief. Confronted with the possibility of violent death, like their predecessors, they appreciate the true value of civil peace and the need to safeguard it.

In the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee 2025 (n.8), Pope Francis writes:

The first sign of hope should be the desire for peace in our world, which once more finds itself immersed in the tragedy of war. Heedless of the horrors of the past, humanity is confronting yet another ordeal, as many peoples are prey to brutality and violence. What does the future hold for those peoples, who have already endured so much? How is it possible that their desperate plea for help is not motivating world leaders to resolve the numerous regional conflicts in view of their possible consequences at the global level? Is it too much to dream that arms can fall silent and cease to rain down destruction and death? May the Jubilee remind us that those who are peacemakers will be called “children of God” (Mt 5:9). The need for peace challenges us all, and demands that concrete steps be taken. May diplomacy be tireless in its commitment to seek, with courage and creativity, every opportunity to undertake negotiations aimed at a lasting peace.

Abortion: a tragic anniversary [UPDATED]

On Friday, which marks the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act in Britain, I will be away from home at an all day meeting and then travelling home. This will prevent me from taking part in the prayer vigil to which we are being called by our bishops on that day (though I expect I may be able to join in spirit during my train journey home).

After fifty years of legalised abortion, few in our countries have not had some experience of abortion. This is something that makes it a difficult topic to discuss in a public arena, particularly for a man, as the articulation of an objective ethical view is all to easily read by members of an audience as an individually directed comment on their personal choices in a situation whose complexity may be unknown to the writer/speaker. It is also the case that legalised abortion has impacted on the lives of Catholics, again, in a variety of ways.

The provision of Canon Law (Canon 1398) for a latae sententiae excommunication of the person who actually procures an abortion is intended to teach how seriously the Catholic Church views the offence of abortion. The joint statement of bishops describes every abortion as a "tragedy"; the Second Vatican Council, taking place at a time before abortion was legally available in many of the western democracies, described abortion as an "unspeakable crime" (Gaudium et Spes n.51). This teaching is balanced by the provisions of charity towards those who have experienced abortion. The absolution from the penalty of excommunication can now be offered by any priest and is no longer reserved to the bishop (earlier special provisions for the Year of Mercy and for participants in World Youth days are now permanent); and the bishops statement indicates a similar approach of mercy:

When abortion is the choice made by a woman, the unfailing mercy of God and the promise of forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation are always available. There is always a way home to a deeper relationship with God and the Church, as recent Popes have emphasised, which can heal and bring peace.

A particular challenge of conscience that faces a Catholic is that of how, given the prevalence of abortion in the culture and practice of life in our countries, we indicate our own "no" to abortion and thereby avoid feeling that, however distantly, we are complicit in the culture of abortion. One way of doing this is to join with those initiatives that seek to help women facing a choice for abortion. Peaceful prayer vigils at abortion clinics are one way of doing this, and the work of one such vigil in Ealing has been in the news recently. Coverage can be seen here, here, here and here.  Radio 4's World at One has an interesting clip here of an interview with a lady which indicates a value for the practical help offered by these vigils (you might need to register at the site to hear the clip).

From time to time I am stunned by the "economy with the truth" that I encounter on the subject of abortion. British law, for example, does not recognise in any way that access to abortion is a human right. On the contrary, it is framed to establish exemption from prosecution under other legislative provisions if certain conditions are met; and it is difficult to reconcile the availability of abortion in our countries with the right of life of Article 3 of the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights. And an interview on the World at One with a woman who had travelled from Northern Ireland to Manchester for an abortion describes the woman waiting for her return flight in pain and with bleeding .... and yet she had been discharged from the abortion clinic, something that did not cause comment. (I can't trace the clip, but I am quite confident of my memory). The allegations of "harassment" at abortion clinic vigils, including the one at Ealing, are utterly unfounded as I have good reason to know.

UPDATE: The BBC News website is carrying this report of three women's experience of abortion. The reactions of boyfriends that occur in two of these stories appears to me very striking, with implications not only for the education of men in terms of understanding and taking responsibility for their sexual activity but also for the authenticity/character of their love for the girlfriends involved. Two phrases stand out to me: "I felt pressured into having an abortion" and "I didn't have much choice". So much for "choice" in the real experience of abortion.

The concensus of the Holy Fathers .....

I have for a long time been familiar with St Robert Bellarmine's letter to Paolo Foscarini, which provides the good Cardinal's personal commentary on the situation of Copernicanism at the time (1615). It has always struck me because of its witness to both Catholic faith as a source of knowledge of what is true and reason, in this instance, that of science, as likewise a source of knowledge of what is true.

An English translation of the full text of the letter can be found here. The third paragraph could not be a stronger exposition of the obligation imposed by the Council of Trent that Holy Scripture should be understood and expounded in accordance with the Holy Fathers and doctors of the Church.

But the fourth paragraph qualifies this in a quite remarkable way (the part translated below is taken from James Brodrick's two volume 1928 biography of Bellarmine rather than the website linked above):

If there were a real proof that the sun is in the centre of the universe, that the earth is in the third heaven, and that the sun does not go round the earth but the earth round the sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and rather admit that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true....

I do not think any one today would insist on interpreting the passages from Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Joshua according to the consensus of the Fathers and doctors as it existed in 1615.

Applying this to Catholic teaching on the death penalty:

1. Though there is a consensus in favour of the (conditional) legitimacy of capital punishment, I am finding it difficult to find a point at which one can clearly say it became defined teaching. That being the case, the freedom then still exists, in the sense in which Bellarmine suggests, that the cited passages of Scripture might be understood differently without it becoming a matter of heresy. (Indeed, I suspect that the passages of Scripture where the Church has defined one particular understanding rather than another are relatively few.)

2. In this case, the use of reason being suggested by Pope Francis lies in the field of the humanities, and, in particular, our understanding of the nature of the dignity of the human person. One can look, as does Pope Francis ("... No man, “not even a murderer, loses his personal dignity...”), to the inalienable nature of the rights of the person (cf the preamble to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights). And one can also look, as does Pope Francis again and as is recognised to an extent in the Catechism of the Catholic Church n.2267, to studying the injury to human dignity represented by the death penalty (the writing of Sr Helen Prejean provides an evidence that can be considered in this regard).

3. That a definition against the death penalty could constitute a genuine development of doctrine appears to me, in the light of the considerations above, quite possible, as Pope Francis himself suggests.

4. But I suspect that a final definition one way or the other may not be forthcoming and, rather like the question of conscientious objection and the legitimacy of military service in the teaching of Vatican II (cf Gaudium et Spes n. 79), the two strands of Catholic life with regard to the question will continue to exist side by side.

Theresa May and the Nuclear Option

During yesterday's debate on the renewal of the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent, the Prime Minister affirmed in a most unambiguous way her willingness to authorise a strike using a weapon of indiscriminate mass destruction. The reporting of her answer to a question during the debate suggests that this explicit affirmation does not have any precedent from previous Prime Ministers, who have avoided directly answering such a question in public. It is certainly quite chilling to listen to the exchange, as embedded in the Independent's report. We should perhaps allow Theresa May some moral leeway, in that this affirmation has been made in a hypothetical context and does not reflect an actual decision made to deploy nuclear weapons "live" so to speak.

But, nevertheless, according to the teaching of Gaudium et Spes n.80:

The men of our time must realize that they will have to give a sombre reckoning of their deeds of war, for the course of the future will depend greatly on the decisions they make today. With these truths in mind, this most holy synod makes its own the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes, and issues the following declaration.

Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.

The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it provides those who possess modern scientific weapons with a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations; moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it can catapult men into the most atrocious decisions. That such may never truly happen in the future, the bishops of the whole world gathered together, beg all men, especially government officials and military leaders, to give unremitting thought to their gigantic responsibility before God and the entire human race.

Gaudium et Spes continues, in n.81, to speak of the money spent on developing new and better weapons of war, making a point that all those MPs voting in favour of the renewal of Trident might consider:

.... While extravagant sums are being spent for the furnishing of ever new weapons, an adequate remedy cannot be provided for the multiple miseries afflicting the whole modern world. Disagreements between nations are not really and radically healed; on the contrary, they spread the infection to other parts of the earth. New approaches based on reformed attitudes must be taken to remove this trap and to emancipate the world from its crushing anxiety through the restoration of genuine peace.

Therefore, we say it again: the arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity, and one which ensnares the poor to an intolerable degree. 

The statement made on behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales ahead of yesterday's debate is more circumspect, being geared to a particular political occasion, but is also clear in arguing against the renewal of a nuclear weapons system.

Catholic teaching on migration

When we read what the Catholic Church has had to say about migration - the messages for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees of Pope Francis and those of Pope Benedict, and the Instruction Erga migrantes caritas Christi of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants - there are a number of threads which emerge.

1. A right to emigrate and, in a mirror to this, the possibility of a right to immigrate. A right of migration is rooted in a right that individuals have to contribute effectively according to their abilities to the economic, social and cultural development of their communities. Where the present location of a person means that this is not possible, then a right of movement to a new place where there is a reasonably founded hope of realising it is part of the Church's teaching with regard to migration. Gaudium et Spes n.65, in passing, asserts this right of migration at the same time that it suggests that those who deprive their community of the material and spiritual aid that it needs endanger the common good. This right of migration might be exercised by a person who moves from one part of a country to another part of the same country in order to find work; it might have a greater social significance if it forms part of a general move of population from the countryside to towns and cities; and it might also be represented by emigration from one country to seek immigration into another. It is in this last instance that, if a right to migration is to be exercised, there can be suggested a corresponding right to immigration into a potential host country.

There are two interesting points about this. Firstly, the right to migration arises from a dimension of the dignity of the human person, that is, the right (and duty) to an opportunity to contribute creatively to the life of the community in which a person lives. It is not, fundamentally, a right that is political, economic or sociological in nature, though it is a right that has implications in all of these spheres. Secondly, it represents part of what in public debate is characterised by the terms "economic migration" or "economic migrant". Catholic teaching at this point challenges an assumption that those seeking entry to a new country as "economic migrants" should, just by virtue of being economic migrants rather than refugees who meet the UNHCR definition or the requirement for humanitarian protection, be refused entry.

2. A right of countries to adopt immigration policies that control the entry of people from other countries, in the interests of the common good. Gaudium et Spes n.26 defines the idea of the common good as follows (with my italics added to focus on the definition of the common good as such, but the perception of the universal dimension is very relevant to the contemporary situation):

..... the common good, that is, the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment, today takes on an increasingly universal complexion and consequently involves rights and duties with respect to the whole human race. Every social group must take account of the needs and legitimate aspirations of other groups, and even of the general welfare of the entire human family.

In respecting the needs of the common good, a country's immigration policy needs to consider not only the good of its own population but also the good of the potential immigrants to that country. There is a need for nations to collaborate with each other - nations that receive migrants need to collaborate among themselves, and nations that receive migrants need to collaborate with the nations from which those migrants originate. It is unlikely that the common good will be served by an immigration policy that is focussed on securing borders; and neither will it be served by a policy whose origins lie in a reaction to a domestic political exigency.  Nor is the common good going to be served by a policy that places such high barriers to immigration that it has an effect, foreseeable to a greater or lesser extent, of encouraging migrants to gain illegal entry into potential host countries.

It should not be forgotten that, sitting behind the notion of the common good, is the principle of the dignity of the human person. This requires that, at the point of encounter between the migrant and the authorities of a potential host country, there should be a respect for a person who has the rights that accrue to any person by virtue of their being a person.

3. Migration is an international phenomenon that requires the co-operation of states in response to both the situations that cause people to become migrants and the response of receiving nations. This co-operation is only going to occur when there is an authentic community of nations; it is not served by an international politics determined by a competition of national interests.

4. The Catholic Church also offers a teaching to its own pastors and faithful. This urges them to offer a welcome to migrants who arrive in their territories, both in material and spiritual terms. In referring to the pastoral care of migrants, the Church explicitly includes a care for their religious life as well as for their material well being, recognising that many migrants bring with them their religious belief and culture. The Church also sees, in the encounter between the life and culture that migrants bring with them on their journey and the life and culture of a host nation, an opportunity for evangelisation (though it should be clear that this opportunity is seen in the dialogue between the cultures rather than in any proselytising intent towards the conversion of migrants). Another strand in Catholic teaching is represented by a spiritual reflection on the situation of migrants who are uprooted from one home and make a journey, full of hardship, towards a foreign land. This journey is in places compared to the journey of salvation, to the journey of the Chosen People from Egypt to the promised land, to the journey of the Holy Family as they went into exile in Egypt to escape King Herod.

The UNHCR website for the UK identifies the numbers seeking asylum in the UK between January and March 2015 as follows (largest ten countries of origin only):

Eritrea (3,239), Pakistan (2,711), Syria (2,081), Iran (2,011), Albania (1,576), Sudan (1,449), Sri Lanka (1,282), Afghanistan (1,136), Nigeria (875), India (689)

One can readily identify in this list countries that are seriously affected by conflict, and conflict that shows no prospect of coming to an end in the near future. It also reflects the news reporting of the origins of those migrants who are currently crossing the Mediterranean or trying to enter the UK from Calais. I would suggest that, if the background and stories of many of these migrants were considered against the qualified right of migration suggested above, then decisions about their entry into the countries of Europe would be very different.

See also: How should Catholics respond to the tragic scenes at Calais?

See also: UNHCR calls for comprehensive response to the Calais situation

The Extraordinary Synod on the Family: some thoughts

I recall an observation to the effect that there were two Vatican II's, one being the Council as it took place within the Vatican Basilica and the various meetings associated with the Council itself, and the second being that which took place in the news media. One might perhaps add a third: the one which, again making use of the news media, looks back to the Council through its own slanted perspective. I have found it quite an eye-opener, for example, to read the text of some of the addresses given by Cardinal Augustin Bea, Pope John XXIII's right hand man in developing the Catholic Church's ecumenical engagement at the time of the Council. What they portray as the principles of ecumenical activity on the part of the Catholic Church would now be seen as decidedly "conservative", though ecumenical endeavour was one of the "liberal" motivations to emerge from the Council. The point, though, is that they probably represent rather better than much else a genuine understanding of where the Catholic Church stands on ecumenism.

Likewise the Synod on the Family. There is the "real" Synod and the "media" Synod, the Synod that recognises that, in the world wide preparatory questionnaire there was not one single question asking for views about the truth or otherwise of Catholic teaching, and the Synod that calls for change or "dialogue" about the Church's teaching on the grounds of responses to the questionnaire that show that many Catholics do not follow the teaching. And there is also the focus of media discussion on the question of the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion.

My first thought is that the question of marriage and family life is indeed a major pastoral priority/concern for the Catholic Church. Many years ago now, I was part of a conversation reflecting on what it was that enabled some families to successfully hand on the practice of the Catholic faith to their children as those children moved into adult life and what it was that meant that other families did not succeed in that. Irregularity in marriage situations was a clear part of the latter experience of some taking part in that conversation, with the marriage situation leading to loss of practice of the faith.

My second thought is that the concerns that will be brought to the Synod in October will differ according to the part of the world that the Bishops come from. The concerns of the developed nations are not going to be the same as the concerns of the African nations, for example. Isabelle de Gaulmyn reflected on this on the site of La Croix, commenting on a visit to Benin in West Africa:

D’une certaine manière, les sujets abordés en Afrique sont plus graves, plus urgents, touchent les problématiques économiques et culturelles de la société. On ne se polarise pas sur les divorcés remariés.

Mais il est question des femmes, de leur dignité, du mariage forcé, des enfants esclaves, de la polygamie, largement admise : que doit dire le pasteur, sur le terrain ? Quelle attitude ? Jusqu’où condamner ? Comment accompagner ? Plus généralement, l’Église est partagée entre une vision plus « moderne » et individualiste du couple et de la famille, revendiquée d’ailleurs par les jeunes générations, et des traditions de solidarité familiale qui peuvent parfois involontairement étouffer les personnes.

[In a certain way, the subjects arising in Africa are more serious, more urgent, touching on the economic and cultural problems of society. People do not divide over the divorced and remarried.

But it is a question of women, of their dignity, of forced marriage, of child slavery, of polygamy, largely accepted. What must the pastor say, on the ground? What attitude should be taken? Only as far as condemning? How should they accompany? More generally, the Church is caught between a more "modern"  and individualistic vision of the couple and of the family, shared moreover by the young generations, and traditions of family solidarity which can sometimes by accident repress persons.]

Certainly, it will not be the case that the only voice to be heard at the Synod is that of the news media calling for change in the Church's teaching.

I suspect that the address that Bishop Egan gave to SPUC's annual conference recently will not have been everything that those of a traditionalist frame of mind would have wished to hear, with its suggestion that outcomes from the Synod might and should represent development in doctrine in Newman's sense. Bishop Egan's address gives a useful account of what Pope Francis has said about the origins of the themes for the extraordinary synod due this October and the ordinary synod that will follow next year, in particular pointing out that there is a much wider context to the synods than just the question of admitting divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion. At the end of his address, Bishop Egan indicates the situation of the person who wishes to be received into the Catholic Church but who, at that point, encounters something irregular in their marital situation that becomes a barrier to their entry into the Church. It seems to me that the question of admitting remarried persons to Communion is not a question that refers to one single narrative; there are a whole range of different situations that might admit of different pastoral resolutions with due reference to the truth of Catholic teaching and the demand of mercy.

My fourth thought arises from the legislation in a number of countries in favour of marriage for same-sex persons. In the UK, the campaign against this development used the idea of "redefining marriage" as its strapline; in France, it was instead the right of the child to a mother and father and resistance to gender ideology. But what I think emerges from the discussions about Holy Communion for the remarried prompted by the theme of the Synod is that for many people in wider society, and therefore for many Catholics who are not immune to the influences of wider society, marriage had already been re-defined almost out of existence. Do we, for example, recognise that the understanding of marriage represented by celebrities who divorce and remarry, with their second and third marriages gaining high profile media coverage, is far distant from what Catholic teaching understands by marriage? And if we do recognise that, what do we really believe we are doing when we ourselves get married, with all the implications of the answer to that question for the nature of the consent that is given and is necessary for he validity of the marriage? There is certainly a pastoral challenge to be faced here, both in terms of the quality if marriage preparation and in terms of the care towards those who are remarried. The terms in which Gaudium et Spes analyses the situation of marriage in its introduction to its treatment of marriage are strikingly prescient (cf n.47):

Yet the excellence of [marriage] is not everywhere reflected with equal brilliance, since polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love and other disfigurements have an obscuring effect. In addition, married love is too often profaned by excessive self-love, the worship of pleasure and illicit practices against human generation. Moreover, serious disturbances are caused in families by modern economic conditions, by influences at once social and psychological, and by the demands of civil society. Finally, in certain parts of the world problems resulting from population growth are generating concern.

One can almost suggest that the situation faced by the Synods in 2014 and 2015 was foreseen by the Council in 1965. We can share Bishop Egan's hope that the Synods will enable the brilliance of marriage to shine forth more beautifully in the world.