Love- Subjective or Objective?

Love is a feeling that all human beings feel at one time or another throughout their lives. In terms of the Catholic Church, love is objective. However, I think love is subjective as well, as it does vary from person to person.

Love as Objective

The Catholic Church teaches that Love comes from God, as He is the ultimate form of Love. The reason God created us was not to advance an interest of his own, but just out of His pure Love. This means that Love stems directly from God, and He is its source. Furthermore, we can say God is objective- meaning everyone recognizes the same attributes in God: Omnipotence, Omnibenevolence, Eternal, and so on. This means that God is objectively verifiable. Now, to spice this up with some transitive properties- if God is the source of Love, and God is objective, then we can say Love as a concept, is truly Objective.

Love as Subjective

Love as subjective stems from the way humans view love in the current world. Obviously, we all do not love the same people and are not attracted to the same type of people. This must mean that love is subjective, that it varies from person to person, and that people have different loves. This answer might seem really short, but the next section explains why.

Different Interpretations

This question, whether love is objective or subjective is up to much interpretation. On one hand, people could answer this question thinking "would all people love the same person?", terminating in the conclusion that love must be subjective. However, other people might think "is the concept of love objective", which terminates in my first answer. This is a good question up for debate- and it's a little bit of both.

-atohme

Current Events- Contraceptives and the Catholic Church

A big dispute in today's society is the use of contraceptives, whether they be condoms or drugs in order to have sex without causing pregnancy. The Catholic Church's view on contraceptives has remained  firm from the beginning of time until the modern time. In 1994, Pope John Paul II clarified the Church's position saying,

"Unfortunately, Catholic thought is often misunderstood ... as if the Church supported an ideology of fertility at all costs, urging married couples to procreate indiscriminately and without thought for the future. But one need only study the pronouncements of the Magisterium to know that this is not so. Truly, in begetting life the spouses fulfill one of the highest dimensions of their calling: they are God's co-workers. Precisely for this reason they must have an extremely responsible attitude. In deciding whether or not to have a child, they must not be motivated by selfishness or carelessness, but by a prudent, conscious generosity that weighs the possibilities and circumstances, and especially gives priority to the welfare of the unborn child. Therefore, when there is a reason not to procreate, this choice is permissible and may even be necessary. However, there remains the duty of carrying it out with criteria and methods that respect the total truth of the marital act in its unitive and procreative dimension, as wisely regulated by nature itself in its biological rhythms. One can comply with them and use them to advantage, but they cannot be "violated" by artificial interference."

Essentially, John Paul II's message was that the Church holds sex as a marital act of unity, whose intent is procreation. Therefore, artificial interference such as contraceptives are against the Church's teachings, because they take a key element, creation of new life, from sex.



However, a 2007 study from Catholics for Choice conducted by president Jon O'Brien found that "plenty of Catholics disagree with Church teachings on contraception, especially when the distribution of condoms can help curb the spread of HIV and AIDS."


So, we can see that many modern groups, from the White House to Catholics themselves, disagree with the Church's ban on contraception especially in areas with high risk of HIV and AIDS. A truly interesting topic indeed.

-atohme

The Catholic Church's Views on Abortion

Abortion is a pretty controversial topic in our world today. People are particularly adamant in their beliefs regarding the topic, and there really is no middle ground (by abortion's very nature). In your days of college you may have even heard of people getting abortions, or experienced one yourself. Your beliefs regarding abortion may be holding you back from committing fully to the Catholic Church. Let's go ahead and clear up exactly why the Catholic Church believes what it believes.

The Catholic Church is against all forms of abortion, and here's why. The Church teaches that life begins at conception. The Church also teaches that each person is made in the image of God, and therefore has inviolable dignity. Therefore, any attempt to kill a fetus is directly infringing on that person's dignity (not to mention their autonomy). It's also just plain killing, which is addressed in the Ten Commandments.

I realize that a lot of this argument rests on the teaching that life begins at conception. You may want a secular argument for why a tiny clump of cells is indeed life.  First, a weaker but still legitimate argument: that tiny clump of cells WILL be a walking, talking human. Even if you do not think it is life, by that logic it will be life one day, and you are killing that person. But that argument is not even necessary. The cells that make up a fetus are living, human cells, all working together to support the fetus. This IS a human life.

Catholics are all about freedom so long as that freedom does not infringe on the freedom of others (which is also the goal of the Constitution, so a secular world can still relate). The right to have an abortion infringes on that small human's right to life, and is thus not ok in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

-Shoe

Pope Francis (and Holy Week)

As a grad student I'm sure you pay attention to current events. The biggest news story a couple weeks ago was the retirement of Pope Benedict and the election of Pope Francis. Pope Benedict's retirement was certainly a shocker: the last time a Pope needed a 401k was in 1415.

It's certainly a precedent-breaker, but it is theologically sound. Popes have done it in the past, and there's no specific Catholic tradition that forbids it. It's not a sign of weakness either. He was in ailing health, and God was simply calling Pope Benedict to a different life. If anything it's a testament to our former Pope's humility.

In other words, none of the recent events are reasons to doubt the authority and tradition of the Catholic Church. I assure you that everything is going on swimmingly.

Pope Francis election is pretty earth-shattering too. First of all, no Pope has ever chosen the name Francis. His name represents humility and simplicity. There's a lot to like about this guy.


He also happens to be the first South American Pope, as well as the first Jesuit to hold down the throne of St. Peter (WE ARE *clap clap* SJ).

Pope Francis's election comes just in time for the most important week of the Catholic calendar: Holy Week!
This marks the week and all the events leading up to Jesus's Passion, Death and Resurrection, which ultimately has saved us. This is about as busy as his office will get in a normal year.

I feel like a grad student such as yourself can really relate to Pope Francis's message. I hope this fact will help in your discernment of Faith.

-Shoe

Works Cited:
(for image) "Pope Francis- in Pictures." The Gaurdian, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2013/mar/13/pope-francis-life-in-pictures>.

Evolution and the Catholic Church

Many of you grad school students probably took freshmen biology in college. Some of you may have even pursued a career in such a field. Either way, your professor almost certainly preached to you the Theory of Evolution. Originally hypothesized by Darwin and as you learned in high school and college, evolution is the scientific theory that all life evolved over millions of years (that is, changed and adapted to their environment by way of natural selection, genetic mutations, and other key factors), including humans.

Wait a minute! Doesn't the Catholic Church teach that God created the plants, animals, and humans? In the Bible, weren't Adam and Eve created days after all other life forms? How could evolution possibly fit with Genesis? This could be one of the main objections you have against the Catholic Church, and it certainly deserves clearing up.

The Church allows for intellectuals like us to ascribe to a theory of intelligent design. Think of it as the theory that encompasses both Creationism and Evolution. The core of intelligent design is this: everything that scientists prove happened certainly happened (the Big Bang, evolution of life, etc), but God was behind it all.

So first about the Bible. The story of Genesis certainly happened, but not necessarily literally. The term days in creation may refer to different stages. Think about it: how could there even be days if the sun had not have been created? Also, the story of Adam and Eve could be more of a symbolic anecdote of whatever really happened after Creation. Literalists obviously rule out Evolution, but the Catholic Church is not literalist.

We can believe in evolution as long as we stay true to several core values. First, there were only two first humans that populated the Earth. Evolution supports this because a freak mutation from an ancient primate would have created the first humans (a mutation rare and distinct enough that it would not occur with multiple primates). Second, God created all life. This is pretty easy: God guided the "chance mutations" and natural selection to ultimately create all forms of life (as well as first arranged atoms to create an organic substance).
As long as you keep these in mind evolution is a legitimate, non-heretical belief.

If you're not about that evolution life, it's cool too. The Church doesn't say you have to believe life evolved; if you want to believe the Bible literally, that's fine. Personally, I think it'd be hard to truly believe the world was created 5000 years ago when there are fossils that can be carbon dated to millions of years ago...but that's up to you to decide.

Let's hope evolution and the Catholic Church do not contradict. If not, our Strake Jesuit Bio I classes would be pretty heretical...

-Shoe

Works Cited:

(for the image) Morris, Henry M., Ph.D. "Atheist-Fools.com." AtheistFoolscom. N.p., 21 Apr. 2007. Web. 07 Apr. 2013. <http://atheiststooges.wordpress.com/category/intelligent-design/evolution-cruncher/>.