WILLIAM E. MAY

Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Fam ily

Washington, D.C.IN THE introduction to the collection of essays published under the title The Splendor of Accuracy: An Examination of the Assertions made by Veritatis Splendor,1 Joseph Selling and Jan Jans write that the "central question that needs to be posed to the text of Veritatis Splendor" concerns the audience and situation its author has in mind (p. 9). They maintain that it appears to be addressed to "universal pastors (priests trained in seminaries) who (should) have one set of universal solutions to every conceivable pastoral problem one might face, anywhere, anytime" (p. 9). Assuming that this is indeed the case, they then say that the "best way to interpret what Veritatis Splendor says" is "from the point of view of the pastors and their educators" and that the Encyclical finds serious problems here (p. 9). Notwithstanding the unmistakable implication of the book's title, the subtitle, and, as we shall see, several of its main essays, the editors claim that neither they nor the contributors to the volume "wish or intend that this study be understood as a challenge or a rebuke to the teaching of the magisterium in the encyclical" (p. 10). Rather, they wish to "respond to the assertions made in the encyclical that give the impression of pointing to serious problem areas in contemporary Roman Catholic moral

1 Joseph Selling and Jan Jans, eds., The Splendor of Accuracy An Examination of the Assertions made by Veritatis Splendor (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994).

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theology as it is being researched and taught in any number of seminaries, universities and institutions of higher learning" (p.

10).

I believe that Selling and Jans seriously misconstrue the purpose of Veritatis Splendor It is surely not intended to equip priests trained in seminaries with "one set of universal solutions to every conceivable pastoral problem one might face, anywhere, anytime." Rather its stated purpose is to set forth clearly "certain aspects of doctrine which are of a crucial importance in facing what is certainly a genuine crisis" (VS, n. 4) and to address this crisis by presenting "the principles of a moral teaching based upon Sacred Scripture and the living apostolic Tradition, and at the same time to shed light on the presuppositions and consequences of the dissent which that teaching has met" (n. 5). In particular, the "central theme" of the Encyclical, as identified by John Paul II himself, is to reaffirm the Church's teaching that there are "intrinsically evil acts" prohibited "always and without exception" by universally valid and immutable moral prohibitions (n. 115).

John Paul II likewise emphasizes that the "morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object' rationally chosen by the deliberate will" (n. 78) and that "reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature 'incapable of being ordered' to God because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image" (n. 80). Human acts specified by objects of this kind are the intrinsically evil acts prohibited by absolute moral norms, the teaching which constitutes, as has been noted, the "central theme" of the Encyclical. Thus the pope repudiates, as incompatible with Catholic teaching, those moral theories which deny that one can judge an act immoral because of the kind of "object" freely chosen and consequently deny that there are intrinsically evil acts of this sort and, corresponding to them, absolute moral norms (cf. nn. 74-77, 79). While repudiating these theories, John Paul II does not name any contemporary Catholic theologians who espouse them.

Some contemporary moral theologians who advocate the proportionalist method of making moral judgments are among the

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contributors to this volume, namely, Joseph Selling himself, Louis Janssens, and Bernard Hoose. In their contributions, Selling and Hoose name other theologians known for their advocacy of this moral theory, e.g., Joseph Fuchs and Richard A. McCormick. The purpose of the essays by Selling, Janssens, and Hoose seems to be, as shall be seen, to show that John Paul II, in his "assertions," has misunderstood what is going on in contemporary moral theology. Thus this review of The Splendor of Accuracy will focus on the contributions by these authors, centering on their examination of the "assertions" in Veritatis Splendor to the effect that there are certain sorts of human acts, specified by the objects freely chosen, that are intrinsically evil and that, corresponding to these intrinsically evil acts, there are absolute moral norms.

Before considering them, however, some brief comments should be made about the other essays in the volume. Of these, the one by Brian Johnstone is quite different in tone from the others; those by Gareth Moore and Jan Jans, however, seem intended to call features of the Encyclical into question and, in the case of Jan Jans's contribution, indirectly to support the positions of the theologians associated with the views espoused by Selling, Janssens, and Hoose.

Gareth Moore's essay is called "Some Remarks on the Use of Scripture in Veritatis Splendor" (pp. 71-98). Moore argues that John Paul H's use of the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19:16-21 "appears motivated by a desire not simply to listen to what Jesus says, but to stress one particular mode of biblical discourse among several, namely, the legal" (p. 81). He tries to show that this approach "distorts the natural sense of the passage" (p. 81), whose "central meaning," according to Moore, is to show that the encounter between Jesus and the rich young man "provides an example of the power of riches over those who own them and an occasion for the teaching of Jesus on how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (19:23ff.)," a central meaning that "the encyclical all but ignores" (p. 74).

Moore's critique here focuses on the alleged "legalistic" use of this passage by John Paul H, but this distorts the use to which John Paul II puts the passage. In reality, the pope repeatedly

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emphasizes, in his reflection on this passage from Matthew's Gospel, the religious and existential significance of the question addressed to Jesus by the rich young man when he asked, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" (Matt 19:16). The pope explicitly says, "For the young man the question is not so much about the rules to be followed, but about the meaning of life. . . . This question is ultimately an appeal to the absolute Good which attracts and beckons us; it is the echo of a call from God who is the origin and goal of man's life" (n. 7). It is, he continues, "an essential and unavoidable question for the life of every man, for it is about the moral good which must be done and about eternal life" (n. 8). He emphasizes that the question is in reality "a religious question. . . . the goodness that attracts and at the same time obliges man has its source in God and indeed is God himself" (n. 9).

It is surely true that, in reflecting on this passage, John Paul II stresses the importance of keeping the commandments. Nonetheless, he is at pains to show that the commandments, in particular, the precepts of the Decalogue concerning our neighbor, are not legalistic prohibitions arbitrarily imposed on us. Rather, they "are really only so many reflections on the one commandment about the good of the person, at the level of the many different goods which characterize his identity as a spiritual and bodily being in relationship with God, with his neighbor, and with the material world. . . . The commandments of which Jesus reminds the young man are meant to safeguard the good of the person, the image of God, by protecting his goods" (n. 13). More could be said on this point, but it should be plain enough that the Encyclical is not here using Scripture legalistically.

Brian Johnstone's "Erroneous Conscience in Veritatis Splendor and the Theological Tradition" (pp. 114-135) is, as noted already, quite different in tenor from the other contributions. Johnstone in no way criticizes "assertions" in the Encyclical. Rather he simply wishes to present the Encyclical's teaching on erroneous conscience and to situate it in relation to a wider moral theological tradition. He points out that in the Encyclical John Paul II says that "the Church's Magisterium does not intend to impose on the faithful any particular theolog

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ical system, still less a philosophical one" (VS, n. 29, cited by Johnstone on p. 114). He shows that the teaching of the Encyclical on erroneous conscience strongly reflects the influence of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (pp. 118-123).

Although the Encyclical does reject some contemporary understandings of conscience, it does not repudiate all nonThomistic theological understandings of erroneous conscience and its binding character, for example, the teaching found in the writings of St. Alphonsus di Ligouri, whose own understanding of this matter differs from that of St. Thomas and whose position was adopted by many authors of approved manuals of theology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The school of St. Alphonsus and other schools of thought on erroneous conscience, while providing accounts of the erroneous conscience different from that of St. Thomas followed by John Paul II, are not incompatible with magisterial teaching and raise important questions that merit consideration (pp. 124-134).

Johnstone 's essay is, in short, an instructive study and is not intended to call into question the substantive claims of Veritatis Splendor.

Jan Jans's contribution, the final essay in the volume, is entitled "Participation-Subordination: (The Image of) God in Veritatis Splendor" (pp. 153-168). According to Jans, the relationship between God and man (or the way in which man is the "image of God") is presented in two quite different ways in the Encyclical. According to one model, which he calls "participation," "God only proposes in the commandments what is good for human persons" so that "the proper contribution of the Magisterium is to make visible those truths which Christian conscience already ought to know" (pp. 166-167). On this model, which could also be called the participated theonomy model, God, through the natural law, "calls man to participate in his own providence, since he desires to guide the world--not only the world of nature but also the world of human persons-- through man himself, through man's reasonable and responsible care" (VS, n. 43, cited on p. 157).

But according to another model which Jans believes he finds in the Encyclical, and which he calls "subordination," John Paul

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II, following in the footsteps of Leo XIII, stresses "the essential subordination of reason and human law to the Wisdom of God and to his law" (VS, n. 44, cited on p. 157). On this model, God has the authority to "impose duties, to confer certain rights and to sanction certain behavior" (VS, n. 44, cited on p. 157). This "subordination" model is rooted in a hierarchical view of reality which, Jans asserts, is "in the last resort . . . based upon the antagonism 'not human persons, but God': God alone--not the human person--has the power to decide what is good and evil, and since God is the Author of the Law and the Commandments these are to be accepted and submitted to" (p. 163).

Jans acknowledges that "one might argue that such moral voluntarism must not in and of itself mean heteronomy"--a heteronomous morality was rejected by John Paul II himself in n. 41 of the Encyclical (p. 163). But Jans believes that he can detect the tension between these two models in the Encyclical, which clearly favors the "participation" model. According to him the passages in the document reflecting the "subordination" model are principally those critical of some "contemporary" developments in moral theology. Jans holds that some of the theologians "whose work is 'evaluated' by Veritatis Splendor" are actually engaged in overcoming the "antagonism between God as ruling king and human beings as obedient servants" (p. 168), and that overcoming this antagonism "calls for a revision of some traditional understandings and interpretations of God's creative presence in the realm of 'nature', as well as a revaluation of the concrete norms following from this perspective" (p. 169). He suggests, in short, that in reaffirming some "traditional understandings" John Paul II is, despitethe general thrust of the Encyclical toward the "participation" model, echoing the "subordination" model.

Jans believes that the "hermeneutical key" to understanding the Encyclical and the "tension" in it between the participation and subordination models is to be found in an address given by the pope to the participants of the second international congress on moral theology, held in Rome to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Humanae vitae in 1988. In that talk John Paul II affirmed that the teaching of Paul VI is not invented by human

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beings but inscribed by God's creative hand into the nature of the human person and confirmed in revelation. He likewise held that those who repudiate the norm taught by Humanae vitae refuse the obedience of their intelligence to God, preferring the light of their own reason against the light of divine Wisdom. Jans holds that this address reflects the "subordination" model and that its echoes are found in Veritatis Splendor.

Jans's essay is of remarkable ingenuity. Nonetheless, his analysis of the Encyclical is questionable. The pope certainly affirms that God is the sovereign arbiter of good and evil and that human persons are to obey his law. Jans regards this as a kind of "moral voluntarism." But there is not a trace of voluntarism in the Encyclical. In affirming that God's law is the supreme norm of human life, John Paul LI does no more than did the Fathers of Vatican Council II in Dignitatis humanae, n. 3. In maintaining that we are to obey this law, he does no more than the Fathers of Vatican II in Gaudium et spes, n. 16, where they say that "in the depths of his conscience man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself and which he must obey." Here it seems worth noting that both the Old Testament and the New Testament are full of language that makes it clear that human reason is subordinate to the wisdom of God and his law. Jans considers this position, which he attributes to Leo XIII and which he believes he finds in Veritatis Splendor, a "moral voluntarism." He nevertheless admits that this view does not of necessity lead to the heteronomous morality which the Encyclical rejects.

The "tension" Jans discovers in the Encyclical between the "participation" and "subordination" models is, I suggest, his own invention. There is no inner tension or contradiction between "participation" and "subordination." For example, through God's grace we, his creatures, really become divinized, sharing in his divine nature just as surely as his only-begotten Son-mademan truly shares in our human nature. We are in truth members of the divine family by reason of our sharing, our participation, in God's divine nature. Yet within this family we remain creatures, with created human natures, just as God's only-begotten Son-made-man remains God, with his uncreated nature. And as

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creatures, as children of God, we are in truth subordinate to him. Now to the essays of Selling, Janssens, and Hoose, which

directly confront the "central theme" of the Encyclical, namely, the reaffirmation of "the universality and immutability of the moral commandments, particularly those which prohibit always and without exception intrinsically evil acts" (VS, n. 115), i.e., kinds of human behavior specified by the object of moral choice which "are by their nature 'incapable of being ordered' to God because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image" (n. 80).

Selling's essay, the longest in the volume, is called "The Context and Arguments of Veritatis Splendor" (pp. 11-70). In sketching the background and context to the Encyclical, Selling flatly states that those who accepted the challenge of Vatican II and "began the work of reconstructing moral theology on the basis of scripture and tradition rather than natural and canon laws ultimately came to be known as 'revisionists"' (p. 12). In other words, according to Selling the only theologians who seriously sought to renew moral theology according to the mind of Vatican Council II are the "revisionist" theologians, unnamed in the encyclical but identified by him as including people like Louis Janssens, Joseph Fuchs, and Bernard Haering. According to Selling, consequently, only "revisionist" theologians have sought to carry out the task assigned moral theologians by Vatican II.

It is also surprising that Vatican II, according to Selling's account, thinks that moral theology should disregard natural law as one of its sources; the actual documents of the Council frequently appeal to the "universally binding principles of natural law" (cf. Gaudium et spes, nn. 74, 79-80), refer to the "law" men discover in the depths of their conscience (ibid., n. 16), and speak eloquently of mankind's intelligent participation (=natural law) in the "highest norm of human life," namely God's "divine law-- eternal, objective, and universal, whereby he governs the entire universe and the human community according to a plan conceived in wisdom and in love" (Dignitatis humanae, n. 3). Selling's observations here indicate his way of approach.

Equally surprising is his claim, in the introductory material,

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that "nearly everything that" Pope Pius XII's Encyclical "Humani Generis stood for was reversed by the close of the Second Vatican Council" (p. 19). Selling here implies that the notion of theology and its work set forth in that Encyclical was repudiated by the Council Fathers. But a Council document explicitly concerned with the teaching of theology, not least of moral theology, makes the teaching of Pius XII's Encyclical its own. Optatam totius emphasizes that in order for the work of Catholic theology to be carried out rightly, it must be done "in the light of faith and under the guidance of the Church's Magisterium" (n. 16). Precisely at this point in the directives for the "renewal" of theology, we find a footnote referring to the teaching of Pius XII in Humani Generis. Moreover, the passage in this Encyclical to which Optatam Totius explicitly calls attention contains the following statements of Pope Pius XII:

Nor must it be thought that what is contained in encyclical letters does not of itself demand assent, on the pretext that the popes do not exercise in them the supreme power of their teaching authority. Rather, such teachings belong to the ordinary magisterium, of which it is true to say: 'he who hears you, hears me' (Lk 10:16); very often, too, what is expounded and inculcated in encyclical letters already pertains to Catholic doctrine for other reasons. But if the supreme pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter of debate until then, it is obvious to all that the matter, according to the mind and will of the same pontiffs, cannot be considered any longer a question open to discussion among theologians

Selling's strategy is evident. In his view John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor is a document analogous to Pius XII's Humani Generis. Just as the latter has now, so Selling avers, been rejected, so too, the implication goes, will John Paul II's Encyclical be repudiated in the future.

With regard to the question of human acts and their moral assessment, Selling finds "rather bizarre" the concepts of freedom and the will found in the following statement of Veritatis Splendor: "Some authors do not take into sufficient consideration the fact that the will is dependent upon the concrete choices which it makes: these choices are a condition of its moral goodness and its being ordered to the ultimate end of the person" (n.

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75, as given in the translation provided by Selling, p. 47). Here I want to note that the Latin text (and the official English translation) is more precise than the translation Selling provides. The Latin reads: "Nonnulli non satis aspiciunt voluntatem definitis implicari delectionibus, quas ipsa operatur" (translated, in the authorized translations, as "some authors do not take into consideration the fact that the will is involved in the concrete choices which it makes"). The point is that the person's moral character is dependent on his specific free choices. Selling believes that the idea that the action of the will is dependent upon its choices for its goodness is a "relatively new idea that has developed in the literature in order to substantiate the theory of the 'basic goods"' (p. 47).

The position found in Veritatis Splendor, n. 75, however, is hardly a "relatively new idea." Earlier in the Encyclical, John Paul II had stressed that we determine ourselves through our freely chosen acts. He emphasized that "freely chosen deeds do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside of man but, to the extent that they are deliberate choices, they give moral definition to the very person who performs them, determining his profound spiritual traits" (n. 71). They are a "decision about oneself and a setting of one's own life for or against the Good, for or against the Truth, and ultimately for or against God" (n. 65). The pope notes that the precise point he is making has been "perceptively noted by Saint Gregory of Nyssa." The pope then cites a beautiful passage from Gregory's De Vita Moysis (II, 2-3, PG 44, 32 7-328):

All things subject to change and to becoming never remain constant, but continually pass from one state to another, for better or worse, . . . Now, human life is always subject to change; it needs to be born anew. . . . But here birth does not come about by a foreign intervention, as is the case with bodily beings . . . ; it is the result of free choice. Thus we are in a certain way our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our decisions. (VS, n. 71)

Moreover, St. Thomas's entire understanding of morality involves, centrally, the concept that Selling finds bizarre and novel: good acts build up the virtues, which are precisely what constitute the goodness of the person; vice consists precisely in

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bad actions, considered independently of any other effect (cf. Summa contra Gentiles, III, c. 10).

In short, the understanding of free choice and its relation to the will found in John Paul II's statements is neither as "bizarre" nor as '' relatively new'' as Selling asserts.

As noted, Selling believes that the "bizarre" and "novel" notion of the significance of free choices in determining man 's moral character has been developed to substantiate the theory of the "basic goods." He contends (p. 67) that the use of the term "good" as a substantive in the Encyclical, i.e., to designate "goods" of human persons that one ought not freely choose to damage, harm, or destroy, signifies that the Encyclical has been profoundly influenced by the "novel" doctrine of "basic goods" developed principally by Germain Grisez and John Finnis (cf. p. 67, note 52). Selling says that he and other theologians are "comfortable" with using the word "good" as an adjective, but that its use as a substantive is unusual.

But the use of "good" as a substantive identifying real goods perfective of human persons is not novel; it is central to the thought of St. Thomas. In fact, St. Thomas held that "God is offended by us only because we act contrary to our own good,"2 and in discussing the primary precepts of the natural law he said that, since the very foundational practical proposition on which the whole natural law is founded is that "good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided,'' ''reason naturally apprehends as good, and thus to be pursued by action everything for which man has a natural inclination."3 He goes on to list one bonum (substantive, not adjectival) after another (human life itself, knowledge of the truth, especially truth about God, life in fellowship with others). In many places in the Summa theologiae he

2 Non enim Deus a nobis offenditur nisi ex eo quod contra nostrum bonum agimus (Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 122).

3 Omnia illa ad quae homo habet naturalem inclinationem ratio naturaliter apprehendit ut bona, et per consequens ut opere prosequenda . . . (Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 2). Here "bona" probably is used adjectivally, but, as noted in my text, St. Thomas goes on immediately to enumerate one bonum (substantive) after another.

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refers to "goods," i.e., bona, which have and bona which do not have a necessary connection with beatitude (e.g., I, q. 82, a. 2), temporal bona (e.g., life) and spiritual bona (II-II, q. 11, a. 4), etc. Indeed, his whole treatment of law and of the goodness of the will is placed under the aegis of the Psalmist's question, often repeated by St. Thomas, "Quis ostendit nobis bona?" (Ps. 4:6; cited in Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 19, a. 4; q. 91, a. 2; also I, q. 84, a. 5). In addition, St. Thomas is very clear that one loves one's friends by seeking what is good for them, the goods perfective of their personhood (cf. I-II, q. 28, a. 4).

Thus Selling's claim that the Encyclical's use of the term "good" as a substantive, i.e., to identify real goods of human persons (e.g., innocent human life, the marital communion, and so forth) is novel and unique to the recent "basic goods" theory is simply false.

It is important to recognize that the inaccuracy of Selling's characterization of the position of the Encyclical corresponds to the inaccuracy of his portrayal of the theory of basic goods. In fact, in his antipathy to the line of reasoning that underlies the theory of basic goods, Selling distorts it beyond recognition. For example, in one passage he lists various beliefs, such as that it is natural to accumulate possessions beyond one's needs, to stratify society into leaders and followers, to destroy one's enemies, to accept that whites are superior to nonwhite persons, and then declares: "That is the 'basic goods theory'--when one looks below the surface" (p. 68). Such a characterization of the theory of basic goods is simply untenable. Selling's interpretations, both of the Encyclical and of the theory of basic goods, can thus be seen to be quite unreliable.

Louis Janssens, emeritus professor of moral theology at the University of Leuven, contributes an essay entitled "Teleology and Proportionality: Thoughts About the Encyclical Veritatis Splendor" (pp. 99-113).

The Encyclical, as we have seen, teaches that one can judge that an act is intrinsically evil if the moral "object," i.e., the object rationally chosen and willed, is not referable to God because it radically contradicts the good of the person made in his image, and that it is not necessary to consider circumstances

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and the end for whose sake the act is chosen in order to recognize acts of this kind as immoral.

The thrust of Janssens 's paper is to argue that the Encyclical is mistaken in its central teaching--and mistaken in its rejection of the theory that one can judge an action morally bad only if one takes into account not only the object but also the circumstances in which it is done and the end for whose sake it is chosen. (The Encyclical, of course, teaches that one can judge an action to be morally good only if all its elements, object, end, and circumstances, are good.) Janssens's thesis is that an appeal to proportionality is "unavoidable for evaluating human acts," and that this assessment of proportionality is teleological in character, i.e., that it can be made only by taking into account the end for whose sake the action is undertaken, and that one cannot judge an act to be morally bad without making this teleological assessment of the proportionality of the means, i.e., of the object, to the end.

In developing this thesis, Janssens first appeals (pp. 100-102) to the Vatican Declaration on Euthanasia (1976) for support. He emphasizes that this document sharply distinguished between "disproportionate" and "proportionate" treatments of dying persons. The latter are morally obligatory, whereas the former can be rightly withheld or withdrawn. Moreover, the judgment that a particular treatment is "disproportionate" or "proportionate" can only be made by assessing and balancing the harms and benefits it promises. Janssens thinks that this proves his point.

It is, however, pertinent to ask whether the use of the terms "disproportionate" and "proportionate" in this Vatican document requires acceptance of the moral methodology Janssens advocates and which the Encyclical rejects, since the Encyclical holds that one can judge an act intrinsically evil on the basis of its moral object, i.e., the object rationally chosen, without considering circumstances and the end for whose sake it is chosen, if this object is known to be contrary to the good of human persons.

If we examine the document to which Janssens appeals for support, we find that this document does not support the methodology Janssens advocates. For prior to considering the reasons for judging that some means of medical treatment are

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disproportionate or proportionate, the Declaration had affirmed that euthanasia or mercy killing is intrinsically immoral, not because it is "disproportionate" but simply because it is the intentional killing of an innocent human being: "nothing and no one," the document maintained, "can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being."4

Janssens appeals to the teaching of the Declaration on Euthanasia to support his claim that one can judge actions to be morally good or bad only by assessing teleologically the overall benefits and harms of an action. For him this is the criterion for making all moral judgments. Clearly this is not the methodology employed by the Declaration because, as has just been seen, it rules out absolutely as intrinsically immoral any act specified by its object as the killing of an innocent human being. There is no need of a "teleological assessment" in making a moral judgment of this kind. The Declaration surely speaks of means that are "proportionate" or "disproportionate," but in doing so it is no way employing "proportionalism" in the same way as is Janssens. Not all appeals to "proportionate" reason are proportionalistic in Janssens's sense of that term. John Finnis puts the matter well. He notes that this Declaration

makes three references to proportion. (i) Medical experts can judge when the pain and suffering imposed on a patient by certain techniques are "out of proportion with the benefits which he or she may gain from such techniques" [graviora quam utilitates quae inde ei afferri possunt]; as the reference to medical expertise makes clear, this judgment about

4 Here I should note that when the Declaration was published in 1976 I wrote to Archbishop Jerome Hamer, then secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I thanked him for the document and its reaffirmation of the intrinsic evil of all acts of intentionally killing innocent beings, even for reasons of mercy. But I said that, although I understood how the document used the terms "proportionate" and "disproportionate," I was concerned that some proponents of the proportionalist method of making moral judgments ( e.g., Janssens) might appeal to this language of the document to support this moral position. In his reply Archbishop Hamer, after thanking me for my letter, stressed that the Congregation repudiated proportionalism (as was evident in its affirmation of the moral absolute proscribing intentionally killing innocent human beings) and that any appeal to the document to support this moral theory would be utterly inappropriate.

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disproportion pertains to points on a single scale, i.e., the scale of pain and suffering: the matters on each side of the comparison are restricted to pain and suffering and relief from pain and suffering. (ii) Medical experts may also judge that "the investment in instruments and personnel is disproportionate to the results foreseen" [non respondet effectibus qui praevidentur]; this should be regarded as an invitation to the medical expert (whose judgment is being discussed at this point in the Declaration) to consider the proposed "investment in instruments and personnel" in the light not of an open-ended calculus of all the good effects of keeping this patient alive (which would involve a senseless weighing of incommensurables), but rather of his normal system of priorities--a system which is established not by calculus but by commitment. (iii) Refusal to undergo risky or burdensome treatment is not the equivalent of suicide, but rather may be a "wish to avoid the application of a medical procedure disproportionate to the results that can be expected" [cura vitandi laboriosum medicae artis apparatum cui par sperandorum effectuum utilitas non respondeat]; this, too, should be taken as a reference, not to a calculation of moral obligation by weighing the incommensurable goods of a longer life and freedom from pain, but to a person's choice (not unrestrained by consideration of his existing moral responsibilities, e.g., to his family), a choice by which that patient establishes for himself what counts (for him) as par utilitas (literally: equivalent benefit) in these respects.5

In short, an appeal to proportionality is not proportionalist in the sense in which Janssens uses this term if it expresses some prior moral judgment or assessment or refers to the implications of some prior commitment relative to which a proposed choice would be proportionate or fitting, or disproportionate or unfitting.

This distinction between an appeal to proportionality understood as a norm necessary to evaluate the morality of all human acts (Janssens's claim) and making some judgments of proportionality in the light of moral priorities is clearly made by the bishops of the United States in their Pastoral Letter on War and Peace, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response

5 John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1983), 106-107. On legitimate uses of "proportionalism" and how such uses are profoundly different from the use of "proportionalism" as a method for making moral judgements, see Germain Grisez, "Against Consequentialism," American Journal of Jurisprudence 23 (1978): 49-62

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(1983). The bishops, appealing to the norm that military force must be used discriminately, first rule out as absolutely immoral intentionally attacking noncombatants, i.e., innocent human beings. An intrinsically evil act of this kind is absolutely excluded by the principle of discriminate use of force. But they go on to discuss the principle of "proportionality." In explaining it they say:

When confronting choices among specific military options, the question asked by proportionality is: once we take into account not only the military advantages that will be achieved by using this means but also all the harms reasonably expected to follow from using it, can its use still be justified? We know, of course, that no end can justify means evil in themselves, such as the executing of hostages or the targetting of noncombatants [i.e., acts intrinsically evil by reason of the object rationally chosen and willed; cf. Veritatis Splendor, n. 78]. Nonetheless, even if the means adopted is not evil in itself, it is necessary to take into account the probable harms that will result from using it and the justice of accepting those harms. (n. 105)

Here the bishops are clearly not advocating the moral methodology championed by Janssens, namely, that "an appeal to proportionality is unavoidable for evaluating the morality of human acts" (Janssens, p. 100). They hold, with the entire Catholic tradition, which Veritatis Splendor correctly summarizes, that one can know that it is always wrong intentionally to kill innocent human beings without appealing to proportionality. But they are maintaining that, in the light of moral norm of justice, one can determine whether or not unintended harms, i.e., unchosen harms anticipated to result as an unintended effect of one's freely chosen act, can be tolerated or accepted.

In the balance of his essay Janssens basically reiterates the thesis of his enormously influential 1972 article "Ontic Evil and Moral Evil" (Louvain Studies 4 [Fall, 1972]: 115-156) in which he argued that the proportionalist method of making moral judgments (the method he advances in this article and the method repudiated in Veritatis Splendor) was central to the teaching of St. Thomas. According to Janssens, for St. Thomas one could not make a moral judgment about a human act without taking into account not only the "object" (which Janssens in his 1972 article

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identified with the "external act" considered as a material event) but also the proportionality of the means chosen (the "object") to the final end intended by the agent, which served as the "form" of the entire moral act. Here Janssens basically reiterates this thesis, illustrating it by St. Thomas's teaching on killing in self-defense (p. 109). According to Janssens in his 1972 article, Aquinas taught that one could rightly "intend" the death of the assailant (an ontic evil) as the "means" to defend oneself from unprovoked attack, an interpretation of the relevant Thomistic text (Sum. theo., II-II, q. 64, a. 7) not faithful to the text.

It is not necessary to treat this matter at length here. I have previously shown in detail how Janssens has radically misconstrued Thomas's teaching on the morality of human acts6 and need not here rehearse what was said there. Briefly put, while insisting that one must consider not only the object chosen but also the circumstances in which it is chosen and the end for whose sake it is chosen in order to determine whether an act is morally good (bonum ex integra causa), St. Thomas, contrary to Janssens's contention, taught that if one knows that any element in the act is bad, one can judge the act morally bad (malum ex quocumque defectu), and he insisted that the morality of the act derives first and foremost from the object freely chosen. If this object is bad, then it cannot be made good by reason of the end for whose sake it is chosen.

In his contribution Janssens insists that "official church documents [=documents of the Magisterium] maintain that contraception . . . and homosexual acts are intrinsically evil according to their object. All of these terms refer simply to factual events" (p. 110; emphasis added). This is patently false. These terms do not refer simply to mere factual events but to making a choice of a "factual event." As we have seen already, John Paul II explicitly denies that the "moral object" refers to factual events. Rather it refers to the intelligible proposal adopted by choice (what St. Thomas called the external act as specified morally by the "sub6 See my "Aquinas and Janssens on the Moral Meanung of Human Acts," The

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ject matter with which it is concerned" or the materia circa quam, not the mere material event, or materia ex qua). Thus contraception is not a material event but is rather any freely chosen act which, either in anticipation of a genital act, in its accomplishment, or in its natural consequences, "intends to impede procreation" (cf. Humanae vitae, n. 14). Thus, Janssens is setting up a straw man in his critique of the Encyclical. He fails to show inaccuracies in its "assertions."

In summary, Janssens's contribution plays on the differences between legitimate uses of "proportionality" and the use to which he seeks to put it. It seriously misinterprets the teaching of St. Thomas to support the thesis that an appeal to proportionality is necessary to evaluate a human act morally, and fails to come to grips with the central teaching of the Encyclical.

Bernard Hoose's essay, "Circumstances, Intentions, and Intrinsically Evil Acts" (pp. 153-168) is an effort to show that, pace the contrary teaching of John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor, one can make moral judgments only by considering circumstances and (further) intentions.

Hoose centers attention on n. 80 of Veritatis Splendor where John Paul II appeals to the teaching of Vatican Council II in Gaudium et spes, n. 27 to show that there are "intrinsically evil acts" specified by the objects rationally willed and chosen. This text from Gaudium et spes includes some actions described in morally evaluative terms (e.g., "subhuman living conditions," "arbitrary imprisonment," "degrading conditions of work"). It also includes others described in merely descriptive terms (e.g., "abortion," "euthanasia," "voluntary suicide"). Among the acts described in non-morally evaluative language are "deportation" and "mutilation." It should be noted, however, that "deportation" appears immediately after "arbitrary imprisonment," so that one might infer that the "deportation" deemed immoral by Gaudium et spes is "arbitrary deportation."

Nonetheless, Hoose focuses on the fact that no morally descriptive adjective precedes "deportation" and ''mutilation, and he then goes on to argue that one cannot say that "deportation" is intrinsically evil insofar as there can be just deportations. Similarly, he argues that in the Catholic tradition

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approved authors had spoken of justifiable "mutilation." He then concludes that, since these kinds of actions cannot be determined to be immoral without taking into account circumstances and ends, no actions can be determined intrinsically evil merely on the basis of the object chosen (e.g., deportation), but can only be evaluated morally if one takes into account not only the object chosen but also the circumstances and intentions (i.e., the moral method repudiated by Veritatis Splendor).

I think it is easy to see the glaring non sequitur involved in Hoose's argument. He rightly notes that some actions, described in non-morally evaluative terms (e.g., deportation) cannot be judged morally wrong without considering circumstances and intentions, but then concludes that no actions described in such way can be judged immoral without considering circumstances and intentions.

From all that has been said, one can conclude, I believe, that the essays by Selling, Moore, Jans, Janssens, and Hoose contained in this collection are seriously flawed and thus fail in their attempt to show inaccuracies in "the assertions made by Veritatis Splendor."