MUCH of the recent media commentary on ethical issues has assumed that the Catholic Church takes its ethical principles from divine revelation apart from human reason, a source of ethical principles that by its nature is not acceptable to non-believers.
But this is not the case. The Catholic Church bases its approach to ethical issues on principles that are accessible to the reason of any human being.
The starting point for the Catholic Church’s approach to ethical issues is the principle that good must be done and evil avoided, a principle readily understood by anyone and not peculiar to the Catholic Church.
Paragraph 1954 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994, 1997) quotes Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) as follows:
“The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin. But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.”
In the light of this principle it is not surprising that the Catholic Church does not accept approaches to ethical issues that are based on utilitarianism, radical individualism and nihilism, philosophies that are active in Australian society today.
FRANK MINES
Nicholls, ACT
