Letters

Natural Law

Fr Bernard McGrath

Contents - Feb 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Can Catholic schools recover their 'salt' - Michael Gilchrist Spe salvi: Benedict's second encyclical calls for a rediscovery of hope in Christ - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Grace under fire: ordinations, and first Holy Communion in Iraq - Babette Francis Technical school: Salesians continue to help post-tsunami Sri Lanka - Michael Lynch SDB Paganism: 'New Age' activities continue in Brisbane Archdiocese - Tim Pemble-Smith A remarkable father remembered - Maria Rankin How to reform Catholic education: get the world view right - Chris Hilder The need for solitude and reflection amid today's cacophony - Andrew Kania What the social reign of Christ means today - Bishop Peter Elliott Letters: Dissent - Frank White Letters: Natural Law - Fr Bernard McGrath Letters: New look Mass - Jessie Roger Letters: Virgin Birth - Eamonn and Pat Keane Letters: True Church - John Frey Letters: 'Schoolies' - Fr. M. Durham Letters: Poor communication - Don Gaffney Letters: Vatican II - Anthony Bono Letters: From India - Fr. A. Alex Prabhu Books: NO PLACE FOR GOD: The Denial of the Transcendent in Modern Church Architecture - Tony Evans (reviewer) Books: WHEN MIGHT BECOMES HUMAN RIGHT:Essays on Democracy and the Crisis of Rationality - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: A YEARBOOK OF SEASONS AND CELEBRATIONS, by Joanna Bogle - Eric Hester (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 and Freedom Publishing Reflection: Devotion to Our Lady: eclipse and revival - Br Barry Coldrey

By denying the natural law, secularism is undermining the very foundations of democratic society and causing a crisis for civilisation.

All people of good will, with or without faith, must reclaim a common moral tradition.

The natural law makes it clear that the ethical content of faith is not imposed from outside man's conscience but is a norm with its basis in human nature itself (cf. Cicero).

The natural law is accessible to all rational creatures and must therefore form the basis for dialogue in civil society for reaching a consensus on fundamental moral questions.

Without the shared recognition of natural law there is no means of resolving public debates other than by a contest of political strengths. Then the process of legislation becomes, not a search for truth and the good, but the search for the balance of power - might is right; the numbers game.

Ethical relativism is based on the mistaken notion that relativism guarantees tolerance and mutual respect. Certainly we must tolerate people in their mistakes to some extent, but not where self-destructive ideas and behaviour are involved, such as the gay rights agenda.

The fundamental essentials of society are at stake - human life, human dignity, the institution of the family and equity of the social order - in other words, the fundamental rights of man.

We must restore full appreciation for the natural moral law in conformity with right reason.

Christmas is an excellent time to contemplate the nature of man in society, the meaning of life and suffering and death. We can wonder again at our Creator becoming one of his own creatures as the Word-made-flesh in Mary to help us overcome the ignorance and weakness of our fallen human nature and to know and to do all the right things for the health, happiness and peace among men, now and forever.

FR BERNARD McGRATH
Inglewood, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 1 (February 2008), p. 14