The catastrophe of suicide

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/euthanasia/eu0072.htm

EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH

How suicide hurts us all.

Édouard Manet, The Suicide, 1877–1881

Over the past few months, there have been several heartbreaking reminders of the rise of suicide across this nation, a topic I wrote about in my first "Manners & morals" column in October ("Life on the island").  The most high profile of these suicides was L'Wren Scott's.  The forty-nine-year-old fashion designer was found dead in her New York City apartment, reportedly bought for her by then-boyfriend Mick Jagger.

A week later, the New York City schools chancellor, Carmen Farina, convened a private meeting of principals to discuss the suicide epidemic among the city's students.  Thanks to the New York Post, which broke the story, we now know that suicides are on the rise among the city's youth: two years ago, nine students committed suicide; last year, fourteen did; and already, four months into 2014, twelve have committed suicide in New York.

In March, volunteers gathered in Washington to plant 1,892 American flags on the National Mall commemorating each veteran who had committed suicide since the beginning of 2014.  Do the math:  that's twenty-two veteran suicides a day.  Another tragic figure: Since 2001, the year marking the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more active-duty soldiers have killed themselves than have died in combat.

The rise in suicide has been accompanied by a loss of the moral questions that once surrounded it.  G. K. Chesterton was one of our last full-throated critics of suicide.  His insistence that suicide is immoral sounds strange to our individualistic ears:  "Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin," Chesterton wrote:  "It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life.  The man who kills a man, kills a man.  The man who kills himself, kills all men;  as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world."  Chesterton goes on to say that the act of suicide is selfish:  "A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything."  It would be difficult to imagine anyone writing such a polemic today.  We do not consider suicide the moral catastrophe that people like Chesterton once thought it was.

Rather, our contemporary culture treats suicide as a medical problem — a "public health concern," as Joshua Rottman, a psychological researcher, recently told The Atlantic.  According to his new research, religious and non-religious people have a moral bias against suicide, and the bias stems from "disgust reactions" they have when confronted with stories of suicide.  Committing suicide, people think, taints the soul.  To Rottman, this is a problem.  These reactions are irrational and, therefore, harmful:  "The million-dollar question," Rottman says, is "how to de-stigmatize suicide as impure." He went on to say, "That's not to say that we should start thinking that suicide is perfectly OK, but I don't think we should treat it as taboo (and therefore avoid bringing it up in polite conversation).  Instead, we should engage with it as a public health concern and find ways to effectively increase prevention."  But Rottman is wrong to demoralize the notion of suicide.  If we are serious about helping people overcome the dark nights of their souls, we must insist with Chesterton that suicide is a moral, not just a clinical, problem.

Western civilization

An important new book does just that.  Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It by the poet and philosopher Jennifer Michael Hecht challenges our culture's acceptance of suicides and reinvigorates the moral arguments against it.  At a time when few philosophers or intellectuals are offering strong, compelling, secular arguments against suicide, Hecht's book steps in as a reminder that our liberal stance toward suicide is relatively new, in fact quite radical, and should be unequivocally challenged.  Partly an intellectual history and partly a polemic — a gentle one — against suicide, the book fills a hole in the cultural conversation about choosing to end one's life.  Hecht writes, "The arguments against suicide that I intend to revivify in public consciousness assert that suicide is wrong, that it harms the community, that it damages humanity, that it unfairly preempts your future self."

Hecht reminds us that throughout history — in the West at least — there have always been strong social sanctions and philosophical arguments against suicide.  Though the ancients for the most part wrote against suicide, those positions were advanced most forcefully by Christian thinkers, who viewed suicide as a sin — a violation of God's moral law.  Christian beliefs about suicide were articulated most clearly by St. Thomas Aquinas, who thought, as Hecht writes, that "Suicide is cruel to the community, it is cruel to oneself, and God has ordained against it."  Those who violated the moral law, by taking their own lives, faced a grisly posthumous fate.  Their bodies would be tortured, dragged through the streets, their estates seized by the church, their families left impoverished.

This view began to evolve during the Enlightenment.  The secular philosophers of that age, like David Hume and Baron d'Holbach, did everything they could to argue Christianity into philosophical irrelevance.  One of the casualties in the war against religion was the moral sanction against suicide, which Hume associated, as Hecht points out, with "modern European superstition."  It was a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  To Hume and d'Holbach, suicide was a permissible way to escape suffering, and their justification was often chillingly inhumane.  D'Holbach asks, "Besides, what assistance or what advantage can society promise to itself from a miserable wretch reduced to despair, from a misanthrope overwhelmed with grief, from a wretch tormented with remorse, who has no longer any motive to render himself useful to others, who has abandoned himself, and who finds no more interest in preserving his life?"

The pro-suicide view, which is "now a defining stance of secular culture, is a mistake and needs rethinking," writes Hecht.  It has led to moral confusion.  The secular among us may reject Christianity and the Christian ideas about suicide — and certainly the medieval response to it — but that does not mean we should conclude that suicide is permissible.  The secular argument against suicide has, after all, been championed by an impressive group of thinkers, from Kant to Durkheim to (the suicidal) Wittgenstein.  As a culture, we have forgotten their arguments but we must revive and champion them in order to save suicidal people from the tyranny of their emotions.  The suicidal person must be brought to realize that suffering is a natural and passing part of life, that he must persist, and that he lives not just for himself but for the sake of others.

The moral weight of Hecht's argument becomes clear when we consider the far-reaching effects of suicide.  They extend beyond the death of the suicide and the grief of his loved ones.  Suicide, like an infectious disease, is contagious.  When one person in a community ends his or her life, it is not uncommon to find other people following suit, creating what scientists call a "suicide cluster."  This is why, in a powerful rhetorical flourish, Hecht calls suicide "delayed" murder.  When you decide to take your life, she argues, you are not only killing yourself, you are killing your neighbor down the street, your peer at school, your brother-in-arms.

The very idea of suicide can lead to self-murder.  Goethe's novella The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) — about a young man who kills himself when the woman he loves rejects him — set off a rash of copycat suicides in Europe when it was published.  The "Werther effect," as it is known, should make us pause and reflect on the way the media covers real suicides and the way artists and creators address suicide in their works.  Hecht, to this end, cites a study from The New England Journal of Medicine about three movies with suicides as central aspects of the plot.  The study "found that suicide increased after two, both of which concentrated their attention on the suicide victim.  One movie that was not associated with a rise in the suicide rate concentrated on the grieving parents."  Ideas have consequences: "They can influence people both toward and away from death."  Hecht cites research showing that most people who tried and failed to commit suicide are grateful they failed.  They do not make another attempt to end their lives and admit that "their initial attempt was an act of impulsivity."

In my column last October, I pointed to research — from Durkheim and modern social science — showing that the rise of suicide has been accompanied by a rise in individualism.  The role of the individual in society has changed dramatically since the Enlightenment.  Before, the influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West placed moral constraints on an individual's will.  Morality was organized around God's will and our duties to the community — and suicide was considered an affront to both.  Today, though, our sense of right and wrong is organized more around the individual's experience than on the health of the community.

The popular movie Dead Poets Society (1989) is a good example of the modern and individualistic response to suicide.  The film is about a group of high school seniors at an elite all-boys New England boarding school.  The group's ringleader, Neil, faces a common adolescent dilemma.  His parents want him to go to medical school, but he wants to be an actor.  Against his father's wishes, Neil performs as Puck in the school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, so his father decides to pull him out of the idyllic boarding school and send him to military school, which will better prepare him for Harvard and a career as a doctor.  When Neil returns to his home, he is in emotional turmoil.  He thinks his life is over.  He thinks he won't be able to live out his dream of being an actor.  His self-righteous solution to his problem is to kill himself in the home of his parents, who discover his body later that night.

Regrettably, the story romanticizes his suicide.  Neil puts on a crown of thorns before he ends his life, drawing a spurious connection between his ultimate act of willfulness and Christ's acquiescence to his Father's will.  The teenage boy, we are meant to conclude, is a victim — and his father is the villain, responsible for his death and deserving of the suffering he feels when he sees his dead child.  The film invites us to sympathize with Neil's plight.  Neil's death is meant to be an expression of freedom, an escape from misery, suffering, and the other barriers that would prevent him from living his life as he would like to.  But the fact is that Neil's decision is rash and, above all, selfish.  Unlike Christ, he does not lay down his life out of love of others; rather, his suicide is an act of revenge.  Yet we are meant to conclude that he is some sort of hero, who dies because the world is amiss and he cannot fulfill his artistic ideal.

Hecht urges us to "retire the idea that we are each free to end our lives."  Here Hecht is really insisting that we rethink the individual's relationship to his or her community.  Suicide, which may end the misery of the individual, leads to untold amounts of misery in the community.  Ending one's life is therefore not just a personal choice whose effects are borne only by the dead.  It renders a profound judgment against the world we all share together.

Our attitude toward suicide says a lot about how we value life and the communities that sustain us.  It shouldn't surprise us that suicide has gained acceptance in our culture; our communities are dissolving, and the individual, free from many of the traditional constraints, is considered the master of his own fate.  Though there are certainly cases when death is justly considered a deliverance from suffering, it's time to reconsider our belief that, as individuals, we are free to choose the time and place of that deliverance.  As Hecht writes, "The meaning of life is bigger than the individual."

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTEmily Esfahani Smith.  "The catastrophe of suicide." The New Criterion (May, 2014).

Reprinted with permission of the author, Emily Esfahani Smith.

The New Criterion, founded in 1982, is a monthly review of the arts and intellectual life.  Written with great verve, clarity, and wit, The New Criterion has emerged as America's foremost voice of critical dissent in the culture wars now raging throughout the Western world.  A staunch defender of the values of high culture, The New Criterion is also an articulate scourge of artistic mediocrity and intellectual mendacity wherever they are found: in the universities, the art galleries, the media, the concert halls, the theater, and elsewhere.

THE AUTHOR

Emily Esfahani Smith is the Managing Editor of The New Criterion.  She writes about culture, relationships, and psychology. Her writing has appeared at The Atlantic, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and other publications.  She serves as the managing editor of the Hoover Institution's Defining Ideas.  A Senior Fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, she is also the editor-in-chief of Acculturated, a blog about the virtues and vices of pop culture.  Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Emily grew up in Montreal, Canada, and now lives in New York City.  She graduated from Dartmouth College, where she was editor of The Dartmouth Review.

Copyright © 2014 The New Criterion

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Socialism is Not Compassionate

Socialism is Not Compassionate, and Why This Should Matter to Christians  

great article - share the information to educate others... http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/socialism-not-compassionate

Christians should care about politics because, ultimately, we care about people. Government has an increasingly large influence on the lives of people, thus we cannot ignore politics. Further, almost every law reflects someone’s idea of morality. Since God’s morality is ultimate and universal, society benefits by the Christian’s participation in the public square. That is, society benefits when biblical truth is reflected in law.

What we encounter in discussing societal issues today with Christians is that many think socialism is good. In fact, they think that it is distinctly compassionate, thus truly moral. In this essay we will examine why socialism—and its compadres marxism and liberalism—are in fact immoral and inhumane. Conservatism and capitalism, on the other hand, not only objectively produce better results for society, but are the most moral.

When I was younger, and filled with idealism, I embraced socialism. But over time, as I studied the evidence and really thought it through, I realized that my thinking was mushy. Truth became more important to me than my faulty idealism. I moved away from liberalism and socialism.   ---Chris

First, let’s define our terms. Socialism is government mandated activities or government control of assets. Marxism is using the power of the state to take money from some groups of citizens and give it to other groups (“redistribution of wealth” or “social justice”). Liberalism is a broader term that encompasses both of the above. Progressivism and statism are synonyms for liberalism. Because there is so much overlap, we will use these terms more-or-less interchangeably.

Ten reasons why liberalism is not only ineffective but indeed immoral and inhumane:

1. Redistribution of wealth is not JUSTICE, it is THEFT. God did not give the Ten Commandments to Moses that read, “Thou shall not steal, unless Congress passes a different law.” In fact, the Ten Commandments rule out socialism because socialism legalizes theft (Eighth Commandment) and institutionalizes envy(Tenth Commandment)! Contrary to liberal thought, forced redistribution of wealth is immoral. True effective compassion is voluntary—from the heart—and for the recipient it is (a) challenging, (b) personal, and (c) spiritual. In other words, the down-and-out need more than money; they need encouragement and spiritual food. Government offers none of these criteria. Whenever wealth is redistributed, an injustice is done to at least one party. While government may legitimately encourage voluntary giving—and encourage institutions that facilitate it such as Christian organizations—it has no moral authority to force people to give by the heavy hand of the state. (Helpful book: The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky.)

"The only lasting solution to poverty is wealth, and only business—not government, not non-profits, not even the church—creates wealth....The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil; its pull is powerful, causing some to even walk away from the faith (1 Timothy 6:10). And we in the U.S., who are wealthier than any people have ever been, need to be constantly warned. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a moral quality to wealth. Nor does it mean that the essence of capitalism is greed. Market economies work, Jay Richards says, because they allow wealth to be created. Only wealth can reduce poverty."   ---Richard Doster,https://byfaithonline.com/page/ordinary-life/christianity-and-capitalism

2. Socialism and marxism reduce our freedoms, thus leading to tyranny. Freedom, we argue, is a legitimate moral end in itself—an unalienable right. Remember the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is the foundational principle of America’s Founders, who, incidentally, were overwhelmingly Christian. It is no less true today than in 1776. America’s founders referenced 2 Corinthians 3:17 in support of freedom: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The Liberty Bell declares from Leviticus 25:10, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” With liberty, one's soul breathes. (Helpful book: Christianity and the Constitution by John Eidsmoe.)

3. When the government redistributes wealth it even hurts the people it is trying to help! This is not necessarily intuitive, but observable. The welfare mess is a classic example of failed government intervention.  We have 50 years of experience which proves that oppressive utopian ideas of “compassion” only imprison the welfare class into perpetual poverty. An interesting current comparison is Texas vs. California. Texas has a conservative philosophy of government while California has taken the liberal utopian route. Texas, as of October 2009, had an 8.3% unemployment rate, while California’s unemployment rate was 12.9%—55% higher than Texas. Who is doing a better job for its citizens, including for the working class? Socialism is oppressive to the poor. (A book that is crucial to understanding the problem is Uncle Sam’s Plantation by black author Star Parker.)! excellent! Watch this fascinating short clip of Milton Friedman on the Phil Donahue show:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A.

"Business, working through free markets is possibly the greatest force for good on the planet today....Business increases prosperity, ends poverty, improves the quality of life, and promotes health and longevity of the world's population."   ---John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods

4. Every time the government gets involved in something, in the long run it hurts the economy. We must get over the ignorant idea, however well-intentioned, that the economy is a static entity—and like a pie—that if one group of people has a larger piece of the pie, others get a smaller piece. A market economy is not a zero-sum game. The accurate view is, if government policies do not stifle the economy, the whole pie grows producing greater benefits for all. A dynamic economy creates wealth. Economics is about growing the pie, not dividing it. The simple fact of life is that the sectors of the economy that have the larger pieces of the pie are the most productive ones that generate the pieces of the pie for everyone! Remember that the government does not produce anything. So every dollar taken out of the productive economy (or distorts the productive economy) reduces the total output of the economy. Interference in the economy either by direct action or through regulations ends up decreasing the wealth of the country rather than increasing it. Regulations add to the cost of production, lessening efficiency and raising prices—which in turn lowers demand. When this occurs, those at every income level suffer. Further, armed with the power to tax, government fosters stupid economic decisions because it is blinded without a profit motive. A recent example is how the federal government—through both legislation and Federal Reserve policy—encouraged banks to make home loans to people who could not afford them, precipitating the housing collapse. One must be blinded by pre-conceptions to fail to see that any intrusions into the economy with Soviet-like utopian ideologies are ultimately disastrous to its people. The more utopian liberalism is introduced into the system, the poorer it performs. (Important books: How Capitalism Saved America by Thomas DiLorenzo and How Capitalism Will Save Us by Steve Forbes. Also, watch this short video about how the government worsened the Depression:http://dittosrush.blogspot.com/2009/11/thomas-sowell-explains-great-depression.html).

5. Socialism reduces the incentive to innovate and produce. Christians are often not used to thinking about economics. But we should. If we are interested in increasing charitable giving, we should grow the economy as much as possible so that philanthropy is possible. Is your church’s giving better when the economy is healthy or when more people are on welfare?Capitalism has a firm historical and intellectual foundation in Christianity, yet is attacked by liberals as not compassionate. Liberals have the misplaced notion that profit is immoral.The voluntary exchange of goods and services for profit is not immoral. The fact is, the profit motive is the engine that grows the economy and has produced every modern convenience. Just take a moment to think through the things in your life and ask yourself why they are there. From the food you eat to the products you use, there has been an enormous amount of entrepreneurial energy and innovation that has made these things available to you. Government, on the other hand, not only does not produce anything, it creates shortages. Milton Friedman said, “If the Government was in charge of the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand.” An example in the real economy would be government health care. It is a certainty that the currently proposed government takeover of medicine will lead to fewer doctors. In one study, 45% of doctors would consider quitting if Congress passes health care overhaul. Bright students, faced with huge costs to attend medical school, will choose other fields. Such is a logical outcome from absurd policies. If we cover more people, we would need more doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, and more clinics. Promises of universal coverage cannot overcome the reality of universal shortages—leading to poorer service and rationing. This is certainly immoral. Socialism actually reduces incentives for productive activity of both the classes from whom the money is taken and to whom the money is given. If a father continually takes money from a successful son and gives it to a slothful son, eventually both sons will become less productive and tainted. (For a discussion on biblical capitalism verses darwinian capitalism, seehttp://www.faithfacts.org/blog/biblical-capitalism.)

Steve Forbes (see his book How Capitalism Will Save Us) contends that with the rise of democratic capitalism humankind has become wealthier and healthier than in all previous centuries combined. In a democratic capitalist economy, he says, people interact in networks of cooperation that "teach discipline and moral lessons—from the importance of showing up for work and handling money responsibly to the value of teamwork."

6. Studies show that government is much less efficient at the same tasks as private enterprise or charity. At least one study (http://www.gerrycharlottephelps.com/2009/08/fed-govt-wastes-more-money-than-business-charity.html) showed that Government administrative costs consume 35-55% of the total expenditures. So in the health care debate, for example, if insurance companies make a 3-7% profit on sales, they are still hugely more efficient at delivering health care services than government. And unlike the profit made by private concerns, that 35-55% loss by government benefits nobody—it is essentially lost (wasted). Is there not yet enough outrage at story after story of pork barrel spending in Congress? How numbed does one have to be to fail to see that government by its very nature not only wastes money but is bent to cronyism and fraud? Of course, man’s inherent sinfulness can show up in any organization. But the government has never run an efficient system of any kind anywhere, with the possible exception of the military.

7. Socialism rewards failure.  Consider the takeover of General Motors. There have been hundreds of automobile companies that have failed in our history. Every once in awhile, the free enterprise system purges itself of the losers, only to be replaced by more efficient producers that have a better model how to deliver more goods and services that consumers want to buy at a price they can afford. It is suicidal for society to resist this trend. A key tenet of investing is to cut your losses and reinvest in more promising things. In an investment portfolio, nursing your losers leads to a stagnant portfolio of trash. One may think, at first glance, that it is compassionate to save jobs by government interference. But in the long run, the economy is held back by government interference, hurting everyone. Check out this article which explains how even our prized anti-trust laws and the progressive income tax tend to reward the inefficient producers and slow growth: http://mises.org/daily/3856.

Socialist communities fail because non-productivity is tolerated. In socialist economies, high goals aren't set, lousy work is condoned, there's no motivation to improve one's living standards, government quashes incentive and innovation, and assets are routinely misapplied. Therefore, there is nothing to encourage the investment of one's time, effort, or assets.

8. Socialism and marxism ultimately lead to financial destruction. The U. S. budget death spiral in which we now find ourselves places us at a very serious risk of economic collapse. See our blog entry, “U. S. Budget Death Spiral”:http://offgridblogger.wordpress.com/. As Margaret Thatcher said, “Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money.” Let’s just consider the centerpiece of the liberal socialist agenda—Social Security. It is a madoff/ponzi scheme. It taxes workers to pay for those who are retired. There is no actual “Social Security Trust Fund”—even though this term is still commonly used. The liabilities of the Social Security system are unfunded promises to pay retirees. Together with Medicare, these transfer payments are by far the largest item in the federal budget, and are the primary reason why the federal government is on the brink of bankruptcy. The Social Security tax burden hits the low income worker’s budget the hardest. And studies show that if workers were to put what they pay in taxes instead into a conservative personal investment account over their working lifetime, they would have substantially more income at retirement! And they would own the account and thus have something to pass on to their heirs. Seehttp://www.socialsecurity.org/reformandyou/you.html.

9. Liberalism destroys the Rule of Law. America is the heir of the Rule of Law, which originated with the Hebrews in ancient times. America’s Constitution is quite clear that there are specific enumerated powers of the federal government, and all powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states. The liberal agenda in legislation and court rulings has openly ignored the Constitution. Considering federal health care legislation, there is absolutely no authority in the Constitution to force people to buy something they do not want—yet our legislators could care less. When the Rule of Law is destroyed, despotism takes over. The result is predictable: If history is any judge, in time the Constitution will completely crumble into shambles and the United States of America will dissolve. History proves that the yearning for freedom always pushes man to demand the freedom that he is convinced is a God-given right.

"Jay Richards poses the question: How is wealth created? Economists, he explains, can't easily answer the question, but Christians can. The key source of material wealth in a modern market economy, he says, is not material—it's spiritual. According to Richards, 'Wealth is created when our creative freedom is allowed to prosper, when it's undergirded by the rule of law and suffused with a rich moral culture.' Mankind's unfettered creativity reflects God's image, and this, Richards points out, is one of the least appreciated truths of economics."   ---Richard Doster (https://byfaithonline.com/page/ordinary-life/christianity-and-capitalism)

10. Liberalism not only breeds hatred but indeed contributes to people’s deaths. Because liberalism is a relativistic worldview, some people are ultimately expendable. We see this in every leftist government, but fail to make the connection to this ideology at home. Liberals attack conservatives as being self-centered, money hungry, and uncompassionate. But who are more likely champions of the innocent unborn and the elderly? The current health care debate should heighten the awareness of who is concerned about the almighty dollar over human rights. It is the liberals who are willing to cut back on mammograms for middle-aged women to save a few dollars. It is the liberals who would ration care to seniors to save money. It is liberals who want free abortions—taking the lives of millions of innocent unborn children. We ask: who are truly compassionate and who are the hypocrites? Further, liberalism pits one class of citizens against another. It especially fosters hatred, envy, and covetousness toward the successful rather than admiration and inspiration. Bitterness filters down in an organization too. We ask you to consider how you are treated by government employees such as those behind the counter at the Post Office or tax office compared to most for-profit business. In which setting are you more likely to get more personal warmth and upbeat, caring service? Ironically, socialism is inherently heartless, while capitalism is inherently caring for the customer. Remember that a business’s survival depends on the satisfied customer. Related to this in an important way, liberalism also often discourages faith in God or creates new gods suitable to a pre-conceived ideology. It is no accident that the further left a government becomes, the less religious it is. Full-blown leftist governments are atheistic. (Helpful book:Godless: The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter.)

We remind our readers that both Nazi Germany and Communist Russia had Socialist in their names. Nazism is short for National Socialism. The party led by Adolph Hitler was the National Socialist German Workders Party. Communist Russia was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Objections Considered: The socialist may object to these arguments by saying, “But wait. People have rights.” For example, in the current health care debate, we hear that people have a right to health care. But this is incorrect. Health care is not a right. It is a good/service—like food, clothing, shelter, or life insurance. And the way to distribute these things that is the least expensive to the consumer with the best quality is through private enterprise. The free exchange of goods and services is the most moral and the most effective means of distribution. America’s Declaration of Independence is an historic document that philosophically defines rights. Rights are God-given to personhood rather than something conferred by government. In particular, life is a right. A good or service is not a right.

Indeed, America's Declaration of Independence explains that liberty—that is, freedom from government interference—is also a right. So liberals who say that something like government health care is a right in fact have it backwards. Government interference into health care tramples on liberty and thus tramples on (that is, abrogates) our rights!

Liberals place large emphasis on the spread between the most successful and least successful in a capitalist country. But That spread is even larger in socialist countries. Huge wealth is obtained in socialist countries by cronyism, using political power to garner an advantage. In true capitalism, political power advantage to a few is eliminated. Under capitalism, wealth is obtained by those creating the greatest service or most desirable products that others freely purchase. Which system is the most moral?

Summary: Conservatism is constructive. Liberalism is destructive. And nowhere in the Scriptures do we read anything that even remotely resembles socialism. We are not arguing that government has no role to play in society. We are arguing that there are usually constitutional solutions in the free market that are much more effective while being morally upright, consistent with human rights—and biblical.  

The Devil beware Father Gabriele Amorth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-devil-beware-father-gabriele-amorth/2014/05/12/e079aa76-38b3-4c00-8296-e5b74a5982a5_story.html

By Anthony Faiola, Published: May 12

by Anthony Faiola

ROME — The den of the Catholic Church’s best-known exorcist is an unassuming place, a small third-floor room in a home for aging priests hidden in an obscure corner of southern Rome. I walk down the hospital-like hallway on my way to meet him, and the priest anticipates my knock before it happens. The door swings open, and there he is.

The Rev. Gabriele Amorth, 89, peers up with goldfish eyes through his Hubble-telescope glasses.

“Enter,” says the diminutive priest.

I obey.

The room is stark, outfitted with a hospital bed and numerous images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Then there are the mementos, which Amorth began collecting after he was appointed an exorcist back in the 1980s. He has conducted thousands of spiritual cleansings since then, keeping just a few of the bits and bobs he likes to call “the stuff that gets spewed from mouths.” Nails. Keys. Chains. Plastic figurines.

(Read: A modern pope gets old school on the Devil)

“What seems to be spit turns out to be a nail,” he said with a seen-it-all tone. “I don’t give it much importance.”

His services, though in great demand, are not always needed.

“Most times there’s no actual diabolical presence, and my job lies in suggesting [to] those that come to me to live a life of faith and prayer,” he said. “And this is enough to assuage the fears of those afraid of the Devil’s ills.”

But other times, he said, “there really is a diabolical influence.”

Twice, Amorth said, he saw possessed victims levitate. “We try to keep the person in the armchair,” he said, adding that demons “do it just to show off.”

An hour later, he invites me and an Italian colleague to witness an exorcism ourselves.

His exorcism room is a retrofitted, white-tiled kitchen on the first floor of the residence, decorated with more images of Jesus and Mary. A large statue of the Virgin, to which Amorth’s eyes constantly dart, sits in one corner of the room. When we enter, he is donning a black cassock draped in a purple stole vestment and is consoling a 40-something Neapolitan housewife. Her hair is well-coiffed, and her sparkly sneakers and Bulgari sunglasses say soccer mom more than demonic host. In fact, the woman, who gives her name only as Antonella, seems perfectly normal at first.

That will change.

Unlike the speedy rituals shown in the movies, real exorcisms are more of a slow burn, often involving years of repeated rites before the big cleanse. Antonella, who drove up to Rome from Naples with her husband, Michele, for her latest exorcism, claims to have been possessed by multiple demons for the better part of 17 years.

Both she and Michele blame the affliction on a curse by a Devil-worshiping childless friend who they say envied Antonella’s fecundity as a mother of two. They knew something was wrong, they said, when Antonella began throwing violent fits after receiving the Eucharist at Mass and going into trances in which she spoke Aramaic and German — languages she said she has never studied. It would typically take three grown men to subdue her, the couple said.

After four years of exorcisms with Amorth, however, her fits have become progressively less violent. She says she has begun to view the process as a long-term treatment of a terrible disease.

“But one of the soul,” she said.

After a round of praying, Amorth, aided by three assistants, finally launches his spiritual attack.

He begins chanting in Latin, commanding the presumed devils inside Antonella to reveal themselves. Several minutes pass before Antonella reacts. She begins choking, coughing up phlegm. She moans and rocks back and forth. As if in pain, she demands that the chanting stop.

Amorth refuses, shouting, “Tell me your name!”

Antonella writhes in her seat, hissing, “No! No!” She shakes her head, her eyes rolling to the back of their sockets. In an altered voice, she says, “I will not!”

“Tell me your name!” Amorth repeats, until finally she spits out a name: Asmodeus, a demon from scriptural lore.

“How many are you?” the priest demands, repeating the question as Antonella grunts and shakes her head violently.

Finally, she responds defiantly: “We are five!”

Amorth begins making the sign of the cross on her forehead, prompting her to recoil. The chanting and blessings go on for several more minutes before Antonella calms down. Ten minutes later, she comes around as if from a dream. She opens her eyes and slumps in her chair.

After his bout with the demons, Amorth simply shrugs.

“That,” he says, “was a light one.”

Purgatory on Earth

New Oxford Review

Christopher Gawley is an attorney in the New York City area. His academic articles have been published in The South Dakota Law Review, The Capitol University Law Review, and The George Washington Law Review. He regularly writes book reviews and other articles for The Remnant. The Idiot. By Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

“Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment.” — St. Augustine 



Sin scars. God’s law written on our hearts testifies that sin — even forgiven sin — has real consequences. The wounds sin leaves on a soul require satisfaction, whether by penance in this life or purgation in the next. Though the concept of Purgatory has been attacked by Protestant “reformers” and Eastern schismatics for centuries, it is an infallible dogma of Holy Mother Church. Scripture and Tradition testify to the reality of Purgatory. It is not a marginal teaching; it reflects divine truth and informs the spirituality central to an authentically Catholic life.

A reminder of Purgatory may seem an inapposite introduction to a work by legendary novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. But in one of the more remarkable literary and religious ironies, Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot is in fact a purgatorial story. Undoubtedly, The Idiot is a biting critique of the Russian aristocracy written fifty years before its destruction in the final Bolshevik conflagration. But Dostoyevsky is always a philosopher before he is a social commentator, and The Idiot is a profound testament to the power of purgatorial justice and mercy — something so ingrained in our nature that even Dostoyevsky, a lifelong anti-Catholic, uses purgation as the book’s primary theme without ever connecting it to its dogmatic equivalent.

Set in St. Petersburg in the 1860s, the novel is centered on a guileless “idiot,” Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin. Rather than what we think of as a conventional idiot, Prince Myshkin is a sweet and loving soul. Dostoyevsky’s description of him is more a commentary on those around him than on the Prince himself. In keeping with another New Testament principle, Dostoyevsky’s naïve Myshkin is a foil to the sophisticated and intellectual society that surrounds him: “But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27).

The novel begins on a train — a metaphoric introduction suggesting that the story we are about to read is one that involves journey and change. Myshkin is a threadbare traveler returning to Russia after years of treatment in Switzerland for his “idiotic” condition — epilepsy. Dostoyevsky, himself an epileptic, often employed this condition as an important character trait in his novels, and the same is true of The Idiot.

What strikes the reader almost immediately about Prince Myshkin is his child-like innocence. He is returning to Russia in his late twenties with no family, no funds, and no clue as to how he will support himself. On the train ride he meets Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, who serves throughout the novel as Myshkin’s rival and principal antagonist. Also in his late twenties, Rogozhin, the boorish and hotheaded son of a wealthy merchant, is returning home from a short self-imposed exile following his father’s death. Dostoyevsky creates in the juxtaposition of Myshkin and Rogozhin a rich depiction of the fall of man — Myshkin representing Adam before the Fall, graced with preternatural gifts, and Rogozhin representing Adam after the Fall, fleshly to the core. On their trip, Rogozhin recounts his arguments with his family and his infatuation with Nastassya Filippovna. The two young men part in St. Petersburg with Rogozhin’s impulsive invitation that Myshkin stay with him at his home.

Once in St. Petersburg, Myshkin makes his way to the aristocratic Yepanchin home, headed by a retired general and father of three daughters of marriageable age. The general’s wife’s family is of honorable and ancient Russian lineage, of whom the Prince is a possible distant relative. Myshkin’s decision to visit the Yepanchins is based upon this tenuous connection; he has come to inquire whether they, as successful and experienced people, can provide him with some guidance as to what he should do now that he has returned to his native country.

The Yepanchin family is introduced as a microcosm of the Russian aristocracy: a “respected” family filled with duplicity, fixated on social scheming, and racked by boredom. Accordingly, in a fit of psychological projection, they view the Prince’s visit with considerable suspicion: After all, he cannot simply want their advice — he must be scheming for something else. While making the acquaintance of the Yepanchins, Myshkin sees a portrait of Nastassya Filippovna and is immediately overcome by her great beauty.

Nastassya Filippovna is connected to the Yepanchins through the general’s friend, the debauched Afanassy Ivanovich Totsky, Nastassya’s foster-father who adopted her as a young girl and later seduced her. Totsky and Gen. Yepanchin plot to marry Nastassya off to the general’s assistant, Gavrila (“Ganya”) Ardalyonovich Ivolgin, also in his late twenties. Though Ganya loves the general’s youngest daughter, Aglaya, he has agreed to marry Nastassya, whom he despises, in exchange for a payment of 75,000 rubles from Totsky.

We are thus introduced to Nastassya on the eve of announcing her decision whether or not she will marry Ganya. At a cocktail party to mark the occasion, Nastassya publicly asks Myshkin whether she should marry Ganya. He advises her to say no, and so she does. At that point, Rogozhin and his rowdy cohort crash the party. He announces that he will give Nastassya 100,000 rubles if she will leave with him that night. Myshkin then offers his hand to Nastassya and announces that he has just inherited a fortune. Nastassya is touched by Myshkin’s offer but deems herself too debauched for the innocent Prince. She leaves with the insolent Rogozhin.

Over the next several months, Myshkin and Rogozhin trade Nastassya back and forth as she cannot make up her mind between them. Rogozhin’s “love” for Nastassya is all-consuming — it is a type of burning obsession that destroys rather than edifies. Over the course of the book, it is clear that Rogozhin both loves and hates Myshkin, and a strange, foreboding friendship develops between them. He even plans to stab Myshkin but is thwarted by the latter’s sudden epileptic fit.

All the while the guileless Myshkin is hounded by charlatans masquerading as creditors of his newfound estate; he chooses to diminish his inheritance by paying the spurious claims rather than dishonoring the dishonorable by challenging their dubious veracity.

In the midst of his pursuit of the fickle Nastassya, Myshkin begins to fall in love with the capricious Aglaya, who feels the same but openly mocks him and pretends away her love for him. Her family sees through the spoiled girl’s charade and begins to treat Myshkin as her fiancé. Her love for him comes out into the open, paradoxically, after he embarrasses himself at a party thrown for him and Aglaya, at which he interacts clumsily with the haughty guests and breaks an ancient Chinese vase. His night culminates in another epileptic fit.

During their courtship of sorts, Aglaya receives letters from Nastassya in which she implores Aglaya to marry the Prince. After his disastrous introduction to the aristocracy, and as if to spite them, Aglaya forces the issue between Myshkin and Nastassya. The women want the Prince to decide between them. Even though he loves Aglaya in the romantic sense of the term, his compassion for the wounded Nastassya prompts him to pause, albeit for a moment. This pause is enough to convince Aglaya to flee the Prince, and, in turn, Nastassya agrees to marry him.

But the marriage does not take place: Nastassya leaves him at the altar and runs off again with Rogozhin. Myshkin follows them to St. Petersburg only to find that Rogozhin has stabbed her to death. The book ends with a vigil over her dead body, after which the surviving main characters leave Russia: Rogozhin to Siberia, Aglaya to Poland with a deceitful nobleman, and Myshkin to Switzerland. The ending for the book’s central characters is a metaphor of sorts for Russia’s inability to retain her young citizens.

As any Dostoyevsky fan knows, there are certain characters and dualities that are repeated in his works, and The Idiot is no exception. The spoiled aristocratic beauty is contrasted to the lower-class woman-child of suspect morals. The innocent soul who radiates goodness is contrasted to the boorish man of depravity. There are licentious men, superficial middle-aged pseudo-intellectuals, sickly boys, and, of course, villainous Poles. Dostoyevsky uses certain motifs over and over again: Catholic bashing, epilepsy, murder, and grinding poverty. But the gift that separates Dostoyevsky from other writers is his ability to reinvest these same types and motifs in characters and situations that are as fresh and compelling as the first time one reads them.

But why is this story one of purgation? It is because Myshkin cannot have Nastassya: She persists in sin and, in some measure, disqualifies herself from a relationship with a pure soul like Myshkin. Her senseless fleeing from him, over and over again, is not as senseless as it seems, and to whom she flees says much. Nastassya knows she cannot have Myshkin — her sins have defiled her. She flees from that which she desires most because nature, as it were, compels her to do so. As for Myshkin, his love for her is twofold: It is both a self-sacrificing love that seeks to heal and an aesthetic infatuation. But make no mistake, Myshkin’s hesitation at the novel’s climax underscores the fact that his love for Nastassya is profound and consuming. But it is a love that cannot be — the scarring on her soul prevents it.

Another central theme in The Idiot is that of “attraction,” in this case, the compulsion toward searing beauty. Nastassya is one of those rare beauties whose mere presence radically changes men; she is the type of woman for whom men will throw everything away in order to pursue, as if hypnotized. Dostoyevsky captures the deleterious effect such objectification has on a young woman.

The Idiot also treats the relationship between wealth and charity. We catch a glimpse of the death throes of an ossified aristocratic culture that has forgotten that it owes service to the greater good. The Yepanchins are emblematic of the inward rot of the Russian aristocracy — with its overweening self-interest and smug self-satisfaction. This is a theme that Dostoyevsky and the other great writers of Russia’s Golden Age explore in near-prophetic fashion. In some ways, the demise of the Russian aristocracy some fifty years after Dostoyevsky finished The Idiot was anti-climactic; it was already long since dead. But for Dostoyevsky, a renewed aristocracy was not the cure for Russia’s ills (nor were the revolutionaries). Rather, what Russia needed then — and needs now — is to return to its authentic Christian roots.

The Key to Counsel Is Prayer

Pope at General Audience: The Key to Counsel Is Prayer

'Squeeze It In,' Whether You Are on the Bus or the Street

VATICAN CITY, May 07, 2014 (Zenit.org) - Pope Francis has continued his catechesis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, this week discussing the third gift, counsel. During today’s General audience, the Pontiff told those gathered in St. Peter’s Square how prayer is needed for counsel.

Relating to those present, he said, “We know how important it is, in the most difficult moments, to be able to count on the suggestions of wise persons who love us.”
Yet, the Pope added how the faithful must not forget that we can count on the one who is wisest. Through the gift of counsel, he said, “it is God Himself, with his Spirit, who illumines our heart, to make us understand the right way to speak and to behave and the way to follow.”
Counsel, therefore, is the gift with which the “Holy Spirit renders our conscience capable of making a concrete choice in communion with God, according to the logic of Jesus and of his Gospel,” said Pope Francis.
Francis explained that the Spirit helps us “not to fall prey to egoism or our own way of seeing things” since he “makes us grow interiorly … grow positively ... and grow in the community.” In short, he said he “helps us to grow” and “to live in community.”

The essential condition to preserve this gift is prayer, the Pontiff stressed.

“We always come back to the same subject: prayer! But prayer is so important. To pray with the prayers that we all know from childhood, but also to pray with our own words. To pray to the Lord: ‘Lord, help me, counsel me, what must I do now?’"

With prayer, he said, “we make room for the Spirit to come to help us at that moment. To counsel us on what we must all do. Prayer, never forget prayer! Never!”

Inviting those present to pray whenever you can ‘squeeze it in,’ the Pontiff reminded them that, “No one, no one is aware when we pray on the bus, on the street: we pray in silence with our heart.” Therefore, “let us take advantage of these moments to pray, to pray that the Spirit will give us this gift of counsel,” he said.

“But," he asked, "how does this gift act in us?”

Giving the response, he explained: “The moment we receive him and host him in our heart, the Holy Spirit begins immediately to make us sensitive to his voice and to direct our thoughts, sentiments and intentions according to God’s heart.”
This “intimacy” with God and listening to his Word, he said, “little by little,” allows us to “put aside our personal logic, dictated most often by our closures, our prejudices and our ambitions,” adding that we instead “learn to ask the Lord: what is your desire? What is your will? What pleases you?”

Stating the effect of asking these questions, he said it's “a profound attunement [which] matures in us.” When we ask, we can start to see the truth of the words in Matthew’s Gospel: “‘When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.’”

“Although the Spirit is the one who counsels us, we must make room for the Spirit, so he can counsel us," said Francis, adding that “to make room is to pray, to pray so that He will come and help us always.”

Closing, the 77-year-old Pontiff invited the faithful to pray these words from Psalm 16: “‘I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.'"

“May the Spirit always be able to infuse this certainty in our heart and thus fill us with his consolation and his peace! Ask always for the gift of counsel.” (D.C.L.)

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