Conservative commentator and writer George Weigel in a recent column makes some rather damning – and I use that term advisedly – accusations against Candace Owens, accusing her of the ‘grave sin’ of ‘anti-semitism’. ‘Grave’ at least implies mortal sin, which in turn implies she has rejected God and is on the path to hell. He even – by Aristotle’s method of paradigm, or comparative example – indirectly implies that she is a ‘pig’. Oh boy. But there’s more. He criticizes the London Oratory and its superior, Father Julian Large, C.O., at least implicitly of gross negligence in catechesis in receiving such a ‘grave sinner’ into the Catholic Church.
I will return to Mr. Weigel’s own problematic positions in a moment. For now, let’s just offer clarification on some of Weigel’s serious claims.
As a caveat, I should say that, besides one partial segment of an episode, I have never watched or listened to Ms. Owens. From what I have heard indirectly, I too would demur from many of her views, but I would posit that the apparent ‘sin’ of anti-semitism is so vague as to be nearly void of content. What or who is a ‘Semite’? Does this refer only to Jews, or to anyone descended from semitic stock?
If Jews, does this term imply a race or a creed, or both? Can someone become a Jew, and if so, is one then a Semite? If it’s a creed, which creed, or creeds?
Is criticizing some of the practices of the modern state of Israel ‘anti-semitic’? Can one question its geographical boundaries or even, perhaps, its right to exist? Keep in mind that the Church had serious reservations about the founding of the state Israel in the wake of World War II.
Is it a sin to question the veracity of various historical reports of the victims of the Nazi regime and other atrocities of the Second World War? I don’t know if Ms. Owens outright denies the Holocaust, or simply doubts some of the alleged numbers, methods and so on, as do others. We may not agree, but we don’t condemn the questioning of other historic tragedies. Many doubt the number of Christian martyrs killed under Nero and other emperors, or victims of the (apparently deliberately imposed) Irish famine and British involvement therein, even if they are attested by witnesses. The only way for history and any science to proceed is by allowing some level of free expression, and letting the truth speak for itself.
Even if a coterie certain rich, influential persons do have a sinister purpose in mind for the world – and the Church has alluded to such in her various documents on the influence of various anti-Christian sects, such as the Illuminati or Masonry – this has little to do with Judaism, a religion that was revealed by God, regardless of any Jewish-sounding last names or genetic descent. Judaism – in any true sense of that term – is not the cause of their nefariousness, but accidental thereto.
Again, I’m not defending Ms. Owens’ opinions, but rather asking whether holding such theories – outlandish as one may consider them – constitutes a diriment impediment to entrance into the Catholic Church? Should not Ms. Owens be free to her opinions, so long as she wishes and advises no harm against a specific person or group? She hasn’t advocated any pogroms, and would be against such, as far as I know.
Speaking of harm, and while we’re at it, let us now return to Mr. Weigel. I’ve written before about his support for the nuclear incineration of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens – men, women, children, the sick, the elderly, the unborn – with tens of thousands more left to die lingering deaths of the most unimaginable suffering.
But all for a good cause, as Mr. Weigel puts it. He sets up an emotional premise – the dropping of the bombs preserved the life of his own father, an officer in the Navy at the time – as well as a rather dubious trilemma. In the end, he praises President Truman’s fateful decision:
Does that make Harry Truman a moral monster, the equivalent of Stalin, Hitler, and the Japanese militarists who killed millions of innocent Chinese in a war that began in 1937? No, it does not. Truman authorized the use of the atomic bombs thinking, rightly, that doing so would save American and Japanese lives by shocking Japan into surrender.
It was a terrible choice, what Secretary of War Henry Stimson called “our least abhorrent choice.” Given the available options, it was the correct choice.
Even if this were the only way to end the war swiftly – which many dispute – that is sort of besides the point. Surely Mr. Weigel must know that moral evil can never be done, semper et ubique, as Pope Saint John Paul II reminds us in Veritatis Splendor. The good Pope – whose feast we just celebrated – reminds us of the traditional teaching that the morality of an act depends upon three criteria, the object – the act itself – the intention – why the act was done – and the circumstances – what surrounds and results from the act.
The rub here is that an intrinsically evil object (or choice) – which is to say, a moral evil – is never justified, no matter how good the intention, or how much benefit derives therefrom, nor how much evil is avoided.
Here is Saint John Henry Newman – our newest Doctor of the Church – putting this in stark terms:
The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.
If this holds for any moral or spiritual evil, no matter how small, what are we to say of the deliberate killing of innocent life, made more abhorrent when it’s indiscriminate and total? Here is Gaudium et Spes from the Second Vatican Council, put verbatim in the Catechism (2314):
Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation. (#80; CCC, 2314)
How could this teaching be clearer? Or were the nuclear bombings ‘justified’ since the Japanese civilians shared in the guilt of their nation, or their emperor, or their soldiers? Is not that what Islamic jihadists claim of the ‘Great Satan’ in their own attacks on civilian targets?
Further, would not Weigel’s argument imply that a similar surprise attack by America may be justified in the future? Say, some medium-sized city in Russia, to ‘shock Japan Putin into surrender’, whom Mr. Weigel seems to hold responsible for many of the evils of the world? In fact, would his position not be reduced to pure proportionalism, justifying any sort of evil, from abortion to euthanasia and everything in-between, if the intentions were ‘pure’, and the ends justified?
Harry Truman may have had a better and more noble cause than Hitler or Stalin, but, again, that’s not really the point, is it? The object of the act is still gravely evil. In fact, it may in some way be more insidious, covered in the veneer of ‘goodness’ and utility. All very proper and American. And are we so sure that at some perverse level in their disordered seared consciences, Hitler and Stalin did not think they themselves were doing something ‘good’, or at least useful and beneficial for their own nations?
What’s more scandalous still is that various conservative magazines have published Weigel’s (and others’) arguments on the goodness of these bombings, thereby justifying mass murder in the minds of many. I once pointed out the incongruity of this to one of the editors, and received a rather insouciant reply that those opinions weren’t published under his watch. Oh well. As my dear departed Mum said of my fiddle playing – ‘at least he tries’ – in response to my Dad’s semi-jocular Scottish critiques.
To say that support for these bombings – tantamount to mass murder – is disconcerting is an understatement, and one of the reasons, I suppose, I drifted away writing for these outlets. It’s sad that even good Catholics, who have done and continue to do so much good, such as Mr. Weigel, justify such evil, even, dare we say, grave evil.
To mix a Biblical metaphor, he should have that log taken out of his eye, before casting more stones.
