Natural Law, and an Apologia for TWU

A blessed memorial of King Saint Louis IX (+1270), on whom I hope to post a few words, as this is the anniversary of my baptism, an event, as either Pope John Paul or Benedict pointed out at one point, more significant than one’s birth, the whole physical versus spiritual regeneration, grace building on nature, the soul, and its end, transcending the body.

Also, an apologia on my recent reflection on Trinity Western University, and their giving up their covenant policy, which required students to refrain from any sexual activity, except within the covenant of matrimony. A good priest friend of mine mentioned that I was bit harsh on the school, which was not my intent, so apologies. As one who has helped found a Catholic college, and still in the midst of doing so, a number of whose graduates have attended TWU, for which I have great respet, I know how difficult it is to bring something worthwhile in this world, not just into existence, but unto fruition.

If harshness was meant at all, it was to the socialist government that forces schools such as TWU to capitulate, or at least rescind, on something so dear to them. The objective truth still stands, that the government of Canada, or British Columbia, or anyone else, has not right to dictate to a private school (or any other institution) how to run their internal affairs, their rules and procedures and such, unless those ‘internal affairs’ are causing grave harm to the members.

But, as I wrote, we all now disagree on that, allowing grave evil to continue unabated, even aided by law, while a noble exhortation to students to live in accord with the natural and revealed law (and no one is forced to attend TWU) is seen as something that cannot be tolerated.

So my sympathy goes out to TWU, and all their administration, faculty and staff, in making this difficult decision, which is theirs to make. There are other ways to foster virtue amongst students than their covenant policy, but giving up what they had, in such a public and humbling way, giving in the powers-that-be, cannot be easy.

And while on natural law, Paula Adamick has a reflection on the irony of the current scandals, that they vehement reaction against them, even from the most secular of sources, evinces that there is some objective moral truth, such as the ‘sexual abuse of children is wrong’, written on our very hearts and minds, to which we all agree.

The sad thing is that this truth has become so obscured and warped, that we now agree upon very little, like the tower of Babel, leading to profound societal dis-integration.

But, on a note of hope, maybe that ‘very little’ can provide a basis for dialogue, in the spirit of apologetics, to return to some common idea of objective moral truth, which Pope Saint John Paul II describes as the basis for all or our decisions and actions, which will give shape to our lives here upon earth, and upon which we will all be judged at the end of this temporal life.