The New Law, the New World Order, and the Cultural Revolution. VIII

The New Law, the New World Order, and the Cultural Revolution

By Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado 

(Continued)

VIII. The New Law and the New World Order

"I may descend from those ancient men 

who in their caves painted animals, 

then vases, then gods and skies and

afterward erected cathedrals."

Father Leonardo Castellani

In his extraordinary book "El nuevo orden mundial en el pensamiento de Fukuyama" (The new world order in Fukuyama's thinking) Father Alfredo Sáenz explains in a clear and succinct way that the idea of a community, above national individualities, is an age-long yearning. After the instauration of the Roman Empire, which sought something similar, history knew a new attempt, this time under the aegis of Christianity. We refer to Christendom, which, in a certain way, took over the old empire, although with a new spirit. As is well known it is necessary to distinguish Christianity from Christendom. Christianity is the individual practice of Christian Doctrine; it can occur in heathen countries or even in anti-Christian ones. Christendom, in contrast, exists where the spirit of the Gospel gets to impregnate the temporal order, the culture, the arts, the economy, labor, and, above all, politics; his holiness, Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Immortale Dei, describes it masterfully:  "There was once a time when the States were governed in accordance with Christian philosophy, and in which the splendor of evangelic wisdom and its divine virtue guided the laws, the institutions, the mores, the social classes, and the multiple manifestations of the life of the peoples". It was a globalization of the temporal order in which the social need of Christ and of its mystical body ─ the Church ─ was recognized, and which started to dismember beginning in the Sixteenth Century, with the consequent disappearance of that union of Christian nations. A new union was attempted again at the beginning of the Twentieth Century; as far as being a universal community they could be considered similar, with this small distinction, that the current one is without Christ and even more, against Christ and His only Church, and this has always been the intention of Freemasonry, to build a world order that would be a caricature or rather a parody of Christianitas, in which humanity be the union of men without charity, without God, and without Christ. To consolidate this, they have counted with the aid of unbeatable allies, or rather with efficacious instruments: the first one, the Society of Nations or United Nations, which guarantee the global hegemony of the new lords of the world; the second one, UNESCO, organism dependent on the first one which has as its purpose to create a single world culture, and of course the synarchist power, which among its great spokesmen are Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Henry Kissinger. The former, in his book The Technocratic Era claims that thanks to technological progress, above all nuclear physics and computers, we will enter a new era, that of global political progress, in which the unity of the human species will be brought about, in which the transnational corporations will supplant the States, for which reason we should resign ourselves to see the various homelands disappear.

Hereafter, Father Sáenz continues, quoting Alberto Caturelli, the United States will be the "intra-worldly providence of history, the depositary of the highest aims." And, what are these aims? Economic growth, welfare, secular messianism, globalism without homelands; attainable with the aid of computers and of a universal language, English. Professor Antonio Caponetto in his book on the new world order quotes Pierre Virion, who three decades ago made known in his works the universal domination plans in which the aforementioned synarchist plan is evidenced, mentioning one of its principal ideologues, Saint Yves de Alveydre, who proposed as a motto the edification of a Novus Ordo Saeclorum, a new, agnostic and fatherland-free, syncretic and irenicist, order, in which the fusion of the opponents of Christian Civilization would take place. Today, it has been already proclaimed and fully instaurated, and is characterized by the following, as described by the latter of the aforementioned authors:

The World as a manipulable circuit

The world would be a simple international electrically connected net, with its plants, distribution stations, primary and secondary branch lines, switches and general and specific laws. When an overload or an excess resistance takes place, exceeding that calculated by the engineers who projected it and built it, a short circuit is produced. This is equivalent to a coup d'etat, a dictatorship, the rise of an unimagined force or a local conflict. If it becomes generalized as a countercurrent, an extension of the counteracting system or of the conflict occurs. The global village is an electrified world capable of instantaneous connections. Any leftover of patriotism or sovereignty, any vestige of intense religious life capable of influencing public conduct, any autonomous decision with respect to the system programmers, is seen worriedly as a disrupter that has to be immediately adjusted; any gesture that threatens the functioning of the net will be disqualified, first as a destabilizer and quickly disconnected, regardless of whether to do that it becomes necessary to pass over uncountable bodies with the pretext of keeping the validity of universal democracy (Bosnia, Irak).

Rejection of nationalism

One of the most notable spokesmen for the New World Order, as was Zbigniew Brzezinzki, mentions without qualms in his book on the new world order, that there will be a unification of the human genre, globalization of consciences, of communities, such an august future ruled by the United States that it will no longer be sensible nor necessary to think in national nor religious terms. What is national, as well as "Institutionalized Christianity¨ will disappear.

Immanentist Messianism

The two modern prophets of the current reordering, Edwin Toffler and Francis Fukuyama, describe such character in a hair raising manner. Professor Caponetto synthesizes the doctrine of such authors in the following way: "It will be a global, homogeneous world, dominated by the triumph of liberalism and democracy, of market economy and indiscriminate pluralism." A world of consumers ─ faith, nationality, art and philosophy cornered into the realm of the individual's alternatives ─ a messianic conception, strongly secularized, anthropocentric, and immanent, which centers in itself and makes depend the new generation of the human species upon itself.

Compulsive homogenization: uniformity of the sense of existence, of language and of faith.

It is a kind of post-modern inquisition which has as its leitmotif the eternal liberal motto "make yourself free or I'll kill you". Men and peoples are uniformized evermore for the sole political option which compulsorily will be a democracy. We are obligated to be democratic as the United States, or social-democratic, but maintaining the notions of privatization, weakening of the State, absolute non-confessionalism, integral laicism, a market economy, moral permissivism, hetero-directed citizens, with no more opinions or information than that generated by the mainstream media.

Let us not be naíve; it would be impossible to conceive the aforementioned new universal design without a juridical instrument that would guarantee the consolidation of such macro project with theological, philosophical and cultural expressions. Such an instrument is none other than the juridical philosophy of the New Law herein analyzed, which is being imposed without the least resistance on even the most remote corners of the global village, pulverizing all beliefs, all sovereignties, all national traditions, by means of the expedient, well-known in our legal system, of the constitutional blocks which today form part of most of the legal systems. The global society does not tolerate the affirmation of a national being. The national states disappearing, what sense would there be in maintaining the legal and juridical particularities? What reason would there be, living in a global village, for maintaining diverse, and even contradictory, constitutions and legislations? Such obstacles, according to the mind of the designers of the global village, should be removed, and for that purpose, no more efficacious instrument exists than the New Law and the constitutional state, which end up reducing the entire juridical order to the constitutional principles and values for which application, judges other than constitutional judges will not be required. No more than one decade will pass, perhaps less, in which, of the entire juridical system, only the constitution will subsist, and thousands of judges applying the constitutional jurisprudence; it will be the full application of the New Law. Once this has happened, once the plural system of courts and national legal particularities has been dismantled, there will be no sense in having national constitutions, and constitutional judges much less. They will also disappear to give way to the world constitution developed by means of international treaties and by the jurisprudence of transnational judges.

Is this not, gentlemen, the case of the International Criminal Court and of the Inter American Human Rights System? As explained by Patricio Randle in El Derecho, the journal of law and jurisprudence:

"The declared purpose of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the bases of which were established in Rome in July 1998, which were ratified by practically all countries in the world, with the exception of China and the United States, is to try those persons who have been accused of the gravest international crimes, such as war crimes, or crimes against humanity, genocide or aggression.

Specifically, the court menaces with diminishing the sovereignty of the member sates, with carrying out a discretional, politicized justice, and bringing about a jurisdictional monstrosity. 

Argentine should not ratify the agreement which so much infringes upon the ban against double jeopardy, the right to an impartial judge, and the right to confront the opposing witnesses. Despite that, with 116 articles and 200 options debated by over 100 nations and organizations, the Rome Conference has created a real legal monstrosity."

Richard Wilkins, law school professor at Brigham Young University is disturbed because "This tribunal claims for itself jurisdiction over any person inhabiting the globe, which converts it into an organ of international government, a matter as novel as it is dangerous since it implies that globalization of justice will become a vehicle for radical policies."

The preamble of the project of the Statute of the ICC establishes that the court "should be complementary to the criminal justice systems of the nations in those cases that judicial processes are not possible or can be inefficacious."

All right an well but how will inefficacy be determined without entering a dark and disputable area? In fact, the ICC, on invalidating the national trials and pretending to define what is an efficacious process and what is not, appropriates to itself a kind of juridical power to review all the criminal systems in the world. Which definitively would be tantamount to constituting itself in a de facto supreme judicial vigilant.

Another aspect of the matter which places it in the shadows is the pretense of not putting limits to the reach of the ICC when dealing additionally with various other types of offenses without specifying which. This enables Amnesty International to claim that "perpetrators of human rights violations should be tried" (The Quest for International Justice: Time for a permanent International Court, July 1995.

It is an almost universally accepted principle, known as non bis in idem, which establishes that a person may not be tried for the same offense twice. Despite that, the ICC does not recognize such right since, as said before, it appropriates to itself the authority of deciding what is an efficacious trial and what is not.

In a letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas of 1803, Thomas Jefferson defended the supremacy of the American Constitution above international treaties, writing: "Our private security lies in having a written constitution. Let us not make of this a blank paper to be interpreted. I say the same of the opinion of those who consider that a treaty grants unlimited power. If this is so, then we have no constitution."

It is obvious that Argentine is not a country zealous of its rights and is open to admitting a reduction of its legal sovereignty and has no qualms in letting others interfere in pacifying operations with juridical pretexts of questionable doctrine, favoring a selective and politicized international doctrine capable of engendering a jurisdictional monstrosity."

The power of the ICC is truly overwhelming, although is Statute in articles fifth to eighth define which offenses will be subjected to its jurisdiction, it does not do it for the crime of aggression, leaving then to the assembly of participating states what should be understood for such crime. It is a blank norm which could include any conduct considered 'politically incorrect', thus giving authority to the assembly of participating states to alter the national constitutions.

Consolidated the above, we will definitively enter the global village, I can already hear the clanking of the chains, the stench of the great tyrant can already be perceived.

By means of Legislative Act 02 of 2001, the State of Colombia modified its National Constitution adding Article 93 which recognizes the jurisdiction of the ICC in the terms established by the Rome Statute; later, Law 742 of June 5, 2002, approved such statute, declared attainable by the Constitutional Court by means of Sentence C-578 / 02.

I wish to be wrong, I hope I am wrong, I hope it is the result of so much science fiction to which television subjects us every day, I hope they are unfounded predictions, I hope and pray mine is a very wrong prediction, I hope what the almost preppy daughter of mine once told me was right: "Dad, how embarrassing, get it over with, don't be so intense, how tenacious of you!" But that intensity is founded on stubborn facts. What I am doing is simply drawing the consequences by observing the episodes which present before our eyes on a daily basis.

I recall today, because it fits like a glove, the description an Argentinian professor made of that utopian village, quite well called 'Cosmic Citizenship':

"The entire globe is an electrical connection which is turned on and off at the whim of its designers, with the docile compilcity of its native operators."

But that is characteristic of the culture in which we are immersed, to which we arrived after traversing four centuries since the renaissance, a legacy of modernity now turned into post-modernity; I understand we live in a skeptical world where a fashionable dilettantism triumphs, where it is necessary to give the appearance of being neuter if we want to be accepted by the holders of public opinion or if we want to be admitted to the right circles. If we want to acquire the cosmic citizenship, we are obligated to be light men, which purposely is similar to the so-called light products so in vogue today: food without calories, lard without grease, beer without alcohol, sugar without glucose, tobacco without nicotine, skimmed milk... a new, decaffeinated man whose slogan is eating everything without calories; ultimately, a man without substance, without contents, devoted to money, to power, to success, to limitless and unrestricted pleasure, with no personal opinion to give and over almost nothing, people with plenty of things but out in the open metaphysically.

Ernesto Sábato, in an interview given to La Nación newspaper, describes that man with a crude realism: 

"The mechanization, robotization, alienation, de-sacralization of man, the capitalistic and industrial concentration, produced in the most 'advanced' regions, a man dispossessed of individual relevance, an interchangeable man, like those appliances made by serial production. Modernity gave effect to a sinister paradox: man achieved the conquest of the world of things at the expense of his own objectification; massification suppressed individual desires because the capitalist or communist superstate requires identical men. In the best of cases it collectivizes the senses, massifies the instincts, dulls the sensibilities througn television, unifies tastes through advertising and its slogans; on leaving their factories or offices, men and women, who are the slaves of machines and computers, take refuge in massified sports, in the illusory world of pulp novels and television series made by other machines. These are times when men feel metaphisically out in the open. That science, which the ingenuous thought was going to provide the solution to all of man's physical and spiritual problems, produced instead these gigantic states with their dehumanization. The twentieth century, hidden in the dark, as a sadist thief awaiting a pair of lovers."

Paraphrasing Nicolás Gómez Dávila in his memorable scholia, we can say without fear of being wrong: "If the modern industry has not yet attained manufacturing bodies, it has succeeded in manufacturing souls."

It is precisely the opposite of the man with the legacy of Spanish culture; following Gustavo Thibon, we can assert that: 

"Traditional man is characterized by a double tie, toward the high and toward the low. Toward the high because he never obviated the consideration of God, of the transcendent, in his life. Toward the low because he was rooted upon the land, upon reality. This double rooting conferred a sense of his existence in the world. Modern man has broken both ties, that one which united him with the high because he has experienced the feasibility of living prescinding of God, and that one which tied him with the low because he has abandoned the land, the reality, installing himself in a utopism. Perhaps the best figure of this man might be the artificial plant, this plant lacks roots; it looks not toward the high as it ignores the sunlight, not toward the low as it receives not the humidity of the soil. Such is the man of our time, an unhinged being, and consequently, he has become susceptible to being easily transplanted."

The lost harmony will not be brought back to us by the new world order, in vain will all unilateral organisms plow in the sea and build on the desert. It is not the humanitarian international law nor the Geneva Protocol what today´s society requires to return to its course; what it requires is, by the way, what constitutes the essence of Spanishness, individuals and societies recognizing themselves subjected to him who said: "Without me, nothing can you do." He is the salvation of individuals and societies.

Current unanimousness which so much brags of tolerance does not tolerate that the secular dogmas, such as those just controverted, be questioned, and has constructed a religiously, politically, philosophically and juridically correct way of thinking outside of which there is no salvation. Well, you may have noted that I practice the incorrectness, I cannot accommodate to that official truth, I am a kind of heretic of modernity and of post-modernity, a rara avis. Because of this, it could well be said that the foregoing is an unattainable text of the philosophically incorrect; or, if it suits you best, the confession of a reactionary; what can we do, the pluralist society, and the Colombian State is so, cannot but bear with those of us who controvert the principles of what today is called the politically and philosophically correct. If they are truly pluralists, they should be coherent with their pluralism, otherwise, they would fall on the criticism which, lucidly, Vázquez de Mella used to make about the mentors of modernity and post-modernity:

"What incongruency, what incongruency, to erect stands to the principles and scaffolds to their consequences.

Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado 

Natural Law and Theology

Natural Law and Theology

 A Classical Perspective 

By Juan Antonio Widow 

Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez de Viña del Mar (Chile) 

Taken from: Cuestiones Fundamentales de Derecho Natural

Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Publisher

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

This essay is the paper presented by the author at the III Jornadas Hispánicas de Derecho Natural, held in Guadalajara, México on November 26-28, 2008.

1. Revelation and Nature

It is clear that natural law is not a proper object of the faith. Its condition of being natural is itself proof that we are not dealing with a revealed dogma, to which one can only access with the supernatural aid of theological faith. The truths related to natural law are not imposed on assent in the same way as, for instance, the truths of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord or of the forgiveness of sins are imposed. Which would lead us to hold that the topic of natural law is not a properly theological subject. To this exclusion should be arrived if it is considered that the foundation of theology is what God has revealed; that is, what constitutes the object of the faith, and that theological knowledge would have to confine itself to the formal and express contents of Revelation.

However, the matter is not that simple. It is not that Divine Revelation makes present to us a particular set of truths for us to believe, and that our knowledge, founded upon the faith, should confine itself strictly to that set of truths, without transcending their particularity. It is not a knowledge which should resolve itself only in the personal salvation of he who upholds it. While it is true that Revelation indicates what someone should do to save his soul and that, besides, God, through the Church, gives him the efficacious means for achieving that end, faith in Divine Revelation does not mainly consist of this; that is, it does not reduce itself to presenting particular solutions to solve particular problems.

Theological faith is knowledge. While being it knowledge of certain truths, these, as far as they are truths, are in essential communication with all other truths. If intellectual knowledge were to confine itself to recording the fact or the mere singular act, it would not be properly knowledge, it would be a frustrated kind of knowledge, like someone standing at the door without intending to go in. It would be a knowledge which, because of its sensitive nature, would inevitably degenerate into sentiment or into a strictly subjective phenomenon. Understanding attains its complete form when it opens itself to the universality of its object. This also applies to the knowledge of the faith. and not only to natural reason. In the object of the faith, the Divine Revelation, all truth is implicitly present. To make it explicit is the purpose of theology.

Intellectual knowledge is then, in itself, universal; that is, the perfection to which it naturally tends is to know everything to the extent possible. From its object are not excluded, consequently, any specific realities. However, there is an order in the intellectual knowledge which corresponds to its own essence. There are things the intelligibility of which is dependent on others; for which reason, what is pertinent is that knowledge have, as its main purpose, that which is the source of intelligibility for everything else. For the philosopher, these are the first causes: he is guided to his discovery by the principles of natural reason. In contrast, for the believer, placed in the same attitude of searching for perfect knowledge, that source is also the first causes but already identified with the God of Revelation. It is the faith the one that delivers the key. And in this way, if wisdom, the principles of which are those of natural reason, is the end and perfection of man, by an analogous and higher reason, it is also that knowledge of which the faith is the principle, in which what philosophy knows is known, accepting its concepts, its language, and its argumentations, but introducing itself in the divine intimacy of the first cause, as it is revealed by God Himself. Philosophy, in its principal form, which is metaphysics, and theology are the maximally universal sciences: they know everything in its principle. There is nothing, consequently, which can be excluded from this, which Thomas Aquinas calls the sacred doctrine. In his Summa theologiae, for example, he points out what are the means to mitigate sadness, and he mentions, among others, sleep and bathing; well, this is, materialiter, good psychological perception, but formaliter, is theology, since it touches the topic in what relates to the order by which man, redeemed creature, is disposed with respect to his Creator and Redeemer. 

2. The theological perspective's contribution to natural law.

Thus, both the notion and the reality of natural law have been studied, dealt with and taught by ancient theologians, not as a marginal question, object of some accidental impulse of curiosity as could have been the study of the crab's digestive system or that of the formulas of alchemy. In spite of this, as said before, we would not be able to reject these as entirely foreign topics, since the inquirer in metaphysics considers everything, even the fly that tickles his nose, inasmuch as it is a being, and the theologian also considers that fly inasmuch as it is a creature of God. This could be considered a justification, perhaps, for lovers of persnickety, which, this notwithstanding does not take truth away from what we have said. There will always be some difference between the study of the crab's digestion and of that which is naturally just in man's conduct; this difference lies in the transcendence and universality of the latter topic as compared to the former. It must be presumed, certainly, what is common to both, which is their partaking in the mystery of being. At least the latter and not the former is normally included as part of that set of topics which are covered in a work of universa theologia.

In this manner, then, it can be understood that there have been notable theologians which engaged themselves in the problems related to natural law and that they have addressed them not for reason of them being particular problems, but to the extent that they are part of that whole which is the object of theological sapience. As a source of authority, it behooves us to keep in mind the names of theologians who have dealt with the theoretical and practical problems of natural law: suffice it to mention Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria, and Domingo Soto. Thomas, in whom we mainly put our attention in the course of this presentation, deals with questions referring to natural law in works of theology and with theological intention.

Theology has as its formal object, according to what the term expresses, God's being itself, and to that object, human understanding has access through faith; that is, by means of a supernatural assent to what God reveals. However, through Revelation, we know only some, not all, universal truths. They are those, the knowledge of which is necessary for men's eternal salvation. It is not necessary indeed, for the salvation of souls, that God reveal, for instance, the reason for a physical law or of what consists the difference, in essence, between angels and archangels. Now, it has been seen that divine truth is the source and principle of all truth. All truth can, for the same reason, be known inasmuch as it partakes of that source or principle, since, inasmuch as it is truth, it is participation in divine truth. This is why, its knowledge, while not formally of faith, can be a theological knowledge if its truth is recognized as divine truth to the extent it is participated by the creature. This may perhaps be not of immediate interest to homo viator, for whom what is most important are the truths which refer to eternal salvation, but it is to him to the extent he aspires to wisdom; that is, inasmuch as he is a theologian.

But it is necessary to be more precise. Among the truths that can be known through natural reason, it is in philosophical truths where a greater closeness exists to the truths of the faith, due to their universality and to the fact that their object is the first causes, which is to say, the divine truths themselves, even though they are not philosophically known as divine. The existence of a Revelation, though limited to the truths necessary for salvation, shows that divine truth can be revealed and that in such condition, in that of revealable divine truth, all truth is comprised. The divinely revealable and intelligible characters are merged into a single one. Thus, Thomas writes that "what is covered by the diverse philosophical sciences, the sacred doctrine, which is one, can consider under a single reason, that is, of being divinely revealable, so that the sacred doctrine be like an impression of the divine science, which, being one and simple, extends to everything" (Saint Thomas accustoms to say in two lines — sometimes uncomfortably to us, his disciples — and with perfect clarity, what one has tried to explain laboredly and awkwardly in several pages.)

Every revelation, as it is obvious, is ordered to the knowledge of those to whom it is revealed, it is a making known. If the communications medium is not knowable to the intended recipient of the revelation, then the latter simply does not exist. Faith is knowledge and as such resides in man's intelligence: there it is supernaturally infused in such a way that said intelligence is elevated and in that manner accesses the Truth, the knowledge of which exceeds man's natural capability. In no respect does the faith nullify or overwhelm natural intelligence; on the contrary, it is the created intelligence the one which is elevated to the knowledge of the increated Truth. Human intelligence attains its perfection this way, that is, supernaturally, but in accordance with its proper order or in accordance with its nature: it is its perfection as intelligence what is thusly achieved, which is to say, as far as it can attain its proper object, the knowledge of being.

Divine Revelation, consequently, to be revelation, it necessarily has to be given to men in human language; its object, divine truth, cannot manifest itself to us if not by means of notions, judgments, and analogies which are expressed by means of the same language of everyday communication, of the sciences and of philosophy; that is, by means of the language, the only natural bridge between the intelligence of humans which can penetrate the truth of things. If man cannot comprehend what is communicated to him, there is no revelation. Which certainly, as pertains to divine Revelation, it does not exclude mystery, since to comprehend is not the same as to understand. It must be insisted upon, that what is made known to the believer, he understands. An act of faith is an act of understanding since theological virtue is the supernatural partaking in the knowledge through which God is known.

The divine science, which is infused in man by grace, has an infinite reach inasmuch as it is divine, but inasmuch as it is partaken, it necessarily has its limits. If we pay attention to the most incomprehensible doctrines of Christian dogma, we can note that their incomprehensibility makes itself manifest to us precisely in the measure that we understand what understandable is in them. It is not casual that notions so deeply linked to philosophy, such as essence, nature, substance, hypostasis, person, will, etcetera, should have been developed and required in the history of thought precisely inasmuch as they can explain what understood can be of the trinitarian dogma or that of the Incarnation of the Word. It is necessary to understand what these terms mean, to penetrate the mystery. Without this understanding, the mystery is not manifested as a mystery. 

Cardinal Siri, when he was archbishop of Genoa in 1961, published a famous pastoral letter in which he taught that "the terms of language and of thought used in Revelation reflect an objective human philosophy and establish a value relationship in the former, since, if Revelation were to lack such value, it would not be able to serve to express divine things validly. In sum, the use of expressive terms in Revelation presumes a relationship between these, with their own value, and human thought, also with its own value. If it were not that way, if the terms used in Revelation were not to lead to an objective and true knowledge of divine things (even when only in an analogous sense), then God would have not revealed anything, Revelation would have not existed, we would not have attended but to the presentation of an interesting cartoon film without any consistency."

The object of the faith, consequently, is in itself perfectly intelligible, even when it not be perfectly quoad nos. That of faith is in us a knowledge secundum non visum, which is to say, necessarily obscure: it is the assenting to that which someone else, God, knows and reveals. We do not apprehend its object directly, we see it, Saint Paul says, "as in a mirror and in an enigma." But this object is intelligible, and not with any particular intelligibility since it always remits to the source of all intelligibility. This is why the certainty of this knowledge, in spite of the limitation the faith suffers regarding the way of knowing, indirect and obscure, is greater and more perfect than that of any evidence in the order of natural reason.

Because of this, theology, inasmuch as it is the science of divine truth, possesses, as we have seen, the universality which corresponds to the divine science; all truth is divine in its source or origin. This means that all knowledge of natural reason is eminently theological, and it can be converted to formally theological if it is considered under the light of divine truth. For this reason, theology is the perfection of natural or human sciences, since it knows the same as these but by virtue of a different formal motivating object or intellectual light, which allows it to know the natural realities more deeply, given that it knows them in their more proper being, inasmuch as they partake in God's being.

On the other hand, it is also necessary to take into account that some truths of the natural order are reaffirmed by divine Revelation. Those truths, without prejudice to their natural cognoscibility and to their being the object of common sciences, are also revealed. The reason why God reveals to men what they already know or can know is the imbecillitas (weakness, frailty) of human intellect. Revelation of these truths reaffirms a certainty which man's intelligence already has in a natural way, but which, due to his inveterate pusillanimity, he can become separated from them, or doubt them, or not know how to apply them to the practical order, or simply refuse to recognize them. Thus, the precepts of the Decalogue, for example, are all a matter of natural law, but their revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai give them a degree of certainty and a power which they lacked as mere precepts of the natural order. The situation to which man's imbecillitas can lead is pointed out very expressively by Saint Paul at the beginning of his letter to the Romans: "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper. They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents, they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless." This is a collection of epithets which provides a schematic exposition of the consequences of original sin.

There are, accordingly, three features of theology which are essential to it and which have to be taken into account in discussing its relationship with natural law. These are: the kind of language it uses, the universality of its object, and its certainty. In the first place, the language of theology cannot be other than that of philosophy, and not of just any so-called philosophical thought, but that of the philosophy of being, the philosophy of things, of what can be contemplated by intelligence; it is the language proper of human understanding. In the second place, the universality of its object is, precisely, the one expressed in such language: that object is not some particular message, some fact, or sign, or some kerygma, but the essences: that of God in the first place and then of those that can be or are participated in by the creatures. The universal is what is intelligible, and in this way, theology is connected with all human knowledge; for instance, with law, and with the philosophy of law. Universality is that which corresponds to what it is, the object of contemplation. And certainty is that which derives from the act of faith, which it has inasmuch as it is a participation in the certainty which is proper of the divine science itself. Even when it is a certainty in the knowledge of the principles ― the dogmas of faith ― and not of its conclusions, these receive, though in a derivative form, some of that supernatural light thanks to its union with the light of reason. In this fecund light is theology conceived.

Natural law has been expressly reaffirmed in many of its determinations, by Revelation, which has undoubtedly given to it, in the course of the history of Christendom, a recognition and a power that explain its practical validity for centuries. That validity has had as its efficient cause the fear of God. But besides, natural law has been a permanent object of study, in a way such that its reflexive knowledge has allowed to build up criteria and discover its applicability to new fields and circumstances. Now, such study has been developed to the extent that the topics of natural law have been accepted to be an inseparable part of wisdom, or of contemplation of the truth; that is, of the philosophy which has become fecund as theology.

3. The decadence of reason and its negative influence on natural law.

The same way as the theological perspective has given vitality to the study and the practical validity of natural law, its decadence has also influenced negatively on it. To the certainty which faith gives to understanding has followed a doubt, which initially has not been expressed as such, nor has it, probably, been conscious, but which has been manifested as a lack of confidence in intelligence itself in that it is a means of reaching theological conclusions. Following this is a change in the notion of faith itself and with it a reduction of its object to a strictly personal and private sphere. With this, what keeps calling itself theology is transferred to a field proper of autonomous subjectivity, that of sentiment or of personal enlightenment, in which faith ceases to be knowledge to transform itself into purely subjective security about the salvation of self.

All this, obviously, has decisive repercussions in what continues to be called natural law. The disappearance of faith in the order of intelligence of what is real, leads to seek a replacement for the certainty which it used to contribute, and it is thought to be found, for instance, in mathematical axioms. The disappearance of the universal essences, of human nature in its universal reality, gives rise to the inevitable individualism proper of the primacy of the purely subjective rights.

It is necessary, then, to note now, even if with the brevity demanded by this presentation, what has been the itinerary traveled by theology or by what has kept this name, and in what manner it has caused a change in the definition of natural law itself. The degradation of theology due to the reduction of its object to the singular events of a supposedly supernatural kind has its origin in the nominalism which, spreading through the schools of theology in universities since the middle of the fourteenth century, took root in the minds of many pious and well-instructed men. Among them were Peter D'Ailly and Gabriel Biel, men of universally recognized authority, on which works Martin Luther based himself for his lectures in Erfurt and in Wittenberg.

According to the principle that "what is real is only the singular," what is universal is reduced to the purely logical framework which our intelligence erects in the act of understanding. What is real is thus limited to that which the senses perceive and which the intellect would know by means of some intuition, the similarity of which with the sensitive perception induces to uphold its identification. William of Ockham himself, father of nominalism, claims: "the singular which is primarily perceived by the senses ― he writes ― is the same, and under the same reason, as what the intellect firstly understands in an intuitive way (...) Consequently ― he insists ― that same thing which is firstly perceived by the senses will be understood by the intellect and under the same reason." What intuition contributes ― the only properly cognoscitive act of the intellect — is organized by the mind by means of logical relationships of universality which lack all foundation or actual correlations.

This way, the great speculative theology suffers a noticeable detriment, and so, what is known as scholastic theology of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries is, as it appears in Erasmus' Folly, the subtle play of multiple distinctions and abstractions which are processed in an intellect from which all kinds of contemplative activity has been amputated. 

Luther declares to belong to "Ockham's faction." Although sometimes he tones down this adhesion with references to Saint Augustine, it is clear that nominalism and its exclusion of the reality of the universal, marks his conception of the faith and of what could be understood as a theology. Reason cannot take part in the knowledge of what God reveals, since judging on that would be the same as making a judgment on God; it also lacks any faculty to determine what are the duties of a Christian. Reason is "blind, deaf, foolish, impious, and sacrilegious." Consequently, the relation of man with God cannot take place by means of knowledge; and what Luther calls faith does not correspond to theological faith nor can it be expressed in human language for that reason. What he understands by faith is an act of confidence, or rather, of internal security about the salvific result of the action which God carries out in an absolutely arbitrary manner on each of the elected.

Neither the faith nor the theology so conceived by the monk of Wittenberg can substantiate a natural law. This is ratified by the radical exclusion of works ― that is, of moral conduct ― as regards causes or conditions for salvation. If works are not determined by their moral character, then any norm of conduct lacks, because of this, its reason of being. When Luther explains what he understands by liberty for the Christian, he says that this consists of the complete independence from laws or precepts, including the commandments of the Decalogue. Any intent of justification of man which seeks its cause in objective moral or juridical justifications is not only rejected by doctor Martin but also branded as blasphemy. From Lutheran thinking, the notion of nature is not absent, but even making abstraction of the absolute uselessness of works, it is impossible that such nature, as it is conceived, and due to the intrinsic state of corruption in which original sin has left it, should constitute itself in a norm in some way. "For although God did not make sin, ― he writes ― yet He does not cease to form and multiply that nature, which from the Spirit being withdrawn, is vitiated by sin, just as if an artisan were to make statues out of rotten wood." Saint Paul, when he enumerated the vices which are the product of original sin, was referring to the fallen nature, but one which conserves its integrity and can, because of that, be redeemed and restored in its perfection; this is not the irremediably rotten nature to which Luther refers.

With Luther, each one's subjectivity gets consecrated as the source of determination of what is morally good or just: "these two formulas ― he writes in De servo arbitrio ― are true: 'good and just works do not ever make a man good and just, but a good and just man makes good works'. 'Bad works do not make a man wicked but a wicked man does bad works' which means that a person must always be first good and just before carrying out any good deed, and the good deeds will follow and come from a just and good person." With this, a primacy  ― a subjectivity which imposes itself ― of power over reason is established, of force over what is objectively just. The invectives hurled by the reformer against the "murderous hordes" of German peasants and his call to the noblemen to crush them, is a concrete example of the outcome which can reach such primacy of power over reason.

It is known that Calvin does not modify the main theses of Luther; as him, he holds that salvation is through the faith and not through the works, that there is no free will in man, that predestination to hell or to Beatitude is an irrevocable divine predetermination, that the works of the elected are necessarily good and those of the ones destined for reprobation are necessarily bad, and so forth. In contrast to Calvin, in Lutheranism one could still find, nevertheless, some spirit of piety; this disappears in the reformer from Geneva, in whom the community or assembly of the elected is put ahead of personal piety. Apart from that, as could be seen in the organization which the reformer gave to Genevan society, there is for him no difference between such assembly of the saints or of the elected and civil society. To belong to such assembly gives persons security in their condition of elected, since there is an external confirmation of the condition of elected on the part of the rest. The society or church of the saints needs, as does any society, visible and concrete links, without which it cannot subsist. As all rites or liturgical actions have been excluded from the reformed religion, such links are certain common forms of morality, which are to be signified to the rest by means of conventional words, gestures, dress, etcetera, which, in the absence of other sacred signs acquire, however, the necessary character. In such manner, by means of the observance of such conventional forms, the saint acquires the conviction of his own salvation.

God, for the Calvinists, is a severe being, arbitrary, terrible, implacable. There can be no law that can have as its foundation God's arbitrariness. "(He) has decreed once and for all ― he writes ― in his eternal and immutable counsel, those He has willed to take for salvation and those he has willed to send to perdition." Before this terrible distance from God is man, whose nature is radically corrupted and who cannot even aspire, not even by grace, to an intimate union with God, partaking of divine life, as is taught by Catholic theology. "Children themselves ― Calvin does not skimp on ways to inspire the horror proper of predestination ― are included in this condemnation (...) Their nature is a seed of sin; for which reason it cannot be other than repugnant and abominable to God."

God's presence among the elected would seem to contradict that insurmountable distance of man from God, or at least that it remedies or mitigates it. Not so, however, it is not that God makes Himself present in the elected and sanctifies him by communicating His own life to him. God does not reveal Himself to man nor does He make Himself be loved by man. What makes itself present in the elected is his sole character of elected, but it is not God. Knowing himself to be elected is certainly a determining psychological factor which will stamp its own character on the saints and on the assembly which congregates them. In this interior conviction, which is the self reaffirmation of being saved, all personal relation of man with God is comprised. "God not only offers salvation ― writes Calvin ― but He also assigns such certitude, that the effect of the offering cannot be left in suspense or in doubt."

Human destinies are thus resolved at the same time in the remoteness of a God which does not know compassion for human misery, and in the immediate closeness of a subjectivity in which the presence of the divine cannot be distinguished from an interior state marked by the conviction of having been saved (reprobates are uncapable of any true conviction.) Because of this, that double cause is reduced to a single one, to the one which is immediate and subjective, to which the divine character is granted after it has acted. The determining factor is always that interior state of the subject, state which is reinforced and reaffirmed as it is manifested externally and coincides with those of the rest in the same exterior forms, the which would be the unequivocal signs of the sanctity of the members of the assembly,

For Calvinism, and for the postures that have derived from it, law is solely what the will of the elected determine to be such. This power of the elected is more defined than in Luther, for whom it was identified simply with the subjectivity of the Christian. In contrast, in Calvinism, such power is that of the assembly, in which it is exercised of course over its members, in the form of a collective will superior to the particular wills. This idea of the collective will ― or general or sovereign, as it will be called afterwards ― autonomous and free, has been the archetype of the ideologies upon which modern revolutions have been inspired.

In the social philosophy which developed, mainly in England, in the seventeenth century, the presence of a secularized Calvinism is clear. Clarification: the secularized qualifier is redundant, since, as we have seen, Calvinism in itself consists in the secularization of some of the most outstanding ideas of the Reformation. The multiple sects which have derived from Calvinism share, as a common trait, the constitution of an assembly of their members, the saints or elected, that is the exemplary form of the civil society. This assembly, the covenant, its sanctity guaranteed by the divine election, and presided by the eldest or of greatest dignity of the members, the presbiter, possesses a collective will which always represents in a trustworthy way the individual wills of the members. It is that will, that of the assenbly of saints, the one which rules the life of the community. There is no transcendent norm, not of the eternal law, not of natural law, not of reason. There being no transcendent norm, there being no naturally just, the principle of conduct has to be necessarily immanent, since it does not leave nor is it possible to leave the closed sphere of a subjectivity which extends itself collectively, It is not surprising that, in the absence of a theology in the proper sense of the term, geometry should appear as an exemplary cause in the determination of the law. To it resort, and with this purpose, Grotius and Hobbes.

There is a character in whose thought and in whose works, the currents that stem from nominalism and from the Reformation, secularized by Calvinism, are concentrated. We refer to John Locke. In him, a skepticism, natural consequence of these currents, elevated to the category of dogma and principle of morality, can be found. In his Letter Concerning Toleration, his explanation of the significance of such dogma can be found. It says "toleration is the chief characteristic mark of the true church. Whatever profession of faith we make, ― he adds ― to whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied in our own mind that the one is true and the other well pleasing unto God, such profession and such practice, far from being any furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our salvation."

Tolerance constituted in principle cannot be applied, by the way, to those who are intolerant; that is, cohabitation with any creed or religion can be admitted on condition that it does not claim to be the only true one: this is why Locke rejects the possibility of admitting the Catholic Church in this cohabitation of religions. The matter is that he who professes a religion may believe that it is the only true one as long as he believes it only for himself. If he tries to have others share in his belief because his religion is the only true one, he is committing the worst of sins, which is that of intolerance. Truth is only for oneself. The practical and theoretical consequences of a complete subjectivism are evidenced here quite clearly. Thus, it turns out that tolerance is the object of the faith, which can also be expressed by saying that the faith is valid on condition that it has no object; in other words, there is no truth which one has to believe in just because it is true. In connection with the accusation of intolerance made of Catholics, Locke writes that: "These accusations would cease very soon if the law of tolerance would be framed so that it would require all churches to proclaim that tolerance is the foundation of their own liberty, and to teach that liberty of conscience is a natural right of man."

Here we have, in the words of Locke himself, the enunciation of the principle which all subsequent currents that accept the liberal qualifier for themselves draw from: liberty does not consist of free will — the existence of which would have to be denied — but of the absolute independence of man with respect to any principle transcending his sujectivity and in the name of which some  type of obedience could be demanded of him; this is the liberty of conscience which supposes — as can be seen already in Luther — that something is good and true because I judge it to be so, that is, because to me it is good and true but not because in itself it is so. If tolerance is the proper object of the faith — and only in that sense could the faith be considered to be common — it is because the faith in divine Revelation and in theology no longer exists. And if natural law boils down to liberty of conscience, it is also because it no longer exists.

Spain Left to Chance

Spain Left to Chance

By José Antonio Primo de Rivera

Taken from Las Cadenas de Obligado

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

In very few parties is there a lack of a useful man. What there is no remedy for is the party system. We have seen this repeatedly in the succession of experiments which has been our lot to bear, and we will see it again in the next elections.

The experience — which on the other hand has done nothing but to confirm what reason had already announced — can be formulated with the exactitude of a law of mathematics. There is no possible politics, nor possible history nor possible homeland if every two years everything is put to revision motivated by some election.

The great historical architectures have been at least the work of a lifetime of a leader or a king. Most of the time they have been the work of an entire dynasty. In some other places, it has been that of a revolution which has imposed its principles and has stuck to them during forty or fifty years by the succession in power of men anointed by the right of the revolution itself. If it is not that way, all effort is useless, neither two nor five years is time enough to accomplish anything, and it is well known that popular impatience leans every two years or every five to change its posture. There is no time period without some discomfort, and the simple judgment of masses always tends to receive what is good of any period of time as a natural and free thing but to see what is bad a consequence of the ineptitude of the rulers. Rulers are never judged for what they have done but for what they have not done. This way, as there is no one in the world who is capable of doing everything that is imaginable, nobody is free from merciless criticism for everything he has not done.

This criticism of what is lacking, this crying for what remains is the best source for that set of fallacies, injustices, fabrications, called electoral propaganda. The most famous builders of nations would have not concluded their work if every two years or every three, in full effort, when it was still so difficult to glimpse their final outcome would have had to submit themselves to the irresponsible direction of all the demagogues in all the taverns in all the towns.

The suffrage system not only suffers all of the vices of demagogy, but it stimulates them. To gain votes it is necessary to excite the electors. Between one candidate and another, strifes to death are struck: each of the two has to increase the dose of the excitant posed by the rival. When the known reserves are exhausted, it becomes necessary to make use of new venoms not previously tested. There are political drugs such as nationalism, which maybe would never have appeared had they not have been required by some candidate, in an electoral trance, to flagellate the sensibility of the voting masses, perhaps already weakened by the abuse of other worn out drugs. 

There cannot be a single normal man that defends in good faith this diabolical system. Only hating the people can one wish to have a system which turns them into a field of experimentation for all the imbeciles, ambitious, frenzied, spongers, and phonies. On a guileless, tender popular mass, prone to credulity and rage, the storming of all the electoral scum, skilled at the game of torture and deception is allowed. Some candidates will come out triumphant, and others defeated, from the ones and the others little will be known until the next elections; but in their wake will remain, poisoning the souls, enormous stores of rancor without possible relief, because demagogues, in order to feed the rancor, inflame unrealizable appetites.

Why is it that the public sale of drugs or pornographic novels is not tolerated while this free market of political narcotics is tolerated? It is tolerated simply because a State which admits this system does not believe in itself nor in its proper justifying mission and to have the injustice of its existence be forgiven, has to simulate that its own existence is put at stake every two or three years. Our State, which will have the conscience of its great mission at the service of Spain´s eternal unity, will not let Spain be exposed to this turbid fate in the urns.

El Papa León XIII sobre la Verdadera Libertad

El Papa León XIII sobre la verdadera libertad

Un gran pontífice condena un error moderno

por Michael Davies

Traducido del inglés por Roberto Hope

En su carta encíclica Libertas, el Papa León XIII advierte que hay ciertas así llamadas libertades que la sociedad moderna da por hecho que todo hombre posee como derecho. Éstas son las libertades "que tan afanosamente propugnan y proclaman los seguidores del liberalismo"

La esencia del liberalismo es que el ser humano individual tiene el derecho de decidir por sí mismo las normas por las cuales ha de regular su vida. Tiene el derecho de ser su propio árbitro sobre lo que es bueno y sobre lo que es malo, está bajo ninguna obligación de someterse a autoridad eterna alguna. En un sentido liberal, libertad de conciencia es el derecho de un individuo a pensar y creer lo que le venga en gana, aun en cuestiones de religión y de moral, y de expresar públicamente sus puntos de vista, y de persuadir a otros a adoptarlos, haciéndolo de boca en boca, mediante la prensa pública o de cualquier otro modo. Tiene el derecho de elegir cualquier religión o de no profesar religión alguna. La única limitación que se le impone es que debe abstenerse de causar una violación del orden público. Hasta el liberal más extremo difícilmente aceptaría que a alguien que creyera que los hombres de ojos azules debieran ser ejecutados se le debiera permitir poner esa creencia en práctica. Pero el Papa León XIII distingue entre el simple orden público y el bien común o bien público. Una obra de teatro blasfema u obscena pudiera no provocar una revuelta, pero difícilmente podría suponerse que el permitirla habría de promover el bien público.

El Papa León XIII enseña que "muchos se aferran obstinadamente a su propia opinión en esta cuestión, al grado de imaginar estas modernas libertades, por corruptas que sean, como la gloria más grande de nuestra era, y la verdadera base de la vida civil, sin la cual no puede concebirse un gobierno perfecto." 

Tristemente, debe reconocerse que desde que el Papa León escribió estas palabras en 1988, los errores que él condenaba se han vuelto tan generalmente aceptados dentro del ethos dominado por los liberales en la sociedad occidental, que la mayoría de los católicos los consideran aceptables o aun admirables. Sería difícil encontrar un obispo en el mundo de habla inglesa en nuestros días, que diera su apoyo incondicional a las enseñanzas de Libertas.

Santo Tomás de Aquino explica:
Dios dejó al hombre en manos de su propio consejo, no como si fuera legítimo para él hacer lo que le venga en gana, sino porque, a diferencia de las criaturas irracionales, no está por la necesidad natural compelido a hacer lo que debe hacer, sino que se le deja a él la libre elección que proceda de su propio consejo.

De manera semejante, el Papa León enseña que:
En tanto que otras criaturas animadas siguen sus sentidos, buscando el bien y evitando el mal solamente con su instinto, el hombre goza de la razón para guiarle en todos y cada uno de los actos de su vida.

El Papa demuestra que la libertad puede ejercitarse sólo por aquéllos que tienen el don de la razón — o sea los ángeles y los hombres. Define la razón como "la facultad de elegir los medios adecuados para el fin que se propone, pues es amo de sus actos quien puede elegir una cosa de entre muchas."

Luego explica que "la libertad de elección es una propiedad de la voluntad, o mejor dicho es idéntica a la voluntad en cuanto a que en su acción tiene la facultad de elegir."

La voluntad siempre elige lo que considera bueno o útil. El acto de la voluntad, la elección, se basa en un juicio hecho por el intelecto, o sea, en un acto de la razón. Juicio es "un acto de la razón, no de la voluntad". Con frecuencia carecemos de la fuerza de voluntad para llevar a cabo lo que nuestro juicio nos dice que es el curso de acción correcto.

La libertad se ejerce legítimamente sólo cuando el hombre conforma su voluntad con la de Dios. No tiene un derecho natural de preferir su propio consejo al de su Creador, aun cuando física y psicológicamente pueda hacerlo. Debe hacerse aquí una distinción crucial al tratar la naturaleza de la libre voluntad. Ésta es la distinción entre el ser física y psicológicamente capaz (libre) de elegir el mal, y el tener un derecho natural de elegir el mal. En el lenguaje del liberalismo: decir que el hombre es libre de hacer algo significa que tiene el derecho de hacerlo, sujeto a los requisitos del orden público.

Nada más absurdo puede ser expresado o concebido, enseña el Papa León, "que la noción de que por ser el hombre libre por naturaleza, está por lo tanto exento de cumplir la ley."

"La ley primaria a la cual el hombre tiene el deber de someterse es la ley eterna o natural, la ley de la naturaleza implantada en nuestros corazones por nuestro Creador, como parte de la naturaleza humana. Esta ley natural, explica el Papa, "está escrita o grabada en la mente de todo hombre; y eso no es otra cosa que nuestra razón, ordenándonos a hacer el bien y prohibiéndonos pecar... La ley de la naturaleza es la misma cosa que la ley eterna, implantada en las criaturas racionales, e inclinándolas hacia su correcta actuación y recto fin, y no puede ser otra cosa que la razón eterna de Dios, Creador y Rector de todo el mundo."

Lo que aplica al individuo aplica en no menos grado a la sociedad civil. Aquéllos que están investidos con el poder de gobernar derivan su autoridad no de la gente que los eligió, en el caso de una democracia, sino de Dios. Los legisladores no tienen derecho de promulgar leyes civiles que estén en conflicto con la ley natural, aun cuando la mayoría de la gente desee que lo hagan. Toda autoridad en la Iglesia, el Estado y la familia, deriva de Dios, como Nuestro Señor se lo señaló a Poncio Pilato. El Papa León condena "la doctrina de la supremacía del mayor número, donde todo derecho y todo deber residen en la mayoría." Así pues, la Iglesia acepta la democracia si por ese término se entiende que aquéllos que gobiernan son seleccionados por un voto basado en un sufragio limitado o universal. La Iglesia condena la democracia en el sentido de que aquéllos que gobiernan lo hacen no como delegados de Dios, sino de delegados de la gente que los eligió, y que están obligados a legislar de acuerdo con los deseos de la mayoría. "No es en sí mismo incorrecto preferir una forma de gobierno democrática," escribe el Papa León, "si sólo la doctrina católica se mantiene en cuanto al origen y el ejercicio del poder." Bajo ninguna circunstancia puede un gobierno civil tener el derecho de permitir abominaciones tales como el aborto, que es manifiestamente contrario a la ley eterna de Dios. La enseñanza del Papa está muy clara en este punto, y agrega que donde un gobierno dicta legislación que se contrapone con la ley natural, estamos obligados a desobedecerla. 

Es manifiesto que la ley eterna de Dios es la única norma y regla de la libertad humana, no solamente en cada hombre individual, sino también en la comunidad y en la sociedad civil que los hombres constituyen cuando se unen. Por lo tanto, la verdadera libertad de la sociedad humana no consiste en que cada hombre haga lo que le plazca, pues esto simplemente acabaría en agitamiento y confusión, y traería consigo el derrocamiento del estado; sino más bien en esto, que por los ordenamientos de la ley civil sea más fácil conformarse con lo que manda la ley eterna... La fuerza obligatoria de las leyes humanas está en esto, que deben ser consideradas como aplicantes de la ley eterna, e incapaces de sancionar nada que no esté contenido en la ley eterna como principio de toda ley... Cuando se promulga una ley contraria a la razón, a la ley eterna o a alguna ordenanza de Dios, el obedecerla es ilegítimo, no sea que al obedecer al hombre se desobedezca a Dios.

Las facultades de la razón no son perfectas[1]. El Papa León observa que "es posible, como se ve con frecuencia, que la razón proponga algo que no es realmente bueno, pero que tiene la apariencia de bueno, y que la voluntad haya de elegir en consecuencia." Ésta es una distinción de lo más importante. El hombre puede errar de manera culposa o inculposa. Cuando la razón erra y conduce a la voluntad a hacer una elección equivocada, lo que ha elegido es simplemente un espejismo, la apariencia de un bien. La elección del error es prueba de la existencia de la libre voluntad, pero no es un ejercicio válido de la voluntad. Es una corrupción o un abuso. Escribe el Papa León:

La búsqueda de lo que tiene la falsa apariencia de bueno, aun cuando sea prueba de nuestra libertad, de la misma manera en que una enfermedad es prueba de nuestra vitalidad, implica un defecto de la libertad humana... Abusa de su libertad de elección y corrompe su misma esencia.

Un hombre que elige lo que es objetivamente malo se está haciendo no libre sino esclavo del pecado (Juan 8:34). La consecuencia final de la elección culposa del mal puede ser su condenación eterna. El Papa León apercibe:

La forma en que se ejerce tal dignidad es de la mayor importancia, en la medida en que del uso que se haga de la libertad depende igualmente el mayor bien o el mayor mal. El hombre, ciertamente, es libre de obedecer a su razón, de buscar el bien moral y de luchar inquebrantablemente por alcanzar su destino final. Sin embargo, también es libre de voltearse hacia otras cosas y, buscando la vacía semblanza de bien, de alterar el recto orden y de caer en la destrucción que ha elegido voluntariamente.

El hombre está obligado a hacer todo lo que esté a su alcance para ejercer correctamente la facultad de la razón, a ejercer su juicio de acuerdo con la recta razón, teniendo en mente que, en cuestiones morales y religiosas, sus decisiones habrán de afectar su último fin. El Papa León explica:

La razón ordena a la voluntad lo que debiera buscar o evitar, con el fin de alcanzar alguna vez el último fin del hombre, por bien del cual debe conducir todas sus acciones. Este ordenamiento de la razón se llama ley. En la libre voluntad del hombre, o sea en la necesidad moral de que nuestros actos voluntarios se conformen con la razón, radica el fundamento mismo de la necesidad de la ley.

Cuando un hombre ejercita su libertad de acuerdo con la ley de Dios, rinde a su Creador el homenaje que le es debido en estricta justicia, y sigue el único camino por el cual puede ser salvado. Él no abdica a su dignidad, sino la afirma. Cuando elige el mal, abusa de su más sagrada posesión y la profana. El Salmo 118, Beati Inmaculati, proporciona un comentario del ejercicio correcto de la libertad humana.

Innecesario es decirlo, sin asistencia alguna, la razón humana jamás podría garantizar que su salvación esté asegurada. Mantener esta postura es caer en la herejía del pelagianismo. Es con la ayuda de la gracia de Dios como el individuo queda posibilitado para ejercer su libertad de conformidad con la ley de Dios y así de alcanzar su salvación. Los efectos del pecado original descartan la posibilidad de que la razón humana desasistida guíe al hombre hacia su salvación sin la ayuda de la gracia. En su alocución Singulari Quadram (1854) el Papa Pío IX advirtió que:

Esos parroquianos, o más bien devotos, de la razón humana, que la establecen como su maestra infalible, y se prometen toda clase de éxitos bajo su guía, seguramente han olvidado qué tan severa y profunda herida fue infligida en la naturaleza humana por el pecado de nuestros primeros padres; pues la obscuridad ha nublado la mente, y la voluntad se ha vuelto propensa al mal.... Puesto que es cierto que la ley de la razón ha sido atenuada y que la raza humana ha caído miserablemente de su anterior estado de justicia e inocencia por el pecado original, que es comunicado a todos los descendientes de Adán ¿puede alguien pensar que la razón por sí misma es suficiente para alcanzar la verdad? Si uno ha de evitar desbarrar y caer en medio de esos peligros y ante tales debilidades ¿se atrevería a negar que la Divina religión y la gracia celestial son necesarias para la salvación?

El Papa León hace hincapié en el papel de la gracia como el auxilio más importante para el uso correcto de la razón y de la voluntad:

El primero y más excelente de estos auxilios es el poder de su Divina gracia, por la cual la mente puede iluminarse y la voluntad vigorizarse y moverse hacia la búsqueda constante del bien moral, a manera de que nuestra libertad innata se torne de una vez menos difícil y menos peligrosa.

A fin de promover libertad de conciencia en su sentido correcto, el Papa León enseña que el Estado no debiera garantizar que "todos puedan, según lo elijan, adorar o no adorar a Dios, sino que todo hombre en el Estado pueda seguir la voluntad de Dios y que, de una conciencia del deber, y libre de todo obstáculo, obedezca Sus mandamientos. Ésta, ciertamente, es la verdadera libertad, una libertad digna de los hijos de Dios, que noblemente mantiene la dignidad del hombre y que es más fuerte que la violencia y el mal — una libertad que la iglesia siempre ha mantenido y considerado de lo más valiosa."

La libertad de conciencia no es, pues, un derecho natural si se toma como algo que signifique que el hombre tiene derecho de elegir el error. Pero aun cuando un individuo no tenga el derecho natural de elegir el error, él posee un derecho de no ser coercionado a elegir la verdad en el fuero interno de su vida privada. El Papa León XIII enseñó en su encíclica Immortale Dei:

La Iglesia suele prestar atención seria a que nadie deba ser forzado a abrazar la fe católica contra su propia voluntad, pues, como sabiamente nos lo recuerda San Agustín, 'El hombre no puede creer más que por su propia libre voluntad.'

La aplicación de este principio en la práctica se muestra de la mejor manera con la tolerancia y la protección dada por los papas a los judíos.[2] Debe admitirse con franqueza que durante la historia de la Iglesia, este principio algunas veces ha sido violado, pero cuando cualquier intento de forzar a los individuos a aceptar la fe católica ha ocurrido, ha sido en violación de la verdadera enseñanza católica.

La justicia, por lo tanto, prohíbe, y la misma razón también prohíbe que el Estado sea ateo; o que adopte un curso de acción que pudiera terminar en el ateísmo — específicamente, tratar a la diversas religiones (como se les llama) por igual, y otorgarles derechos y privilegios promiscuamente iguales.

Pero en un estado católico, el gobierno tiene el derecho de evitar la propagación de la herejía en la vida pública. Debe hacerse una distinción entre coercionar a un hombre para que profese la verdad, y evitarle que socave el bien común esparciendo el error en público y minando la fe de los ciudadanos católicos. Así, en estados católicos tales como España o Malta antes del Concilio Vaticano II, aun cuando sectas tales como los Testigos de Jehová estaban libres de practicar su religión en privado, por ley se les prohibía ir de puerta en puerta tratando de persuadir a los católicos de que abandonaran su religión verdadera.

Dado que la profesión de una religión es necesaria en el Estado, debe profesarse aquella religión que es la única religión verdadera, y que puede ser reconocida sin dificultad, especialmente en los estados católicos, porque las marcas de la verdad están, por decirlo así, grabadas en ella. 

El consenso de la enseñanza papal durante los últimos tres siglos es que el Estado católico tiene el derecho de restringir la expresión externa de la herejía. Pero los papas enseñan también que un Estado católico no está obligado a invocar este derecho. El bien común pudiera ser dañado más, tratando de reprimir la herejía pública, que permitiéndola. Cuando la represión de la herejía pública pudiera dañar el bien común, causando, por ejemplo, un extendido agitamiento civil (lo que pasó cuando se suprimió el protestantismo en Francia), entonces tolerancia es la mejor política. El Papa León escribe:

Por esta razón, aun sin conceder derecho alguno a nada excepto por lo que es verdadero y honesto, ella (la Iglesia) no prohíbe a la autoridad pública lo que esté en desacuerdo con la verdad y la justicia por evitar un mal mayor, o de obtener o preservar un mal mayor.

Según el Concilio Vaticano II, todos tienen el derecho de expresar su opinión religiosa en público mientras eso no cause un rompimiento del orden público. Parece imposible reconciliar esta enseñanza con la de los papas de los anteriores trescientos años, porque lo que el ser humano profesa como derecho no puede ser objeto de tolerancia. Los papas nunca enseñaron que lo que los judíos y los herejes creían, y la forma en que adoraban en privado pudiera ser tolerado. Aceptaban que en el fuero interno estar libre de coacción es un derecho. Pero en el fuero externo, la expresión pública de herejía dentro de un estado predominantemente católico podía ser solamente objeto de tolerancia, No podía, por lo tanto, ser un derecho.

El propio Papa León XIII resume la enseñanza de esta profunda encíclica, Libertas:

Y ahora, por razón de claridad, para reducir todo lo que ha sido expuesto con sus conclusiones inmediatas, a los principales encabezados, el resumen es, brevemente, éste: que el hombre, por necesidad de su naturaleza, está sujeto enteramente al más fiel y perdurable poder de Dios; y que, como consecuencia, toda libertad, excepto aquélla que consista en sumisión a Dios y en sujetamiento a Su voluntad, es ininteligible. Negar la existencia de esta autoridad de Dios, o rehusar a someterse a ella, significa actuar no como hombre libre, sino como uno que traidoramente abusa de su libertad, y en tal disposición mental, existe esencialmente el principal y mortal vicio del liberalismo.

[1] Siempre que haya una elección que hacer, el intelecto o la razón hace un juicio basado en la información que tiene a la mano, y la voluntad luego elige actuar o no actuar basada en este juicio. Ése es el caso con cualquier elección, entrañe o no entrañe dimensión moral alguna. As pues, un médico veterinario puede informar al propietario de un perro que el animal está sufriendo de una enfermedad que le causa una molestia considerable, y aconsejarle que el animal sea destruido. El juicio del dueño puede concurrir con el del veterinario, pero la elección que tome su voluntad pudiera ser haciendo caso omiso del consejo del veterinario, por no poder soportar separarse de su mascota. En este caso, la voluntad no estará actuando debidamente con base en el juicio sensato de la facultad de razonamiento.

Frecuentemente la voluntad actúa sobre lo que cree ser un juicio correcto de la razón, pero el intelecto o la razón lleva a la voluntad al error, por estar basada en información incorrecta, insuficiente, o interpretada incorrectamente — por ejemplo, muchos protestantes sinceros rechazan la Iglesia Católica porque honestamente creen que su enseñanza es contraria al Evangelio.
En el primer ejemplo, la voluntad fue la que falló, en el segundo, el intelecto o la razón fue responsable de llevar a la voluntad a hacer la elección incorrecta

[2] este punto puede ser estudiado en el artículo sobre tolerancia en la Catholic Encyclopedia.

The Christian Constitution of the States

The Christian Constitution of the States

A review of Miguel Ayuso's 'Constitución Cristiana de los Estados'

by JuanFernando Segovia

Taken from: http://almenablog.com.ar/libro2.html

Translated from the Spanish by Roberto Hope

What sense is there in wondering about the Christian constitution of the States when the pontifical magisterium seems to have abandoned the doctrine for half a century already; when Catholic philosophers and jurists consider it antiquated vis-a-vis the incontrovertible benefits of liberal democracy? Is this doctrine a relic of the past, a museum piece, outdated, sterile, inoperative? To the apparent «yes» that a hurried reader would readily blurt out, we respond with a firm «no.» Not because we may be collectors of antiques, or have a taste for the exotic, but because the problem has unquestionable validity and actuality: the Catholic religion is now seen by many as a threat to democratic pluralism and to the secular State, and this is why a «healthy laicism», the separation of Church and State, religious pluralism and the fundamentalist base of religions are debated unendingly. A case in point is the Habermas-Ratzinger dialogue, the echoes of which still rumble.

Miguel Ayuso's book is welcome for reviving the question and for presenting it in the proper terms for current discussion. Because what is at play is the eternal link between «Religion and society» (chapter 1) and the anti-Christian intentions of the revolution, with the systematic de-Christianization of societies, just as the magisterium had denounced it all throughout the nineteenth century and later up to Pius XII. But these convictions — the mandate to build a Christian society and the historical coming about of the anti-Christian revolution — have been called into question by the post-conciliar teaching, so that it is necessary to ask ourselves again. «Does a Catholic political doctrine exist?» (chapter 2), that is, shall we go back to the foundations of the social and political doctrine of the Church and observe their evolution, to re-found the doctrine, re-establish it on its bases, which are no other than those of the Christian political order. Which is tantamount to recalling the jurisdictional rights of the Church on political matters, the natural and Catholic rights (pages 48-49), sustained on the general principles of the natural order which affirm the necessary cooperation between the Church and the State (pages 51-53) and the Catholic impossibility of grounding societies on vanities or heresies.

On reviewing the traditionally maintained foundations which support a Catholic doctrine of the State, and contrasting them with the post-conciliar teaching of the Church, another question strikes us: «Has the Catholic political doctrine changed?» (chapter 3). Penetrating inquisitively in a disturbing terrain, full of unease for the tradition and its faithful, because of that firmness and obligatoriness which Pius XII had preached (page 55) little has been left. Ayuso reconstructs the history, concurrently with the appearance of the so-called «sociological Christianity» and the militant advance of laicism which, in order to save its faith in the society of masses — if you wish to put it that way — reneges of Christian civilization, detaching the moral solution from the political solution (page 62). How can there be a Christian society without a Christian State? how can the separation of the Church and the State on the one hand, from Christianity and society on the other be avoided? Such are the inconveniences which Ayuso finds in the doctrine of the Church after Vatican Council II, with its primacy of the pastoral (the prudential), the tactics and strategies, over the principles; which produces a confusion of the thesis with the hypothesis of the Catholic State, of the doctrine with the practice; all that dressed up in a new demo-liberal language which lets Maritain's influence shine through, and is confirmed by the loss or renunciation of the pontifical power to correct and penalize the error.

This is how «The problem of the Catholic State, today» (chapter 4) would seem not to be a real problem, rather, it is presented to us as a political and intellectual anachronism; Catholic unity has been liquidated, as modernists had intended to do, as Maritain proposed; and instead of a Christian society we ended up with a «counter- Christendom», term coined by Marcel Clement (page 86). To rescue the foundations of the Catholic political doctrine is the task undertaken next by Ayuso: theologically, founded on the tendency to unity, which is the hope of the Church, and is contained in the theology of Christ the King; philosophically, as the liberal (and democratic) interpretation of religious liberty is in contradiction with the need of a public orthodoxy to affirm the pillars of any society; and sociologically, as it is necessary to establish the social conditions that allow men to live the faith; that is, without a Christian society a Christian nation is impossible: From any of these arguments, the moral and religious pluralism contradicts the traditional Catholic teaching, which affirms an «invariable morality of the political order», that is, the moral law and its religious dimension as «internal constituent of civil society» (pages 100-101).

Particularly painful is the breakdown of the Catholic State tradition in Spain (chapter 5); that Christianitas minor  which gave America the Faith as a unique distinction of evangelization, and the constitution of a political community. The struggles of the nineteenth century and the civil war of the twentieth failed to deprive Spain of its unique Catholic profession, until the 1978 constitution, as Ayuso demonstrates, liquidated this heritage, introduced religious pluralism, and with it democratic immanentism and consensualism. The case of Spain now shows what Europe exemplified since 1789, that religious breakdown leads to moral disarming and, after this, to the dissolution of the common good and the dismantling of any kind of communal living (page 115).

To conclude the book, Ayuso adds a chapter to analyze the passage «from laicism to secularism»; that is, the image, the sensation, the ideological impression that the era of aggressiveness against the Church has passed, and that we, in post-modern times, have entered a benign, respectful, ecumenical, tolerant, picturesquely agnostic laicism: what we call secularism. The problem provides the occasion to recall that, beyond the swerves and massaging of the modern State, popular sovereignty and democracy are nothing other than «casting the original sin into the plural» as per Jean Madiran's brilliant expression (page 121), and then ratify that the social doctrine of the Church, above a merely worldly doctrine, is a response to the modern world, which reacts or replies as it affirms «the Kingdom of Christ over human societies as the single condition for its just ordering and its progressing and pacific life», as Ayuso affirms (page 122). If the Church seems not to recognize this truth of the magisterium, it is because it is part of the problem, not of the solution; that is, secularism has taken a hold in the Church itself, as is demonstrated in the 2005 letter from John Paul II to the French bishops, which completely subverts the doctrine expressed in the Encyclical Vehemente nos of Saint Pius X, very near the centenary of its issuance.

After this quick reading, passing from chapter to chapter, the opening question returns at each moment, almost confirmed in one answer: the doctrine of the Catholic state is pretended to be antiquated and irremediably moth-eaten. Its sociological necessity and its philosophical truth have yielded to the demands of the present time, to the point that the Church no longer sustains it, and John Paul II erased it from his Compendium. Why, then, insist upon it? Well, for the same reason. Because it has been forgotten, and, on erasing it from memory, societies and the Church itself have gone astray. And ultimately, which is no small matter, because it has been mandated by Our Lord; because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Old and the New Testament affirm the kingship of Christ, it is a truth of faith to which we cannot renounce.