Ten Short Notes on Catholic Social Teaching

Right to Life and Catholic Action Committee 

3: The Church Must Be Allowed to Speak

The next principle is a negative -- a "thou shalt not" -- a fence within which society is free to operate, on the opposite side of which is a dangerous cliff that must be avoided. The second commandment forbids blasphemy, including making bad or false statements about the Church, the saints, the angels, or other sacred things. (CCC no. 2146) Society, if it does not actively acknowledge the true God, as a minimum must allow us to be the leaven, the lamp on the stand, mentioned in Note 2. It must not speak against God and the Church. It must not be biased against the Church and our influence. Why not? Both as a matter of justice and also for its own benefit.

As a matter of justice, it is the belief of the Catholic Church that She has the special and exclusive duty to set forth truths divinely received. Among these truths is the authority of Her teaching office, an authority that She teaches and defends as a help to our salvation. (Humanum genus no. 12)

As a matter of benefit to society, Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Humanum genus taught, "To have in public matters no care for religion, and in the arrangement and administration of civil affairs to have no more regard for God than if He did not exist, is a rashness unknown to the very pagans..." (n. 24) Those who "reject from the laws and from the commonwealth the wholesome influence of the Catholic religion...imagine that States ought to be constituted without any regard for the laws and precepts of the Church." (n. 13) However, the sources and the principals of all justice and morality are "That God is the Creator of the world and its provident Ruler; that the eternal law commands the natural order to be maintained, and forbids that it be disturbed; that the last end of men is a destiny far above human things and beyond this sojourning upon earth." (n. 19) Without these underpinnings there are no enduring principles on which society can base justice.

And the Church does not oppose legitimate civil power. She teaches "that what is rightly due to the civil power must be rendered to it with a conviction and consciousness of duty. ...She teaches that to justice must be joined clemency; to authority, equity; and to lawgiving, moderation; that one's right must not be violated; that order and public tranquility are to be maintained; and that poverty of those in need is, as far as possible, to be relieved by public and private charity." (n. 29) These are the components of the common good, spoken of previously.

It is against the teaching of the Church, and detrimental to society, that civil society should not be influenced by divine revelation. This is one of the battles we face today -- in areas ranging from the Alito confirmation down to expressing our wishes for a "Merry Christmas."

Don Schlegel
March 9, 2006

Ohio Senate Bill 17

Catholic Action and Right to Life Committee

Last month I reported on a letter published in the Steubenville Register, from David Young, Legal Counsel to the Catholic Conference of Ohio. The letter urged action by the Catholic laity regarding a proposal in the Ohio legislature that would retroactively extend the statute of limitations to include acts as early as 1970. I promised to follow up and see exactly what Mr. Young thought the laity should do.

If you read the Catholic Times, you should have seen a front-page article on this situation in the May 29 edition. This article, and information I obtained from the Catholic Conference, go to great lengths to explain that the bishops of Ohio strongly supported the legislation, Senate Bill 17, as originally proposed. The bill would add clergy to the list of persons who must report child abuse and would extend the deadline for filing childhood abuse claims from age 20 to age 38. However, this would apply only to alledged abuse incidents for which the current statute of limitations has not already expired, i.e. incidents in 1985 or later. The problem lies in an amendment, included in the version passed by the Ohio Senate this spring, that for a one-year period would reopen expired civil statute of limitations for childhood sexual assault suits, for assaults that alledgedly took place as early as 1970.

This retroactive extension of the statute of limitations, if passed into law, probably will be ruled unconstitutional. Statutes of limitations have been set in place to ensure fair and equitable litigation. As time passes, witnesses' memories weaken, witnesses and parties have died, and documents have been destroyed, making fair trials very difficult to carry out.

A similar reopening of a statute of limitations was ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court in 1981. Another similar law in California was recently found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

My only concern with the Catholic Times article is that it doesn't get to the crux of the concern, which is the cost of getting to the point that this new legislation would be declared unconstitutional. More accusations no doubt would be filed against our clergy and our bishops, some probably involving deceased clergy, any number of which accusations could be false. At least one of the cases would have to be opposed and taken through the court system to the Ohio Supreme Court before a ruling could be made that the reopened statute of limitations is unconstitutional. This would be done at great monetary cost, not to mention the agony to the persons involved, and the fact that spiritual and mental wounds would probably be re-opened rather than healed in the process.

The solution to this, the action required by the laity, rests in letters and petitions to the Ohio House of Representatives, which will take up the bill this summer and can remove the amendment from their version. The Catholic Conference thinks it will be about August or September before any significant action is taken by the House. I will attempt to monitor the situation and let you know when and what action will be required.

Don Schlegel
June, 2005