The ethics of wealth and poverty

In my latest essay at Postliberal Order, I discuss what Christ, the Fathers of the Church, and Aristotle have to say about the moral hazards of riches.

Catholicism and immigration: Reply to Cory and Sweeney

Recently, my article “A Catholic Defense of Enforcing Immigration Laws” appeared at Public Discourse.  Both Therese Cory and Terence Sweeney have raised criticisms of the article.  In a new article at Public Discourse, I reply to them.

The pope’s first duty

Let us pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis.  We ought to pray no less fervently that God in His mercy will bless His Church with a new pope of the kind she most needs at this time in her history.  As the cardinals begin to think about a successor, it is appropriate for them, and for us, to recall that the first duty of any pope is to preserve undiluted the deposit of faith.  It concerns sound doctrine even more than sound practice, because practice can be sound only when doctrine is sound.  This is something those electing a new pope should always keep first and foremost in mind.  But reminders are especially important today, when the Church faces greater doctrinal confusion than perhaps at any previous time.

The two thieves

Christ was not crucified alone.  Of those who died with him, Luke’s Gospel tells us the following:

There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death.  And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left… Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”  But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”  And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:32-33, 39-43, NKJV)

On the tariff crisis

Like many others across the political spectrum, I’ve been alarmed at the extreme tariff policy President Trump announced last week, which was met by a massive drop in the stock market.  As with almost everything else he does, the policy was nevertheless instantly embraced with enthusiasm by his most devoted followers, who have glibly dismissed all concerns and assured us that we are on the cusp of a golden age.  If this does not sound like the conclusion of careful and dispassionate reasoning, that is because it isn’t.  Whatever the outcome of Trump’s policy, the flippant boosterism with which it has been put forward and defended is contrary to reason.

On pride and vainglory

Pride, as Aquinas defines it in De Malo, is “the inordinate desire for pre-eminence” (Question 8, Article 2). With Augustine and the Christian tradition in general, he teaches that it is “the greatest sin” and indeed “the root and queen of all sins.” Its immediate effect is “vainglory,” which is the vice of habitually seeking to call attention to one’s own imagined excellence. And the daughters of vainglory, Aquinas tells us (Question 9, Article 3), are disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy (by which Aquinas means a tendency to magnify one’s glory by reference to “imaginary deeds”), contention, obstinacy, discord, and what he calls the “audacity for novelties” or predilection for bold actions that will call attention to oneself by bringing “astonishment” to others.

Scholastic regress arguments

Many are familiar with arguments to the effect that an infinite regress of causes is impossible, as Aquinas holds in several of his Five Ways of proving God’s existence.  Fewer correctly understand how the reasoning of such arguments is actually supposed to work in Scholastic writers like Aquinas.  Fewer still are aware that the basic structure of this sort of reasoning has parallels in other Scholastic regress arguments concerning the nature of mind, of knowledge, and of action.  Comparing these sorts of arguments can be illuminating.