My deeds aren’t things without any relation to who and what I am; they define me (for better or for worse). So says JPII in VS §71: Human acts are moral acts because they express and determine the goodness or…
There is a school of thought amongst moral theologians according to which it is practically impossible for a man to commit mortal sin, because to do requires the equivalent of apostasy. Pope John Paul II makes It clear that this…
When we’re thinking about morality we sometimes get a little too focused upon the individual man. JPII points out that Christian morality isn’t something from which the society may demur: In the Book of Genesis we read: “The Lord God…
Modern man has a distorted idea about the authority of conscience. It is not absolute in the sense of being free to choose whatever moral course it wishes. Pope John Paul II has the following interesting things to say about…
A major source of philosophical and moral error in our age arises from a perverse distortion of human freedom. Having denied that there are any absolutes, man is left to himself to choose what he will believe and how he…
Just as there has been development with regard to the understanding of the Faith proclaimed by the Church, JPII says that there has been an analogous development in the Church’s moral teaching. In her reflection on morality, the Church has…
In VS §28 Pope John Paul II proposes four “essential elements” of the Christian moral order: [T]he subordination of man and his activity to God, the One who “alone is good”; the relationship clearly indicated in the divine commandments, between…
What is the New Law of the Gospel, of the New Testament? JPII writes in VS §24 that it is the grace of the Holy Spirit poured out in our hearts. And so we find revealed the authentic and original…
In our last episode we saw that Christian morality is founded upon love. But it is a love that we cannot possibly fulfill in our own strength. In order to fulfill the duties of Christian morality, we must have God’s…
Christian morality isn’t just any morality that a Christian might choose, as though the fact that a Christian invokes it might somehow make it worthy of the label. It has at least one distinctive characteristic. It is Jesus himself who…
Aquinas, Etc. 