Justice and Truth, Bolich - Amelia C.

1. Thou shall not steal. 
1. Keeping something that someone lends to you.
2. Business Fraud and Tax Fraud.
3. Damaging private property.
4. Illegally downloading music/movies.
5. Cheating.
6. Plagiarism. 
2. Thou shall not bear false witness.
1. Lying
2. Duplicity-misleading.
3. Dissimulation - hiding something by pretense.
4. Hypocrisy
5. Detraction
6. Calumny
7. Flattery
8. Complaisance
3. Thou shall Not covet Thy Neighbors Goods.
1. Greed
2. Avarice
3. Envy

Justice and Truth Day 3, Bolich - Amelia C.

1. Justice - Giving to another that which is rightfully owed.
2. Justice is portrayed by scales - when the women are blindfolded they are biased, they have opinions.
3. Authentic Justice is a virtue, it's a good habit. The more we are virtuous the freer we are. This makes it easier to make decisions.
4. Basics of the catholic basic doctrine ( Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church):
1. It takes Christ's teachings and applies them.
2. Actively work for the highest good.
5. The Beatitudes have been applied to the modern world.
6. Poor in spirit, mourn, meek, hunger and thirst for ritchesness, merciful, pure of heart, peacemaker.
7. Faith Hope and Love are endowed by God himself.
8. Charity and Justice are at the heart of catholic charity.
9. Four primary principles of justice: Human Dignity, Common Good, Subsidiarity, Solidarity.
10. Solidarity, one recognizes that human beings are one big family. 
11. Secondary Principles - Universal Destination of Goods, Right to Private Property, Call to Participation. 
1. Everyone has the right to what the earth gives to us equally. 
2. One has the right to own what they have worked for.
12. The option for the poor and vulnerable is the most basic and important form of justice.
13. Care for Gods creation. 
14. Corporal Works of Mercy - Feed Hungary, Drink to Thirsty, Cloth Naked, Shelter Homeless, Visit Sick, Visit Prison, Bury Dead.

Justice and Truth Day 2, Bolich - Amelia C.

1. To be a citizen of Rome is a big deal, one can't touch you without the Kings permission. 
2. But, one can loose his rights by not voting, by not paying taxes, etc... To not fulfill your obligations was a big deal.
3. Aquinas says that rights can not be separated from justice and responsibility.
4. Virtue requires self mastery.
5. The proper understanding of laws - "To make man good", Aquinas.
6. The law is supposed to teach you virtue, its the final stronghold.
7. If one gets desensitized to stealing the law would be the last resort to teach that stealing is good.
8. The law is already demanding the standard that are in place via virtue.
9. Because not everyone was virtues we have laws.
10. The government exists for you, for the sake of you, if you were not here the government were not be here.
11. We got our current understanding of rights from Locke and Hobbes. 
12. This is called the enlightenment period, they basically said to forget everything.
13. Our founding fathers were a fan of them.
14. They said that freedom was unbounded and unlimited, he said that the week die because of the freedom of the powerful. Rights are claims that we make against others- I want it I have the right to it.  - Hobbes 
15. The father of liberalism. The rights are based of radical autonomy of people. Unrestrained freedom is the basics of rights. Unbridled freedom is the utmost importance. - Locke
16. Our constitution was written based on this understanding of freedom - and its flawed. 
17. Natural Law determines your rights, something outside of the human body, one does not determine there rights.
18. Human desire is the foundation of rights, I deride what I owe - modern and post modern thought. 
19. If one is uneducated they do not have the right to an opinion. 
20. Natural Law + Human Dignity + Rights + Responsibility = Justice
21. Justice - giving that which is owed or rightfully due.

Justice and Truth, Bolich - Amelia C.

1. Right- Goods or actions to other persons.
2. A right in America is based on entitlement.
3. The concept of "rights" implies social and moral contracts.
4. A right is an obligation, Rights proceed Justice.
5. The concept of a Right is theological by nature.
6. Rights don't come from the constitution but from something higher.
7. Aquinas places Justice in the realm of virtues.
8. Cardinal virtues are acquired by doing them.
9. Before one can treat one justly they must have a proper understanding of human dignity - proper Anthropology.
10. Justice and human dignity don't have to do with a personal view of one.
11. Two Truths - All human life is Sacred, All humans are equal in dignity --> Churches teachings on the human person. NON - NEGOTIONALBLE 
12. Justice - That is which is owed to one.
13. Inherent Value - Significance that exists because of what it is. Humans have significance because of what we are.

Ch. 10 Respecting the Gift of Sexuality (Courtney)

Notes:  2/27/17

Who are you?

• Created for love
• Human person
• What makes you a person: a body with a soul and have reasoning and will
• God has created us so that we have desires and driven to something
• We have desires, created that way, which is a purpose
• God helped us seek him which is the main reason we are created
• We can use our desire for the other (definition of love)
• Desires are bedrock of love

Theology of the Body:

• "God saw all that He had made and it was very good." (Gen. 1:31)
• The fullness of life lies in the attainment of authentic love.
• "The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the  divine."- Blessed Pope John Paul II, Theology of the Body
• JP II spent time about authentic love
• Authentic love also implies unauthentic love
• Series of homilies that have been collected together, JPII saw erosion of family and was worried about it.

Notes: 3/3/17

Sexuality and the Creation Narratives

"Have you not read from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said 'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate." Matthew 19:3-6

A proper understanding of the human sexuality cannot be attained through cultural or legal norms-only through an appropriate understanding of the original design of human existence.

"God said, 'Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves'… God created man in his image; in the divine image he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed  them saying, "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it…. God saw all he made and it was very good

The Creative Pause

• God differentiated humanity from the moment of existence
• "It is as if he entered back into himself to make a decision." (Theology of the Body, 134).

Image of God:

Reason and will=Rational nature

Community (mirrors the trinity)-"Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion (TOB,46).

Male and Female

• Male and female are complementary both physically and emotionally
• "They are two ways of "being a body" and at the same a man, which complete each other"

Fertile and Multiply

• Sexuality is a gift
• Sharing in the creative and life-giving action of God. "Creation (is) a gift springing from love (TOB, 61).
• Springs forth from spouses, but also God

Very Good

Creation, relationships, sexuality, fertility, etc., are all gifts from God.

Notes: 3/6/17

What is Authentic Love? What is lust?

• Choosing (actively, not just hoping for or wanting), the highest good of the other, for the sake of the other
• Communion of persons (Free)
• Communion is permanent and indissoluble

1. Dedication to and participation in a share goal (i.e. family-fruitful)

• Indissoluble (total)

1. Commitment to permanence. Love is not fleeting.
2. Love remains-always…regardless of what happens.

• Unconditional (total)

1. Love is not based on feelings or what the other person accomplishes. Love is based on a true appreciation of the other.
2. Love is not based upon life circumstance ("for better or for worse, in sickness and in health")
3. "Willing the good of the other for the sake of the other" Bishop Robert Barron

• Faithful

1. Exclusivity
2. Viewing/treating the other person as an object
3. Using someone as a mean to an end (pleasure, power, wealth, fame, convenience, to alieve boredom)
4. Lust focuses on the SELF rather than the other "(Curvatus in se")- St. Augustine of Hippo

Sacrament gives grace, which allows one to be in fully communion with the other.

1. We are required to try to live unconditional love
2. By grace, virtue, access to sacraments, we try to live unconditionally love and we try to reconcile

• Love and Lust cannot co-exist, its either lust where you use one as a tool, or even love where you choose the highest good

Notes: 3/7/17

True Love, The Gift of Self

• Chastity: the right thing in the right order at the right time
• Chastity is the observance of the personhood of every individual
• "In the mystery of creation, the woman was 'given' to the  man. On his part, in receiving her as a gift in the full truth of her person and feminity, man thereby 'enriches her. At the same time, he too is enriched in this mutual relationship. The man is enriched not only through her… but also through the gift of himself" (ToB, 71).
• Personalistic  Norm:  "The person is the kind of good which… cannot be treated as an object of use (means to an end)" (41).
• Sexual Morality:

…." comes into being not only because persons are aware of the purpose of sexual life, but also because they are aware that they are persons…. If I treat someone else as a mean and a tool in relation to myself, I cannot help regard myself in the same light" (33,39).

True Love

• "anyone who treats a person as the mean to an end does violence to the very essence to the other, to what constitutes its natural right….. Love between two people is quite unthinkable without some common good to bind them together. Man's capacity for love depends on his willingness consciously to seek a good together with others, and to subordinate himself that good for the sake of others."
• To seek a good together, what the wife and husband does

Lust-Objectifying

• Lust is the intentional objectification/reduction of a man or woman, treating the human body merely as a mean to an end (pleasure).
• Lust points to a "deep disorder" within the human person (ToB, 114).
• Lust "chip away" of your capacity to love (Fairlie, 180).
• LUST AND LOVE CANNOT CO-EXIST TOGETHER
• "Your desire shall be  for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen 3:16-17).

1. " the lust of the flesh directs desires to satisfy the body, the body , often at the cost of a real and full communion of persons" (ToB, 123).
2. The human person always desires personal union, but lust perverts these desires.
3. Men ---> becomes focused on the physical
4. Women----> become focused on becoming visually pleasing for men

• "The reason why Lust often turns to perversions is that the flesh itself has ceased to please it…" Our excessive for of an old age is the fear that must be expected in a society in which Lust has been made a dominating motive. We would  not fear it so much if we did not fear that it would empty; and we would  not fear so much that it will be empty if we had not emptied our lives already in the pursuit of mere cravings" (Farilie, 177,179).

• "The heart has become a battlefield between love and lust…  (the heart) becomes less sensitive to the gift of the person…" (ToB, 126).
• Lust makes true love almost impossible
• Lust reduces the value of the person "to that of a single value, that is, of ex, as a suitable object for the gratification of sexuality itself" (ToB, 149).
• You have heard it said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew  5:27-28).
• Although the act is completely interior, hidden in the heart and expressed only by the look, there already occurs in a change of the very intentionality of existence" (ToB, 151).
• By means of the look a  certain woman begins to exist for a certain man not as a subject of call and personal attraction or as a subject of communion, but exclusively as an object for the potential satisfaction of the sexual need" (ToB, 151).

Notes: 3/20/17

Spousal Meaning of the Body:

• Also called the Spousal Analogy
• In the beginning people did not lust over each other
• It might be easiest to understand love and respect each other like the first people did when we see babies.
• Just by looking at a person's body, we are made for: relationship, intimacy, and community ---> (communion)
• The male/female relationship is precious and sacred because they fit together like pieces of a puzzle
• It makes us know we are made for relationship
• People are meant to cling onto one another, which is demonstrated through our arms
• It's easy to misuse the body

Marriage:

• Holy friendship
• All holy friendships aid us in getting each other to heaven, meant for us to know better
• Characteristics: free, total, faithful, and fruitful
• Wedding vows that speak to the four characteristics
• Free: are you basically being enslaved?
• Total: you give your mind, thoughts, imagination, body, livelihood, finances, fertility, finances, youth, old-age, give your past and future, total just means total, effort, work,
• Faithful: respect each other, no sleeping with others, no sexting, no pornography
• Fruitful: having kids, making money (only good works associated), adopting children, going to serve food pantry, supporting each other in works,
• Communion:  the fullness of community, to be fully known and yet loved,

Contraception: against conception

Examples: pills, condoms, IUD, plan B, clamping of the fallopian tubes,

Ch. 9 Respect for Life (Courtney)

Notes: 2/6/17

Order of the Commandments:

1. First group (1-3): deals with ultimate source of life, our relationship with God.
2. Second group (4-10):  remind us to honor all our human relationships, since we get our daily life from them.

• The commandments are NOT RANDOM!
• They are in a specific order of importance

The Fifth Commandment: You Shall Not Kill

1. " Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end."
2. Creative action of God:  each person who has or have ever existed is resulted from God's creative action and is the most creative thing that can be done.
3. Every single person is unique and not random selection of genes, God creates like we create
4. We create for specific reasons and a purpose, mostly deliberate
5. God created us like we are for a specific reason, purpose, time, and interactions
6. Murder, abortion, suicide, capital punishment, euthanasia, unjust warfare are all assaults on human existence.

• Murder: maliciously (or with criminal intent) taking human life
• Killing (righteous/justified taking of human life)-
• Fifth commandment would say now: thou shall not murder

• What is "abortion"?

Definition: deliberate killing of an unborn person by means of medical or surgical procedure.

• Basic Principle of the Catholic Church: all human life is SACRED- from conception to natural death

Notes: 2/8/17

• One of the first objections people say for pro-abortion is: what if women are raped?
• No human life can occur without presence of God
• Baby is a sign of hope, that is why it is a blessing
• "Even though you can't see or hear them at all, a person's a person, no matter how small."- Dr. Seuss

Notes: 2/9/17

• Abortion is a DIRECT VIOLATION of the 5th Commandment- objectively a GRAVE MORAL EVIL!
• OBJECTIVELY  SPEAKING: object, end, circumstance
• Hierarchy of truth: preservation of human life
• Human embryos share the SAME protection as other persons, including abortion, stem cell research, and genetic modification
• We need to understand the different values of truth and how it interacts with human law
• If we know and accept truth, no matter what the odds are, people will not resort to abortion
• POWERFUL THOUGHT: IF A SINGLE LIVING CELL WAS FOUND ON A DISTNAT PLANET, SCIENTISTS WOULD EXCLAIM THAT  WE HAVE FOUND LIFE ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE, SO WHY IS A SINGLE LIVING CELL FOUND IN THE WOMB OF A PREGNANT WOMAN NOT CONSIDERED LIFE?
• Abortion methods:
1. Aspiration "Vacuum Aspiration"
2. The Abortion "Pill"
3. Dilation and Evacuation

• Who has Abortions?
1. Eighteen percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers; those aged 15-17 obtain 6% of all abortions, 18-19 year olds obtain 11%, and teens younger than 15 obtain 0.4%
2. Women in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions: women aged 20-24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and women aged 25-29 obtain 24%
• Age group most vulnerable is the group in the 20s!!!
3. Women who have never married are not cohabiting account for 45% of all abortions.
4. About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children
5. Forty-two percent of women obtaining abortions have incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level ($10,830 for a single woman with no children).
6. The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband  or partner.
7. 51% of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method in the month they got pregnant, most commonly condoms (27%) or a hormonal method (17%)

Evangelium Vitae:

" precisely in an age when the inviolable rights of the person are solemnly proclaimed and the value of life is publically affirmed, the very right to life is being denied… especially at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and death" (18).

" when freedom, out of desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth.. then the person (uses)…. Only his subjective and changeable opinion, or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim" (19).

" To claim the right to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance that of an absolute power over  others against others. This is the death of true freedom" (20).

Underneath the Arguments:

1. Actions do not have consequences.
2. Citizens are "less free" is the "choice" is removed.
3. When is an organism considered a "human being"?

When is an Organism considered a human being?

• A certain standard of life must be important for life to occur
• When do the concept of baby become separate from the sexual act?
• Freedom allows us to fully choose God and specifically for love and justice
• If there are steps along the way,

Ch. 8 Respect for Life (Courtney)

• Freedom is not for against, freedom for choosing love and God
• God is always love
• God gave us freedom and cares what we do with it
• If we don't use freedom correctly, we have perverted it.
• Suffering is important  and has meaning
• If we do avoid suffering, then what we have done is reduce the physical to the organs
• Body is not immortal, but eternal.
• Body will return to us and perfected and glorified and incorruptible after the Resurrection of the Body.
• Life is always a GOOD, which is why it is at the hierarchy of truth
• Human beings have the use of reason and will: (reason+ will=freedom)
• People are evidence that God is.
• We demonstrate part of his glory
• Reason and will and the capacity of love is what we mirror God in
• Commandments exist because they are never detached from his love and is always meant for joy and growth.
• Commandments help humans their freedom to flourish
• Death Penalty: only in the most extreme circumstances.

Notes:  1/17/17

The Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord Your God; you shall have no gods before Me.
2. You shall not "misuse" the name of God.
3. Keep Holy the Sabbath
4. Honor Your Father and Mother
5. You shall not Kill
6. You shall not Commit Adultery
7. You shall not steal
8. You shall not bear false witness
9. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's spouse.

1. Order is not given as random. SPECIFIC ORDER OF IMPORTANCE
2. First three: deal relationship with God, ultimate source of life
3. Last seven: deal relationship with others, reminds us to honor all our human relationships, since we get our daily life from them.

• First three: Orthodoxy:  right praise
• Last seven: Orthopraxis: right behavior and conduct
•  orthodoxy orders and governs orthopraxis
• If we get our praise right, everything will fall into place, especially our relationship with fourth commandment.
• Also known as Decalogue

The Three Critical Relationships:

Based on inherent dignity

We are to respect all of our authority

All of the ten commandments were given in the desert when the Jewish had  been slaved for four hundred years

Proper understanding:

1. Originally intended to remind adult children to care for aging parents
2. Promotes  family values
3. Asks that the government guarantee basic rights to ensure that families prosper.
4. Basic Unit of Society:

• Learn values/virtues
• How to live in community
• Education
• Parents: first  and primary educators: basic unit of society
• Domestic Church: mirrors the Holy Trinity, dates back to the tenth century,
• Mirrors the Holy Trinity: In God's very self, there is one, but there is a family.  Because love by its very nature, goes outward, opposite of love is indifference and sin.
• God  explodes love
• Love to be perfected pours forth from the two, into a third one
• The two don’t have to love each other, but rather their love pours fourth and outward reach

5 things of the two categories:

1. 1-3: orthodoxy: right praise, governs our life with God
2. 4-10 orthopraxis, governs out relationship with others
3. Real title: The Decalogue

Orthodoxy govern orthopraxis

Notes: 1/19/17

• If we get the fourth commandment right, everything will fall into place
• We need the first and fourth commandment
• Honor your father has implicit to obey all proper authority, we wouldn’t be able to break it.
•  The two don’t have to love each other, but rather their love pours fourth and outward reach
• Honoring doesn’t mean literally and is extended to the Church and generations
• Children owe parents: respect and is the duty, whether they are right or not.  RESPECT AND OBEDIENCE
• What, in turn, do parents own children: education, the basic things that you need for survival, such as food, shelter, clothing, and education,
• In education, which leads the child to God.

Notes: 1/20/17

• 5th commandment: You shall not kill
• Should be called you should not murder
• Murder is the taking of life, unjust,
• Killing can be regrettable but just
• "Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end." (CCC)
• GOD IS THE SOLE END

• Murder, abortion, suicide, euthanasia, unjust warfare are all assaults on human existence.  (culture of death)
• Other offenses against 5th commandment: if we engage in trying to squash someone's spirit, then we are offending against 5th commandment
• The lowest thing on the spectrum of fifth commandment: gossip
• All just action can be attributed to the positive that relates to the 10 commandments
• Bullying: clearly against the 5th commandment
• Murder: maliciously (or with criminal intent) taking human life
• Killing: righteous/justified taking of human life
• Incorrect translation of the commandment:
• Self defense: does not fall under the definition of "murder" and is not considered to be a free choice
• Self defense: forced by the aggressor, where you have no choice, true in war and home
• We should use the less deadly force to stop the person, sometimes we have to take the life.
• Capital punishment: "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect the public order and the safety of person, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person." - JPII

1/23/17

Is Capital Punishment Just?

• Sometimes, but rarely
• When it is just: It is when they are a current threat to society
• Torture: not just
• We must seek right counsel
• Sometimes just, always regrettable
• No matter how bad the person has done, it is never just to take the life of a human being

What about "common  criminals"?

1. In  A "modern society" the use of capital punishment should be "practically non-existent."
2. Fallible justice system
3. Racial and ethnic disproportion

1. If you are a young black man and you commit a murder, you are much more likely to get the death penalty, statistically speaking, as compared to the white man.
2. There is big prejudice that fills the sentencing

4. Appeals cost more than imprisonment
5. Returns to the "eye for an eye" concept that Jesus overturned (Lex alionis, Law of Retaliation)

1. It was actually okay because of the time during Ancient Israel it was common to punish people disproportionately
2. Lex talionis was put in place to limit what could be done
3. Society has progressed further morally
4. Creating a proportion, but no longer needing

1. What is the true meaning of the word discipline?

• Discipline has at its root the word disciple: meaning to follow the way of the Master.

Rejoicing in the loss of life is NEVER acceptable

Notes: 1/24/17

• Church always promotes a peaceful settlement of disputes
• Even in war, the moral laws apply
• Noncombatants, wounded soldiers and prisoners deserve respect and humane treatment.

• Cant be tortured, starved,  poor conditions

• Torture and mass extermination are condemned

• Gas laws, poisons, biological warfare

• Terrorism in never justifiable.
• Terrorism is the use of deadly force against civilian population for the purpose of inducing fear or panic, as a means of undeclared warfare or to achieve political ends.
• TOTAL condemnation of nuclear weapons. Reason: widespread and long-term effects of massive radiation
• We think of terrorism now as extremist Islam

Just War Doctrine:

• Said by St. Augustine

1. There must be a real, lasting, grave, and certain damage inflicted by an aggressor

1. Cant be just a threat, if it’s a credible threat and if the threat can be substantiated, then it can also put us on rocky footing.
2. Ends must not justify means

2. War must be a LAST resort

1. Restrictions against trade and political dealings and supports
2. Withdraw military support, all except human support
3. Sometimes sanctions are just, least successful dictated by a dictatorship.

3. The rights defended must be fundamental.
4. War is conducted with the hope of peace, nor for the purpose of eliminating the enemy. Therefore, we must use strategies that will allow life to endure after war.
5. Only proper authorities can declare war.
6. Chances of success must be real.
7. The damage must be proportionate to the outcome expected.

Notes: 1/26/17

Euthanasia and Suicide:

1. Assisted  suicide:

• "mercy killing" (a misnomer)

"Death with dignity" a label for laws allowing physician assisted suicide (a label) which exemplifies successful branding designed to form/sway public opinion)

2. Medical ethics:

• Extraordinary means: can be ethically removed, (not necessary)
• Food and water= necessary
• Ordinary means: cannot be removed from someone in an ethical way

3. Assisted suicide is a grave sin.
4. Suffering is a part of life.
5. Redemptive value of suffering.

Nazi Propaganda:

• "Life…..without hope.."
• "Life….as a burden."

Important distinctions:

• Ordinary care:
• Extra-ordinary care:
• Terri Schiavo's case

Euthanasia and Suicide

• Concerning Euthanasia…"what might seem logical and human, when looked at more closely to seen to be senseless and inhumane. Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of "the culture of death," which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled  people as intolerable and burdensome…

• … a hopelessly impaired life no longer has any value" (Evangelium Vitae, 64).

• If people are not productive anymore, they are considered an intolerable burden.
• Suicide is a grave sin, but it is not a place people being sent to hell.

Suicide:

• Freedom is not for against, freedom for choosing love and God
• God is always love
• God gave us freedom and cares what we do with it
• If we don't use freedom correctly, we have perverted it.
• Suffering is important  and has meaning
• If we do avoid suffering, then what we have done is reduce the physical to the organs
• Body is not immortal, but eternal.
• Body will return to us and perfected and glorified and incorruptible after the Resurrection of the Body.
• Life is always a GOOD, which is why it is at the hierarchy of truth
• Human beings have the use of reason and will: (reason+ will=freedom)
• People are evidence that God is.
• We demonstrate part of his glory
• Reason and will and the capacity of love is what we mirror God in
• Commandments exist because they are never detached from his love and is always meant for joy and growth.
• Commandments help humans their freedom to flourish
• Death Penalty: only in the most extreme circumstances.

Notes:  1/17/17

The Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord Your God; you shall have no gods before Me.
2. You shall not "misuse" the name of God.
3. Keep Holy the Sabbath
4. Honor Your Father and Mother
5. You shall not Kill
6. You shall not Commit Adultery
7. You shall not steal
8. You shall not bear false witness
9. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's spouse.

1. Order is not given as random. SPECIFIC ORDER OF IMPORTANCE
2. First three: deal relationship with God, ultimate source of life
3. Last seven: deal relationship with others, reminds us to honor all our human relationships, since we get our daily life from them.

• First three: Orthodoxy:  right praise
• Last seven: Orthopraxis: right behavior and conduct
•  orthodoxy orders and governs orthopraxis
• If we get our praise right, everything will fall into place, especially our relationship with fourth commandment.
• Also known as Decalogue

The Three Critical Relationships:

Based on inherent dignity

We are to respect all of our authority

All of the ten commandments were given in the desert when the Jewish had  been slaved for four hundred years

Proper understanding:

1. Originally intended to remind adult children to care for aging parents
2. Promotes  family values
3. Asks that the government guarantee basic rights to ensure that families prosper.
4. Basic Unit of Society:

• Learn values/virtues
• How to live in community
• Education
• Parents: first  and primary educators: basic unit of society
• Domestic Church: mirrors the Holy Trinity, dates back to the tenth century,
• Mirrors the Holy Trinity: In God's very self, there is one, but there is a family.  Because love by its very nature, goes outward, opposite of love is indifference and sin.
• God  explodes love
• Love to be perfected pours forth from the two, into a third one
• The two don’t have to love each other, but rather their love pours fourth and outward reach

5 things of the two categories:

1. 1-3: orthodoxy: right praise, governs our life with God
2. 4-10 orthopraxis, governs out relationship with others
3. Real title: The Decalogue

Orthodoxy govern orthopraxis

Notes: 1/19/17

• If we get the fourth commandment right, everything will fall into place
• We need the first and fourth commandment
• Honor your father has implicit to obey all proper authority, we wouldn’t be able to break it.
•  The two don’t have to love each other, but rather their love pours fourth and outward reach
• Honoring doesn’t mean literally and is extended to the Church and generations
• Children owe parents: respect and is the duty, whether they are right or not.  RESPECT AND OBEDIENCE
• What, in turn, do parents own children: education, the basic things that you need for survival, such as food, shelter, clothing, and education,
• In education, which leads the child to God.

Notes: 1/20/17

• 5th commandment: You shall not kill
• Should be called you should not murder
• Murder is the taking of life, unjust,
• Killing can be regrettable but just
• "Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end." (CCC)
• GOD IS THE SOLE END

• Murder, abortion, suicide, euthanasia, unjust warfare are all assaults on human existence.  (culture of death)
• Other offenses against 5th commandment: if we engage in trying to squash someone's spirit, then we are offending against 5th commandment
• The lowest thing on the spectrum of fifth commandment: gossip
• All just action can be attributed to the positive that relates to the 10 commandments
• Bullying: clearly against the 5th commandment
• Murder: maliciously (or with criminal intent) taking human life
• Killing: righteous/justified taking of human life
• Incorrect translation of the commandment:
• Self defense: does not fall under the definition of "murder" and is not considered to be a free choice
• Self defense: forced by the aggressor, where you have no choice, true in war and home
• We should use the less deadly force to stop the person, sometimes we have to take the life.
• Capital punishment: "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect the public order and the safety of person, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person." - JPII

1/23/17

Is Capital Punishment Just?

• Sometimes, but rarely
• When it is just: It is when they are a current threat to society
• Torture: not just
• We must seek right counsel
• Sometimes just, always regrettable
• No matter how bad the person has done, it is never just to take the life of a human being

What about "common  criminals"?

1. In  A "modern society" the use of capital punishment should be "practically non-existent."
2. Fallible justice system
3. Racial and ethnic disproportion

1. If you are a young black man and you commit a murder, you are much more likely to get the death penalty, statistically speaking, as compared to the white man.
2. There is big prejudice that fills the sentencing

4. Appeals cost more than imprisonment
5. Returns to the "eye for an eye" concept that Jesus overturned (Lex alionis, Law of Retaliation)

1. It was actually okay because of the time during Ancient Israel it was common to punish people disproportionately
2. Lex talionis was put in place to limit what could be done
3. Society has progressed further morally
4. Creating a proportion, but no longer needing

1. What is the true meaning of the word discipline?

• Discipline has at its root the word disciple: meaning to follow the way of the Master.

Rejoicing in the loss of life is NEVER acceptable

Notes: 1/24/17

• Church always promotes a peaceful settlement of disputes
• Even in war, the moral laws apply
• Noncombatants, wounded soldiers and prisoners deserve respect and humane treatment.

• Cant be tortured, starved,  poor conditions

• Torture and mass extermination are condemned

• Gas laws, poisons, biological warfare

• Terrorism in never justifiable.
• Terrorism is the use of deadly force against civilian population for the purpose of inducing fear or panic, as a means of undeclared warfare or to achieve political ends.
• TOTAL condemnation of nuclear weapons. Reason: widespread and long-term effects of massive radiation
• We think of terrorism now as extremist Islam

Just War Doctrine:

• Said by St. Augustine

1. There must be a real, lasting, grave, and certain damage inflicted by an aggressor

1. Cant be just a threat, if it’s a credible threat and if the threat can be substantiated, then it can also put us on rocky footing.
2. Ends must not justify means

2. War must be a LAST resort

1. Restrictions against trade and political dealings and supports
2. Withdraw military support, all except human support
3. Sometimes sanctions are just, least successful dictated by a dictatorship.

3. The rights defended must be fundamental.
4. War is conducted with the hope of peace, nor for the purpose of eliminating the enemy. Therefore, we must use strategies that will allow life to endure after war.
5. Only proper authorities can declare war.
6. Chances of success must be real.
7. The damage must be proportionate to the outcome expected.

Notes: 1/26/17

Euthanasia and Suicide:

1. Assisted  suicide:

• "mercy killing" (a misnomer)

"Death with dignity" a label for laws allowing physician assisted suicide (a label) which exemplifies successful branding designed to form/sway public opinion)

2. Medical ethics:

• Extraordinary means: can be ethically removed, (not necessary)
• Food and water= necessary
• Ordinary means: cannot be removed from someone in an ethical way

3. Assisted suicide is a grave sin.
4. Suffering is a part of life.
5. Redemptive value of suffering.

Nazi Propaganda:

• "Life…..without hope.."
• "Life….as a burden."

Important distinctions:

• Ordinary care:
• Extra-ordinary care:
• Terri Schiavo's case

Euthanasia and Suicide

• Concerning Euthanasia…"what might seem logical and human, when looked at more closely to seen to be senseless and inhumane. Here we are faced with one of the more alarming symptoms of "the culture of death," which is advancing above all in prosperous societies, marked by an attitude of excessive preoccupation with efficiency and which sees the growing number of elderly and disabled  people as intolerable and burdensome…

• … a hopelessly impaired life no longer has any value" (Evangelium Vitae, 64).

• If people are not productive anymore, they are considered an intolerable burden.
• Suicide is a grave sin, but it is not a place people being sent to hell.

Suicide:

"Sometimes you well never know the true value a moment until is becomes a memory."

"Sometimes you well never know the true value a moment until is becomes a memory."