"I Feel" Instead Of "I Think" And Its Consequences

I've noticed for a while the growing tendency for people to use "I feel" interchangeably with "I think." Now, these two words should each express a different mode of perception: one having to do with reason, intellect, and the mind, the other to do with senses, appetites, and various organic metaphors, be it your "gut," your "heart," or your "spleen" in certain times and places. When we replace "I think" with "I feel," we're forfeiting the place of reason in our public discourse and placing in its stead whims and wills. This is, to put it simply, not good.

I had planned to write an extensive and exhaustive treatise on the subject, but as usual, I discovered that someone had beat me to it, and I couldn't be happier to recommend to you this post by a fine Catholic author, Michael Flynn (aka The O'Floinn, or TOF), who writes science, philosophy, history, theology, and, when time permits, award-winning science fiction. (I especially recommend his novel Eifelheim.) Do, then, go here to read more on what happens to a society when feelings replace thoughts.

As a preview, the opening salvo:

"It is said by some, though not by TOF, that the ancient Egyptians used dirt for money. They were wealthy because a plenitude of mud was imported on a sedimental journey and deposited in the Banks of the Nile.

Now you know why TOF would not say this. Actually, he read it many years ago in one of those humorous history-of-the-world books whose contents were even funnier than the actual history. He would hesitate to suggest that the dirt was coined in a sedi-mint or that a penny so-coined would be a centiment.

Let alone that Egyptians parking their donkey carts would insert the coins into a sedimeter.

Ho ho! Enough! Today's topic du jour is not sediment, but sentiment, on which we are prepared to dish the dirt.

"There is no greater intellectual crime than rejecting the gooey grey homogeneity of thought espoused unwaveringly by the members of  the herd of open-minded free thinkers" -- Joseph Moore

Already in the 1950s, Jacques Barzun pointed out in his House of Intellect,people were beginning to say "I feel that..." instead of "I think that..." in common discourse. This terminological ferment marked a change in how people were engaging the world as the Modern Ages passed away. Reason, which had been enjoying a free pass and a table close to the orchestra ever since the Middle Ages (when it was virtually the only kind of thing taught in the universities), and which even later modestly named a time period after itself, butted heads with sentiment... and lost. This "triumph of the will" gave us Romanticism, Nietzsche's philosophy, impressionist paintings, and self-esteem classes like "Me Studies." The heart wants what it wants...."

My Thesis In A Nutshell

Since I started this blog just over three years ago, my life has been fundamentally transformed, all for the better, from that of a single fellow working part-time gigs hither and yon to a husband and father with a big-boy job. Getting married and having a baby have been the two biggest blessings of my life, by far, and I thank God every day for my wife and son. I wouldn't have met my wife, and our son would not be here today, if I hadn't followed my brother's suggestion to check out this small graduate school in the Bay Area with an intriguing dual degree program. So, in an indirect way, I have the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology to thank for my wife and son. Thanks, DSPT!

My activity in this space has been rather sporadic in the last year-plus, though, as my non-working/husbanding/fathering time has gone into the last stage of my graduate studies: the thesis. There were points in the last year, even in the last month or two, where I was unsure if I would be able to see it through, but Deo gratias, I finished writing it by the end of August, and last week I successfully defended it. So, as soon as the last things are filed and the paperwork clears, I will be the proud new owner of master's degrees in both philosophy and theology. Thanks, DSPT!

As my work proceeded over the last year, many of you asked, "So, what's your thesis about?" and I often stumbled and stammered--partially because I was unsure how much philosophical background would be required to explain it, partially because I wasn't entirely sure myself at certain points. I have something of an idea now that I'm done with it, though, and I wrote a summary of it as an introduction to my oral thesis defense. For the curious, here, in a nutshell, is my master's thesis:

The mission of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology is centered on the intersection between faith and reason, theology and philosophy. Often these disciplines will approach the same subject each in its own way, according to its own mode. When we put the two in conversation with each other, we find (in the ideal) a mutually beneficial exchange whereby reason provides clarity to man's experience and faith provides an illumination to reason, revealing a further dimension to that experience that was always present even if invisibly so, and a strengthening and support of reason's own operation. While we would want to avoid a fideism that would claim that truth can be found only in or through revelation, we should not hesitate to affirm the title of theology as "queen of the sciences," the summit and summation of human knowledge that binds together the other disciplines and sits at their head as the discipline studying that truth from which all truths are derived: that is, God.

The particular corner of this intersection that I have written upon is hermeneutics, the study of interpretation, and specifically the place of tradition within the hermeneutical account of the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, the grand master of the subject. Gadamer's account of the way in which human beings interpret their experiences, especially texts, and the fundamental role that traditions, considered under the aliases of "forestructures" and "prejudices," have to play, provides much insight into the way in which people make meaning. Yet these insights take us only so far, and leave many important questions unanswered. The French Dominican priest Yves Congar treats of many of the same topics, yet he approaches them armed with an understanding strengthened by the support of Christian revelation. We see how this plays out. 

Gadamer emphasizes that history is the way in which human beings are in the world. We live and experience and think in a historical mode, characterized by finitude and fleetingness. Our understanding is likewise shaped by this particularity, and the products of our own historical situation, our texts, reflect this--as Fr. Eugene Ludwig says, "The project of an age is the project of an age." Congar, too, acknowledges this fundamental historical aspect of man, but sees within history a deeper significance, an economy at work that imbues seemingly random events, from the movement westward of a man from Ur of the Chaldees to the execution of a Jewish carpenter, with a greater importance. Man lives in history and God enters history to meet him, preeminently in the Incarnation, and thus history is sacred history. This history is recorded in a unique way in Scripture.

Texts like Scripture are key for Gadamer--indeed, he acknowledges that hermeneutics was born out of scriptural interpretation. If texts are the products of historical circumstances, then the text of one age will necessarily have a foreign air when read in another. There will be a disconnect, and the text will confront the reader as a question. The truly classic texts are able to appear relevant in any age, for in their particularity they still reach out to the universal and express something of it. Congar's concept of Scripture is not dissimilar: a text confronts us with its message, challenging us because it is the word of God and we are sinners in need of its Good News. Just as God reveals Himself in Christ, so Christ reveals and communicates Himself in Scripture.

But texts and contexts do not exist and are not formed in vacuums, but rather in communities and cultures. And cultures, Gadamer says, have languages as a constitutive element. Communities compose texts to express their inner unity, which is itself strengthened by the adherence to classical texts. Congar sees that this is true in the Church, but adds an extra element: the Church composes Scripture as an expression of what it is, but both Scripture and the Church are constituted what they are by the action of God appropriated to or predicated of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descends upon a group and makes it a communion, organized under the visible leadership of the Apostles, who preserve the essential aspects of Christian identity and hand on to their successors that same responsibility. This is the essence of tradition, a key concept for both our authors.

For Gadamer, tradition is that which forms our worldview, that received knowledge which organizes our mental experience and allows us to assess situations without having to acquire (or reacquire) all the facts--thus, a forestructure or prejudice. Tradition is that by which we interpret the world, yet new experiences will affect our perceptions and cause us to adjust or even abandon traditions. And since tradition is primarily handed on through language, the interpretation of language is critical--thus, hermeneutics, and its omnipresence. It comes to the most basic level, for "being that can be understood is language." The person who is fluent in the language (broadly understood) of the tradition is thus authoritative, for they know of what they speak. The tradition is authoritative because it has endured over time, and the representative of tradition is authoritative because he represents it.

For Congar, obviously, Tradition is authoritative, because it is the handing on of Christianity itself--not just a set of propositions, but a way of being in the world, one that is centered in Christ and effected through the Spirit. The authorities have different competencies: the Fathers are recognized retrospectively as authorities because they clearly preserved and developed the deposit of faith, while the bishops successively guide this continuous process by virtue of their office. This notion of development is key for both authors, and is directly connected to the question of truth--for if our ideas and their formulations change, how can we say that truth is enduring/

Such change is the essence of the hermeneutical process for Gadamer: a text confronts a reader, who gives an interpretation that is a synthesis between his own fore-understanding and that of the text. This is what Gadamer famously calls "the fusion of horizons." Thus every act of interpretation produces something new--truth is made, until is is remade in the next act of interpretation, a process that goes on infinitely. Is Gadamer then a relativist? We might qualify our answer by saying that he is a "sophisticated relativist" or a "perspectival realist," the kind that puts severe limits on our ability to know but still allows that we can know some truth. Truth is mediated by language, such that things reveal themselves to us through language. Still, the process is infinite.

Congar, as a loyal son of St. Thomas, certainly holds that truths can be known, yet also that they can be developed. The prime example of this is typology in Scripture, the key of course being Christ: events in the Old Testament are seen to have a new significance in view of the events of Christ's life. Christ is the light that enlightens every man; Christ reveals man to himself. The Spirit of Christ over the course of time, through the course of sacred history, leads the Church into new understanding as it encounters new questions--always responsive, yet always faithful to its origins. It grows into what it always has been, as the acorn becomes the oak. It is rooted in the apostolic doctrine, nourished by the same Spirit who constitutes it and teaches it, guiding it into all truth, as Christ promised.

Thus we find what Gadamer mentioned but could not himself locate: the "legitimate prejudice," the true forestructure. The Catholic faith provides the lens through which we are able to see the world as it truly is, not as a replacement or alternative to reason, but as the necessary complement to reason, the salve that heals reason's wounds and allows it to function fully properly; not as a necessity to understand anything or everything, as is evidenced by the many non-Catholics who understand plenty of things, but as that which enables man not just to find the meaning of a text, but the meaning of life, of existence. Grace perfects nature. Faith illumines reason.

Clear as mud? Do ask questions if you like!

I do plan to post more often henceforth, as well as continuing my presence at Catholic Stand as a contributor and managing editor, and trying to expand my digital (and paper) footprint and be published elsewhere. I want this blog to be not just another place for commentating or opining on the latest fad, happening, or utterance. I want to share the fruits of my study with all y'all, to help you to come to know your faith better, and to share some of the things I've come across that have deepened my own faith. Please do send along topics you'd like me to address, questions you'd like to have answered, or any other subject matter you'd like to see here. See you soon!

On Hulk Hogan and the Definition of Morality

Hey folks! Pardon the repetition of the same refrain from the last several months, but "Pardon my recent absence...." I've been attending to a variety of other things in life, including my new duties as a Managing Editor at Catholic Stand. Go check out that site! Right now!

Back? OK, good.

I return to this platform with the intention of sharing briefer thoughts, until I reach a point where I can again expand and expound at length on subjects that alternate between incredibly fascinating and mind-numbing-ly boring. And what better topic to begin with than professional wrestling?

It is known to some that I have a penchant for pro wrestling that has been re-awakened in the past few years. Say what you want about it being "fake," etc. (though ask Mick Foley just how you "fake" a 20-foot fall off the top of a steel cage), but the athleticism and story-telling in this genre of entertainment is exciting and amusing when its at its best. And everyone and their mum paid attention to the squared circle in the 80s, when the likes of Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan popped out of our screens with their larger-than-life personalities and physiques. Everybody knows Hulk Hogan. Heretofore undiscovered tribes in the Amazon will probably be discovered to be ripping their shirts in half and asking "Whatcha gonna do, brother?" of the anthropologists who encounter them. And the Hulkster is back in the news, though not for the best of reasons.

Hulk Hogan's contract with the WWE was terminated and his likeness scrubbed from the WWE website after video of Hogan making racist remarks was released to the press. As a further fun fact, this video clip came from that most quintessentially 21st-century American genre of film: a sex tape. Apparently Hogan made these comments during an evening in which he cheated with his friend's wife, and the two thought it would be a good idea to film their adultery, because creating visual evidence of something most people have the decency and shame to try to hide is all the rage these days.

OK, enough preamble; here's the interesting bit. I was listening to some reaction commentary from two wrestling podcasters, and their position was fascinating to me: they were very upset over the use of racist language; but the adultery did not seem to bother them too much. In fact, one of them said at one point, "This is awful... I mean, not the sex tape... you know, I mean, morality--it's so subjective, everybody has their own opinion...."

Do you notice the disconnect here? When discussing Hogan's racist remarks, the podcasters use strongly objective language: what he said was "wrong," "reprehensible," "disgusting." When discussing Hogan's adultery, their hard language melts into "morality is subjective."

Is the question of racial hatred not a moral one? Is there no moral quality or element to prejudice and animus based on a person's skin color or ethnic background? What kind of definition of morality are we working with? What kind of world has formed around us where a man can be filmed cheating on his wife with another man's wife, and the part most objected to is some salty language used to refer to his daughter's boyfriend? Really? The last is absolute and objective, but sleeping with another man's wife and filming it is "whatever"?

A classical definition of morality would be something like "evaluation of actions and motives in relation to human nature and the promotion of human flourishing," or perhaps more simply, "what makes us good." In our common parlance "morality" has been separated from any notion of a comprehensive framework for evaluating the goodness of actions. In many people's minds, "morality" has been whittled down to "opinions on sexual matters," while "wrong" or "evil" is applied only to the offenses against secular society, e.g. intolerance, judgmentalism, and not recycling your soda can.

I still can't figure out the principle behind the modern conception of good and bad. The main pillar seems to be tolerance, but it is applied unevenly. In their minds, when a woman wants to end the life of a biologically distinct person presently residing in her uterus, it's "My body, my choice, don't legislate your morality." When a person wants to purchase and ingest sugary drinks or fatty foods, it's "Ban them, tax them, shame those who buy them, don't let people hurt themselves!" In their minds, promoting ideas based in biblical principles is offensive and should be restricted, but pornography is constitutionally protected speech. In their minds, the Constitution should be interpreted strictly, as when they say that the Second Amendment is to be deemed null and in desuetude because there appears to be a conditional clause attached to the right to bear arms; yet this stricture opens and loosens in other matters until a torrent of heretofore unknown constitutionally protected rights to things like birth control, abortion, and same-sex marriage come flooding out. In their minds, Christianity (and Catholicism in particular) can be mocked and derided, but other religions (especially Islam) are to be treated "with respect, and honor, and tolerance." I don't get it.

As our society continues to wander way from its Christian roots, it maintains some of its rightful prejudices against bad things, but has lost its principles, so that it often can no longer distinguish good from bad. To borrow Chesterton's line, “They have the prejudice; and long may they retain it! We have the principle, and they are welcome to it when they want it.”

To Whom Shall We Go? Why I Remain Catholic

The estimable Elizabeth Scalia has called on Catholics to share why they remain in the Church. The subject isn't so flashy as the more popular "why I left," but it's far more interesting, I think. If you want to know more about a school, why only listen to the people who transferred out?

So, why do I remain a Catholic? The question presumes that the alternative is the expected choice, as "What are you doing here?" implies that one's presence is a surprise. But in an age increasingly divorced from the mind of the Church, a Catholic could expect this question as much as a man wearing a toga who isn't in a frat house could expect to be asked "Why are you wearing that?"

But when anyone leaves the Church, I imagine Christ turns to each of us and asks us as he did his apostles in John 6: "Will you leave also?" And I answer with Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

If I am asked why I remain Catholic, I ask in response, what's the alternative? A version of Protestantism that has unmoored itself from the anchor of Tradition and splintered on the rocks of private judgment? An Eastern religion that is philosophically unsatisfying? A vague religiosity that chooses randomly from different traditions and results in spiritual stomach ache? A scientific materialism that cannot answer the most fundamental questions? A hedonistic secularism that simply moves from one sense pleasure to another in between periods of existential doubt? No thanks. 

But it's not simply that the alternatives leave something to be desired. It's that what I have in the Catholic faith is satisfying in the deepest sense. Aristotle says that all men by nature desire to know, and in the Catholic faith we have the fullness of truth. St. Augustine says are restless hearts rest only in God, and in the Catholic Church I am united with God in the Eucharist. I have the beauty of cathedrals and the soundness of moral teaching and the true charity of service to others. I have the forgiveness of my sins and the gift of God's friendship communicated in tangible, human signs. What more could I ask for? What more could I want? Where else would I go?

The Greatest Mystery in All Existence, Explained (Kind Of)

Today is Trinity Sunday, or the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity if you're not into the whole brevity thing. The doctrine of the Trinity is the greatest and most central mystery of our faith--you can't build up anything else if you can't answer the question, "Who is God?" Of course, answering this question is a bit trickier than answering "Who is Richard Nixon?" or "Who is this person who keeps calling me and hanging up?" The biblical and traditional data we have presents us with quite the puzzle:

We know that God is one. There is only one God. We know that.
We know that the Father is God. Obvi. No one disputes that.
We know that Jesus is God. God became man in Jesus Christ. Got it.
We know that the Spirit of God is God. God is the Spirit. Check.

But, wait a tic... doesn't that give us three gods? No, as St. Athanasius affirms for us: "The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods, but one God." And as the early centuries went on with their disputations and divisions, the ecumenical councils decreed that this indeed is the belief of the Church? But one could not be blamed for looking at the above and asking, "Are you sure there, St. A?" It's not easy to wrap your head around.

Many have wrestled with this and tried to formulate a theory that accounts for all the data while not sounding so contradictory-y. And many have failed. Which is good, on the hand, since it helps us to narrow things down by saying, "No, that's not it.... No, not that either.... Hmm, well... no."

I can't think off the top of my head of anyone who tried to say that God the Father isn't God. He's always been the sort of baseline, starting point, "Well, we can say at least this much." So we've got that goin' for us. Some denied the divinity of Christ, such as the Arians, who said he was almost, nearly, but-not-quite good, and super-swell creature but a creature all the same. Some denied the divinity of the Spirit, like the people whose names escape me right now, but who said that the Spirit was merely the force or power or energy of God. Some said that the one God was really truly only one but merely manifested Himself in different "modes," Father Mode, Son Mode, and Spirit Mode. (For you video gamers out there, this really complicates the secret "God Mode" status in some games.) These, and many other positions, were tried and tested and found insufficient by the early Church.

Basically, the false conceptions of the Trinity tend to waver between this modalism (God is really one, but looks like three) and tritheism (God is really three, but looks like one). And even most of the "helpful" explanations you hear in Sunday school or from the pulpit tend toward these: God is like an egg, with its shell, whites, and yolk (tritheism); like a shamrock, with its stem and three leaves (tritheism); like water, which can be liquid, ice, or steam (modalism). All analogies limp, as they say. They go as far as they go, but they're never perfect. These can be helpful in some ways, but they don't quite do the trick.

The orthodox doctrine is that there is one God, one divine nature, in which there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all co-equal, all co-eternal, each as much God as the others. These three Persons are not three distinct substances or thingies, but they are one in every way apart from their relation to each other: The Father is not the Son nor the Spirit, the Son is not the Father nor the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father nor the Son. The Father eternally begets the Son, the Father and Spirit eternally generate the Spirit, yet not in any sort of linear, sequential, "Oh, so the Father is really God, and then He produces the Son," etc., but rather in the way that as soon as a flame is lit, you already have with it its light and its heat, generated from the flame but inseparable from it. (Thank you, St. Hildegaard of Bingen... even though that one has its problems, too. Analogies limp.)

For a fantastic exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, check out this excerpt from Frank Sheed's classic "Theology for Beginners."

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, both now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

My (Least) Favorite Protestant (Non) Replies to Catholic Questions

Our Protestant brothers and sisters tend to be somewhat more familiar with the texts of Scripture than we Catholics are. There aren't a few of them who are able to recite any chapter and verse asked of them, a skill both impressive and jealousy-inducing. It's as though they have every tool in the hardware store in their own garage.

But here's the thing: just because you have all the tools at hand doesn't mean you'll use them correctly. You might have a socket wrench in your collection, but if you use it to pound a nail into the wall, your possession of the tool is less impressive.

The battle cry of the Protestant Reformation/Revolution was sola Scriptura, Scripture alone! It is the only (or some prefer to say "final") authority they acknowledge in matters of faith, and the only source they will appeal to. Their operating assumption is that any question related to the Christian faith has an answer in Scripture. This belief, however, does not hold up to scrutiny, and it often leads to Protestants appealing to Scripture verses that have tangential relations at best to the issue at hand. Here are some of my favorite examples, to illustrate what I mean.

One key divisive point between Protestants and Catholics is the question of the communion of saints, the spiritual relation of the members of the Body of Christ to one another, with the sticking point usually being the dearly departed members. When a Catholic asks why a Protestant objects to the practice of asking for the intercession of the saints, a very common Protestant response is to quote 1 Timothy 2:5, "There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ." The Protestant smiles and says, "Your argument is with the Word of God, not with me. ONE mediator, my friend, not many."

Yet the Protestant should be careful, for this argument proves too much. If the passage here meant what they believed it does, that there is one and only one person, Jesus, who can mediate between any of us and God, then this passage rules out the mediation not only of the deceased saints in heaven, but mediation by any living Christian as well. If you ask your friend to pray for you that you pass your exam, the proposed Protestant reading of this passage would have them respond to you, "No, I won't! You can go to God yourself! ONE mediator! Don't make an idol of me!" I have yet to meet a Protestant who holds this position. Now, they might press on with other objections to the practice, which can be dealt with elsewhere, but this is enough to show that the appeal to this passage does not work.

My go-to question to our Protestant friends is to question the premise of sola Scriptura itself: "You appeal to the Bible because it is the Word of God. But how do you know that this book in your hand, this collection of books, is the definitive collection, is the entirety of the Word of God, that you haven't included too much, or--as I would say--left anything out?" The common Protestant counter is 2 Timothy 3:16 (Timothy's getting a workout today!), which says, "All Scripture is inspired by God, and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." The Protestant looks at you and says, "See? I know the Bible is the Word of God because it says itself that all Scripture is inspired, 'God-breathed.'"

Do you catch the problem here? Scripture says that all Scripture is inspired, but that wasn't the question. There is no dispute that Scripture is inspired--that's a tautology: that which is inspired is Scripture, that which is Scripture is inspired. The question is: how do we know which writings are inspired, and thus are Scripture? The Bible did not drop from the sky shrink-wrapped in silver with an inspired table of contents chiseled into its golden pages. Where did it come from, then? If you're going to claim a text is the Word of God, the first question anyone would ask is, "Who says?" And the quest to answer to that question will lead the Protestant in a non-Protestant direction.

OK, I think that's enough for now, but you get the picture. Just because a verse comes from Scripture doesn't mean that it applies, or applies well, to the question at hand.

"Pastoral": The Magic Word That Makes Truth Disappear

If there's one phrase in the life of the Church the misuse and abuse of which really chaps my hide more than any other, it's "pastoral application." Yes, even more than "liturgical dancing" or "the spirit of Vatican II." In the case of each of these, how the term is used is so far removed from what the term is supposed to mean that the use and the meaning have lost sight of each other and are wandering about, bewildered and hopeless.

Take "liturgical dancing." (Please!) In its proper use, this phrase means refers to "dancing that takes place in the liturgy in those cultures for which dance is an integral form of worship." In its twisted and misappropriated sense, often invoked by Western folk today, it means "children hopping about with streamers because isn't that cute," or occasionally "stealing someone else's proper form of cultural expression and shoe-horning it in where it doesn't fit, like a Ming vase in a log cabin."

Or consider the "spirit of Vatican II," which ought to mean "the intentions, principles, and presuppositions that inform and animate the texts of the Council," but which is usually used to mean "an attitude of revolution and rupture having little to no reference to the actual content of the Council."

So, too, with "pastoral application." This phrase, when found in canon law or the teaching documents of the Church (or when it's like appears), refers to the application of the abstract truths of the faith or the general laws of the Church to the concrete situations of the faithful with the good of the faithful in mind. It's much more readily understood how this term applies to canon law, as the entire notion of law centers on the application of generic formulations to particular incidents or situations (e.g. does this or that event match the definition of murder, or fraud, or jaywalking). And the law consists much more of disciplines than doctrines, of prudential choices for good order rather than eternal and immutable truths, which is why the law is filled with exceptions "for a just reason, for a grave reason, according to the judgment of the local ordinary," etc. The pastoral application of the law consists in applying these laws and their exceptions (where the law allows) for the benefit of the flock of Christ. If St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday in Lent, and your diocese has St. Patrick as a patron, it's proper for your diocese to celebrate its patron with due joy and solemnity, and thus just for your bishop to grant an indult from the obligation to abstain from eating meet that Friday. It's for the good of the people, and it's within the bishop's competence to do so.

But when people talk about a "pastoral application" of the Church's teachings on matters of faith and morals (usually morals), what can that mean? Do these truths sometimes not apply--are they occasionally not true? Or can any ecclesial authority grant an exception to the moral law? "In honor of St. Augustine, I'm granting an indult on stealing--but only stealing pears!" Of course not. That's absurd.

And yet when the topic of certain sinful acts arises--say, divorce, or contraception, or homosexual acts (why is it always about sex?)--some people get pained looks on their faces and close their eyes and ask in that whispery, NPR interviewer-type tone, "But how can we approach this pastorally?"

Now, I'm all for a pastoral approach, if by "pastoral" we mean "with the good of the faithful in mind." I would advocate for a kind and charitable discussion in which we assure them of our love for them and our concern for their well-being, and listen to their thoughts and about their experiences, and acknowledge the difficulties that they face, and explain how those actions are not in accord with how God made us to act and with what will bring us true happiness, and encourage them to not despair or give up.

But too often, what happens under the auspices of "pastoral care" is a granting of license to sin. "Oh, it's OK, life is messy, you have to do what's best for you, follow your heart, God just wants you to be happy, we don't want to upset you, please don't get mad at me, can we still be Facebook friends" usually followed by "the Church is behind the times, it'll come around eventually." To quote Kaiser Soyze: "And just like that *poof*: he's gone!" Here comes the magic word "pastoral," and the truth has disappeared. This "pastoral" approach sets truth on a shelf, like a decorative plate that one looks at and admires but which of course is entirely impractical and would never work for use in real life. 

It is not a pastoral approach to tell people it's OK to do what the Church knows to be wrong and to be harmful for people. In doing that you give people permission to live outside the truth and put their souls in jeopardy of being sundered from God forever. This is looking out for the good of others? This is shepherding the sheep?

This false use of "pastoral" is not an application of the truth, but a dismissal of it. Truth is left at home while the kids head out to a party at their friend's when the parents aren't home and they found the key to the liquor cabinet. You might think truth is getting in the way of you living your life, but really truth is just trying to stop you from ending up with a hangover and a missing wallet.