There is a lot of discussion these days about privacy rights and separation of church and state, especially around the issue of abortion. I hear so many people complain that Christians want to impose their morality on everyone.  What would a kind of Christian “sharia” look like?  What would a government and society be like that was acceptable to Catholics? 

Cesar  O’Papisme

NOTE: for those who don’t know what “sharia” is. Sharia is law drawn from the Qur'an, which are the writings that Muslims believe are absolutely inspired, and the Hadith, which is the tradition about the words and deeds of Muhammad whom Muslims regard as the perfect example. These are the sources for the Muslim way of life, called the Sunnah. Sharia is law regarding the Muslim way of life. It commands that adulterers be stoned to death, and that thieves have their hands cut off. It allows the Dhimmi (non- Muslims) to practice their faith privately if they pay a special tax and are members of a “people of the Book,” meaning Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians. Non Muslims who are infidels or idolaters, people like Hindus, Buddhists, Animists and atheist must convert to Islam or be put to death. A Muslim who converts to Christianity or any other religion must be put to death, that sort of thing. My correspondent seems to be worried about the night skies lit by the burning heretics if the Catholic Church were ever in position of real power. 

I am always amazed by the materialists and the sentimentalists.  Let us call them that.

A materialist is someone who believes that there is no other dimension of reality than the one we can see and touch. Spirit is an illusion. All that exists are matter and chemical processes.

Sentimentalists are those who may believe in a god or gods or spirits, but the important thing is what I may or may not “feel” about these things. This is the dictionary definition of the liberal, but I dare not use the “L” word. The sentimentalist believes that the individual is the arbiter of truth, more infallible than any pope has ever claimed to be.

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato pointed out that materialism leads to relativism. Relativism is the position that there is no fixed or universal standard that applies to all people.

That is where we now find ourselves in the modern, the American world, the world of shopping malls and internet pornography and mass murder. The materialist says, “There is no god, so I can do as I see fit. I and my opinion are the greatest reality.”

The sentimentalist, not willing to face the possibility of death and the non-existence that must certainly follow if there be no gods, creates an imaginary world. Still his gods are products of his own imagination. 

You’ve met these people. They say things like, “I’m into spirituality, but I don’t like organized religion,” or “I couldn’t believe in a god who........ (fill in the blank: ‘who could allow the holocaust’ or ‘allows people to suffer,’ or ‘a god who would tell me I couldn’t have an abortion’.)”

They are the judges of God, and not to be judged by Him. 

Hitler was a sentimentalist, Stalin was a materialist. The two, the materialists and the sentimentalist are, as Plato predicted, both relativists. It is all relative. It all depends on how things relate to ME. There is no objective morality for the materialist, because there is no god, nor for the sentimentalist because his gods are his own invention. But a universal morality? Please!

A Catholic is neither a sentimentalist nor a materialist. He is a realist. He believes in the intertwined reality of both the physical and the spiritual world. Because humanity is real and all people are human, there is such a thing as human nature. It is common to all men and women. With it come certain rights and certain obligations. They are universal, which is what the Greek word “catholic” actually means. We Catholics believe there are certain things that we can only learn by revelation, but there are many things that are common to all human beings and they are pretty self evident.

So what would Catholic “sharia” look like?  It would be a world ruled by natural law.

The Bible pretty much summed up natural law in Tobit 4:15 It says, “What you hate do to no one.”  

Jesus reworks the saying. In Matthew 7:12.  He says, “Do to others what you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.” 

Jesus is the only prophet or sage who makes this a positive statement. He commands us to do.  The others command us not to do. Most of the world’s religions make the statement in the form we find in Tobit.

I remember talking to a Rabbi about this positive reworking of the golden rule. He said, “That’s terrible! How do you know what I would like done for me?”  An example: have you ever had a house guest who rearranges all you shelves in the “right way?” It makes you crazy. You spend the next two weeks trying to find your things. 

The negative statement is natural law. 

The positive statement is revelation. 

The negative statement is “just leave me alone.” The positive statement is, “Here, let me help you.” That demands revelation. If I am a prophet and God has told me what you need, then I can help you to the degree that I am inspired. Otherwise, I had better just leave you alone unless you ask me for help.

So, what would I expect of a government based on natural law? Mostly to be left alone. We have a semi-socialist approach to government right now. The state will decide how best to eat and drink and raise your children and whose abortion you will have to pay for with your taxes.

"So, Rev. Know-It-All, I guess you’re saying that privacy rights such as the newly discovered right to abortion are perfectly fine." I MOST CERTAINLY AM  NOT! “What you hate do to no one.”  I really hate it when someone tears my body apart and rips me out of my mother’s womb with a tiny vacuum.

Well, wouldn’t that make pornography alright?  Hardly! Would you like to have millions of leering eyes staring at your daughter’s naked picture on the cover of some magazine? I can never even think of pornography without realizing that woman is someone’s daughter, now debased and used. I think of the day her father and mother tenderly brought her home as a baby from the hospital, dreaming of a bright and beautiful future. Was the perverted leer of millions the dream they had for their daughter. Is that the dream that you have for your daughter or son? What you hate do to no one.

The Christian “sharia” that you ask about would be a society in which human beings are never objects. They are never used for another’s purpose, but are honored for the image of God resident in them.

The first three of the ten commandments are about revelation, the true God, the name of God, the worship of God. If God has not revealed Himself to you in the way He revealed Himself to me, what can I do about it? 

But, the next seven commandments are part of our very nature, even in its fallen condition. I would not want anyone to kill me, or to dishonor my parents, or to lie to me or spread false stories and gossip about me. I wouldn’t want anyone to commit adultery with my spouse, or to hate me for my success, or even to mock my religion, and so I shouldn’t do any of these things to others.

I noticed in the news this past week that the Spanish version of Playboy posted a magazine cover mocking our Blessed Mother. Hugh Heffner has been using other men's daughters to turn a nice profit for years, but now he and his have mocked the entire Mexican nation and all Christians. The magazine he founded has, in effect, put an almost naked picture of my Mother and yours on the front cover of their magazine. What you hate do to no one.

Rev. Know-It-All