Two pastoral episodes:
1) After she finishes training the new altar servers, Jessica finds Father Minh and confides that she caught her 14-year-old son and some of his friends smoking marijuana. Her son didn't seem ashamed or apologetic. In fact he stated that he didn't see any difference between him smoking marijuana and his dad drinking beer (from four to six of them, every Saturday and Sunday). After all, weren't they both just trying to kick back and relax? What does the Church teach about this and how can she respond?
2) Lupe and her husband Fred have come to see Father Pat. Lupe is animated but Fred seems a bit ashamed and downcast, always looking at his shoes or the carpet while Lupe begins the conversation.
She tells Father that they have been married for almost 30 years. During this time Fred has struggled with problem drinking. He would go for years without a drink and during that time be a reasonably good husband and father, but he also had periods when he would drink heavily and constantly, especially on weekends and in the evening during the week, sometimes for months at a time. When he was drinking he would miss work, lose jobs, and spend needed family money in bars. Lupe even suspected he spent money on prostitutes.
Several times, after being confronted by his family, especially his brothers, Fred was able to stop his drinking. Two months ago he started again. Lupe no longer believes his promises to reform forever and has come to Father Pat for only one reason. Fred can come home only if he promises to God and vows on the Bible before a priest that he will never drink alcohol again for the rest of his life.
Father Pat doesn't know what to say. He doesn't think anything less that a 100 percent commitment by Fred to Alcoholics Anonymous will be effective, but neither Lupe nor Fred has any intention of utilizing AA. Fred takes the vow or takes a walk. Should he witness the vow or refuse?
A moral analysis would make a clear distinction between drug or alcohol abuse and addiction because they may not fall under the same moral category. It's important to remind ourselves of the Church's traditional distinction between drinking alcohol and getting drunk.
Since it's possible for many people to drink some amount of alcohol without getting inebriated, drinking alcohol in and of itself has never been forbidden by the Church. Indeed, the Catholic Church is confident that the legitimate use of alcoholic beverages is found throughout the Bible, and that not only did Jesus turn water in wine for the wedding feast at Cana as his first miracle, but even the use of wine at the Eucharist today is clearly modeled on Jesus' own use of wine at the Last Supper.
What is immoral is the immoderate use of alcohol or the use of drugs in any form outside of medical necessity. Interestingly, the new Catechism of the Catholic Church really only makes two references to the issue of alcohol and drug abuse. Both are found in the commentary about the Fifth Commandment, "You shall not kill":
"The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine" (CCC, n. 2290).
"The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense" (CCC, n. 2291).
Morally the church would see deliberate alcohol abuse and drug use as equivalent evil choices. Both result in the compromise of a person's self-control and her or his ability to make reasonable choices.
Also, alcohol abuse of any sort is morally problematic because of its harmful effects on the human body. Aristotle's maxim, "Moderation in all things," is a reasonable summary of the Catholic approach to alcohol consumption. In excess amounts alcohol consumption damages the brain and a number of body organs. Areas of the brain that deal with problem solving and decision making are compromised as are those that deal with memory, learning and coordination.
Jessica's response to her son would be that it is possible to have a glass of wine, a bottle of beer or even a martini without drinking to the point of being "out of control" or harming one's body. On the other hand, the only point of recreational drug use is to get high. Marijuana, like alcohol, also attacks the integrity of the body. It compromises the short term memory, makes it more difficult to focus one's attention on specific issues, and affects balance and coordination.
Jessica can further point out that her son does have a morally justified point in that there is no moral difference between the deliberate abuse of alcohol and non-medical drug use in that both are immoral choices and contrary to the virtue of temperance. When deliberate, alcohol abuse is just as evil as marijuana abuse.
In the end, deliberate abuse of alcohol and non-medical use of drugs entail a similar moral analysis: both attack the integrity of the body and compromise our ability to make reasonable choices. However, alcohol consumption in and of itself, apart from its abuse, has never been condemned as an evil by the Catholic Church.
A second moral issue that needs our attention when we are talking about alcohol and drug abuse is that of "addiction." Is it a sin to be an alcoholic? Is it a sin for an alcoholic to drink? These questions are reasonable because of a growing understanding of alcoholism as a disease. If it is a disease, how could it be a sin to be an alcoholic? Measles and mumps are diseases; would we consider them to be sins?
Intuitively, most Catholics would understand that only something that is "our fault" (meaning chosen with knowledge and free will) can be a sin. If indeed alcoholism is a disease in the classic sense --- and some would even say it can be traced to genetic roots --- then it can't be a sin, can it? These in fact are good questions and deserve a cogent response.
In fact, during the 20th century, society began to define alcoholism as a medical condition, a disease and no longer exclusively as a "moral weakness." Formal diagnostic criteria are found in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.)," and in other universally accepted medical manuals.
The disease of alcoholism has come to be defined by four symptoms:
---Craving, an almost uncontrollable urge to drink.
---Loss of control, one drink is too many, a thousand not enough.
---Physical dependence, without continual drinking there are observable physical symptoms like the shakes and sweating.
---Tolerance, the ability to drink large amount of alcohol and the need for larger and larger amounts to get drunk.
Unlike many other diseases, it is not recognized by most as curable. At best it is manageable, but it does last a lifetime. These same four symptoms in fact, can equally apply to almost every addiction besides that to alcohol.
The moral conclusion is that alcoholism, defined as a disease, cannot be defined as a sin, but rather as a human condition. There are recovering alcoholics who recognize that they were addicts from their first drink. They did no more to bring on the disease than their friends who drank with them and did not become chronic abusers.
In fact, we are now aware that there are even "addictive personalities" which can make sober choices very difficult for some individuals. Because it is a disease, it is compulsive in its nature, and it involves several of St. Thomas' classic impediments to guilt, such as ignorance and habit. Being an alcoholic --- in fact, being an addict of any sort --- cannot be labeled in Catholic morality, subjectively, as a sin.
Nevertheless, that conclusion would not allow coming to a secondary conclusion that the alcoholic or addict was relieved of all moral responsibility regarding the abuse of alcohol or any other controlled substance. There would be a clear moral obligation for any person diagnosed with an addiction to address the disease in a reasonable manner.
Apart from the clear reluctance by the Church to label alcoholism or, indeed, any true addiction as intrinsically sinful, there are objective moral concerns that should be reviewed. Once anyone has recognized any obvious evil in their life they are morally obligated to address it to the best of their ability. Once someone recognizes their addiction; whether to alcohol, drugs, cybersex, etc., there is a moral obligation to regain the health and freedom they have lost to their compulsion. Addressing one's addiction is a moral imperative.
Although now more than 50 years old, we, and Lupe in our second scenario above, can still be counseled by the advice of two classic Catholic moral theologians, Jesuits John Ford and Gerald Kelly, who wrote in their classic text, "Questions In Fundamental Moral Theology" (p. 303):
"The best of all the allies in this work is Alcoholics Anonymous. The program of this organization has been more successful in the permanent, contented recovery of large numbers of alcoholics than anything else we know. It offers help to alcoholics that they cannot get anywhere else. It is almost universally available. It does not cost anything, and it works.
"It is a mistake for any counselor to give his consultant the impression that his long range recovery is up to himself, as though he can remain sober merely by deciding to, by exercising his will power and making regular use of the sacraments and the other means of grace. He should help the alcoholic to realize that his is suffering from a progressive and insidious disease, and that he needs continued outside help."
Vincentian Father Richard Benson is academic dean and professor of moral theology at St. John's Seminary, Camarillo. His column appears monthly in The Tidings. |