The wife had been nearly bullied into getting a sterilization as a young woman. She was told that there was severe medical need for the sterilization due to the dangers posed by pregnancy complications. She was told, “If you get pregnant again, you will die.” At the time she had only a vague sense that sterilization was wrong. She was hit especially by the permanence of the procedure. She had serious doubts, but in the end she trusted her doctors, family and friends who were all telling her to have the tubal ligation.

Years later, her heart was moved closer to Christ and she was convicted that she had committed a serious sin^T. Eventually her husband joined her conviction and together they sought out a way to right the wrong by getting the sterilization reversed. Of course, they met with serious opposition from doctors who said, “Why would you want to do this? You have two kids. You don’t have to worry about getting pregnant. Why go back?” But they persisted and eventually found help through One More Soul. The operation was successful.

It was a beautiful story of conversion and restitution. The couple went through quite a trial (not to mention major surgery) to undo their sin. Their suffering and struggle was part of their restitution. Restitution is part of the conversion process, which usually runs the path of:

1. Compunction: conviction of sin
2. Confession & reconciliation: usually both personal and sacramental
3. Penance: making some act that turns the heart more completely toward sorrow for sin and connects us to the forgiveness of Christ on the Cross.
4. Restitution: putting right the wrong done by the sin

The only problem that I had with this beautiful testimony is that it left the impression that sterilization was a necessary step in being forgiven for the sin. I think the wife even told the priest that she could not accept Christ’s forgiveness until she got the tubal ligation reversed. The fact is that sterilization reversal is major surgery, and like all major surgery carries a very large risk. The risk of life outweighs the evil of the sin enough to make sterilization reversal extraordinary restitution. Extraordinary restitution is not required for forgiveness. Let me say that again. Those who have been sterilized do not need to go through major surgery to have their sterilizations reversed before they can be forgiven by Christ.

That is to take nothing away from the experience and personal convictions of this couple. In the privacy of a couple’s own conscience, the Holy Spirit may lead a couple to undergo heroic measures of restitution. This is especially the case when further conversion is necessary. Some are indeed called to extraordinary restitution.

As the husband continued the story, he shared that while his wife struggled with the choice to have her fallopian tubes tied, he internally rejoiced in his wife’s sterilization. Furthermore, while his wife became convicted that sterilization was wrong, he was enjoying the sex without consequences and the higher standard of living he was able to have with only two children. Obviously, God had more work to do on his heart. I believe that the Holy Spirit did indeed call this couple to extraordinary restitution to complete the husband’s conversion from selfishness to generous love.

In the end, God did bless their conversion toward life with new life. They had another child and have learned to accept the risks of pregnancy and the rigors and joys of parenthood in truly selfless love.

On the other hand, I know a couple in the same situation who underwent a similar conversion who decided that they were not called to sterilization reversal. Their conversion and dedication to life is no less complete. The Holy Spirit did not call this couple to extraordinary restitution because their conversion to life was complete without it.

Sterilization reversal is extraordinary restitution. When extraordinary restitution is necessary to complete one’s conversion, the Holy Spirit will call us to it. If he does not call us to it, we are not required to make extraordinary restitution. We need to discern the call of the Holy Spirit in our own hearts. However, we must be careful not to be misled by scrupulosity on one hand or by selfishness and a desire for the easy way out on the other hand. The Christian life is one of balance and careful discernment. But it is always a life led by love.

End Note

^TThere is no doubt that sterilization is morally wrong. However, the woman who gave the testimony may have fallen victim to a misunderstanding of what constitutes a sin. It seems to me through her story that the pressures to get herself sterilized were great. The greatest influence was perhaps the voice of the professional as her doctor told her that sterilization was necessary to save her life. A person is only culpable for sin to the degree that she knows that it is evil and freely chooses it anyway. Her story indicated that she did not have true knowledge of the evil, and that she was practically coerced into the decision. Therefore, while the procedure is still gravely evil, she was probably not guilty of actual sin. Once she gained the knowledge, she chose against the sterilization in the form of remorse for her action. That choice was true contrition. I got the sense that this woman carried with her some unnecessary guilt. On the other hand, God used her guilt to bring her healing, not only of her body but also of her heart.

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The article begins:

The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal once claimed that “mutual cheating is the foundation of society.” For as long as there have been rules, it seems, there have been cheaters.

I would like to know the context of Pascal’s statement. He was, after all, a Catholic scholar and I find it difficult to believe that he was so defeatist. This statement, like “every law was meant to be broken,” indicates (with a wink and a smirk) that cheating is natural to human beings.

When we are faced with human depravity, we tend to defend our sensibilities in two ways. First, we try to shrug it off by convincing ourselves that it is inevitable or normal or inevitable. Second, we try to find a psychological explanation.

What’s going on here? Doesn’t anyone play by the rules? On Wall Street, the one-two punch of greed and competition is to blame, says journalist James Stewart. His coverage of the 1987 stock crash and insider-trading scandals earned him a Pulitzer and became the foundation of his bestseller Den of Thieves. All that money sloshing around, he says, “can drive people into a frenzy. . . . You’re thrown in that competitive situation at a very early age and exhorted to win at all costs.” And that win-at-all-costs ethic, critics say, is the foundation of the cheating culture.

In Hollywood, “you can get away with your embezzlements and your lies, and your murders, but you can never get away with failing,” according to Dominick Dunne, celebrated chronicler of the powerful and notorious. The pressure to succeed–and the fear of failure–Dunne says, is the perfect prescription for cheating. It may also be the root of widespread cheating among students. Consider: Seventy-four percent of high school students admitted to “serious test cheating” last year. That’s more than double the number who admitted this in 1969.

Certainly an overemphasis on success leads to cheating. I see this in high school students and their parents, or example. Sometimes we even get parents defending or even abetting the cheating by their children and offering the excuse, “Well, she has to get into college and she can’t do that without a good grade in this class.”

Obsession with success and the willingness to sacrifice integrity show a degradation of priorities and a false sense of happiness – a willingness to sacrifice transcendent goods such as honesty, truth and integrity for the sake of temporal, imperfect, and insecure goods such as money and success. Obsession with success brings constant dissatisfaction and cheating does nothing to alleviate the unhappiness caused by a disordered life.

Of course, there are other reasons for cheating as well:

But pressure to succeed isn’t a complete explanation. Undeniably, there is an almost romantic appeal to “beating the system”–particularly if the system, whether it’s the speed limit or the stock market, is perceived as rigged or unfair. Take the tax code, for instance. Nearly everyone thinks he or she pays too much or that others don’t pay enough. So Americans cheat to the tune of $195 billion a year, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That amounts to a whopping $1,600 per taxpayer.

While the first cause of cheating is a false sense of true happiness, the second is a false idea of the purpose of authority. “Sticking it to the man” has been in vogue since the 1960′s. Actually, it has been part of the American culture since the American Revolution when True Whigs held a philosophy that held all authority suspect. Americans hold that individuals need to grab all they can for themselves while authority attempts to keep them from it.

However, the truth is that authority is intended to lead us to authentic goodness, especially when our own weaknesses or ignorance would make attaining that goodness more difficult if not impossible. Often our attempt to “stick it to the man” or to “beat the system” are like my two-and-a-half-year-old’s stubborn refusal to wear pants.

And think about the reasons people give for cheating. We steal cable because “the prices are a rip-off.” We fudge insurance claims because “the rates are sky high.” We pocket office supplies because “the company can afford it.” All these rationalizations suggest people are perversely cheating to restore fairness. Is this tolerable?

Yes, sometimes the explanation of why we cheat is just that we’re selfish and whiny. We tend to think we are never getting enough because we are never satisfied with what we have.

So, whether we are revealing our messed-up priorities, our hubris, or our selfishness, we sacrifice much when we cheat. Cheaters destroy their personal integrity – the virtue of being who you were created to be. What’s more, since human beings are created to receive Truth, cheaters do great harm to justice between them and others, therefore isolating them from the bond of trust that creates a society. And what do we gain? A stapler? A few hundred dollars that we’ll spend foolishly anyway? A good grade that won’t even be remembered ten years from now? Even those people who rise to positions of power and prestige by cheating live with the constant fear that they will be found the fraud.

Furthermore, all sin does harm to society

No wonder many are now asking if there’s been a major shift in cultural standards–whether cheating and deceit have become accepted tools of the trade in the never-ending quest for success.

We have an innate sense that cheating is evil. U.S. News & World Report, the consummate supporter of bad science, explains:

Yet there is tension here as well. As great as the urge to cheat may be, we also have an almost hard-wired hatred of cheaters and a deep-seated urge to punish them. In fact, studies have shown people will go to great lengths to ferret out and punish cheaters, even when doing so is costly and offers no material gain. According to sociologists, this instinct to punish rule-breakers may date to hunter-gatherer societies, which were highly egalitarian–there were no hierarchical leaders. So when it came to sharing food, for instance, these minisocieties had to work as a group to punish any freeloaders.

It amazes me that everything can be traced back to the “hunter-gatherer” era of human history, as if this era (inexplicably) forever defined human nature. Truth be told, every time the “hunter-gatherer” era is used as an explanation for modern human behavior, the connection is based on a total guess. There is no evidence. This pseudo-scientific explanation is a “socially acceptable” alternative to the acceptance of natural law. We know that cheating is bad because human beings were created for Truth.

As Catholics, we know through Divine Revelation that human beings once knew the perfect life, but that Original Sin damaged our intellect and our will. Therefore we are tempted toward sin and deceit, yet we still hold goodness as our ideal. Cheaters never prosper – not because they are never successful but because they sacrifice the reality of who they are meant to be for the myth of what they wish they had.

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Mothers and fathers know that children are far from innocent, pure and selfless. In theological terms we would say that children are all physical appetites with no self-control. They are completely self-centered, honestly believing the the entire world exists to meet their needs. Their quest for food, comfort, entertainment and attention is constant and unrelenting. When they don’t receive what they want they throw temper tantrums or whine. When Jesus says that we must enter the Kingdom like little children, he is not talking about childlike traits of innocence, purity and selflessness. He is God. He knows better.

The vision of children as the ideal actually comes from a theological error adopted by the humanistic philosophical/psychological theory called Transactional Analysis (TA). According to TA the human personality is divided into three aspects (borrowed from Freud). The child is innocent, fun-loving, free and happy. The “parent” is the seat of high expectations (read here morality as well as social and personal ideals) and is scolding, sober, and squelching. The adult is the “real” person attempting to navigate through the world balancing the inner child and the inner parent. TA teaches that the main cause of unhappiness is that the parent takes over the adult and the inner child is suppressed. Psychological health occurs when the inner child is balanced with the demands of the real world (with the inner parent being all but suppressed).

The problem with this theory is that it denies Original Sin and fallen human nature. It holds that dysfunction enters the human personality as a result of environment and experience. A believer in TA would hold that if a child could be raised without the corrupting influences of society and family, the child would grow up to be pure, innocent, peaceful and happy. As Catholics and as parents we know the fallacy of this belief. Yet, it has found its way into popular thinking about children and even into our homilies.

So what did Jesus mean when he said we must enter the Kingdom as little children? The one trait that children have that Jesus admires is complete dependence. Children have no social status and no power. Recall that Jesus’ statement about children comes after the apostles ask which of them is the greatest. Jesus tells us adults that we need to realize that even with all of our sophistication, talents and education in the face of God we are still completely dependent. If we are going to make it to the Kingdom of God it will not be by our own power. It will be by the love and grace of God – just as a child receives nothing by his or her own power but only by the love of his or her parents. As our priest said, quoting St. Augustine, “Three things are needed to enter the Kingdom: humility, humility, and humility.”

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Now, to be fair to Sheila, the segment of her show this story appeared on was the “news language” segment, in which she focuses on the way people use language. I’m not criticizing her coverage of this story in any way. Nonetheless, I think it is important to take a closer look at studies like this and apply some Catholic moral thinking to it.

First, let’s take a look at the implication of the study. There are two ways to read such a correlation. Throughout history, ugliness had been paired with evil and beauty has been paired with goodness. I don’t think anyone has translated this analogy to real-life in such a way that anybody with a big nose and a wart is assumed to be evil. However, a student of mine took issue with Mel Gibson’s use of the ugly = evil motif. The student did not think it was fair to use children who looked mentally retarded to signify Judas’ demonic tormentors. Where does this motif come from? Its roots are in St. Augustine’s definition of evil: a distortion or a lack of a good that should be present. How does an artist show evil defined in such a way? The artist depicts someone who lacks normal human appearance – it’s not even necessarily lacking beauty, but rather a distortion of “normal” human appearance. Is this motif unfair to those who do have birth defects or who are judged to be “ugly” according to societal standards? Perhaps. Yet, I think the motif is instructive and powerful.

Where we need to be sure we do not make the mistake is to reverse the motif and use it as a real standard. If anything can be said about physical ugliness in the real world, it is simply that due to Original Sin the body fails to truthfully reflect the soul. In Heaven, we believe that our bodies will perfectly reflect the soul – the core of who we are.

I think Sheila Liaugminas may have mistaken the point of the study. Why would anybody even bother to institute such a study? My suspicion is that the study was meant to draw doubt on a jury by one’s peers. The point of the study was probably that people are unjustly judged based on their looks rather than on their true guilt or innocence. On one hand, if this is a true problem and if there is a true solution being offered, such a study could prove to be very valuable. Perhaps justice should truly be blind, and a jury should hear the evidence of a case without seeing the defendant.

On the other hand, there is a problematic line of thinking among modernists that tries to prove that no truth can ever be known for certain. Modernists see courts as part of the power structure that attempts to force its version of truth onto the populace. Modernists cast doubt on all claims to objective truth. This study may be doing that in the area of justice. Does justice really exist? Are people really found guilty based on objective evidence, or are we just slaves to subjective perceptions with no basis in an objective reality that probably doesn’t exist anyway?

There are many questions that I would need to ask about such a study in addition to the very good questions Sheila asked. My first question would be, what’s the point? Why was this study done in the first place? Next I would have to ask what cause – effect relationship was actually discovered by this study. A correlation doesn’t necessarily mean a cause-effect relationship exists. There could be a shared cause or the cause-effect relationship could be indirect. For example, is it possible that people who are considered ugly find it more difficult to make it in society because of a cultural prejudice, and are therefore more likely to be poor and are therefore more likely to commit crime. Finally, I would have to ask what conclusions the researchers would like us to draw about this study.

Chances are pretty good that this study will fall into obscurity exactly because the researchers haven’t shown us why it is significant. I sure would like to know what is behind such a study, though.

In the love of Christ,

Brother Thomas
See Also:
“The Ugly Face of Chrime” from the Washington Post
“Ugly Criminals” from Althouse

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