The ultimate law that protects

Basically, natural law holds the universe together when things act in accordance with their nature.

These days, a lot of things violate the natural law, and incoherence results. As in, things don’t hold together so well.

The family is one case in point, says Pope Benedict, and he talked about that at a conference I’d love to have attended – the international congress on natural law.

If natural law is not respected, then life, family and society become victims of ethical relativism, warns Benedict XVI.

It’s like the “fish don’t know they’re wet” analogy. People are blind to what they’re saturated with in the culture, and Benedict is calling attention to it in all of his talks.

The Bishop of Rome said it is urgent to reflect on natural law as the source of norms which precede any human law and which cannot be altered by any one.

Some things are not a matter of “choice.”

Benedict XVI highlighted “the principle of respect for human life, from its conception until its natural end, as this good of life is not man’s property, but the free gift of God.”

As well, the Pope pointed out “the duty to seek the truth, [a] necessary assumption of any authentic maturity of the person.”

I love that…”the duty to seek the truth.” But of course, some people believe their conscience dictates their own version of truth, and he brought that up, too.

Attacking this vision is “juridical positivism,” according to which private interests become rights, the Holy Father said.

On the contrary, “the natural law is … the only bulwark against arbitrary power or the deceits of ideological manipulation,” he added.

Benedict XVI added that “no law made by men can alter the norm written by the Creator without society remaining dramatically wounded in what constitutes its very foundation. To forget this would mean to weaken the family, to penalize children and to make the future of society precarious.

“I feel the duty to affirm once again that not everything that is scientifically feasible is also ethically licit.”

“Technology,” the Pope said, “when it reduces the human being to an object of experimentation, ends up by abandoning the weak to the decisions of the strong.”

Not everything that is possible, or even legal, is moral. That’s not just a church or religious matter, it’s a matter for civilization.

Remember that sign I mentioned recently that I saw painted on a barn roof in Wisconsin? It said “Study Natural Law” and had a Boy Scouts of America symbol on it. Makes perfect sense, given their motto. ‘Be Prepared.’