The Most Rev. Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake CharlesRed Mass 2007
September 5, 2007
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
Lafayette, Louisiana
 
"The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this!" Isaiah 9:6

The readings from Sacred Scripture chosen for this Mass are filled with vision. There is the proclamation of the coming of a Prince of Peace, whose "dominion is vast and forever peaceful" (Isaiah 9:6). Nothing less than "the zeal of the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 9:6) will ensure this peaceable kingdom. St. Paul admonishes the Philippians that their thoughts "should be wholly directed to all that is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, admirable, decent, virtuous, or worthy of praise" (Philippians 4:8). This vision of harmony and concord would be challenge enough, but what Our Lord says in the Gospel is even more daunting. As a standard of conduct, "My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors" (Matthew 5:44).

From the time those words were uttered, people have wondered how they can be fulfilled. In what society is such a vision realized? In the Christian era, this vision¹s first great theoretician was St. Augustine. Heaven was to begin on earth with faith and love, in the building up of the City of God, and even the strife, wars, and persecutions in some way were but tools that fashioned the inevitable building of God¹s city of vision. There were in fact two cities, an earthly one and a heavenly, distinguished by the objects of their love. In the words of St. Augustine, "These two cities were made by two loves: the earthly city by the love of self unto the contempt of God, and the heavenly city by the love of God unto the contempt of self" (City of God, Bk. 14, c. 28).

This thought of St. Augustine in fact laid the foundation for the Medieval European world. That a Christian society in some way would through its accomplishments and struggles contribute to the eventual fulfillment of a heavenly City of God was a positive contribution. It was in the words of St. Paul, "Što build up the body of Christ, till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God¹s Son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature" (Ephesians 4:12-13).

The tendency of modern history has been myopic, judging the Middle Ages as "dark" or backwards. The facts in regards to the law, at least, do not force this conclusion. The intellectual vision of Medieval Europe was a positive one that gave birth to universities in Oxford and Paris, a system of rights and privileges as at Runnymede in 1215, the sic et non dialectic of Abelard that influenced the development of adversary procedure, the beginnings of maritime law on the island of Wisby with the churches that guaranteed good faith, the foundations of common law by Edward I, the so-called "English Justinian", as well as the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X of Castille, elements of which are still found in the southwestern United States. And all of this merely scratches the surface to reveal the laws of Alfred the Great, the revival of Roman-law studies in Bologna and Padua, and the roll of English ecclesiastical courts in common law as predecessors of United States Equity Courts. These developments can hardly be termed "dark."

In all of this historical meandering, we have failed to mention the consummate theoretician of law, St. Thomas Aquinas. There is no doubt that Aquinas took a much more confident view of human activity than Augustine, but the two are not in essence at variance. For both, man has a supernatural end. What Aquinas emphasizes is that man has a natural intellectual movement towards truth. Thus, Aquinas defines law as "an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated" (S.T. 1a2ae, 90.4).

The fine distinctions, Aquinas went on to articulate, still form the foundation for much of our legal thought today. Every law must have authority. The very existence of law implies the existence of a law-maker. Therefore, the author of eternal law and natural law is God. All forms of human law contain in different degrees both elements of natural law and positive law. While natural law, which man can know, is not man-made, positive law is. Therefore, man can make laws that are binding because sovereign powers can ultimately belong to the people. In a passage that could have been written by the founding fathers of the nation, Aquinas writes, "Šthe consent of the whole people expressed by a custom counts far more in favor of a particular observance than the authority of the sovereign, who has not the power to frame laws, except as representing the people" (S.T. 1a2ae, 97.3 ad 3).

I mention all of this to make a point. We must be vitally aware of the delicate nature of law. The question that is being asked more and more frequently is "Does the free, secularized state exist on the basis of normative presuppositions that it itself cannot guarantee?" (E. W. Bockenforde, quoted by Jugen Habermas in Dialectics of Secularization, co-authored by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Ignatius Press, 2006). In other words, to what does the free, secularized state appeal when it wishes to guarantee its own existence? If laws hold a society together, then what gives the law legitimacy? For this there must be authority, an authority with power, but a power regulated by law.

It is not the law of the stronger, but the strength of the
law that must hold sway. Power as structured by law,
and at the service of the law, is the antithesis of violence,
which is a lawless power that opposes the law. This is why
it is important for every society to overcome any suspicion
that is cast on the law and its regulations, for it is only in
this way that arbitrariness can be excluded and freedom
can be experienced as a freedom shared in common with
others. Freedom without law is anarchy and, hence, the
destruction of freedom. Suspicion of the law, revolt against
the law, will always arise when law itself appears to be,
no longer the expression of a justice that is at the service
of all, but rather the product of arbitrariness and legislative
arrogance on the part of those who have the power for it
(Joseph Ratzinger, Dialectics of Secularization, Ignatius
Press, 2006).

Those words belong to Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. In this reasoning the law "can and must be respected, precisely because it is everyone¹s law" (Ratzinger, Dialectics). But what happens when "everyone¹s law" oppresses a minority? "The majority principle always leaves open the question of the ethical foundations of the law" (Ratzinger, Dialectics), Cardinal Ratzinger concludes.

The ethical foundations of law should open up to us a major consideration of "natural law", that other dimension of human law which for the Christian finds God as its origin. In the modern discourse, "The recognition of a natural, moral law provides the common ground between believers, and non-believers about the fundamental moral issues affecting the common good and our living together" (The Most Rev. Robert McManus, Bishop of Worcester, TFP Forum interview, 2007). A fundamental principle of civil discourse must be that there exists a common human nature that possesses basic tendencies that fulfill what it means to be human.

The Red Mass manifests the belief that we all share something in common. We acknowledge the truth that there exists a basic natural law, common to us all, that we want to pursue the fundamental good. In this, faith speaks to reason, and reason to faith. We can ill afford to say that faith has nothing to say to modern man because it contradicts his human idea of reason or freedom. The world is far too fragmented and consequently too dangerous for such nearsightedness. Reason and faith need each other for the good of man himself. "There can be no doubt," writes Cardinal Ratzinger, "that the two main partners in this mutual relatedness are the Christian faith and Western secular rationality" (Ratzinger, Dialectics). We cannot forget the foundations of our legal system mentioned earlier. They reflect a relationship between faith and reason that are the very underpinnings of law maintained by a power at the service of the people.

It is reason and faith that ask the question of the Gospel today. "If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?" (Matthew 5:46). For the man of reason, the question is one of harmony. For the man of faith, it is the fulfillment of the commandment of love. The two are not opposed. In them, "justice and peace shall kiss" (Psalm 85:11).