Nine Exalted Nincompoops
June 26, 2015
BISHOP Donald Sanborn reflects on the upcoming decision by the Supreme Court on same-sex “marriage:”
Think of having nine nincompoops flying your airplane who have never seen the inside of a cockpit, or nine nincompoops operating on you, who had never been to medical school.
I say “nincompoops,” not because these Justices are unintelligent or unlearned people, but because in the field of morality they are not trained, and do not rely on sound principles, even of the natural order.
The reason for this grave disorder in our government can be found in the eighteenth century “Enlightenment” thinking that religion should be completely severed from the State. Laws should be made purely on the basis of natural reason and “philosophy.”
These eighteenth century “thinkers” did not believe in original sin and its effects. They were confident that man, if left to the light of natural reason, would arrive without difficulty at the knowledge of the truth. Furthermore, once shown the truth, man would certainly embrace it and live by it.
[…]
For this reason, I say that these Justices, and all federal judges, should disqualify themselves from any decision which regards human morality, and confine themselves to settling disputes which regard purely material considerations of justice, e.g., copyright infringements. In these things they are competent. In questions of human morality they are necessarily incompetent, despite their legal experience and learning, because they cannot call upon the prin- ciples by which to decide a case of human morality. They are barred even from applying the natural law. What natural law? Whose natural law? Without the guide of religion, such questions in the practical order cannot be satisfactorily answered.