losing our moral vocabulary

Years ago, I wrote a lot of "letters to the editor" complaining that in medical ethics we were losing our moral vocabulary, unable to distinguish, for example, deliberate killing of the sick handicapped and dying with treating pain or terminal sedation to relieve the pain of a dying person.

That confusion is now extended to an entire generation of multicultural kids..

Read Archbishop Chaput.

“Sometime in the mid-1990s, however, reactions began to change,” he said.
(i.e. to a story about ritual sacrifice of a victim to get a good harvest).

“Haugaard described one classroom discussion that – to me – was more disturbing than the story itself. The students had nothing to say except that the story bored them. So Haugaard asked them what they thought about the villagers ritually sacrificing one of their own for the sake of the harvest.”

“One student, speaking in quite rational tones, argued that many cultures have traditions of human sacrifice,” the archbishop continued. “Another said that the stoning might have been part of ‘a religion of long standing,’ and therefore acceptable and understandable.”

Another student brought up the idea of “multicultural sensitivity,” saying she learned in school that if “it’s a part of a person’s culture, we are taught not to judge.”

“I thought of Haugaard’s experience with 'The Lottery' as I got ready for this brief talk,” the prelate explained.

“Our culture is doing catechesis every day. It works like water dripping on a stone, eroding people’s moral and religious sensibilities, and leaving a hole where their convictions used to be.”