7 January 2022
Optional Memorial of Saint Raymond of Peñafort, priest
Today is the optional feast of St. Raymond of Peñafort (1175-1275). St. Raymond, besides living a life of the requisite sanctity, organized the church law, a body of law used by the church until the code of canon law in 1917. Along with Thomas Moore, he is considered one of the saintly patrons of lawyers. It may seem to be a dubious recognition of having organized the laws of the church. However, we must understand that law reflects the actions of a given reality and that law takes a stand on an issue and identifies consequences if the law is broken. The Catholic church has always been accused of being the church of laws, and some groups use “personal choice” and individual values as an enticement to either lure people out of the Catholic faith or to criticize its supposed legalities. Whatever one thinks of law, it is a statement that takes a stand and aligns belief with practice and subsequent consequences. It is interesting to note that in American history, while the progressive age took up eugenics with full vigor, the Catholic Church remained one of the sole institutions that stood against its ideas and practices. The Catholic faith framed its law around the dignity of each human person and its institutions of education and health care acted accordingly. Eugenicists busied themselves with “Fitter Family Contests” and birth control in order to eliminate what they saw as human weeds. Before we look to some idyllic land without laws, we would be well advised to recall that at their best, laws reflect values and men like Raymond of Peñafort and Thomas Moore knew that a land without values and laws which supported them was no place to live.