AmericanPapist Comments
I am speechless. To quote the Catechism, No. 2355: "Prostitution is a social scourge." It must be fought.
And to actually think legalising makes the situation for the women better!
In 2002, the leftist German government of Chancellor Schröder legalised prostitution by passing the "Prostitution Act" (yes, that's actually how it's called). Just this week, the most famous German feminist, Alice Schwarzer, declared in an interview in leftist German weekly "Der Spiegel" (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/
0,1518,513846,00.html) that the law is an utter failure. An example: in a new "mega brothel" (shudder), which have only become possible after the legalisation, there was a razzia by the police. They took 30 women with them to question them, and the prosecutor then brought charges (term?) against the "operator" of the brothel, because the women had to be there 13 hours daily (from 2 pm until 3 am), had to be naked the whole time, were not permitted to make phonecalls etc. etc. The "operator" was discharged, because the judge argued that according to the "prostitution act", prostitution is a "normal trade" and therefore the "operator" has the "right of direction and control".
Also, the government prided itself that now the women can get social security. Not a single one has registered with social security in the almost six years since.
That a bishop should fall for this would be laughable, if it weren't so tragic.
I posted quite a bit on this over at Curt Jester, but I'll say this: we're getting increasingly good at the commodification of people.
God Bless
What??????? Now a bishop is condoning the leaglization of a "business" that does nothing but harm women and destroy families???!!! How discouraging!!
oops....spelling correction..legalization.
I believe Augustine advocated the same view. He thought that some things could never be stopped, and in the process of attempting to stop them, you hurt all kinds of positive human relationships. I think we should be more saddened that the public at large is so unchurched as to create a need for brothels, let alone regulated brothels.
It's the UK...maybe you should have said "legalisation", Kathy.
This is disturbing. Facilitating evil is evil.
utilitarianism really gets me down.
Well, one could argue that prostitution is the greater evil and therefore it must be banned.
One could argue that coercion is the greater evil and therefore governments shouldn't ban it.
But, when one argues that we should keep both evils, and give the government more power and tax money through licensing- one isn't reducing evil.
By the way, we can always fight prostitution, regardless of whether or not it is legal. A related example: if you don't want the strip club in your town, get some money together and buy it. Then you can shut it down! The local government wants it there- more money for them! So there's no point taking a political route, unless you just want a photo-op.
August, were you being funny, or serious? You really think buying, say, a strip joint, is a way to fight it? You must be plenty rich, to buy as many strips joints as a town could license, and then try to sell them, I suppose, for land and building value? Assuming there was any.
On the other hand, there's a certain logic to this particular debate and alot of "progressive" thinking when it comes to changing other Catholic moral teachings, such as with contraception or divorce and remarriage. The two operative ideas being a) what two (or more) consenting adults do is up to their consciences to figure out the goodness of and b) any moral teaching handed down that refers to sex is obviously passe and needs re-interpretting in our more 'sophisticated' age.
In other words, this is the fruit of moral relativism and the conceit that the Church's moral teaching are not based on the reality of what's actually good for us, but is itself mere cultural and generational based opinion.
The thinking that "well, they're going to do "it" anyway, so let's come up with an accommodation with 'reality' rather than change this 'reality'" is very common when it comes to sex (though, oddly not so much in operation when it comes to, say, owning machine guns).
Then there's the whole "who are we to impose our view on others" idea - which makes the eventual legalization of prostitution a virtual certainty in the post-Christian West. Those in favor of various drives to legalize what was once illegal of course are allowed to 'impose' their ideas on Christians all day long.
And of course, once it's legal we need to 'expose' our school children to all these 'viable lifestyle options', right? Can't deprive the poor dears of 'socialization' opportunities now can we?
At least that's the world's "logic" that the good Bishop seems to have adopted.
Next, we'll hear the Bishop arguing that there will always be homosexuals, so lets just regulate their relationships. Or maybe, because there will always be teen-age sex, we should provide room?
A new champion of moral relativism.
Hm is correct re Augustine, and his view should at least give folks pause. While I favor criminalization, I do see it as a prudential question on which reasonable Catholics can differ. While all social scourges must be fought, criminalization is not that best weapon for all of them.
August's idea cannot work in all instances since it would only encourage more such clubs by creating an artificial market for their sale. But on occasion such clubs are grandfathered in connection with otherwise restrictive zoning restrictions, and in these circumstances it could work. That said, I think most Catholics would have the attitude that while I oppose it I won't contribute serious money to deal with it.
Years ago, a developer wanted to create a high end strip mall shopping center on wooded undeveloped land between our neighborhood and the main highway. Most of my neighbors were aghast and tried fecklessly to fight it. The developer offered instead to sell the land to the neighborhood group for fair value. No one was interested. All hat, no cattle.
And let me make myself clear. The dollars at stake were substantial, but not all unrealistic given the wealth in the neighborhood generally.
Footnote: the strip mall is now fully developed, very attractive, very successful, and an important community amenity.
"If you are going to take a pragmatic view and say prostitution [insert: abortion] happens, I think there is a need to make sure it's as well regulated as possible for the health of people involved and for the safety of the ladies themselves," Hollis said.
Anyone change their level of outrage if it were abortion and not prostitution?
The early church took extra effort to live close together. This meant strip clubs and prostitution couldn't prosper in their enclaves. Now we play with secular governments, and all forms of decadence flourish right under our noses.
Sure, buying the strip club won't always work, but clearly it will work better than trying to get the government to shut the strip club down!
All
The trouble in the US is that the sentences are so light that it amounts to fiscal waste and a waste of police who could be doing something else.
Apparently both Aquinas and Augustine saw prostitution as legally allowable while being morally death bringing to the soul...the quote below is Aquinas in the Summa Theologica/II of the second Pt./question 10/art.11 on the contrary section:
" Human government is derived from the Divine government, and should imitate it. Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): 'If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.'"
Augustine seems to be implying that fornication amongst equals, plus adultery or rape would increase if one were successful against prostitution.
As I said at the outset, I already posted a bit about this over at Curt Jester. However, I'll repost part of what I wrote there (in relevant part):
Good point, and I agree. Stability of laws is important (as St. Thomas tells us), and this measure doesn't help that stability. Moreover, the law is also a teacher and serves to inform the ideas/morality of the commonweal (as St. Thomas tells us).
IMHO, and I think the Angelic Doctor would agree, were prostitution previously legal there would be no necessary call to make it illegal (see Augustine and Aquinas), but since it is ALREADY illegal, legalizing it (1) undermines the stability of law and (2) informs the public that the government NO LONGER thinks it's harmful/bad enough to be illegal. For those reasons I think the bishop's endorsement is wrong. The pot smoker "people-will-do-it-anyway" argument is rather paltry, considering the almost unavoidable increase in prostitution this would bring.
So...I think Aquinas and Augustine were right for the culture in which they lived, but if they lived here and now they would call the bishop an idiot. With all due respect.
God Bless
Get serious, the bishop's support is nothing less than the sanctioning of evil. Evil is usually justified using the cheap arguments the bishop attempts to make. But his statements come off as sounding hollow.
Let's face it, prostition is ultimately about using and abusing people and the fact this bishop can condone any aspect of it is profoundly disturbing. Alas, another prelate (hmm, how many is that now?) who's lost his moral compass (or his marbles). Sounds like all of Britain is going to hell in a handbasket!?
Regards from Canada.
Tony
Guys, I can understand people being upset at bishops for a lot of things. But as has been clearly stated here, there are some good reasons for the bishop's position (Aquinas and Augustinus were quoted). I do think otherwise, nevertheless I don't call the good bishop an idiot or imply he has "lost his marbles". You are talking about our spiritual fathers - show some respect! And get over the fact that some bishops do not agree with you on that matter (it can and will happen again)!
There was a Father of the Church with a similar argument. I can't remember, who was it?
For those who don't know, Aquinas quotes (approvingly) Augustine in ST 2 -2 - question 10 article 11:
thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): "If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust."
That's what's from Aquinas and Augustine.
Query, however, whether prostitution was already legal when the statement was made or whether this was a statement to legalize an already illegal practice, thus subverting the stability of law and teaching that the government no longer thinks it's bad enough to be illegal.
God Bless,
Ryan
Catholic Audio,
I fully understand the nuanced distinction between keeping prostitution legal versus making it legal. And I side with those that oppose legalization. However, I don't find the other position laughable or idiotic. Whether Augustine and Aquinas would have opposed legalization today is legitimately debatable, and those who try to stifle debate with words like idiotic, moral relativism, and laughable, are not engaging in fair-minded or thoughtful discourse.
In context: Louis IX of France was trying to outlaw prostitution, which was widespread. Aquinas wrote him a letter, which I remember reading in Catholic Social Teaching but I cannot find it online, with the same substance as the quote from the S.T. mentioned above.
Aquinas and Augustine were dealing with different worlds than our own. Augustine's time included few freewomen (except in free Christian families) available to marry. Aquinas was living in a world with a lot more women but also a lot more dowries.
However, Augustine and Aquinas could be countered by a lot of other Doctors and Fathers of the Church. St. Justin Martyr pointed out in his First Apologia that, since prostitutes were often male and female exposed babies picked up by the pimps and madams in the neighborhood and raised to their trade, a lot of men were unknowingly having sex with their young prostitute brothers and sisters, or even their own children.
St. Joan of Arc forcibly drove the prostitute camp followers out of her army. She, having a practical job to do, didn't have any truck with this "lust will convulse the world" crud.
Anyway, St. Augustine also thought that nobody could possibly live in the southern hemisphere of the globe, but was refuted by St. Albert the Great in a treatise on geography, with a remarkably impatient reference to "some people" having this foolish idea. I reserve the right to point out when "some people" are misguided, even if said people happen to be Aquinas and Augustine. Phbbbbbt!
Because, you know, it worked SO WELL for us when we decided that "they're doing it anyway so we might as well make it safe and legal for them" was the answer to the abortion debate.
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