You want the truth. You can't handle the truth! Because the truth is that I've been asked to provide expert testimony in a proceeding involving the profession I occasionally make money at. Me. Expert testimony. How scary is that? Unfortunately, the hearing is this Monday, so I've got a bit of cramming to do before then, which means lite blogging for a few days.
The Catechism makes the distinction between a common law, which is "a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good", and God's moral law, which is "the work of divine Wisdom. Its biblical meaning can be defined as fatherly instruction, God's pedagogy. It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his love... There are different expressions of the moral law, all of them interrelated: eternal law - the source, in God, of all law; natural law; revealed law, comprising the Old Law and the New Law, or Law of the Gospel; finally, civil and ecclesiastical laws." The hierarchy of the various expressions of the moral law is notable as it often calls Catholics to oppose otherwise legal actions because we (cliche or not) must ultimately answer to a higher authority.
Alas, my case involves only a lowly civil matter regarding financial matters, not some dramatic situation where I'll get to invoke said higher authority or fling a pocket knife into a table to save the life of someone falsely accused or anything like that. Oh well, at least it should be a more enjoyable experience than the one time I was summoned for jury duty. During the screening process (after a seven hour wait) I was asked two questions: "Are you self employed" and "where do you attend church"? After answering yes to the first and giving the name of my Catholic parish for the second, I was promptly sent home. So, was it the fact that I have to pay the IRS that 15% self-employment tax or the fact that I'm Catholic which made me unfit to sit in judgment of a wife-abuser? They never told me. Guess they thought I couldn't handle the truth.
The Catechism makes the distinction between a common law, which is "a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good", and God's moral law, which is "the work of divine Wisdom. Its biblical meaning can be defined as fatherly instruction, God's pedagogy. It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his love... There are different expressions of the moral law, all of them interrelated: eternal law - the source, in God, of all law; natural law; revealed law, comprising the Old Law and the New Law, or Law of the Gospel; finally, civil and ecclesiastical laws." The hierarchy of the various expressions of the moral law is notable as it often calls Catholics to oppose otherwise legal actions because we (cliche or not) must ultimately answer to a higher authority.
Alas, my case involves only a lowly civil matter regarding financial matters, not some dramatic situation where I'll get to invoke said higher authority or fling a pocket knife into a table to save the life of someone falsely accused or anything like that. Oh well, at least it should be a more enjoyable experience than the one time I was summoned for jury duty. During the screening process (after a seven hour wait) I was asked two questions: "Are you self employed" and "where do you attend church"? After answering yes to the first and giving the name of my Catholic parish for the second, I was promptly sent home. So, was it the fact that I have to pay the IRS that 15% self-employment tax or the fact that I'm Catholic which made me unfit to sit in judgment of a wife-abuser? They never told me. Guess they thought I couldn't handle the truth.
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