Mr Bush’s Rationalizations

To the Editor:

Rationalization is the process of employing reason to provide moral validation for an act. Reason, however, cannot differentiate right from wrong. President George Bush, a graduate of the temples of reason, Yale and Harvard, is employing torturous rationalizations to morally validate his attack on Iraq. In contrast, Pope John Paul employing his conscience and not reason, had declared that America’s assault on Iraq was “not morally justified.” Note that is a dogma of the Catholic faith that a pope speaks infallibly on matters pertaining to faith and morals. War is clearly a moral issue.

President Bush has disengaged his conscience from his intellect/reason. The conscience provides infallible moral assessment and counsel because these instructions come from the Holy Spirit, the Counselor. If a person commits an act which is not moral and therefore sinful, the conscience afflicts the person (soul) with guilt (culpa). Mr Bush actively denies the guilt of his initiation of an immoral and sinful act. The violent assault of Iraq, by the use of rationalizations particularly the advocacy of secular democracy, a concept never advocated by Christ. Mr Bush’s denial of moral truth issued by the conscience has caused personal confusion and national division.

Pope John Paul’s conscience, unlike Mr Bush’s, was fully engaged in the discernment of moral truth. The pope’s conscience was not blocked by rationalizations because Pope John Paul confessed his sins weekly to a priest confessor and received sacramental absolution. This sacramental absolution maintained and enhanced the spiritual health of the pope’s conscience and the purity of his immortal soul. Mr Bush is a sinner who has never confess his venial and mortal sins to a priest representing Jesus and received sacramental absolution. Consequently, Mr Bush’s soul is darkened by unrepented, unabsolved sins and his conscience is inactive. An active conscience would be appalled by the murder and destruction continuing in Iraq.

Pray the Rosary daily to bring peace to the world and to end the immoral Bush-Iraq War.

Joseph E. Vallely

West Mountain Road, Washington                        January 1, 2006