Principles of Catholic Morality

• Buffer
• Tweet

What are the Principles of Catholic Morality?

The Catholic Church set down some basic moral principles for Catholics to follow based on the teachings of the Old and New Testament. The basis of these principles in a word is love. The objective is to achieve love of God and love of fellow man through the moral rules or principles that emerge from sources like the Ten Commandments and the morality of the prophets in the Old Testament as well as the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament. These principles are the basic moral code necessary to live as a good Catholic.

1. Good and Evil

Central concepts in catholic morality are the ideas of good and evil. Acting good is defined as acting morally good in accordance with the wishes of God. Evil is to act against the wishes of God. In some situations where there is no clear choice of good and evil, the moral principles were developed to assist someone to determine how to act in a specific situation.

The first principle is the principle of beneficence. Catholic morality requires that one do good and refrain from doing evil in order to act in a morally good manner.

2. Non Maleficence

The second principle is the principle of nonmaleficence. This principle elaborates on the first principle and says avoid doing evil. This principle has its difficulties in complex situations where any action may entail a bad or evil effect. This principle is applied in the first sense or at first do no evil.

3. Principal of Double Effect

The third principle is the principle of double effect. This principle is a further elaboration of the first two principles. There are situations where an action considered good in itself may result in consequences that are both good and evil or harmful. The principle is meant to examine the action in question to determine if it should be taken based on the likeliness that an evil or harmful effect will be one of the consequences of the action. Whether to abstain from a good act in order to avoid an evil consequence depends on a number of factors or moral criteria contained in the double effect principle.

The first condition is that the act in itself must be a good and moral action as is determined overall by the objectives of love of God and neighbor. The action must be good and absolutely not evil.

Secondly, there must be an intention to do the good act but avoid the harmful or evil consequences as much as possible.

Thirdly, the good effects of the act cannot be achieved by the evil effects and there cannot be any other alternative except for the act to achieve the good result.

Fourthly, the good effects must proportionately outweigh the evil effects. Fifthly, the good effects must follow at least as quickly as the evil effects. The classic example of this principle is the necessity of removing the womb of a woman for life threatening reasons with the effect of saving the woman but at the same time causing the death of a fetus that is in the womb.

4. Tolerance and Cooperation

Two other principles, the principle of tolerance and the principle of cooperation both involve a situation where it is sometimes better to tolerate some evil in order to avoid greater evils or in order not to lose a greater good.

The moral code which describes the minimum necessary requirements needed to act as a Catholic include the observance of the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Catholic Church such as attending mass on Sundays, holy days, and going to confession at least once a year.

Resource by T.Price

I am a mom of 2 boys who loves to spend time with them doing fun things outdoors. In my spare time I have my own things I enjoy doing such as gardening, reading old books, and being a closet history buff.

Related Research For Teachers, Students, and Kids