Friendship: A Metaphor for Moral Advancement?

Abstract

Latent in the moral teaching of the Catholic Church since Vatican II has been a conception of morality as a life project, a positive force for the shaping of human character. This marks a shift of focus beyond morality as a science of demarcations, separating good actions from evil, the permissible from the forbidden, a method of problem-solving when ambiguity confronts conscience about a particular choice. A broader vision has been sought in which subjects treated under the heading of the moral life can be concluded aptly only by connecting them to the life of holiness. While in some cases it can be difficult to observe a distinction between a treatment of morality and an exhortation to more serious spiritual life, this overlapping of subject matter is not unwelcome.Veritatis Splendor is a recent case in point. While the middle portion of the encyclical offers a very precise analysis of the relations among human acts, conscience, and the moral law, the encyclical begins and ends with meditative chapters in which the moral life is described as nothing less than the road to sanctity. These sections require little familiarity with moral theology to inspire personal response. The pages on martyrdom, for instance, in their evocation of the cost of moral commitment in the modem world, are a striking appeal to the heroic courage that produces saints.A less well-known example of this ‘spiritual’ approach to moral theology has been the incorporation of friendship as a thematic point of reference for the quality of a person’s moral life.