Mary Tudor and the Perennial Consequentialist Temptation

The devil’s two principal weapons are temptation and accusation. He tempts you to do evil (usually with the excuse that you are doing it to achieve some good end) and then, when you do it, he spend the rest of the time accusing you for sinning. We see this in our individual lives and we can also see the pattern playing out in the history of the Church.

For instance, Mary Tudor gave in to the common temptation of the Reformation period: the conviction that violence and persecution of Protestants would establish the Kingdom. Result: coming up on 500 years of English hatred of the Church–a hatred that has disintegrated into a sort of lingering dementia that is no longer even Protestant. England is now the land where all religions are equally superior to the Catholic Church.

The present American Catholic temptation to embrace torture as just and good is likewise something that, in the long run, is going to result in yet another addition to the American version of the Black Legend. The Church has actually progressed in its formal teaching to the point where (unlike in the 16th Century) it has figured out that while “error has no rights”, persons in error *do* have rights. That is why it has articulated clearly that torture is wrong. But many Catholics resent this restriction on their “freedom” and still basically think they can achieve justice through injustice. Every time they give in to this temptation, the devil gleefully anticipates some glorious accusations when the time is ripe.