Summary of Westchester Forum On the Church’s Competence to Teach on Matters Pertaining to the Natural Law
Nov. 6-7, 2008, Georgetown Suites, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.


Eleven scholars (theologians and philosophers) gathered in Georgetown on November 6 and 7 to discuss the question of the foundation of the Church’s competence to teach authoritatively on matters pertaining to the natural law.  The purpose was not to question the Church’s authority to teach on moral matters, but rather to examine the precise grounds justifying this competency.  The problem might be summarized as follows: since the Church’s authority extends to the subject matter of Divine Revelation, and the natural law by definition is that which can be known by human reason unaided by Divine Revelation, how is it that the Church is competent to teach on matters relating to the natural law?  The problem takes on a certain urgency in light of the fact that for three decades Catholic moral theologians (if not the majority, then a sizeable number) have denied that the Church can teach definitively on any concrete moral matter.  They have argued that although general moral norms like the Ten Commandments are explicitly taught in Divine Revelation and hence can be taught infallibly, the concrete application of these norms to particular kinds of actions (e.g., mothers should never intentionally kill their unborn children, it is never legitimate for married persons to have sexual intercourse with anyone other than their spouses) are not formally a part of Revelation.  It follows that negative moral norms (‘thou shalt nots’) singling out concrete acts (such as the intentional killing of the innocent) as always wrong to choose cannot be taught infallibly by the Church.  This means any magisterial act claiming a status of infallibility and any moral judgment set forth as irreformable in respect to concrete kinds of action would be erroneous and invalid; in effect, the magisterium has not and cannot infallibly teach on concrete moral issues.  
Because councils and popes from Trent to Vatican II have authoritatively taught that the Church is competent to teach on matters of fides and mores, including to teach exceptionless moral norms, this denial was not a central point of discussion.  The point of interest rather was to explore the precise foundation for the Church’s competence.  Generally stated, the competence derives from the Church’s mandate to guard and faithfully expound the deposit of faith entrusted to the Church by Christ.  But this general assertion leaves unsettled the question of the relationship of the norms of the natural law to the deposit of faith.  This was the locus of our discussion.