Bonum Ex Integra Causa

malum ex quocumque defectu. This is in memory of Mr Matthew Patrick Foley, one of my middle school English teachers, who must certainly have been Catholic, who drilled me thoroughly in English grammar, but seems to have taught me quite a bit of Latin as well, since this aphorism comes from his English class, not Mrs Wirsz's Latin. Mrs Wirsz may have been Catholic too.

It is explained here:

Literally this means "good (thing) from an integral cause, bad (thing) from any defect whatever" which isn't terribly helpful. A more Ronald Knox-friendly translation into good English (used in the article Good in the Catholic Encyclopaedia) would be "An action is good when good in every respect; it is wrong when wrong in any respect."

From a personal standpoint, the process of becoming Catholic seems to involve, among many other things, going back into my childhood and bringing up things that I could well have gotten in a Catholic education. For some reason, Mr Foley has been in my mind lately. Bonum ex integra causa came up as I reflected on the whole Anglican ecumenism project, which predates Benedict XVI and indeed seems to have been in Bernard Law's mind before John Paul. (And John Paul was less enthusiastic than Benedict, I think rightly.)

I keep coming back to Law's irresponsibility in encouraging Fr Barker to lead the St Mary of the Angels parish out of TEC, which so far has led to four decades of contentiousness and litigation. We might say that the St Mary parish was the first unsuccessful Anglican Use parish. Much is made of Our Lady of the Atonement as the "first" (we might say "first successful") Anglican Use parish -- but all of a sudden, we're back to contentiousness and a clear scandal.

I seriously question the moral good in this project, however good the intentions may have seemed over the years. Think only of the careerism, opportunism, and general ego-tripping that it's enabled, but recognize that most parishes either have died out already or are in danger of doing so.