Wanted: Wild Willy

Wild Willy is wanted for the reckless murder of self-discipline and freedom. His unruly behavior has caused a lot of damage to human personalities and character formation. Willy has no regard for the needs or concerns of others. Willy is wanted for breaking the law of interdependence and social harmony.

The most difficult issue our Catholic school deals with, without a doubt, is dress code. Dress code seems to anger teachers, parents, and students without prejudice. I recently gave a talk to a small group of parents and teachers defending out dress code. From the comments and looks of appreciation I received, I think I may have opened some minds a little bit, but I doubt I softened many hearts. My main point was that the dress code was an integral part of our Catholic school mission. It is a teaching tool that teaches self-respect, respect for others, and self-discipline. It is unfortunate that terms such as these tend to elicit the polite smiles that say, “how nice of you to still believe in such idealistic notions; some day you will grow up and come to reality.” It is the same smile given to most things Catholic in a Catholic school by many teachers and parents. I say that it is unfortunate because this smile reveals that so many people have given up on these ideals when these ideals have hardly moved beyond our reach! People have assumed that self-discipline is no longer possible, or at least no longer desirable, in today’s culture. We see this same attitude when dealing with other areas of discipline in schools. Shouldn’t we give teenagers contraception instead of expecting them to control their sexual desires? Isn’t it easier to label someone with a behavioral disorder or an “oppositional defiance disorder” rather than expecting him or her to control anger and obey authority? In addition, who can deny the anti-authority messages in our music, movies, and television programs? We have lost sight of a couple of the most important and rewarding moral principles that Catholic morality has to offer us. These principles deal with the joys of self-discipline and the purpose of authority.

What is self-discipline all about, anyway? Why would it be something for which it would be worth working? The main theme of Catholic morality is to become the kind of people who habitually choose that which can bring us true, eternal happiness. Only God can bring us true, eternal happiness. All created goods either fail to perfectly satisfy, or decompose due to their temporary nature. Only God is perfect and eternal. Furthermore, God is the creator of all other good things. When we possess God, we possess the perfect source of perfect happiness, and the source of all other sources of happiness. God wants us to enjoy created goods, but in a way that does not make us selfish or enable the created good to hold power over us. When a created good becomes too important to us, our free will becomes a slave to it. Therefore, we become less free. Being self-disciplined means being able to identify and attain the greatest good in every situation. It means making constant progress toward the eternal possession of God in love. Being self-disciplined means being truly free, never enslaved by obsession over a created good. Self-discipline brings true joy in this life and perfect happiness in the eternal life of heaven. However, such lofty benefits do not make self-discipline an impossible ideal. It is a virtue that we can help each other to attain. That’s where authority comes in.

Most people readily pair the word “authority” with the word “oppression.” Authority is seen in opposition to freedom. It surprises people if they ever learn that the Catholic Church (which is often also paired with the word “oppression”) pairs “authority” with “authentic freedom.” The Church teaches us that the primary purpose of authority is to teach us self-discipline. Laws, and the authority that legislates and enforces them, lead us to the greatest authentic good. Well-balanced laws serve to protect us against our fallen human nature without destroying our freedom. We must find a balance between too little authority, which fails to guide us to the greatest good when we need guidance, and too much authority, which destroys our freedom and makes true goodness impossible. What about those times we do not understand the purpose for a law? Both civic and religious authorities often propose laws that seem to make no sense to us. If the authority is a legitimate authority and the law does not contradict that moral law it was designed to protect, then we must follow even laws that we do not understand out of respect for and trust in the authority. We must acknowledge that we do not always know what is best. Authority often has more knowledge and a greater perspective than we do. Obedience to authority flies hand-in-hand with the virtue of humility. Humility is the virtue of accurately assessing your place, neither exaggerating it nor overestimating it. Humility helps us to trust authorities placed over us instead of foolishly asserting a false kind of freedom that comes out of pride. The ability to cooperate with authority as it guides us to the greater good leads us to true freedom by teaching us to overcome our fallen human nature and choose the greater good ourselves.

In recent history, authority has been vilified. It has been judged the enemy of freedom. Parents have been told not to discipline their children for fear of stifling their natural creative impulses. Teenagers are repeatedly told to rebel against authority for the same reasons. In fact, the main complaint against the dress code is that is stifles the students’ free expression. The truth is that the dress code shapes the students’ expression to help them express what is best and most noble about themselves. Its main goal is to help students express their inner beauty instead of focusing so much on their bodies, as modern fashion does. The same is true of all authority. We must teach our children, not only to respect and honor authority, but to value it. Of course, once we learn self-discipline, we no longer need authority to tell us how to attain the greatest good. That is freedom in every sense of the word.

Wild Willy is not to be apprehended alone. Leave him to the authorities.