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The concept for Wisdom Academies grew out of an idea related to teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, which he inherited from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle: that the intellectual virtue of docilitas (docility/teachability) is a necessary condition for being educated. St. Thomas maintained that the moral virtue of prudence, which, he held, is a species of common sense, causes docilitas.

1) From Jim Caviezel: "The Storm is Upon Us"

2) From Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s interview with Dr. Theresa A. Deisher related to the fetal line used in the COVID experimental drug:

Robert F. Kennedy Interview with Dr. Thereas A. Deisher

3) From Pope Pius XII, Encyclical: The Moral Limits of Research and Treatment

In an address given September 14, 1952 by His Holiness Pope Pius XII to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System, acting as "the interpreter of the moral conscience of the research worker, the specialist and the practitioner and of the man and Christian who follows the same path," the Pope drew the attention of the participants to the limits of their "moral rights and duties" as these are especially related to "the bold spirit of research" that incites a specialist "to follow newly discovered roads, extend, and create, new ones and methods."

In so doing, the Pope said, "A serious, competent doctor will often see with a sort of spontaneous intuition the moral legality of what he proposes to do and will act according to his conscience. But there are other instances where he does not have this security, where he may see or think he sees the contrary with certainty or where he doubts and wavers between Yes and No. In the most serious and profound matters, the man in the physician is not content with examining from a medical point of view what he can attempt and succeed in. He also wants to see his way clearly in regard to moral possibilities and obligations."

In such cases, Pius XII reported he would like to set forth briefly the essential principles that permit an answer to be given to this question. While, as is proper, the medical doctor focuses attention on the medical aspect of the case, the moralist, concentrates attention on the moral laws involved. The Pope maintained that, "ordinarily," such mutual cooperation in light of "the medical and moral evidence will make possible a reliable decision as to the moral legality of the case in all its concrete aspects."

To justify the moral rectitude of new procedures, attempts, and research methods, in medical treatment, he states that three main principles, interests, must be kept in mind: those of 1) medical science; 2) the individual patient to be treated; and the common good (bonum commune).

After doing this, taken singly or together, the Pope asked whether "these three interests have absolute value in motivating and justifying medical treatment or whether they are valid merely within certain determined limits?" In the second case, under the heading, "The Interests of Science as Justification for Research and the Use of New Methods," he asked and attempted briefly to answer the question, "What are these limits?"

Pius XII did so by stating that, in its own "domain" (that is, genus), scientific knowledge in medicine has its own value (that is, 'good') in equal to those in other scientific domains (genera): like physics, chemistry, cosmology and psychology. He maintained that, considered simply as knowledge, this good exists simply in itself, independently of its usefulness or use, and is not to be minimized. Such knowledge and fully understanding any truth are good in and of themselves and "raise no moral objection. By virtue of this principle, research and the acquisition of truth for arriving at new, wider and deeper knowledge and understanding of the same truth are in themselves in accordance with the moral order."

At the same time, the Pope stated that this fact does not mean: 1) all methods, or any single method, arrived at by scientific and technical research offers every moral guarantee; and 2) simply because it increases and deepens our knowledge, every method becomes morally licit, admissible. "Sometimes it happens that a method cannot be used without injuring the rights of others or without violating some moral rule of absolute value" (that is, good). "In such a case, although one rightly envisages and pursues the increase of knowledge, morally the method is not admissible."

Why not? The Pope's answer was "because science is not the highest value" (that is, is not the highest good, or measuring principle, standard, of good): "that to which all other orders of values" (that is, all other orders of goods)-or in the same order of value" (of good), "all particular values" (goods)-should be subordinated."

According to the Pope, and in truth, "science itself and its research and acquisitions have to be inserted" (and measured) "in 'the order of values'" (order of real human goods). "Here there are well defined limits which even medical science cannot transgress without violating higher moral rules." Among these higher moral rules, Pius XII listed, the following two: 1)"confidential relations between doctor and patient"; 2) "personal right of the patient to the life of his body and soul in its psychic and moral integrity."

While he admitted he "must recognize the 'interests of science' as having a true value" (a real good)" that the moral law allows man to preserve, increase and widen, he asserts that nobody can concede the following statement: “Granted, obviously, that the doctor’s intervention is determined by scientific interest and that he observes the rules of his profession, there are no limits to the methods for increasing and deepening medical science.” 

Under a second heading, entitled "The Interests of the Patient as Justification of New Medical Methods of Research and Treatment," Pius XII then set out two basic considerations: whether 1) In and of itself, the fact that medical treatment of the patient demands taking some new step proves its moral legality; and whether 2) because some "new method hitherto neglected or little used will give possible, probable, or sure results . . . . all ethical considerations as to the licitness of this method are obsolete and should be treated as pointless."

About these two considerations, Pius XII asked: "How can anyone fail to see that in these statements truth and falsehood are intermingled? In a very large number of cases the 'interests of the patient' do provide the moral justification of the doctor’s conduct. Here again, the question concerns the absolute value" (that is, universal good, including moral good) "of this principle." By itself, he asked, does it demonstrate, "does it make it evident that what the doctor wants to do conforms to the moral law?"

Morally considered, as a individual, "the doctor can take no measure or try no course of action without the consent of the patient." Morally, ethically, considered: 1) "The doctor has no other rights or power over the patient than those which the latter gives him, explicitly or implicitly and tacitly; and 2) the patient cannot confer rights he does not possess." In this discussion the decisive point is the moral licitness of the right a patient has to dispose of himself. Here is the moral limit to the doctor’s action taken with the consent of the patient." (Emphasis added). NOTE: According to the moral law (natural law) consent of the patient morally limits the moral authority and action a patient may transfer to a medical doctor!

Pius XII immediately added: "As for the patient, he is not absolute master of himself, of his body or of his soul. He cannot, therefore, freely dispose of himself as he pleases. Even the reason for which he acts is of itself neither sufficient nor determining. The patient is bound to the immanent teleology laid down by nature. He has the right of use, limited by natural finality, of the faculties and powers of his human nature." NOTE: The natural law existing within specific human nature limits the moral authority, action, and aims the patient has the ability to transfer to a medical doctor!

In other words, the Pope clearly recognized that the patient does not exist as a self-sufficient species unto himself or herself, as a single, composite whole rational animal. He or she is an individual member of the human species (the real genus animal, and the species endowed with animal rationality). He understood that, like every existing finite being, human beings are finite, social and organizational beings. We exist as essential parts of a social, organizational whole (human nature) that, by its social organizational nature and aims, facultative powers and abilities (immanent teleology) subordinates individual choice, places relational moral limits on human freedom of choice. A natural moral law contained within specific human nature is the proximate cause of all universal moral principles!  Individual human beings are social, relational, animals. We choose the way we can, limited by our generic, specific, and individual and social human powers and abilities, to choose the way we can as social animals, not the way we wish as if we are almighty gods.

Because, by our social, human nature, we are users, not sole proprietors, of our individual powers and abilities, Pius XII maintained we he do not have unlimited power to destroy or mutilate our individual body and its functions. By virtue of what he referred to as "the principle of totality" (that is, by virtue of the fact that we are essentially relational, social, organizational wholes that cause actions), a natural law existing within our specific human nature causes in us as such wholes moral rights and duties to others. Being an organizational whole (a part/whole existing cooperating with a wider, relational, social, organizational whole to cause action), Pius XII maintained that each individual human being possesses a right of use: "the right to use the services of his organism as a whole" (that is, of one's individual, composite body and soul), "the patient can allow individual parts to be destroyed or mutilated when and to the extent necessary for the good of his being as a whole. He may do so to ensure his being’s existence and to avoid or, naturally, to repair serious and lasting damage which cannot otherwise be avoided or repaired."

Such being the case, Pope Pius XII immediately added, "The patient, then, has no right to involve his physical or psychic integrity in medical experiments or research when they entail serious destruction, mutilation, wounds or perils" (Emphasis added).

"Moreover, the Pope stated, in exercising his right to dispose of himself, his faculties and his organs, the individual must observe the hierarchy of the orders of values" (that is, the hierarchy of the order of goods)-or within a single order of values" (single order of goods), "the hierarchy of particular rights -insofar as the rules of morality demand. Thus, for example, a man cannot perform on himself or allow doctors to perform acts of a physical or somatic nature which doubtless relieve heavy physical or psychic burdens or infirmities, but which bring about at the same time permanent abolition or considerable and durable diminution of his freedom, that is, of his human personality in its typical and characteristic function." For example, today we might say no human being would be morally permitted to decide to undergo a lobotomy because, as the Pope said, "Such an act degrades a man to the level of a being reacting only to acquired reflexes or to a living automation. The moral law does not allow such a reversal of values. Here it sets up its limits to the 'medical interests of the patient.'" Once again, NOTE: Consent of the patient morally limits the medical doctor's morally permissible action!

After giving another example related to psychological matters, Pius XII again emphasized the point immediately made above in boldface:

"Up to now We have spoken directly of the patient, not of the doctor. We have explained at what point the personal right of the patient to dispose of himself, his mind, his body, his faculties, organs and functions, meets a moral limit. But at the same time We have answered the question: Where does the doctor find a moral limit in research into and use of new methods and procedures in the 'interests of the patient?' The limit is the same as that for the patient. It is that which is fixed by the judgment of sound reason" (that is, the judgment of right reason), "which is set by the demands of the natural moral law, which is deduced from the natural teleology inscribed in beings and from the scale of values expressed by the nature of things. The limit is the same for the doctor as for the patient because, as We have already said, the doctor as a private individual disposes only of the rights given him by the patient and because the patient can give only what he himself possesses.

NOTE: Consent of the patient as demanded by natural law existing within specific human nature limits the medical doctor's action! The medical doctor may only execute rights transferred to him by the patient's consent! The natural moral law is derived from an order of facultative aims, or ends, essentially present in a specific human nature that causes all individual human beings to be social animals.

The Pope then extended these moral duties "to the legal representatives of the person incapable of caring for himself and his affairs: children below the age of reason, the feebleminded and the insane." 

After doing this, Pope Pius XII, considered under a third heading "The Interests of the Community as Justification of New Medical Methods of Research and Treatment."

"For the moral justification of the doctor’s right to try new approaches, new methods and procedures the Pope invokes a third interest, or principle, the interest of the community, of human society, the principle of the common good or 'bonum commune,' as, the Pope stated, "the philosopher and social student would say."

Pope Pius XII maintained that existence of a common good is indubitable and that he found unquestionable the fact that its existence calls for, and justifies, further medical research. He repeated that he had already spoken about the mutual interests of science and that they are closely allied to the general interest (that is, to the common good).

"Nevertheless," he stated, "for the third time we come back to the question: Is there any moral limit to the 'medical interests of the community' in content or extension? Are there 'full powers' over the living man in every serious medical case? Does it raise barriers that are still valid in the interests of science or the individual? Or, stated differently: Can public authority, on which rests responsibility for the common good, give the doctor the power to experiment on the individual in the interests of science and the community in order to discover and try out new methods and procedures when these experiments transgress the right of the individual to dispose of himself? In the interests of the community, can public authority really limit or even suppress the right of the individual over his body and life, his bodily and psychic integrity?" NOTE: The Pope asked whether appeal to the common good by public authority can nullify the natural law moral principle that the consent of the patient limits a medical doctor's action? Can it really limit and suppress the moral right of the individual person over his or her body, life, and bodily and psychic integrity?

Assuming that the question is about serious research, "honest efforts to promote the theory and practice of medicine, not of a maneuver serving as a scientific pretext to mask other ends and achieve them with impunity, the Pope stated, "many people have been of the opinion and are still of the opinion today, that the answer must be in the affirmative. To give weight to their contention they cite the fact that the individual is subordinated to the community, that the good of the individual must give way to the common good and be sacrificed to it. They add that the sacrifice of an individual for purposes of research and scientific investigation profits the individual in the long run" (Emphasis, including boldface, added).

We take the liberty to add, apparently so do many contemporary members of the Catholic Church hierarchy and administrators at nominally Catholic colleges and universities!

Being closer than are we to the medical atrocities committed by Nazis in the name of the common good, the Pope immediately added: "The great postwar trials" (that is, the Nuremberg Trials) "brought to light a terrifying number of documents testifying to the sacrifice of the individual in the 'medical interests of the community'" (that is, medical interests of the common good). "In the minutes of these trials," the Pope added, "one finds testimony and reports showing how, with the consent and, at times, even under the formal order of public authority, certain research centers systematically demanded to be furnished with persons from concentration camps for their medical experiments. One finds how they were delivered to such centers, so many men, so many women, so many for one experiment, so many for another. There are reports on the conduct and the results of such experiments, of the subjective and objective symptoms observed during the different phases of the experiments. One cannot read these reports without feeling a profound compassion for the victims, many of whom went to their deaths, and without being frightened by such an aberration of the human mind and heart. But We can also add that those responsible for these atrocious deeds did no more than to reply in the affirmative to the question We have asked and to accept the practical consequences of their affirmation."

Fortunately, unlike some contemporary leaders of the contemporary Catholic Church who would have frightened him "by such an aberration of the human mind and heart," Pope Pius XII did not join in these Nazi atrocities, crimes against humanity, as some Catholic clerics and administrators have done, by denying to students and employees at Catholic institutions moral authority of individual conscience and the inviolable moral principle of the consent of the patient to subject himself or herself to medical experimentation in the name of the common good! He condemned them in light of the Nuremberg Trials! Clearly, he considered them to be committing, as does the Aquinas School of Leadership, 'crimes against humanity.'

In so doing, he asked, "At this point is the interest of the individual subordinated to the community’s medical interests, or is there here a transgression, perhaps in good faith, against the most elementary demands of the natural law, a transgression that permits no medical research?"

The Pope's answer was clear. A person would have to be out of touch with reality, lacking in moral common sense, "one would have to shut one’s eyes to reality to believe that at the present time one could find no one in the medical world to hold and defend the ideas that gave rise to the facts We have cited. It is enough to follow for a short time the reports on medical efforts and experiments to convince oneself of the contrary. Involuntarily one asks oneself what has authorized, and what could ever authorize, any doctor’s daring to try such an experiment. The experiment is described in all its stages and effects with calm objectivity. What is verified and what is not is noted. But there is not a word on its moral legality. Nevertheless, this question exists, and one cannot suppress it by passing it over in silence."

Related to the cases he mentioned, inasmuch as moral "justification of the experiments" (such as, today, use of experimental drugs misrepresented as vaccines) "rests on the mandate of public authority, and therefore on the subordination of the individual to the community, of the individual’s welfare to the common welfare, it is based on an erroneous explanation of this principle" (Emphasis added). In our, individual, personal being, he stated, no human being is "finally ordered to usefulness to society. On the contrary, the community exists for man." To this we add, this is true of every society, even that of the Catholic Church!

The Pope continued: "The community is the great means intended by nature and God to regulate the exchange of mutual needs and to aid each man to develop his personality fully according to his individual and social abilities. Considered as a whole, the community is not a physical unity subsisting in itself and its individual members are not integral parts of it" (that is, parts that cannot exist outside of it/emphasis added). "Considered as a whole" (that is, as a composite, relational, integral whole whose living parts cannot, strictly speaking, exist on their own outside it), "the physical organism of living beings, of plants, animals or man, has a unity (that is, a composite, relational, organizational, living unity constituting its being) "subsisting in itself. Each of the members, for example, the hand, the foot, the heart, the eye, is an integral part destined by all its being to be inserted in" (that is, exist in) "the whole organism. Outside the organism it has not, by its very nature, any sense, any finality. It is wholly absorbed by the totality of the organism to which it is attached." As an integral member of the organism, it exists, is alive, only as a part of a whole organism ordered toward the health of that organism as a whole; it has not as an independent, living, whole. Separate from that organism, it no longer has the same nature (for example, a dead hear is not a human, or any animal, heart).

According to the Pope, in the moral community and every organism of an essentially moral character, the situation is radically different. A moral whole does not have its whole being in its cooperative activity of some whole on which it essentially depends for its whole life and being. It has "a simple unity of finality and action" (it simply shares common aims and actions with this other whole). Morally considered, such "individuals are merely collaborators and instruments for the realization of the common end."

In the case of physical parts, which have their entire being internally in service to a physical whole, Pope Pius XII maintained that "the master and user of this organism, which possesses a subsisting unity, can dispose directly and immediately of integral parts, members and organs within the scope of their natural finality. He can also intervene, as often as and to the extent that the good of the whole demands, to paralyze, destroy, mutilate and separate the members."

But, when two separate wholes that can exist apart from each other on their own are united as separate entities cooperating in a unity of aims and action, while public authority has "direct authority and the right to make demands upon the activities of the parts, . . . in no case, the Pope said, "can it dispose of its physical being. Indeed, every direct attempt upon its essence" (that is, on its existence as an independently whole being) "constitutes an abuse of the power of authority." The State exists to serve people. People can exist without States. States cannot exist without people.

Turning to medical experiments on human subjects, by virtue of the principle of consent of the patient as an independently existing moral whole, not an integral part of the State or a medical community, the Pope maintained public authority has no moral power that immediately and directly affects the physical being of a person considered as whole, or of a person's organs, that it can transfer to a research worker. (Neither, for that matter, can the contemporary Catholic Church, or its college and university, or other, administrators!) By virtue of this same principle, even when a medical doctor acts in the interests of the community (for the common good) as an agent of public authority, the State cannot pass on to that doctor a right it does not possess. At most, it can pass on to a medical practitioner the authority to act "as a deputy, as the legal representative of a minor for as long as he cannot make his own decisions, of a person of feeble mind or of a lunatic."

Even in the case of capital punishment, Pius XII maintained that "the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live."

After reviewing again his principle of totality and how he applied it, the Pope indicated that, in doing medical research, "application of new methods to living men must be preceded by research on cadavers or the model of study and experimentation on animals." When this is impossible, insufficient, or unfeasible in practice, "medical research will try to work on its immediate object, the living man, in the interests of science, in the interests of the patient and in the interests of the community. Such a procedure is not to be rejected without further consideration. But you must stop at the limits laid down by the moral principles We have explained" (Emphasis added).

Indubitably, the Pope added, asking that every danger or risk be excluded before giving moral authorization to the use of new methods is something nobody can ask. Doing so would exceed human possibilities, paralyze all serious scientific research, and very frequently be to the detriment of the patient. In these cases, he stated, while "weighing of the danger must be left to the judgment of the tried and competent doctor," as the Pope's explanation has demonstrated, a degree of danger exists "that morality cannot allow. In doubtful cases, when means already known have failed, it may happen that a new method still insufficiently tried offers, together with very dangerous elements, appreciable chances of success. If the patient gives his consent, the use of the procedure in question is licit. But this way of acting cannot be upheld as a line of conduct in normal cases" (Emphasis added).

In conclusion, while some people will perhaps object that the ideas he set forth "present a serious obstacle to scientific research and work," Pope Pius XII claimed that, by definition, the limits he had outlined are no obstacle to medical progress. "The field of medicine cannot be different in this respect from other fields of man’s research, investigations and work. The great moral demands force the impetuous flow of human thought and will to flow, like water from the mountains, into certain channels. They contain the flow to increase its efficiency and usefulness. They dam it so that it does not overflow and cause ravages that can never be compensated for by the special good it seeks. In appearance, moral demands are a brake. In fact, they contribute to the best and most beautiful of what man has produced for science, the individual and the community."

He ended his address by adding, "May Almighty God in His benevolent Providence give you His blessing and grace to this end."

Clearly, Pope Pius XII had maintained that consent of the patient as demanded by natural moral law existing within specific human nature always limits the medical doctor's action and that of the State and other organizations! The medical doctor, State, and different organizations may only execute rights transferred, through natural moral law, to them by the patient's consent! The Pope considered acting against this natural law moral principle to be a crime against humanity comparable to crimes committed by the Nazis! He called it "an aberration of the human mind and heart," which "frightened" him, as it should any morally and psychologically healthy human being.

No appeal to a common good can morally justify committing crimes against humanity, the natural moral law! Committing such crimes can never be in the common good, nor committed without violating human and civil rights. People committing such crimes are often held legally accountable and prosecuted as individuals as well as organizational leaders. Those institutional administrators who have been aiding and abetting in committing such crimes have already suffered the punishment of becoming psychologically disordered, losing touch with reality and moral common sense. No morally vicious deed ever goes unpunished. God have mercy on their souls as the political tide increasingly turns against them!

• Go to the link immediately below to view information from Hillsdale College about its free online courses:

Hillsdale College Free Online Courses

• Go to the link immediately below to view the Acton Institute's recent announcement of US and Canadian mini-grants for research and teaching in free market economics:

• Go to the link immediately below to see the Trinity Forum's announcement of readings featuring selections from the gripping Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:

https://www.ttf.org/product/frederickdouglass/?mc_cid=3cb97250c8&mc_eid=445ac55ca4

• See link below for free online course being offered by Dallas Theological Seminary on Revelation:

https://courses.dts.edu/register/revelation/?utm_source=prospecting&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=revelation&utm_content=AE_1600Daily11112020

• Follow different episodes  of "The Absolutes" podcast, hosted by our colleague Greg Reichberg at: The Absolutes