Remember the Code!
Become a Man of Principle
One of my favorite movies growing up was the 1996 film Dragonheart, starring Dennis Quaid. It's an Arthurian fantasy story about a knight who was once seated at the Roundtable in Camelot but had since forgotten his old ways after the betrayal and corruption of his student, King Einon, portrayed by David Thewlis. While I have a few qualms about this film after rewatching it recently (particularly its climactic act of euthanasia), the story centers on a theme which is vitally important and one which has been all but forgotten in modern times. This theme is the man of principle. Sir Bowen, Quaid's character, has abandoned “the Code” - the knightly rule of chivalry learned in the court of King Arthur - and must be reminded of it by the dragon Draco (memorably voiced by Sean Connery), who exhorts him to “Remember the Code!” When Sir Bowen objects that “The King is above the Code!” Draco corrects him: “No one is above the Code.”
In the world today, under the influence of relativism, psychologism, indifferentism and other ills, principle is frequently denied. Even those who seem to uphold certain (often misused) principles, like a condemnation of racism or sexism, find it difficult to provide any rational foundation for their beliefs and will frequently compromise their principles with double standards, such as the view that only “white” people can be racist or only men can be sexist. Others, based on utilitarian and consequentialist ethics, will analyze moral problems based on their effects rather than the principles involved; by doing so, they're often willing to permit certain evils, such as the murder of unborn children, in order to avoid evil consequences (e.g. the child growing up in poverty or with Down’s Syndrome) or to attain perceived benefits (e.g. the career success of the mother). Based on these errors, people today find it difficult to judge the moral value of acts or situations; even many Catholics who advocate for legitimate moral causes will sometimes do so based on the consequences of an act or the comparative evil of an opposing position, instead of principles grounded in natural or divine law.
A Christian is someone who lives according to principle. No matter the consequences, good or bad, a Christian will choose to act in a way which obeys God's will as discernible in His design of nature and His teachings in revelation, knowable by reason and faith respectively. This principled discipline will often set Christians in opposition to the world; their willingness to sacrifice practicality and even to risk negative consequences seems foolish and reckless in the reckoning of worldly wisdom. Dispute the moral validity of the use of nuclear bombs in WWII, of lying to protect Jews from the Nazis, of a sexually abused minor aborting her child conceived in rape or incest, of using IVF to help a woman conceive a child while discarding “extra” embryos, of sex mutilation surgeries to alleviate feelings of gender dysphoria - or any similar moral dilemma, and the reaction from the world, including not a few self-proclaimed “conservatives” and “Christians,” will be severe.
Indeed, many people today are taught that it is a sign of maturity, character and compassion to sacrifice principle to achieve a good result. Immutably holding to a Code is commonly called “childish,” “fanatical” and “selfish.” How could anyone say that it's more important to uphold a principle when a better result could be achieved and a worse evil avoided by compromising it? This is the implied argument which is posed to Christians when their principles are questioned, and one which many Christians feel ill-equipped to answer due to their own upbringing in the relativistic sophistry of modern thought and their ignorance of the classical philosophical tradition.
The answer to this challenge is pivotal for Christians, perhaps more in the modern world than ever before as fundamental moral truths, which even many deeply corrupt people in the past still maintained, are routinely denied. In the name of results, reality itself is rejected, most noticeably in the transgender movement but also with gay “marriage” and divorce, the former presuming that two people of the same sex can somehow contract a true marriage and the latter that mere humans have the power to dissolve a valid marriage. With their cunning strategies, often more sophisticated (and devious) than those of Christians, they push less popular, more extreme evils, such as transgenderism, to desensitize society to others, such as homosexuality, until the latter is simply conceded, while employing the propagandizing power of the arts to manipulate emotions and form imaginations in achieving their ends.
What is missed by relativists, consequentialists and others is that, without clear moral principles grounded in God's law, there is no objective standard applicable to all. Morality becomes subjective, dependent on the preferences and opinions of each individual or group. Without principle, who can say which results are best? It is ultimately dependent on one's perspective: for an unborn baby, being aborted is not a good result, but for the mother, it might seem to be, at least to her mind. Some could consider body mutilation a bad means, but if it makes someone feel better about their gender identity, they might say it's worth it, and who am I to judge? This glaring logical hole in postmodern ethics can be used to justify practically any moral evil, including some which are only just beginning to be pushed, such as incest, polygamy, infanticide, cannibalism, zoophilia and any other debauchery or perversion, so long as someone subjectively feels that it isn’t immoral.
A true Christian cannot fall into this quicksand, from which it is almost impossible to escape. He must realize that denying objective moral principles leads not only to relativism but to nihilism. If there are no moral principles rooted in God, then the world is not moral at all, as Nietzsche concluded; humans and all of existence are just amoral blends of matter and energy moving at the whim of the impersonal laws of nature, having no intrinsic goodness on which to ground moral judgments. Murdering a human person is in the end no different than breaking up a clod of dirt or diverting water in a river. Morality becomes merely the conflict of one person or group against another, each trying to enforce their subjective preferences onto one another or, in the theory of liberalism, “tolerating” this pluralism in a spirit of indifference, so long as everything is consensual – and why consent alone counts as a moral absolute is never discussed.
The result is a society bereft of moral foundation, individuals who can only rely on the fads and fashions of the day to make their moral choices, and a Church composed of thousands of denominations where each person interprets Scripture and decides which truths they like and which they don't. A failure to distinguish between principle and result is commonly committed by atheists who use the argument that Christians do not live up to their own ideals, missing the point that, as G.K Chesterton said, “Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.”[1] Christian ideals are true in themselves, even if no one adheres to them (a possibility which, thankfully, countless Christians around the world and throughout history, most notably the saints, disprove).
For Catholics, the “dictatorship of relativism,”[2] as Pope Benedict XVI called it, leads to endless divisions - between “conservative” or “liberal” Catholics, “cafeteria” or “rigid,” “modern” or “traditional” - and the inability to boldly, clearly and unanimously face the demons which have sundered Christendom and shredded the fabric of society. This lived atheism fails in the mission of Christians to be ambassadors of Christ, raising the banner of our King above the false flags of the world, the emblems of darkness which can never lead to the Light and only offer the empty junk food that cannot satisfy.
In answer, Catholics must become heroically principled, remembering their vocations as knights of the Cross who are charged with defending the Code of the Gospel. Only this strong, unequivocal virtue, described by St. Paul as “charity in truth,” (Eph 4:15 DRA) will bring about what Pope St. John Paul II called for in the New Evangelization, both by leading the world to Christ and inspiring Catholics to take their baptismal calling seriously by rejecting the glamour of sin. Rather than vacuous slogans like “synodality,” “diversity-equity-inclusion” and “love is love,” true Christian chivalry in service to the Code will restore the Church as “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth,” (Mt 5:13-14) but it requires suffering, self-sacrifice and the courage to be rejected and even persecuted by the world, for whom the Code is a stumbling block and a scandal. Ultimately, the world fears nothing more than the man of principle, just as King Einon was terrified of Sir Bowen returning to his original calling as a knight of the Roundtable, a man who even if he is killed still reigns victorious in martyrdom, his principles inviolate and invulnerable, upholding a “Mirror of scorn”[3] to the evils of the world and eternally radiating the light of truth for all to see.
Become a man of principle. Remember the Code!
The Code
A knight is sworn to valour.
His heart knows only virtue.
His blade defends the helpless.
His might upholds the weak.
His words speak only truth.
His wrath undoes the wicked.[4]
(Cover image source: By Lola - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104097790)
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[1] All Things Considered.
[2] Term first used by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, homily, Monday 18 April 2005.
[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," in The Tolkien Reader (Great Britain: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1964), 52.
[4] https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/dragonheart-1996.pdf?v=1729114899
[1] All Things Considered.
[2] Term first used by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, homily, Monday 18 April 2005.
[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," in The Tolkien Reader (Great Britain: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1964), 52.
I liked Dragonheart as a kid, but I’ve never thought of that scene as Euthanasia with Draco? I saw it as self sacrifice, wasn’t the king sort of supernaturally alive with Draco’s heart? Didn’t the girl stab him at one point? Been years since I’ve seen it.