The cornerstone principle of the Catholic moral tradition both before and after the Second Vatican Council is Jesus Christ, the essence of Catholic faith. And the reason why we have a discipline called Catholic moral theology is because Christ calls his followers to holiness: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Catholic moral theology is a science ordered to understanding what the achievement of this entails. Holiness, it may be said, is the goal that Christ has placed before us. When Catholic moral theology becomes disconnected from that goal, it ceases to be Catholic moral theology. The topic I wish to address in this epilogue, therefore, is whether this goal of becoming a saint that Christ has given us, and to which Catholic moral theology is ordered, is a worthy one. In order to answer this question, we must ask the larger question of whether Heaven itself is a worthy goal; for Heaven is the proper reward for living a saintly life. It is the consummation and completion of living a holy life, like marriage is the consummation and completion of love.

The first condition of a worthy goal is that it is both difficult and possible to attain. Some people might say that it does not matter if a goal is attainable so long as one is bettered by the pursuit of it. For example, a baseball pitcher may strive to throw a no-hitter, but even if he fails to achieve this, if he approximates it, and comes closer to attaining it than he would have had his goal been only to throw a decent game, then we may say that the goal was a good one even though it was not attained.