Commentary: Nordberg's Ethics and the Absence of Love

Abstract

DR. ROBERT NORDBERG ( 1967 ) has recently published an article entitled, "Toward a Code of Ethics for Catholic Counselors." Since he describes his work as an attempt at and toward a code, I hope he will not take it amiss if a colleague offers some comment on the direction he seems to be taking.There is, first of all, before any other consideration, the question why any mature Catholic, if he qualifies minimally as a counselor with the background which Nordberg requires in theology and psychology, need have an ethics spelled out for him in rudimentary and meticulous fashion, in so many rules and so many italicized sentences. If the counselor has the suggested background in theology, he ought to be able to apply it to his circumstance (at least, I should think, in most of the situations proposed by Nordberg) ; if the circumstance is not particularly one for which theology has much to say, he ought to know from his professional background which course to pursue (rules 8 and 31 might be good examples of that). The extensive and elementary spelling out of rules, plus the raised voice of italics, seem quite unnecessary, unless the readers are, for the most part, assumed to be below the intellectual, emotion-Father Fischer, Ph.D., is professor of theology at Saifit Peter'r College. Jersey G t ] , Neu, Jersey.