text: Part 1
  
  Marty, I suggest there are three usages of the term "natural law" in Catholic circles, each representing entirely different meanings, three distinct concepts. 
  
  (1) The first (and most prevalent) essentially replaces argument and reasons for a moral conclusion, with an unsupported appeal to authority. Those who use it this way often can name magisterial pronouncements proclaiming the conclusions, but are virtually never able to point to serious, sustained, published, full arguments that make the academic case behind the magisterial position; and sometimes they are not even able to specify the truncated rationale presented in the magisterial documents themselves. This usage is arguably “dishonest” in as much as the term “natural law” is employed as if that were in and of itself an argument for a moral conclusion.