New Catholic Thinking on Homosexuality

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The following essay by Sebastian Moore OSB ( http://sebastianmoore.blogspot.com/2007/11/irrepressible-reflection.html ) offers a persuasive and challenging moral approach to same-sex relationships. It should be taken as a basic reference when the Church finally gets around to discussing these issues and working out a coherent approach.

(See also James Alison at http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng52.html )

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AN IRREPRESSIBLE REFLECTION

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The Anglican Communion appears to be in its death-throes over homosexuality. With a confidence that now astounds us, the anti-gay members are setting up large bodies of ecclesially legitimized dissent. Theologies are erected against each other.

And, all the time, inexorably, elementally, the homosexual taboo collapses. Nothing can reverse this collapse, since it is the prevailing of love and tolerance over all that bias can erect against it. Nothing can reverse this collapse, which is freeing a sizable world-wide minority from a self-hatred that society imposes and the Holy Spirit opposes. Nothing can reverse this collapse, which puts an end to needless suffering on an enormous scale. Theologies demanding the taboo must fall like a house of cards.

And with a wonderful irony, the Catholic Church, that bases its moral teaching not ultimately on scripture but on the Natural Law which expresses the best insights we have from our sciences into the good life, is in a position to ask what all the fuss is about.

Still, the effect of the collapse has further implications, as follows. The effect of the taboo, which implies the non-existence societally of gays and lesbians, is that there is no legislation for them, meaning by ‘legislation’ here simply recognized customs. Thus when the taboo collapses, they find themselves in a world without moral landmarks, with promiscuity the norm. So the collapse of the taboo requires a humane filling-in with moral norms comparable to those that are present in the straight world. These norms already exist, of course, in the gay and lesbian world, and the controlling principle is friendship and fidelity.

As the taboo ceases to exist, these norms will assume a crucial importance. And as the Catholic Church, the most sexually conservative of Christian bodies, adjusts to the collapse of the taboo, its teachers will find available a long tradition of church-blessed friendships which were not specified as sexual. The locus classicus for these is a book called ‘The Friend’, author on Google!

It goes without saying that serious gay and lesbian people do not regard promiscuity as an option. They are human beings, and humans make friends and friendship makes demands. The assumption that were the church to accept homosexuality as a valid orientation the result would be a Catholic homosexual mayhem is insulting to gays and lesbians.

The tradition of church-blessed friendships is Catholic, it belongs to the world of Christendom, and this fact is an extension of the irony pointed out earlier in this essay. The surprising richness of the Catholic tradition in the moral area that has been under the reign of the taboo, so that when the taboo loses its hold, the Catholic tradition has much to fall back on, is one of the joys of that tradition.

This needs spelling-out. One effect of the homosexual taboo, which implies the non-existence societally of gays and lesbians, is that there is no legislation for them. Thus when the taboo collapses, they find themselves in a world without moral landmarks, exposed to promiscuity in the absence of direction.

So the collapse of the taboo requires a humane filling-in with moral norms comparable to those in the straight world. These now already exist, of course, in the gay and lesbian world, and the controlling principle is friendship and fidelity.

As the taboo ceases to exist, these norms will assume a crucial importance. And as the Catholic Church, the most conservative, sexually, of Christian bodies, adjusts to the collapse of the taboo, its teachers can turn their attention to a long tradition of church-blessed friendships which were not specified as sexual but were not the less intense for that. The locus classicus for this is ‘The Friend’ by (Google please!)

It goes without saying that serious gay and lesbian people do not regard promiscuity as an option. They are human beings, and humans make friends, and friendship makes demands. The assumption that were the church to accept homosexuality as a valid orientation the result would be a homosexual mayhem is an insult to gay and lesbian people.

Now the collapse of the taboo is culturally selective. Broadly speaking, it is happening in the Christian world, in the world that has been crucially influenced by faith in Jesus, who brought us freedom and bought it for us on a cross.

Not surprisingly, it is where the taboo is collapsing that governments are instituting the so-called civil partnerships. This enactment, far from signalling a decay in public morals, shows an awareness of the moral dimension of the collapse of the taboo. And difficult as it may be to accept this, this new legislation expresses a moral maturity well in advance of the still official teaching of the church, for which homosexuality is ‘a disorder’—a teaching, incidentally, that goes against the Council of Trent on the nature of original sin and of our redemption from it, which rejects the Lutheran notion that equates original sin with ‘concupiscence’, so that you could have an inherited depraved desire, which the ‘disorder’ of homosexuality could be taken to exemplify.

In sum: Two most bewilderingly opposed moral positions on homosexuality depend on whether you are, or are not, experiencing the collapse of the taboo. Nothing is easier to understand than homophobia. It is natural where the collapse is not an established societal fact; it collapses as the taboo collapses. Dr Rowan Williams and a Latvian cardinal whose name escapes me are both Christian prelates. But the former inhabits the collapse, the latter the taboo in force, so that he can declare civil partnerships to be more insidious than Soviet Communism, whose dominance his own country endured for forty years. He said that civil partnerships expressed ‘sexual atheism.’

Some time ago, the Guardian carried a two-page map of the world, on which were shown the areas where the taboo is finished and the areas still under its control. Broadly speaking, the tolerant areas are Christian or post-Christian. Strikingly, most of Africa is intolerant, some states having the death penalty for homosexuals, whereas Capetown is tolerant; for Capetown has seen the Christian battle for civil rights versus Apartheid, associated with the noble memory of Bishop Trevor Huddleston. It is not ecumenically fashionable to point out that this coincidence of the demise of the taboo with Christian regions of humanity is not surprising if we believe that Jesus brings a fuller revelation of God than do the other avatars of humanity.

One becomes conscious of the collapse through two things that I can think of. First, having friends who are gay and lesbian. Secondly, to have done serious reading on the matter. The other day, a friend picked up, in a book fair for a pound, a book called The Homosexual in America. It was published in 1950, when the taboo was still in force. It is by a homosexual man, highly literate and creative, and it spells out the hazards to which a creative and socially engaged gay man was daily exposed. The pressure of society came on him in a variety of ways, as though the taboo, through its very anonymity, diffusing fear, could find different places exposed to blackmail. Indeed, it took a high degree of literacy to be able spell this out as our author has done. The book is introduced by Dr Albert Ellis, still going strong as the creator of the most popular therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Another piece of recommended reading is The Men with the Pink Triangle, written by a German gay man and documenting his experience as a victim of National Socialism. The pink triangle got you worse treatment in the camps than the Star of David. And when the war was ended and the horror of the camps exposed, the victims honoured, no such honouring was accorded to the gays, who had to return to the closet and continue to live under the taboo.

Currently I am trying to learn to think non-dualistically, and of course the collapse of the taboo is very sympathetic to non-dualistic thinking. James Alison is the most non-dualistic thinker I know, and people find him elusive in consequence. Now if you ask me for a recipe for dualism, I think immediately of the way I was educated sexually by the church seventy years ago. With this teaching, a person is cut in two, with a top half and a bottom half. With the coming of pubescence, the bottom half came under the jurisdiction of the church, so that by age twelve things could happen in the bottom half that, unrepented, could land you in hell for all eternity. It was a firmly held position that in the matter of sexuality there is ‘no light matter.’ The locus classicus for this is the sermon in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. Who can forget the film, the sermon preached by John Gielgud, and the twitch of that nose as he said ‘and, above all, the stench!’

James Alison, who does not have to make a secret of being gay, is professionally devoted to the meta-anthropology introduced into theology by Rene Girard, and is translating this into a new catechesis for which the collapse of the homosexual taboo can be seen as only part of a total reapplication to the human condition of the freedom with which Christ has made us free. But this connection needs spelling out, and here is a suggestion.

The brilliantly simple analysis of sexual desire by Oughourlian (ref) is able to show two people passionately in love why it is that this love easily turns to hate, the reason being that desire is mimetic; in creating lovers it creates rivals. Now it is impossible to study this dynamism and not see that it applies to gays as it does to straights. Put another way, the Girardian insight into sexuality is more searching than the categories ‘male’ and ‘female’ allow. As pretending to be the radical categories for sexuality, these categories are dualistic. Desire in search of understanding goes behind them. It also goes behind the dualism of love and hate, accounting for both. Does it not become clear that it is impossible to engage in this sexual analysis and continue with the taboo’s outlawing of homosexuality and the still official theological description of this condition as ‘a disorder’? Living with Girard, this position appears quaint, not to say queer!

A new, non-dualistic response to the faith that, in spite of so much, ‘believed on in the world’ (1 Tim. 3: 6), is able to ‘unbind the conscience of the homosexual’ in a way that liberates the person into the full sacramental life and discipline of the church. What does it mean to unbind the conscience of the homosexual? What is the bind? It consists in the fact that the essential goodness of sexual love between two persons, long denied or at least unstated in Catholic moral thinking, now enjoys a positive recognition. It has been a slow and painful process. As a student in Rome in the late forties, I remember the obloquy with which Dom Herbert Doms was mentioned in lectures. He had dared to praise sexual pleasure as the cement in a marriage. But that position, hilariously but accurately documented in Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven by Uta Ranke-Heinemann—the bedside reading, I discovered, of three women friends—has now surrendered, and sexual fulfillment is honoured in marriage counselling sessions. But not for homosexuals! They now hear from the church that sexual love is of God, but not for them! That is the bind. We may not refuse to think on the scale that the Spirit of Jesus is today demanding that we now think and live.

Comments

[Mark Andrews]

Be careful that the God, the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus you think is revealed doesn't look too much like that face you see in the mirror each morning.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

I was sadly reminded that old Catholic thinking is still rife by the following remarks of a would be trendy-conservative website, in reaction to the recent issue of Concilium on the topic of homosexualities:

Noi infatti, che non abbiamo la cultura degli scrittori di Concilium, né la loro capacità di aggiornamento, restiamo inguaribilmente legati alla teologia semplice e démodé di Paolo D’Ungheria, alla sua Summa de Poenitentia del 1215: “I sodomiti sono gli avversari di Dio, assassini e distruttori dell’umanità. Essi sembrano dire a Dio: Tu hai creato gli uomini perché si moltiplicassero. Ma noi lavoriamo perché la tua opera venga distrutta”.

E a San Gregorio Magno, Commento morale a Giobbe: “Era giusto che i sodomiti perissero per mezzo del fuoco e dello zolfo”.

Need we be surprised at the high mortality rate of gays in Italy, the victims of thugs from the gutter, when people with high education, teachers of youth, indulge in such ignoble sentiments?

http://wxre.splinder.com/post/16367046/Teologia+della+liberazione

[Anne Danielson]

There is no inherent right to lust over someone. The words, "homosexual" and "heterosexual" are thus demeaning. God created only Man and Woman, Male and Female. The sexual objectification of any person is oppressive and a form of slavery. We all know that Christ came to set us free.

The purpose of everything is what God intended.
All of us are called to develop Healthy and Holy relationships and friendships in Communion with God, The Blessed Trinity. Some of these friendships will develop into Marriage. This is what God intended.

Respect for the Sacredness and Dignity of Life in all stages from beginning to end, is what God intended.

Respect for the Sanctity of a Holy Marriage, is what God intended.

Marriage between Husband and Wife in Communion with Him, The Blessed Trinity, is what God intended.(What God Has Joined Together)

Sexual Love within the Sanctity of a Holy Marriage, is what God intended.

Those of us who know how to develop Healthy and Holy relationships and friendships do not feel the need to act out sexually in these relationships. We are not trying to possess or manipulate these relationships. Love is not possessive nor does it serve to manipulate.

With Love, God, all things are possible. Perfect Love requires desiring Salvation for someone. Perfect Love requires the Truth.

[Pertinacious Papist]

"Sebastian Moore OSB ... offers a persuasive and challenging moral approach to same-sex relationships [that] should be taken as a basic reference when the Church finally gets around to discussing these issues and working out a coherent approach."

Oh puhleeeez. You think the Church is going to "come around" and "work out a coherent approach" by rejecting her own tradition? Dream on.

[Catherine Nolan]

Hahahaha... I love the "As pretending to be the radical categories for sexuality, these categories [of male and female] are dualistic." "Currently I am trying to think non-dualistically..."

And I don't remember the last time I read a "persuasive" essay that asked the reader to Google the author of a book to which it refers.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

When he says male and female are dualistic categories, he is just making the point that we all have male and female aspects in our psychology, which allows rich empathy with members of the other sex. Please don't pounce on incidentals of phrasing in this good man's writing. Or rather, recognize here that his phrasing is Pauline, for Paul also nondualistically declared that in Christ there is "neither male nor female" (and Jesus speaks of himself as a mother hen!).

[Spirit of Vatican II]

'You think the Church is going to "come around" and "work out a coherent approach" by rejecting her own tradition?'

Not rejecting, but developing in depth. In the sense that you use the word tradition, the Church has frequently rejected official teachings in the name of a deeper fidelity to the Gospel and its unfolding in dialogue with human reason. Teachings that are rationally unsatisfactory and that are rejected by the vast majority of the faithful -- such as the condemnation of lending money for profit as unnatural -- tend to be replaced by better teachings that do more justice to the moral values at stake. To say that the Church "came around" on such issues is a rather negative way of putting it; better to say that the Church experienced anew the blessing promised by Jesus, "the Spirit will lead you into all truth."

[Catherine Nolan]

1 Cor 6-7 speaks very clearly both about homosexuality and about the different responsibilities of men and women. Pauline phrasing? 'Tis remotely possible. Pauline ideology? Not even close.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Catherine, we all know there is lots of conventional crankiness in the Pauline letters; you could quote 1 Cor 11 on how disgraceful it is for men to have long hair or for women to pray without a veil (given that they come from man but man comes from God) or Philemon on returning the slave to its rightful owner. But the Gospel core of Paul's teachings is on another plane, the plane of the Spirit that gives life, not of the letter that kills (even the Pauline letter). The contemplative Moore is tuned into this dimension, the heart of the New Testament.

[Gerald Augustinus]

Dear Fr. O'Leary, you might 'enjoy' this blog post and the 200+ comments...

http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2008/03/homosexuality.html

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Gerald, if you wish to live up to your weblog title, The Cafeteria is Closed, you could argue as follows:

The Church teaches that all acts divorcing sex from procreation are wrong, including homosexual acts.

However, "objectively immoral" acts can be "subjectively defensible" (Paul VI).

In pastoral practice, a gay couple should be urged to live chastely, but if this is just now impossible and if the alternatives are destructive they should be encouraged to be faithful to each other (Jan Visser, co-author of Persona Humana, CDF 1975).

In the application of the moral law to individual circumstances each individual must use the godgiven right of freedom of conscience, and each pastor must apply the principle of epiekeia, accomodating the demands of the law to the individual's circumstances.

Sometimes a church teaching is mistaken and can be disagreed with in good conscience. Sometimes a believer may have a prophetic charism that obliges him to denounce a false or harmful church teaching.

I don't think any of the above statements are outside the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy.

[Gerald Augustinus]

Well, Father, maybe we can get an auto da fe together ? =)

My blog title was meant as a bon mot...little did I know ! Back in 2005, I thought I was on the conservative end of the spectrum. Heh. Then I went online. In addition, I've changed since.

[Andrew Haines]

Even if everything mentioned in the article was somehow in a place to organically develop the course of Catholic Tradition--which incidentally I believe it is far from doing--the point of departure for the question still betrays a thoroughly non-Catholic position; namely, instead of seeking to deepen the authentic Church teaching on the sacredness of marriage, it desires rather an 'out' for those who do not feel such a paradigm applies to them. All the clever language in the world can't hide this ever-recognizable and negative approach to a theology which is otherwise most positive and non-legalistic; I say this especially in light of John Paul II's "Theology of the Body."

In response to your last comment concerning the subjective defensibility of an objectively immoral reality, your read of the matter is far from accurate. No theologian speaking from the heart of the Church--and most certainly not a Roman Pontiff--would intend to say what you implied Paul VI is saying. Moreover, even if a CDF official made the follow-up comment that you quoted, I would highly contest the authenticity of that statement as coming from the life of the Catholic Tradition, even if it did come from the mouth of someone working in a curial office. Certainly, you know as well as I that appointed positions in the curia do not necessarily guarantee accurate theological mindsets. Plus, your sentence was not in quotes. Did he even really say that, or was that your own paraphrase?

Any seminarian in his first year of theology could identify the holes in your argument here. This one certainly did.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Sorry, Andrew, but I am quoting correctly Paul VI's letter to Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle of Washington, that objectively immoral acts can be "diminished in guilt, inculpable or subjectively defensible".

I think you misread Moore. He is not talking about an "out" for those who dislike marriage but of an "in" for those who want to share in the blessings and duties of marriage to the degree that their sexual orientation allows.

[Andrew Haines]

The Paul VI statement requires much more nuanced examination than either of us have currently given it. Perhaps that would be a good topic for posting in itself.

Regarding the article here... Thankfully, your opinion that I am misreading Moore has no bearing on Catholic moral teaching.

[Joe]

"...the Catholic Church, that bases its moral teaching not ultimately on scripture"

In your wildest dreams, perhaps.

[vi melendez]

Where may I purchase all of the books by Sebastian Moore?

all the titles please...

God bless you vi melendez