The Moderate Roman Catholic Position on Contraception and Abortion

The Moderate Roman Catholic Position
on Contraception and Abortion 

By Professor Daniel C. Maguire, Catholic Theologian, Marquette University

Reprinted here with kind permission of the author.  (Cartoon below my idea)

Let's start with the Roman Catholic positions (note the plural) on contraception and abortion not because it is the oldest religious tradition---it is not---but because of its influence internationally on these issues. For one thing, the Catholic Church is the only world religion with a seat in the United Nations. From that seat, the Vatican has been very active in promoting the most restrictive Catholic view on family planning, although there are more liberating Catholic views that are also thoroughly and genuinely Catholic. The Vatican from its unduly privileged perch in the United Nations along with the "Catholic" nations---now newly allied with conservative Muslim nations---managed to block reference to contraception and family planning at the United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This alliance also delayed proceedings at the 1994 U.N. conference in Cairo and impeded any reasonable discussion of abortion. With more than a bit of irony, the then Prime Minister Brundtland of Norway said of the Rio conference: "States that do not have any population problem--in one particular case, even no births at all [the Vatican]--are doing their best, their utmost, to prevent the world from making sensible decisions regarding family planning."

The sudden rapport between the Vatican and conservative Muslim states is interesting. For fourteen centuries the relationship was stormy to the point of war and persecution. During that time abortions were known to be happening and yet this produced no ecumenical coziness. Is the issue really fetuses, or is it that these two patriarchal bastions are bonded in the face of a neew threat...the emergence free, self-determining women? Questions like this and all of the above summon us to make Roman Catholicism the first of our visits to the world religions.

One of the tragedies of human life is the separation of power and ideas. The Catholic tradition is more filled with good sense and flexibility than one would gather from its leaders. Religious leaders are often not equipped to give voice to the best in the tradition they represent. In Catholicism, popes and bishops are usually not theologians and often they do not express the real treasures of wisdom that Catholicism has to offer to the world. That is changing as lay people enter the field of Catholic theology and bring to it their real-life experience as workers, parents, and professionals. Catholic theology is no longer a clergy club, and that is gain.

One of these lay theologians is professor Christine Gudorf. Christine is an internationally known scholar teaching at The International University in Miami. She is also a wife and a parent. Catholic theology was done in recent centuries almost exclusively by men. That changed and women began in the last half of the twentieth century to enrich the tradition with their scholarship and experience as women.

Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit scholar, said that nothing is intelligible outside its history. The point is well taken. If we lost our personal history through amnesia, we would not even know who we are. Gudorf believes along with many scholars that there is nothing that clears the mind of caricatures like a bracing walk through history.

The Catholic Story

Gudorf points out that Christianity was born in a world in which contraception and abortion were both known and practiced. The Egyptians, Jews, Greeks and Romans used a variety of method of contraception, including coitus interruptus, pessaries, potions and condoms, and abortion appears to have been a widespread phenomenon. Knowledge of all of this was available to the Christians and although church leaders tried to suppress it they were never fully successful.

Surprisingly, abortion and contraception were not the primary means of limiting fertility in Europe even before the coming of Christianity. Infanticide was the main method as it was elsewhere in the world. Christianity reacted against infanticide, but there is evidence that it continued to be practiced. Late medieval and early modern records show a high incidence of "accidental" infant death caused by "rolling over" or smothering of infants or reporting their death as "stillborn." As Gudorf says, "the level of layings over could hardly have been fully accidental."

However, during the middle ages infanticide was much less common than abandonment. Most often infants for whom parents could not provide were left at crossroads, on the doorsteps of individuals, or in marketplaces in the hope that the child would be adopted by passersby. (More often it condemned the children to a life of slavery or an early death.) To ease this crisis, the church in the middle ages provided for "oblation." This meant that children could be offered to the church to be raised in religious monasteries. Many of them eventually became celibate nuns and monks, thus leading to further containment of fertility.

Another Catholic response to excess fertility was the foundling hospital. The foundling hospitals were equipped with a kind of "lazy Susan" wheel (ruota) where the child could be placed anonymously and then the wheel turned putting the child inside. The good intentions in this were not matched with resources and the vast majority of these infants, sometimes 90 percent of them, were dead within months. Because of the reliance on infanticide and abandonment, it is not surprising that there was not much discussion about abortion and contraception. As Gudorf says, "the primary pastoral battles in the first millennium were around infanticide, the banning of which undoubtedly raised the incidence of abandonment." Also the high mortality of children due to nutritional, hygienic, and medical debits was a common and cruel form of population control.

Catholic Teaching on Contraception and Abortion

Catholic teaching on contraception and abortion has been anything but consistent. What most people--including most Catholics- think of as "the Catholic position" on these issues actually dates from the 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii of Pope Pius XI. Prior to that, church teaching was a mixed and jumbled bag. The pope decided to tidy up the tradition and change it by saying that contraception and sterilization were sins against nature and abortion was a sin against life. As Gudorf says, "both contraception and abortion were generally forbidden" in previous teaching but both were often thought to be associated with sorcery and witchcraft. Pope Gregory IX in the Decretals of 1230 treated both contraception and abortion as "homicide." Some of the Christian Penitentials of the early middle ages prescribed seven years of fasting on bread and water for a layman who commits homicide, one year for performing an abortion, but seven years for sterilization. Sterilization was considered more serious than abortion because the issue was not framed as "pro-life" but rather, the driving bias was anti-sexual. The traditional Christian attitudes toward sexuality were so negative that it was only reproductivity that could justify this activity. Abortion frustrated fertility once; sterilization could frustrate it forever and therefore it was more serious. Also, since the role of the ovum was not learned until the nineteenth century, the sperm were thought to be little homunculi, miniature people, and for this reason male masturbation was sometimes called homicide. Clearly Christian historical sexual ethics is a bit of a hodge podge. To really understand it and to arrive at an informed judgment on Catholic moral options it is necessary to be instructed by a little more history.

Catholic and Pro-choice

Although it is virtually unknown in much public international discourse, the Roman Catholic position on abortion is pluralistic. It has a strong "pro-choice" tradition and a conservative anti-choice tradition. Neither is official and neither is more Catholic than the other. The hierarchical attempt to portray the Catholic position as univocal, an unchanging negative wafted through twenty centuries of untroubled consensus, is untrue. By unearthing this authentic openness to choice on abortion and on contraception in the core of the tradition, the status of the anti-choice position is revealed as only one among many Catholic views.

The bible does not condemn abortion. The closest it gets to it is in Exodus 21-22 which speaks of accidental abortion. This imposes a financial penalty on a man who "in the course of a brawl" caused a woman to miscarry. The issue here is the father's right to progeny; he could fine you for the misdeed, but he could not claim "an eye for an eye" as if a person had been killed. Thus, as conservative theologian John Connery, S.J. said, "the fetus did not have the same status as the mother in Hebrew Law."

Following on the silence of scripture on abortion, the early church history treats it only incidentally and sporadically. Indeed, there is no systematic study of the question until the fifteenth century. One early church writer Tertullian discusses what we would today call a late term emergency abortion where doctors had to dismember a fetus in order to remove it, and he refers to this emergency measure as a "crudelitas necessaria," a necessary cruelty. Obviously this amounted to moral approbation of what some call today inaccurately a "partial birth abortion."

One thing that develops early on and becomes the dominant tradition in Christianity is the theory of delayed animation or ensoulment. Borrowed from the Greeks, this taught that the spiritual human soul did not arrive in the fetus until as late as three months into the pregnancy. Prior to that time, whatever life was there was not human. They opined that the conceptum was enlivened first by a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, and only when formed sufficiently by a human spiritual soul. Though sexist efforts were made to say the male soul arrived sooner---maybe a month and a half into the pregnancy---the rule of thumb for when a fetus reached the status of "baby" was three months or even later. As Christine Gudorf writes, the common pastoral view was "that ensoulment occurred at quickening, when the fetus could first be felt moving in the mother's womb, usually early in the fifth month. Before ensoulment the fetus was not understood as a human person. This was the reason the Catholic church did not baptize miscarriages or stillbirths."

"Reflecting the pious belief in a resurrection of all the dead at the end of the world, Augustine pondered if early fetuses who miscarried would also rise. He said they would not. He added that neither would all the sperm of history rise again. (For that we can all be grateful.) The conclusion reached by Latin American Catholic theologians in a recent study is this: "It appears that the texts condemning abortion in the early church refer to the abortion of a fully formed fetus." The early fetus did not have the status of person nor would killing it fit the category of murder.

This idea of delayed ensoulment survived throughout the tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas, the most esteemed of medieval theologians, held this view. Thus the most traditional and stubbornly held position in Catholic Christianity is that early abortions are not murder. Since the vast number of abortions done today in the United States, for example, are early abortions, they are not, according to this Catholic tradition, murder. Also, all pregnancy terminations done through the use of RU 486 would not qualify as the killing of a human person according to this Catholic tradition of "delayed ensoulment."

In the fifteenth century, the saintly archbishop of Florence, Antoninus, did extensive work on abortion. He approved of early abortions to save the life of the woman, a class with many members in the context of fifteenth century medicine. This became common teaching. For this he was not criticized by the Vatican. Indeed, he was later canonized as a saint and thus as a model for all Catholics. Many Catholics do not know that there is a pro-choice Cathlic saint who was also an archbishop and a Dominican.

In the sixteenth century, the influential Antoninus de Corduba said that medicine that was abortifacient could be taken even later in a pregnancy if required for the health of the mother. The mother, he insisted, had a jus prius, a prior right. Some of the maladies he discussed do not seem to have been a matter of life and death for the women and yet he allows that abortifacient medicine even in these cases is morally permissible. Jesuit theologian Thomas Sanchez who died in the early seventeenth century said that all of his contemporary Catholic theologians approved of early abortion to save the life of the woman. None of these theologians or bishops were censured for these views. Note again that one of them, St. Antoninus, was canonized as a saint. Their limited "pro-choice" position was considered thoroughly orthodox and can be so considered today. In the nineteenth century, the Vatican was invited to enter a debate on a very late term abortion, requiring dismemberment of a formed fetus in order to save the woman's life. On September 2, 1869 the Vatican refused to decide the case. It referred the questioner to the teaching of theologians on the issue. It was, in other words, the business of the theologians to discuss it freely and arrive at a conclusion. It was not for the Vatican to decide. This appropriate modesty and disinclination to intervene is an older and wiser Catholic model.

What this brief tour of history shows is that a "pro-choice" position coexists alongside a "no-choice" position in Catholic history and neither position can claim to be more Catholic or more authentic than the other. Catholics are free to make their own conscientious decisions in the light of this history. Not even the popes claim that the position that forbids all abortion and contraception is infallible. The teaching on abortion is not only not infallible, it is, as Gudorf says "undeveloped." Abortion was not the "birth limitation of choice because it was, until well into the twentieth century, so extremely dangerous to the mother." There was no coherently worked out Catholic teaching on the subject, as our short history tour illustrates and there still is not. Some Catholic scholars today say all direct abortions are wrong, some say there are exceptions for cases such as the danger to the mother, conception through rape, detected genetic deformity, or other reasons. Gudorf's sensible conclusion: "The best evidence is that the Catholic position is not set in stone and is rather in development."

Sex, Women, and the Sensus Fidelium

As we will see, debates about sexuality and reproduction are always influenced mightily by certain cultural assumptions. These usually involve attitudes toward women and sex. A culture that looks on women as sources of evil like Pandora and Eve is going to have trouble justifying having sex with them and may conclude that only reproduction could justify sexual collusion with women. That is exactly what happened in Christianity. Augustine said that if it were not for reproduction there would be no use for women at all. In his words, "in any other task a man would be better helped by another man." Early attitudes toward women were poisonous. The Mosaic law assumed male ownership of women. Early church writers said women lack reason and only possess the image of God through connection to men. Luther saw women as being like nails in a wall, prohibited by their nature from moving outside their domestic situation. And St. Thomas Aquinas said females are produced from male embryos that were damaged through some accident in the womb, turned into females. As Professor Gudorf says in her refreshingly sensible book Body, Sex and Pleasure, the church has rejected all of that nonsense but "continues to teach most of the sexual moral code which was founded upon such thinking."

Small wonder there is new thinking on sexual and reproductive ethics now. As Gudorf says: "The Roman Catholic Church (and Christianity in general) has in the last century drastically rethought the meaning of marriage, the dignity and worth of women, the relationship between the body and the soul, and the role of bodily pleasure in Christian life, all of which together have revolutionary implications for church teaching on sexuality and reproduction. In effect, the foundations of the old bans have been razed and their replacements will not support the walls of the traditional ban."

Gudorf and other Catholic theologians do not stand alone in the church on this dramatic and important change in Catholic teaching. Pope Pius XII in 1954 laid the groundwork for a change in Catholic teaching when he permitted the rhythm method. Though he quibbled about what means could be used he did bless contraceptive intent and contraceptive results. He even said there could be multiple reasons to avoid having any children at all in a marriage. In 1968 when Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the view that all mechanical or chemical contraception was sinful, the Catholic bishops of fourteen different countries respectfully disagreed and told the faithful that they were not sinners if they could not accept this papal teaching.

Most of the laity, of course, had already made up their minds. The birth rates in so-called "Catholic" nations in Europe and in Latin America are close to or below replacement levels and, as Gudorf wryly puts it, "it is difficult to believe that fertility was cut in half through voluntary abstinence from sex." Such dissent from hierarchical teaching by Catholic laity is actually well provided for in Church teaching. The sensus fidelium, the sense of the faithful is one of the sources of truth in Catholic theology. This means that the consciences and experiences of good people are a guidepost to truth that even the hierarchy must consult.

Catholicism in its best historical realizations is not as hidebound and authoritarian as many bishops, popes, and fearful conservatives would make it seem. There is, as Catholic theologian Charles Curran says, dissent from hierarchical teaching that is "in and for the church." Through much of Catholic history the hierarchy taught that all interest-taking on loans was a sin of usury--even the smallest amount. The laity saw that this was an error and decided that too much interest was sinful and that a reasonable amount was not. A century or two later, the hierarchy agreed...especially after the Vatican opened a bank and learned some of the facts of financial life. The laity are again, along with the theologians, leading the church on the moral freedom to practice contraception and to use abortion when necessary as a backup. Perhaps if the hierarchy were married with families, they could follow the wisdom of the laity in this at a faster pace. It would be a shame if it took a century or two for them to respect the conscience of the laity, graced and grounded as that conscience is in the lived experience of marriage and children.

Professor Christine Gudorf is hopeful in this regard. She believes that within a generation or two Catholic hierarchical teaching "will change to encourage contraception in marriage and to allow early abortion under some circumstances." She continues: "This change will occur because as the Catholic Church confronts the reality of a biosphere gasping for survival around its teeming human inhabitants it will discern the will of God and the presence of the Spirit in the choices of those who choose to share responsibility for the lives and health and prosperity of future generations without reproducing themselves, even if that choice involves artificial contraception and early abortion."

See also Christine Gudorf's article 'Who Says the Church can't Change' here

Racing towards Armageddon

Daniel C. Maguire, 'A Moral Creed for All Christians' P.230
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE 

According to an article released by the Catholic News Services contained in the CatholicRegister today, Rep. Mitt Romney’s newly appointed running mate U.S. Paul Davis Ryan, a Catholic, is the principal author of a Republican budget plan  that delineates a decade-long plan to reduce spending on non-military programs as a step toward reducing the country's $15-trillion deficit.

In response to this madness Daniel Maguire, Professor of Moral Theological Ethics, Marquette [Catholic] University, had this to say today to the Huff Post about military spending in the US

“Squandering on Kill-power

All the debts of all the U.S. states could be canceled by what it cost in a single year to fight our unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We spend around $17 billion a day on the military. If only Jeremiah could return and address the House and Senate on that. He'd skewer them for being hell-bent on slicing education budgets and Medicaid for the poor while engorging the military/industrial complex. He'd then go out onto the steps of the Capitol and blast the press for not hammering at this madness. Next Jeremiah would excoriate both presidential candidates for not making this budgetary plunder the highlight of their campaigns.

All the Jewish and Christian prophets would have pointed out the terrible truth that we cannot bear to hear -- that military science has outwitted itself. It has miniaturized weapons, including suitcase-size atomic bombs, making them available to disgruntled individuals and small groups. Drone technology leaped from Pandora's box and democratized the possibility of small-group, remote-control sneak attacks. Long gone is the predictability of state vs. state conflicts. A raw vulnerability has dislodged superpower illusions. The prophets would draw lessons from that, just as they did from their own 9/11, the Babylonian Captivity.”

UPDATE:  August 25/12  Readers are encouraged to take note of the following article 'With Ryan Selection, GOP Doubles Down on War on Women' by Carolyn Maloney.

 

War on Catholics

The Catholic Church or at least the Catholic bishops in both Canada and the US are  on the defensive mode.   The Ontario Bishops are fighting a desperate battle to defend their position on GSA’s while the American bishops, acting as Republican pawns, are trying to unbalance Obama’s attempt to provide for a nation-wide public health plan.  What are Catholics to make of all this?  In this day of Robo Calls, information overload and dirty politics it is easy to become confused about many of the issues presented as fact or truth.

For Catholics and other Christian believers it is important to stay grounded in Gospel values and take personal responsibility to discern the voice of the God within and in others. Remember the bishops have been wrong before but are sworn to uphold Church teachings and therefore more likely to be influenced externally and risk challenging dogma and doctrine.  Hence the Vatican’s current strong commitment to oppose the primacy of individual conscience over Church teaching.

One of the voices I have come to respect a great deal is that of Professor Daniel Maguire. His view of the U.S. bishops’ current position regarding Obama’s plan to introduce a national health plan will help Catholics understand who’s wrong in this war on Catholics.    

 Who’s Wrong in ‘War on Catholics’?

February 7, 2012

Exclusive: GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich claims President Obama has declared “war on the Catholic Church” with a ruling that contraception must be included in health plans for employees of church-led institutions, but Catholic moral theologian Daniel C. Maguire says it is the U.S. bishops (and Gingrich) who are wrong.

By Daniel C. Maguire

The decision of the Obama administration to ensure health care coverage including contraception in Catholic institutions has enraged American bishops who lobbied hard against it. The bishops claim their religious freedom is violated by this ruling, but the bishops are wrong and out of the mainstream of Catholic teaching, including the teaching of bishops in other parts of the Catholic world.

A number of bishops, including Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa, have spoken strongly on the need for condoms, especially in areas ravaged by sexually transmitted diseases. The U.S. bishops are even at odds with the pope who approves the use of condoms “where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection.”

The papal change on condoms effectively ended the taboo on condoms since it says that health concerns may require their use, and there are many health concerns aside from HIV/AIDS. The nonpartisan and well-respected Institute of Medicine, on which the Obama administration relied, says contraceptives can be used to treat reduce the risk of endometrial cancer and pelvic inflammatory disease and other diseases mainly affecting women.

Also use of contraception is linked to the decline in infant death. Obviously contraception limits the number of abortions since it prevents unwanted pregnancies.

But the American bishops say the administration’s decision on Jan. 20 was a case of religious freedom. In that, they are right but not in the way they intend it. The bishops are claiming the religious freedom to violate the religious freedom of those who are employed in their institutions or who are served in their tax-supported hospitals. By denying contraception as part of employee health plans, what the bishops seek is more like religious fascism than religious freedom.

Furthermore, traditional Catholic teaching rests on a tripod, including the hierarchy, the theologians and the sensus fidelium, the experience-fed wisdom of the laity. These three sources of teaching are, as Cardinal Avery Dulles said, “complementary and mutually corrective.” An accurate look at Catholic teaching on contraception today shows strong support for the position that contraception is not only permissible but even mandatory in many cases.

Catholic theologians overwhelmingly support contraception. Dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities cover prescribed contraceptives. Ninety-eight percent of Catholic women have used contraceptives. Only 2 percent of Catholic women use the “rhythm method” of birth control favored by conservative Catholics.

Therefore the decision of the Obama administration, rather than threatening Catholic teaching on contraception, is actually more attuned to actual Catholic teaching than are the American Catholic bishops with their idiosyncratic taboo on contraception.

Daniel C. Maguire is a Professor of Moral Theology at Marquette University, a Catholic, Jesuit institution in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is author of A Moral Creed for All Christians.

Contraception and Religious Liberty Fails

But the Advocate,^* the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. - John 14:26

Archbishop Timothy Dolan

Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan of New York said Feb. 13 that President Barack Obama's proposed revision to the contraceptive mandate in the health reform law did nothing to change the U.S. bishops' opposition to what they regard as an unconstitutional infringement on religious liberty.

Let me begin with the following letter sent to the New York Times, on February 6th.  from one of my favourite Catholic teachers about the above mentioned contraceptive mandate: 

To the Editor:

Traditional Catholic teaching rests on a tripod, including the hierarchy, the theologians and the sensus fidelium, the experience-fed wisdom of the laity. These three sources of teaching are, as Cardinal Avery Dulles said, “complementary and mutually corrective.” An accurate look at Catholic teaching on contraception today shows strong support for the position that contraception is not only permissible but even mandatory in many cases.

The American bishops are at odds with other bishops in the Catholic world, with the vast majority of Catholic theologians and with 98 percent of the Catholic laity who have used contraceptives. They are even at odds with Pope Benedict XVI, who has approved the use of condoms “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.” That concession logically ended the taboo on condoms since it said health care concerns can require the use of condoms.

The bishops’ claim that their religious freedom is threatened is bogus. The threat is to the religious freedom of their employees and to the conscientious freedom of the diverse public they serve in their tax-supported institutions.

DANIEL C. MAGUIRE

The writer is a professor of theology at Marquette University.

The question of religious liberty, regarding individual conscience versus obedience to the Church was one of the hotest contested issues fought during Vatican II between liberals and conservatives. In the end it resulted in the now familiar constitution which reads:

“Deep within their consciences men and women discover a law that they have not laid upon themselves but which they must obey. Its voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and to avoid what is evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that. For they have in their hearts a law inscribed by God. Their dignity lies in observing this law, and by it they will be judged . . . By conscience that law is made known in a wonderful that is fulfilled in love for God and for one's neighbour. Through loyalty to conscience Christians are joined to others in the search for truth and for the right solution to so many moral problems that arise both in the lives of individuals and in social relationships.” - Pastoral Constitution on the Modern World

This freedom is further guaranteed and supported by the declaration On Religious Liberty which reads:

“The dignity of the human person is a concern of which people of our time are becoming increasingly more aware. In growing numbers people demand that they should enjoy the use of their own responsi­ble judgment and freedom and decide on their actions on grounds of duty and conscience, without external pressure or coercion. They also urge that bounds be set to government by law, so that the limits of reasonable freedom should not be too tightly drawn for persons or for social groups. This demand in human society for freedom is chiefly concerned with the values of the human spirit, above all with the free and public practice of religion”.

Finally one of my favourite Catholic teachers,Professor Daniel C. Maguire, posted this totally surprising commentary:

Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, in his younger and saner period, offered the following commentary on the Second Vatican Council: "Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against therequirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism". (Herbert Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II. Vol. 5, 1976.) What the cardinal, some day to be pope, was saying is that bishops and popes who try to usurp the sacred prerogatives of conscience are totalitarian and need lessons humble of heart." This reflects the wisdom of Cardinal John Henry Newman when he famously said he would toast the pope, only after toasting his own conscience. Only in cults are religious leaders taken to be a substitute for conscience.

Catholics have begun to realize their individual role and responsibility to dialogue (not monologue) directly with our Creator. This applies to all of the challenges and trials we face each day. Including abortion, contraception, homosexuality, etc., etc., By listening to God with our hearts Catholics are not disobeying the Church but rather following the advice, inspired by the Holy Spirit, through the hearts of the fathers of Vatican II.

Religious Freedom remains a thorn in the side of the most conservative and fearfilled element in our Church led by the present Pope. Imagine the loss of power and prestige is that is now at stake? The Holy Spirit’s desire to guide and teach the People of God has been ignored for too long.

Reference:

I John 2:27

1 Corinthians 2:10-12

2 Corinthians 3:5-6

Ephesians 1:17-18

John 16:13

Matthew 7:7-8a

Same-sex attraction

Canada’s Catholic bishops have published an uncompromising pastoral letter on ministry to young people with same-sex attraction that upholds Church teaching on sexuality yet purports by some to show sensitivity to their challenges. The eight-page booklet prepared by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (CCCB) doctrinal commission and released June 27 comes at a time when publicly funded Catholic schools in Ontario are under pressure from the provincial government’s equity policy.

After reading the Pastoral Letter I felt compelled to write our Bishops as follows:  

I have read the Canadian Bishops Pastoral letter regarding young people with same-sex attraction.  While it may accurately reflect current Church teaching it actually perpetuates the plight of the homosexual.  At the same time it does not offer any insight behind the Church`s position on the subject.  Allow me to preface my concerns and questions against the following true story:  

  

Several years ago, while my wife and I were still actively involved in a Catholic prayer group, we were confronted by the story of a tragic death involving the son of one of our oldest members. Emotionally torn and upset, Fred (not his real name) shared how this death had deeply affected him on several conflicting levels. Tearfully our eighty plus year old friend and father, revealed how his son’s grief had shown him for the first time how much his son had loved his partner who had now suddenly passed away. Wiping away his tears, Fred admitted to us how guilt and church teachings had taught him that love between two members of the same-sex was wrong. He even expressed how these negative feelings had strained the relationship between him and his son for many years. Perhaps, it was his fault that he had raised a child with homosexual tendencies. Or, maybe God was punishing him for his past sins. He had led quite a rugged life, indifferent to others, and so on. But his son’s grief was so real, so honest and so revealing of a relationship that consisted of a love between two caring and giving individuals. For the first time Fred was able to equate the recent loss of his wife with the loss experienced by his son.  

I don`t think of myself as a modern activist or whatever that label is supposed to mean.  But as a disappointed and disenfranchised Catholic convert (1986) I do feel the need to ask questions about matters of faith, and particularly as it affects the homosexual.  Faith for me is a dynamic which requires a deep and often a challenging sense of justice and compassion. As Christians we need to question our beliefs and not arbitrarily accept what is presented to us.  Questions are more important than answers if we are to grow in faith and remain open to change and miracles.  The belief that we or the Church possess all the answers is the only true heresy!  

The Pastoral letter opens with the honest admission that the Church does not really know the psychological causes behind Same-sex Attraction but then, on the next seven pages its author(s) feel perfectly justified to condemn any sexual activity between homosexual persons by insisting that they accept a life of forced celibacy. Is that not somewhat arrogant? To quote noted Catholic social ethicist Daniel C. Maguire “Voluntary celibacy for a good cause is something some can do, but it was seen as a special talent, a special gift that not all have. The Vatican Council called it “a precious gift of divine grace which the Father gives to some persons,” but not to all. Abstaining from all sexual activity is seen by the council as something “unique.” You cannot demand from all homosexual people that which is “unique”. St. Paul recognizes the same thing when he says, “It is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor. 7:9). What kind of Gospel “good news’ would it be to tell all gay persons that their only choice is to “burn, baby, burn”? The view that homosexual people are condemned involuntary celibacy for life is as cruel as it is absurd.”

The claim that the Church’s position on homosexuality is based on scripture and Tradition must also be challenged.  The popular post Vatican II Catholic A New Catechism (1969) states that “the very sharp strictures of Scripture on homosexual practises  (Gen. 19; Rom. 1) must be read in their context. Their aim is not to pillory the fact that some people experience this perversion in culpably.  They denounce a homosexuality which had become the prevalent fashion and had spread to many who were really quite capable of normal sexual sentiments.”  As for Tradition, the Catholic Church has a much longer Tradition honouring same-sex attraction.  Saints Serge and Bacchus, a same-sex couple whose marriage is preserved in a seventh-century icon shows Jesus as the official witness, or best man at their wedding.   

It seems to me that our bishops completely failed to understand homosexuality in the context of the critical distinction between Love and a Sexual Perversion. One must admit that heterosexuals and homosexuals are equally capable of both. If not are the sins of a homosexual somehow greater than that of a heterosexual? So, why this narrow focus by insisting that genital sex between loving homosexual couples are considered ‘acts of grave depravity? Is it simply because homosexuals cannot procreate? Or is it something more sinister in the minds of some? Remember, celibate members of the clergy must not procreate either. Perhaps, this report is intended to support the tortured and unchanging position by the Church, on human sexuality as promoted by St. Augustine or similar views expressed by some conservative Catholics. 
 

Note (added July 1): Perhaps it was this Augustinian mindset that  brought the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under  Cardinal Ratzinger to issue a document on  Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons'(1986)  which demanded that pastoral care for  homosexuals could  no longer  be tolerated and that Church facilities could not be made available for them because it contradicts Church teachings. A subsequent Notification in 1999 silenced and removed Sr. Jeannine Gramick and Fr. Robert Nugent from their care towards the gay and lesbian community.

Award winning religion journalist David Gibson, writes the following about a by-chance encounter between Pope Benedict XVI and  Sr. Jeannine Gramick in his biography ‘The Rule of Benedict’ (2006).

“The issue of homosexuality has always been of great interest to Benedict, who wrote far more about the topic while at the CDF than any other churchman ever had. Characteristically, however, Ratzinger also seems to have formed his judgments with little, if any, real-life interaction with homosexual ,men and  women to inform his views. In a telling exchange,  Sr. Jeannine Gramick, the American nun whom Ratzinger would eventually banish from her ministry to gays and lesbians, ran into Ratzinger by chance on an airplane¹ ride from Rome to Bavaria in July 1998. (The cardinal was going to see his brother; the nun was going to pray for aid at the Munich shrine of her order's foundress.)  Gramick struck up a pleasant conversation with Ratzinger, at first not recognizing him and believing him to be a simple priest. When he revealed his identity, they began talking about the issues on which Ratzinger was investigating her. When Gramick asked whether the cardinal had ever met any gay people, Ratzinger replied: "Yes, in Berlin. They were demonstrating against the pope." That Ratzinger's only interaction with homosexuals was at such a remove and under such circumstances does not inspire confidence in his conclusions, nor does it square with the reality that there are many gay priests and bishops, not only in the worldwide church, but most certainly in the Roman Curia itself. That this would be unknown to Ratzinger is either remarkably ingenuous, willfully blind, or simply evidence of the don't ask, don't tell policy that permeates much of clerical life, and in fact can foster sexual dysfunctions of all kinds.”

After finishing the pastoral letter I was left with the following additional questions- Is the supposed sin of a homosexual greater than that of a heterosexual? If not please cease this obsessive persecution immediately. The Church`s present position on homosexuality continues to hurt families and individuals who must bear this burden.  It merely promotes the ongoing hatred for those whose life style is different from ours.    The self effacing emphasis on loving the sinner but not the sin does very little for the victim.

If the Church sincerely believes that the sexual act of a loving homosexual couple is a sin, then how does it differ from a similar sexual act performed by loving heterosexual couples?  Exactly what aspect of the sexual act, when performed by a committed couple in a loving setting, is considered a sin?

Finally, to borrow a phrase from the text of this pastoral letter I believe that in the eyes of God every human person is a unique and irreplaceable gift – however there are many in our Church who do not share that sentiment when it comes to homosexuals.  This negative view is even promoted in the pastoral letter when it is suggested that homosexuals do not fulfill God`s will in their lives.  Agreed, procreation is essential for the continuation of our species but not all heterosexuals can or are able to participate in this part of God`s plan.  Why then punish homosexuals for failing in this regard?  In my search for answers I have learned that homosexuals were held in high regard by some of our native tribes for their artistic abilities.  Why can we not celebrate the gifts homosexuals bring to society instead? 

People are not naturally cruel.  They become cruel when they are unhappy- or when they succumb to an ideology. If religious people had always followed the instinct of their heart rather than the logic of their religion we would have been spared the sight of heretics burning at stakes, widows walking into funeral pyres, and millions of innocent people slaughtered in wars that are waged in the name of God.  Compassion has no ideology.  - Anthony de Mello, 'The Song of the Bird'