A Bishop speaks out!

After all the political manoeuvring by the Vatican dealing with the sexual abuse crisis one lone Archbishop in Ireland has finally and courageously spoken out.  The U.K. based Catholic weekly ‘The Tablet’ filed  this surprising report on their website  dated February 10^th, 2011:

Dublin archbishop says Ireland not ready to welcome Pope Benedict

10 February 2012

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin

The archbishop of Dublin has made the startling admission that the Catholic Church in Britain is now stronger than that of Ireland and has cautioned against Pope Benedict XVI visiting the country.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the Church in Ireland was still recovering from the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

He hinted that were the Pope to visit during the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in June he would face hostility because the anger over abuse was "much more raw" than in Britain.

"Catholicism in Britain is a minority religion and in some ways it is stronger," he told RTE, adding that while there had been opposition to the Pope's visit to Britain in 2010 it had gone "extraordinary well."

Finally, we have a member of the Catholic clergy saying in effect, stop the charade of parading innocent victims of child abuse by broken priests in front of the Pope, or ‘staging’ public forgiveness programs when the hierarchy is still unable to forgive itself by not addressing the systemic and endemic culture that produced the problem in the first place.

The Vatican’s inability to deal with sexual issues other than to suppress them is indicative of an institution that no longer able to recognize God’s wondrous gift of our sexuality.  Recently an unnamed medical physician articulated this ongoing problem this way: 

The sexual issue is the chief manner by which the Institutional RCC attempts to control people with fear and self loathing. For a church that claims to understand a natural law, the Institutional "understanding" of sex is extremely distorted. Mind and body are part of a whole humanity one that uses eroticism as creative not as sinful.

The church attempts to define what is very natural the bodily function of human sexuality as something that can be perfected by advocating the mind over body in a perfect union with what they define as Godly. This division of mind and body via perfection vs human natural emotion and need is truly against nature.

What it does is to pervert the psychological mind set of any who attempt to practice celibacy for it attempts to remove eroticism of all kinds from the minds and hearts of these men. What we see instead of creativity in this mindset is perversion. We see the perverted eroticism at work in a Cardinal Ratzinger who censures the thoughts of nearly all the great theologians of our time.

Think of all the creative growth the church would have today had so many of these wonderful ideas had the chance to grow and develop inside of an Institutional church. Instead this creativity was stunted stopped in its tracks inside the institution. Ratzinger turned his own eroticism into a perverted perfectionism that is impossible of not only one finite person but an Institution of finite beings. The perfection of spirit required by a life time of celibacy has in of itself been shown to be impossible by the figures about celibacy derived by Richard Sipe (a married former Benedictine monk and Psychological therapist to priests) showing that around 90% of all celibates break their vows when their own definition of masturbation is included in this vow. I believe this figure is not 90% but 99,999 % plus. In other words the perfectionism required of their own clerical membership is impossible. Surprise, surprise perfectionism in a finite human is impossible!

The worst part about this idealization of human lack of sexuality, asexuality, is that it stunts the creativity of ALL who attempt to practice it because it introduces as a mortal sin the lack of perfection in man. Wow no wonder the only answer these men can come up with in the sexual scandal is that all humanity is indeed sinful and we must pray. This type of prayer has NOTHING to do with human spirituality but only is an exercise in officially sanctioned perversion of spirit that fails to lead humans to creativity and growth and development.

For those who are interested in this way of thinking, I highly recommend the book "The Unhealed Wound" written by Eugene Kennedy. Dr. Kennedy is a former Jesuit* who left to marry. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Loyola university and is a syndicated columnist. He lives with his psychiatrist wife in Chicago.

* see correction in commentary below  

Is it not time for real dialogue with the People of God?   Is it not time for the Catholic hierarchy to stop hiding behind the crumbling edifices in the Vatican?  

Traditional Marriage under attack

The National Catholic Register (US) posted the following headline April 15/2011: 'Marriage 101:  Societal decline of traditional marriage and rise of cohabitation and 'hooking up' affect students’ values, according to Catholic experts.'

This summary was based on a presentation by associate professor W. Bradford Wilcox during a recent symposium at the Catholic University of America. According to Prof. Wilcox ‘the decline of traditional marriage in America continues to affect students’ education and the welfare of the Catholic Church’.  Wilcox and other experts maintain that traditional marriage is on the decline due to:

· The nation’s retreat on marriage

· cohabitation is on the increase

· universities need to do a better job of preparing students for marriage

· Students from unmarried families are prone to more drinking and “hooking up,” or engaging in casual sex

· The creation of the birth control pill

· The government has set up programs encouraging sexual abstinence but still hands out birth control

· the decline in traditional families is affecting the future of the Catholic Church

· unmarried families with children rarely attend church

What should be immediately evident from these expert opinions is that the problem(s) seem to be something or someone else's fault. This begs the question: 'Should this symposium not have redirected its focus on learning to take individual responsibilities instead?'

Accordingly, should we not be teaching our children, students, etc. the importance of being responsible for our own individual actions?  Surely we cannot blame ‘others’ for our own mistakes.  Each of the issues presented above merely provide an excuse for following the crowd.  At the same time it is highly unlikely that these influences are likely to change. What really needs and can be changed are our individual choices and decisions.   So, here follow some recommendation for the church today.  Teach people that they too are connected directly to the Creator and that their salvation is not dependent on the church.  The church too must accept that God dwells within each individual, regardless of our understanding of the faith.  The church can no longer afford to dictate to the people how they must live out their life and spirituality.  It is the hierarchy in the church that must also change if it hopes to survive - although that may already be too late. The current church teaching on human sexuality is hopelessly outdated since it is almost entirely based on the 4^th. century understanding of St. Augustine who himself struggled with sexuality throughout his entire life.  In its own struggle to deal with the growing sexual scandal the church has revealed its own battle with its understanding on the subject.

If the purpose of the symposium was simply a call to return to the traditional form of marriage as defined by the church the decline will most certainly continue for the reasons I have already stated.  

Rather than complain about failures of society let us pass on the importance of learning to accept personal responsibility for our actions and toward others through the unconditional love of God.  The following scriptural passages may be of help: 

 

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. ... Deuteronomy 28:1-68 ESV

For each will have to bear his own load. Galatians 6:5 ESV

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 1 Corinthians 13:11 ESV

The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. Ezekiel 18:20 ESV

Chastity

Recently, (January 25, 2011) The Commission for Doctrine of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) released a pastoral letter to young people on chastity. In this pastoral letter, the Commission recommends that young people surround themselves with friends who also want to live in a chaste manner. It is also pointing to the importance of prayer, the practice of confession, and receiving spiritual guidance. While the document stresses several spiritual ideals such as living a life of chastity it falls significantly short of inviting our youth to enter into any kind of honest dialogue about sexuality and chastity.

Choosing to remain anonymous the Bishops delegated distribution of the pastoral letter through Salt + Light Television using a video production now available on Youtube. Unfortunately this video presentation  lacks the much needed direct and honest language about such things as masturbation and other sexual activities prevalent among teenagers today (as it was during my own time). Instead the producers of Salt + Light decided to reproduce the same churchy language and style, featuring youthfull card reading actors carefully following the same stilted style used by our bishops.

This approach will no doubt leave many youth to turn elsewhere thus losing the benefit of  any embedded  wisdom offered by  our Bishops.  At the same time many parents will be left wondering why our Bishops failed to offer advice on chastity using a more direct tack.  For example:  

   

Why did our Bishops choose to release their views on such a sensitive topic during a time when trust and credibility about sexuality have never been more polarized? Perhaps it was linked to the recent controversy stirred by Pope Benedict XVI concerning the use of contraceptives. This Pastoral Letter in its usual top down style lacks the much needed dialogue (not monologue) and intimacy required to discuss such matters of interest to our young. As a parent I wonder about the impact these pastoral instructions will have especially considering the following:

• Why should young people respect the Catholic view on sexuality when the Church itself, to quote Richard Sipe, continues to struggle with its own inadequate understanding of sexuality.

• Why should young people listen to a group of celibate men speaking about chastity, who appear to have denied their own sexual identity?

• How can young people give credibility to an organization that is deeply involved with unresolved issues of sexual abuse?

• How can young people discuss the beautiful but erotic passages from the Book of Song of Songs with members of the clergy who have never experienced sexuality with members of the opposite sex?

• Why should our youth accept advice from the Church about sexual matters which is still based on the troubled and tormented sexual experience of St. Augustine?

• Why did the Bishops not consult experienced and professional experts on sexuality from both sexes of the laity?

• Why should young people take this effort seriously, in the absence of real dialogue with the authors so that both parties may grow and learn about God’s gift of sexuality ?

Christians and Sexuality

“The marital act promotes self-giving by which spouses enrich each other” Gaudium et Spes (Second Vatican Council)

The online edition of the National Catholic Reporter filed the following story ‘US BISHOPS REBUKE CREIGHTON THEOLOGIANS’ by John Allen Jr. September 24th.

“Two theologians at Creighton University, a Jesuit-run school in Omaha, Neb., have been sharply rebuked by the Committee on Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for defending the moral legitimacy of homosexuality, contraception, premarital sex, and other hot-button issues in sexual ethics.
The theologians, Michael Lawler and Todd Salzman, had been previously censured in 2007 by Omaha’s then-archbishop, Elden Curtiss, for articles that, according to Curtiss, expressed “serious error ... [that] cannot be considered authentic Catholic teaching.” The Sept. 15 statement from the doctrine committee reaches the same conclusion about a 2008 book by Lawler and Salzman titled The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology.
“The book proposes ways of living a Christian life that do not accord with the teaching of the church and the Christian tradition,” the statement says.
Salzman is the chair of Creighton’s theology department, while Lawler is now an emeritus professor.
In the Catholic theological guild, their work has often drawn sympathetic reviews. In a 2009 essay for the National Catholic Reporter, Julie Hanlon Rubio of the Jesuits’ St. Louis University said that The Sexual Person is “among the most important works in Catholic sexual ethics to emerge in the last two decades,” and that the authors “stand firmly within the Catholic tradition even as they argue for significant change.”
The Sexual Person also earned first-place honors in the books in theology category from the Catholic Press Association”.

That story immediately prompted several responses supporting the Bishops from several angry readers. Since our celibate bishops see so much evil in human sexuality, the following ‘tongue in cheek’ response might be in order.

And so, on the sixth day God created human beings, making them to be like himself . . . and he looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. . . . except for one little thing. God accidentally created a human being with an imperfect soul and body that is capable of being sexually aroused, sexually motivated, sexually attracted to another human being, etc., etc., For heaven’s sake why did God put such a terrible temptation into humankind? Sex must be from the Devil! The Devil, not God, must have put these features in humans so we would be constantly tempted. What a clever devise to distract humans from becoming holy? No sex for me tonight I’m just going to mentally masturbate my soul. Well, maybe. Just one more time back into the body just for pro-creation . . . just ignore any pleasure it brings to you and your loving spouse. If you want to be a real honest to goodness celibate Christian – just like any other bad habits like smoking - give it up! Just learn to do without it! But if it continues to distract you . . . take cold showers, invest in haircloth clothing, or practise some honest to goodness mortification of the flesh, just like those holy people from Opus Dei and apparently even Pope John Paul II. Such diligent efforts are bound to please God and frustrate the Devil. You may not have learned this in Sunday school but God wants us suffer from our sexual temptations. But if you are still secretly enjoying ‘it’ – you’d better confess ASAP. It’s a sin - Augustine said so, and the Church made him a Saint for it.

Listening to the Voice

Watching kindergarten children play together will quickly remind anyone why Jesus said that children are already in God's kingdom (Mark 10:13-16). We know that such innocence can be quickly and abruptly interrupted when a parent yanks their child out of the sandbox by telling them that they should not be playing with a child of a different colour or religion, or a child raised by gay parents, etc.

In a community the size of Toronto an anxious mother is awaiting the results of an operation performed by a highly skilled surgeon on her critically ill three year old daughter. Finally, the doctor comes into the waiting room with the news that the operation was a complete success. Tearfully thankful the mother embraces the doctor and thanks him for his wonderful work. Did the mother know that the Doctor was gay? Does she care? Would she have refused to have him operate on her daughter had she known about his disposition in advance? Not on your life – he, gay or otherwise saved her only daughter's life!

In that same community a father delivers his anxious son into the hands of a caring teacher. This is the first day at school for the child. The father wants nothing more than to see his anxious child grow into a healthy happy student. For the next few years his son will be tutored almost exclusively by female teachers. Does the father care that women will be the primary force in his son's education? When his son graduates from University will he remember the positive role women played in his son's education?

In that same community parents are peacefully gathered together in a local church to thank God for his blessings. Suddenly they are literally yanked out of their pews when the minister announces that starting next month he is leaving and could be replaced by a female minister, or an openly gay bishop. The entire community is divided in their opinion as to what should happen. All of them at one time happily shared their toys in a sandbox. All of them were brought up in a community were gender and persuasion did not come into play when it was to their advantage. Why do our divisive attitudes become a focal point when we come together in a religious setting? Isn't religion supposed to bind us together rather than apart? When did we first forget to read the bible as God's call to a unifying love?

What voice did we listen to when we first yanked our child out of the sandbox?

This short fictitious story was written in response to the article 'Facing Lutheranism's Crisis of Authority' which was posted on line http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/septemberweb-only/46-31.0.html?start=1

by David Neff, September 9, 2010. The article carried the following introduction:

Seven theologians call North American Lutheranism back to the Word and the Lutheran confessions.

When the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America passed its social statement on sexuality

last summer, approving of gay unions and gay clergy, it made no effort appeal to Scripture at all. This frustrated and angered conservative Lutherans, who would have disagreed with the statement's teaching even if the document had appealed to scriptural authority. But to ignore Scripture entirely? How un-Lutheran. In late August, I joined more than 800 conservative Lutherans in Columbus, Ohio, for Lutheran CORE's free theological conference. We listened to seven theologians (augmented by theologically oriented preachers and a banquet speaker) focus on the crisis in authority in their church.

Readers of this blog are urged to read the well balanced 'statement on sexuality' which reflects perhaps the most honest opinions and ideas on the subject I have read to-date. Furthermore it represents a consensus that reaches across both extremes on this most delicate subject. The results are indicative of what can be achieved through proper and sincere dialogue instead of monologue and most importantly encouraging the participants to listen to the Voice.

The Sex Crisis in the Church

I believe it is time for all Catholics to awaken from the shame and guilt they have been bombarded with in recent times. Much of the Church sponsored controversy seems to be focused on human sexuality. Stories about sexual abuse are now part of the daily diet, while abortion, homosexuality, and same sex marriage threaten tear apart the very fabric of the Church. The magnitude of this crisis is so great that our bishops, priests, etc., are unable to cohesively respond to the spiritual needs of those they are called to serve. Thanks to the following wisdom and insight from Prof. Daniel C. Maguire Catholicism may yet recover from its present darkness and enter into a new light.

Hierarchy, Sex and Power —
a primer on educating bishops



By Daniel C. Maguire



Here is the surprising news. The Catholic bishops are not all that interested in sex. As far as I have been able to discover, bishops do not walk around all day lasciviously savoring sexual images. Some of them may do that, and perhaps it would be better if more of them did that, as long as they found nonviolent ways of expressing their obsession. They might then have less time to investigate nuns and harass politicians and pretend in the press that they are theologians although most could not pass a graduate (undergraduate?) exam in theology.


I will grant that the bishops do talk a lot about sexual matters but mainly to say how awful it all is. They have a plausible claim to being the leaders in the "Just Say No To Sex Movement." They say no to stem cell research, no to contraception, no to abortions, no to same-sex marriage. They even say no to masturbation, a topic that does not much concern the rest of the Christian Right. That is carrying the no-to-sex thing a bit too far. Masturbation, after all, has a claim to innocence. No one gets pregnant; no one gets a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and someone has a wonderful time. You would think they would have spared that one. But no. Our bishops are nothing but thorough in their war against sex.

What then is the agenda of these bishops in their crusade against sexual joy? Here I turn to Thomas Aquinas for help. Poor Thomas had a lot of trouble with bishops who were always condemning him—I know the feeling—and I'm sure he would be happy to help us. Thomas said that every negation is based on an affirmation. Stretching that a bit, if people are obsessed with denouncing something they are usually up to something else. What the bishops are up to is power. The bishops want power. They want control. They want to influence political elections, and do so from "tax exempt" properties. The bishops want to exercise thought control in universities and the press; they want to control all Catholic pulpits lest prophetic freedom find a home there. And they want to control the sexual and reproductive lives of people, Catholic or not. All of that is a tad arrogant.


EDUCATING BISHOPS


Here is the good news. The bishops have a problem, but there is a cure. Education. It won't be easy. Students who think they are divinely inspired are a challenge to any teacher. Still, it is worth trying and here's why. For better or for worse, bishops have more clout in society than most other religious leaders. When they use it well, it is lovely. When Congress was moving toward a particularly vicious piece of anti-immigrant legislation, Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles spoke out against it saying he would tell his priests to disobey that law if it passed. Congress blinked and returned to its inhospitable ruminations.There is a reason for that social power. Compare the arrival of a bishop to a Catholic diocese with the arrival of a new Presbyterian church leader. I love Presbyterians but their inauguration liturgies are just plain dull. When a bishop comes to take over a diocese the event is operatic. He arrives dressed in medieval garb with a gilded crown and a large glistening staff in hand. The doors of the cathedral are barred to him. He knocks and knocks again and then with the blare of trumpets the doors open, he is received into the church, and the medieval pageantry unfolds. Presbyterians, eat your heart out.


People notice things like that. Theater speaks with a booming voice where feeble texts and iconoclastic ceremonies wither into boredom. We are liturgical animals and Catholicism is liturgically rich. Hence
my controversial conclusion: bishops are worth educating.

Since bishops like to listen to bishops, we can work with that. It will seem less presumptuous. We don't want to be presumptuous; we want to be nice and we want to help them. The old canon law spoke the obvious when it said that "the bishops, whether teaching individually or gathered in particular councils, are not endowed with infallibility" (Canon 1326,cic 1917). It's good to know that. The Second Vatican Council echoed that wisdom. There the bishops spoke (at times) with a noble humility. In The Church in the Modern World they write: "Let the laity not imagine that pastors are always such experts, that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission." That is a refreshingly beautiful statement.


Moral matters are complicated. As Thomas Aquinas said moral matters involve "an infinity of diverse circumstances" (quasi infinitae diversitates). Take abortion, for example. Now there is a complicated issue full of "diverse circumstances" and it is wise as the bishops say not to imagine that bishops are experts on all such matters or "even that it is their mission." Playing at being infallible is not in the bishops' job description.


Just take these cases from real, complicated life, and see how wise it would be not to pretend to be infallible.


Case 1: A woman is happily pregnant, two months pregnant. She is diagnosed with cancer requiring immediate chemotherapy treatment which also attacks the fetus. She aborts.


Case 2: In spite of her best contraceptive efforts a woman gets pregnant. She has a heart condition which would put her at high risk of dying if she stayed pregnant. She aborts.


Case 3: A young woman is bi-polar, manic depressive and her psychotic condition pregnant in spite of her best efforts. Lithium would devastate the cardiovascular system of the fetus and probably already has. She aborts.


Case 4: A nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl is raped and impregnated. She cannot bear a child at her age without disastrous effects on her body as well as on her mind. An abortion is arranged.


Case 5: A case was once brought to the attention of Fr. Bernard Haring, the distinguished Redemptorist moral theologian. After removing a tumor from the uterus of a pregnant woman, a surgeon in Germany could not stop the bleeding. He removed the non-viable fetus so that the uterus would contract. It did and the woman survived and a Catholic surgeon had performed a direct abortion. A priest told the surgeon he had acted wrongly. The surgeon appealed to Fr. Haring. Fr. Haring disagreed, saying the surgeon acted morally and properly. He had saved as much life as was possible. Fr. Haring asked: by what thinking could the fetus have such a right to life that it could kill both itself and the woman by exercising it? Such rights, he said, do not exist.


Case 6. Alicja Tysiac, in 2000, was advised that her pregnancy, if carried to term, would cause blindness. She was forbidden to abort and lost nearly all her eyesight. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in her favor saying she should have been allowed to abort.


Case 7: In 2005, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that Peru violated the rights of a 17-year-old girl who was forced to carry to term an anencephalitic fetus, missing most of its forebrain and unable to survive outside the womb. The International Covenant on Civil and Political rights ordered Peru to pay reparations and establish a framework for women to access therapeutic abortions.


Case 8: In 2006 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights made Mexico pay a 13-year-old rape victim who was forced to give birth $40,000, plus a stipend for her son's education. Few ethicists in any of the world's religions would argue that abortion is immoral in those cases. Recognizing complexity is the beginning of wisdom on abortion or any other moral issue.


SHOULD WE SILENCE THE BISHOPS?


Of course not. They have freedom of speech and like all of us they have an obligation to use it well and to display an appropriate modesty when addressing truly complicated moral issues on which good and wise people can and do disagree. Where do we go for an example of that?


Back to the bishops.

In November of 1966, the American bishops spoke out on the morality of the American war in Vietnam. They spoke with modesty and sincerity, which is good, since they were dead wrong. Still, their manner of teaching was exemplary and could provide them now with a paradigm for addressing other complicated issues. Here is the admirable way they began:


We realize that citizens of all faiths and of differing political loyalties honestly differ among themselves over the moral issues involved in this tragic conflict. While we do not claim to be able to resolve these issues authoritatively, in the light of the facts as they are known to us, it is reasonable to argue….


What a marvelous way to teach. What a model that offers today's bishops when they move into those pelvic zone issues that so consume them. Using their own example, here is how bishops should teach on same-sex marriages.


We realize that citizens of all faiths and of differing political loyalties honestly differ among themselves over the moral issues involved in same-sex marriages. While we do not claim to be able to resolve those issues authoritatively, in the light of the facts as they are known to us, it is reasonable to argue….


Who could object to that, even if we judge them wrong, as they were in defending the Vietnam War?


We don't want the bishops to be accused of a double standard: total rigor and absoluteness on sexual and reproductive matters, modesty on little things like state-sponsored slaughter, that is, war. That's not what we want from the bishops. That would make them look silly and lopsided in their moral judgment, and we don't want that. We don't want them squandering their moral authority on issues where they have no privileged expertise. That hamstrings any good they might do in advocating prophetically on basic issues of justice and peace.


IN PRAISE OF CARDINAL RATZINGER
Keeping to our theme of "bishops educating bishops," I turn next to the words of Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, in his younger and saner period. In his commentary on the Second Vatican Council, he said: 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.


My next cardinal in this primer for educating bishops is Cardinal Avery Dulles, of somewhat happy memory. Though theologian Dulles, like theologian Ratzinger, did not age well he spoke with brilliance in his presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America. He was addressing the question of hierarchical authority over conscience and the proper response to hierarchical teaching. He said that the Second Vatican Council "implicitly taught the legitimacy and even the value of dissent." The Council, Dulles said, conceded "that the ordinary magisterium of the Roman Pontiff had fallen into error, and had unjustly harmed the careers of loyal and able theologians."


He mentioned John Courtney Murray, Teilhard de Chardin, Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar. Dulles said that certain teachings of the hierarchy "seem to evade in a calculated way the findings of modern scholarship. They are drawn up without broad consultation with the theological community. Instead, a few carefully selected theologians are asked to defend a pre-established position....


" He concludes: "We shall insist on the right, where we think it important for the good of the Church, to urge positionsat variance with those that are presently official." Office holders who are being harassed by conservative bishops, the likes of Burke, Tobin and Morlino, take heart and stand your ground. You can disagree with these fellows; and when they are wrong, it is a good idea to do so.


On another occasion, speaking at the Catholic University of America, Dulles wondered whether Thomas Aquinas "if he were alive today…would be welcome at the Catholic University of America." Dulles did not limit the term "magisterium" to the bishops and popes and he insisted that the "magisterium of the professors" relies "not on formal authority but rather on the force of reason." He aligned himself with St. Thomas Aquinas' view that "with the growth of the great universities the bishops could no longer exercise direct control over the content of theological teaching." Their role, Dulles insisted, "was primarily pastoral, rather than academic."


To assume power you do not have is the very definition of despotism. This is the kind of power the bishops use when they plow into debatable issues of morality and politics and use every weapon in their power to impose their control, including sacramental sanctions. And they don't do this consistently.


They assume the authority to say who should and who should not receive sacramental Communion. Sacramental sanctions are out of order. There may be, I concede, a certain attractiveness to the idea of denying Communion to those of another political hue, but even that would be wrong. An informed conscience is the only guide to the Communion rail. No bishop has a right to block the aisle. It is interesting in a pathetic sort of way that the bishops who use the sacrament as weapon do not use it on poverty mongers, war makers and earth wreckers, but only on those who support sexual and reproductive rights. It is here they try to marshal their power and impose their will. It is not for me but for their therapists to help them understand this preferential option for pelvic zone issues as the expression of episcopal power.


A PRAYERFUL TIMEOUT FOR BISHOPS


We should build prayer into our reeducation project for the bishops. Praying to saints is a very Catholic thing. The bishops may already do that but it seems they leave out some of the greatest saints in Christian history. My suggestion, humbly proffered, is this: The bishops should stop their lobbying in congressional offices and kneel for a moment to say a prayer to Saints Sergius and Bacchus, fourth-century male saints, whose marriage to one another is depicted in a seventh-century icon housed in the Kiev Museum of Eastern and Western Art. Jesus is in the picture as the pronubus, or "best man," the official witness of the same-sex union. For a long time in Christian early history, same-sex unions were liturgically performed as John Boswell pointed out in his book Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. Perhaps in the illumination that prayer to these two gay saints may provide, the bishops would realize that marriage is not an award for being heterosexual. It is a human good and an epic of interpersonal love and commitment.






While in a prayerful mood, the bishops should then pray to Saint Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, canonized in 1523, and the premier theologian of marriage in his day. Regarding abortion, this saintly bishop was prochoice for early abortions when necessary to save the woman's life, a large category involving many abortions in the medical conditions of that day. A prayer to this saintly prochoice fellow bishop could help to illuminate the minds of theologically challenged bishops.














HEROIC BISHOPS


My plan to educate bishops would seem zany and hopeless were there not examples of bishops behaving wonderfully. The current bishop of Killaloe in Ireland spoke recently with Dublin journalists, including the BBC. Bishop Willie Walsh said he wanted to see "another Pope John xxiii." (That was hardly a compliment to the current papal incumbent.) Such a new pope, said Bishop Walsh, would open up discussion about critical issues in the church, particularly the exclusion of women from the priesthood as well as optional celibacy. Bishop Walsh also expressed sadness about the Catholic hierarchy's attitudes to homosexuality and its policy of refusing the Eucharist to couples who have remarried.He also challenged Vatican skittishness about Protestant Christians receiving the Eucharist, saying that he never suggested to Church of Ireland members that they were not welcome to receive the sacrament in his churches in the Diocese of Killaloe. Now that is an educated bishop. The United States has no comparably educated bishops but that could happen if our plan to educate them succeeds.






A few years ago, the bishop of Maputo, Mozambique, came to say Mass at one of his parishes. Afterwards he took questions from the congregation. The first question was, "What is the church's position on condom use?" The question, posed from an AIDS-ravaged continent related to the Vatican's weird and lethal teaching that condoms cannot be used even if one's partner is HIV positive. "God clearly tells us that we must protect life at all costs. Not to do so is a serious sin against God," the bishop replied. He continued, using the ABC rule: "What does this mean to you and to me? It means that A is for abstinence and looking around at all of you today, many of you cannot live by this advice. Let us be realistic; few if any of you can abstain. Which brings us to B, be faithful. Some of you are faithful…many of you are not. So that leaves us with C, condoms. Now many of you believe that condoms are a crime against God, that wasted semen is a sin, but I am here today to tell you otherwise. You see, if you are hiv positive and you have unprotected sex and infect someone, you have, in the eyes of God committed murder. Or if you are HIV negative and you have unprotected sex with someone who is infected, you have in the eyes of God, committed suicide." He concluded: "So, my children, wearing a condom is not a sin…not wearing one is." The congregation took this advice and ran with it. According to the witness of this liturgy, "Sunday church services will never be the same, as now, every Sunday, part of the celebration is the blessing of the condoms." Now there is a blessing you can believe in.






The South African Catholic bishop Kevin Dowling gives the same message and no thunderbolts from the Vatican have struck him. In 2005, 47 percent of pregnant women in his diocese tested positive for hiv. "The only solution we have at the moment is condoms," said Bishop Dowling.










In the final exam that we give to the bishops they must be able to distinguish between Catholic theology and Vatican theology. Catholic theology is broader, more ecumenical, more professional, more scholarly and better informed by real life experience than Vatican theology.


Once they learn that they will be better Catholics and they will be better prepared to use what power they have to bring "good news to the poor" and peace to this battered earth.



Daniel C. Maguire teaches Moral Theology and Ethics at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He is president of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health, and Ethics.

The Sexual Abuse Scandal & Theology

Experts tell us that the sexual abuse scandal within the church is both endemic and systemic. Interestingly, and certainly not surprisingly Catholic teaching on sexuality has a very strong basis or focus on sin. The development of Catholic moral theology, points especially to the legacy of Augustine and this saint's preoccupation with sin. Augustine who struggled with lust throughout his life has come under increasing criticism in recent times for his excessive sexual pessimism. Augustine, a favourite of Benedict XVI, linked sex so strictly with procreation that he held as sinful all sexual activity by married couples that was not consciously ordained to procreation. During the Middle Ages, as the sexual body became to be seen as evil, the self flagellation of body hatred became the highest form of devotion. To quote James Carroll "The sexual body now became an "occasion of sin" to be subdued". Among Augustine's many teachings such as 'original sin' he believed that people tend toward evil. This theology especially on sexuality continues to influence the Church's position on such matters as celibacy, contraception, abortion, masturbation, premarital sex, and homosexual relations.

When a church is so negatively inclined toward human sexuality, it cannot possibly be expected to find a solution internally to the sexual abuse crisis it now faces. A healthier approach to sexuality must be found. But first the church will have to shed it pessimistic views on sexuality it has held as sacrosanct for so long. And that will require a brand new theology – one that rejects what was pronounced by St. Augustine and begun with Vatican II. Perhaps we should all learn to re-read and absorb one of the greatest and sensuous chapters ever written about human sexuality – The Song of Songs. It would be interesting to learn how other religions view sexuality.

Which Cardinal or bishop is going to be the first to admit that the Church's theology on sexuality is at the root of the problem? Remember it only took the Church nearly four hundred years to admit Galileo was right.

The second hurdle to be overcome by the Church, in regards to the sexual abuse crisis, is its hierarchical leadership structure and the theological basis which supports it. This structure is clearly visible when members of the clergy view themselves as elevated above rather than totally integrated with the laity. Jesus taught equality not superiority. Jesus clearly denounced earthly kingdoms during his time in the dessert. The Church seems more interested in protecting a religious kingdom with a power that reaches beyond that of the people and nations it serves. The theology of 'apostolic succession' along with the claim that Jesus came to found a separate church not only denies Jesus' Jewish heritage but also his call to EVERYONE to bring about a worldwide community based on God's kingdom values. As long as the Church sees itself as special and separate from the world it cannot be expected to look inwardly. Hence the required changes will not take place. Which Cardinal and which Bishop is prepared to accept this challenge?

One of the most natural and valuable teaching tools we possess is learning by trial. We probably learn more from our mistakes then by any other means. But we will be bound by our mistakes if we never learn from our mistakes. That is why I wanted to examine how Catholic theology may have contributed to the Church's handling of the sexual abuse scandal.

Some other facts about St. Augustine

Augustine developed a theology of just war,

Augustine struggled with lust throughout his life.

As a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle
Augustine underwent a profound personal crisis, which led him to convert to Christianity, abandon his career in rhetoric, quit his teaching position in Milan,
eventualy gave up any ideas of marriage, and devote himself entirely to serving God and to the practices of priesthood, which included celibacy.
as a bishop he used to warn, that one should avoid mathematicians who combine science and horoscopes

He believed all people tend toward evil

students must be physically punished when they allow their evil desires to direct their actions

He also wrote "On Free Choice Of The Will," answering why God gives humans free will that can be used for evil.

Augustine's arguments against magic, differentiating it from miracle, were crucial in the early Church's fight against paganism and became a central thesis in the later denunciation of witches and witchcraft.
Augustine taught that Adam's guilt as transmitted to his descendants much enfeebles

Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted as properly literal, but rather as metaphorical, if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason

Augustine taught that Original sin of Adam and Eve was either an act of foolishness (insipientia) followed by pride and disobedience to God or the opposite: pride came first

The sin of Adam is inherited by all human beings

He often said that any can be saved if they wish. While God knows who will be saved and who will not,
he believed in papal supremacy
Augustine taught that the eternal fate of the soul is determined at death,and that purgatorial fires of the intermediate state purify only those that died in communion with the Church. His teaching provided fuel for later theology.

Augustine struggled with lust throughout his life. He had a mistress before he converted, but once he became a Christian, he condemned all forms of extra-marital sex (including his previous relationship with his mistress),

For Augustine, the evil was not in the sexual act itself, but rather in the emotions that typically accompany it.

Augustine's life experience led him to consider lust to be one of the most grievous sins, and a serious obstacle to the virtuous life

St Augustine "vigorously condemned the practice of induced abortion" as a crime, in any stage of pregnancy

At the risk of being too critical of St. Augustine - he did say many other wonderful and inspiring things.