Ditching the Crime, Keeping the Sin: Thoughts on the Pope’s Call to Decriminalize Homosexuality

I was heartened to see my friends Brian McNeill and Paula Ruddy quoted in an article in yesterday’s Star Tribune.

Entitled, “Pope’s Support Lifts LGBTQ Community,” this article highlighted the reactions of local reform-minded Catholics to Pope Francis’ recent statement that “homosexuality is not a crime.” The Pope went on to call on Catholic bishops in countries with anti-gay laws to stand against these “unjust” laws and to recognize all people’s dignity.

It seems praise-worthy enough, but let’s just be very clear here: the supreme overlord of a feudal monarchical system to whom the vast majority of his “subjects” (straight and gay) do not listen when he speaks on matters of sex and sexuality, is being roundly applauded for stating that while “homosexual activity” is still a “sin,” it should not be considered a “crime.”


Ditching the crime, keeping the sin

For reasons that I’ll go into shortly, I’m not particularly impressed with the Pope’s attempts to ditch the crime / keep the sin. Others, however, are impressed, and believe the Pope's words are going to make a real difference in the world. My friend Brian McNeill states in yesterday’s Star Tribune article that, “We here in the U.S. can advocate and lobby the church on improving their position on LGBTQ issues without any consequences. In 67 countries in the world, it’s illegal to be LGBTQ and in 11 countries, it merits the death penalty under certain circumstances.” Building on such an observation, James Martin, SJ contends that the Pope’s call to decriminalize homosexuality will save lives.

I have two thoughts about this. First, I question Brian’s assertion that advocating and lobbying the church to “improv[e] their position on LGBTQ issues” is without consequence in the United States. True, no one’s going to be jailed or executed for being gay, but a Catholic high school teacher, for instance, could not do the advocacy work that I did 10 years ago, and which Brian continues to do today, without fear of losing their job.

Second, to Fr. James Martin’s point, one has to ask: How many of the governments that criminalize homosexuality are open to being influenced by the Roman Catholic Church? I also find myself wondering how serious world governments actually take the church on matters of sexuality and justice given the scope, gravity and, yes, criminality of the church’s own clergy sex abuse scandal.

Regardless, Pope Francis urges bishops, other clergy members, and lay Catholics (the entire church, in other words) to actively work for the abolition of laws that criminalize homosexuality. This call is, without doubt, historic. So for that reason alone it is a step forward, and I can understand why many are praising and celebrating it.


Making the connections

Yet in the midst of this celebration, my heart compels me to ask: Why can’t we all get past needing to rely on the words of any type of overlord, including the benevolent Pope Francis, to recognize – and do – the right thing by ourselves and others when it comes to important issues relating to human experience, relating to our experience?

And let’s go even deeper. Regardless of the good and positive things Pope Francis may say about, well, anything, they all could be denounced and reversed by the next pope. That’s the problem with feudal monarchies like the Vatican; everything is dependent on the will of the overlord. Also, while it’s true that Pope Francis chooses not to emphasize troubling terms such as “intrinsically disordered” to describe the homosexual orientation, that language and understanding is still part of official church teaching on morality. It’s there ready to be emphasized and extolled by the next (and less pastorally-sensitive) overlord. Can you see the problem here?

So here’s what I’m waiting to celebrate: the abolition of Roman Catholicism’s clerical caste and the complete transformation of the papacy as we know it. (And, yes, there are non-overlord models of the papacy out there.*). Only with such radical transformation will we see the establishment in the church of a way of talking about sexual matters that is open to and shaped by all people’s experience of God in their sexual lives and relationships.

The Roman Catholic Church does not have such an inclusive and reality-based way of talking about sex and sexuality; it does not have, in other words, an actual sexual theology, i.e., a way of talking about God in relation to human sexuality. It has instead a marriage theology, one that posits that it is only within a church-approved marriage (i.e., one man and one woman, with every sex act open to procreation) where sex is “godly,” not sinful.

Gay people, of course, don’t fit into such an understanding of marriage. How could they when this understanding does not reflect the diversity of human sexuality? Instead, human sexuality and the meaning and sacredness of sex are all narrowly reduced to – and defined by – the church-approved understanding of marriage. Said another way, a definition of marriage is defining acceptable sexuality and its expression. The Pope recently reinforced this when he offered a “clarification” of his remarks on homosexuality and sin. “When I said [homosexuality] is a sin,” the Pope wrote, “I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.”

In an interview I did with him back in 2005, “modern mystic” Chuck Lofy highlighted the problem with this limited way of thinking about sexuality.

Human experience of God within the full range of human sexuality has not been recognized or valued [by the Vatican]. What’s valued is a system of logic. So for the pope it is logical that when you think of the penis and the vagina, the point of sexuality is to procreate within the framework of heterosexual marriage. It’s a logical, intellectually-based paradigm. But it doesn’t align with human experience in the real world.

And speaking of the church’s moral teaching, here’s something else that’s a reality for many LGBTQ Catholics: It is very difficult to separate the anti-gay behavior of individuals and governments from the anti-gay teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. When the church hierarchy labels LGBTQ people’s longing for relational intimacy as “intrinsically evil” and “objectively disordered,” it gives subtle permission for anti-gay behavior. If such behavior – on the part of either individuals or governments – is going to be denounced by the church as “unjust” then so too should the church’s language and theology that fuel and justify it. The church, and, yes, that includes Pope Francis, needs to recognize the connection between its own anti-gay language and how the internalization of this language leads to anti-gay behavior and actions, including the passing of anti-gay laws.


Moving on

For many years I dedicated my time and energy to educating Catholics about the need for radical change within the church. I did so as the executive director of both the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM) and Catholics for Marriage Equality MN, as editor of The Progressive Catholic Voice, as a board member of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR), and as the author of Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students: A Catholic Schools Perspective (Haworth Press, 2007).

I don’t regret my time working for church reform, renewal and transformation – nor my reasons at the time for doing so. But after a good twelve years of such work there came a time when I no longer felt called to continue it. I did what I did, and I did it well. I came to a point, however, when I needed to focus on my own transformation and journey, and leave the transformation and journey of the Roman Catholic Church to those who still felt motivated and inspired to engage in such important work.

I realized that, for me, life is way too short to take on, long-term, an institution like Roman Catholicism. Plus, on a practical level, such work was not financially sustaining. Also, we have the ability to walk away from this particular feudal system and not have it impact us in any kind of retaliatory way. We can move on with our lives, and that’s exactly what I did. And I have to say that my life is all the more satisfying and richer for it.

Of course, not everyone has to “move on” from Roman Catholicism to experience a satisfying and rich life. Many have this experience while staying within the church and working for change. I continue to have great admiration and respect for such individuals – locally and nationally. I’m thinking not only of my friends Brian and Paula but also Marianne Duddy-Burke, Mary Hunt, Jeannine Gramick, Francis DeBernardo, Bob Shine, Joan Chittister, Margaret Farley, Jamie Manson, Ilia Delio, Paul Lakeland and many others. May their work help transform the church.


For more on my journey, see the introduction to this Wild Reed post.


* One Catholic theologian who advocates for a team model for the papacy is theologian Mary Hunt. Speaking on Pacific Radio’s Democracy Now! program shortly after the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005, Hunt said:

I still favor and put out to your listeners, a possibility: the notion of an international team for the papacy. If the papacy is supposed to be a symbol of unity and not a person with authority, then it makes much more sense in a post-modern time to think not about one person . . . but in fact to think about an intergenerational, international team of men and women who could in fact meet and lead a billion people using technology and travel as a way to bring many voices into the discussion. So we’re really pushing for a horizontal model of church, not the vertical one that Cardinal Ratzinger represents.

For more discussion on non-overlord models of the papacy, click here and here.


Related Off-site Links:
The AP Interview: Pope Says Homosexuality Not a Crime – Nicole Winfield (AP News, January 25, 2023).
In Papal First, Francis Backs Decriminalization of Homosexuality – Christopher White (National Catholic Reporter, January 25, 2023).
Pope Francis’s Call to Decriminalize Homosexuality Worldwide Will Save Lives – James Martin, S.J. (Outreach, January 25, 2023).
Pope Francis’ LGBTQ Comments Are Not Surprising But Sincere, Gay Vatican Adviser Says – Leila Fadel and Jan Johnson (National Catholic Reporter, January 26, 2023).
Pope Clarifies Homosexuality and Sin Comments in Note – Nicole Winfield (AP News via ABC News, January 28, 2023).

UPDATE: What Lasting Impact Will Pope Francis’ Condemnation of Criminalization Laws Have? – Robert Shine (NewWaysMinistry.org, February 8, 2023).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Catholic Church Can Overcome Fear of LGBT People
• A Catholic’s Prayer for his Fellow Pilgrim, Benedict XVI
• Vatican Stance on Gay Priests Signals Urgent Need for Renewal and Reform
• It’s Time We Evolved Beyond Theological Imperialism
• Getting It Right
• Astounded
• Progressive Catholic Perspectives on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Marriage Equality Ruling
• Progressive Thoughts on Recent Developments in Ireland, El Salvador and the U.S.
• More Progressive Catholic Perspectives on Ireland’s Historic Gay Marriage Vote
• Progressive Catholic Perspectives on the Legacy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
• LGBT Catholics Respond to Synod 2014’s Final Report
• Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality – Part I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII
• Hans Küng: “The Gospel of Jesus Christ is Stronger Than the Hierarchy”
• Mary Hunt: Quote of the Day – April 17, 2013
• Beyond Papalism
• Progressive Perspectives of the Papacy – Part I | II | III | IV | V
• No Patriarchal Hierarchy, No Rigid Conformity
• Rome Falling
• Re-Forming “the Vatican” Doesn't Mean Destroying the Church
• Pan’s Labyrinth: Critiquing the Cult of Unquestioning Obedience
• What the Vatican Can Learn from the X-Men
• Roger Haight on the Church We Need

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 8)

The Wild Reed's series highlighting the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican, continues with the recently released statement by the Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII, an international group of theologians from countries ranging from Spain to Cameroon, Venezula to the U.S.

This statement compellingly calls on the bishops at the Synod of the Family, currently taking place in Rome, to give full equality to women and to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the Church.

Following is the full statement (with thanks to "Rebel Girl" at Iglesia Descalza for the English translation).

Keeping intact a certain model of family, proper to a time and culture, is not part of the Faith of the Church. According to the gospels, Jesus of Nazareth was deeply critical of the family model of his time and culture. Therefore, the Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII deems it necessary to present the following proposals to the Synod of Bishops that is being held in Rome:

1. We believe that the different sexual identities, options, and orientations must be respected as an expression of the diversity of ways of experiencing sexuality among human beings. Consequently, homosexuality and homosexual marriages should be recognized in the Catholic Church on equal terms with heterosexuality and heterosexual marriages. Christian homosexual people should not be excluded from any church task, activity or responsibility, or from participation in the sacraments.

Respect for non-heterosexual people doesn't seem to reconcile with their exclusion from certain church roles, for example being a godparent at a baptism or the priestly and theological ministry. Both exclusions have occured recently – in the Diocese of Cádiz with a transsexual man and in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with a homosexual priest – and they demonstrate clear discrimination because of sexual orientation and belie the often repeated concept in Church teaching documents of acceptance towards non-heterosexual people.

2. We believe that the indiscriminate condemnation by Church teaching of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy should be reviewed. We consider it necessary to repeal Canon 1398 of the Code of Canon Law decreeing excommunication for anyone who procures the abortion, if it occurs, and that it is contrary to the absolution of the sin of abortion decreed by Pope Francis on the occasion of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. Also the right of women to decide in conscience on this matter should be respected.

3. There are no biblical, theological, historical, pastoral, much less dogmatic reasons, to exclude married men or women from any ecclesial ministries, ordained or unordained. Equality of Christian men and women through baptism must translate into equal conditions for men and women in access to the realm of the sacred, in the development of theological and moral doctrine, as well as in participation in church duties and governing bodies, without any discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnicity or social class. Therefore we ask that sexist ideological, cultural and normative barriers be removed and that the full incorporation of women in the above areas, including access to the priesthood and episcopate, be implemented.

4. As regards divorce, there is no dogma of faith that prevents it, nor that prohibits the access of separated or divorced and remarried people to the Eucharist. The current exclusionary discipline in this area, perhaps understandable in the past, has no justification today and, far from drawing people in those circumstances to the Christian community, it marginalizes them, drives them away, and stigmatizes them. In addition, it lacks a gospel basis. We therefore believe that the Synod of Bishops should remove that prohibition, currently in force, and facilitate access to Eucharistic communion by separated or divorced and remarried persons without imposing any corrective requirements. We believers are moral agents with the ability to decide freely in conscience in this area. This decision must be respected.

5. It is necessary to acknowledge the significant advances made by feminism on equality between men and women and in their liberation. In light of these developments, the patriarchal structure of the doctrine and practice on Christian marriage should be revised.

6. The Synod can not be reduced to matters relating to Christian marriage. We believe it a priority for it to do an analysis of the situation of poverty and social exclusion in which millions of families find themselves, to prophetically denounce it, to express its solidarity with the most vulnerable families and contribute to the elimination of the causes of this situation based on the ethical gospel option for poor and marginalized people.

Statement signed by: Xavier Alegre. Asociación de Teólogos y Teólogas Juan XXIII. Spain • José Arregi. Theologian. Spain • Olga Lucía Álvarez. Asociación Presbíteras Católicas Romanas. Colombia • Juan Barreto. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Fernando Bermúdez, Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Leonardo Boff. Ecotheologian, member of the Earth Charter Commission and writer • Ancizar Cadavid Restrepo. Theologian. Colombia • José María Castillo. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • José Centeno. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII, Spain • Juan Antonio Estrada. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Máximo García. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Antonio Gil de Zúñiga. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Ivone Gebara. Theologian and philosopher. Brazil • Axel Hernández Fajardo. Emeritus Professor at the Escuela Ecuménica de las Ciencias de Religiones. Universidad Nacional. Costa Rica • Rosa María Hernández. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Mary Hunt. Theologian. Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) • Gabriela Juárez Palacio. Theologian. Co-founder of Teólogas e Investigadoras • Rosa Leiva. Federación Latinoamericana de Presbíteros Casados. Ecuador • Juan Masiá. Theologian. Japan • Federico Mayor Zaragoza. President of the Fundación Cultura de Paz and the Comisión Internacional contra la Pena de Muerte. Spain • Cyprien Melibi. Theologian. Cameroon • Arnoldo Mora Rodríguez. Co-founder of the Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones (DEI). Costa Rica • Mario Mullo. Federación Latinoamericana de Sacerdotes Casados. Ecuador • Carmiña Navia. Theologian. Colombia • Marisa Noriega. Theologian. Co-founder of the Asociación Mexicana de Reflexión Teológica Feminista. Mexico • Gladys Parentelli. Auditor at Vatican II. Venezuela • Federico Pastor. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Victorino Pérez Prieto. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Suyapa Pérez Scapini. Theologian. El Salvador • Margarita Maria Pintos. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Javier Omar Ruiz Arroyave. Activist. Masculinidades Liberadoras. Colombia • José Sánchez Suárez. Theologian. Comunidad Teológica de Mexico Santiago • Sánchez Torrado. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Fernando Silva. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos de Juan XXIII. Spain • Aida Soto Bernal. Asociación Presbíteras Católicas Romanas. Colombia • Juan José Tamayo. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Elsa Tamez. Theologian and biblical scholar. Mexico • Andrea Toca. Theologian. Co-founder of the Asociación Mexicana de Reflexión Teológica Feminista. Mexico • Fernando Torres Millán. Theologian. Coordinator of Kairós Educativo. Colombia • Olga Vasquez. Theologian. El Salvador • Evaristo Villar. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain • Juan Yzuel. Asociación de Teólogas y Teólogos Juan XXIII. Spain.

Above: Cardinals and bishops at the end of a morning session of the Synod on the Family – Vatican City, October 9, 2015. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

For Francis DeBernardo's excellent coverage from Rome on the Synod on the Family, see:
On Synod’s First Day, Differing Opinions on What Can Be Expected – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 6, 2015).
Synod Day Two’s Question: Who Is Inside and Who Is Outside the Church? – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 7, 2015).
In Advance of the Synod, Global Network of Rainbow Catholics Launches in Rome – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 8, 2015).
Archbishop Discusses African Bishops’ Silence on Criminalization of LGBT People – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 9, 2015).
Will Language Be the Only Thing That the Synod Updates? – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 10, 2015).
A Synod Discussion Asks the Question: What Is Mercy? – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 11, 2015).
Synod Fathers on Gay Issues Couldn’t Be Any Further Apart Than They Already Are – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 12, 2015).
Trying to Interpret the Language of the Synod – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 13, 2015).
Allowing Local Strategies Sounds Like a Good Idea – Except If You’re in Newark – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 14, 2015).
Should the Church Be a Mother or Father to Families? What’s the Difference? – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 15, 2015).
Challenges of Reporting from the Synod: Homophobic Statements, Leaked Documents, the Rumor Mill, and How to Keep Up With It All – Francis DeBernardo (Bondings 2.0, October 16, 2015).

Recommended Off-site Links and Updates:
Having the Wrong Discussions . . . – Questions from a Ewe (October 13, 2015).
Synod System Stacks Deck Against Women – Mary E. Hunt (National Catholic Reporter, October 6, 2015).
The Synod, LGBT Catholics, and Women: Meh – William D. Lindsey (Bilgrimage, October 13, 2015).
Cardinals’ Secret Letter to Francis Warns of Plot to Rig Reforms – David Gibson (Religion News Service, October 12, 2015).
Christians Have Hurt a Lot of LGBT People. It's Time To Embrace Them Instead – Sr. Simone Campbell (The Huffington Post, October 10, 2015).
Homosexual Relationships: Another Look – Bill hunt (The Progressive Catholic Voice, September 8, 2012).
We’ve Got to Accentuate the Positive, Synod Bishops Say – John L. Allen Jr. (Crux, October 9, 2015).
At the Synod, the Moment of Truth – Rocco Palmo (Whispers in the Loggia, October 9, 2015).
German Group at Synod United: Church Doctrine Has Developed Over Time – Joshua J. McElwee (National Catholic Reporter, October 15, 2015).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 2)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 3)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 4)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 5)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 6)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 7)
• Human Sex: Weird and Silly, Messy and Sublime
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 1)
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 2)
• Making Love, Giving Life
• Intrinsically Sexual
• A "Truly Queer Theory" on Sex
• The Non-Negotiables of Human Sex
• Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men: A Discussion Guide

Blossom images: Michael J. Bayly (Port Macquarie, March 2015).

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 7)

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In the previous installments of this series I've focused on the writings of Catholic theologians so as to highlight the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican. This evening, however, I turn to the medium of film to illuminate these liberating insights, and to one film in particular: Ben Lewin's The Sessions.

A helpful way to highlight how this film both conveys and illuminates liberating insights on sexuality (insights that are beyond the range of thinking and feeling of the majority of those males who comprise the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church), is to share John Townsend's review of The Sessions published in the November 15 issue of Lavender magazine.

I say the majority who comprise the hierarchy as there are some brave individuals within this profoundly dysfunctional system who are open to the presence of the sacred beyond the narrow and limiting confines dictated by the church's 'official' sexual theology. The Sessions features a depiction of one such priest. (For another example, see Jeremy Sisto's portrayal of the young Father John Buerlein in Patrick Coyle's 2009 film, Into Temptation.)

Following, with added images and links, is John Townsend's review of The Sessions.

There are few films in all of cinema that approach the healing power of The Sessions. Perhaps no film has so guilelessy defied cultural mandates that explicit sexuality must be automatically shamed. Its source: Mark O’Brien’s autobiographical essay, "On Seeing A Sex Surrogate." And though it will be said over and again, I submit that John Hawkes and Helen Hunt give consummately noble, historic, and Oscar-worthy portrayals. Moreover, what in other hands would have been tragic becomes a transcendentally expansive and thrilling film experience that could actually shift your perception of reality.

Minnesota-born Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, a poetic 1980s polio survivor who must spend much time in an iron lung. A 38-year-old virgin, his emotional layers are delicately interconnected with his heterosexuality. Pure fate (or destiny) leads him into erotic mentorship from a highly evolved woman and sex surrogate therapist, Cheryl Cohen Greene (Hunt). Religious types [or better said, a certain type of religious person], excessive porn consumers, and others who feel compelled to call her a whore/prostitute and/or to call him a whoremonger, misogynist, fornicator, etc. will be forced to re-think such stupid, culturally-received stereotypes.

Through Ben Lewin’s sensitive direction and screenwriting, Geoffrey Simpson’s intimate cinematography, Lisa Bromwell’s deft editing, and Marco Beltrami’s exquisite score, nothing short of a milestone film has emerged that rejects out-of-hand the asexual stereotype of persons with disabilities. Instead, it integrates their sexual expression as a vital part of healthy living. A splendidly radical notion.

In one of the finest performances of his superlative career, William H. Macy reveals sublime nuance as Mark’s priest and pal. He embodies society’s conflict of sex as immoral v. natural, and the film’s overall view implies that sex is actually a profound healing force. This shattering insight is understood by the entire major supporting cast, mostly female. They are fabulous, brave, and compassionate. The Sessions comes closer to settling the spirit v. the flesh issue of the major western religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – than perhaps any work of art ever. If everyone was required to see it, there would be a cultural shift away from sexual shame.

NEXT: Part 8

Related Off-site Links:
An Interview with Cheryl Cohen Greene – Peter Keough (The Phoenix, October 25, 2012).
The Sessions Rises Far Above Its Disability-of-the Week Conceit – David Edelstein (Vulture.com, October 19, 2012).
Sex, Kindness, and Polio in The Sessions – Linda Holmes (NPR, September 8, 2012).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 2)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 3)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 4)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 5)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 6)
• Human Sex: Weird and Silly, Messy and Sublime
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 1)
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 2)
• Making Love, Giving Life
• Intrinsically Sexual
• A "Truly Queer Theory" on Sex
• The Non-Negotiables of Human Sex
• Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men: A Discussion Guide

Opening Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 6)

The Wild Reed's series highlighting the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican continues with excerpts from Matthew DeLuka's May 11 Daily Beast article, "Do Most Catholic Theologians Support Same-Sex Marriage?"

As has been noted in previous installments, the view of theologians is important because within Catholicism, the hierarchy, the theologians, and the wisdom of the laity are equally recognized as authentic sources of truth. They are the three magisteria. And when one considers what Catholic theologians and the Catholic people are thinking and saying about the issue of homosexuality and same-sex relationships, then, at the very least, we have to acknowledge the possibility that the Vatican’s teaching on this issue may not actually be the Catholic teaching.

It wouldn't be the first time, of course, that the bishops have been unreceptive to truth unfolding in both the church and the world. An excellent example of this can be seen when we acknowledge that the vast majority of married Catholics are practicing birth control in spite of the official teaching of the hierarchy prohibiting it. It's clear that this particular teaching does not make good sense to the Catholic people (including theologians) as it does not fit with their lived experience. I believe we’re seeing the same situation emerging (blossoming, actually) around the issue of homosexuality and gay rights – including gay marriage rights. DeLuka's article examines this emergence.

. . . While many non-Catholic Americans may take the political position put forward by the bishops as the final word in American Catholic life, progressive Catholic thinkers and theologians say it is time for the church to step back from political arguments about same-sex marriage, and reconsider its own position.

Among the theologians who say the bishops are in the wrong is Paul Lakeland, a professor of religion and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, a Catholic university in Connecticut. “That’s not really an argument that has a theological justification,” Lakeland said of the church’s opposition to same-sex civil marriages. “It’s an argument that’s based more on fear or repugnance.”

“There is a lot more to be said about these issues than one stream of words from the hierarchy,” Lakeland said.

The USCCB’s most recent public pronouncement on the issue of same-sex marriage was a statement released Thursday in which the bishops expressed their approval of a vote in North Carolina in which citizens passed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. “This is not a partisan issue, but a matter of justice, fairness, and equality for the law to uphold every child’s basic right to be welcomed and raised by his or her mother and father together,” Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, chairman of the USCCB’s subcommittee on the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, said in the statement.

. . . Cordileone’s position is dead wrong, says Daniel Maguire, a theologian and Marquette University professor who has written on church teaching and sexuality. Maguire said the interpretation of church teaching held by [Archbishop Timothy] Dolan, Cordileone, and other bishops isn’t representative of the position held by many lay Catholics and theologians.

“Archbishop Dolan and the United States Catholic Conference are misrepresenting ‘Catholic teaching,’ and are trying to present their idiosyncratic minority view as the ‘Catholic position,’ and it is not,” Maguire wrote in an email to The Daily Beast. “The bishops will stand with Dolan and the U.S. Catholic Conference, but on this issue, they are in moral schism since most in the Church have moved on [to] a more humane view on the rights of those whom God has made gay.”

“Most Catholic theologians approve of same-sex marriage and Catholics generally do not differ much from the overall population on this issue,” Maguire said.

The most recent Gallup polling data backs up Maguire. When asked this month whether they think same-sex marriage should be legalized, 51 percent of Catholics said they think it should be, placing Catholics one percentage point higher than the national average. Forty-seven percent of Catholics said they think same-sex marriage should not be legal, compared with 59 percent of Protestants, and 12 percent of people who claimed no religious affiliation.

. . . [S]cholar Frederick Parrella, a professor of theology at Santa Clara University, a Catholic institution in California . . .[says] he sees growing support for same-sex marriage among his Catholic students, and that he himself finds “nothing in the Gospels” that should lead the church to oppose its legalization.

And Parrella, like Lakeland, said there are good theological arguments to not just allow same-sex civil marriages, but also to support same-sex unions in the church. . . . The [hierarchy] doesn’t need to change its own teaching to learn a lesson about keeping its unresolved disputes out of the public sphere, however, Lakeland said. “If the church would just stay away from the issue of civil marriage, that would be something,” he said. “As far as civil marriage is concerned, what the [hierarchy] should be saying is, ‘It’s none of our business.’”

NEXT: Part 7

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 2)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 3)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 4)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 5)
• Quote of the Day – January 3, 2012
• Quote of the Day – November 12, 2011
• Quote of the Day – January 24, 2011
• Responding to Bishop Tobin's Remarks on Gay Marriage
• Mary Hunt's Response to Archbishop Dolan's "Truth Claims that Do Not Hold Water"
• Doug Mataconis on the Bishops, Religious Freedom, and Living in a Civil Society
• A Head and Heart Response to the Catholic Hierarchy's Opposition to Marriage Equality
• The Bishops' Reaction to Marriage Equality: "Wrong-Headed and Counterproductive"
• John McNeill's Message to the US Bishops: "Enough!"
• Why the Bishops Are Being Ignored
• A Church That Can and Cannot Change
• Will We See Change?
• What Part of Jesus' Invitation to "Be Not Afraid" Don't the Bishops Get?

Recommended Off-site Link:
The Call of the Baptized: Be the Church, Live the Mission – Paul Lakeland (The Progressive Catholic Voice, September 19, 2010).

Image 1: Michael J. Bayly.

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 5)

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Last summer I commenced a series highlighting the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican. It's a series that seeks to present the best of what Catholic theologians and scholars are saying about sexuality. These theologians, it should be noted, are not just Vatican stenographers, but men and women open to and receptive of God’s transforming presence throughout the entire church.

I continue this series today with an excerpt from Catholic theologian and priest Charles Curran’s article “A Vatican II View Could Allow for Gay, Lesbian Unions.” This article was first published in the September 5, 2003, issue of the National Catholic Reporter. Given the current debate in both church and society over marriage equality and religious freedom, Curran's article is perhaps more pertinent today than when it was first published.

Basically, Curran contends that a Vatican II approach to the relationship between law and morality could actually "justify the legalization of gay and lesbian unions even if one accepts the official hierarchical moral teaching on homosexual relations." The Vatican II approach, Curran points out, is in sharp contrast to the Thomistic moral law approach reflected in the 2003 Vatican document "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons." This document calls on Catholics to oppose legal recognition for gay and lesbian unions and to be non-cooperative with the enactment or application of these "unjust laws."

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[The Vatican's] understanding of law was enunciated by Thomas Aquinas in the context of an authoritative and paternalistic understanding of the state. Rulers direct the illiterate masses (to use Pope Leo XIII’s 19th century term) to the common good. The primary role of the ruler was to promulgate human law in the light of the divine and natural law and the primary role of the citizen (if we can even use that term) was to obey these laws.

Vatican II’s “Declaration on Religious Freedom” proposed a different understanding of the law-morality relationship in keeping with democratic societies and the much lesser role of law in such societies.

The “Declaration on Religious Freedom” deals with the law-morality relationship in its recognition of the limits of religious freedom. The Vatican II document accepts what Jesuit Fr. John Courtney Murray called the basic principle of the free society: “The usages of society are to be the usages of freedom in their full range. These require that the freedom of the human person be respected as far as possible and curtailed only when and insofar as necessary” (n. 7).

When should the state interfere with religious freedom or any personal freedom? When the public order calls for it. But what is the public order? According to the “Declaration on Religious Freedom,” the public order involves a three-fold reality of justice, public peace, and public morality (not just private morality). Thus, for example, we in this country with our great respect for religious freedom have nonetheless restricted religious freedom by prohibiting human sacrifice in religious rituals (justice), by prohibiting churches from ringing loud bells for a long time early in the morning (public peace), and by prohibiting Mormons from practicing polygamy (public morality).

Note two important differences between these two approaches. First, the Thomistic approach begins with God’s law as mediated by the natural and civil law; the Vatican II approach begins with human freedom. In both cases, the original starting point can be overturned, but where you start is all important and establishes a basic presumption. For Aquinas the basic presumption is natural law; for the Vatican II position the basic presumption is in favor of freedom.

The second difference concerns the purpose of civil law. In the Thomistic concept, the purpose of civil law is the common good, a hallowed concept in the Catholic tradition. The present document on homosexual unions uses the term “common good” eight times. However, in the Vatican II approach, the purpose of civil law is public order, which is a narrower concept than common good. The role of law in the Vatican II position is much less than in the Thomistic position.

The hierarchical magisterium, however, could use the Vatican II approach to argue against the legalization of gay unions on the basis of society’s need to protect and promote the importance of marriage and the family as a fundamental aspect of public order. But this is an empirical question on which people of good will can disagree.

The Vatican II approach could also justify the legalization of gay and lesbian unions even if one accepts the official hierarchical moral teaching on homosexual relations. One begins with the freedom of homosexuals to live together. Most in our society agree that permanent gay and lesbian unions are much better for society than promiscuous relationships. The state can support such permanent unions by granting rights such as health insurance and Social Security benefits. As a matter of fact, the legalization of permanent gay unions would not necessarily go against the importance of the family as a basic unit of society nor would it necessarily harm the children who could be adopted by such unions.

Without doubt, the Thomistic approach allows the pope and the Roman curia to make a strong case for the conclusion they want to support. But, in the process, they have turned their backs on the Vatican II teaching on the proper relationship between law and morality and have failed to recognize a legitimate pluralism in the church on the legal recognition of gay unions.

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NOTE: For another "beyond the hierarchy" response to the 2003 Vatican document "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons," click here.


NEXT: Part 6

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 2)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 3)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 4)
• The Vision of Vatican II
• Quote of the Day – January 3, 2012
• Ascertaining the Common Good
• Doug Mataconis on the Bishops, Religious Freedom, and Living in a Civil Society
• A Head and Heart Response to the Catholic Hierarchy's Opposition to Marriage Equality
• Persecuted "Enemies of the State"? Or Just Sore Losers?
• Responding to Whiny Catholic Bishops Who Cry Victim
• Joseph Palacios: "The Church is Not the Victim"
• John McNeill's Message to the US Bishops: "Enough!"
• A Church That Can and Cannot Change
• What Part of Jesus' Invitation to "Be Not Afraid" Don't the Bishops Get?

Recommended Off-site Links:
Two Catholic Bishops, Conscience, and the Common Good – Paula Ruddy (The Progressive Catholic Voice, June 14, 2009).
Archbishop Nienstedt on Religious Pluralism and the "Tragic Flaw" in the Separation of Church and State Doctrine – Paul Ruddy (The Progressive Catholic Voice, January 4, 2010).
Community Ethics vs. Individual Freedom: The Fox and the Hedgehog – Paula Ruddy (The Progressive Catholic Voice, June 25, 2011).
East Side, West Side: Opposing Views of the Good – Paula Ruddy (The Progressive Catholic Voice, November 8, 2011).

Images 1 and 3: Michael J. Bayly.
Image 2: Photographer unknown.

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 4)

To be perfectly honest, I'm not completely sure who wrote the following excerpt, one that I found on a torn-out page from a book while going through a pile of papers under my bed!

Actually, on second thought, I'm pretty sure it's from Peter Stanford and Kate Saunders' 1992 book Catholics and Sex. This particular book was a tie-in with a popular British TV series that examined the gap between the ideals of the Vatican's sexual teaching and the realities of many Catholics' lives.

I share this excerpt as the latest installment of The Wild Reed series, "Beyond the Hierarchy." This series highlights the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican.

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What would happen to the Catholic Church if it declared the sexual act morally neutral? Of course, there would have to be some guidelines for the individual conscience. Sexual activity is wrong when it exploits others – for example, rape and child abuse. It is wrong when it makes another person unhappy, as when a married person has an affair. it is wrong to use sex as an expression of violence or hate. It is wrong to be promiscuous, because – apart from the risk of spreading nasty diseases – you will inflict emotional damage on others.

We cannot see, however, what can possibly be wrong with an exchange of fluids between consenting adults. And, in this over-populated world, we see absolutely nothing wrong with contraception. If the Vatican decided that there was nothing evil about the act itself, inside or outside marriage, the change would be dramatic. . . . God made human love. He programmed most of us with the desire for one special person. Our sexual urges are usually bound up in this desire.

Down the ages, Christianity has made the mistake of separating love from sex. We believe they belong together. And love – all love – comes from God. Love is God, and God is not insulted or degraded by the physical expression of that love. The message of Christ is "be perfect." But he knew that nobody can claim to be perfect, and we do not think that by "perfection" he meant sexual repression.

Once it has jettisoned its sexual strictures, and put sex in its proper context on the league table of other sins, the Catholic Church will be, we believe, revealed in its true glory – as the Church that takes Christ's message to the poor and dispossessed, and blazes out his love to the whole world.


NEXT: Part 5

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 2)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 3)
• Italian Cardinal Calls for "New Vision" for Sexuality
• An Australian Bishop's "Radical" Call for Reform
• A Cardinal Breaks Ranks
• The Non-Negotiables of Human Sex
• Relationship: The Crucial Factor in Sexual Morality
• A Church That Can and Cannot Change
• Human Sex: Weird and Silly, Messy and Sublime
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light
• Getting It Right

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 3)

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The Wild Reed’s series “Beyond the Hierarchy,” which highlights the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican, continues with an excerpt from Catholic theologian Joan Timmerman’s 1992 book Sexuality and Spiritual Growth.

I had the honor of experiencing Joan (pronounced Joanne) as one of my professors at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, where I studied in the Masters of Theology program from 1994-1996. In my final year, Joan served as my adviser in the writing of my thesis – one that explored the coming out process of gay men as a spiritual journey.

When people ask me what type of theology most interests me, I reply, “sacramental.” I have Joan to thank for this, as she was the first to provide me with the words, the theological terminology and framework, I’d long desired to put to certain experiences of my journey as a gay Catholic man.

In the following excerpt from her book Sexuality and Spirituality, Joan offers a “morality of responsibility regarding sexual issues,” a morality that, sadly, remains undeveloped within and by the hierarchy of the church’s clerical caste. Joan also presents a number of “steps for practical sexual decision-making,” and offers one of the best definitions of an informed conscience I’ve come across to date. “The importance of a well-formed conscience is obvious,” she writes. “It is the result of education and a habit of right choices. It is more like a developed skill, such as aesthetic taste, than an infused gift.”

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A major turning point in the history of sexual morality occurred when Augustine’s theory, that original sin was transmitted by the act of copulation, was accepted as doctrine. This extreme version of one (but not the only) theology of original sin, when taken as the basis for moral teaching, has tended to appeal to those who, for whatever reason, are pessimistic about human motives and the human capacity for responsible action. . . . The hope for moral transformation has no place in their sexual arena. By contrast, recent Roman Catholic teachings regarding politics and economics counts precisely on the human capacity for self-regulation. They envision the possibility of a just and peaceful society and call for voluntary action to make that hope a reality. The political agenda follows from optimism regarding virtue over concupiscence. Again by contrast, the agenda currently reflecting sexual assumptions – especially that on abortion – invokes public condemnation, fear, and legal sanctions, thus revealing its basic pessimism.

So the tragedy is one of omission: for want of a theology of sexuality based on baptismal identity and responsibility, a morality of responsibility regarding sexual issues was left undeveloped. . . .

Adult moral decision-making is integral to adult spirituality, not just as individuation but in the service of community renewal. This is also why morality needs spirituality. As life needs rules, so rules need to be stretched regularly to respond to life. Some regular method needs to be adopted and trusted, so that human forethought and planning are valued within the sexual arena as in other adult decisions.

The current moral theology about sexual expression is showing that some change has come out of listening to the stories of those who express their love sexually. Attempts to distinguish signs of sin from signs of grace show evidence of inductive reasoning and reflection on practice. No longer is it considered appropriate to impose on this experience a model which was created without reference to it and is managed from outside it. For the first time, in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, marriage is recognized as in its sexuality the singular expression and completion of the spouses’ love, their primary way of performing their intention for total self-gift. Earlier documents would have found in the sexual impulse an inescapably selfish concupiscence asserting itself. But the tension between the magisterium’s ameliorating judgment on sex and the simultaneous tenacity of the ancient bias against sexual expression continues to appear within official and unofficial theological materials.

Within those foundational comments, what I propose is the following set of steps for practical sexual decision-making.

1. Be clear on who you are and what you choose to become. This is the basis of morality. The indicative precedes the imperative. A person starts where she is, with her self-knowledge, her commitments and sense of vocation. Integrity is to choose action continuous with one’s dynamic center.

2. Consult all the sources of wisdom which are available to you. Sources of moral reasoning include Scripture, tradition, communal and personal experience, law, imagination and works of the imagination, moral rules, family of origin with customs and cultural values. Imagine all these as consultants around a table. They do not all have the same deliberative vote, but are assigned priority according to your unique situation and history. All should, however, be attended to.

3. Ask: What are the alternatives to the action presenting itself? If a person thinks she has no alternatives, she is too isolated, too dependent, or has stopped thinking too soon. Then assistance should be sought before proceeding. Action without alternatives is not free, and therefore not a moral choice. It is of course also possible to sabotage one’s own moral agency by deliberately putting oneself in a situation of reduced freedom, for example, by intoxication. This is culpable to the extent that one is aware of it and consents to it. It is always to settle for less than the personal and spiritual adulthood one is destined for. It may be helpful to think in terms of two steps in the deliberate choice of a wrong action, that is, (a) deliberate self-deception and (b) action on the self-deception.

4. What are the consequences for the primary participants? For their wider network of relationships? For society as a whole? Usually the consequences are not between good and evil but between variations or degrees of the good. Moreover, one is aware that the long-term consequences of an action are not always immediately visible and the short-term consequences may be overturned. Here one’s “hierarchy of values” becomes pertinent.

5. What choice, given the self-understanding, data, and the evaluation of consequences, will I make? A choice is not a further step beyond reasoning; it is choosing to stop the reasoning process by the intervention of the will in order to get on with what life requires, that is, action. The alternative to making an imperfect choice is worse: it is not to act at all, which is in effect never to become a moral agent, a fully functioning spiritual person.

6. Am I at peace with this decision? To act out of an unresolved doubt or a troubled conscience is destructive to the person. One can identify a right choice in advance of the action by the peace of mind and soul the decision brings, and a wrong choice by the guilt in initiates. One should of course be sure by consulting of sources (step 2 above) that one is not acting out of false conscience, scrupulosity, or unhealthy guilt. Anxiety (What would my mother say?) or bravado (I wish X could see me now!) might indicate such unreadiness to take this action because it shows a morbid excitement rather than a sense of legitimate pleasure in expressing one’s deepest self. The importance of a well-formed conscience is obvious. It is the result of education and a habit of right choices. It is more like a developed skill, such as aesthetic taste, than an infused gift. Though one should never act in bad faith, there comes a time when the moral calculus must end, and one can act, in good faith, though not always with complete certainty. Then faith provides the certainty that even when wrong choices are made in good faith, the person’s spirituality is not diminished but can grow. God’s forgiveness never fails. As Julian of Norwich wrote, “There is no wrath in God.” When people have difficulty believing in the forgiveness of God and others, it may well be because they have not yet been able to forgive themselves. This takes us back to step 1; What do I wish to become?

– Joan Timmerman
Sexuality and Spiritual Growth
pp. 123-125

NEXT: Part 4

Above: Joan Timmerman (seated at front left) and my classmates
at the College of St. Catherine – St. Paul. I took this photo on the
last evening of class in the fall semester of 1995.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 2)
• The Question of an "Informed" Catholic Conscience
• Joan Timmerman on the Sexuality of Jesus
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Joan Timmerman (March 2007)
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Joan Timmerman (September 2008)
• Joan Timmerman on the "Wisdom of the Body"

Opening Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Beyond the Hierarchy: The Blossoming of Liberating Catholic Insights on Sexuality (Part 2)

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Last month I commenced a new Wild Reed series highlighting the liberating insights on sexuality that are emerging and “blossoming” beyond the Vatican; a series presenting the best of what Catholic theologians are saying about sexuality. These theologians, it should be noted, are not just Vatican stenographers, but men and women open to and receptive of God’s transforming presence throughout the entire church.

Today I continue this series with an excerpt from Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether’s essay “Homophobia, Heterosexism, and Pastoral Practice” in the 1994 anthology Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection.

In this particular excerpt Ruether examines how the Church’s “traditional” (i.e., Augustinian) view that reproduction is the only legitimate purpose of sex “sprang not from a high valuing of children, but from a negative valuing of sex.” She also clearly explains how the condemnation of homosexuality as “incomplete and narcissistic” is a “basic reinforcement of heterosexism.” Finally, Ruether highlights a norm of sexual morality based on “moral relationality.” Variations of this idea have been offered by Catholic thinkers over the years, and this particular norm was advanced by the Catholic Theological Society of America in its 1977 report Human Sexuality. It’s a norm that “eliminates the neat boundaries between moral and immoral sex defined by heterosexual marriage and procreation” and instead promotes a much more compassionate and healthy “developmental goal.” “We are to grow toward healthy, loving, mutual, and faithful relationships, away from abusive and dishonest ones,” writes Ruether. “The morality of homosexual or heterosexual relations is judged by the same standard, rather than by different standards.”

In short, it’s a very insightful and, yes, liberating view of sexuality and sexual morality that Ruether presents. I look forward to my readers’ responses to it in the comments box!

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The Christian tradition that views homosexuality as a sin rests on a view of sexuality as legitimate only within monogamous marriage with reproduction as its primary purpose. As developed by Saint Augustine in the late fourth and early fifth century, this view disregards the relational purpose of sexuality as an expression and means of creating love. Sexuality is seen as inherently debasing to the soul. Even reproductive sexuality within marriage is seen as spiritually debasing. The optimal Christian life-style was that of celibacy. The celibate anticipated the heavenly order of redemption by renouncing sexuality for the “angelic life.” Underlying this view of redemption is a quasi-Gnostic anthropology that sees finitude and morality, and hence the need for reproduction, as characteristics of a fallen order. In the original and future heavenly order, sex, sin, and death were and will be absent.

Saint Augustine sees the blessings on procreation in Genesis as pertaining only to the Old Testament. But this era of the Old Adam has been superseded by Christ, a virgin born of virginal marriage. Although sex and reproduction within marriage are allowable in the Christian era, they are now of inferior value. Married people belong to a moral lower class in the church, the members of which are unable to attain the fullness of the gospel, as do the celibates, who imitate the virginity of Christ and Mary and anticipate the eschatological age.

We see from the above that the traditional view that reproduction is the only legitimate purpose of sex sprang not from a high valuing of children, but from a negative valuing of sex. Sex was the epitome of the sinful, death-prone instinct. Original sin was transmitted from generation to generation through concupiscence, the orgasmic feeling of sexual release. The enjoyment of this experience was regarded with horror as a thing to be restricted as much as possible. It was venially sinful in marriage even when used for procreation, and mortally sinful in every other case. Thus even heterosexual married couples “fornicated,” or sinned mortally, when they had sex solely for “pleasure” and avoided reproduction.

In this view, contraceptive, oral, and anal sex, between heterosexuals or homosexuals, were sinful for the same reason. Thus, in much of classical Catholic penitential literature, the sin of sodomy refers not only to homosexual sex, but to and non-procreative sex. . . . The root of this tradition lies in a view of all sex as sinful, although allowable or venially sinful within procreative marriage. This view sees no autonomous purpose of sex as a means of creating and expressing a love relationship.

. . . The categorization of homosexuality as disease belongs to an older Christian tradition, but it has been reinforced in recent times by the psychoanalytic profession. Patriarchal psychoanalysis, as developed by Freud, defined homosexuality as a developmental disorder. Freud postulated that infant sexuality is characterized by “polymorphous perversity.” That is to say, our original sexuality is non-genital and non-gender specific. As infants we feel sexual all over our bodies and respond sexually to both sexes. But Freud believed that this infantile “perversity” must be overcome by repressing a generalized sexuality in favor of heterosexual genital sexuality, the goal of which is reproduction. Homosexuality is developmental failure, a “fixture” on an infantile stage of sexuality. Homosexuals are described as “narcissistic.” Their attraction to persons of the same gender reflects a self-love that is incapable of loving others. Oddly enough, this view fails to recognize persons of the same gender as distinct other persons from oneself.

Lurking under the charge that homosexuals are narcissistic lies the psychological doctrine of complementarity. Complementarity defines males and females as rigidly opposite personality types. Males must cultivate the “masculine” characteristics of autonomy, force, and rationality; women, the “feminine” characteristics of passivity, nurturance, and auxiliary existence. Only heterosexual sex is directed to the “other half” of this dualism and unites the two sexes in a “whole.” Homosexual sex is, therefore, “incomplete,” directed toward one’s own “half,” rather than the other “half.”

This condemnation of homosexuality as incomplete and narcissistic is a basic reinforcement of heterosexism. Its doctrine that only heterosexual sex is “whole” is actually based on a truncated human development for both men and women in which both must remain “half” people who need the other “half” in order to be “whole.” This truncated personality development reflects patriarchal social roles. The male and female stereotypes are asymmetrical and reflect the dominance-submission, public-private splits of the patriarchal social order.

Against this patriarchal social stereotyping, I would claim that all persons, male and female, possess the capacity for psychological wholeness that transcends the masculine-feminine dichotomy. Once this is recognized, the argument for heterosexuality, based on the genders as complementary opposites, collapses. All sexual relations, all love relations, should be the loving of another person who is complexly both similar and different from oneself. Such relationships should help both grow into their full wholeness. Complementarity, by contrast, creates a pathological interdependency based on each person remaining in a state of deficiency in relation to the other. The female can’t make her own living. The male can’t do his own wash or meals. So each “needs” the other to supply these lacks in themselves. The relationship is set up to reinforce this deficiency in each.

. . . We should see sexuality as an integral part of our total psychosomatic being, not something that can be separated out and repressed without damage to our fullness of being. We should recognize that the love-relational purpose of sex has its own integrity and goodness as the creation and expression of bonding, affection, and commitment. It is not dependent on procreation for its justification, and indeed today out of many thousands of sexual acts in the lifetime of any person, only a small percentage can be intentionally reproductive. The defense of marriage between sterile people, sex after menopause, and the acceptance of birth control, including the so-called rhythm method – all tacitly accept the autonomous love-relational purpose of sex.

Once one has accepted any non-procreative sex to be moral for heterosexuals, one can no longer define homosexuality as immoral because it is non-procreative. One cannot even say that homosexuals avoid the responsibility to raise children, since celibates also do not raise children, while many homosexuals are raising natural or adopted children. Once one has accepted the understanding of humanity in which men and women are complex psychological wholes, not stereotypic opposites, and that the goodness of relationship lies in mutual support of the wholeness of each, not the mutual deficiency of masculine-feminine interdependence, then the difference between loving and bonding with someone of the same sex as yourself or someone of the other sex can no longer be rigidly distinguished. Both are relationships with another person, with all the complex problems of developing a healthy mutuality, rather than pathological dependency and exploitive misuse of each other.

There has emerged among Catholic moral theologians in the last twenty years a comprehensive effort to revise the traditional Catholic view of sexuality, although these moral theologians are currently very much under fire from the Vatican, which recognizes that its system of social and ecclesiastical control rests on the older definition of sexual sin. The Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) report Human Sexuality, published in 1977 represents this alternative tradition of Catholic moral theology. The starting point of the moral system developed in this report is that sexual morality or immorality is an expression of moral or immoral human relationality. Relationships are moral when they are mutual, supportive of the full personal growth of each person, committed, and faithful. Relations are immoral when they are abusive, violent, exploitive, keep people in truncated stages of development, and lead to lying, deceit, and betrayal.

This norm of sexual morality, based on moral relationality, eliminates the neat boundaries between moral and immoral sex defined by heterosexual marriage and procreation. Such a norm makes for much stricter judgments about sexual morality in some cases. Much of the sexuality promoted in patriarchal marriage, which, for example, saw the husband as having a right to force his wife to have sex with him, would be regarded as immoral by such a standard. What is moral or immoral sexually becomes more a question of a scale of values than of clear boundaries. No one achieves perfectly mutual love, and perhaps few relationships are totally evil. Rather, such a norm promotes a developmental goal. We are to grow toward healthy, loving, mutual, and faithful relationships, away from abusive and dishonest ones. The morality of homosexual or heterosexual relations is judged by the same standard, rather than by different standards.

– Rosemary Radford Ruether
Excerpted from "Homophobia, Heterosexism, and Pastoral Practice"
in Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection
pp. 387-391

NEXT: Part 3

See also the related Wild Reed posts:
• Beyond the Hierarchy (Part 1)
• Clearing Away the Debris
• Stop in the Name of Discriminatory Ideology!
• Relationship: The Crucial Factor in Sexual Morality
• The Many Manifestations of God's Loving Embrace
• A "Fruit" Reflects on the Meaning of "Fruitfulness"
• Getting It Right
• A Wise and Thoughtful Study of Sexual Ethics
• The Standard of Sexual Ethics: Human Flourishing, Not Openness to Procreation
• Joan Timmerman on the "Wisdom of the Body"
• Human Sex: Weird and Silly, Messy and Sublime
• Making Love, Giving Life
• Italian Cardinal Calls for a "New Vision" for Sexuality
• A Catholic Statement of Support for Same-Sex Marriage
• Tips on Speaking as a Catholic in Support of Marriage Equality

Recommended Off-site Links:
Creating a Liberating Church (Part 1) – Rosemary Radford Ruether (The Progressive Catholic Voice, July 15, 2010).
Creating a Liberating Church (Part 2) – Rosemary Radford Ruether (The Progressive Catholic Voice, July 19, 2010).
Creating a Liberating Church (Part 3) – Rosemary Radford Ruether (The Progressive Catholic Voice, July 28, 2010).

Image: Michael J. Bayly.