Humans journey through life in pursuit of truth, beauty, goodness and unity. We realize these values

through ongoing conversions, respectively, intellectual, affective, moral and social (Cf. Lonergan's

thought). Our churches institutionalize these values, respectively, through, creed, cult, code and

community.

As Catholics, we look for guidance in our value-realization strategies in the light of scripture, tradition,

magisterium-sensus fidelium, reason (e.g. philosophy) and experience (e.g. biological & behavioral

sciences, individual testimonies).

In the old days, both our social justice and sexual morality teachings relied on approaches based in

classicism, natural law and legalism. Nowadays, our social justice theory employs three new

methodologies, respectively, historical consciousness, personalism and relationality-responsibility (Cf.

Curran's thought). Modern Catholic social justice teachings enjoy widespread credibility due to these

updated methodologies, which are eminently transparent to human reason. There is, however, no such thing

as modern Catholic teaching in sexual morality. Neither are there any such things as credibility and

transparency regarding same, neither among the faithful nor in secular society.

On the surface, there are value-realization strategies available under the old methodologies that could

impart hope to all on many diverse issues pertaining both to gender and to sexual behaviors. For starters,

we could more broadly conceive the definitions of such values as procreativity and complementarity, such

that they are not so physicalistic, realizing that there are manifold other ways to celebrate being created cocreators

and to realize unitive values. We could draw a distinction between generative functions and life

issues (Cf. Haring's thought) and then establish a parvity of value for sexual moral objects, such that

masturbation would not be as serious as murder, for example. We could draw a distinction between our

essentialistic idealizations and their very problematical existential realizations and thus cut homosexuals

some "pastoral sensitivity slack" as was done with married couples vis a vis the rhythm method.

The problem is, however, that there needs to be a wholesale paradigm shift from the old methodologies to

the new, wherein some old terms and definitions and logics will receive new vitality while others will be

revealed as meaningless, incommensurable and incoherent. (It is beyond my present scope to suggest which

terms and logics will suffer or enjoy which fate, but I have my sneaking suspicions regarding "intrinsic

disorder.")

Accordingly, as we look for guidance in our value-realization strategies pertaining to gender and sexual

behavior, employing a much more robust historical consciousness, personalism and relationalityresponsibility

model, I want to know why anyone should turn solely (or even first and foremost) to

scripture, tradition and the magisterium?

Especially regarding moral realities, then, which are transparent to human reason, we must also turn to that

aspect of the teaching office known as the sensus fidelium, and also must turn to reason (e.g. philosophy)

and to experience (e.g. biological & behavioral sciences, individual testimonies). If we fail to make these

moves and take these turns, we are failing to be either catholic or Catholic. Also, our arguments will lack

normative impetus in the Public Square, where we need more than "the Bible tells me so" or the Koran, as

the case may be, to urge legislative remedies on the body politic.

Below, in a series of related essays, I issue a challenge to all who remain on the fence regarding the

hierarchical magisterium’s natural law interpretations of sex and gender issues. In the same way that

Cardinal Bernardin once issued a clarion call for a consistent ethic of life, more popularly appropriated as

a more integral approach to gender and sexuality.

There are perhaps few issues that are so divisive in the church, polarizing Christendom, itself, often

creating a crisis of faith as we fail to draw some important distinctions and fail to properly recognize which

of these distinctions are or are not also dichotomies. When in doubt about an either/or question, the

catholic, or both/and, approach is a good default.

magisterium?

mere physicalistic?

societies?

listen to all witnesses of revelation, d) attend to all of the moments in each human act of value-realization,

None of this represents my academic scholarship. There is not an original thought in any of this. It

represents my attempt to square my profound intuitions from my existential experience as a spouse and

father…… and son and brother and uncle and nephew and grandson and boyfriend and neighbor and

coworker and parishioner and citizen and sinner and saint …… with that of the hierarchical teaching

Shafer have, over the years, indeed grasped what I am getting at ……and so has Joan Chittister and the

NCRCafe Family.

To wit, then ……this is what I think is going on ……

My fourth child, now a young man on the verge of adolescence, has always brought a great deal of

sensitivity and tenderness to our family. From a young age, whenever he'd witness a tragedy on TV, he'd

exclaim, for example, to no one in particular: "How would you like it if that happened to your house?!"

One can substitute any noun, any person, place or thing, in place of the word "house," and you'll get my

drift. His childhood angst remains palpable. Living in the New Orleans metro area will do that to one

nowadays.

I think it was in one of Rahner's very first sermons, around 1946, that he noted that most people do not

seem to experience a theodicy problem until tragedy overtakes them personally, this despite the fact that

millions of "other" parents, each year, lose millions of "other" children, for example.

I mention my son and Rahner's sermon as a backdrop to my acknowledgment of how out of touch I have

often been with the depth of suffering of so many who have been marginalized in different ways by our

churches and societies.

Growing up in South Louisiana, I was sensitized to racial discrimination and am grateful that my

conscience was properly formed by family and church in that regard. Regrettably, however, there is too

much truth in one of my favorite jokes: "I was almost forty years old before I learned that not every serious

sin is sexual!" That may sound like hyperbole but, realistically, possibilities for larceny, murder and heresy

weren't really blips on my ethical radar screen (so, if I wanted permanent existential alienation from God,

illicit sex was one of my only options, as I understood such things).

I say all of this by way of admitting that, earlier on my journey, I simply did not seriously engage many

example, only when I got married did I seriously look at the birth control issue. Only when I had to

catechize children did I try to better understand what the church was trying to say regarding masturbation.

Teachings on liturgical renewal, social justice and just war theory were stimulating and engaging,

compelling even, for those of us coming of age in the sixties; a natural law discussion of homosexuality

was not even interesting to me.

Long story short, the more I dug into the underlying philosophy and metaphysics of the church's theology

regarding gender and sexual behavior, prompted by my attempt to reconcile my own personal experiences

and beliefs regarding same with that of the teaching office, the more it dawned on me that I had uncritically

swallowed a doubtful perspective regarding other matters, too, especially such as celibacy, women's

ordination, homosexual orientation and homoerotic behaviors. This realization was painful because certain

of my earlier responses to certain of my very good friends had been tremendously hurtful and the resulting

long estrangement so very unnecessary. (This is NOT to say that my response at all squared with the

church's supposedly sensitive pastoral guidance.)

What could I say to my friends? How have I said it in so many ways? I am SO sorry. Forgive me; I did not

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been in town the past few days and the wounds of my past

transgressions were feeling somewhat raw because of my again-raised consciousness regarding this

divisive, almost schism-inducing misunderstanding. I am slowly learning to ask, more often: "How would

you like it if that happened to you?"

It seems that gender and sexuality issues have broad implications. People need to be able to see and

understand that the keys that unlocked their fundamentalist shackles regarding manifold moral doctrines

and church disciplines are the very same keys that will free all who are marginalized, in this way or that, by

such as the "intrinsic disorder question." If one group remains bound, all of us remains enslaved, this is to

otherwise say, ipso facto ex-communicated.

In philosophical discussions, I often found that many, who badly wanted to annihilate metaphysics and

theology, ended up destroying modern science right along with those disciplines, which is to say that they

sawed off the epistemological branches where their own ontological eggs were nested. Analogously, the

same is true here. One cannot coherently reject the deontological foundations of such gender and sex

doctrines and disciplines as regarding women priests, artificial contraception, masturbation and such while

continuing to support this gravely "intrinsic disorder" position.

Again, in my science and religion dialogue, I begin with a robust epistemology of science and then

demonstrate how it similarly undergirds metaphysics (properly considered, anyway). Analogously, if one

begins with a properly considered (robustly descriptively accurate), depthful and comprehensive

theological anthropology, which undergirds all sex and gender issues vis a vis doctrine and discipline, then

this "intrinsic disorder" question is not answered but, rather, eliminated (as meaningless, incoherent).

Our GLBT sisters and brothers have more friends vis a vis philosophical kinship than either they or their

unwitting like-minded coreligionists may be aware?

I like to think of liberal and conservative, progressive and traditionalist, in terms of charisms, something

analogous to pilgrims and settlers. And there is room for the via media, the middle path, something

analogous to bridge-builders, which might be the loneliest and most difficult for, as Richard Rohr observes,

they get walked on by folks coming from both directions.

Unfortunately, too much of what we see is nowadays is better described in terms of maximalism,

minimalism and a/historicism. I'll unpack those terms below. Too many so-called progressives consider

essential and core teachings as accidental and peripheral; too many so-called traditionalists consider

accidental and peripheral teachings as essential and core. In essentials, unity; in accidentals, diversity; in all

things, charity. (attributed to Augustine)

Ormond Rush writes, in Determining Catholic Orthodoxy: Monologue or Dialogue (PACIFICA 12 (JUNE

1999): "The patristic scholar Rowan Williams speaks of 'orthodoxy as always lying in the future'".

Rush continues: Mathematicians talk of an asymptotic line that continually approaches a given curve but

does not meet it at a finite distance. Somewhat like those two lines, ressourcement and aggiornamento

never meet; the meeting point always lies ahead of the church as it moves forward in history. Orthodoxy, in

that sense, lies always in the future. Christian truth is eschatological truth. The church must continually

wait on the Holy Spirit to lead it to the fullness of truth. Ressourcement and aggiornamento will only

finally meet at that point when history ends at the fullness of time. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but

then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully

known.” (1 Cor 13:12)

In that Pacifica article, Rush draws distinctions between: 1) revelation as propositional, where faith is

primarily assent and revelation as personalist, where faith is the response of the whole person in loving

self-surrender to God; 2) verbal orthodoxy and lived orthopraxy; 3) the Christological and

pneumatological; 4) hierarchical ecclesiology and communio ecclesiology; and 5) monologic notion of

authority evoking passive obedience and dialogic notion of authority evoking active obedience.

Rush then describes the extremes of on one hand,

1) dogmatic maximalism, where all beliefs are given equal weight;

2) magisterial maximalism, where the ecclesial magisterium, alone, has access to the Holy Spirit;

3) dogmatic ahistoricism, where God's meaning and will are fixed and clear to be seen;

and, on the other hand,

1) dogmatic minimalism, where all dogmatic statements are equally unimportant;

2) magisterial minimalism, where communal guidance in interpretation is superfluous;

3) dogmatic historicism, with an unmitigated relativist position regarding human knowledge.

Rush finally describes and commends a VIA MEDIA between the positions.

He notes that the church does not call the faithful that we may believe in dogma, doctrine and disciplines

but, rather, to belief in God.

He describes how statements vary in relationship to the foundation of faith vis a vis a Hierarchy of Truth

and thus have different weight:

to be believed as divinely revealed;

or as nondefinitively taught and requiring obsequium religiosum (see discussion below re: obsequium).

The faithful reception of revelation requires interplay between the different "witnesses" of revelation:

scripture, tradition, magisterium, sensus fidelium, theological scholarship, including reason (philosophy)

and experience (biological & behavioral sciences, personal testimonies, etc).

Rush thus asks: "How does the Holy Spirit guarantee orthodox traditioning of the Gospel? According to

Dei Verbum, 'the help of the Holy Spirit' is manifested in the activity of three distinguishable yet

overlapping groups of witnesses to the Gospel: the magisterium, the whole people of God, and theologians.

The Holy Spirit guides each group of witnesses in different ways and to different degrees; but no one alone

has possession of the Spirit of Truth."

Rush further asks: "The determination of orthodoxy needs to address questions concerning the issue of

consensus in each of these three authorities. What constitutes a consensus among theologians and how is it

to be ascertained? What constitutes a consensus among the one billion Catholics throughout the world and

how is it to be ascertained? What constitutes a collegial consensus among the bishops of the world with the

pope, and how is that consensus to be ascertained?"

where it is written:

"Accordingly, the duty to offer obsequium may bind to respect, or to submission—or to any other attitude

between the two."

"When the council spoke of religious obsequium it meant an attitude toward the church which is rooted in

the virtue of religion, the love of God and the love of his church. This attitude in every concrete case will

be in need of further specification, which could be 'respect', or could be 'submission,' depending on the

progress the church has made in clarifying its own beliefs. ... [W]e can speak of obsequium fidei (one with

the believing church holding firm to a doctrine) ... [or] an obsequium religiosum (one with the searching

church, working for clarification)."

Thus, on matters of dogma, I give obsequium fidei, and unqualified assent (or submission); this includes

the creeds, the sacraments, and the exegetical approach to scripture. On matters of moral doctrine and

church discipline, I give my deference (or respect), even as I dissent, out of loyalty, on many issues:

artificial contraception, married priests, women's ordination, divorce and remarriage, Eucharistic sharing,

obligatory confession, various moral teachings re: so-called gravely, intrinsic disorders of human sexuality;

etc.

A quote from Philip Kaufman:

"As we shall see, reputable theologians defend positions on moral issues contrary to the official teaching of

the Roman magisterium. If Catholics have the right to follow such options, they must have the right to

know that the options exist. It is wrong to attempt to conceal such knowledge from Catholics. It is wrong to

present the official teachings, in Rahner's words, as though there were no doubt whatever about their

definitive correctness and as though further discussion about the matter by Catholic theologians would be

inappropriate....To deprive Catholics of the knowledge of legitimate choices in their moral decisionmaking,

to insist that moral issues are closed when actually they are still open, is itself immoral."

“Probabilism: The Right to Know of Moral Options”, the third chapter of __Why You Can Disagree and

Remain a Faithful Catholic__ and available online at

I have leaned heavily on the thinking of folks like Dan Maguire, Richard McCormick, Richard McBrien,

Charles Curran, Margaret Farley, Daniel Helminiak, Philip Kaufman, Bernard Haring and others.

Sometimes, such thinking takes the hierarchy to task on its own terms, which is to say that some moral

arguments continue to be formed in the same categories we have inherited from the same sterile

scholasticism, the same outdated metaphysics and the same incomplete views of the normatively human.

More significantly, though, folks like those listed above have broken open new categories of thought for

me and have invited me to look at reality through entirely new perspectives.

Our natural law tradition prides itself on its ability to derive the prescriptive from the descriptive despite the

philosophical naysayers, who say we cannot journey from an is to an ought. We have a great tradition that

thus displays much rigor in defining terms, employs much nuance when parsing statements, and requires

much care in predication, all with much devotion to descriptive accuracy in our philosophical God-talk. Of

course, ALL would agree that we must go beyond this natural theology in order to say "Jesus is Lord." We

must also, somehow, enjoy a deeply intimate and profoundly personal God-encounter. That encounter must

be ultimately & powerfully efficacious in being utterly transformative; that encounter must communicate

life and lead us to authenticity; that encounter is our personal experience of the transcendent energy that we

associate with the Holy Spirit.

How naive and rationalistic would our God-talk otherwise be if it was divorced from the human experience

of God!

Well, how naive and rationalistic our moral theology has been, divorced, as it remains, from our human

experience of one another!

I spent some time in a poverty think tank and sought out the 4th World Movement regarding radical

poverty. What I learned from those in radical poverty was that, more than a crumb of bread or a sip of soup,

what they most desired was a seat at the table of dialogue when their destiny was being determined. (By the

way, the 4th World group I met with was headed by French "missionaries," a delightful married couple and

their children, working with our radically poor in New Orleans. Yes, they came to the good old US of A ...

and OUR poor.)

Catholic moral theology remains divorced from the concrete, lived experiences of GLBT's, to be sure, and

of women as women, and of married couples and others, because none of us have been included at the table

of dialogue when our destinies have been determined. (Well, there was the Papal Commission on Birth

Control but we all know the REST of that story.) It's just like talking about God without having an

experience of God. It is so rationalistic, "a prioristic," biologistic, physicalistic, narrowly philosophical,

parochialistic and a host of other -istics!

That is why one can read JPII's Theology of the Body and come away feeling that he knew married love,

from reading philosophy, about as intimately as I know Abraham Lincoln, from reading the encyclopedia.

It is good that JPII aspired to a more phenomenological and personalist approach, but not good enough.

There are more witnesses to revelation than scripture, tradition, the magisterium and philosophy. Other than

the most general of precepts, that are transparent to human reason, grounded in the universal human

condition and espoused by folks of every non/foundational persuasion, such as in the Declaration of

Independence and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, there's not much more the hierarchy (or anyone

else) can (or should) say, about morality, in general. We have to work out the details on our own, in

genuine dialogue and prayerful study. To restate and clarify, I mean to say that scripture, tradition & the

magisterium/philosophy can only navigate us to the most general of moral precepts, such as those in the

Declaration of Independence. For more specific guidance re: gender and sexuality we must draw from the

sciences (biological and behavioral) and, most importantly, from concrete, lived experience, which is to

say, personal testimony a/k/a WITNESS to revelation. In summary, we have long and often heard from

SOME of the Witnesses to Revelation; however, we need badly to hear from ALL Witnesses to Revelation.

This is even more true regarding the marriage of eros and ethos, which needs special recourse to the sensus

fidelium; the concrete, lived experiences of the faithful; and modern biological and behavioral sciences.

We must change our categories from the old "a prioristic," essentialistic, dyadic, substantialistic

metaphysics to those that are more robustly social, relational, pragmatic, triadic, semiotic ... because human

experience is extremely depthful (think imago Dei) and cannot be facilely handled by the old metaphysical

categories.

One cannot make a successful journey from the descriptive to the prescriptive vis a vis human authenticity

if one is sorely lacking in descriptive accuracy! And that is what I continue to work on here:

Humans journey through life in pursuit of truth, beauty, goodness and unity. We realize these values

through ongoing conversions, respectively, intellectual, affective, moral and social (Cf. Lonergan's

thought). Our churches institutionalize these values, respectively, trough, creed, cult, code and community.

As Catholics, we look for guidance in our value-realization strategies in the light of scripture, tradition,

magisterium-sensus fidelium, reason (e.g. philosophy) and experience (e.g. biological & behavioral

sciences, individual testimonies).

In the old days, both our social justice and sexual morality teachings relied on approaches based in

classicism, natural law and legalism. Nowadays, our social justice theory employs three new

methodologies, respectively, historical consciousness, personalism and relationality-responsibility (Cf.

Curran's thought). Modern Catholic social justice teachings enjoy widespread credibility due to these

updated methodologies, which are eminently transparent to human reason. There is, however, no such thing

as modern Catholic teaching in sexual morality. Neither are there any such things as credibility and

transparency regarding same, neither among the faithful nor in secular society.

On the surface, there are value-realization strategies available under the old methodologies that could

impart hope to all on many diverse issues pertaining both to gender and to sexual behaviors. For starters,

we could more broadly conceive the definitions of such values as procreativity and complementarity, such

that they are not so physicalistic, realizing that there are manifold other ways to celebrate being created cocreators

and to realize unitive values. We could draw a distinction between generative functions and life

issues (Cf. Haring's thought) and then establish a parvity of value for sexual moral objects, such that

masturbation would not be as serious as murder, for example. We could draw a distinction between our

essentialistic idealizations and their very problematical existential realizations and thus cut homosexuals

some "pastoral sensitivity slack" as was done with married couples vis a vis the rhythm method.

The problem is, however, that there needs to be a wholesale paradigm shift from the old methodologies to

the new, wherein some old terms and definitions and logics will receive new vitality while others will be

revealed as meaningless, incommensurable and incoherent. (It is beyond my present scope to suggest which

terms and logics will suffer or enjoy which fate, but I have my sneaking suspicions regarding “intrinsic

disorder.”)

Accordingly, as we look for guidance in our value-realization strategies pertaining to gender and sexual

behavior, employing a much more robust historical consciousness, personalism and relationalityresponsibility

model, I want to know why anyone should turn solely (or even first and foremost) to

scripture, tradition and the magisterium.

Especially regarding moral realities, then, which are transparent to human reason, we must also turn to that

aspect of the teaching office known as the sensus fidelium, and also must turn to reason (e.g. philosophy)

and to experience (e.g. biological & behavioral sciences, individual testimonies). If we fail to make these

moves and take these turns, we are failing to be either catholic or Catholic. Also, our arguments will lack

normative impetus in the Public Square, where we need more than “the Bible tells me so” or the Koran, as

the case may be, to urge legislative remedies on the body politic.

This issue, for me, brings to mind so many distinctions, such as between 1) natural and moral joy 2) secular

and religious conversions 3) eros and agape and 4) obligational and aspirational. And these distinctions

further bring to mind such dynamics as i) Bernardian love ii) Ignatius' Degrees of Humility iii)

developmental dynamics in psychology, like those of Kohlberg (moral), Fowler (faith) and Piaget

(cognitive).

Here's an example of how those distinctions and dynamics interact for me.

Long ago now, I gave this serious thought from a parenting perspective vis a vis what might or might not

be "developmentally appropriate" for my children at different ages. Once one's been seduced by the

Heavenly Suitor and comes to believe that it is only because He is such a gentleman and only because He'd

never force His Love on anyone that some concept of estrangement is theologically necessary, then 7734

(or Hades) becomes moreso a required logical possibility of an authentic relationship calculus than a

threatening existential probability.

So, I had to decide whether or not I would allow my children to believe that a) meat on Friday b) messing

around with their girlfriends on Saturday c) missing Mass on Sunday or d) masturbating on Monday would,

perhaps, like d) murder on Tuesday, e) so mortally damage their relationship with God by Wednesday that,

f) if they died accidentally on Thursday, they'd g) share a cell with Mussolini for Eternity (assuming he

didn't get off on a technicality, himself, being exculpable due, for instance, to an improperly formed

conscience, you know, like the one I was considering gifting to my children just to best hedge their own

heavenly bets).

Stated as an oversimplification, I truly struggled with how to balance fear and love in their formation. After

all, early in moral development, reward and punishment DO figure prominently, and the obligational often

must take hold to properly prepare the way for one's eventual discovery of the aspirational. We know, too,

that is heresy to deny a role for eros even as we strive to learn agape, for, as the Act of Contrition makes

clear, imperfect contrition is both necessary AND sufficient as we "detest all our sins because of Thy just

punishment" and, perhaps, just maybe, "most of all because I have offended Thee, my God, Who art all

good."

There is a parallel, here, to Bernardian Love: 1) love of self for sake of self 2) love of God for sake of self

3) love of God for sake of God and 4) love of self for sake of God. Also, in the Degrees of Humility in

Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises, whereby we 1) would not want to gravely offend God because of the

consequences we'd thus suffer 2) would not want to even venially offend God because He is so deserving

of our love and 3) not only would we want to neither gravely nor venially offend God, we want to imitate

Him in every way possible.

In a nutshell, then, once having chosen Love over Fear as the primary motivator, both in the catechesis and

in the moral development of my children, once deemphasizing both the "carrot" of heaven and the "stick"

of hell, a certain question may be left begging regarding just WHY would one choose this course of action

versus that. And the answer lies in the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. It is intrinsically

rewarding to follow the Jesuit motto of AMDG or ad majorem Dei gloriam, which is to say, to give God

the greatest possible glory. And, very often, it may be that God receives the greatest possible glory when

one's right hand does not even know what one's left hand is doing, for example, when one is being

unconsciously competent vis a vis the life of the Spirit, when one is exercising one's implicit faith having

never heard the Gospel, when one does what is right with no expectation of either an earthly or heavenly

reward.

I do very much believe that our church communities are founded to give God the greatest possible glory

and that they are intended to optimally institutionalize all conversions --- intellectual, affective, moral,

sociopolitical and religious --- thru creed, cult, code and community, ttthru all the ways you listed, THUS

best enabling us to ENJOY faith, hope, love and peace, consciously and competently, in the now and

awareness, with love and benevolence, in honesty and truth, in the Name of God.

So, while our inclusivistic theocentrism recognizes the salvation of all people who lead the good and moral

life and of others who are exculpable and yet others whose destiny is known to God alone, I have to believe

that our unique contribution to the Public Square is to offer all the manifold and multiform consolations

others might thus receive from being witnessed to (via personal experience) regarding the reality of the

Good News: we are eternally Beloved. As witnesses, then, if necessary, we can even use our tongues and

keyboards to share this Good News. Of course, St. Francis reminds us that evangelization does not require

our tongues as often as we might tend to believe.

I have, nonetheless, often thought that, not being privy to the actual collective stage of moral development

of this church community or that, perhaps I should take some comfort in the notion that maybe even

millions still attend Church, Mosque or Synagogue on Sabbath for fear of going to Hell. After all, if it is

moral judgment that thus motivates them moreso than moral joy, then I positively shudder to imagine what

horrendous atrocities they would otherwise commit in our communities absent the threat of eternal hellfire.

Maybe it is the realist approach to pastoral sensitivity that keeps our hierarchies focused on judgment and

not joy? I do not write this with tongue fully in cheek.

I can only say that my children are pretty good people in spite of me.

Another point that I did not state explicitly is that there are different stages of faith development and

different levels of moral development and different levels of spiritual attainment and that our church

communities, optimally, should accommodate them all. Things like imperfect contrition and love of God

for sake of self, however minimalistic, do meet the criteria of being both necessary and sufficient for

salvation. Another way of saying this is that the Old Covenant still works. What is poignantly sad is that we

are invited to a whole other level of intimacy and many settle for less. The purgative is both necessary and

sufficient but, still, the illuminative and unitive beckon. Same applies to the Degrees of Humility,

Bernardian love and all other stage paradigms, both psychological and spiritual.

The invitation is there --- to travel beyond.

There is a philosophical concept called "parvity of matter" that deals with how serious, how grave, how

weighty this or that sin or dis-order, moral or pre-moral, may be.

Even if the church's natural law interpretations were not too biologistic and physicalistic, which they are,

and even if the church properly and more broadly conceived the procreative and unitive values of sex,

which it does not, still, a problem would persist in that the church does not recognize a parvity of matter

regarding sex. All sexual sins are equally grave, serious, weighty, or, in a word, mortal.

How did the church ever come to equate contracepting couples, masturbating adolescents and homosexual

eroticism with such a grave immoral action such as murder? Essentially, the church's stance toward our

human generative faculties is that we have NO dominion of such biological functions. This differs from its

stance of LIMITED dominion in the art and science of medicine. Supposedly, this differs because our

generative faculties involve sacred human life, itself. At least this is a reasonable inference from Paul VI's

interpretation of Pope John's encyclical Mater et Magistra. Bernard Haring countered this reasoning

because it employed unequal members in comparison of the absolute sacredness of human life with a

supposed absolute sacredness of biological laws and rhythms.

Richard McBrien describes the natural law theory of those who support the traditional teaching: "It is a

concept of nature as something so mysterious and sacred, they maintain, that any human intervention tends

to destroy rather than to perfect this very nature. Because of this mentality, many advances in medical

science were prohibited for a time, and the same was true for other areas of scientific experimentation."

The majority theologians on the papal commission would thus counter this: "The dignity of the human

person consist in this, that God wished man to SHARE in His dominion ... ... In the course of his life man

must attain his perfection in difficult and adverse conditions, he must accept the consequences of his

responsibility, etc Therefore, the dominion of God is exercised through man, who can use nature for his

own perfection according to the dictates of right reason."

Finally, even if the church's narrow conceptualizations of procreative and unitive values were correct, even

if its lack of parvity of matter for sex was correct, and even if its "no dominion " approach to generative

biological functions was correct, still, following its own doctrine of original sin, it could properly exercise a

great deal more compassion and pastoral sensitivity by applying its traditional realist approach to the

human condition over against any overemphasis of essentialistic moral idealizations at the expense of our

ever-faltering and always-feeble existential realizations of such values.

In other words, there are a LOT of ways to justify a much more loving embrace of our homosexual sisters

and brothers and, yes, even those who are "practicing."

Here are some thoughts of real theologians in case, as a lowly layman, I am perceived as too far out of my

league:

1) Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that

of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her

teaching rather than by condemnations.

Pope John XXIII, from his Opening Address of Vatican II

2) But it is in fact also part of the tragic and impenetrable historicity of the Church that in practice and

theory it defended moral precepts with bad arguments, based on problematic, historically conditioned

preconceptions, "prejudgments," which it did not itself abandon but which other historical causes

eliminated; only then did the Church finally find the new conviction obvious and (unfortunately) proceeded

to act is if the new

global conviction was obvious and the Church had never had any doubts about it.

Karl Rahner, S.J. "On Bad Arguments in Moral Theology,"

Theological Investigations XVIII, 1984. p. 79.

3) The specific role of the theologians] calls them to explore the implications of Church teach, to

investigate it, to refine it, to probe it, to push back its horizons. If not all Church teaching is guaranteed to

be infallible, then some of it could be fallible, reformable, conceivably even incorrect. It is part of the

theologian's responsibility to speak to Church teaching which he or she conscientiously believes to be

inexact or erroneous.

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk (former head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) in his Pastoral

Letter on Dissent to the Cincinnati Archdiocese, 6 June 1986. Reported in Origins 16:9 (31 July 1986), p.

177.

4) The magisterium of the Church, cannot propose moral norms until it is certain of interpreting the will of

God. And to reach this certainty the Church is not dispensed from research and from examining the many

questions proposed for her consideration from every part of the world. This is at times a long and not an

easy task.

Pope Paul VI AAS 58 [1966]: 219.

5) Opposition is not inconsistent with solidarity. The one who voices his opposition to the general or

particular rules or regulations of the community does not thereby reject his membership; he does not

withdraw his readiness to act and to work for the common good.

Karol Cardinal Wojtyla [John Paul II], The Acting Person

[Osoba i Czyn] (1969).

And, perhaps my favorite pertinent quote:

6) In the process of assimilating what is really rational and rejecting what only seems to be rational, the

whole Church has to play a part. This process cannot be carried out in every detail by an isolated

Magisterium, with oracular infallibility. The life and suffering of Christians who profess their faith in the

midst of their times has just as important a part to play as the thinking and questioning of the learned,

which would have a very hollow ring without the backing of Christian existence, which learns to discern

spirits in the travail of everyday life.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. "Magisterium of the Church, Faith, Morality." In Curran and McCormick.

Readings in Moral Theology, No. 2., p.186.

By what criteria might we evaluate and critique the July 2003 Vatican statement opposing proposals to give

legal recognition to same-sex unions? (This is a distinct consideration, of course, from any sacramental

angle or consideration re: ecclesial blessings.)

Specifically, while the church should weigh in with its own views, when should it demand, or refrain from

demanding, particular legislative and judicial responses?

Is this an issue of private or public morality?

Is this a moral issue or a civil law issue?

Does prudential judgment, which has both moral and practical components, support the law's effectiveness

and enforceability? Will the law support minimal public morality (not moralizing excessively, inviting

contempt and defeating its purpose) and peace and justice? Does it meet the norm of generally accepted

standards? Will the law infringe religious freedom?

The above questions are generic and drawn from my reading of John CourtneyMurray. In this thread, we

have drawn several other analogies to the contraception debate in trying to shed light on the church's

teachings and admonitions regarding this "intrinsic disorder question."

As I began to research this question, I came across a blog where this new angle had already been well

explored. I commend it to all: "John Courtney Murray and the Legal Recognition of Homosexual Unions"

Here are 2 excerpts:

1) But what about legal recognition of homosexual unions? Is the Murray argument valid in this case? I

believe it may well be. Homosexual behavior is clearly a matter of private, rather than public morality.

Legal recognition of homosexual unions does not rise to the standard defined by John Paul in Evangelium

Vitae, as it clearly does not threaten a fundamental right. In this vein, conservative writer George Weigel

noted clearly that contraception is a matter of "conjugal morality and the sixth commandment" while

abortion is a matter of "public justice and the fifth commandment". But using this taxonomy,

homosexuality is also dealt with in the Catechism under the auspices of chastity and the sixth

commandment. It tilts towards the contraception, not the abortion, camp.

2) The CDF worries about homosexual unions encouraging "erroneous ideas" about sexuality and

marriage-- the exact same charge can be leveled against artificial contraception. Even worse, the change in

attitudes had an impact on abortion. It is by now a well-established argument that the legalization of

contraception was the first step in a chain that led directly to legalized abortion. So, in a sense, the effects

on public morality from legalized contraception were far worse than would be the case from recognizing

homosexual unions. And yet Murray's argument still holds sway.

For a more exhaustive analysis of the JCM methodology, I commend Gregory A. Kalscheur, S.J.'s "John

Paul II, John CourtneyMurray, and the Relationship Between Civil Law and Moral Law: A Constructive

Proposal for Contemporary American Pluralism," which one can download here:

Kalscheur concludes: "Evangelium Vitae’s call for a necessary conformity of the civil law to the moral law

can play a constructive role in public policy discourse so long as the claims of the moral law are presented

in a way that is publicly accessible and intelligible."

Below are excerpts from Patrick McCormick's "Catholicism & Sexuality: The Sounds of Silence" available

McCormick identifies the inconsistencies in the hierarchical magisterium's use of 1) proportionate reason in

analyzing some moral realities but not others 2) new methodologies in social justice theory but not sexual

morality. He describes 3) the lack of support from the sensus fidelium 4) the unwillingness to dialogue by

the hierarchy and 5) its disregard for empirical evidence in the form of people's concrete lived experiences.

McCormick also describes in great detail the "sounds of silence" from 6) Bishops, 7) Theologians, 8)

Pastors and 9) Women and the underlying causes of the silence.

These numbers, above, correspond to the numbered excerpts below (1 thru 9).

In an editorial, "Brokeback Church," he addresses the "intrinsic disorder" fallacy at length.

1) Within the church there can be debate about or exceptions to official positions on the use of nuclear

weapons, capital punishment or economic sanctions, but not contraception, sterilization, or abortion.

Proportionate reason may be used to justify the indirect killing of thousands of women and children, but not

masturbation to secure a husband's sperm for artificial insemination.

2) As many have noted, Rome has long approached matters of social and sexual ethics differently,

admitting the moral ambiguity and complexity of political, economic and military questions and making

room for respectful disagreement with specific judgments, while demanding a strict obedience to absolute

sexual norms. [a]

3) Numerous studies indicate that only a tiny fraction (10-13 percent) of contemporary American Catholics

continue to support the Church's ban on birth control, and that a majority (usually large) disagree with

official teachings on divorce, sterilization, masturbation, pre-marital sex, abortion, celibacy and women's

ordination. And only a fifth of American Catholics believe that final authority to determine the morality of

homosexual relations should be given to the magisterium. [b]

4) Still, in spite of a growing chasm between what the official church teaches and what the "People of God"

believe, the church's magisterium has refused to allow or engage in meaningful conversations about

questions of sex and gender. Repeated calls for dialogue have fallen on deaf hierarchical ears and continue

to be met with a stony silence, commands to discontinue debate on a list of sexual topics (including birth

control, priestly celibacy and women's ordination), and/or accusations of disloyalty.[c]

5) The Catholic Theological Society of America responded to this deepening crisis by attempting to foster a

serious conversation about Human Sexuality, one that would attend to biblical, theological, and historical

sources as well as empirical evidence gathered from people's lived experience. But the U.S. bishops and the

Vatican criticized and condemned the ensuing report, ultimately forcing its withdrawal from publication, in

large part for its focus on empirical evidence. [d]

6) More than twenty years ago Richard McCormick noted the self-imposed silence of bishops on disputed

sexual issues and reported that he had been told of a hundred U.S. bishops who privately dissented from

official teaching on sterilization, but would not do so publicly. (Certainly the numbers would be higher on

the intrinsic evil of contraception.) "It is a known fact," McCormick wrote, "that bishops do not feel free to

speak their true minds. When they do so, great pressures are brought to bear on them."[e]

7) No one knows how many theologians have decided they cannot risk losing a job or a promotion or

tenure over a single article on reproductive technologies or a public letter on homosexuality or women's

ordination. And no one knows how many graduate students decide not to study moral theology at all

because there are just too many things it's not safe to write about. As Patrick notes in writing about the

chilling effect of the Vatican's action against Charles Curran, "And although other theologians who share

his positions have not yet suffered such disciplinary action, their research and teaching have been affected,

if only by prudent self-censorship."[f]

8) Bishops and academic theologians are sometimes remote from the lived experience of Catholics in the

pews, and from the sexual issues that concern and disturb them. And neither the local ordinary nor the

academic is as widely listened to by the laity as they might wish to think. For the vast majority of

Catholics, pastors and pastoral ministers are their regular and critical point of contact with the Church and

its teachings, and the silence of these ministers on sex and gender issues may be more troubling in the

concrete.

9) The silencing of women shows up in the magisterium's continued unwillingness to engage in open

conversation about issues critical to women, in the opposition to consulting the voices and experience of

women on these matters, and in the use of often severe sanctions against religious women who question the

hierarchy's defense of patriarchy and its absolute proscriptions of certain sexual practices.

[a] Patrick, Liberating Conscience, 40-41; Curran, Tensions in Moral Theology, 87-109.

[b] William V. D'Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge and Ruth A.Wallace, Laity, American and

Catholics: Transforming the Church (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1996) 27, 49-63; D'Antonio,

"American Catholic Laity," 12 (Table 3); Greeley, American Catholics Since the Council, 81-87; Richard

A. McCormick, S.J., The Critical Calling: Reflections on Moral Dilemmas Since Vatican II (Washington,

D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1989) 273-274.

[c] D'Antonio et al, Laity, American and Catholic, 15.

[d] D'Antonio et al, Laity, American and Catholic, 44-45.

[e] McCormick, The Critical Calling, 75.

[f] Patrick, Liberating Conscience, 137

That God may be more glorified and His people more sanctified, that we might run the race more quickly

and with less hindrance, the truth of the Gospel, as articulated in the Creed and celebrated in the

Sacraments, has been proclaimed to all the world by many faithful witnesses to and servants of Special

Divine Revelation, indeed, including the Servant of Servants.

That ALL may attain salvation, freedom from both death and sin, even without the awareness or hearing of

Special Revelation, the Holy Spirit has been placed in ALL hearts that ALL might know right from wrong,

and, through the Holy Spirit, then, ALL persons of goodwill, who live morally upright lives, are indeed

saved.

And that is why, when we speak anagogically and creedaly about what we both hope for and believe, the

Gospel is indispensable.

And that is why, when we speak morally about what one must do, we need not couch our reasons in terms

of special revelation (and best not in the public square, where it lacks normative impetus) but, instead,

should voice our appeals in terms and with logic that are transparent to human reason. And I DO believe

and I DO trust that the Holy Spirit guides such moral deliberations of all people of goodwill, FALLIBLE

though we are in such matters (me and JPII, for starters), this over against any fundamentalist magisterial

maximalism (defined elsewhere in this thread).

The hierarchical aspect of the teaching office has had no small degree of difficulty in translating its moral

teachings into terms and logic clearly transparent to human reason. If this has been painfully true in its

dialogue with the sensus fidelium aspect of the teaching office, then how much more true has it been for

modern humankind?! This thread precisely explores the manifold and multiform reasons for such

disconnects.

It is not useful, then, to piously mumble or fervently urge a mindless submission to any moral authority

absent accompanying compelling arguments made in the lingua franca of universal epistemic, aesthetic and

moral human sensibilities and human reason. Such a pusillanimous and obsequious fundamentalist mindset

is dangerous and is the same type that would have its children fly airplanes into skyscrapers, had it been

born in a different time or place.

There is more to building an upright and mature conscience and to ongoing intellectual, affective, moral,

sociopolitical and religious conversion than simply trusting this or that parochial figurehead. At least there

had better be. That consideration takes us away from the scope of this thread.

And I am very, very earnest and very, very concerned about all this, especially as evidenced in the rising

tide of fundamentalism in all churches. And I even see an insidious Enlightenment fundamentalism rising

in the so-called "Brights" like Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and their scientistic ilk.

To some extent, I understand and empathize with such fundamentalism as we continue to live in uncertain

times and as many long for quick and easy answers for every aspect of their lives, unable to tolerate

ambiguity or to live with paradox, unable to see the wisdom in uncertainty, badly needing to rush to closure

on every mystery, large or small, rather than, like Mary, pondering these things in our hearts. What we are

doing, then, is running away from the Cross, when we chase after easy answers and chase away paradox,

ambiguity and uncertainty, often in error but seldom in doubt.

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essentialistic, dyadic, substantialistic metaphysics to those that are more robustly social, relational,

matter of mere logical validity and soundness. They will always involve an interplay between human

methodologies, faculties and sensibilities that are intellectually-related even if not logically-related. Truth

has often flown in on the wings of beauty or goodness, such as in Occam's Razor, which is essentially an

aesthetic appeal to elegance, a pragmatic appeal to facility. As Catholics, we look for guidance in our

value-realization strategies in the light of scripture, tradition, magisterium-sensus fidelium, reason (e.g.

testimonies regarding our experiences as mediated by our various faculties and sensibilities). In the old

days, both our social justice and sexual morality teachings relied on approaches based in classicism, natural

law and legalism. Nowadays, our social justice theory employs three new methodologies, respectively,

historical consciousness, personalism and relationality-responsibility (Cf. Curran's thought). Modern

Catholic social justice teachings enjoy widespread credibility due to these updated methodologies, which

are eminently transparent to human reason. Sex & gender and other moral teachings lag seriously behind.

context of the abortion issue.