The Church and Human Sexuality

Christianity has long suffered from a bad case of fright in dealing with human sexuality. It has not always been thus and although the problem surely predates the advent of Jansenism, (The Catholic version of Puritanism), that scourge undoubtedly worsened the situation, forcing the Church into an ever more rigid attitude regarding all things sexual.
The language of Vatican Council II regarding sexuality within the confines of marriage is positively glowing, poetic. This follows decades of pastoral approaches which can only be described as disdainful, giving sex a grudging tolerance. Now it is to be seen as a gift from God and, although it must always be open to the possibility of procreation, couples can engage in it quite freely and as an end in itself, thus expressing marital unity.
But the bishops in council were not yet ready to open its arms to its homosexual members; not yet able to countenance a loving unity between two persons of the same sex. I stress the word "yet," because this is one of the most obvious examples of developmental theology...it standing in need of a good bit of "development!" The Church suffers from insufficient understanding of human nature.
I quote from the official Catholic Catechism: "#2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (italics, mine)Note from this teaching the words "...It's psychological genesis remains largely unexplained." The Church is here acknowledges that it has an incomplete understanding of the psychology of homosexuality, implying that when it does have such an understanding, it will amend its teachings to reflect it. Once again, it is not so much a case of the Church teaching in error, as it is the Church teaching incompletely. Even in the secular world, the world of science, homosexuality is not completely understood, but gradually, in time we will learn more and more.
How much of the current teaching would have to be changed? Actually, not a great deal. Some critics would strike the word "disordered" for example, but I think a case could be made for keeping it. The word "Disordered," could be justified if only by virtue of the fact that homosexuals constitute a minority, a departure from the norm, heterosexuality. How much distance is there between "departure from the norm," and "disordered?" The "norm," is "ordered" and that which departs from it would be dis-ordered." As a homosexual myself, I would not find this objectionable, but I readily admit that many of my more radical gay friends would. To them, I would say what I say to the Church with its present teaching, "time will tell. Sooner or later the truth of the matter will prevail." In the meantime, Contrarian as I am, I see no sin in my orientation. (See my blog on freedom of conscience...this is the best and most personal example from my own life of using that freedom.)
Over the years, I have given it a lot of thought, giving a great deal of attention to the Church's teaching on the matter. Only then, did I conclude that the Church is incomplete in its teaching on the subject, not having factored in a deeper understanding of natural law.
It might strike some that this is wishful thinking on my part. To them I would mention how close the Church once came to changing its position vis-a-vis birth control. Paul VI convened a special commission of clerical and lay experts on the subject to recommend to him what the Church's position ought to be on the matter. The members of that commission were very much aware of the leeway they had been given. Unfortunately, the word "recommend" meant just that, and Paul did not embrace their more liberal position, instead maintaining the Church's long-time position without any change. But the point shows how issues can be opened up and made liable to change. At some distant time in the future, I rather think a similar commission might be set up by some future Pope and, this time a recommendation for greater understanding will be embraced.
This might be a good time for a reminder: There is a big difference between dogma, "infallibly" defined, and mere teachings. The former are set in stone, so to speak, and the latter are subject to development.

Purgatory and Hell -cont. & Anthropomorphism

In view of the three concurrently required conditions in order to commit a mortal sin, and considering the great amount of the lesser sort of sinning going on and, if we think of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory as actual places (which, of course, they are not!) then Purgatory is the one most crowded; few of us lead such exemplary lives that we would deserve to go immediately to Heaven, upon our death and, likewise, few of us are so profoundly wicked as to deserve a quick one-way ticket to Hell. Whew! Thank God for that. I, for one, am pretty damned sure that I, being a sort of penny-ante sinner, will almost certainly go to Purgatory. Hey. It's not the tops, but all things considered, I think myself pretty lucky and, for sure, I'll have plenty of company!
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Anthropomorphism: In the above addendum and probably in most of my comments thus far, I have most likely played with the intellectually dangerous tendency to picture things and places that have no form to begin with. Heaven, hell and purgatory are not places, as I've already said, but we will not require any space to occupy any way, being pure spirit and body-less. This tendency to imagine the unimaginable is only human, of course, and I don't want to get carried away in a crusade against something that is, after all, so natural. I just want to point out how dangerous it is to put too much emphasis on such things. I have friends who do believe that heaven, and hell are places (one being way up above in the clouds, of course, and the other way, way deep down below!..where, of course, we'll recognize each other in our tired old body forms. I have not wanted to test their belief systems too much by asking how we will be dressed and will we have changes of attire, so as not to be wearing the same thing all the time!)

This tendency to think of the spiritual world in graphic terms, has brought about some great art throughout the ages and great literature. How could Dante have written his great works without using anthropomorphic terms of reference...and how could we have understood him, if he did? So...yes...it is natural and, as long as we don't fall victim to intellectual sloppiness and become literalists, it's perfectly okay. But I am staggered by the number of people who do precisely that, and get caught up in all kinds of intellectual snags as a result.

I was talking to a lady the other day who quite seriously referred to the fires of hell and I was frightened. Not by the fires described, but by the conviction she showed in such a thing. But, she's not alone. There are millions of people who believe in the tongues of fire ready to sear the limbs of those who don't straighten-up and "get right with the Lord." And if that's not frightening enough, what about the fact that there is a major non-Catholic Christian religion that teaches that God, the Father has a body and that the virgin birth came about by way of that Father's body having sexual relations with the virgin Jewish maiden, name of Mary!

It is not so surprising that there are a number of people who are completely turned off to religion and who call themselves atheists, when they see themselves surrounded by illogical believers. If the belief systems themselves, so replete with such nonsense were not bad enough, they have the spectacle of what people who hold to such systems do to one another. Witness the recent spectacle of Protestant and Catholic wars in Ireland. Witness all the war and mayhem practiced thoughout history in the name of one religion or another. How can anyone blame individuals who opt out and refuse to accept the existence of a God who is, apparently, the author of such insanity?

And, so far, I have had reference only to Christianity. What can I say about fundamentalist, jihadist, fratricidal Islamists, who could only be persuaded to stop killing their fellow Islamists, by directing their blood-lust to the "heathens," the Christians? Would that they could be a tiny bit more merciful amongst themselves and toward others in imitation of Allah, the Most Merciful?

Sometimes, it is hard to hold fast to being even a Contrarian Catholic and just throw the whole thing up in desparation. What keeps me moored, even though questioningly, is knowing something else besides the horrors listed above: That this religion has been the nurturing source for a considerable number of heroically holy people...the Saints, as well as the haters, killers, etc. The reference in the New Testament about good trees bearing good fruit...that keeps me steadfast in my faith, contrary at times, though it be!

I can continue to get great comfort from looking at the beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin in my garden and be inspired by gazing at the crucifix on my bedroom wall, but I know they are just representative of a spiritual substratum, bearing no likeness whatsoever to the essences they attempt to picture.

Purgatory and Hell -Eminently Reasonable Doctrines

As a Contrarian Catholic, I take much comfort from the fact that my "contrariness" is not all-pervasive and does not apply to each an every doctrine taught by the Church. I take great comfort from the sheer reasonableness of most of Catholic teaching, unlike the unreasonableness of some Protestant churches.

Take Purgatory and Hell for example. Some fundamentalist Christians take a very hard line about sin, seeing no distinction between serious and not-so-serious kinds. A starving man, for instance, stealing a loaf of bread deserves to go to hell just as much as a man robbing a bank of a million dollars! No middle ground, no juvenile detention, just plain hell for all eternity! Whoa!

And take the three well-conceived "conditions" which define mortal sin in Catholic teaching: 1. Serious matter, in and of itself. 2. Due deliberation. 3. Full Consent of the Will. Think about that for a minute. Most of us would agree on what would constitute a serious matter. Killing, for example...quite serious. But killing, committed in certain circumstances might not constitute a mortal sin. Even the state, recognizes factors which mitigate the degree of culpability, such as age, self-defense, insanity, etc.

Now, for due deliberation: The Church requires that this serious sin has to have been committed, not in the heat of the moment, passion, etc., but rather after the act has been deliberatively thought about. And for Full consent of the Will: The Church requires the violator knows full well that what he is doing is a very serious thing, has given it a great deal of thought and then, very determinedly decides to do it! Without all three of these conditions, mortal sin...sin which kills the soul...has not been committed. And, upon death, the soul is not dispatched to hell.

But, as it is with lesser sins, penalties must still be paid. Again, even the state requires this; if a man confesses that he stole money, he is required, at the very least to pay it back and, most likely spend some time in the pokey. And that's where Purgatory comes in...a kind of pokey, in which we spend some time in reparation. An altogether reasonable notion. Maybe I haven't stolen anybody's money, but I have harbored terribly unloving thoughts about that person, even though the Church has taught me to love him. When I die, I will have to pay a just penalty for failure in my Christian obligation of love. After all penalties have been paid, then my soul will be released to heaven and beatific vision.

Now I find this doctrine quite well reasoned and really, quite beautiful.

Jesus and Chemotherapy

An article in today’s paper prompts me to note the use of supplicatory prayer and my typical reaction to it.
A Christian pastor’s wife has been diagnosed with cancer and claims she is improving by way of “Jesus and chemotherapy.” Instantly, my hackles are raised, to see the Holy Name of Jesus used in this way, coupled with a medical procedure as a means to a cure. Surely Jesus does not need the assistance of chemotherapy!
It would appear that, for most Christians, “praying” is 95% supplication and perhaps 5% praise.
Of course that 95% includes Catholic basketball players who almost routinely cross themselves when they stand at the “free-throw” line, as well as families gathered beside a loved one’s bedside in a hospital, hoping for a recovery.
The question arises for me, though apparently not too often for those who use supplecatory prayers, what happens to our faith if the ball falls short of the basket and the relative in the hospital dies anyway? Does God weigh in on the side of one team rather than the other? Does He decide to give the doctor’s medicine a little extra boost, or send the family out of the hospital room to plan for a funeral? Is it Christian to use prayer in this fashion?
The quick answer is, yes. We are told by Jesus Christ himself to pray for God’s intercession at certain times so, obviously, it must be a proper thing for a Christian to do. But I worry about the level of faith and to what degree such prayers are ended with the words “however, thy will be done.”
As a Contrarian Catholic, it concerns me to realize that even in warfare between two Christian countries, the clergy on both sides pray for and with the soldiers before they go out with their weapons to kill or be killed. History accounts tell us that Catholic bishops in Germany blessed German soldiers as they prepared to fight the Christians of Britain and the U. S. –just as did the Bishops of the latter countries for their own “boys.”
In my own prayer-life, I seldom use prayer like this for myself, yet I have a gut feeling that it is not only a good thing, but even an effective thing, to pray for others in their times of need. When hearing others relate stressful situations in their lives, it not only comforts both them and myself, when I assure them that “I will keep this in my prayers,”…I also have a feeling that doing so might very well be effective in bringing about the desired result.
I wonder at my resistance or repugnance when I read comments such as those I found in today’s paper. Does a part of me want to say that God doesn’t play favorites, taking one side against another? Intellectually, it seems clear enough, that God works his Will in a general way through the nature he has set in motion. If it rains in one place and causes a game to be called and the sun shines in another place and a team wins, it is…my mind tells me…simply because of the nature of things. The clouds form over a given area through the laws of nature and team in another place wins for the same reason (better training or, perhaps, just because most of the players feel more confidant on that particular occasion!)
I guess what it comes to is that, although supplicatory prayer is a good and Christian thing to do, one should not expect God to intervene and even reverse things in the normal course of nature very often…that such interventions will be rare and should be expected (if at all) only if the prayers are for a worthy and important matter. Surely, the winning of the one point to bring victory to the players of "Notre Dame," and the defeat of those from "St. Monica’s"…surely that does not rise to that level.
Also, I cannot help but think that prayers of worship and adoration are of a higher order and more worthy of us as Christians than are prayers of supplication.

Mother Theresa's Crisis of Faith

There is a newsmagazine out now which features Mother Theresa of Calcutta on the front cover and a sensational title…something to the effect that she had a “secret” life of doubt about God. I haven’t read, and don’t intend to read this article, but the newspapers have carried other articles along the same line, which I have read, and I am amazed that they are so ignorant of what the spiritual life is all about…that it is about journey, about stumbling over blocks. I assume that other voices will soon enough join the fray and straighten the media out, telling them and their listeners that crisis of faith is something all people who strive for holiness will encounter sooner or later, Mother Theresa not excepted.
Anyone who has not encountered doubts, simply has not enlisted in the struggle for spiritual growth. It’s as simple as that. I gather from what I’ve read, they think that having doubt, knocks one out of the “running” when it comes to Rome’s recognition of sanctity in a person. On the contrary; evidence that the candidate never fought doubt could be taken as proof they were not a saint! A declared Saint is a Hero of the Spirit...one who has faught the good fight and won!
Well, I guess we should be grateful, in this supremely secular/consumerist, hedonistic society, the question is raised at all. Perhaps, through these articles, some persons may be reached and clued into what the real struggle of life is all about. Of course, the doubts to which Mother Theresa confessed, had to do with the “sense” of God’s reality, rather than a purely intellectual question.
Even the slightest perusal of the lives of declared saints makes it quite clear that they all had periods in which they were deprived of the sense or the feeling of God’s presence, let alone His love. I am remembering reading of the “dry spell” as it was called in one of the biographies of St. Francis.
Most people are stuck on the “feel good” level of religion. They go to church and they pray because it makes them feel good! God help them, when that feeling is pulled away the least little bit; for that is when their faith comes into question. Will they stick to their pursuit, or will they just give up? If they “stand firm,” believing even without the sense of God’s love, then they can hope to progress to a higher or deeper level.
The name of my faith, “Contrarian Catholic,” describes just such a struggle. God forbid that I should lay claim to ever having experienced the soul-searing sense-of-God-depravation of a saint, for that would mean that I have made some real progress in my own persuit of sanctity. But, ironically, I really should hope to come to that point, to that question. If not, no progress can be made. This is not to be confused with depression…whether of the “normal” kind or the clinically defined sort. There is a world of difference between being depressed about our lives and having a crisis of faith, sensing not God’s presence, but the opposite, His non-presence or non-reality.
I dread the arrival of such a time. It must be like an all pervasive sense of darkness, where before, one saw only the warmest and brightest of light. It must be like desparately feeling one’s way blindly, looking for a switch to turn on…no…much worse…looking even for a wall, upon which such a switch might be found. Feeling utterly blind, in utter darkness, with arms outstretched and fingers aching to touch something, anything. Because feeling nothing at all, day after day, month after month and year after year, stumbling endlessly, knowing only that there’s a floor, but fearing that that is all there is, there’s nothing more, like limitless space. One naturally dreads ever having to feel that, but then to realize that sooner or later if we live long enough and if we try hard enough to achieve spiritual truth and light, this will happen. St. John of the Cross, wrote about it in his tormented “Dark Night of the Soul.” This is the night we both dread and long to enter, for without this long night, there can be no new morning of even greater light,
Is it then any wonder that most of us lag behind, keeping ourselves forever busy with the minutiae of everyday, mundane “business” of life, just staying alive, not going anywhere…no where at all…until the number of our days is over and we die “intestate,” so to speak.

Comfortable Home for Liberals

I think a good case can be made that the politically conservative mind would have more trouble digesting my stress on Freedom of Conscience than those of liberal bent; it tends to hold on to things for dear life and anything running contrary to what Sister Stern said in the sixth grade, just has to be wrong! For the conservative adult convert, if the "instructions" received didn't mention, it "taint" so either!

It is true, that most priests and teaching nuns and brothers tend not to say too much about this teaching. It can seem almost dangerous; the fear being that laymen will take advantage of it and go off on their own without sufficient reflection. And, I confess, they have a point...a small point, but a point, nontheless. What is important is that the need to give any such decisions a great deal of study, reflection and prayer before coming to any apparently wayward conclusion, has to be stressed greatly.

On the pastoral level, it is just a lot easier for priests to simplify things and the tendency is, frankly, to rely more on fear to put people on the right path. And remember, the Contrarian Catholic does not for a moment, think that the Church is wrong in its objective teaching. He merely believes that for him and in his situation, the differing opinion must be followed. (Again, the distinction must be made between objective and subjective truth.)

For example: On the question of abortion: I believe that the Church is correct in its teaching forbidding it, and I am against it too, but I believe that it is wrong for the State to get involved in the matter, legislating against it and making the moral decision for the woman. In other words, I am both pro-life and pro-choice. If any body asked my advice, I would certainly advise against abortion (and I, unlike many, make no dicision as to the particulars...rape, incest, etc.)