Francis Does It Again!

Last week Pope Francis entered the fray (yet again) with a statement suggesting that contraceptives might be used to prevent the spread of the Zika virus or to avoid a pregnancy that might be endangered by the mother’s suffering from the virus.  When asked if contraception might, in this case, be “the lesser of two evils” the Pope first drew the line on abortion, which he declared to be “an absolute evil,” even comparing the saving of the life of the mother over the child to “the way the Mafia acts.”  (A bit strong, but point taken.)  The Pope went on then to say that avoiding a pregnancy, on the other hand, is not an absolute evil, implying there might be some room here to use contraceptives both to avoid spread of the disease and to justify contraception where the virus is a threat to mother and potential child.  

Pope Francis then went on to cite the story that Pope Paul VI had agreed that nuns in the then Belgian Congo might take a drug that suppresses ovulation to avoid pregnancy consequent on rape.  The Congo, then a Belgian colony struggling for Independence in a particularly vile war, was torn by brutal warfare in the first half of the 60’s.  The Church—because of its ties to the Belgian colonizers, was a special target of the rebels and there were numerous martyrdoms of clergy, religious and Catholic laity by the Simba forces.  Religious women were particularly victimized by rape.  A fictionalized account of the violence of the time—and a stinging indictment of American involvement in what would become a most savage war—is the novel The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  Again, this book is fiction but Ms. Kingsolver did a superb job in providing the historical setting for the novel and explaining the socio-political-economic status of the Congo on the outbreak of the war as well as what was at stake for the United States politically. 

Well, back to Pope Francis.  The Krazies are screaming heresy and are up in arms over Francis’ failure to condemn contraception in any and all cases.  The hive is swarming with angry wasps.  Even Michael Voris—who is usually somewhat trepid about a direct attack on the Pope—finds this a bridge too far.    One Loon wrote on her website “How long can the see of bishops let this go on for before they pull the plug on this shit show?”  I am not sure what “the see of bishops” refers to, but it sounds like Pope Francis might have a Simba Rebellion of his own. 

The Krazies are arguing that the claim that Paul VI authorized the nuns to take an ovulation suppressing drug to avoid pregnancy is urban legend and not true.  I don’t know what Pope Paul VI said at the time and despite my efforts at research I can’t come up with a reliable source to tell me.  But I am old enough to remember that it was reported at the time (and so it is no “urban legend”) that the Pope had authorized the nuns to take steps to avoid pregnancy.  He may have been misquoted—I don’t know—but it is, as I say, no urban legend. 

At the end of the day, the Holy Father is saying nothing different than the vast majority of parish priests would tell their parishioners.  Pope Benedict is a noted theologian.  Pope John Paul II was a philosopher.  Pope Francis is a pastor who can cut through the over-intellectualized crap for common sense solutions.  Sometimes, like the Scribes and the Pharisees in the Gospels, we take a very simple thing and build it up into a burden, heavy on others’ shoulders, and make no effort to help bear the weight.  But as Pope Francis consistently reminds us: Compassionless Christianity is no Christianity at all. 

More on Sex and the Synod

Saint Augustine and his
mother, Saint Monica: the
tensions of Catholic Sexuality

The synod address by Ron and Mavis Pirola, the Australian couple who are co-directors of the Australian Marriage and Family Council that is advisory to the Australian Bishops’ Conference on issues of Pastoral life was a wonderful call for the Synod Fathers to examine their own attitudes on human sexuality.  Too many Catholics—and perhaps especially those who are leading celibate lives—consciously or unconsciously view sex as something sinful but which is given some moral legitimacy in marriage if accompanied by a willingness for procreation.  Our attitudes on sex and human sexuality are greatly shaped by Saint Augustine.  Now, I need to say that I am normally a great admirer of Augustine.  I think he is the greatest mind in the two thousand year history of the Church,  including the Apostles.  But even Augustine didn’t always get it right.  Augustine himself had flirted with Manichaeism for about ten years, from his mid-thirties to his mid-forties and Manichaeism tinged his attitude about human sexuality with its Gnosticism.  Augustine believed that every sexual act, even in marriage, was sinful and was only justified by the desire to reproduce.  While the Church does not explicitly teach this negative theology of human sexuality, this attitude has never been effectively expunged from the Catholic mind.  The requirement that a couple seeking to be married must “be open” to the possibility of having children for the marriage to be valid is one indication of this.  The prohibition of contraception is another.  In practice, of course, the Church understands that sex provides for married couples a depth of intimacy that is inseparable from the physical pleasure; it does not bar from marriage couples who for reasons of age or health are unable to conceive and, indeed, it requires the sexual union of the spouses—at least once after the vows have been made—for the validity of the marriage.  But lurking in the shadows of the Catholic consciousness is the conviction that something so pleasurable as sex must not be completely right.   It was therefore a milestone of change in Catholic thought when a married couple stood up in an assembly charged with shaping the magisterium and declared that the fullest expression of grace in their sacramental life was found in their sexual intimacy.  As one priest I know expresses the same idea: the spouses making love is to the sacrament of Matrimony what the priest celebrating Mass is to the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  Maybe we have finally slipped the bonds of Augustine’s own anguish over the guilt his mother, Monica, instilled in him about his relationship with the unnamed love of his life whom he abandoned at Monica’s directive.  (Augustine tells us in the Confessions that Monica had arranged a marriage for him with a woman of his own social class that required Augustine to abandon the fourteen year “common-law” relationship he had with an unnamed woman.  He expresses the deep love he had for this woman, his faithfulness to her throughout their relationship, and, of course, she was the mother of his son Adeodatus.)   The marriage Monica arranged never took place as Augustine instead embraced a quasi-monastic life after his baptism.  One would think that as a good Catholic, Monica would have been more concerned to have her son regularize the union that had produced his son rather than arrange a new marriage that would advance his career, but Monica is not quite the spiritual figure to which popular Catholic hagiography has reduced her.  Read the Confessions: it is enlightening about the complexity of the mystery of sin and grace, in Monica’s life as well as her son’s.) 

Ah yes, the complexity of the mystery of sin and grace.  That leads us to the point of conflict for many in the Synod and for even more of those following it from our armchairs and monitors.

Now for what I am going to write, I am not a theologian and am not giving a theological evaluation, only an explanation of the phenomenon to the best of my ability.   “Gradualism” or “the Law of Graduality” is a proposed principle in moral theology that recognizes that the Moral Law (as revealed in Scripture and Tradition) sets a standard for which we must all strive but to which we do not all achieve immediately.  It is sometimes simplified to “you can only do the best you can do” but such caricatures reduce it to moral ambivalence.  An example of gradualism, one presented by Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, would be of a woman who marries a man who was abandoned by his first wife and left with three children.  Granted, the woman should not have married the previously-married man in the first place until he received a Church annulment.  But now that she is married to him, the Cardinal said, she cannot abandon him and the care of the children.  Of course, it can be argued, that yes she can stay with him, but live in a brother/sister relationship until his first marriage is resolved canonically.  Maybe she can; maybe she can’t.  She loves the man, he loves her, and they find great blessings in their marriage—including in the sexual expression of their love.  Maybe they can’t find the strength to live without this intimacy.  Maybe they try to live in a non-sexual relationship and from time to time they fail. “The grace is always sufficient for us to do the right thing,” one person once told me when I presented a similar situation.  Yes, it is.  But maybe the right thing isn’t what we outsiders to the situation always think that it is. We need to listen attentively to the stories of sin and grace before we unilaterally—like the scribes and the Pharisees—make up our heavy burdens and lay them on others’ shoulders. 

The law of gradualism acknowledges that we develop morally.  We are not all the way yet at perfection.  We take two steps forward and fall one step back. 

This isn’t the same as moral relativism in which there are no moral absolutes—it is the acknowledgement that we all grow in our relationship with God and we all have room yet to grow in our relationship with God and none of us will be all the way there by the time we are summoned to the judgment seat.  If we were we would not need a Redeemer. 

If you check my entry for July 19, 2014 you will see that I wrote then about the theory of moral development which Lawrence Kohlberg, a Harvard professor of psychology, developed a half-century ago.  There has been criticism of Kohlberg’s schema over the intervening decades, but I think it still has great validity.  We move in our moral development from a fear of punishment through a fixation on law to a genuine appreciation of the moral good.  (I am skipping several steps here—check out Kohlberg for a more nuanced appreciation of his ideas.)  I think this corresponds to the principle of gradualism.  As I mature both psychologically and, from a Christian perspective, in my relationship with God I come to an ever-deepening appreciation for what is right and what is wrong.  As I move along the spectrum, I can not only move beyond a fear of punishment or the hope for some eternal reward, but I can transcend the bonds of the law and see the moral good for itself.  I can also see evil, not simply as it is defined by the law, but as it takes on its evil character from the situation in which it finds itself.  An example of this—to resort to the trivial for ease of understanding—I like my glass of whiskey at the end of the day.  There is nothing wrong with a glass of whiskey.  However as the first leads to the second and the second to the third and so on, the moral good (the relaxing glass of whiskey) takes on an evil character.  Another example, somewhat more complex.  I make love to my wife.  That is a good thing.  It is, as the Pirolas point out, a celebration of the Sacrament of Matrimony.  On this particular evening, my wife is not sexually responsive and I force her, not physically but still force her, to have sex with me.  A moral good has become evil in a way that the moral law does not foresee.  The moral law says that the wife has an obligation to satisfy the husband—and vice versa.  But the Law of Love, which is the true moral good, knows that this must be done freely and without coercion.  Those who focus solely on the Moral Law most often can’t get a clear vision of the Law of Love (aka the Gospel), which, again, was the flaw of the scribes, and the Pharisees.  There are those who are frozen in their own moral development and confident in their own righteousness without compassion for the complexity of others’ lives.  This moral fixedness is neither spiritually or psychologically healthy and can’t be allowed to be the moral guideposts—they are the blind guides leading the blind (Matt 15:14).    

Well, What Do Liberal Catholics Want?

One of my regular readers—and a good friend—drew my attention to this article by Damon Linker.  You can check out the article at http://theweek.com/article/index/255064/what-do-liberal-catholics-want

What drew my attention was the following paragraph

After reading an endless stream of gushing commentary by liberal Catholics on Pope Francis, I'm beginning to wonder if they ever really cared about reforming doctrine in the first place.

Now I am not sure that Linker knows his Catholicism sufficiently to know what is doctrinal and what is not.  He lumps disciplinary matters like mandatory celibacy in with theological (doctrinal) matters such as abortion and same-sex marriage.  But that isn’t my argument with him.  Frankly, I don’t think “liberal” Catholics have any expectation—or desire—for doctrinal change.  Polls show that while American Catholics stand with the majority of Americans in not wanting a total ban (note the word “total”) on legal abortion, the vast majority of American Catholics believe that abortion is a moral evil in as that it is the deliberate taking of a human life.  Similarly the majority of American Catholics favor the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, but I don’t know any American Catholics (which isn’t to say that there aren’t some, I just don’t know them) who quibble with the Church’s policy of sacramentally celebrating only the marriages of a man and a woman who are free of previous valid marriages to marry.  Similarly, I don’t know of any serious calls to recognize “second marriages” although many would favor lifting the ban on communion from those married outside the Church.  What “liberal” Catholics have long wanted and now found in Pope Francis, is not a revision of doctrine, but a change of tone.  We had just grown tired of being such an unfriendly Church where any who did not conform to our idea of righteousness were judged worthy of only being cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  We were getting known for what we are against rather than what we stand for—and a negative label is never good for morale.  Nor does this sort of Jansenist condemnatory tone proclaim the Good News (evangelion, Gospel) of salvation. 

The one area where there most likely is a desire for change is the matter of opening the ordained ministries to women.  The two previous popes have declared this to be a theological issue but, frankly, have not been convincing.   Many—including some of the finest theological scholars today—have said this is a matter of discipline and not of doctrine.  The argument is that because the bishop and presbyter (the Latin word for a priest, and better term when talking theologically) sacramentally represent Christ, and Christ was male, the bishop and presbyter must be male to represent him.   Granted the Bishop and the priest sacramentally participate in the Unique Priesthood of Jesus Christ—which is to say that Christ is the only priest in the Christian faith and the bishop and presbyter are sacramental-representations of Christ the Priest.  The bishop or presbyter have no priesthood of their own, but only that of Christ in which they participate.  Of course all the baptized participate in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ by virtue of their baptism—but those who are ordained do so in an unique way proper to and restricted to the Sacrament of Orders.  And granted that Jesus is male.  But is the masculinity of Jesus essential to his being, much less to his priesthood?  What is essential to Christ’s Nature, according to the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon is his humanity, not his masculinity.  But again, we are verging on the theological here and I want to avoid going too far into that field and stay to the historical.  Let us just say that other than the possibility of ordaining women to the ministries of Bishop and Presbyter most “liberal” Catholics are quite content for doctrine to go its slow path of evolutionary development rather than have the Pope—even Good Pope Francis—just start changing the key teachings of the faith willy-nilly.   

Let me also say that as someone who would generally fall into the category of “liberal” Catholic, that I don’t want the Pope to change teachings about contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage, or even ordination of women or priestly celibacy.  I want things to be open for study, research, and intelligent discussion.  I am far more interested in a good process than any particularly desired product.  I think we have a lot we need to think about and talk about before we get into substantial change.  Theologians need to reclaim their historic role in moving the discussion forward and not simply providing the rationale for unilateral magisterial decrees.  We need—as we had at Vatican II—bishops making decisions that were enlightened by the theologians.  And we need to involve the faithful in those discussions.  I think Pope Francis and the faithful have learned—and learned instinctively (which is to his credit)—to sing in harmony.  We need for the faithful, the theologians, and the magisterium all to learn how to sing in harmony, realizing of course, that harmony permits descants. 

Finally, let me just add that as a “liberal Catholic” I would hope that any substantial change in Church discipline and any significant development in doctrine would not come from the Chair of Peter  acting unilaterally but from a Universal Council.  What would really seal the Vatican II revival of Francis’ pontificate is the calling of the next Council.  Remarkable things happen when the Holy Spirit gathers the Church and is allowed to “do her (Pentecost) thing” 

I Was Sick and Imprisoned and You Ministered to Me

I recently switch insurance companies.  It had nothing to do with Obama Care.  I have had a change of employment and that means a change of coverage.  I had a great policy before.  I never had a deductible or a co-pay.  My new policy is good—but not that good.  And so last Saturday I went to the drugstore to pick up my medications.  I had a co-pay of 157.00.  It came as a shock after my years of just saying “thank-you” and moving on.  I have no idea what those same meds would have been had I not had insurance but this bring us the necessity—the absolute necessity—of having universal health care.  And it brings up my puzzlement at why our bishops are so opposed to universal health care.

Yes, I understand that from a Catholic perspective there are problems with the Affordable Care Act, but those problems are fixable—or would be fixable if our bishops had not lost their credibility over opposing universal health care per se. I can’t help but wonder if their opposition to the Affordable Care Act is not because of the moral murkiness of coverage for contraceptives and other procedures that are contrary to Church doctrine, or if their objection isn’t that as employers they don’t want to be saddled with having to provide good health coverage to all Church employees. 

And while we are on the subject of objection to providing coverage for contraception, I am amazed at the hypocrisy of employers in the private sector who are arguing that it is against their conscience to provide health care that includes contraceptives.   How many of these men practiced contraception in their own marriages?  Not all, I am sure, but more than didn’t if the national polls are any indication.  Moreover, I really don’t see it as the moral high-ground that an employer determines the conscience-choices for his employees.   I may be cynical but this isn’t about conscience—it is about indifference to the needs of the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters.  Minimize expense, maximize profits—regardless of the human cost 

No, I have good insurance.  I can see my doctor when I need to.  He has me doing many preventative therapies to forestall serious health issues from which I could suffer.  I think the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters deserve good health coverage too.  If we had been honest from the beginning and embraced the idea of universal health coverage we would have had the political leverage to come to honest resolve on this issue of contraceptive coverage.  But having sold out to forces political and medical establishment—the bishops’ credibility is in huge disarray.  And to try to peddle this off as a crisis in “religious liberty” is about the most cynical move one could make. 

Several years ago I found myself sitting across a lunch table from Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, retired auxiliary of Detroit.  Gumbleton was named a bishop in 1968 and was one of the great Paul VI bishops—an outspoken advocate for the poor and the disadvantaged.  I asked Bishop Gumbleton what had happened that so many bishops today lacked this social conscience.  His response was interesting.  “The bishops at the time came from families where the father was a bricklayer, an electrician, a garbage-collector.  They understood the centrality of the Church’s social teaching because it gave their families hope.  Today most of the bishops—their fathers were doctors or lawyers.  They come from the rising middle class and they see the world through the lenses of privilege.” 

Last week Pope Francis sent a message to the American bishops about the type of man he was recommended for the episcopacy.  Let’s hope this will make the difference that we as a Church need.