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Bravo.
DREAD: Thank you for this incredible post. It certainly cleared up a few questions I had been asking myself, and gave me much to think about. The only trouble is: I think you said so much in it that nobody knows what to say in response.
I particularly liked the God is Here section. The issue addressed was the greatest hurdle I had to clear before my conversion to Catholicism. I was helped immensly by C.S. Lewis's words:
"I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as a Savior nor as a Judge, but merely as a magician. And when he had done what was required of him, I supposed he would simply - well, go away."
There's much to say about the overall theme of this post, but I'll leave the floor to somebody else to raise those points.
Thanks Clayton.
I'm glad you liked it Bruno. CS Lewis' writings on suffering have been very important to me.
Amen, amen. Beautiful post.
This is because God is love.
And because this is true, because God is love, it follows that subordination to man's interpretations of faith pale in comparison to subordination to God's will:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. " (Matthew 22:37-40)
In love,
I completely agree Erik, my red friend. Refusing to suborn myself to some man's interpretation of God is why I am a Catholic!
Thank you for this post. You certainly have a way with words -- cutting to the heart of the matter with a fierce and clarifying light.
God bless!
Thank you for your support Christopher. It is very much valued.
(loong low whistle)
Last night, the pastor and I were discussing the reaction/response and distortions of the new instruction on homosexuals and ordination. He mentioned your blog as one worth taking a look at.
He was right.
All I could think as I read the above (you can tell what I am responding to, yes? I'm new at this blog stuff) was: "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
Nice work, Dreadnought. You'll be in my prayers at both prison masses this afternoon.
Fr. Robert Dye
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Thanks Fr Robert. I did not see your comment until today. Thank you especially for your prayers, God knows I need them.
" ... hateful rejections of the Church's timeless teachings - are incompatible with Catholicism. By doing such things man disinherits himself from his birthright, he dirties the things God makes new in Christ. He might call himself a Catholic, but he is nothing of the kind."
The Church's teachings on sexual morality are by no means timeless!
The crux of the matter is whether or not, as claimed by the Cathechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 235
, the homosexual inclination is an objective disorder.
As a Catholic scientist, I have the suspicion that teachings about homosexual morality are not core tenets of the Christian faith, unlike the beliefs stated in the Creeds. When Magisterial officials pronounce the homosexual inclination to be an objective disorder, they rely not on reason informed by measurable empirical data, but rather on scripture, tradition and axiomatic natural-law arguments. It is good to remember that these latter three sources came into stark conflict with the empirical findings of Galileo, to dramatic and explosive effect. And to this day there often remains a deep mutual suspicion between science and religion, as evidenced by the recent Templeton Cambridge Journalism Fellowship on Science and Religion (Scientific American, September 2005, pp 10-11).
I suggest that the homosexual question will be resolved by theologians working in concert with, among others, sociologists, biologists and psychologists. The Princes of the Church would do well to pause and reflect on why in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association deleted homosexuality from the Association’s compendium of psychiatric disorders. I request that those hierarchs who are currently pronouncing the grave evil of every homosexual act at least provide a shred of empirical data to substantiate their claims. Axiomatic natural-law arguments simply will not suffice. If, at a conservative estimate, 3% of the world’s population is gay, that represents some 200 million people. Calling these people to a life of enforced celibacy is profoundly onerous. Is lifelong celibacy not, after all, a special gift bestowed by God on a select few? Arbitrarily denying these people the right to loving relationships that include the dimensions of philo, eros and agape seems to be a grave scandal.
The South African Constitutional Court’s recent ruling, following those in other countries, will ensure a legal framework for the stability of loving, monogamous same-sex couples. This seems to be far healthier than the legal framework which dominated in the last century, where homosexual relationships were furtive and lived out in a seedy subculture for fear of imprisonment and worse. I take as example Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science, who possessed the brilliant mind which cracked the Nazi Enigma code used for communication with U-boats, hence playing no small part in saving Britain, and the free world, from defeat. When the Establishment discovered that he
When the Establishment discovered that he was a practising gay man, they arrested him but felt reluctant to imprison him (as was the norm in the UK in 1952), instead offering him the lesser humiliation of a treatment of female hormone injections to suppress his libido. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41. And what was the Church's response?
Young gay Catholics especially deserve a message of hope from their principal spiritual shepherds. Calling them to deny their sexuality, which is a gift from God, and telling them that they are intrinsically disordered, seems to be a grave injustice. We are all created in God’s image and likeness. As the theologian Fr James Alison argues in “Faith beyond resentment: fragments Catholic and gay” there is an irreconcilable inconsistency between the doctrine of concupiscence as defined by the Council of Trent, and the suggestion that a Baptised Catholic can somehow be intrinsically disordered. Trent says “God hates nothing in the reborn, because there is no condemnation for those who are truly buried with Christ by baptism into death … [who] putting on the new person created according to God, become innocent, stainless, pure, blameless and beloved children of God.”
I believe that only when theology and science are seen to be in agreement has the fullness of Truth been discerned. Such agreement has clearly not been attained in the case of the “gay question” (see, for example, http://www.borngayprocon.org), indicating that much more work needs to be done. A spirit of humility from all concerned would surely be appropriate at this juncture.
As for natural law, it is axiomatic, the axioms being self-evident truths which have been written into nature by Yahweh when He created the universe. But what happens if our perception of these axioms are flawed? Then the entire edifice built upon suspect axioms will itself be flawed. Let us examine the axioms which led to the idea that it is a natural law that in human sexual intercourse the procreative and the unitive may never be separated.
The biological understanding of human reproduction in the time of St Augustine and even St Aquinas was grossly erroneous. The male was thought to possess the seed, a homunculus or little person perfectly formed. During intercourse, this seed was deposited into the woman, who was merely a receptacle designed to nurture the seed, allowing it to grow and mature. Women were thought not to be the equals of men.
Now if this is our axiom, our first principle, then certain facts are self evident. Any spilling of the seed, be it masturbation or sex between two men or contraceptive sex, is murder or abortion of the homunculus, and is clearly a grave evil. Aquinas argued that masturbation is a greater evil than a man raping his mother, since in the latter case the homunculus could survive and flourish. Interestingly, sex between two women is a moot point since there is no homunculus here! For men, the only sexual activity permissible in the natural order is that between a man and a woman, and even then only when the homunculus is deposited in the appropriate receptacle. All very self-evident and sensible.
But scientific advances in the 19th century showed this axiom to be outrageously false. The male sperm and female egg are both required for fertilization. The woman is far from irrelevant to the process of engendering a new life. Masturbation is not abortion. Gay sex does not lead to the murder of a homunculus.
How has the Church dealt with its over 1800 years of intrinsically-flawed natural law teaching on human sexuality? I don’t believe that it has yet returned to first principles, but has instead tried to cobble together a compromise between traditional teaching and the modern scientific evidence. This has led to some interesting contortions.
A sacramentally married couple may not use artificial contraception to regulate the size of their family since this separates the unitive from the procreative. Yet the Church allows them to practise natural contraception by having sex only during the non-fertile part of the woman’s fertility cycle. Is this not the Church sanctioning the wilful separation of the procreative from the unitive? The Church will provide a full Nuptial Mass for a sterile heterosexual couple (if, for example, the woman has had a hysterectomy to remove cancer). It will even marry a post-menopausal woman. If these people are allowed to enjoy full sex lives even though procreation is impossible, then why can’t a gay couple? If gay people are pronounced intrinsically disordered precisely
If gay people are pronounced intrinsically disordered precisely because their sexual relationships are closed to procreation, then why aren’t these sterile heterosexual couples also defined to be intrinsically disordered, and called to lives of compulsory celibacy? These questions demand an honest answer, for the Catholic Church cannot permit mendacity.
It seems that, in light of modern scientific evidence on human sexuality, these natural-law Church teachings require re-examination from the level of first principles. According to Fr Andrew Greeley’s sociological data (The Catholic myth: the behaviour and beliefs of American Catholics), a majority of Catholic married couples in his sample practise artificial birth control. Are these people really committing gravely evil acts (CCC), acts that will damn them for eternity? Or is the natural-law edifice on sexuality perceived to be so flawed that many good Catholic people have a visceral realization that they must simply ignore these teachings while enjoying a robust and fruitful faith life, meeting with Christ in the Sacraments, and building up His Kingdom here on earth? These are timely questions which warrant urgent investigation.
Vincent, many words, one simple flaw:
"they rely not on reason informed by measurable empirical data, but rather on scripture, tradition and axiomatic natural-law arguments."
Precisely! Religion is not at the mercy of the test-tube dictatorship. Just because you can't touch it, doesn't mean it's not real.
Science is, after all, cobbled together from the muddy reports of our feeble senses. When they fail, and light and love still flood the human heart, is that any less authentic?
Certainly from an epistemological viewpoint, your crude favouring of empiricism over other modalities is somewhat dated.
The Vienna School is hardly credible now.
My Dear Dreadnought,
For 1800 years the Church based its natural law arguments on a flawed scientific understanding of human sexuality. Natural law is based NOT on scripture or tradition, but on axioms derived from human reasoning. Such as the intrinsically flawed homunculus saga. Now the Popes were clearly not infallible in this arena - in fact they have never claimed to be! Augustine and Aquinas both got it wrong. It is most decidedly less sinful to masturbate than to rape your own mother! And even the Modern Church allows natural contraception [something that would never have been permitted for the 1st 1800 years of Christianity, since the science AND HENCE natural law of the time held the homunculus theory to be valid - the seed existed in the semen alone!].
Just as Galileo's observations of the moons of Jupiter led to a decisive revolution in interpretation of scripture (no longer a strictly literal interpretation) so modern scientific data about human sexualtiy will no doubt lead to a new interpretation of the natural law. Nothing you or I do or say about it will prevent it from coming to pass ... for the Holy Spirit is an inexorable force, and Divine Truth simply must prevail!
Dear Dread,
follow the following link to get a glimpse of what it is like being gay on the African continent. And the Catholic Hierarchy here is entirely complicit in the public outings which lead to imprisonment, torture and worse.
http://www.mg.co.za/
articlepage....rticleid=263364
"When they fail, and light and love still flood the human heart, is that any less authentic?" - Yes, John, but where is the light and the love which is supposed to enter the human heart in these instances?
"Science is, after all, cobbled together from the muddy reports of our feeble senses. When they fail, and light and love still flood the human heart, is that any less authentic?"
Quite the same could be said of natural law: Natural law is, after all, cobbled together from the muddy reports of our feeble senses. When they fail, and light and love still flood the human heart, is that any less authentic? - so when that gay couple down the road senses the Light of Christ in their life as a couple in the full sense of the word [a relationship including philo, eros and agape] - indeed, when they feel Christ's love flooding their hearts, is their relationship any less authentic than that of a straight couple?
I'm so glad we no longer need to resort to the rational - all we need is to feel the Light of Christ, sense His love in our hearts - that is now the arbiter of our authenticity! Someone better hurry up and tell Benedict XVI!
You constantly contradict yourself mate:
"based its natural law arguments on a flawed scientific understanding of human sexuality"
is nonsense. Homunculus was never a doctrine of the faith and some men's failings in Africa have nothing to say to a global intellectual tradition. I sniff a first year psychology textbook that thinks natural law ends at Suarez.
You go on - partially correctly - in the next line:
"natural law is based NOT on scripture or tradition, but on axioms derived from human reasoning"
This second comment contradicts the first and is slightly wrong anyway, some of natural law must needs be tradition.
And again:
"natural law is, after all, cobbled together from the muddy reports of our feeble sensesl"
How can something be both fundamentally a priori (axiomatic, as you claim) and a priori?
Finally, to claim that natural law isn't rational is absurd. To limit all episteme to empiricism is historically blinkered and anti-intellectual.
We're not going to get anywhere by arguing natural law in this strange manner. It's a robust discipline, not a pampleteer's slogan manual.
If you're seriously interested Vincent, send me an email mate with clearly defined questions and I will show how natural law answers.
That, or read my thesis. God help you, but I think you'll be surprised that it's not all hocus pocus 
Or, even better.
Read Fides et Ratio by JPII.
I get the feeling that you confuse Catholicism with some sort of crude Protestantism. We're not creationists, the Galileo thing was resolved ages ago and it's now 2006, not 1500!
EVERYONE thought Galileo was wrong, not just a few cardinals. Catholic hospitals, doctors, universities and scientists are at the forefront of contemporary research.
If you're looking for a faith battles reason fight, you won't find it here. We resolved that one ages ago. You can have both!
Dread old boy, I am a Catholic scientist. Your reply is juvenile in the extreme, and skirts the issues.
To quote Galileo: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same
god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Galileo's heliocentric theory got him convicetd of heresy by the Inquisition in 1633 - that is over 1600 years of creationism taught by Holy Mother Church at the highest level of Magisterial teaching ... and much of it was axiomatic, a priori. If the first principles are wrong (due to faulty reasoning), then the whole edifice is wrong. So we've gradually evolved into accepting that simple Creationism is incorrect ... only in the last 200 to 300 years of 2000 years of Catholicism! Get a proper perspective.
Science has (a mere 200 years after Galileo) indicated the correct nature of human sexual biology. The Church's axioms upon which it built it's natural law argument about the intrinsic evil of separating procreative from unitive are clearly based on incorrect axioms about the natural order. This is how some call homosexuality intrinsically disordered to this day. I am certain that in 200 years time the ideal that homosexual relationships are objectively disordered will seem as inane to 99.99% of Catholics (including Curial hierarchs) as Creationism seems to us today! Were you to be transported back a mere 350 years in time, and sprouted what you take for granted today about reading scripture etc, you would be burnt at the stake for heresy! So much for a constant tradition, and for timeless teachings! Wake up to reality, old boy ... and have the humility to read my original post on natural law carefully ... a sloppy reading is no excuse for vile misinterpretation ... or is that deliberate misrepresentation?
"Homunculus was never a doctrine of the faith" - to my knowledge, the intrinsic disorder of homosexual relationships has never been a doctrine of the faith, and never will be. Neither was the inseparability of the procreative from the unitive. Let's be consistent, and not compare apples with oranges. There is a hierarch of Truth ... and as I recall nothing in the Creeds, our basic statements of belief, speaks of sex.
Biology has nothing much to say to morality. Natural law, certainly now, is not prone to the naturalistic fallacy.
To wit: so a man gets an erection and the erection can go into a hole. Does that mean we should allow paedophilia?
I don't know about you, but 350 and 600 years are a long time to me. Everyone, not just the Church, supported heliocentrism. That's a hackneyed and historically ignorant argument.
You misunderstand the concepts of doctrine, dogma, heresy and apostasy. Galileo was never going to be burned at the stake.
There is no such thing as "the intrinsic disorder of homosexual relationships", you know this.
The statement 'and I believe in one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church' speaks of authority, authority guards Truth, Truth teaches on human sexuality with the full force of that Creedal authority.
The cafeteria is closed.
I really feel like there's a wider, non rational issue here. You don't argue from first principles, you argue with emotive examples that don't paint a coherent picture.
Sure some churchmen have been wrong in the past about science and they might be wrong in the future, but the Pope is not arguing from mere scientific 'facts', he's talking about morality.
The heliocentrism debate was a matter of science informing morality, an illicit inference (is, to ought as Hume taught, is not on) and the Church, like every other institution on earth, no longer bothers with that.
If you read Deus Est Caritas, it doesn't mention anything about sexual plumbing. And Evangelium Vitae and Veritatis Splendor point to creation, but only as examples of complementarity, not as foundations for the ethic of love.
A most excellent post! 1st time visiting - don't know if you'll ever read this - but I'm glad I found you.
Dear Dred,
I love you and want to be the momma of your babies when I complete my sex change and womb implant
You have as much 'humility' as your need to 'cum laudem'
Just wondering. You speak of 'free will'.
When Mary, "full of grace," gave her 'fiat' - 'be it done unto me according to your word'. What had free will do with this ?
"All is grace." We are created to respond to Love , by 'grace' - the 'touch of God's love' upon the soul - not to choose through 'free will' to love. God loves us first. ?
Is there really such a thing as 'free will' Dred ? None of us, inlcuding Mary, can respond to God in ANY way without 'grace'. Prompted by grace to act through grace. Mary affirmed this in her Magnificat ?
Just wondering. You seem to understand these things. Can you help me understand 'grace' v 'free will' ?
Thank you.
You're in my prayers too.
God bless
Pauline
Dread.
Simply amazing. You really are.
I'm praying for you right now.
Matt
Wow. I don't remember who else said this but I agree with them. You do have a way with words. After some very recent events in my family life I've found myself wanting to start going to church regularly once again, much to the annoyance of my boyfriend. I'm going to show him your blog and maybe he'll be a little more understanding.
I think talking about homosexual acts and not about homosexual love and desire is just a way of begging the question. Sexuality is not a matter of words, but is about feelings.
You can fall crazy in love with your same-sex friend, but if you don't touch him, you are not gay ?
This is, simply, stupid.
So I will not speak of homosexual acts, but of homosexual love and desire. Because homosexuality, beyond the behavior, that changes through the times, is a psichological trait.
We do not discover we are gay by "practising" or "experimenting", but by falling in love with somebody of our own sex. Is this attraction and love that carries out all the rest, just as heterosexual attraction does.
Evidently, gay men or women are not physically different from heterosexual. At least, not so different. There are some physical traits related to homosexuality, that have recently been pointed out by scientific work, but the main difference is inside our brains.
Of course, many gay men also believe in the God of some of the miriad churches that exist. To be gay and to believe in God is perfectly coherent.
The problem is the suffering caused by the intolerance of religious leaders.
Remember: not so much time ago, religion was used to justify slavery, white primacy and othes fallacies. Homosexuaity could well be the same case.
Dread, you are wonderful and courageous. I, a sinful Catholic, will humbly remember you in my prayers. I hope you keep the spirit of the Church's teachings alive. God bless you.
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