Thanks to the time zone difference, I'm going to beat Father O'Leary to the punch here. 
Does "hateful homophobia" exist? No one can deny that hatred toward homosexuals exists, although I firmly reject the pseudo-scientific category of homo-PHOBIA. Is "hateful homophobia" a sin? Of course, in so far as any form of hatred is a sin, unless it is hatred of sin itself. Which leads us to the point of the present posting. The mainstreaming of homosexuality is precisely aimed at convincing us that we should love the sinner AND the sin. Unless we embrace the idea that homosexual acts are intrinsically GOOD, then we are labeled as "hateful homophobes".
"Hate the sin, love the sinner." Why is it so hard for our liberal brethren to get their minds around this concept? It is our love of the sinner (which we all are) that leads us to hate the sin, because sin destroys the sinful brother whom we love!!!
Father O'Leary, if I can agree that it is an objective sin to harbor feelings of hatred toward homosexual persons and to say hateful things about them (not to mention acting toward them in a hateful way), and you can agree that it is an objective sin for two men to engage in sexual intercourse with each other, I think that we will have achieved a breakthrough in our dialogue.
I think you nailed it, Dave.
The point of this article, that the "genious of television" is being purposefully used to form our minds in favor of the "gay" lifestyle, is what really gets to me. I suppose I could choose to eliminate TV from my life, but I haven't yet, and as traditional, Catholic, and "conservative" as I am, I STILL find my self influenced in my thinking about homosexuality. The practice of it is an abhorrance, and a true evil in our world, and yet I find myself being very ho-hum about it.
WHY is it so hard to throw that blasted TV out the window?!
No sense throwing the TV out the window, because the mainstreaming of the gay lifestyle is pervasive. You literally cannot go anywhere without being confronted by it. Moreover, the modern workplace has become a reign of terror for anyone who believes that homosexual activity is objectively sinful. A Catholic in the workplace who speaks his mind on this issue can be sure to find himself in hot water with the HR department, and quite likely out of work.
Dave,
I agree.
And TV shows like "Out of Practice" where the daughter is a lesbian are IMHO ruined by approving the sin. Of course, the father and sons on the show get approval for their heterosexual sins so the show has a double dose of misconduct.
Amen, RfC.
Now, I will go out on a limb and confess to being a devotee of Seinfeld reruns. Hope this won't get me ousted from the PP blog. I think that the show is hilarious (I don't expect many if any bloggers here to agree), yet I deplore its blatant approval of heterosexual misconduct. It is a guilty pleasure (along with its HBO progeny, Curb Your Enthusiasm), although I don't consider it grave matter for the confessional.
I did not know that we blamed victims of lung cancer for smoking. What we do rather is warn against the dangers of smoking. I agree that criminal complacency about the dangers of sexual promiscuity was a tragic side-effect of the sexual revolution. Nevertheless, I think that the positive valuation of gay people's basic sexual and affective make-up has been a great blessing. Part of the sobering up that AIDS has brought is shown in the drive to gay civil unions -- the development of more stable and responsible models of sexuality and relationship among gay men and women. This is not a creation of the US media -- Europe is far ahead of the US on this front and the recognition of civil unions or even civil marriage is being increasingly enshrined in European law.
"I did not know that we blamed victims of lung cancer for smoking."
No?
'...the development of more stable and responsible models of sexuality and relationship among gay men and women.'
What does this mean, Father O'Leary? That it is better for a gay man to have one sexual partner rather than many, and that we therefore need to enshrine the objectively sinful state of "gay marriage" ("marriage" by definition involving sexual intercourse, in this case sexual intercourse between two men) to achieve the lesser of two evils?
Just been putting chapter 5 of my old book "Questioning Back" on my weblog. It is what pb will see as a "hot tub" account of the essence of Christianity -- or should that be an onsen (elegant Japanese hot spring). Of course what one has written 22 years ago is not what one would write today, but I feel I can still stand over what I said then, though many points would need to be worked out more painstakingly, particularly in view of the unease expressed about such theology in Dominus Iesus (2000). Instead of rewriting I must simply approach the topic anew, when energy allows.
I think I explained my personal view on this matter, Dave, ad nauseam on this site. I suggest, very timidly and modestly I hope, that a development in church doctrine is not unthinkable wherein the faithful gay couple would be seen not just as pastorally tolerable (as an alternative to promiscuity) but as realizing values that are an analogical participation in those of matrimony (the latter values have only slowly come to be recognized fully by the Church in the course of its history).
I notice that in blessing gay couples and accepting gay bishops, the ECUSA have the sense that they are enacting Gospel freedom and witnessing to the Resurrection. St Paul might have understood them.
I am not sure about this, but I suggest that we should seek to discern whether the Spirit is working here, outside the limits of a hidebound (and bloodstained) tradition.
Amusing titbit about B16 from Allen at NCR:
One prominent American conservative put it this way, speaking on background: "We thought we were electing Ronald Reagan, but so far we're stuck with Jimmy Carter."
"Gay men and lesbians are being made to pay the price of our society's moral incoherence not only about sex, but about most of our moral convictions. As a society we have no general agreement about what constitutes marriage and/or what goods marriage ought to serve... This moral confusion leads to a need for the illusion of certainty. If nothing is wrong with homosexuality then it seems everything is up for grabs. Of course, everything is already up for grabs, but the condemnation of gays hides that fact from our lives. So the moral "no" to gays becomes the necessary symbolic commitment to show that we really do believe in something". The Hauerwas Reader pp. 519-20
'...the faithful gay couple would be seen not just as pastorally tolerable (as an alternative to promiscuity) but as realizing values that are an analogical participation in those of matrimony ...'
One does not need to be a homophobe to recognize the absolute impossibility of this proposition in light of Catholic moral doctrine.
Fr. O'Leary:
You do Stanley Hauerwas a disservice if you quote him to support your odd notion of moral accomodationism. This exact quote points to the very problem at hand: we as a country have lost the ability to say "Some things are simply wrong". There was a bumper sticker going around before our most recent elections, focusing on the defense of marriage amendments. It said "One man, one woman." I insisted that before I would put it on my car, it should read additionally "ONCE". No one made such an adjustment, so I won't put the bumper sticker on my car.
The solution to Hauerwas' insightful (inciteful?) take on American society is to repair the broken family, not redefine it!
Peter Singer (admittedly not one I would normally quote) observes that he sees no fundamental difference between a child in utero and one at, say, six years old. I allow his point, but the conclusion is to protect the life of the unborn, not kill six year olds.
The recognition of the extra-procreative values of conjugal love (between a husband and wife) is a true development of Catholic moral doctrine concerning marriage. What Fr. O'Leary proposes, by contrast, is a radical break with the moral teaching of the Church. The Catechism of Vatican II clearly states:
'Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 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.' (CCC, 2357)
140 Cf. Gen 191-29; Rom 124-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10.
141 CDF, Persona humana 8.
To hope that the Catholic Church will ever affirm that homosexual acts are an "analogous participation" in the values of holy matrimony is more than wishful thinking; it is manifest delusion.
Hmmm, even if one has no particular problem with church teaching that homosexual acts are objectively immoral, there is no reason -- other than homophobic scapegoating of the sort noted by Hauerwas (whom I consider a great and challenging moral thinker) -- to dramatize this moral ruling any more than we dramatize the similar rulings on the objective immorality of artificial contraception or masturbation. Many marriages continue to be blessed even though the couple use contraceptives or practice embraces not countenanced by Catholic morality. Similar latitude toward homosexual persons is already part of Catholic pastoral practice.
But Spirit, isn't the point that heterosexuals who use contraceptives or practice sodomy or masturbate can never be blessed because of or through these immoral actions? They MAY potentially be blessed by the other licit and good expressions of sexuality they share. They MAY potentially be blessed by the NON-sexual aspects of their relationship.
Could you please provide us with a potential, specific licit/good expression of a sexual nature between two people of the same sex, an expression that God could conceivably bless them through?
Would you agree that a chaste homosexual friendship (a passionate love between two men or between two women that is fueled by sexual attraction but not expressed in acts the church considers to be objectively immoral) could be considered as participating analogously in the goods of marriage (namely, fidelity, creativity and reflection of Christ's love for the Church)?
Just noted Augustine's latest.
My point could be something like this: the church could recognize the good in a loving stable same-sex relationship as analogously participating in the goods of marriage, just as it recognizes a marriage tainted by immoral acts as still fully participating in the goods of marriage. It could bless the relationship but not the acts.
Just an inchoate suggestion -- if you want to tease out possibilities, please do.
Actually, in actual pastoral practice the inchoate suggestion I offered seems to be enacted. A confessor will bless the love and fidelity of the couple and urge them not to be unfaithful to one another, while considering the sexual acts the couple may perform as a regrettable imperfection they may in time outgrow. Was that not the position put forward by Visser, one of the co-authors of the 1975 declaration Persona Humana?
"They MAY potentially be blessed by the NON-sexual aspects of their relationship." This should apply to gay couples as to married ones?
"Could you please provide us with a potential, specific licit/good expression of a sexual nature between two people of the same sex, an expression that God could conceivably bless them through?"
Kissing, cuddling, shared erotic fantasies, penetrative techniques which give the feeling of having become "one flesh".. I dunno.
God could conceivably bless any two people through any act expressing a loving intimacy between them.
Many are now saying that God actually does so in cases that the Church does not countenance -- contraceptive and homosexual acts in particular.
It is a complicated situation, it seems to me.
On abortion, I am very impressed by Hauerwas's essay in The Hauerwas Reader.
Here is an interesting piece that shows how far from simplistic Catholic morality is http://www.commonwealmagazine.or...?
id_article=854
"Same-sex couples in Ireland will get legal recognition in the near future, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern promised yesterday. On opening a new gay activist centre in Dublin, the Taoiseach pledged civil partnerships that would give lesbian and gay couples legal recognition for the first time. It is thought the proposals would give same-sex couples similar rights as to those on offer in the north of the country, which legalised civil partnerships in accordance with the rest of the UK last year.
"Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship,” Ahern said at the opening of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network office. “Our laws have changed, and will continue to change, to reflect this principle.”
Previously, Ahern said that full marriage access would not be offered to lesbian and gay people, because he believes such a proposal would not be backed by the Irish general public. However, polls have suggested widespread support for lesbian and gay rights on the same line as the UK’s civil partnerships. Additionally, a recent court case launched by two women married in Canada could force the government to initiate legal recognition.
“We are committed to legislating on this issue," said Ahern. He said the new laws would help tackle homophobia across Ireland. "Although there is a growing climate of equality and support for anti-discrimination action, I also recognise that members of the gay community still face isolation, abuse and victimisation on the basis of their sexuality.”
Although welcomed by political opponents, some called for Ahern to announce a concrete timetable. “My party announced what we would do in this area almost two years ago,” Fine Gael Seanad Equality Spokesperson Senator Sheila Terry told the Gay Community News. “Since then, we have had announcement after announcement from the Government but still no timetable and certainly no action.”
If Ireland has changed so much, who is to say who or what cannot change????
Interesting to note that Bertie Ahern is a close friend of Cardinal Des Connell, and one of the first politicians to meet Benedict XVI (who spoke to him of "my very good friend" Card. Connell), and note also that the present Archbishop of Dublin, Connell's successor, man who spent a long time in the Curia, has spoken favorably of civil unions. Not at all the Ireland of my youth.
Spirit:
You write: Would you agree that a chaste homosexual friendship (a passionate love between two men or between two women that is fueled by sexual attraction but not expressed in acts the church considers to be objectively immoral) could be considered as participating analogously in the goods of marriage (namely, fidelity, creativity and reflection of Christ's love for the Church)?>>
Honestly, this approach reminds me so much of conversations I regularly have with my children (in this I genuinely don't intend to insult you, but just to point out a useful similarity). Both have a natural tendency to be attorneys, I think. If I say "no", they try, over and over, to pry exceptions from me that will allow them to do what they want to do. The problem is that while theoretical exceptions may exist, the practical reality is that they are not really interested in growth in virtue, in obedience, but rather, in trying to obtain that which they ought not have. And that is the problem I see here.
Is it possible for an alcholic to use alcohol in a way that is not inherently sinful? Yes. But as the alcholic has disordered attachments, prudence and wisdom dictate studiously avoiding the occasions and near-occasions of sin.
And it seems to me this is exactly what you are doing with those with same sex attractions. Is it possible for people with same sex attraction to express affection licitly with others of the same sex? I would think so. But I see this as inviting sin or torturing those with same sex attractions. And certainly the idea of their sexual attraction firing up their love seems inherently problematic and dangerous.
Let me try to give a heterosexual analogy: is it possible for a married man and a married woman (married to different people) to express affection, to care deeply for one another in a praise-worthy way? Sure. But if they have a sexual attraction for one another, what Catholic counselor would advise that they explore the meaning of this passion and try to direct it toward a love that expresses itself analogously to marriage? Not anyone I know that thinks divorce is a bad idea.
No, I would counsel the two to stay away from one another because the temptation to sin is too great.
We should flee occasions of sin, not try to find ways to come as close as possible in the hopes we will not fall.
Spirit,
You write:
(My question): Could you please provide us with a potential, specific licit/good expression of a sexual nature between two people of the same sex, an expression that God could conceivably bless them through?"
(Your response): Kissing, cuddling, shared erotic fantasies, penetrative techniques which give the feeling of having become "one flesh".. I dunno.
Well, I appreciate your candor here.
What do you think of two married heterosexuals (married to different people) getting together and performing these same acts?
Just downloaded Chapter IV of Questioning Back on "Overcoming Augustine." Soon everything I've ever published will be on my weblog -- leaving me free to go on to pastures new.
If any of you should be in Ireland on April 28-9 there is a conference at Maynooth College on The Risk of Theology in honor of Enda McDonagh featuring Charles Curran, Stanley Hauerwas, James Keenan SJ, novelist Mary Gordon and myself.
I think adultery is precisely the performance of acts that are good and loving in themselves but that are skewed because of a context that betrays a promise to another person. It would be manichean to say that the acts are what is loathsome, rather it is the betrayal or infidelity involved.
"If I say "no", they try, over and over, to pry exceptions from me that will allow them to do what they want to do. The problem is that while theoretical exceptions may exist, the practical reality is that they are not really interested in growth in virtue, in obedience, but rather, in trying to obtain that which they ought not have. And that is the problem I see here."
You concede then that "theoretical exceptions may exist". But surely all gay people are capable of loving some other person of the same sex. Are you saying that this love can be chaste only as a "theoretical exception"?
"Is it possible for an alcholic to use alcohol in a way that is not inherently sinful? Yes. But as the alcholic has disordered attachments, prudence and wisdom dictate studiously avoiding the occasions and near-occasions of sin." Your analogy is skewed. Sexuality for both homosexuals and heterosexuals is like alcohol for the ordinary person, not like alcohol for the alcoholic.
"Is it possible for people with same sex attraction to express affection licitly with others of the same sex? I would think so." Another concession, good.
"But I see this as inviting sin or torturing those with same sex attractions." How can a licit expression of affection suddenly become equated with torture?
" And certainly the idea of their sexual attraction firing up their love seems inherently problematic and dangerous." Well, we would need to look into the spiritual friendships of the great saints and see what role sexual attraction played in them.
"is it possible for a married man and a married woman (married to different people) to express affection, to care deeply for one another in a praise-worthy way? Sure. But if they have a sexual attraction for one another, what Catholic counselor would advise that they explore the meaning of this passion and try to direct it toward a love that expresses itself analogously to marriage?"
Good point, but the issue of adultery rather complicates it. A better analogy would be the spiritual friendship between a priest and a nun, both committed to chastity. Undoubtedly such friendships have played a very big role in the life of the Church.
"I would counsel the two to stay away from one another because the temptation to sin is too great." That is what rigorists would say to the priest and nun in the above situation, but what if the temptation is not so great?
Note that for most men solitude is an occasion of sin, so in breaking up a loving relationship you may in practice consign your counselee to promiscuity -- as has happened many times in the checkered history of pastoral practice.
As a break from the rather hothouse topics this blog specializes in, take a look at what is happening in Iraq -- http://www.truthout.org/docs_200...6/
040406Z.shtml
"The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men. Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed the animals." The report includes the observation of local medics that all of the bodies had bullet wounds in the head.
Happens every day in Iraq. War is Hell.
I have had enough of "Spirit of Vatican II".
If I wanted to read your 60's rehash of Ram Dass and Krishnamurti I'd scrounge the dusty stacks at some "enlightened" book store, order some arcane coffee construct and read your book with my tiny reading glasses perched on the end of my nose.
But I don't want to read your book, nor your comments, nor hear anything you have to say.
Someday, I hope you begin your own blog, so you can spend your time writing posts that no one will read. But I guess that's why you're hear, clogging this space, right?
Until then, I'm deleting this link.
michael, sorry you feel like that -- but you seem oddly misinformed about me -- Ram Dass and Krishnamurti? Maybe you should join in the discussion yourself instead of just scowling at those who contribute?
But anyway thx for reading whatever you did.
or was it what I posted about Iraq...?
Amusing to find that michael hugo also takes a dim view of that other child of the 60s, my teacher Ratzinger: "Telling me that God is love is pretty basic, I'll grant you. It's just the kind of pablum that has helped make the Episcopal Church the rotting shell it has become." My own view of the new Encyclical is more benign.
But I'd better stop chattering here for a while, I am becoming a bigger bore that papal encyclicals.
Hmmm ... fascinating comments above.
Michael Hugo -- don't delete the link. Fr. O'Leary has many interesting things to say. I disagree with much of it, but it is food for thought. BTW, Spirit already has his own blog.
I think that the story about Jesus and the woman at the well in John's Gospel is instructive for our purposes here. It shows how Jesus responds to what we might call an "irregular" union. Our Lord's approach is nuanced, to say the least, especially when viewed in light of his actions at the marriage at Cana.
More thoughts on this later ...
Sorry to arrive so late in the discussion.
Spirit, why would God "bless" (not sure what that means in this situation--God "blesses" sinful acts in some sense by bringing good out of evil, but that doesn't make it a good idea to plan sins ahead of time) acts that make people feel like one flesh, when in fact they are not one flesh and never can be?
Spirit, you write:
>>I think adultery is precisely the performance of acts that are good and loving in themselves but that are skewed because of a context that betrays a promise to another person.>>
Exactly, just as sexual acts between two people of the same gender are inherently skewed because of the context. True sexual acts in such a scenario (i.e. not merely platonic expressions of affection) can never be morally good.
>>You concede then that "theoretical exceptions may exist". But surely all gay people are capable of loving some other person of the same sex. Are you saying that this love can be chaste only as a "theoretical exception"?>>
1) Not to digress or be contentious, but I would dispute the statement that "all gay people are capable of loving some other person of the same sex." It depends upon what you consider real love. What level of caring constitutes "love"? Even a pimp may have feelings of some kind of for his prostitutes, for instance, but I would not call them authentic "love". I have known a fair number of homosexuals, especially men, in which I would resist calling their feelings "love". Their disordered drives for sex are so strong and persistent as to deeply taint their feelings for men in general. In fairness, I would also point out that I have also met heterosexuals that are so deeply disordered in their sexual drives that I question their ability to reach a level of caring toward women they find attractive that I would define as "love" as well.
2) I am not saying that a person with same sex attraction can't possibly "love" another person of the same gender, just that the sexual expression of love is out of bounds. I was also saying that your efforts here seem to me like those of someone who wants something he can never licitly have, something that would be sinful, but he nonetheless persists in trying to find a way to get as close as possible to the object of his illicit desire in the hope of enjoying as much of it as possible. We ought to flee the Devil, not see how close we can get without getting burned.
>>Your analogy is skewed. Sexuality for both homosexuals and heterosexuals is like alcohol for the ordinary person, not like alcohol for the alcoholic.>>
I believe the analogy is sufficiently accurate to make the point:
a) The alcoholic has a disordered desire in regard to alcohol. The person with same sex attraction has a disordered desire toward those of the same gender.
b)There is such a thing as good and licit sexual expression (again, true sexual expression, not platonic affection) between people of the opposite sex, there is no such thing between people of the same gender.
>> (I wrote): "Is it possible for people with same sex attraction to express affection licitly with others of the same sex? I would think so." (you wrote): Another concession, good.>>
I've never denied that, Spirit. A man with same sex attraction my certainly hug and kiss his b
Continued:
I've never denied that, Spirit. A man with same sex attraction my certainly hug and kiss his brother, father, etc. with likely little danger of arousing illicit sexual desire. He may conceivably do so without serious danger in the case of friends that he does not find sexually provocative, for instance. But the real issue here is the expression of affection between those who DO elicit a real sexual response. In such cases, no, I believe it would be wrong to express affection because it is a serious temptation to grave sin.
Certainly, even in heterosexual circumstances, it is foolish and imprudent to pursue expressions of affection with an individual to whom one has a sexual attraction, if that sexual attraction can never be expressed licitly.
>>How can a licit expression of affection suddenly become equated with torture?>>
I have to assume you have never had a deep, passionate, romantic love for someone you could not physically express that love to, yes? There is little more tortuous than unrequited, passionate, romantic love. Songs, poems and books have been written about this torture. And the closer one gets to the fire, the more it burns.
>>Well, we would need to look into the spiritual friendships of the great saints and see what role sexual attraction played in them.>>
Forgive me if I am a bit dubious about where you might go with that after seeing your take on the love of Jonathan and David. Don’t misunderstand. Is it possible to redirect sexual energy toward something else in a powerful way? Sure and I should think you know this better than I. It is a great grace to do so, something any good, celibate, chaste priest knows.
>> (I wrote): "is it possible for a married man and a married woman (married to different people) to express affection, to care deeply for one another in a praise-worthy way? Sure. But if they have a sexual attraction for one another, what Catholic counselor would advise that they explore the meaning of this passion and try to direct it toward a love that expresses itself analogously to marriage?"
(you wrote): Good point, but the issue of adultery rather complicates it. A better analogy would be the spiritual friendship between a priest and a nun, both committed to chastity. Undoubtedly such friendships have played a very big role in the life of the Church.>>
Analogies are not identities, certainly. But each analogy sufficiently brings out the issues, I think. However, a major difference here is that the sexual attraction between people of the opposite sex is good, in and of itself. The attraction between people of the same gender is not good, in and of itself. There is no potential change of context that would alter this, in contrast to two people of the opposite sex who are in a situation that may potentially change and render the expression of sexuality licit.
I would also note: a) Even a priest and nun must be extremely careful and brutally frank with
Continued:
I would also note: a) Even a priest and nun must be extremely careful and brutally frank with themselves (and hopefully their spiritual directors) about the nature and strength of their attraction, monitoring it consistently, and creating distance if and when the danger becomes too great or heaven forbid, it comes to fruition in illicit actions and b) There are perhaps greater possibilities in the case of holy people who had, as you say, “committed themselves to chastity”. Their lives are (or ought to be, in the clerical state) most fundamentally ordered to authentic love of God and man.
>>"I would counsel the two to stay away from one another because the temptation to sin is too great." That is what rigorists would say to the priest and nun in the above situation, but what if the temptation is not so great?>>
I think what I wrote is what the realist would say, Spirit. Certainly, one must make evaluations of the particular situation. But there are certain concrete measures that can help make that evaluation (to your point about whether the “temptation is not so great”), like: 1) When you are in the presence of each other, do you find it difficult to refrain from sexual thoughts of the other? 2) After you have been with each other, do similar sexual thoughts follow you? 3) Does being in the presence of this person lead you to solitary sexual sin? 4) Have you ever expressed physical affection for this person that aroused a sexual response? Etc. etc….all of these kinds of questions would help determine how close one could remain to the other (or if at all).
In the case of those with strong same sex attraction, it is my opinion that this is most often associated with extremely strong, even often obsessive sexual impulses, most especially in men. And as such, I am very concerned about misleading those with weaknesses into areas that are difficult for them.
>>Note that for most men solitude is an occasion of sin, so in breaking up a loving relationship you may in practice consign your counselee to promiscuity -- as has happened many times in the checkered history of pastoral practice.>>
I understand and recognize your concern here, Spirit. It is a valid concern and I agree with it (the concern). However:
1) I would again question your use of the phrase “loving relationship”. To the degree that such relationships involve illicit sexual practices and desires, they are not truly expressions of love.
2) We need to draw distinctions between the expression of the underlying black and white morality of this issue vs. the pastoral application of it. We need to be careful not to blur the fact that such expressions are still wrong out of a good desire to be “pastoral”.
3) There are other ways to help a person deal with the temptations of solitude that do not require the substitutions of other temptations. It’s not necessarily an “either/or”.
Pert Papist:
I must say it's getting easier to go through your comments boxes. I ignore everythign that says "Spirit of Vatican II," and I am through the comments faster than dung drops from a duck's rear. Of course, that means the water's foul, but, hey, you can't have everything.
I found the following gems from Spirit in the comment box for the Ronald G. Lee posting, surprisingly still active. My brief replies are in brackets.
'What life would do Catholics, who have it all sewn up in their own minds, offers their gay sons or daughters?
You shall not congregate with other gays. [Probably very prudent advice.]
You shall not live with another person. [Not necessarily. Just don't live with a man to whom you are sexually attracted.]
You shall not have any sexual life. [Well, perhaps you might not. Sexual expression is a gift, not an absolute right. There are higher goods, for sake of which many have sacrificed an active sexual life. As St. Paul observed, it is better to abstain than to burn.]
You shall accept that your sexuality is disordered and that you are not made according to God's plan. [Recognizing that your sexuality is disordered, Spirit, does not make you any less a human being. Human personhood is not reduced to sexual orientation, thank God. The homosexual person, like anyone else, is fearfully and wonderfully made.]
You shall not ask questions. [Oh, please.]
Sounds pretty barren.' [No, it sounds like a total strawman argument.]
Judging from the heated context from which the above comments were taken, I think that Spirit was perhaps tired and frustrated. I know how that goes.
Significant misquote of St Paul, what he actually said was it is better to MARRY than to burn, the exact conclusion that gays are drawing these days.
I realized the misquote after posting my comment and left it unchanged. Good catch, Spirit.
In any case, St. Paul is obviously refering to marriage between a man and a woman. He would never have approved of a quasi-marital context for hugging, hand-holding, kissing, fellatio, and anal penetration between two men.
To quote Augustine (of the PP blog): 'There are other ways to help a person deal with the temptations of solitude that do not require the substitutions of other temptations.'
I am tempted to dismiss Spirit's constant refrain about "hateful homophobia" as a red herring and a distraction, yet ... he has a point. As much as I dislike the term "homoPHOBIA", we should all probably be more vigilant in addressing -- nay, condemning -- hateful language and behavior toward gays when we hear and see it. I'm sorry, though, that Spirit sees Pope Ratzinger's statements about gay unions as a species of hateful homophobia. That's a total misreading, based more on ideological bias than objective reasoning.
Another benefit of Spirit's comments, IMHO, is that they force us to look at our homosexual neighbor very much in the concrete (although Spirit often demurs when discussion of the objective sin itself gets too concrete). Our Lord did not deal in theological abstractions, although everything he said and did was filled with the most profound theological significance. Jesus dealt -- and continues to deal -- with real people.
Although we have no recorded instance of Jesus ministering to a gay person, I've always believed that homosexuals were certainly among the "sinners" with whom Jesus associated. I do not for a moment believe that Jesus approved of every aspect of the "lifestyle" of his gay followers (yes, I'm sure that Jesus had gay followers, as he does today), any more than he approved of the Samaritan woman's "serial monogamy", yet neither did Jesus point a finger in their face and call them sodomites. I wish that I had time to do a more detailed exegesis of Jn 4 in light of this discussion.
Dave writes:
'... yet neither did Jesus point a finger in their face and call them sodomites.'
Although I have never done this in the concrete, I know that I have done it in the abstract. That is, I have used the word "sodomite" to describe homosexuals. I'm not proud of it.
As for the use of truthful and descriptive language when discussing what homosexual acts involve, I stand by it. We do not help our homosexual brother by obscuring the truth and trying to turn sin into a virtue.
How do we help someone by lying to him? Clearly we don't. Jesus treated with great gentleness the sinners who KNEW they were sinners and sought forgiveness and a chance for a fresh start. The Scribes and Pharisees, whom He also loved, He called a "brood of vipers", "whitewashed sepulchers" and "hypocrites". Since Jesus is the incarnation of love, the only sensible conclusion is that in this way He showed love to those who wished to stay in their sins. He called them what they were. Dressing up crimes against nature as a life-style choice does no one any favors. These people would "marry" and then burn.
Paul's "marry or burn" means marry or burn with concupiscence, not marry of burn in hell. Americans love to talk of burning in hell (a locution rarely found on European lips) and it is because of this sadistic language that they have been so busy creating hell on earth since the 1945s (ask the incinerated millions of Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq and the tortured, disappeared and macheted of Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador etc. etc.). Neocath is neocon -- is evil.
Here is a letter from grega on the dreadnought site:
John:
what I mean is that while you seem currently for personal reasons (?) to stay away from:
"Boyfriend doesn't equate with 'man in whose anus I insert my penis'. At least not around here "
you certainly seem not to maintain anything remotely described by a term like "disinterested friendship' - You do know that masturbating is just as much disallowed and no better than the above from a strictly orthodox catholic point of view?
Just look at some of the pictures you place on your webside - do they spell 'disinterested friendship"?
You are kidding yourself -
You seem like a charismatic guy and certainly write well - I happen to even think that it is great that you have all these so obvious flaws out in the open for everybody to attack. Why do you think you get as many comments as you do? For the most part not because you have great truth to share but because you are unique as a gay orthodox believer. You intigue the left and the right.
Personally I find it great what Clayton describes - as long as he or you do not take the next step and tell other SSA folks that this is the only way to live
I personally know many gay couples and gay families with kids - as far as I am concerned the Catholic church is very very wrong not to emphasize these people's obvious love and commitment for another and to insist on OT language and long gone failed concepts.
Disordered is not the word to use - sodomites does not do these fine folks justice. If my church insists that this is the way it has to go down - they have been wrong before plenty of times - I honestly think they are wrong on this one.
We as a society will go forward and grant gays full legal rights - we will continue to cherish all that contribute to make this a more just and equal society.
You should continue to swim in the wake that the progressives forge for you and you should bask in rights that will be bestowed upon you.
Do not fool yourself -your orthodox buddies can never ever tolerate you as the sexually active gay man that you are.
IMHO those in catholic church that will allow/ enable you to live the way you seem to live are not cut from the orthodox block.
If you want to see what religious fundamentalist of all kinds hold in store for you - just take a hard look at the situation in most of the muslim world .
Yes these folks believe in the 'truth' and have not much love lost for mercy - just like many in the orthodox catholic camp.
One of the evils of neoconism and neocathism is that it ignores the signs of the times, which in this case includes ignoring the environmental crisis that has gathered tsunami strength and threatens to engulf us all. Seehttp://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/
sermons_speeches/060328.htm
Spirit, people don't have to be neocons and neocaths to think that homosexual activity is wrong. It's not just the OT; Romans 1 is a very clear teaching. Doing these things with one's body is a perversion of the mind that will not believe in the Creator.
A priest friend of mine puts it this way: "Rarely in history do we have such a clear-cut situation. Somebody hates homosexuals. Either the Catholic Church, or the homosexual lobby. One or the other."
I think it is the homosexual lobby that hates homosexuals, as it is trying to lead people down the garden path. What one does with one's body matters in the spiritual life. Sex must be reasonable.
Sex must be reasonable?
But the "gay lobby" have been arguing on rational grounds for quite a long time that the homosexual orientation like the heterosexual orientation is a capacity for love, appreciation of beauty, joy and creativity -- just read the Phaedrus for that. Some moralists have further argued, rationally, that physical sexual expression can be a language of love -- or is "language of love" not reasonable enough?
Biblical literalism will get you nowhere here, especially since Paul's etiology of lesbianism is completely false. The anti-homosexual cliches he uses are just a minor strand in his argument, one of the many hyperboles you find in his writings (as in all that stuff about women's headgear and what a disgrace it is for a man to wear long hair and how all Cretans are liars and how the Jews will go through various acrobacies of being converted as a prelude to the eschaton -- just culture-bound speculation, but potentially murderist in a literalist's hands).
'Even when we feel that gay people are moving in the wrong direction, he said, we must "walk with them."' http://www.nationalcatholicrepor...org/word/
#three
That sounds great. The only problem, though, is that we are not allowed to say (or think) that they are moving in the wrong direction. Unless we are willing to celebrate the wonderfulness of homoeroticism, we are hateful homophobes at heart.
Am I near the mark, Spirit?
The wonderfulness of sexuality should be celebrated, under pain of manicheanism.
"homoeroticism" is a demeaning expression, as can be seen by coining its correlate "heteroeroticism".
Respect for a person's conscientious decisions, even if one does not agree with them, is part of decency.
On the last point, the Church learned an awful lot from Humanae Vitae and its reception; bishops everywhere has to tell their priests to respect the consciences of the laity even when they though those consciences were in error.
has to tell SHD BE had to tell
The same holds with women who have abortions. "Walking with them" does not exclude warning them against abortion, but it has to be done with sensitiveness. A pastor who "walks" with gays could also be the most effective critic of objectionable aspects of gay culture.
I posted Newman's great sermon THE CROSS OF CHRIST THE MEASURE OF THE WORLD on my weblog.
Pope, tradition, Bible all say gay behaviour is a sin.
Gays object. Call Paul a homophobe.
And Spirit thinks they celebrate sexuality.
Sin makes one blind. The Father is a classic point.
Spirit, it is the gnostics who do not recognize the influence of the body's activities on the soul.
Spirit, it was you who used the word "homoerotic", approvingly:
'As Plato shows, it is orientation to love, beauty, and the Good. Read Benedict on the Phaedrus -- a homoerotic work -- you can find the quote on my weblog in "Love Conquers All: An Encyclical and its Intertexts" (archive: Church and Culture Today);'
I understand the need to avoid demeaning language, but please, enough with the policing of every sentence and word for "the language of homophobia".
I agree with your point here:
'A pastor who "walks" with gays could also be the most effective critic of objectionable aspects of gay culture.'
Unfortunately, I still must reject the arugment that the 'wonderfulness of [homo]sexuality should be celebrated', for the simple reason that having a homosexual orientation means being oriented toward certain acts that are objectively sinful.
Around and around we go. I am becoming exhausted by this debate.
I am willing to celebrate the humanness of the homosexual person. I am not willing to celebrate his homosexual orientation. That's going to have to be good enough. I am going to abstain from this debate, at least through Holy Week.
Father:
In order for him to be an effective critic, he must first BE a critic, not an apologist.
An apologist for gays as human beings and as still the victims of homophobic discrimination. A critic of behaviors that do not make for the full human flourishing of gay people. My point is that one cannot be one without being the other.
Erotic is not a demeaning word, eroticism is -- as it suggest the perverse cultivation of a willed erotic behavior -- whereas a person's sexual orientation is not willed and should not be categorized as perverse unless it has gravely pathological incidences (as in some forms of sadism, masochism, pedophilia etc.). However, I agree that it is tiresome to act as the PC linguistic policeman.
Spirit, is that correct? What is not willed, cannot be perverse? Is that what you mean?
BTW, Spirit, I'll agree that "eroticism" is demeaning if you'll agree that "homophobe" is. (I know that the former is not my quibble, but boy oh boy, the latter is.)
It is quite a problem using the word "erotic" in the high sense that Plato and Plotinus give it; even the lowest sense they give it, as in ta erotika, means "affairs of love", usually passions and crushes between young men. The erotic is one of the deepest streams of literature, and the common misunderstanding is that one is referring to pornography!
To call a person a homophobe or an antisemite or a racist may indeed be demeaning, but sometimes it can farely be said that a person exhibits homophobic, antisemitic or racist attitudes, or that they possibly suffer from homophobia or prejudice.
What is not willed cannot be perverse? No, I would not say that. Often perversion is unconscious. Actually, I do not think that what are called the perversions -- masochism for example -- are always pathological; psychoanalysts tend to use the word "perversion" in a rather benign sense.
But eroticism suggests a willed activity, with the additional implication of a perverse misuse or abuse of sex -- vamping it up for hedonistic excitement or deflecting it into kinky forms, etc.
I said that I would abstain, but I cannot hold my peace any longer.
Fr. O'Leary, I think that what many of us are trying to say here is that homosexuality is not eros, properly speaking. Perhaps that flies in the face of Plato. So be it. Neither Plato nor O'Leary are the magisterium.
Three things I hate about the word "homophobe":
1. It calls an opinion a pathology
2. It's applied to everyone from people who throw rocks at homosexuals and taunt them to people who would vote against "gay marriage" amendments
3. It's slanderous and spiteful, in the name of tolerance
Spirit, you still haven't addressed the natural law element in this matter. Sex must be reasonable. "Penetrative techniques" should not have to be developed to bring about a "feeling" of being one flesh. There is a penetrative technique that the human body is obviously designed for, and the two really do become one flesh. That's what sex is, reasonably.
Plato may or may not have had a theory of creation. It's hard to say. But Scripture reflects on the world as created. Sex must be according to the Logos, i.e. meaningful regarding the bodies and souls involved. It must be reasonable.
Eros, properly understood, is at the heart of what Kathy is describing as the "reasonableness" of sex. This is one of the great insights of Deus Caritas Est.
Spirit's refrain that Benedict quotes Plato "approvingly" on the subject of eros is misleading. First of all, Plato's discussion of eros is ambiguous, whereas Spirit would have us believe that it is plainly homoerotic. Secondly, the pope merely says regarding the plantonic myth that it is an extra-biblical idea of which one might see a "hint" in the biblical story of Adam and Eve. This is hardly a blanket approval of Plato's idea of eros.
I would direct Spirit to the following passage from Deus Caritas Est, in which the pope affirms in no uncertain terms the true nature of eros:
'From the standpoint of creation, eros directs man towards marriage, to a bond which is unique and definitive; thus, and only thus, does it fulfil its deepest purpose. Corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa. God's way of loving becomes the measure of human love. This close connection between eros and marriage in the Bible has practically no equivalent in extra-biblical literature.' (Deus Caritas Est, 11)
Enough with the attempts to enlist the pope as an apologist (via Plato) for gay marriage.
If homosexuality is not eros, what is it? It is an expression of concupiscense, a disordered desire. For a man to desire another man is as much a disordered desire as for a man to desire a woman who is not his wife. Just as the potential adulterer feels that his desire is natural, so feels the man with a homosexual orientation. What they feel doesn't matter. The truth matters.
The various expressions of concupiscence are wounds in human nature. We are called to treat our wounded brothers and sisters, not to look at their wounds and say "Oh, what a wonderful wound!", as they lay there bleeding to death.
The only wonderful wounds are the wounds of Christ. Let us approach the cross with our wounded gay brothers and lesbian sisters, and let us cover ourselves (and them) in the sacred wounds of Jesus.
"Homosexuality is not eros, properly speaking". Thou speakest darkly!
What is eros: love based on the vision of beauty, which can be oriented to sensuality or to the transcendent.
Plato's Phaedrus gives an authoritative description of such love, one quoted approvingly by the present Pope in his 2002 message to Communio e Liberazione.
The Phaedrus is a text dealing exclusively with love between males.
What is says is amply confirmed by the experience of humankind. If you reject it, you must give reasons, or find some authoritative source who agrees with you.
Three things I hate about the word "homophobe":
1. It calls an opinion a pathology NO, ONLY WHEN IT IS MISUSED
2. It's applied to everyone from people who throw rocks at homosexuals and taunt them to people who would vote against "gay marriage" amendments NO, ONLY IF THE LATTER ARE MOTIVATED BY PREJUDICE RATHER THAN DIALOGAL RATIONALITY
3. It's slanderous and spiteful, in the name of tolerance NO, ANYMORE THAN "RACIST" or "ANTISEMITE" are -- they are certainly difficult words to use fairly and dispassionately, which is why we should prefer the vaguer language of "homophobia" "racism" "antisemitism" to designate the attitudes in the abstract. That such attitudes are real and lethal is evident from the countless murders (including mass murder) that they have caused.
"Spirit, you still haven't addressed the natural law element in this matter." Natural law is a matter of deep principles, not biologistic rules of thumb.
"Sex must be reasonable." Why is it unreasonable to say that sexual acts can be a language of love?
" "Penetrative techniques" should not have to be developed to bring about a "feeling" of being one flesh." All I can say is that some gays say that such "techniques" give them this feeling and has a "unitive" function. Whether this is so in reality, in a way comparable to the heterosexual act of intercourse, I cannot say for sure.
" There is a penetrative technique that the human body is obviously designed for, and the two really do become one flesh. That's what sex is, reasonably." Sex is that, to be sure, but as everyone knows it is also much, much more than that.
"Sex must be according to the Logos, i.e. meaningful regarding the bodies and souls involved." If it is life-giving, joy-giving, love-promoting, then it is according to Logos.
" If homosexuality is not eros, what is it? It is an expression of concupiscence, a disordered desire. " Not according to Benedict XVI -- I'll post his comment on the Phaedrus next.
"For a man to desire another man is as much a disordered desire as for a man to desire a woman who is not his wife." But sexual orientation is much wider than desire of a particular sexual act or relationship. Jesus (in Matthew at least) condemned adulterous desire, not sexuality as such; that is, the injustice of adultery is condemned but the sexual instinct that makes us love beauty is not.
"Just as the potential adulterer feels that his desire is natural, so feels the man with a homosexual orientation. What they feel doesn't matter. The truth matters." The potential adulterer's sexual orientation is perfectly natural; it would be manicheanism to deny this. Just because our sexuality sometimes leads us to desire sinful relationships does not mean that our sexuality as such is disordered. On this point I think Augustine would have done well to pay more heed to his own anti-Manichean statement: "They are not well in their wits to whom anything Thou hast created is displeasing".
Here is Benedict XVI on the Phaedrus (an exclusively homoerotic text -- have you read it?):
Certainly, the consciousness that beauty has something to do with pain was also present in the Greek world. For example, let us take Plato’s Phaedrus. Plato contemplates the encounter with beauty as the salutary emotional shock that makes man leave his shell and sparks his “enthusiasm” by attracting him to what is other than himself. Man, says Plato, has lost the original perfection that was conceived for him. He is now perennially searching for the healing primitive form. Nostalgia and longing impel him to pursue the quest; beauty prevents him from being content with just daily life. It causes him to suffer. In a Platonic sense, we could say that the arrow of nostalgia pierces man, wounds him and in this way gives him wings, lifts him upwards toward the transcendent.
(Wow.)
You can keep talking about sex as a path to spirituality. But please don't "baptize" the idea with the Holy Father's approbation, which is utterly laughable, or even with Plato's.
Pope Benedict's quote could nearly be about Diotima's ladder in the Symposium. There, the love of bodies is nearly incidental and gotten over with at the very beginning.
Besides, isn't the Phaedrus the one in which Phaedrus keeps trying to get his hands on Socrates, and Socrates keeps him talking instead?
It sounds remarkably like you are using spirituality as an excuse for sex.
" You can keep talking about sex as a path to spirituality. But please don't "baptize" the idea with the Holy Father's approbation, which is utterly laughable, or even with Plato's. " When I use the word "eros" I am not talking about sexual acts (though of course these too can be a path to spirituality as Benedict insists -- in the case of acts within marriage). A person's sexuality is intrinsic to their spirituality -- this is true of all human beings, even virgins.
"Pope Benedict's quote could nearly be about Diotima's ladder in the Symposium. There, the love of bodies is nearly incidental and gotten over with at the very beginning." Sure, but the shock of beauty in Plato is first experienced in the encounter with a beautiful youth. Here is another quote (Socrates is the speaker): "I saw inside his cloak and caught fire, and could possess myself no longer; and I thought none was so wise in love-matters (ta erotika) as Cydias, who in speaking of a beautiful boy recommends someone to 'beware of coming as a fawn before the lion, and being seized as his portion of flesh'; for I too felt I had fallen a prey to some such creature." (Plato, Charmides 155D-E)
Benedict also quotes the Song of Songs, in which the love of bodies remains strong and is not gotten over with at all.
"Besides, isn't the Phaedrus the one in which Phaedrus keeps trying to get his hands on Socrates, and Socrates keeps him talking instead?" It is Alcibiades in the Symposium who had that experience.
"It sounds remarkably like you are using spirituality as an excuse for sex." I am just warding off manicheanism as a bad spirituality. Sexuality is a divine blessing, part of God's good creation, whether sublimated a la Plato or fully lived in the holy bonds of matrimony.
I am not arguing primarily about sexual acts but against the perception that sexual orientation in itself is evil.
Usually gays who justify, in good conscience, sexual acts do so not in the name of spirituality but of love.
One of the main points I am making is that the Church needs to cultivate open discussion of these issues -- I refuse to pontificate on them as long as such discussion has not taken place -- No one can predict what the outcome would be if the Church allowed gays to speak and listened respectfully.
It is surprising how little people have noticed that Benedict's attitude to physical love within marriage is extremely warm and positive. It is possible that he celebrates eros to a degree not found in any previous papal document (though to be sure there may be something similar hidden away in John Paul II's writings). He has struck a mighty blow against the manicheanism that still poisons the consciousness of many good Catholics. (See what I say about Feuerbach in my weblog comment on the Encyclical.)
When he sees a godlike face or form of some body which is a good image of beauty, he shudders (ephrixen) at first, and something of the old awe comes over him, then, as he gazes, he reveres the beautiful one as a god, and if he did not fear to be thought stark mad, he would offer sacrifice to his beloved (tois paidikois) as to an idol or a god. And as he looks upon him, a reaction from his shuddering comes over him, with sweat and unwonted heat; for as the effluence of beauty enters him through the eyes, he is warmed; the effluence moistens the germ of the feathers, and as he grows warm, the ... quills of the feathers swell and begin to grow from the roots all over the form of the soul... The whole soul throbs and palpitates... it is feverish and uncomfortable... Then when it gazes upon the beauty of the boy (to tou paidos kallos)... it is moistened and warmed, ceases from its pain and is filled with joy... It is filled with longing an d hastens wherever it hopes to see the beautiful one. And when it sees him and is bathed with the waters of yearning... the soul has respite and is eased of its pain... The soul will not, it it can help it, be left alone by the beautiful one, but esteems him above all others, forgets for him mother and brothers and all friends... It is ready to be a slave and to sleep wherever it is allowerd, as near as possible to the beloved; for it not only reveres him who possesses beauty, but finds in him the only healer of its greatest woes. (Phaedrus 251-2)
talk about mainstreaming homosexuality...
Spirit, I have not read Phaedrus, but the passage you quote above reminds me of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, which I have read several times.
Benedict (as Ratzinger) wrote an essay called "Wounded by the Arrow of Beauty". It is in the recently published volume, On the Way to Jesus Christ. I've just started to read it. Very timely, it seems.
Death in Venice perhaps shows that Eros can be a disturbing and destructive force. "Beauty is nought but the beginning of the terrible that we can still just bear, and we admire it so because, serene, it disdains to destroy us" (Denn das Schöne ist nichts/als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,/
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht/Uns zu zerstören. Duino Elegy 1) says Rilke. But that is high-flying German romanticism, which I don't really understand. Visconti's movie of Death in Venice (and the very different take on it in Britten's opera) show Aschenbach's plight as conditioned by nervous exhaustion -- Visconti replaces the Phaedrus monologues with dialogues about music (having turned Aschenbach into his alleged model Gustav Mahler) that clip away any transcendental grandeur in his encounter with beauty. Aschenbach dies from the encounter with beauty, to be sure, in that his infatuation with the boy keeps him overlong in the cholera-infested city. But it's more an ironic story than one about winging one's way to the transcendent (still, the boy as the pointing angel of death in Visconti's closing scene is maybe an icon of something beyond). Looking at the movie Was nutzt die Liebe in Gedanken and reading Dazai Osamu about his many attempted love-suicides, I see that there are many things about death-love-beauty that I don't get.
Would the message about beauty wounding us with an arrow of desire for the transcendent have helped Aschenbach? Quite possibly.
Was he really thinking of the boy as a human being at all? Wasn't he a kind of abuser, getting his beauty-death trip from staring at the boy?
'Was he really thinking of the boy as a human being at all? Wasn't he a kind of abuser, getting his beauty-death trip from staring at the boy?'
Aye, Fr. O'Leary, there's the rub.
What bothers me most about the above-quoted passage from Phaedrus is that I can imagine it being used to rationalize pederasty. I can't prove that suspicion, and I don't feel like going out to the NAMBLA site in search of citations. Maybe someone else might be inclined to dig through that muck.
I do not speak darkly, Spirit. I have affirmed time and again on this blog that homosexual persons should be treated with love and respect as human beings. I have disavowed "hateful homophobia" of the Iron Sheik variety ad nauseum. Yet Phaedrus gives me the willies. I think that our beloved Pope (and I do love him) is on dangerous ground using Phaedrus to support his explication of Eros.
For me, this whole debate ultimately comes down to the practical virtue of Prudence. We need to get our heads out of the Platonic clouds and consider the real-world implications of exalting homosexual attraction as an instance of Eros. If that kind of thinking leads a single soul into self-destructive behavior, it should be immediately discarded, out of genuine Christian love for that soul.
Spirit, I don't have any problem with warding off Manicheanism.
I just think you are putting things under that heading that don't belong there.
And I think that you are not addressing your own dualism. What one does with the body affects the soul. You're not just talking about gazing on beauty--you're talking about getting down into the muck. Literally. It's degrading, not uplifting.
"getting down into the muck. Literally, It's degrading, not uplifting" -- true, Christians have been talking about sex in those terms for two millennia -- but I would see it as affected by Augustine's residual manicheanism.
"getting down into the muck. Literally, It's degrading, not uplifting"
I don't mean regular sex. I mean homosexual "penetrative techniques."
Regular sex is precisely about life.
Kathy, heterosexual sex has been known to use the "penetrative technique" you are disgusted at -- including for purposes of birth control. D. H. Lawrence has a lot about that! (As to that other homosexual penetrative technique known as fellatio, it is very popular among heterosexuals as well.)
Homosexual sex cannot be confined to the one technique you find disgusting, in any case. And homosexual orientation cannot be confined to sexual acts or to the specific desire for sexual acts. Sexuality is a god-given reality that affects every dimension of one's being, and that is a key to the perception of beauty and to releasing the energies of love, passion and tenderness. To say that sexuality is ONLY about the transmission of life is incorrect.
But are you getting the not so subtle distinctions I work with? You seem, like many who argue on your side, to systematically obfuscate them, in that you make out that whenever I talk of homosexual orientation I am referring to penetrative techniques.
To repeat, I DISTINGUISH between (a) homosexual orientation (b) the specific desire for sexual acts currently disapproved by the Church (c) physical sexual expression which may be of many different kinds, some of which quite innocent -- hugging, kissing, etc.
I understand that penetrative sex is far less central in homosexuality than it is in heterosexuality -- at least I seem to remember reading in C. A. Tripp a long time ago that only 4% of gays (of course in a specific group and at a specific time) were into anal intercourse.
Refining my distinctions, we have:
1. homosexual orientation -- in its simplest and perhaps most common form, exclusive constitutional homosexuality. That is, the subject has not sexual attraction to the opposite sex but only to their own sex.
2. Desire for sexual acts, which may be (2a) of an "innocent" order -- kisses and hugs as tokens of affection, or of a desire for closeness and intimacy -- or (2b) of an order that the Church currently considers objectively disordered -- acts tending to result in orgasm.
3. The actuation of such desire in (3a) "innocent" acts of sexual closeness or intimacy, not leading to orgasm or constituting a proximate occasion of such sexual excitement; (3b) orgasmic sexual acts.
What the Church disapproves of are 2b and 3b only.
'or (2b) of an order that the Church currently considers objectively disordered -- acts tending to result in orgasm.'
Spirit, twice now you have used the qualifying term "currently". Is it your hope that the Church will at some future date no longer consider such acts objectively disordered or sinful?
Spirit, that particular technique (can't bring myself to say it) is just the most poetic expression. Homosexual orgasmic acts take what is meant for life and throw it headlong into the sewer.
(I agree that many heterosexual acts do the same.)
Of course I acknowledge your distinctions. I don't have time to go back over your postings here, and I realize your fighting many fronts. But haven't you been justifying the whole gamut of homosexual orientation and activity at one time or another? Forgive me if I have misunderstood. But I haven't seen you denigrate any feeling or activity. You make distinctions, but why? If nothing is wrong, why justify one thing at a time?
(Sorry: SB "that particular homosexual act takes...throws...")
I just take note of what gay couples who want to spend their lives together are saying to the Church. To throw their words back in their faces, telling them that their sexual life belongs in the sewer, is not an adequate reception of their testimony.
The distinctions I make are to correct the misperception (encouraged by the unfortunate language of some Vatican documents) that the church considers homosexual persons as such to be tainted or disordered in their basic affectivity.
That a further development of church teaching is possible I indeed hope -- but the precondition of any such hope is open dialogue and discussion within the church, and this does not currently exist.
I think that we're getting open dialogue and discussion here, we're just not getting agreement.
Open dialogue and discussion here, sure. But the pastors of the Church are not involved in such discussion, nor are theologians.
Anyway I was thinking less of dialogue about homosexuality than dialogue with the persons concerned (gay people, including gay clergy, and their families would have to be encouraged to make their voices heard in face to face dialogue (not just internet, polls, or any other kind of anonymous communication).
Still, in fact the internet is spelling a revolution for communication in the Church as in the society at large.
"We're just not getting agreement".
Perhaps the Church needs to be mature enough to live with disagreement? Such disagreement de facto exists -- very clearly on the issue of contraception -- and it is counterproductive to make it a reason for silencing people and cutting off dialogue. (Dialogue between the pastors of the Church and women is not exactly flourishing.)
Also in "painting themselves into a corner" (Cardinal Koenig) on these issues, the Vatican risks becoming the boy who cried wolf. When it has to warn the faithful about a real threat to faith the channels of communication will not exist to carry the message. John Paul II's mode of communication -- his interruption of dialogue by soundbites -- his transformation of the magisterium into a traveling mission -- the disappearance of a real network of communication down to the daily life of the parishes (such as was the glory of the pre-Vatican II church) -- these were all signs of a serious crisis in communication, that the present silence has not resolved. Particularly in American Catholic polarization has reached a near-schismatic stage -- in the fortunes of the ECUSA we may read a portent of our own.
Spirit, you must admit that it's pretty hard for Church leaders to have an open dialogue with people who constantly and self-deceptively critique the "language" and "mode of communication" of Church teaching. Because, face it: you don't have a problem with method, but with conclusion. You won't believe that the Church has "heard" homosexuals until it changes its teaching to sanction (at least) long-term, committed monogamous homosexual relationships.
Your thesis, Father, has one flaw: evidence actually supports the contrary conclusion. Remember how everyone was convinced that the teaching on birth control would change? Remember how Paul VI widened the "birth-control commission"? Remember Humanae Vitae? Still further, as Wylton Wynn observed about John Paul: he spoke to married people before writing Love and Responsibility. He nevertheless came to the same conclusion. Birth control was, is, and always will be morally wrong.
John Paul II was notorious an absentee member of the birth control commission, if I remember correctly.
"Spirit, you must admit that it's pretty hard for Church leaders to have an open dialogue with people who constantly and self-deceptively critique the "language" and "mode of communication" of Church teaching."
The same was said of Jews, yet now Catholic-Jewish dialogue is flourishing.
"Because, face it: you don't have a problem with method, but with conclusion."
No, I have a bigger problem with method than conclusion. If the church wants to offer moral guidance, it cannot effectively do so by talking about gays as if they were an alien species. The method of Humanae Vitae was quite different and far more persuasive -- though to be sure the persuasion did not work, but that is another issue.
"You won't believe that the Church has "heard" homosexuals until it changes its teaching to sanction (at least) long-term, committed monogamous homosexual relationships." Since no dialogue has taken place we cannot predict its outcome. The Church may not have changed its teaching on Judaism, but there has been a radical change, a sea-change in its approach to Judaism. I expect the same thing in regard to gays, whether or not any teachings are changed.
Even in regard to contraception, there has been a sea-change in the Church's attitude -- immensely more sympathetic to couples who practice it in good conscience.
John Paul didn't miss a single meeting of the Holy Father's birthcontrol commission.
[Caution: I'm doing a Father O'Leary here. Read carefully, for I have written no lies at all; neither have I done any research at all.]
Even in regard to contraception, there has been a sea-change in the Church's attitude -- immensely more sympathetic to couples who practice it in good conscience.
Spirit, I have no idea what Church document presents this attitudinal shift. Care to cite something?
But this is the problem, isn't it. If I recall from Humanae Vitae, homosexual sex was not one of the fallouts predicted as a result of artificial contraception--as were so many things that have come to pass, such as abortion, euthanasia, and the effectively genocidal reproductive policies exported into poorer countries by the "enlightened" West.
Sex selection was not mentioned either, as I recall, but this is a common occurrence in birth-restricted countries, including China, India, South Korea, etc. etc.
In any case the sanctioning of artificial (i.e. invasive of the reproductive act itself in one of its moments) birth control had the effect of separating sex from reproduction. Not "adding the unitive dimension"--but separating.
Once that was done, and the "unitive" dimension is seen as standing on its own (although "the feeling of being one flesh," e.g., is NOT what the Church means by the unitive dimension and all that it implies, including but not at all limited to the willingness to bear and raise children common to the couple themselves) then the approbation of homosexual acts was, in some sense, logical.
Why not do whatever we want with our sexual drives, as long as no one gets hurt? Oh, except for children. And adolescents. And grownups. And the elderly. And sick people. Oh, and doctors who are no longer allowed to practice according to their consciences. And pharmacists. And taxpayers. People with brown skin. Poor people, especially. Women, especially unborn women. Women who are forced to abort. Women who are pressured to abort their daughters for economic reasons. Women who will be forced into poverty by their governments if they choose to have more than the recommended number of children. Governments who are forced to enact laws like this in order to receive foreign aid.
In the face of these minor details, boy, I sure hope that the Church becomes more sympathetic to the family-planning decisions of the soccer moms and dads of North America.
National Catholic Reporter; 4/15/2005; Allen, John L., Jr.
There is little reason to believe, as biographer Kwitny has asserted, that Wojtyla actually wrote Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae. There is every reason to believe that as Paul VI looked around for support when deciding not to accept his Birth Control Commission's recommendation to permit artificial contraception, Wojtyla was one of the few publicly providing it, and supplying Paul with letters, documents and arguments in support.
Wojtyla was a member of the Birth Control Commission, but not a reform-minded one. He did not attend a single meeting.
Cite something? Paul VI's letter to Cardinal O'Boyle of Washington, who was disciplining priests opposed to Humanae Vitae. In it the Pope stresses that objectively immoral acts can be inculpable, diminished in guilt or subjectively defensible.
Also the documents of many episcopal conferences in reception of Humanae Vitae.
Cardinal Trujillo goes on about the "myth of overpopulation", arguing that the pop. is not going to double by 2050 but merely multiply by half (from 6 to 9 billion). This is very much in conflict with the emphasis of Gaudium et Spes. The reason the Vatican is backtracking on population responsibility is no doubt the difficulties it creates for their unpopular stance on artificial contraception. As Cardinal Koenig said, they have painted themselves into a corner.
One of the main arguments for keeping to Humanae Vitae (though not one thought of by Paul VI) is that appropation of artificial contraception makes appropation of homosexual acts in some sense logical. The logic of course works both ways.
approbation, I mean
I mean, please CITE something. Don't just wave at it vaguely, but cite it. That way you might have a chance of presenting the whole truth instead of half truths that lie. For example, This is very much in conflict with the emphasis of Gaudium et Spes. Where do you find this "emphasis" written?
By the way, why did you respond in 5 comments rather than 1?
I would be interested to see the letter written by Paul VI to Cardinal O'Boyle, which Spirit has "cited" twice.
Dave:
Msgr. George Kelly makes reference to such a letter (I don't have it at hand) when he specifically identifies the problems of governance in the Church. I'll see if I can find it. Kelly's book is called, interestingly enough, "Keeping the Church Catholic with John Paul II".
I'm sorry I forgot this comment. Fr. O'Leary has finally corrected his statement. Of course John Paul missed no meetings of this commission. Nevertheless, it is worth asking: given how much John Paul did 'reform' the teaching and praxis of the Church in 27 years, do you suppose there is even the slightest cause to ask WHY he wouldn't want to reform this teaching too?
Kathy, I quoted Gaudium et Spes and Paul VI on population on the "A Pro-Life Legacy" thread, as follows:
Gaudium et Spes 5 : "The human mind is, in a certain sense, broadening its mastery over time -- ... over the future by foresight and planning. Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences not only lead man to greater self-awareness, but provide him with the technical means of molding the lives of whole peoples as well. At the same time the human race is giving more and more thought to the forecasting and control of its own population growth... The destiny of the human race is viewed as a complete whole, no longer, as it were, in the particular histories of various peoples; now it merges into a complete whole".
This is the Council's effort to read, in a positive light, the signs of the times.
Gaudium et Spes 87 : "The government has, assuredly, in the matter of the population of its country, its own rights and DUTIES, within the limits of its proper competence, for instance as regards social and family legislation... Some men nowadays are gravely disturbed by this problem; it is to be hoped that there will be Catholic experts in these matters... Since there is widespread opinion that the POPULATION EXPANSION OF THE WORLD, or at least of particular countries, should be kept in check by all possible means and by every kind of intervention by public authority, the Council exhorts all men to beware of all solutions... which transgress the natural law..... Since the parents' judgment presupposes a properly formed conscience, IT IS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE THAT ALL SHOULD HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CULTIVATE A GENUINELY HUMAN SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY WHICH WILL TAKE ACCOUNT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF TIME AND SITUATION... People should be discreetly informed of scientific advances in research into methods of birth regulation..."
"Of course John Paul missed no meetings of this commission" -- this is probably the game some analytical philosopher would like to play. In point of fact Karol Woytlya, then Archbishop of Cracow and later John Paul II, missed ALL meetings of the commission, and despite that had a major role in determining its outcome -- yet another slap in the face of the Catholic laity (but they like it!).
As to the letter of Paul VI, one should remember that Paul VI was -- or so I understand -- a qualified moral theologian, so his views can't be regarded as just giving in to pressure from evil liberals, but should rather be seen as stemming from a lifetime's reflection.
Spirit, I have tried to deal respectfully with you. But since you distort the Council's words for your own bizarre educational or possibly self-justifying purposes, I really don't want to continue in this thread.
Suffice it to say that Gaudium et Spes 5 is descriptive, not prescriptive, and merely states the current situation. And that your convenient ellipses distort and practically a-moralize Gaudium et Spes 87, which is as follows:
87. International cooperation is needed today especially for those peoples who, besides facing so many other difficulties, likewise undergo pressures due to a rapid increase in population. There is an urgent need to explore, with the full and intense cooperation of all, and especially of the wealthier nations, ways whereby the human necessities of food and a suitable education can be furnished and shared with the entire human community. But some peoples could greatly improve upon the conditions of their life if they would change over from antiquated methods of farming to the new technical methods, applying them with needed prudence according to their own circumstances. Their life would likewise be improved by the establishment of a better social order and by a fairer system for the distribution of land ownership.
Governments undoubtedly have rights and duties, within the limits of their proper competency, regarding the population problem in their respective countries, for instance, in the line of social and family life legislation, or regarding the migration of country-dwellers to the cities, or with respect to information concerning the condition and needs of the country. Since men today are giving thought to this problem and are so greatly disturbed over it, it is desirable in addition that Catholic specialists, especially in the universities, skillfully pursue and develop studies and projects on all these matters.
But there are many today who maintain that the increase in world population, or at least the population increase in some countries, must be radically curbed by every means possible and by any kind of intervention on the part of public authority. In view of this contention, the council urges everyone to guard against solutions, whether publicly or privately supported, or at times even imposed, which are contrary to the moral law. For in keeping with man's inalienable right to marry and generate children, a decision concerning the number of children they will have depends on the right judgment of the parents and it cannot in any way be left to the judgment of public authority. But since the judgment of the parents presupposes a rightly formed conscience, it is of the utmost importance that the way be open for everyone to develop a correct and genuinely human responsibility which respects the divine law and takes into consideration the circumstances of the situation and the time. But sometimes this requires an improvement in educational and social conditions, and, above all, formation in r
But sometimes this requires an improvement in educational and social conditions, and, above all, formation in religion or at least a complete moral training. Men should discreetly be informed, furthermore, of scientific advances in exploring methods whereby spouses can be helped in regulating the number of their children and whose safeness has been well proven and whose harmony with the moral order has been ascertained.
Kathy, how dare you accuse me of deliberately distorting Vatican II. I think you own me an apology. If you went to the trouble of looking up the thread I referred you to you would find that I quote reams and reams more. In no way do your extra quotes change the Church's teaching as I refer it. It is also a distortion to say that GS 5 is merely describing the signs of the times -- it speaks POSITIVELY of the new sense of foresight and responsibility, and you must not underestimate the POSITIVE and ESSENTIAL role the signs of the times have in the theology of Vatican II.
I posted this for example:
Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 37. It is true that too frequently an accelerated demographic increase adds its own difficulties to the problems of development: the size of the population increases more rapidly than available resources, and things are found to have reached apparently an impasse. From that moment the temptation is great to check the demographic increase by means of radical measures. It is certain that public authorities can intervene, within the limit of their competence, by favoring the availability of appropriate information and by adopting suitable measures, provided that these be in conformity with the moral law and that they respect the rightful freedom of married couples. Where the inalienable right to marriage and procreation is lacking, human dignity has ceased to exist. Finally, it is for the parents to decide, with full knowledge of the matter, on the number of their children, taking into account their responsibilities towards God, themselves, the children they have already brought into the world, and the community to which they belong. In all this they must follow the demands of their own conscience enlightened by God’s law authentically interpreted, and sustained by confidence in Him.[39]
Spirit of Vatican II | Homepage | 03.20.06 - 8:53 pm | #
Humanae Vitae
2. The changes which have taken place are in fact noteworthy and of varied kinds. In the first place, there is the rapid demographic development. Fear is shown by many that world population is growing more rapidly than the available resources, with growing distress to many families and developing countries, so that the temptation for authorities to counter this danger with radical measures is great. Moreover, working and lodging conditions, as well as increased exigencies both in the economic field and in that of education, often make the proper education of a larger number of children difficult today. A change is also seen both in the manner of considering the person of woman and her place in society, and in the value to be attributed to conjugal love in marriage, and also to the appreciation to be made of the meaning of conjugal acts in relation to that love.
Finally and above all, man has made stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature, such that he tends to extend this domination to his own total being: to the body, to psychical life, to social life and even to the laws which regulate the transmission of life.
10. conjugal love requires in husband and wife an awareness of their mission of "responsible parenthood," which today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must be exactly understood. ..In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.
... In the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church [10].
23 ...We are well aware of the serious difficulties experienced by public authorities in this regard, especially in the developing countries. To their legitimate preoccupations we devoted our encyclical letter Populorum Progressio. But with our predecessor Pope John XXIII, we repeat: no solution to these difficulties is acceptable "which does violence to man's essential dignity" and is based only on an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and of his life. The only possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole human society, and which respects and promotes true human values [26]. Neither can one, without grave injustice, consider divine providence to be responsible for what depends, instead, on a lack of wisdom in government, on an insufficient sense of social justice, on self
justice, on selfish monopolization, or again on blameworthy indolence in confronting the efforts and the sacrifices necessary to ensure the raising of living standards of a people and all of its sons [27].
24. We wish now to express our encouragement to men of science, who "can considerably advance the welfare of marriage and the family, along with peace of conscience, if by pooling their efforts they labor to explain more thoroughly the various conditions favoring a proper regulation of births" [28].
Spirit of Vatican II | Homepage | 03.20.06 - 9:28 pm | #
Spirit, I owe you no apology. I didn't say that you "deliberately" distort Vatican II. I said you distort it, for your own purposes. As anyone can easily see by comparing your "quotation" of GS and an actual quotation.
(The Spirit of Vatican II version):
Since the parents' judgment presupposes a properly formed conscience, IT IS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE THAT ALL SHOULD HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CULTIVATE A GENUINELY HUMAN SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY WHICH WILL TAKE ACCOUNT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF TIME AND SITUATION... People should be discreetly informed of scientific advances in research into methods of birth regulation..."
***************
(Vatican II):
But since the judgment of the parents presupposes a rightly formed conscience, it is of the utmost importance that the way be open for everyone to develop a correct and genuinely human responsibility which respects the divine law and takes into consideration the circumstances of the situation and the time.But sometimes this requires an improvement in educational and social conditions, and, above all, formation in religion or at least a complete moral training. Men should discreetly be informed, furthermore, of scientific advances in exploring methods whereby spouses can be helped in regulating the number of their children and whose safeness has been well proven and whose harmony with the moral order has been ascertained.
***
You omitted:
But sometimes this requires an improvement in educational and social conditions, and, above all, formation in religion or at least a complete moral training.
and
and whose safeness has been well proven and whose harmony with the moral order has been ascertained.
These are very significant passages for the question at hand--which you raised--which is Gaudium et Spes' "attitude" towards birth regulation. You omitted these passages in order to emphasize passages that support your own position. This is the classic ploy of people who claim to represent the "spirit of Vatican II"--distortion of what is actually to be received from the Council: the teachings, as it comes to us in the documents.
I don't know whether or not it is deliberate. That is for your conscience to consider, not mine. But it is a distortion.
Excuse me, Miss Kathy, but my translation has the phrase "and will respect the divine law" where I place the ... indicating an omission. You have a different translation which has that phrase in the middle of the sentence, thus making it appear -- unjustly -- that I curtailed the text without indicating it. You continue to support your insulting allegation, despite the fact that the other texts I posted stress the very points you claim I omit -- points which in no way undermine the points to which I was drawing attention and which had been denied by the person I was arguing with.
Look for example at my quote from Humanae Vitae 10 above.
Frankly, I find that your anger has led you into bad faith, and grave discourtesy. It is a very serious allegation to accuse a theologian of deliberately distorting the most authoritative texts of the 20th century church.
Is not the phrase "and will respect the divine law" relevant in precisely the same way?
I do not have bad faith towards you. I have given you a lot more benefit of the doubt than I probably ought to. I have a very justifiable quarrel with anyone who misrepresents the teachings of the Church. A quarrel which I dearly hope will end because you see the light.
Fr. O'Leary:
Leaving aside the present case, you surely would have to admit that it is common enough for theologians (and liturgists) in the modern world to misrepresent the teachings of the Church. Didn't you formerly accuse the Prefect of the Holy Office of such a crime?
People misrepresent the teachings of the Church, usually unwittingly, all the time, and I frequently point this out. However, I am falsely accused of doing so in the present instance. Even the Pope misrepresented the Bible in his Urbi et Orbi message, giving an account of the empty tomb that contradicts the four gospels!
Oh dear! Pot, say hello to kettle.
How can you seriously type that you know better than the Holy Father how to understand the resurrection and the empty tomb?
All I can say is that "the walls were shattered" is not what the scriptural text says. If you see no contradiction, please explain how that is so and I will retract my criticism of the Pope's speechwriter.
And need I point out that a considerable number of contributors to this site regularly question Benedict XVI's sound judgment in matters concerning the interpretation of Scripture? Pot, kettle.
You mean that they question your representation of Father Ratzinger's judgment of scriptural interpretation, several decades ago.
This is the Holy Father's current thinking on scriptural interpretation. Notice the emphasis on reading Scripture in continuity with Tradition, in a spirit of prayer:
"Your Holiness, my name is Simone and I am from St. Bartholomew's Parish. I am 21 years old and am studying chemical engineering at La Sapienza University of Rome."
First of all, thank you for addressing to us the message for the 21st World Youth Day on the topic of the word of God that illuminates the human being's steps through life.
In the face of anxieties and uncertainties about the future, and even simply when I find myself grappling with the daily routine, I also feel the need to be nourished by God's word and to know Christ better in order to find answers to my questions.
I often wonder what Jesus would have done in my place in a specific situation, but I don't always manage to understand what the Bible tells me. Moreover, I know that the books of the Bible were written by different people in different ages, in any case, very distant from me. How can I understand that what I read is nevertheless the word of God which calls my life into question? Thank you."
Benedict XVI: "To begin, I shall answer by stressing a first point: It must first of all be said that one must not read sacred Scripture as one reads any kind of historical book, such as, for example, Homer, Ovid or Horace; it is necessary truly to read it as the word of God, that is, entering into a conversation with God.
One must start by praying and talking to the Lord: "Open the door to me." And what St. Augustine often says in his homilies: "I knocked at the door of the word to find out at last what the Lord wants to say to me," seems to me to be a very important point. One should not read Scripture in an academic way, but with prayer, saying to the Lord: "Help me to understand your word, what it is that you want to tell me in this passage."
A second point is: Sacred Scripture introduces one into communion with the family of God. Thus, one should not read sacred Scripture on one's own. Of course, it is always important to read the Bible in a very personal way, in a personal conversation with God; but at the same time, it is important to read it in the company of people with whom one can advance, letting oneself be helped by the great masters of "lectio divina."
For example, we have many beautiful books by Cardinal Martini, a true master of "lectio divina," who helps us to enter into the life of sacred Scripture. Nevertheless, one who is thoroughly familiar with all the historical circumstances, all the characteristic elements of the past, always seeks to open the door to show that the words which appear to belong to the past are also words of the present.
These teachers help us to understand better and also to learn how to interpret sacred Scripture properly. Moreover, it is also appropriate in general to read it in the company of friends who are journeying with m
These teachers help us to understand better and also to learn how to interpret sacred Scripture properly. Moreover, it is also appropriate in general to read it in the company of friends who are journeying with me, who are seeking, together with me, how to live with Christ, to find what life the word of God brings us.
A third point: If it is important to read sacred Scripture with the help of teachers and in the company of friends, traveling companions, it is particularly important to read it in the great company of the pilgrim people of God, that is, in the Church.
Sacred Scripture has two subjects. First and foremost, the divine subject: It is God who is speaking. However, God wanted to involve man in his word. Whereas Muslims are convinced that the Koran was verbally inspired by God, we believe that for sacred Scripture it is "synergy" -- as the theologians say -- that is characteristic, the collaboration of God with man.
God involves his people with his word, hence, the second subject -- the first subject, as I said, is God -- is human. There are individual writers, but there is the continuity of a permanent subject -- the people of God that journeys on with the word of God and is in conversation with God. By listening to God, one learns to listen to the word of God and then also to interpret it.
Thus, the word of God becomes present, because individual persons die but the vital subject, the people of God, is always alive and is identical in the course of the millenniums: It is always the same living subject in which the word lives.
This also explains many structures of sacred Scripture, especially the so-called rereading. An ancient text is reread in another book, let us say 100 years later, and what had been impossible to perceive in that earlier moment, although it was already contained in the previous text, is understood in-depth.
And it is read again, ages later, and once again other aspects, other dimensions of the word are grasped. So it was that sacred Scripture developed, in this permanent rereading and rewriting in the context of profound continuity, in a continuous succession of the times of waiting.
At last, with the coming of Christ and the experience of the apostles, the word became definitive. Thus, there can be no further rewriting, but a further deepening of our understanding continues to be necessary. The Lord said: "The Holy Spirit will guide you into depths that you cannot fathom now."
Consequently, the communion of the Church is the living subject of Scripture. However, here too the principal subject is the Lord himself, who continues to speak through the Scriptures that we have in our hands.
I think that we should learn to do three things: To read it in a personal colloquium with the Lord; to read it with the guidance of teachers who have the experience of faith, who have penetrated sacred Scripture, and to read it in the great company of the Church, in whose liturgy these events never cease to become present anew and in which the Lord speaks with us today."
Thus, we may gradually penetrate ever more deeply into sacred Scripture, in which God truly speaks to us today."
Kathy, what you quote from Ratzinger is perfectly innocuous and completely compatible with what he wrote in, say, Offenbarung und Ueberlieferung, co-authored with Karl Rahner in 1965. When I say people here reject Benedict XVI'S current understanding of Scripture, I do not mean that they reject any of the points he made in what you quote. I mean that they reject the PBC document The Interpretation of Scripture in the Church, 1994 -- and see Benedict as misguided in trusting his own Biblical Commission on the principles therein expressed.
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