Where do you draw the line, and why?
Several forum topics I've entered into have led to this same question: Where do you draw the line between moral and immoral conduct in various areas - and why there, instead of at some other point in human behavior?
Granted, in my case, the issue is easy at least for the major issues of our times: I stand with the Church. For some other contributors to this forum, however, since several have expressed moral opinions in clear opposition to the teachings on the Church, I wonder where you draw the line. Here are three examples:
1) Concerning marital conjugal love, the Church teaches that self-withholding, a denial of self to the other, in the very act of loving self-giving, is wrong: hence, contraceptive love is a grave contradiction and is wrong. If you approve of contraception, where do you draw the line in the matter of denying the self-gift to the other? Is it OK to deny the gift of fidelity, and freely commit adultery? Is it OK to deny the gift of indissolubility, and freely abandon or divorce?
2) Concerning the appropriate use of human sexuality, the Church teaches that it is reserved exclusively to the marital covenant, between one man and one woman. Hence homosexual genital activity is gravely wrong. For those who believe that homosexual genital activity is OK, what if any other forms of sexual expression do you accept, and what do you not accept as morally good and why? For example is pedophilia OK? Why or why not? Relations with post-pubescent but underage persons of the same sex? Of the opposite sex? Is prostitution OK? Why or why not? Masturbation? Bestiality? Polygamy? Adultery? Fornication?
3) Concerning abortion: at what age is it no longer OK to kill the child? For example, I have heard that Obama fully supports abortion "rights", including partial birth abortion (that is, infanticide at the moment of birth). Where do you draw the line on this issue? If the child can be killed in the womb, or even when his or her little head is all that remains in the mother, then what could be wrong with killing him or her at age 1 day? Or one month? Or one year? Or whenever?
So I hope the matter is clear. If you discard the norms passed on by the Church, where do you find your norms, and why do you think those norms are any more reliable than the norms of some that you personally would reject?
I hope that this gets some responses. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Thomas
I have long thought that the
I have long thought that the official church misinterprets "Whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." I do not believe Jesus was giving them a choice but a warning. As in those you do not feed go hungry.
James, you're so right.
James, you're so right. When the chips are down we're called to account for our own decisions made in good conscience. We are not saddled with accounting for the consciences of our Bishops - God help them!
Mat 21:31 Jesus said to
Mat 21:31 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
I've got a few posts on
I've got a few posts on here, but I haven't actually answered Thomas's three questions about where I would draw the line. I have previously stated I object to the Church's moral teachings on sexuality because the whole notion of love is not part of the equation. I will get specific now.
1) On the topic of contraception I draw the line when it's used to exploit the other partner. When it's used because one partner does not want children but the other does, the use of contraception exploits the partner who wants children. There are many situations which work in reverse where a partner forgoes contraception in order to exploit the sexual fertility of the other. This too is wrong. A true partnership based in mutual respect would solve these issues through dialogue rather than self determined exploitation.
NFP as a moral answer for contraception is a moral hair splitting joke. Just like gay priests saying they are still celibate because they don't have vaginal sex, or teenagers thinking they are virginal for the same reason.
2) The appropriate use of human sexuality is also a matter of exploitation. There is no question in my mind that homosexual relationships can meet my criteria of no exploitation of one partner for the sexual lust or need of the other. This would be far easier to swallow if people understood two things. The first is the biblical injunctions against homosexual acts were predicated on the assumption that everyone was heterosexual. That is a false assumption. Secondly, homosexuals fall in love just like heterosexuals and are perfectly capable of expressing legitimate non exploitative love and sex. I write this fully understanding the Church rejects the latest scientific understanding of homosexuality. Well, they've made this particular mistake before.
I also write this firmly believing sexual expression is primarily a matter of SPIRITUALITY (of the heart) and not procreation. Again I differ with the Church. Finally I draw many of the same lines in the sand with regards to adultery, polygamy, incest, and bestiality. All of these sexual situations are exploitative in one sense or another.
3)In the case of abortion, I think Thomas Aquinas's take is pretty good. He said at quickening the child is ENSOULED because it moved on it's own and had reactions independent of the mother. This would be around the sixth month of gestation. Until the Church can definitively prove the child is ensouled at conception, I feel Thomas's insight is still perfectly reasonable. This six month period also coincides with the outside margin of successful neonatal ICU abilities.
Since there is a growing body of evidence that natural miscarriages occur in the 20-25% range in the first weeks of pregnancy, I would not be inclined to believe ensoulment occurs at this stage of pregnancy. On the other hand, I also believe the soul that is to incarnate also has a choice just like the mother does. This may be why miscarriages occur with such frequency in these early developmental stages. I think this issue is far more complicated than the easy answers the Church is giving us. I keep going back to the Archangel Gabrielle. His question to Mary indicates very strongly that Jesus chose His mother, and He also gave her the chance to refuse. Ultimately it's all about choice, and that's why I'm pro choice up to the sixth month of gestation.
I trust I have been sufficiently on topic this time, because I haven't been this specific before.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Thank you, colkoch, very few
Thank you, colkoch, very few have actually tried to answer the questions explicitly.
Can I fairly conclude from your 2 answers concerning contraception, and sexuality, that your line is at the point of personal exploitation. If no exploitation, there is no moral trespass. Is this an accurate parasphrase?
If so, I would argue that you are presuming something that is not true - that the actions involved are entirely private matters between the two immediately involved. This is false - we are all connected, all related, all affected by the moral behaviors of all. There is no "victimless crime"; there is no private sin.
I hope that this passage from St. Paul will make the point - we belong to one another; we are accountable for the good of one another; we OWE one another:
1 Cor 12:12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
1 Cor 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
1 Cor 12:14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
......................
1 Cor 12:20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
1 Cor 12:21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."
...........................
1 Cor 12:26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
To extend the teaching to the matter at hand: if one member sins, the whole body suffers. This is taught in the Catechism, in the context of the communal value and blessing of private confession of "private" sin:
++++++++++++++++++from the Catechism+++++++++++++++
Catechism 953 Communion in charity. In the sanctorum communio, “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.�
...........................
Catechism 1469 This sacrament [Sacrament of Reconciliation] reconciles us with the Church. Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of Penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members.
+++++++++++++end of Catechism++++++++++++++++
So to get to the point: so-called private sexual behavior - whether good and holy, or sinful and destructive - AFFECTS US ALL. Any exploitation is of the entire Church - and thus of all humanity. The norms for righteous behavior derive not from the "consent of the governed", but from the natural law put into humanity by God. When the law is broken we all suffer.
Concerning abortion, and your dependence on the time of "ensoulment": our philosophical understanding of the human person has developed beyond that understood by Aquinas. The Church now understands that "ensoulment" is at the moment of fertilization - but even if that is not accepted, to harm that which is human in potency is to harm the person that could be, that is to be.
Thomas
You are absolutely correct
You are absolutely correct in your understanding of exploitation with regards to contraception and sexuality. As to abortion, our current understanding of ensoulment at fertilization is a carefully considered opinion exactly as was Thomas's understanding of ensoulment a carefully considered opinion. As I stated in my original post, I think the whole concept is far more complicated than we are willing to look at, especially if you extend choice to the soul about to be incarnated.
This may surprise you, but I have taken the position I have taken precisely because I am acutely aware of the innerconnectedness of all of us. Nothing harms the collective consciousness of that innerconnectedness like the exploitation of one member for the sake of ego needs of another member. When I teach young adults the concept of innerconnectedness I always teach it in terms of spiritual energy and it's exploitation or waste, and how that harms the whole. The classic analogy is dropping black paint into a bucket of white paint.
I teach morality in terms of exploitation because it also directly connects their thinking to their concern for the exploitation of the earth's resources. Their personal sexuality is one of the few resources which is their's and their's alone. Wasting your own is every bit as bad as exploiting another's. Sacramental marriage is not a license to sexually exploit another.
Where you and I would fundatmentally disagree is on the issue of humosexual attraction. I find it a God given natural orientation, for whatever His reason was, and you don't. I give credence to the scientific and sociological research and you don't. I also happen to think that defining a group of people with a different attraction as disordered profoundly effects the connected spiritual health of humanity.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
"Concerning marital conjugal
"Concerning marital conjugal love, the Church teaches that self-withholding, a denial of self to the other, in the very act of loving self-giving, is wrong."
By that definition, sounds like sex on demand by one partner forces an unwilling partner into sin for "holding out" on sexual expression.
Where do you draw the line
Where do you draw the line between moral and immoral conduct in various areas - and why there, instead of at some other point in human behavior? Where, indeed, does the Church(Magisterium) draw the line between its stated moral conduct (often in theory) and its obvious immoral conduct (often in practice)? The Official Church would do well to ponder the formation of its "official conscience" as stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church---after all, the Catechism is not just for the laity to study and to reflect upon.
Immoral conduct does not just involve sexual practices (although that is certainly included), but immorality festers in other areas as well. All the topics that COL 55,spoke of are violations of morality by the official Church. I will also add, the sins against justice that the official Church has committed---the paltry pay and refusal to permit unionization of its employees.
The black-balling of people who question the status quo. The slandering of people's good names and heavy-handed politics that the official Church utilizes to beat people into submission or gag them into silence. It comes down to a betrayal by the official church or magisterium. One dictionary states that to betray is to "violate by fraud or unfaithfulness."
A betrayal of trust is a type of abusive behavior and it is always immoral. Our official church is so heavily invested in its own authority---perpetuated at any cost, in maintaining so many of its traditional man-made teachings--in investing time and energy in trying to bring back the nostalgic past, in refusing to engage in honest dialogue with its people---bishops, priests, and laity---that it fails to see that it is just plain irrelevant to a majority of Catholics.
Why? Too many people feel betrayed by a Church that will not humbly acknowledge its own immorality of yesterday and today! This is the same sinful Church that will not truthfully face the real issues of today's people---issues that do not fit in neat "text-book" situations.
The Church is like a bus. The drivers (hierarchs) are so worried about whether the seats on the bus are made of cloth or leather, that they have failed to notice that the wheels on the bus are coming off and the passengers are leaving and walking away. Where do you draw the line? I draw the line for when the official Church will pay attention to the real ethical questions in the minds of the People of God, and will engage in open, honest dialogue with all of us, the People of God, the Church.
Where do I draw the line? In
Where do I draw the line?
In the perfection of divine wisdom, and in the perfection of divine love, God gave each of us free will so we can choose. We are free to choose where we draw our lines. Free to choose between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, between responsible and irresponsible action. Free to live a life devoted to love or devoted to something else.
For me personally, the line is drawn by love, It is not now and never will be drawn by a doctrine, by the opinion of a cleric, a politician, a scholar or any other "authority".
1 Cor 13 is the starting point I use to discern what love is and what it isnt. If I discern that a doctrine is not loving, then as far as I'm concerned, that doctrine is invalid. If I discern that an activity is not loving, then I do not participate. If someone tries to make me accept their beliefs, and those beliefs are not in harmony with love, I bless them and walk away.
Love is not that hard to discern, especially when I allow the Holy Spirit to guide me. If an action is hateful, harmful, demeaning, condescending, deceitful, prejudicial, derogatory, hypocritical, fear-based, etc. regardless of where it originates or who originates it, it is not loving, it is has no value, and it has no place in my "temple".
This question is an example
This question is an example of how drawing the line too tightly creates more dilemmas than it solves. It might as well be rephrased: "If the Church is wrong about contraception, can it be right about adultery?". Without reference to the Church, it can be concluded the promiscuity is wrong. It is medically risky and psychologically damaging and may be evidence of existing psychological damage. It is entirely different from two people being in love and wanting to get as close to one another as is humanly possible. It is human nature to want exclusivity from one's partner, and thus most people choose freely to abide by the Golden Rule on this matter. You ask these questions as though there were no emotional element involved in people's choices, and this is only a matter of intellectual understanding and obedience.
Any behavior, sexual or not, that exploits someone else is wrong. That something is exploitive often escapes those who engage in certain behavior that the majority of people recognize as exploitive. In that sense some of the sexual behaviors that you describe, especially pedophilia, are likely to be symptoms of mental illness. Nevertheless, in learning about their sexuality people sometimes engage in activities that later cause them some guilt. In those cases where the guilt is extreme, it seems that there is more inclination to continue the behavior.
Killing a child, born or not yet, is always wrong. However, people should choose not to do this rather than have the government trying to prevent it.
Hello Marie - thanks for
Hello Marie - thanks for your comments and thoughts.
1) "If the Church is right about adultery, why is it not right about contraception?" Indeed, it seems that the issue - marital fidelity - is the issue common to both acts. True, for many the natural law is sensed and is accepted: the "golden rule" teaches from within that infidelity is wrong.
However, the natural law is today commonly rejected. Man is asserting himself above such old-fashioned biases and superstitions. For ages, in many cultures, homosexual expression was rejected as contrary to the natural law. This was seen and accepted among Jews, and was seen and accepted among Christians universally - until very recently. Now, the "natural law" is a law that men feel they can rewrite. They assert that we are now above and beyond such prejudices.
No, what was wrong is still wrong. What was wrong does not change. It is true that God did permit some laws to be relaxed in the days of old, "because of the hardness of your hearts" - such as, divorce and remarriage. Slavery was permitted among men for a while. "But it was not so in the beginning." In the beginning, God gave Eve to Adam, one man and one woman - this is God's design. That is, some of what was "allowed" in days of old was not right - but it was allowed. However, what was declared as morally wrong remains morally wrong.
I certainly am not overlooking the emotional charge that these many topics carry! However, the moral truth of human action is not determined by the emotions involved. Truth is truth, and falsity is falsity. Emotions give beautiful color and dimension to our lives! But they do not solve matters of morality, of conscience.
3) You wrote, "Killing a child, born or not yet, is always wrong. However, people should choose not to do this rather than have the government trying to prevent it."
I hope that you do not extend this reasoning to other crimes against mercy and love. Do you mean to say that cold-blooded murder, for example, is something that people should just choose not to commit - and society should keep their noses out of it? Should all laws be erased, and all moral decisions left to the individual? Does government have no responsibility to regulate human behavior? Suppose someone wants to kill someone you care about - do you not want a government and a police force near to protect that person?
All law reduces to enforcement of a moral system. The question is, does society have the right to define right and wrong, good and evil, all by itself, with no reference to any other standard or norm of human behavior?
If it does, who is to say where the lines should be drawn? Those who have the power to do so? Does might make right?
Thomas
Thomas the problem I have
Thomas the problem I have with a natural law based morality is that it isn't based in love, and gives no credence to the influence of love within sexuality or within relationships.
To me it looks like our entire sexual morality is concieved of in the negative, and therefor must always be controlled, denied, and circumscribed with rules and regulations. Sexuality is not seen as a gift, but a wild urge which must be severely tamed through guilt and/or abstinence. It's expression is justified only in it's most basic biological sense.
Catholicism truly lacks a spiritual understanding of sexuality, not to mention it no longer reflects our current understanding of the multiplicity of neurochemicals which are released during sex, and their effects on the total phsyical body. Sex isn't just about procreation.
A sexuality based on spirituality would speak to the issues of dominance and submission. It would teach that there is no equal sharing when genders are assigned roles based in domination dynamics. Our entire sexual theology for women is certainly based in the submission end of the domination dynamic.
Ultimately then, we teach sexuality as a power issue and give way too much emphasis to it's supposed power over us. Sex only has as much power over us as we choose to give it. Unfortunately, our current teachings, couched in the language they are, teach us to give it way more power over us than sex is designed to have. In this sense our religious history has created the sexual monster we need all the rules and regulations to control.
Until the Church gives us a sexual morality which doesn't place celibacy and virginity as the highest spiritual expression of sexuality, it will continue to teach us very powerfully, that being sexually active is a second rate spiritual status---even amongst the sacramentally married. The message this sends is that sex is a spiritual impediment and that's not just plain wrong, but ultimately spiritually harmful.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
Thomas, I will work backward
Thomas, I will work backward in response to your post.
Abortion: I do extend the reasoning that people should choose not to kill rather than having the government try to prevent it, because that is exactly how it works now. Punishing a murderer does not (1) prevent the murder, (2) prevent subsequent murders of others by other murderers, or (3) necessarily prevent the very same murderer from murdering again. In fact, sometimes even putting someone in protective custody does not prevent them being murdered. If someone want to kill someone that I care about, its a real crapshoot as to whether that can be prevented--and that's in a society in which murder is illegal. The reason society agrees on punishing murderers is to keep order; that is, officially punishing murderers prevents people from taking justice into their own hands and escalating the violence.
Homosexuality: Without having been taught one way or the other about homosexual expression, I have found myself concluding that it is not unnatural. In fact, all sorts of sexual expression, from the typical one man, one woman, one position kind to something that someone does that I cannot even imagine, is natural in the sense that it originates out of instinct. My belief is that this instinct is rightly brought under control of our higher reasoning ability for our inidividual benefit and for the benefit of our relationships. If it were the case that men were to develop a culture around performing homosexual acts instead of following their individual instincts that would lead them to heterosexual relationships, then I would agree with God's judgment expressed to the Israelites in the Old Testament that this was an abomination.
Marital Fidelity: If the fidelity is between the spouses, then they would together determine why and when they would use contraception. If the fidelity is to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, then they would never use contraception even if they felt it would be best for their relationship and household. It seems to me that adultery would have more in common with choosing obedience to the Church over agreement with one's spouse.
Thomas, I am currently
Thomas, I am currently reading a book about Pope John Paul the First. What a remarkable and holy man he was! I never realized just how much of a liberal or shall I say, "Liberator" he was. I believe it was him who made popular the "What Would Jesus Do" saying that many use as a place "Where to draw the line?" He states that his father used to say that when you get to a fork in the road, ask yourself, "What would Jesus do in this situation?" That guided his moral principles.
Additionally, he was very strong on conscience and makes a characteristic difference in the God of Moses and the God of Jesus Christ. Apparently, sexual moral conduct was not what he saw as the great moral corrupter or compass. He thought that forms of bigotry that live in each one of us is the great sin. He was called, by John XXIII, the Einstein of the Church because of how he thought. He was a great thinker. It saddens me that this pontiff only lived 33 days! I pray that he was not murdered, as the book I am reading proposes. He would have launched the Church into new, but ancient uncharted waters.
By the way, the name of the book is "Murder in the Vatican" by Lucien Gregoire. It is the 2006 edition which many say is much better than the earlier edition.
re: "Murder in the Vatican"
re: "Murder in the Vatican"
I've just started reading it. The Vatican making financial deals (hush money?) with Hitler! The Vatican taking bribes to acknowledge the "validity" of Mussolini's government. The Vatican making deals with organized crime. The Vatican's implied consent of the Bosnian Ethnic Cleansing. The possible murder of a pope.
If even a fraction of what is presented in the book is accurate, it casts a very bad light on the Vatican. Very bad, very bad.
I see some of the themes of
I see some of the themes of the book reflected in your more recent post presently at the top of the blog. What do you think of the book and what edition are you reading? I just noticed that another edition was just published June 2008. I have the 2006 edition.
The copy I'm reading has a
The copy I'm reading has a 2003 copyright. I am finding it very hard to read. I'm finding it even harder to talk about. The idea of priests running concentration camps with the approval of the pope, the vatican acting as an underground railroad for nazi war criminals, the pope making monetary deals with Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, and more ... in my opinion this is worse than the pedophile scandal.
If even a fraction of what the book presents is true ... disgusting and sickening.
What I have to wonder now, how do we know the same thing isnt happening today, and because of the doctrine of silence, we just havent found out about it yet?
How are we supposed to trust our leadership when we find out these events happened and were covered up like the pedophile scandal?
Welcome to the world of the
Welcome to the world of the Vatican City States as an independent country, which has also makes it a safe haven for intelligence operatives of democratic and fascist countries. Odessa would never have been able to get as many Nazi war criminals into fascist states in South America without the help of Vatican insiders and the sovereign status of the Vatican City States.
For even more contemporary angst, you should attempt to trace the membership of the Knights of Malta. You'd be surprised at how many Western Intelligence people and their political bosses are part of this unique organization. And if that's not enough fun, try tracing the publishing ownership of Lifesite.org, a big time Canadian pro life site. You wind up on a CIA site.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
>>> the Vatican City States
>>> the Vatican City States as an independent country <<<
Now there is an interesting paradox that I never considered. When one considers the morally objectional behaviors of our leadership for the perspective of a country, then they are in perfect alignment with morally objectional behaviors of all the countries in the world, and the behavior of our leaders makes perfect sense.
They dont speak out against killing in combat, because they may need to use our army to do some contract killing for them. Perhaps they already have.
The question I ask now is "what is going on behind the veil of secrecy that we dont see?"
Am I being naive to expect a higher level of morality from the leadership of the Catholic Church than I do from the leadership of the various nations? Am I being naive to expect the leadership of the Catholic Church to be "honest"? To act with "integrity"? To live up to the same set of rules that the laity is expected to live up to? Am I being naive?
If dishonesty is part of the way the Vatican Nation (as it is in all nations) is governed, how do we know that the laity is not being treated with the same dishonesty?
I wonder how many of our cateclisms and doctrines are not so much about spiritual issues as they are about protecting the leaders of a small country from legal liabilities and accountability for their actions? How much is about nothing more that protecting their wealth and opulence?
When Vatican State's
When Vatican State's politics are State's morality, and vice versa, it makes one wonder, particularly in view of the 2000 year historical record.
When you say "Church,"
When you say "Church," thomas---it seems that you only understand it to mean "Magisterium". The Church is ALL of US. WE are CHURCH. It is Magisterium and the People of God.
I do not believe in abortion. I do not believe in a death sentence. I belive that there are many, many other issues that the WE, the Church must be about. Don't remember Jesus getting into questions about sex, unless he was questioned directly about it or was confronted with situations dealing with it. I do certainly agree with William, Frannie and COL 55 on their positions.
And may I add---that it is pathetic that celebates (Popes, bishops, and priests) make all the rules about married life. They are not married, have never experienced married love, never fathered a child, and certainly never bore a child as a mother. Yet they are telling lay people, married people, couples about to marry---all about what their sexual duties are to each other. But they do not like it when the laity tell them about their duties to the People of God and the example that they give (or fail to give).
And I strongly agree with COL 55---the magisterium is obsessed with sex---especially on the woman's part. Why????
Hello Little Bear, Jesus did
Hello Little Bear,
Jesus did preach against sexual immorality, and not because He was asked. In the Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5-7, He had much to say on the Christian life, and it's moral norms. He included this:
Mat 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Mat 5:28 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
and later, continuing His focus on the crucial truth of the heart, He said:
Mat 15:18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man.
Mat 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
Mat 15:20 These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.
Please notice the focus on the heart. We must seek and treasure purity and righteousness of the heart. A man who admits and guards and even elevates as righteous that which is base and sinful in his heart, his spiritual vision is debased. His heart becomes blinded to higher truths, the truths of God, and he lowers himself to become less than he is. The heart is crucial - there he lives or dies, there he guards the treasures of his life. His heart defines him, for the good or for evil.
Thomas
"...the heart is crucial
"...the heart is crucial ..."
John 13:34-35
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." (John 20:21)
I gave you a four here
I gave you a four here Thomas because in the vast majority of this post you are correct, but I also disagree that homosexuality as part of a committed relationship lowers oneself to be less than one could be.
Living the false life of the closet, as the Church is asking of gays, lowers oneself because one is expected to deny and lie about the truth of their heart. That's the distinction that seems so difficult for people to get. Homosexuality is not a function of genital arousal as much as it is a function of the heart. It's no harder to be a celibate gay than it is a celibate heterosexual, well, that is until you fall in love and then celibacy is hard for both orientations--equally. Love of the heart is a very powerful force.
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
"We must seek and treasure
"We must seek and treasure purity and righteousness of the heart. ... His heart defines him, for the good or for evil."
We are in agreement again.
(If this keeps up, before long, we wont have anything left to point/counterpoint each other on.)
Thomas: Well said. I would
Thomas:
Well said. I would like to add, tangentially, that one of the reasons the Magisterium places so much emphasis on sexuality is that sexual immorality directly affects the well-being of the family. More children suffer because of broken families than from any other cause
I agree with this Bob. I
I agree with this Bob. I just don't understand why the magesterium has focused on gay marriage as the threat to the family, when the real threat is heterosexual adultery. How dumb do they think we are?
Please note this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
My personal opinion, is that
My personal opinion, is that they feel this is a safe issue, an easy target if you will. Effectively addressing other issues such as poverty, violence against women, prejudice, is a lot harder, takes a lot longer to show an accomplishment, and wont give them the sensationalized headlines and the media attention that they get with the gay issues.
COL55~ You have hit the nail
COL55~ You have hit the nail on the head. The institution can't live with it and evidently, not without it either. Sex is an obsession. Unfortunately it has fixated on sex at the maturity level of a pampered, narcissic, pubescent male with noone really to talk to. This is another element of the unssustainable medieval mentality (historical adolescence)of the institution.
This seems to be one of the characteristics of the residualist model of the current regime and maybe, fearfully, the attraction to certain types to the clerical life. Make a virtue of a personal inadequacy and raise it to an institutional ideal/idol. The applicaiton of intelligence and energy truncated from their essential source in human sexuality can then become dangerously undiciplined.
I wish I could find the words to describe the profundity of this issue and problem. The church has disassociated sex from love and thus lost the connection incarnate of the process, the state, the creative source of learning, healing, health, relationship, process.
Attempting to reintegrate sex with love after inserting the wedge and establishing the conflict becomes an exercise of bad poetry, hypocritical theology, harmful psychology, perversion, abuse, psychosis, sickness.... harm to others.
Thomas, how do you feel
Thomas, how do you feel about post-natal abortion?
That's what I call it when children are allowed to be born but then they are allowed to die of starvation, waterborne diarrhea, preventable communicable diseases. A remarkable number of global children succumb before the age of five to just that triad of diseases. That happens the world over but especially in third world countries.
As Rosemary Radford-Ruether wrote, all too often in the Catholic anti-abortion stance there is an element of "the baby should be protected in utero but once you're born, you're fair game". War, starvation, over-population.
How do you feel about a baby being born to a mom who has inadequate supports in this country? Oh, we know you are all for getting the baby here...we heard that part. But what about afterwards? You know for me adequate supports include adequate food, adequate housing, adequate high quality day-care, adequate education for both mom and baby, health care that includes contraception, dental care (essentially refused to the poor in this country).
What about the morality of mankind having more children than the ecosystem earth was designed to feed, nurture and support? I personally think this shows a serious lack of stewardship towards the gift of our natural world.
When Albino Luciani (Pope
When Albino Luciani (Pope John Paul I) was the Bishop of Veneto, Italy, he opened and dedicated 50 orphanages and 0 churches. When Karol Wojika (Pope John Paul II) was the Archbishop of Krakow, he opened and dedicated 0 orphanages and 44 churches.
Hello Molly, Certainly we
Hello Molly,
Certainly we need to try to help all those in true need. The Church is to have a preferential option for the poor.
I hope you are not saying that we do the unborn a favor by killing her, since she may meet hard times after birth.
God designed the ecosystem; He knows what it can sustain. The problem is not, and never has been, overpopulation. The problem is greed in those who are already here.
Thomas
"I hope you are not saying
"I hope you are not saying that we do the unborn a favor by killing her, since she may meet hard times after birth."
I actually feel that globally we all have a very serious need to commit to every born child and adult. Their want and poverty should my concern. Every child is a gift.
But you dismissively wave away the issue of over-population and it's no passing matter. It is core to our stewardship. I've always thought that the idea the Catholic church was dead-on about was the way God gives us _choice_. We choose our path. And I believe that the most destructive path we have chosen is to over-populate the earth.
Once in a public health lecture, the speaker said that we have tended to treat health care as if it were an infinite resource, when it is in fact a very FINITE resource.
The Earth is the ultimate finite resource and we have treated it like an infinite resource and acted as if we believed that God would indulge our every want. This may turn out to be the miscalculation of our historical existence.
I know these are not easy issues. Very daunting, very difficult. I profoundly believe that people should have a lot of self-determination about reproduction. That is why I am pro-choice.
But the church ignores the whole stewardship of the earth issue, the real need to welcome every child into a world where they can be fed, nurtured, supported and educated and urges indiscrimminate reproduction. The church makes it very hard for women especially in fragile ecosystem nations (ie Africa) [Barbara Kingsolver's _Poisonwood Bible_] to obtain contraception even when it is wanted.
I am aware of the tension, the contradiction between over-population, contraception, the finite capacity of the earth to support humans and the desire to see people have some say in their capacity to reproduce. It is not a neatly balanced equation, is it. But to throw into that difficult calculus an institution that impedes contraceptive information and access and calls itself an institution of God, that makes me very very sad, especially when I count myself a member of that institution.
The Church needs to seriously engage this issue. It needs to face it's role in the harms created.
Where do you draw the line?
Where do you draw the line? If you accept the claim of a married couple that they are embodying self-giving love while using artificial contraception, do you endorse adultery? Are you promoting widespread divorce? Are you opening the door to the dissolution of marriage and human society?
Interestingly enough, Thomas, before I read your questions, I just finished reading two news reports that echo your questions about where to draw the line, and about the dire consequences that may follow if we don’t draw the line.
The first is a report by Ali Frick of Newt Gingrich’s reaction to the recent SCOTUS decision. Mr. Gingrich opposes the recent Supreme Court decision restoring the right of habeas corpus petitions to Guantanamo detainees.
He argues that if we don’t draw the line by refusing legal protection to potential terrorists, it will “cost us a city� and “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.�
The second news report is an article on today’s (June 17) Huffington Post website. It reports on the gay marriages in California yesterday.
The article notes that as gay couples were married in San Francisco, a protester held up a sign stating that gay sex is a threat to national security. When questioned, he stated that gay people are living a “death style� that will lead to diseases in this life and hell in the next.
These are called slippery-slope arguments. They are weak arguments, since they focus attention not on the issue at hand—its moral intricacies—but on imagined disasters that will follow if the “line� represented by that issue is crossed. This kind of argumentation implicitly shuts down dialogue about the issues, since it is actually a moral warning in the guise of moral discussion.
Your two postings on moral issues ask quite a few questions of all readers, so I hope I am not intruding by asking some questions of you, Thomas. What is your particular interest in or commitment to these issues? Why are you asking these questions? What do you hope to gain by asking them?
And, is the moral life first and foremost about drawing lines? If not, what is it about?
William D. Lindsey
Do you have any intention of
Do you have any intention of answering my questions - where do you draw the line on these issues, and why there?
Thomas
I think it's perhaps you who
I think it's perhaps you who haven't answered my questions, Thomas.
You may recall that in a posting on another thread, I told you I had refrained from dealing with your truth vs. relativism questions because they are false dichotomies. They assume that, in endorsing what you call truth, one cannot recognize any circumstantial application of universal moral norms.
The questions you ask in this thread continue that false-dichotomy thinking.
In my experience, people who pose such questions usually have an agenda in mind other than receiving answers to those questions. False-dichotomy questions tend to be trap questions, moral lessons posing as sincere questions.
I am assuming that in asking all these questions, you know and accept traditional Catholic teaching about conscience. If so, then the moral position you are implicitly espousing departs from the Catholic tradition. It reduces the moral life to a matter of taking some "truth" from catechetical teaching and applying it without fail (and without thought or use of conscience) in every situation.
What your position seems not to recognize at all is that most moral dilemmas are ones in which universal moral norms conflict. Doing the right thing in most real-life situations is not a matter of turning to a catechism and then following what the page says mindlessly.
An example about which I wrote today on my blog at www.bilgrimage.blogspot.com: prior to the closing of Catholic Charities of Boston, the entire board of that organization (42 members) voted to continue placing adopted children with gay couples. When the bishops of Massachusetts forbade this practice, 8 members of the board resigned.
Is it not apparently, Thomas, that this is a case in which moral norms conflict? One set of norms tells us that non-procreative expressions of sexuality are always and everywhere intrinsically immoral. Another set of norms tells us to to do what is loving and just in all situations.
Conscience is that quality of our being that weighs norms that are in conflict in real-life situations, and seeks to discern God's will and hear God's voice in the situation. It goes without saying that church teaching is always an important factor to be considered in every moral choice.
But the church itself teaches us that conscience is sacred. The reduction of the moral life to drawing lines based on church teaching applied simplistically departs from the Catholic tradition.
I find this position increasingly prevalent among Catholics who have made common cause with fundamentalist movements in other Christian churches, for political reasons.
I'd like to propose to you, Thomas, that the 90+ married Catholics who use artificial contraception despite church teaching have not caved in to moral relativism, but are, in many cases, people of conscience who recognize that Catholic teaching about human sexuality is simply not tenable, insofar as it bases itself on rigid biologistic notions of natural law. And I have serious doubts that this conscientious decision on the part of many Catholics is going to lead to a culture of death, as the slippery-slope argument of right-wing political activists has it.
In fact, I have very serious reservations about that political use of Catholicism and the agenda it is promoting. In many significant respects, this political movement is not only tone-deaf to key aspects of Catholic teaching (even as it proclaims to be the watchdog of orthodoxy), but actually opposed to key aspects of Catholic teaching.
Once again, Thomas: why are you pressing these questions? What is your interest in them? I've tried to answer you. Would you be willing to try to answer my questions, please?
William D. Lindsey
Hello William, This thread
Hello William,
This thread begins with some questions. You are contributing to the thread, yet only on your own terms. You still have not answered the question about where to draw the line. It would seem to me that the respectful thing for you to do would be to start your own thread, with your own premises and/or questions, and see to those responses. If you want to contribute to this thread, I ask you to respond to the questions of the original post.
I will try to respond to your post, but I will not continue to respond until you return to my original questions. To divert from an original post is called "hijacking", I think.
Catholic teaching on conscience obliges us to two things: 1) we must always follow a certain conscience, and 2) we must continually form our conscience rightly, guided by the Church.
Let me take the liberty to quote below for you, several portions of the Catechism relevant to this matter. They might help you to see that you have perhaps taken an erroneous view that conscience is autonomous and independent of the revelation of Christ entrusted to His Church - His teaching authority on earth.
++++++++++++++++++Catechism begins++++++++++
1782 Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.
II. THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE
1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. THE EDUCATION OF CONSCIENCE IS INDISPENSABLE FOR HUMAN BEINGS WHO ARE SUBJECTED TO NEGATIVE INFLUENCES AND TEMPTED BY SIN TO PREFER THEIR OWN JUDGMENT AND TO REJECT AUTHORITATIVE TEACHINGS.
1784 THE EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIENCE IS A LIFELONG TASK. ....
1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path.... We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and GUIDED BY THE AUTHORITATIVE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.
IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT
1790 A HUMAN BEING MUST ALWAYS OBEY THE CERTAIN JUDGMENT OF HIS CONSCIENCE. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet IT CAN HAPPEN THAT MORAL CONSCIENCE REMAINS IN IGNORANCE AND MAKES ERRONEOUS JUDGMENTS ABOUT ACTS TO BE PERFORMED OR ALREADY COMMITTED.
1791 THIS IGNORANCE CAN OFTEN BE IMPUTED TO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. THIS IS THE CASE WHEN A MAN “TAKES LITTLE TROUBLE TO FIND OUT WHAT IS TRUE AND GOOD, OR WHEN CONSCIENCE IS BY DEGREES ALMOST BLINDED THROUGH THE HABIT OF COMMITTING SIN.�
1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, ENSLAVEMENT TO ONE’S PASSIONS, ASSERTION OF A MISTAKEN NOTION OF AUTONOMY OF CONSCIENCE, REJECTION OF THE CHURCH’S AUTHORITY AND HER TEACHING, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. ONE MUST THEREFORE WORK TO CORRECT THE ERRORS OF MORAL CONSCIENCE.
++++++++++++++++++++Catechism ends++++++++
You seem to have taken a stand on an important moral issue, completely opposed to the consistent teaching of the Church from the beginning until now, and yet you claim to be justified by the Church's teachings! If the Church is so radically wrong about homosexual activity, why do you appeal to her authority concerning conscience? The Church is right about conscience (in your limited and incomplete acceptance of it - see the above Catechism sections), yet wrong about homosexual activity. Contradiction?
You are claiming that the Church is right, telling you that you are right, in your assessment that the Church is wrong! Do you not see absurdity in this position?
Enough about conscience; enough postponement. You need to form your conscience rightly, guided by the Church. Now please answer my original questions: where do you personally draw the line concerning issues 1, 2 and 3?
Thomas
"You need to form your
"You need to form your conscience rightly, guided by the Church"
Thomas, I agree with this statement, however, the conscience that is formed is not always going to be in agreement with the teachings of the Church. If it were always in agreement, then it would not be conscience.
Notwithstanding the fact that in some cases, the church is in error (either intentionally and/or unintentionally) in its teachings. One reason we know there is error is the disention that exists within the clergy. If the church teachings were always correct, then there would be no disention. The challenge of conscience is in discerning which teachings are correct and which arent.
Example: the teaching about hell that JP reversed. The clergy knew about this error for a very long time and kept it secret.
Thomas, I responded to this
Thomas, I responded to this posting on your thread on sexual sins earlier today. I won't repeat what I said there, since I don't want to hog space on the NCR boards.
It's interesting to me that you would suggest I am hijacking "your" thread. From the time you first posted on "my" thread entitled "Love.Period." on May 23, you've posted there 12 times, by my count.
I haven't accused you of trying to hijack "my" thread. Indeed, I don't consider any thread I start as my own thread. I see these discussion threads as some initiator throwing out ideas like a ball to begin a game, for others to take and run with. I can't and wouldn't try to predict the direction the game will take, and I can't and wouldn't try to control the discussion. That's the antithesis of conversation, which is, etymologically, a "turning with" the conversation partner.
You tell me that I am "contributing to the thread, yet only on your own terms." You invite me to start my own thread. You set conditions for my responding on this thread. You then tell me you will not answer the questions I have asked--just as, by the way, you never answered the simple question I put to you on "my" thread when you first posted there on May 23: what do you consider love to be?
I apologize to you if you believe I have tried to hijack "your" thread. I will also gladly abide by your discussion rules, which means I will refrain from posting on "your" thread. I have, indeed, sought to answer your three questions, though not in the terms in which the questions are stated, and I have provided you with a reason for refraining from answering your questions as they are stated: they strike me as questions designed to entrap anyone who tries to answer them in any way other than the "approved" way.
And that, to me, is the heart of the matter, the problematic that needs to be discussed--and the issue I have been pressing in my responses.
Henceforth, I won't continue posting on this thread. Please do feel free, however, to post on "my" thread, which is only a thread I began to benefit all of us. And please feel free to contribute "on your own terms." What else do we really have, as we engage each other in discussion, than "our own terms"? Granted, we hope by talking together to begin to see a bigger picture, and to learn to understand the terms of others. All I would expect on any thread I have started is what I believe the NCR moderators expect in general: civil discourse. Honesty and transparency help, too, and for my part, I intend to keep pressing myself (and calling others) in the direction of those virtues, as I engage in theological discussion.
William D. Lindsey
I hear the tone of a
I hear the tone of a prosecutor. Are you a lawyer or a judge? I myself have often been guilty of trying to script both sides of a dialogue, but I find it most fruitful when I let the other person have his say.
Dear Thomas, I see you've
Dear Thomas, I see you've begun a whole new thread that spins off this one. And yet you still have not responded to my questions, though I have tried answering yours.
Would you be willing to share with us why you're pressing these either-or questions that appear to offer only a false dichotomy as the answer? Would you be willing to tell us why you're focusing so strongly on what you call sexual sins at this particular point in the history of the church? Why do you consider these issues so important to discuss now? Do you have a particular intent in raising them at this point in history?
I've been very open about my own background and commitments. Would you be willing to be the same?
Thanks for your reply.
William D. Lindsey
I love all of your
I love all of your questions. I especially the gentle and reasonable tone you use in all your posts.
Let me try just to deal with the first question. You adhere to the church definition that using contraception withholds total self donation. This I believe is a fallacious definition. Contraception can enable total self donation within the act by removing the fear that is the true barrier to self donation. Contraception falls within the responsible use of the faculty and the call for each member of the couple to place the other's welfare above their own. One doesn't need a special discernment to apply to marital love. It is the same discernment that a Christian is called to exercise in every aspect of life.
Hello frannie, I agree that
Hello frannie,
I agree that fear is an emotional barrier against complete self-donation - but removing the fear by blocking the physical self-donation is no solution! Human beings are a spiritual and a physical composite, and self-donation is a totality or it is not.
Contraception does not enable self-donation - it blocks self-donation, perhaps thereby easing the fears of that which complete self-donation might bring about (such as a baby). But this sense of freedom is illusory - one truth is allowed at the price of a different lie. This is no solution - it merely changes what is given and what is withheld.
True freedom, true love, is found and entered really only one way - God's way. He IS love, and He created human love, and He reveals the way that humans can find and participate in this beautiful gift and possibility. Jesus showed us on the Cross, that love requires ALL.
Thomas
Lets see: --- #1 major issue
Lets see:
--- #1 major issue = sex
--- #2 major issue = sex
--- #3 major issue = sex
A pattern is beginning to emerge here!
Why is it that the major issues are always "sex", "sex", and "sex"?
What about:
--- the plight of the elderly in our country?
--- the growing number of people who live in poverty?
--- human rights injustices?
--- war?
--- the middle east conflicts?
--- terrorism?
--- nuclear proliferation in the middle east?
--- bacteriological warfare?
--- do I need to continue?
Since these do not involve sex, does that mean that they are not major issues? Given the disproportionate attention that the magisterium gives these other issues, that would certainly seem to be the case.
Why is it that the magisterium is so quick to publicly condemn sexual behavior, and yet so pitifully silent in its condemnation of the multidue of atrocities that are occuring around the globe?
This is where I draw the line. As far as I'm concerned, within the Catholic Church, sex is only a MAJOR issue to celibate, sexually frustrated old men. To the rest of the world, it is a non-issue. Personally, I am more concerned with issues which have the potential to exterminate a majority of the human race. If not being obsessed with sex means that I am rejecting the norms of the church, then I must say YES I AM?
BTW Thomas, thank you for the question. By presenting the question in th
God help me get through this
God help me get through this with some degree of coherency!
We as, human beings, were endowed, by God, with CHOICE! Even the church doctrine teaches that, at age seven, we attain the age of reason, thereby becoming responsible, to God, for our actions!
Jesus Christ, (remember Him from last time?) opened the doors of forgiveness! He gave to the apostles the power of absolution. But only to the apostles? An ensuing discussion of that issue is grist for another mill, however, in my dilusions of ganduer, I feel that he also gave it to me! And you , and you and you! This is why I don't do well in bible study classes!
Intellect and ego become involved and the power of absolution is contaminated and overwhelmed by JUDGEMENT and HYPOCRACY!
Having attained the age of reason, a long time ago, I am responsible to God for my actions! I also understand that I must "Render unto Ceasar!"
I have the God given right to asses the results of my own actions and to ask Gods guidance and if need be, His forgiveness. I ask mans forgiveness for only trespasses against him!
I ask not and accept not judgement from those that would use, no, use, absolution and forgiveness as a tool of subjugation and control! (of a voting block!)
Let us intelltualize and legalize all spiritusl issues to the delight of the lawyers and sycophants among us!
Yes! That's my final answer to all your questions!
Dear Lord,
Please don't let this sound too stupid!
God bless you all!
James Edward