CHAPTER FOUR

Introduction

Prophetic Authority

There is a prophetic dimension to authority within the Church as well as a hierarchical one. The hierarchy has the responsibility to judge the spirits but prophets have the responsibility to admonish the hierarchy when it deviates from its sole duty of preserving and promoting the Gospel Tradition. It is just as plausible for a lay person to be a prophet as for a cleric, for a woman as a man.

The Magisterium and Infallibility

That a proposition has been taught infallibly does not mean that it is utterly accurate, the last word on the subject or even that it is (in the slightest bit) helpful. It only means that it is not wrong. So infallible teaching to the effect that "There are three persons in the Godhead" does not of itself exclude the possibility that there are in fact seven! Moreover, the fact that a doctrine has been taught infallibly does not necessarily means that it is in any sense important. Conversely the fact that some doctrine hasn't yet been taught infallibly doesn't been mean that it is somehow unimportant. As far as I know, the Physical Resurrection of Christ (i.e. the historic fact that "The Tomb Was Empty") has never been taught infallibly, and I consider this proposition to be at the heart of the Faith! In fact, only a bare skeleton of the faith has been taught infallibly over the centuries, almost always in reaction to controversy.

In a mathematical analogy, infallible teaching serves to establish "boundary conditions" that specify the set of valid solutions. To take a geographical metaphor, it is a set of warning signs saying "Danger! Unsafe and harmful delusions beyond this point". The protestant idea that Catholicism ties one down in an elaborate tangle of dogma is very far from the truth. Infallibility is not the same as "being right", or even "always being right". A book of carefully checked log tables (I show my age!) is not "infallible". The important thing about infallibility is that it is open-ended, on-call and recognizable. It is a grace given to the Church by Jesus for our benefit. It is a means of deciding crucial questions in a timely and clear manner, with the potential for a minimum of ambiguity.

The Extra-Ordinary Magisterium

The reason for this is clear. To say that a Catholic has to believe exactly something would be to excommunicate everyone! This is because no-one could ever be entirely sure that anyone believed exactly what was enjoined! This would be a total nonsense. To exclude from the Church those who believe exactly something as specified, by contrast, is quite harmless. This is because only those who insist on identifying with the proposition (which is bound to be ambiguous), in spite of it being condemned are excluded! They condemn themselves by insisting that they do believe exactly what is condemned.

The Ordinary Magisterium

The obvious historic example here is "the Earth is stationary at the centre of the Universe, and the Sun orbits about it". This notion is clearly presumed in Scripture and was thought by the Medieval Church authorities, on mistaken Aristotelian grounds, to be of profound metaphysical (and so religious) importance. Even if the Catholic Bishops were unanimous in condemning the idea that the Earth orbited the Sun, that didn't make them right, or their teaching infallible! Similarly, regarding Usury and Slavery and Circumcision. Similarly, regarding the perfidy and malignity of the "Jewish Race" or the inevitable damnation of all non-Catholics! The Episcopate may well have thought that these teachings were part of the Faith and regularly implied so: but they never clearly taught that they were so. In particular, they never enjoined that anyone who held (for example) the doctrine that "Contemporary Jews are not guilty of deicide" (as we now believe!) was to be excluded from the Church.

Hence, while it is true to say that the Ordinary Magisterium can be infallible; it seems to me that this proposition is, regrettably, of limited utility. Infallibility isn't just about being right, it is about being known to be right. This requires a distinctness and clarity of proposal. It is difficult enough for mere mortals to extract from the written decrees of Church Councils those doctrines that are infallible: remember, one generally falls back on "anathematized counter propositions". It is much more difficult to discern what might be infallibly true in the teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium.

A priest friend wrote the following to me when he learnt of Rome's 2001 AD decision to recognize the validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari:

"Several things disturb me about the Vatican decision, apart from the fact that I believe the conclusion to be wrong. As has happened more than once during the pontificates of Paulus VI and Johannes Paulus II, a decision has been made based chiefly upon ecumenical and pastoral reasons, throwing prudence, tradition and doctrinal integrity to the wind. A basic sacramental teaching has been compromised: 'The word is added to the element, and a sacrament comes to be.' [St. Augustine].

And, as easy it is for the Magisterium of the present Supreme Pontiff to change Eucharistic doctrine, the same Magisterium can find no pastoral or ecumenical reasons good enough to review its teaching on homosexuality. Which causes me to wonder about the present Magisterium's motives, competence, commitment to Sacred Tradition and true commitment to the pastoral needs of its own faithful.

The wish to make every papal or curial pronouncement into an infallible dogma is current amongst many conservatives and amongst those traditional Catholics who desperately seek Rome's approval. It makes me sick, as it seems so cowardly and superficial to me. (This is not true in your case, I know!)

Believe it or not, but I read in a over zealous pro-2001 document article of the german version of Una Voce that the 2001 document .... is infallible, just as the one rejecting the validity of Anglican orders! - and that every Catholic is bound to accept the 2001 document as infallible under pain of ceasing to be Catholic. I would find this assertion to be laughable, if it were not so dangerous, even more dangerous than the 2001 Document in question, which - if not eventually taken back - could destroy Catholic sacramentology.

Logic should tell them, that if not a few of the current Magisterium's 'infallible' pronouncements contradict not a few pronouncements of equally infallible popes in the past, then obviously truly infallible papal pronouncements must be few and far between. Somehow they miss this important piece of logic, or have never studied logic at all.
This slavish attitude which is very much in style .... amongst those who would be neo-orthodox, is purely reactionary, and not truly catholic - the Vatican is not an oracle, for God's sake! - and this has me very cautious, even suspicious, of all pronouncements of the current Magisterium."

Infallible Ethical teaching

Nevertheless, it remains true that the teaching of "Humanae Vitae", as much else that I will be discussing in this paper, is of the highest authority possible within Catholicism, short of infallibility. I say this because the Church is dealing with important issues; and doing so in a considered manner via Her most exalted organs of State: the Pope; a Council of the Church and the "Holy Office" (of the Inquisition.)  Every Catholic is therefore obliged (at the risk of sinning gravely against prudence) to presume strongly that it is true, unless they have compelling experiences and or reasons that force them to question it.

Why do I resist?

If it were some minor technical matter, then it wouldn't really matter and there would be no point in pressing the issue.  Regrettably, this is not a minor matter. Many millions of people are being condemned as "intrinsically disordered". Their sexuality, a core part of their humanity (see "Famularis Consortio", [FC(1981)#11]) is being described as essentially evil. This alienates these people from the Church and the "Good News of the Kingdom" and makes it almost impossible for them to be evangelized. Even were I somehow to escape condemnation myself, in justice I have no choice but to side with those who are condemned as "samaritans, publicans and sinners" even when they are not. I think I am in good company in doing so. The best!

Moreover, as I have already attempted to demonstrate, there is a dearth of anything that might be taken as authoritative teaching prior to the era of the Second Vatican Council. This means that all contemporary teaching is open to the accusation that it is novel and outside the Tradition. For it to be sustainable, it has to be clearly founded on Scripture; the Natural Law, via Human Reason or the moral  sense of the Catholic People in such a way as to be recognizably Apostolic (i.e. not just secular prejudice). In my judgement, the Official Teaching of the Contemporary Magisterium fails these tests.

The Mind of the Church

More widely, I think it fair to say that the contemporary Magisterium would have it that the Biblical teaching witnesses to the principle that sexual pleasure should be primarily ordered towards procreation. Strangely, as far as I am aware, this is never spelt out explicitly in any Church document - still less in Scripture! In stark contrast, Pius XI taught that:

"For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved."
[Pius XI: "Casti Connubii" #59]

"This mutual moulding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof." [Pius XI: "Casti Connubii" #24]

"First of all, nature itself by an instinct implanted in both sexes impels them to such companionship, and this is further encouraged by the hope of mutual assistance in bearing more easily the discomforts of life and the infirmities of old age." [Catechism of the Oecumenical Council of Trent: "On Marriage"]

• Whereas Gregory I taught that sexual activity was only justified
• by an intention to procreate!
• The Catechism of the Council of Trent simply stipulated that
• "marriage is not to be used for purposes of lust or sensuality".
• Pius XI taught that sexual activity was praiseworthy:
• if it fostered spousal affection
• so long as it did not distract from the call to sanctification and
• so long as "the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved" (whatever that might mean).
• Paul VI taught that sexual activity was praiseworthy:
• if it fostered spousal affection
• so long as it was "open to conception".

The key concepts that emerge from even a cursory study of the relevant Church Documents are: Monogamy; Family; Sexual Complementarily; Altruism; Marriage; The Marriage Act; The Sexual Faculty; Procreation; The Natural Law; Finality and Love. I shall next discuss each of these briefly. It would be of great utility for my reader to have access to the various Twentieth Century Ecclesiastical Documents that I refer to in what follows. They are all available on the internet. Most are certainly available as "Vatican II, the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents" and "Vatican II, More Post Conciliar Documents" both edited by A. Flannery. "The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" [PC(1986)] is available as S392 from the CTS. "Veritatis Splendor" [VS(1993)] is available with a set of varied commentaries as "Understanding Veritatis Splendor", edited by J. Wilkins.

Monogamy

Moreover no comment is made on the facts that Scripture contains not a single negative comment on Polygamy, and that it was common during pre-exilic times! Why is there a need for an exclusive union? Abraham, Israel, David and Solomon did not find such to be necessary. How does monogamy promote the good of children and of society? Polygamy works well for some who live not so far from Salt Lake City (though it is illegal throughout the United States), and in many African countries after all! If one can have more than one friend, and more than one child then why not more than one spouse? Isn't this just a case of cultural imperialism? It is stated by the Holy Office in "Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" [PC#5] that this style of argument is not "facile". However one describes it, it is certainly typical of many contemporary Vatican documents. They jump straight from either the naive quotation of isolated phrases from Scripture or the assertion of uncontentious premises via unjustified "therefores" to foregone conclusions [cf PC#4]. As a priest friend recently wrote to me:

"I am having to read about current moral theology on sex at the moment. It is depressing work, full of non-sequiturs, unjustified assumptions and unwarranted inferences. I could the more easily criticize your views if I could as yet see that the other established theories were absolutely coherent and correct. As it is I fear the whole structure needs rebuilding."

"If we look for cogent biblical or natural law arguments against homosexual relationships and acts in general, we will not find them: there aren't any. There are plenty which look faithful to Scripture and compelling in their logic, but none which are. We must be careful in assessing what this conclusion does and does not entail. It does not entail that it is good to be gay and that Christian moral teachers who teach otherwise are wrong. It entails only that there is no good reason for thinking otherwise. Somebody may yet discover a cogent proof for the immorality of homosexuality, but if the application of fine minds has not discovered one after all this time, we are entitled to think that there is no such argument to be found.
My conclusion is not that it is good to be gay, but that it is irrational for serious, reflective Christians to accept Church teaching on homosexuality. This is in itself a serious conclusion, for there are clearly many such Christians; that is why the debate exists within the churches in the first place. The only rational course for such Christians is to continue to believe in the possible goodness of homosexual relationships. This is not a matter of dissent or materialism; it is simply that the Church at the moment produces no good arguments to assent to. Regrettably, in this area, the Church teaches badly." [G. Moore OP "A Question of Truth" (2003)]

Moreover, it is not correct to identify "The Church's living Tradition" [PC#5] with the latest document issued by the Holy Office, or even the documents of the latest Council of the Church. Quite the opposite! Such documents are not themselves Sacred Tradition, and rather have to be interpreted in the light of Sacred Tradition, as Cardinal Ratzinger (now pope Benedict XVI) himself well knows and often argues!

Family

It is never clear whether Family is a children orientated concept or not. Are a couple of newly-weds themselves only a potential family? Does the actual status of being family awaits them on the birth of their first child? On the whole, I suspect that for the pope, without offspring (at least in view?) there is no family, so that for the Church family values means reproductive values, however, I'm not sure. After all, who am I to say: I have no parents, siblings or children! Can anyone really contend that parents cease to be a family on the sad death of their only child? Who would say that they then revert to being a "potential family" once more? More poignantly, do brothers and sisters cease to be family when their parents die? Surely not! Yet in the Pope's use of the word, this would seem to be true as he would certainly not see siblings as having as their "fundamental task" the procreation of children!

One should beware the dangers of working with conventional packages of concepts, constructs, as if they were things that had an independent existence of their own. Before talking about family, it is important first to reflect upon one's understanding of the word and tease apart whatever threads make up the construct. Failure to do so will soon result in confused thinking! Before asserting that "the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society's understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy" [PC#9] one must be very clear about what one means by "family". I suspect that the Holy Office means by this statement nothing more than that "ceasing to disfavour homosexuals would have the terrible consequence that homosexuals would not be disfavoured any more!" I cannot begin to understand what harm it could do to "the family" to recognize in the law of the State, committed, caring, responsible relationships established between people of the same gender. Such recognition might even bring into being more "families", centred on loving same gender pairs, who would be able to devote themselves to "important services to the life of the human person, for example adoption, various forms of educational work, and assistance to other families and to poor and handicapped children" [FC#14].

Conservative Catholics extend the explicit teaching of the Magisterium:

"Indeed, 'homosexual love' is neither conjugal love nor can it stay on the level of love of friendship without erotic connotations. Hence, homosexuality undermines the family and social life. The family is the foundation of society, and marriage is the condition that gives rise to the family. Homosexuality undermines marriage by seeking to usurp its rights: Conjugal relationships are only possible between a man and a woman.

Likewise, friendship is the mortar of social life and the foundation of social concord. Without friendship, it is impossible to avoid social discord, which opens the gates to chaos and anarchy. Since homosexuality is focused on sexual intercourse, it thereby destroys the possibility of true friendship between people of the same sex, turning friends into objects of desire or competitors in the market of passions. This destroys friendship, which makes social life safe and amenable."
["Defending a Higher Law", The American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property, 2004]

Sexual Complementarily

"To choose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the creator's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union able to transmit life and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent. As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfilment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood." [PC #7].

"By their very anatomic, physiological and psychological makeup, the sexes mutually attract each other spiritually and physically. This gives rise to a special form of the love of friendship called conjugal love, with its fecund and selfless plenitude that results in the begetting, protection and raising of children."
["Defending a Higher Law", The American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property, 2004]

"Let us first of all bring to mind the vast semantic range of the word 'love'; we speak of love of country, love of one's profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love between family members, love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness. This would seem to be the very epitome of love; all other kinds of love immediately seem to fade in comparison."
[Benedict XVI "Deus Caritas Est"]

"The conjugal act .... is the personal act of two subjects, husband and wife. In it they 'give' themselves to one another and 'receive' one another. They do so, however, in different and complementary ways, insofar as this act is possible only by reason of their sexual differences. The wife does not have the male sexual organ; therefore, in this act of conjugal union, she is not able to enter into the body, the person, of her husband, whereas he can and does personally enter into the body, the person, of his wife. He gives his very self to her, and in doing so receives her. On the other hand, his wife is uniquely capable of receiving her husband personally into her own body, her own person, and in doing gives her very self to him. The wife's giving of herself to her husband in this receiving sort of way is just as essential to the unique meaning of this act as is her husband's receiving of his wife in this giving sort of way. The husband cannot, in this act, give himself to his wife in this receiving sort of way unless she gives herself to him by receiving him, and she cannot receive him in this giving sort of way unless he gives himself to her in this receiving sort of way. As the philosopher Robert Joyce says, 'the man does not force himself upon the woman, but gives himself in a receiving manner. The woman does not simply submit herself to the man, but receives him in a giving manner.'
Moreover, in giving himself to his wife in the conjugal act, the husband releases into her body person millions of spermatozoa, which go in search of an ovum. If the wife is fertile and an ovum is present in her, one of the spermatozoa can succeed in uniting with it, becoming 'one flesh', bringing into being a new human person. These truths dramatically illuminate another dimension or aspect of the sexual complementarity of male and female. The man symbolizes the superabundance and differentiation of being, insofar as his superabundant spermatozoa are differentiated into those that can generate a male child or a female child, whereas the woman in her way symbolizes the unity of being insofar as ordinarily she produces only one ovum; she symbolizes what can be called the interiority and sameness of being.
By reason of their sexuality man and woman are called to give themselves to one another and to receive one another and to do this in a way proper and exclusive to marriage. They are likewise called to be superabundant in their giving and to give to each other peace and rest by receiving and welcoming one another. But men and women give and receive one another in different and complementary ways. Human sexuality is indeed a giving and a receiving, but male sexuality emphasizes a giving in a receiving sort of way and the superabundance and otherness of being, whereas female sexuality emphasizes receiving in a giving sort of way and the withinness and interiority of being." [Prof. W.E. May, Catholic University of America : English text of the essay in Italian, “La ‘communio personarum’ e l’atto coniugale,” in Morale Coniugale e Sacramento della Penitenza: Riflessioni sul ‘Vademecum per i Confessori, Eds. Alfonso Card. Lopez Trujillo and Francisco Gil Hellin, Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998, pp. 135-150]

• I would personally be abashed to talk such drivel in private, and utterly ashamed to have it published.
• The ideas of giving and receiving are diametrically opposed, like pushing and pulling or winning and losing. It is simple, direct and arrant nonsense to talk of "receiving in a giving sort of way" or "giving in a receiving sort of way": no less than to talk of ascending in a going-down sort of way.
• The matrimonial union of flesh - whatever it means - is a union between two people (or possibly two families or clans) not between two zygotes. It is a union that is not dependent on successful procreation. Abraham and Sarah were married for decades before they were blessed with Isaac.
• The idea that the placing of one physical organ within a physical orifice of another person's body is tantamount to one person entering another person is truly obscene. If a wife put her finger in her husband's mouth, how has she "entered into the person of her husband"? Personally, I consider this question to be so absurd as not require to be asked, but it seems to me that Prof. May would have to answer "yes". In which case, I would have to ask him what is so special about the penis and vagina? How is it that the insertion of the penis into the vagina constitutes the husband giving "his very self" to his wife, while the insertion of the finger into the mouth does not?
• The only penetrative acts that cannot be exactly reciprocated between male and female partners (and so which might be called "complementary") are those involving the penis and the vagina. Manifestly, they are of particular physiological (reproductive) significance, but why are these acts of such great spiritual - or at least psychological - significance? It must be born in mind that hetero-gender sexually active couples tend to engage in other acts of physical intimacy; from holding hands and kissing to oral and anal intercourse.
• Further commentary of Prof. May's contribution to learned debate will be found in an appendix.

"The biblical account of creation speaks of the solitude of Adam, the first man, and God's decision to give him a helper....  So God forms woman from the rib of man. Now Adam finds the helper that he needed: 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' [Gen 2:23]. Here one might detect hints of ideas that are also found, for example, in the myth mentioned by Plato, according to which man was originally spherical, because he was complete in himself and self-sufficient. But as a punishment for pride, he was split in two by Zeus, so that now he longs for his other half, striving with all his being to possess it and thus regain his integrity. While the biblical narrative does not speak of punishment, the idea is certainly present that man is somehow incomplete, driven by nature to seek in another the part that can make him whole, the idea that only in communion with the opposite sex can he become 'complete'."
[Benedict XVI "Deus Caritas Est"]

Plato taught that at least the best of men should expect to fall in love with another male. Either because this man perceives that the other will teach him wisdom (and so make him intimate with God), or because he sees that the other has a mind and soul that will benefit and is prepared to benefit from his influence. For Plato, love was characterized by fruitfulness. Heterosexual love was good, because it gave rise to physical offspring; but homosexual love was better, since it yielded fruit of the spirit and intellect. Plato also taught that Love does not of itself require sexual expression; and that the deepest and best love is beyond such matters. Jesus taught that after the Resurrection, humankind will be "like the angels" and marriage will not then be part of human society, let alone its foundation! He also taught that the greatest love was that of friendship, the relationship that existed between His Apostles and Himself.

"It was also Plato who stressed that relationships should be procreative. Although the idea as now used was developed by Aristotle, it originates with Plato - and that is that love represents a human llonging for "finality". "Finality" here means, more or less, eternal reality beyond the contingent nature of this world. The notion is related to the deep Greek philosophical suspicion of change. I am not sure that such a notion has a place in Christianity, but it has in fact played a large role. With regard to sex, procreation is a tendency towards finality because it leads to a prolonging of the union through the creation, very simply, of children who live longer than you. Plato admitted that this was an aspect of heterosexual "finality". But he also observed one big problem with the theory - children die. They are not really "final". Thus Plato proposed that what should be "procreated" between United Souls was something eternal - i.e. virtue.  In other words sexual union procreates, but there is no reason to restrict the idea of procreation to children. Thus Benjamin Britten and Peter Piers: two famous British musicians with a long standing gay marriage, did not procreate children, but did procreate music. On a more quotidian level, my relationship with my lover makes me a better more charitable person [well, just a little bit] than I would be otherwise." [Paul Hallsel on the "Free Catholic List" (1995)]

Altruism

"In sum, conjugal love is a selfless or altruistic love of friendship, while also useful and pleasurable:

'[Conjugal love] is useful insofar as it fulfils the needs of domestic life and gives pleasure in the act of procreation; and when the spouses are virtuous their friendship transcends these legitimate aspects, existing because of virtue.' [Thomas Aquinas: In Ethic., lib. 8, l. 12 n. 22]

This spiritual dimension of marital love, fundamentally altruistic, gives solidity to marriage; when it falters, decays or withers, marriages often break up."
["Defending a Higher Law", The American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property, 2004]

On this basis, some "loves" are not properly so called. In particular, parental love is not based on the fact that the offspring is in any sense good for the parent. In fact, if a parent's love were offered on this basis only, then it would not be authentic! The reason that parents love their children is not, however spiritual or altruistic: it is rather instinctive and genetic. It is for the good of the species, and in particular for the propagation of their own genes; not for their own personal good that they love their children. This does not make parental love in any sense more noble than other loves - like the love of a creature for God - that are based on self advantage. If anythhing, the instinctive basis of parental love detracts from its character, because it is an irrational imperative. It is more like an appetite than an affection.

In any romanto-erotic relationship, mutually advantageous friendship (not a "spiritual altruism") will eventually come to the fore. If the parties fail to perceive any mutual benefit apart from mere sexual gratification, the relationship will not last. Similarly, the  child-parent relationship must evolve into friendship, if it is to survive adolescence.

Nevertheless, the Magisterium argues that because Conjugal love (given its supposed tendency towards violence) is only really altruistic by virtue of its open-ness to procreation, homo-gender affectivity can be at best mutually exploitative and at worst pathological.

"Therefore, love in its proper sense is a benevolent, altruistic sentiment guided by reason and the will. 'Homosexual love' is impossible because it seeks to transform the love of friendship between people of the same sex into conjugal love. 'Homosexual love' is only a sentimental attraction of a sexual nature or a psychological dependency due to a lack of emotional or sentimental self-control. It is, therefore, a neurotic sentimentality."
["Defending a Higher Law", The American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property, 2004]

Marriage

The Holy Office has taught that love must be protected by the stability of the marriage contract if sexual intercourse is to be compatible with human dignity. The contract is said to make possible an exclusive union which promotes the good of their family (in context, this seems to mean children) and society. All sexual activity outside marriage is said to be wrong because extra marital liaisons cannot in principle be faithful "Personae Humanae" [(1975) PH#7] and that an incontinent union of bodies defiles the Holy Spirit. This is a sequence of unwarranted assertions. It is quite possible to maintain stable commitments to other people in the absence of formal contracts. Friends do it all the time. So do parents towards children and siblings towards each other. What is so special about sexual intercourse (compared with other bodily functions such as breathing, drinking, hugging, kissing, dancing, eating and defecating) and why is it such a threat to human dignity?

It is simply untrue to say that "extra marital liaisons cannot" be faithful. It is equally untrue that marital liaisons are inevitably faithful! It is easy to make promises, and even easier to break them. In any case what is so excellent about "sexual fidelity" as such? I believe that there are other issues in a relationship that are much more important, such as: honesty; respect; loyalty; compassion; and financial responsibility. The idea that fornication is a heinous offence against Holy Spirit begs the question as to what constitutes an "incontinent union of bodies". This question cannot simply be answered as "sex outside marriage" without the whole issue becoming circular!

I give a fuller treatment of Marriage elsewhere.

The Marriage Act

There are many "sexual acts" of which, I am sure, the Church would not approve which cannot be condemned in terms of a frustrated finality simply because they are simply not a contraceptive version of the "marriage act". For example, all forms of  lesbian sexual activity. There is a sense that the Church is obsessed with the penis and with the ejaculation of semen. There is more to sexuality than this, certainly for women! It has been observed, rightly I believe, that the Vatican's perspective is pornographic.

I have given further consideration of this matter elsewhere.

The Sexual Faculty

"Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed." [Pope Benedict XVI "Deus Caritas Est" (2006)]

Note also that "the total meaning of mutual self giving" does not mean anything like "tender love-making in the context of a sincere communion of life and love". This would be quite possible for a lesbian couple. No, it means no more and no less than "risking getting pregnant". It does seem that the Holy Office is hinting at (but for some reason is unwilling to say) that "sexual pleasure is only licit when obtained on the hazard of pregnancy".

It is important to note that the Holy Office admits that "it cannot be established that Sacred Scripture condemned masturbation by name" [PH#9], though it goes on to assert that "the tradition of the Church has rightly taken it to have been condemned by the New Testament when it speaks of uncleanness and unchastity". Once more, an assertion that something is the case does not make it so, except - one is led to believe - in the realm of ritual magic! It should also be noted that "nocturnal emissions" (wet dreams) used to be considered to be sinful, even though there was no intent on the part of the sleeper.

Procreation

• was too much fun to be wholesome;
• was a distasteful activity involving messy plumbing; and
• could only be justified by the need to reproduce the species.
• It should therefore be carried out as a chore, avoiding pleasure as much as possible.

"We use the words 'stoic' or 'stoical' today to mean unfeeling, unmoved by emotion, austere, rigidly disciplined. This popular meaning comes from Stoic insistence that all things are governed by a law built into nature and that human reason can discern that law. Virtue consists in living by reason, not by emotions or feelings.
When applied to sex, this philosophy said that the purpose of sex is procreation, so any use of sex for mere pleasure violates its core nature. Any non-procreative sex was called 'para physin'. Homogenitality - and other sex acts, like heterosexual intercourse during the woman's period - fell into this category. Sex that could be procreative was called 'kata physin' or 'according to nature'.”
[Dr D. A. Helminiak: "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality", Chapter 6]

The best account I can give of the modern view is as follows. Given the biological need to reproduce; God chose to order it in the context of Love, as a reflection of the Generation of the Spirit in the Trinitarian Economy [PC#6, FC#11]. He made Man and Woman in such a way that the genders yearn for each other, with the purpose of encouraging them to reproduce and to see their personal fulfilment partly in terms of the engendering and upbringing of children [PC#7, FC#11]. Given the obvious importance of procreation, God has associated with it much that is of great value in human experience. Nevertheless, the prime and ultimate reason for the existence of sexual, romantic and erotic love, feelings and activity is procreation. The unitive role is secondary and exists only to support the procreative role by strengthening the reproductive pair bond.

I find this very sad. To dismiss all feelings of intense affection as a means to the end of copulation cannot be right. Manifestly, love of ones children, parents, siblings or friends cannot be accounted for by such a prescription. Moreover, the Church insists that there is no obligation to consummate a Marriage: but rather proposes an unconsummated Marriage (that of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph) as an exemplar of spousal devotion.

What purpose is served by rationalizing the love of one's life partner in such a manner? I think that very few people look for a life partner with engendering children as the prime consideration. Obviously gay-folk do not. I find it difficult to believe that many heterosexuals do either. I would expect that for most people it is more about loneliness, commitment, fun, happiness, security and so on. The Roman Catechism teaches:

"First of all, nature itself by an instinct implanted in both sexes impels them to such companionship, and this is further encouraged by the hope of mutual assistance in bearing more easily the discomforts of life and the infirmities of old age." [Catechism of the Council of Trent: "On Marriage"]

On the other hand, Paul VI sensibly taught:

"The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, "noble and worthy.'' It does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile. For its natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of the union of husband and wife is not thereby suppressed. The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse."  [Paul VI: "Humanae Vitae" #11]

Of course, exactly the same could be said of homosexual intercourse. There is never a "contraceptive mentality" in same-gender lovemaking. Many same-gender couples might love their loving to give rise to offspring. They have no wish or intention to "manipulate nature to selfish ends". Their "sexual activity .... is .... for reasons independent of their will .... foreseen to be infertile". Strangely, the Church condemns any medical technique that might enable same gender couples to engender children between themselves! She would say that this was (like in-vitro fertilization) "contrary to the Natural Law"!

The Church's support for and championing of "Natural Family Planning" is inconsistent. It is manifest that heterogender vaginal intercourse when the woman in her natural infertile period is no more open to procreation than when she is "on the pill". The action of the pill, and the intention of those using it, is no more than to prolong the natural infertile period.

• If "use of the sexual faculty" with a partner is not wrong,
• when it is known, and
• even welcome or
• specifically intended
• that your partner and/or yourself is infertile,
• so long as you are:
• of the opposite sex and
• married and
• haven't done anything to cause the infertility.
• Why is it wrong
• when your partner is of the same gender,
• when you have done nothing to "obstruct the natural development of the generative process"
• and even if you regret that there is no (natural) possibility of conception resulting?

"One is forced to ask: What rational distinction can be made, on the Church's own terms, between the position of sterile people and that of homosexual people with regard to sexual relations and sacred union? If there is nothing morally wrong, per se, with the homosexual condition or with homosexual love and self-giving, then homosexuals are indeed analogous to those who, by blameless fate, cannot reproduce. With the sterile couple, it could be argued, miracles might happen. But miracles, by definition, can happen to anyone. What the analogy to sterility suggests, of course, is that the injunction against homosexual union does not rest, at heart, on the arguments about openness to procreation, but on the Church's failure to fully absorb its own teachings about the dignity and worth of homosexual persons. It cannot yet see them as it sees sterile heterosexuals: people who, with respect to procreation, suffer from a clear, limiting condition, but who nevertheless have a potential for real emotional and
spiritual self-realization, in the heart of the Church, through the transfiguring power of the matrimonial sacrament. It cannot yet see them as truly made in the image of God."
[Andrew Sullivan: "The New Republic Magazine" (1994)]

Natural Law

Logic demands that if an act is disordered, then an inclination to that act is also disordered. Thus the 1986 Letter states:

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

Human Nature

So far as homosexuality is concerned, the Church on the one hand wants to say that there is no such entity as a homosexual person [PC#16], just a person who habitually acts in disordered ways. On the other hand, the Curia seems to think that some persons are incapable of or temperamentally strongly disinclined towards establishing heterosexual relationships. The Vatican seems happy to identify such people as homosexual. Personally, I find the suggestion of a "lack of capability" insulting. It isn't a question (at least for me - or Plato!) of being "incapable of anything". Are heterosexuals incapable of establishing homosexual relationships?

"Natural law teaching .... argued that the sexual nature of man was naturally linked to both emotional fidelity and procreation so that, outside of this context, sex was essentially destructive of the potential for human flourishing .... But suddenly, [following the publication of  'Personae Humanae' in 1975] a new twist had been made to this argument. There was, it seems, in nature, a group of people who were 'definitively' predisposed to violation of this natural law; their condition was 'innate' and 'incurable'. Insofar as it was innate - literally innatus or 'inborn' - this condition was morally neutral, since anything involuntary could not be moral or immoral; it simply was. But always and everywhere, the activity to which this condition led was 'intrinsically disordered and [could] in no case be approved of'. In other words, something fundamentally in nature always and everywhere violated a vital part of the nature of human beings; something essentially blameless was always and everywhere blameworthy if acted upon. The paradox of this doctrine was evident even within its first, brief articulation."
[Andrew Sullivan: "The New Republic Magazine" (1994)]

"Above all, there is the argument 'contra naturam' (against nature). This is an argument which does not take into acount the fact that there are homosexual persons who are so from birth, whilst others, if indeed they have become so, have become so in an irrevocable (unchangeable) way. In these cases the nature of these persons is the homosexual nature. And God, Who has made everything, has made also these persons at the same time knowing ver well that they would be exactly this way. And even so, He made them just the same. This means that these persons have a calling, a vocation proper to themselves, that their homosexuality is a calling which God has given them at the moment of creation itself.'' [Fr .Leandro Rossi: ''Chastity and Homosexuality'']

Sickness and Cure

".... it is hard to think of a precise analogy. Down's syndrome, for example, occurs in a minority and is itself morally neutral; but when it leads to an immoral act, such as, say, a temper tantrum directed at a loving parent, the Church is loath to judge that person as guilty of choosing to break a commandment. The condition excuses the action. Or, take epilepsy: if an epileptic person has a seizure that injures another human being, she is not regarded as morally responsible for her actions, insofar as they were caused by epilepsy.....
What of something like alcoholism? This is a blameless condition, as science and psychology have shown. Some people have a predisposition to it; others do not. Moreover, this predisposition is linked, as homosexuality is, to a particular act. For those with a predisposition to alcoholism, having a drink might be morally disordered, destructive to the human body and spirit. So, alcoholics, like homosexuals, should be welcomed into the Church, but only if they renounce the activity their condition implies.
Unfortunately, even this analogy will not hold. For one thing, drinking is immoral only for alcoholics. Moderate drinking is perfectly acceptable, according to the Church, for non-alcoholics. On the issue of homosexuality, to follow the analogy, the Church would have to say that sex between people of the same gender would be - in moderation - fine for heterosexuals but not for homosexxuals. In fact, of course, the Church teaches the opposite, arguing that the culpability of homosexuals engaged in sexual acts should be judged with prudence - and less harshly - than the culpability of heterosexuals who engage in 'perversion'."
[Andrew Sullivan: "The New Republic Magazine" (1994)]

In the past, left-handed people were thought to have deranged natures that prevented them from behaving in a proper manner. They were subject to re-education programmes intended to cure them of their handicap and make them right-handed. They were derided as "cack handed" and called "sinister" (literally "lefty"), and this term became synonymous with wickedness, a threat and danger. They were feared and held in low esteem.

"The bad are called the goats, because they wickedly climb up the rough hard rocks and advance over the steep place. By the holy on the right hand I would have you understand those who do right works and turn fully unto righteousness, which is ever on God's right hand. Therefore according to the merit of their right deeds they stand upon His right hand and receive the reward of their right conduct, even the king's right hand, where is peace and glory. But those who by their evil and left hand actions have separated themselves from His right hand unto perversity of life, take the lower place on the left, and are, that is, condemned to the misery of punishment, on account of which they stand upon His left." [Origen: "Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew",  in "Selections from the Commentaries and Homilies of Origen" Tr R.B. Tollinton, p 227]

Some people who identify as gay may find the idea of a "heterosexual relationship" (in its physiological and/or psychological aspects) horrifying, but many do not: they just find it (extremely) unsatisfactory. Many homosexuals have close friends of the opposite sex, I certainly do. Sometimes their dearest and most committed relationship may be with someone of the opposite sex. Sometimes they are (happily) married to this person and have children with them! They still know themselves to be homosexual. They generally feel most empathy with people of the same gender as themselves, and they find the physical form of their own gender more beautiful, interesting and physiologically stimulating.

In simplistic terms such people would be viewed by the Church as normal, because they are capable of a heterosexual relationship. The "ex-gay" movement would try to portray them as cured. However, the best that conservative Catholics can claim is that:

"The incontestable fact, however, is that moving past homosexual behaviour, psychological therapy has proven successful in diminishing, and in many cases even eliminating, undesired same-sex attraction.

'I have “cured” many homosexuals…. Any other researcher may examine my work because it is all documented on 10 years of tape recordings. Many of these “cured” (I prefer to use the word “changed”) patients have married, had families and live happy lives. It is a destructive myth that “once a homosexual, always a homosexual.'” [Dr Laurence Hatterer]

["Defending a Higher Law", The American Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property (2004)]

One isn't gay because of what one does, but because of what one aspires to; what one finds attractive. I am gay because twenty five years ago, I wanted to rest my head on my best friend's shoulder: Adrian isn't because he didn't like the idea at all.

Finality

So we are left with the obvious answer, God. But one has to ask in what sense can God be said to wish, purpose, require or specify that every "use of the sexual faculty" should be open to procreation? What purpose (finality) would be served by such a specification? Clearly, in God's purpose, it is necessary that once every so often, human copulation should result in procreation. Just as clearly, achieving this is not a characteristic problem for humanity! As the Roman Catechism puts it:

"Now that the human race is widely diffused, not only is there no law rendering marriage obligatory, but, on the contrary, virginity is highly exalted and strongly recommended in Scripture as superior to marriage, and as a state of greater perfection and holiness." [Catechism of the Council of Trent: "On Marriage"]

Do actions of themselves have necessary purposes? According to "Veritatis Splendor", yes. I think not. The insertion of a knife into another's belly may have the radically distinct purposes of either ending or prolonging life; and thence be either murder or surgery. It is not immoral to take a few breaths of (harmless) helium gas in order to amusingly demonstrate that the tone of one's voice is raised by so doing, even though this is to divorce the occasional act of breathing from its natural purpose (finality) of supplying oxygen to the body.

Only if sexual activity is different from all others in having a single, necessary and inalienable purpose can it be wrong to ever separate it from that purpose. Quite to the contrary, it can easily be argued that the legitimate finality of many sexual acts is fun or recreation (like going to the theatre) rather than reproduction; that the "proximate end of the deliberate decision" [VS#78] to be physically intimate is to express tenderness and to share pleasure. As Pius XI puts it:

"Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved." [Pius XI: "Casti Connubii" #59]

Love

"It strikes me that in our society's .... seemingly endless obsession with sex .... what we are witnessing is the peddling of unreal fantasies about what it is to be human, false promises of what makes for human happiness ....
I am struck by the fact that it coincides with a loneliness which many people seem to experience.  There are no doubt many influences at work, but might not one reason for this be that far from reflecting experience of genuine love and human intimacy, it seems to offer a fantasy in compensation for the lack of such experiences? ....
How can we rescue the word 'love' from being .... synonymous with the word 'sex'"?
[Cardinal Basil Hulme: A speech given to "Marriage Care" (1996)]

Human love is often portrayed by the Church as a reflection of the inner life of God [FC#11]. On the one hand, its most disinterested or self-sacrificial form "charity" is often portrayed as its perfect embodiment. On the other, its most exclusive and possessive form "Married Love" is sometimes held up as an alternate epitome, just as St Paul describes marriage as an icon of the love of Jesus for His People [FC#13]. When it is said that the Spirit renders Man and Woman capable of loving each other as Christ loves His People [FC#19], it is not clear whether the thought is that erotic love is essentially excellent and apt for this purpose, or that it is essentially base and so has to be elevated by grace! The following quotation from St Alphonsus sadly suggests that the latter is intended:

"Marital intercourse also has the purpose of increasing love between the spouses and subduing concupiscence. Due to its violence, carnal pleasure tends to dominate and subjugate the mind. However, this effect is normally absent in matrimony, as St. Alphonsus Liguori explains: 'Fornication is always evil, even when, at times and per accidens, a fornicator may raise his children well. The reason is because .... it is against natural law to subject reason to the flesh, as happens in fornication, for the sake of pleasure. But in matrimony, even if the same pleasure is present, God disposes, in His special providence, that such disorder will not occur'”
[D. Neyraguet, Compendio de la Teologia Moral de S. Alfonso de Ligorio
(Madrid: Viuda de Palacios e Hijos Editores, 1852), p. 236].

The contemporary Church is eager to praise "the Marriage Act" for its power to both express and reinforce love: its "unitive purpose". I find this odd in the extreme. In my experience there are many other things one can do to express, nourish, confirm and celebrate love. For example: hugging and kissing; saying something affirmative; buying presents; going for a walk in the woods in the rain; gardening together; discussing theology or philosophy; or attending the theatre, disco, cinema, pub, or sharing a meal and a good bottle of wine: the list is endless! For me, all these are unitive (arguably more so than sex) and none exclusive to marriage!

I find it sad to think that for most people it may be the case that the closest they come to another person is in sexual activity, which is a physical act on a biological par with eating. Consider the exhilaration of shared artistic or engineering creativity; intellectual debate; scientific discovery or sporting or political achievement, and the bonding that can and should naturally flow from these.

Nevertheless, while physiologically sex is clearly for (final cause) reproduction; psychologically intercourse is for (final cause) love. Romanto-erotic love has its biological origins in the promotion of reproduction; but this fact can only be properly evaluated in the spiritual context of human life. Biology does not determine Theology. Theology comments on, interprets and reveals the underling significance of Biology. The nature of God is prior to and definitive of the human nature that He created in His own image. A yearning for physical intimacy is planted by God deep in the human psyche [GS#12, FC#11]. This is not just to promote reproduction, but much more significantly as a vocation to the Trinitarian life of Love. Humans do not rut, they get lonely. Human romanto-erotic love (as all forms of inter-personal love, for love is a continuum) reflects the Inner Trinitarian character of God, who is Love in HimSelves. This secondary psycho-spiritual purpose of (all) human loving (to manifest ever more exactly God's inner Life in the world) is theologically more significant than, and prior to its primary biological purpose. As Pius XI puts it:

"This mutual moulding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof." [Pius XI: "Casti Connubii" #24]

"How intelligible is the Church's theological and moral position on the blamelessness of homosexuality and the moral depravity of homosexual acts? This question is the one I wrestled with in my early twenties, as the increasing aridity of my emotional life began to conflict with the possibility of my living a moral life. The distinction made some kind of sense in theory; but in practice, the command to love oneself as a person of human dignity yet hate the core longings that could make one emotionally whole demanded a sense of detachment or a sense of cynicism that seemed inimical to the Christian life. To deny lust was one thing; to deny love was another. And to deny love in the context of Christian doctrine seemed particularly perverse."
[Andrew Sullivan: "The New Republic Magazine" (1994)]

If we were heirs of the Reformed tradition we could say "Homosexuality is what you would expect in a corrupt and depraved humanity. It is merely another wave of decadence and corruption. Anyone who is saved must obey the biblical commands, however little sense they may make. The Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is sinful, so homosexuals should seek to become straight." Catholic official teaching on homosexuality is rapidly tending to the view that there are some people to whom the Traditional teaching on Original Sin does not apply: namely homosexuals. Instead, a Protestant understanding should be applied: but only in the case of homosexuals.

In the old days, the discussion was entirely about "acts", and you can condemn acts without saying anything at all about the
being of the person. More recently, this distinction has become untenable, as people we would now call "gay" have begun to say "I am gay, it's not just that I do certain sexual things which are same-sex acts, but I just find myself being in a way which is best defined as gay, and which is to do with far more of me than sexual acts, furthermore there are other people like me, and we have recognizable traits in common, we can be studied, and we don't appear to be less healthy, more vicious than straight people" and so on.

The Vatican has explicitly admitted that some people are identifiably homosexual, so the Magisterium now has a dilemma:

• It isn't possible to condemn acts that are natural to an individual, capable of being executed either well or badly.
• Either it must be conceded that the traditional prohibition of homo-gender intimacy does not apply
• to those for whom such behaviour is natural,
• but only to those for whom such behaviour is untypical;
• or it must be insisted that the traditional prohibition does apply. In which case
• gay people are not really what they say they are,
• but in fact have intrinsically disordered desires.
• According to the first theory, the process of justification will lead gay folk towards
• being more merciful, generous, honest and faithful,
• but without changing their homosexual orientation: which is not in fact disordered,
• and this would be public and visible in their lives.
• According to the second theory, the process of justification will lead gay folk towards
• being more merciful, generous, honest and faithful,
• and an "ordered" pattern of heterosexual desire,
• and this would be public and visible in their lives.

It is well known that the Magisterium has taken the second option. The Vatican has used the Church's teaching on marriage and procreation as a basis for determining anthropological truth, instead of turning to empirical evidence. A similar expedient did not serve the Church well in the Galileo controversy, and there is no reason to believe that it will do any better in this case.

Anyone who lives with a homosexual inclination is taught that it is in itself not a sin, but that on the other hand, it can lead to nothing starting from itself. Homo-gender intimacy can only be judged to be intrinsically evil if there is no authentically human pattern of sexual desire other than the heterosexual. In which case, the homosexual inclination is a subsection of heterosexual concupiscence.

• Most gay folk who try to conform their lives to this paradigm find that its prediction is experientially falsified.
• They find themselves having to blindly obey the commands of the Church
• even though these don't help them flourish
• make no sense of their lives
• and result in no sanctification of their sexuality.
• They must conclude that they are disabled sexual beings.
• Some few manage nevertheless to adopt a superficial behavioural heterosexuality.
• To do so can only be rationalized n a Protestant rejection of an aspect of human experience as incapable of being divinized, but rather simply be abolished and covered over by grace, so that it becomes something entirely different.

"[According to the present official teaching of the Magisterium] Homosexuality is a structural condition that restricts the human being, even if homosexual acts are renounced, to a less than fully realized life. In other words, the gay or lesbian person is deemed disordered at a far deeper level than the alcoholic: at the level of the human capacity to love and be loved by another human being, in a union based on fidelity and self-giving. Their renunciation of such love also is not guided toward some ulterior or greater goal - as the celibacy of the religious orders is designed to intensify their devotion to God. Rather, the loveless homosexual destiny is precisely toward nothing, a negation of human fulfilment, which is why the Church understands that such persons, even in the act of obedient self-renunciation, are called 'to enact the will of God in their life by joining whatever sufferings and difficulties they experience in virtue of their condition to the sacrifice of the Lord's cross.'"
[Andrew Sullivan: "The New Republic Magazine" (1994)]

• growth in healthy self-esteem;
• creative ways of living together;
• new forms of religious life;
• enriched sacramental participation;
• legal guarantees against mistreatment, discrimination and so forth;
• secular partnership laws
• and eventually publicly recognized religious blessings of such partnerships.

In particular, the Vatican should be able to show in practice that the hidden true heterosexuality of the gay person can flourish. This could be done by documenting regular and sustained witnesses to heterosexual flourishing emerging without violence from the life stories of people who had identified as gay. This is not an unreasonable standard of proof. It should be remembered that there is a huge body of documentary evidence substantiating a regular and sustained witnesses to gay and lesbian flourishing emerging without violence from the life stories of people who had been taught that they were heterosexual.

However until the Vatican comes up with such evidence any ordinary Catholic should stick with the Traditional teaching of the Church about grace and original sin, held uninterruptedly and reaffirmed by the Oecumenical Council of Trent, and learn to
apply it to their lives and the lives of those around them.

Hope for the Future.

In the medium term, the Magisterium's falsely woven tapestry may just fall apart. This will happen if the Vatican's attempt to rationalize its opposition to contraception and hatred of homosexuality forces it to promulgate a doctrine of marriage so
mechanistic, functionalist, inhumane and ignoble that even its most staunch supporters realize something is amiss. This would transform an issue that is remote from the consciences and interests of most Catholics into one that is of paramount importance to the large majority. I have documented indications that such a process, leading to the degradation of the doctrine
of marriage, is underway elsewhere.

In the long term, I am very hopeful. The Church has been indifferent, if not accepting, of gay people and their feelings for a longer period of time than it has been hostile to them.  Jesus taught that love transcended biology and family and was the purpose and goal of life, not the means to reproduce it. Similar teaching of this character, once revealed in its true light as no more than worldly prejudice that had infected the Church rather than Gospel doctrine, has been quietly forgotten. Official teaching on usury, slavery, antisemitism and terra-centricity are the obvious examples. I believe that the present fashion to conduct ethical analysis in terms of concrete acts that are intrinsically good or evil rather than in terms of the application of objective general principles (e.g. of Compassion, Equity and Justice) in particular contexts is essentially incoherent, will eventually be revealed to be nonsense and so will fail. While the forceful reiteration of the official teaching on homosexuality is bad news for those trying to change it, the 1986 Letter as also the 2003 document on "Gay Marriage" does acknowledge the pre-eminence of the methodologies employed by those striving for change. In the end, as noted by Charles Curran, this agreement on methodology is crucial and will have more effect than the content of particular documents.

Plato observed of secular society that:

"In .... places .... which are subject to the barbarians .... the love of youths shares an evil repute with philosophy and gymnastics, because they are inimical to tyranny.  The interests of such rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit and that there should be no strong bonds of friendship or attachments among them, which such love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire. Our Athenian tyrants learned this by experience: for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power.
Therefore, the ill-repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the poor character of those who condemn them: that is to say, to the self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed."
 [Plato: "Symposium"]

"It is not we who teach God how to love, but He who taught us. He made our natures full of love."

"Love is not a crime. If it were wrong to love, God would not have bound even the divine to love."

O God, who art the light of the minds that know thee,
the life of the souls that love thee,
the strength of the thoughts that seek thee:
help us so to know thee that we may truly love thee,
so to love thee that we may fully serve thee,
whose service is perfect freedom.

Gelasian Sacramentory C5/6th

Appendix I : Comments on a critique of the work of Gareth Moore O.P.

I will not respond to the former proposal beyond referring again to my own thoughts on the Trinity and the character of the symbolism that the orthodox doctrine employs.

A new definition of tradition

Prof. Johnstone then seeks to establish that heterosexual coitus promotes the goal that he has uncritically identified with Tradition: altruism (though he does not use this word). He seems to do this on the basis that for the Church to have people to convince of the "goal of Tradition" they have first to be procreated (which seems to me to be a non-sequitor, but I may have misunderstood his superior scholarship). As the professor himself says:

"the argument so far could give the impression the self-giving of the couple in marriage and the procreation of a child are being considered merely as ‘instrumental’ goods which serve the greater good of the continuation of the tradition. Obviously, this will not do."

The case for gratuitous sex.

"The mutual self-giving of the couple, as a gratuitous self gift, is an instantiation of the good of the tradition, not simply a means to a further good. Similarly, the gift of life to a child, as a gratuitous gift, embodies the good of the tradition. Only if the gift of life is given to the child gratuitously, is it a genuine gift. If the child were sought only as a means to some end, such as keeping the family going, or even keeping the tradition going, this would not be a gratuitous giving and thus not fully in accord with the logic of the tradition. The tradition, as it has been understood here, will accept and commend procreation only when it is gratuitous; that is, acting so as to make possible the gift of life to another who is loved for her or his own sake."

I dispute that this text means very much. Its language is imprecise and flowery.

It gives the impression that many acts of hetero-gender intercourse are gravely immoral in as far as they are not "gratuitous" or characterized by whatever this celibate and presumably sexually naive author means by "self-giving".

There is a blatant inconsistency between the professor's statement that "If the child were sought only as a means to some end" then coitus is immoral and that justice requires that the sought after child be "loved for her or his own sake".

Moreover, this stance is hugely more restrictive than the present official teaching, which requires only that any act of sexual congress must be "open to procreation": not that the type of procreation that it is open to is characterized by the explicit purpose of the spouses, still less by their having it in mind to love that child "for her or his own sake".

The case for non procreative sex

"Even where the physical condition of the givers and receivers is such that procreation is not possible, the relationships have been recognized as maintaining the essential features of true giving and receiving, according to the purposes of the tradition, and so the marriage of such persons has been accepted. Where the physical and psychological expression of self-giving is still expressible in intercourse, and  procreation is not excluded by an act of the will embodied in action to prevent this form of giving, living such a relationships represents a symbolic witness which is a  reinforcement of the tradition and its goals.....
The argument here is not that symbolism alone constitutes a reason for acceptance; symbols alone do not work well alone in moral argument. Rather the point is that the life situation and behaviour of the sterile couple, when publicly affirmed, reinforces the cognitive structures of the tradition, and by so doing supports those others who seek to shape their lives according to that tradition, and can do so by procreating."

"This conclusion would follow if we were working with a juridic framework and were concerned only with negative prohibitions. From the proposition 'Human sexual organs are procreative', it does not follow that 'non-procreative use of these sexual organs is illegitimate'."

"But, according to the argument developed here, such 'other' uses of the sexual organs, in order to be accepted by the tradition, must be such as to positively promote the goals of the tradition. I have argued that physical, homosexual intercourse has not been demonstrated to have such a capacity. For this reason, it is not acceptable by the tradition."

The case against same-gender sex

"Finally it is important to note what this article claims to prove and what it does not. It has not been claimed that the moments of 'grace', of which Dr. Williams writes, can never occur, nor that the experience of love is not possible for persons who are homosexual. Neither is it necessary for the argument outlined here, to prove that homosexual acts are actually harmful to the persons involved."

"when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent. As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfilment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God." [PC #7]

"It has been argued only that, for a community which is committed to the goals of the tradition, as explained here, homosexual intercourse cannot be coherently accepted as promoting those goals."

Appendix II : Critique of an argument found in a paper by Prof. W. E May

".... if homosexual acts are gravely immoral they are so because they harm .... the goods of marriage and of the body's capacity for the marital act as an act of self-giving which constitutes a communion of bodily persons....  it is necessary to show that the marriage of a man and a woman is intrinsically, not instrumentally, good and that the marital act, whereby they give themselves to one another, honours this good...."

"St. Augustine explicitly held that marriage is only an instrumental good, in the service of the procreation and education of children so that the intrinsic, non-instrumental good of friendship of fathers with their sons will be realized by the propagation of the race and the intrinsic good of inner integration be realized by “remedying” the disordered desires of concupiscence."

"Had Augustine integrated the natural or companionship of the spouses into his understanding of marriage, he would, as John Finnis has noted, have recognized that in both sterile and fertile marriages:

'the communion, companionship, societas and amicitia of the spouses - their being married - is the very good of marriage and is an intrinsic, basic human good, not merely instrumental to any other good.' [J. Finnis "Law, Morality, and Sexual Orientation" Notre Dame Law Review 69 (1994)]"

I hardly see the point in reproducing the rest of the text of Prof. May's "learned paper", because its subsequent argumentation is so banal and devoid of all rigour as to be embarrassing. However, just for completeness and in order to entertain those readers with a sufficiently warped sense of humour, here goes!

"Vatican Council II clearly indicated this great truth, for it teaches that 'God did not create the human person as a solitary', and after citing 'male and female he created them' [Gn 1.27] explains that the two sexes’
'companionship produces the primary form of interpersonal communion. For, by their innermost nature human beings are social, and unless they relate themselves to one another they can neither live nor develop their gifts'. [Gaudium et spes # 12]"

"As Germain Grisez says, in commenting on this passage,

This gloss on [Gn 1.27] implies that marriage is not merely an instrumental good: the companionship of man and woman belongs to humankind as image of God and is the primary form of one of the essential, intrinsic aspects of human fulfilment'
["Living a Christian Life" p. 557, footnote 5]"

• "the companionship of man and woman belongs to humankind as image of God and is the primary form of one of the essential, intrinsic aspects of human fulfilment"

• "friendship is a basic good, without which no-one can be fulfilled"

"That marriage is a basic good is central to the teaching of Pope John Paul II. In Familiaris consortio # 11, he identifies marriage as one way of realizing the human vocation to love and in Mulieris dignitatem # 7, declares that the communio personarum of husband and wife is an image of the Trinitarian communio personarum of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

"In Veritatis splendor he explicitly refers to the communion of persons in marriage as a fundamental human good in # 13, and it is evident that he includes this basic good among the other goods of the human person that must be respected and honoured in every choice in # 48, 50, and 67."

"Moreover, as Finnis points out,

'The Church often speaks of the goods of marriage:

1. loving friendship between wife and husband, and
2. procreating and educating any children who may be conceived from the spouses' marital intercourse.

They are interdependent goods … Being interdependent, these goods can also be properly described as two aspects of a single, basic human good, the good of marriage itself. In the Church's most explicit teaching on the foundations of its moral doctrine, in which Pope John Paul II points to the basic human goods as the first principles of the natural moral law, this single though basic good is called: "the communion of persons in marriage" [Veritatis splendor # 13].'
[Finnis: "An Intrinsically Disordered Inclination" p. 93.]

In a note to this passage, note 20, p. 99, Finnis adds:

'St. Thomas Aquinas long ago identified this as a single though complex primary (basic) human good' [Finnis: "Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory" (1998)]"

"Marriage is consummated by the marital act, which is far more than a genital act between a man and a woman who happen to be married."

"Men and women are capable of having genital sex because they have genitals, and thus fornicators and adulterers are able to have genital sex. But fornicators and adulterers are not capable of engaging in the conjugal or marital act precisely because they are not married...."

".... and it is marriage that capacitates spouses to engage in the marital act, i.e., to do what spouses are supposed to do, to become literally one flesh in an act whereby the man personally gives himself to his wife by entering into her body person, and in doing so receives her and whereby the woman personally receives her husband into her body person and by doing so gives herself to him.

The husband gives himself to his wife in a receiving way,
while she receives him in a giving way.

The conjugal or marital act actually unites two persons who have made each other irreplaceable, non-substitutable, and non-disposable in their lives by giving themselves to one another and receiving one another in marriage.
The marital act, consequently, is the kind or type of act intrinsically fit or apt both for communicating conjugal love and for receiving the gift of life if the couple is fertile.
In short, marriage, considered as a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons consummated and actualized by the marital act, which is an act open to the blessings or goods of marriage - faithful conjugal love and the gift of children - is an intrinsic or basic human good and as such provides a non-instrumental reason for spouses to engage in the marital act."

"This act is and remains a procreative or reproductive kind of act even if the spouses, because of non-behavioural factors over which they have no control, for example, the temporary or permanent sterility of one of the spouses, are not able to generate human life in a freely chosen marital act. Their act remains the kind of bodily act that alone is 'apt' for generating human life. As Robert George and Gerard V. Bradley note in answer to a homosexual apologist's question regarding the point of sex in an infertile marriage [Stephen Macedo: "Homosexuality and the Conservative Mind", Georgetown Law Journal 84 (1995)]:

“the intrinsic point of sex in any marriage, fertile or not, is .... the basic good of marriage itself, considered as a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by acts of the reproductive type. Such acts alone among sexual acts can be truly unitive, and thus marital, and marital acts, thus understood, have their intelligibility and value intrinsically, and not merely by virtue of their capacity to facilitate the realization of other goods.' [R George and G. V. Bradley: "Marriage and the Liberal Imagination" Georgetown Law Journal 84 (1995)] "

"Pope John Paul II has written perceptively of the "language of the body" and the way in which the marital act speaks this language. His thought on this matter is nicely summarized in the following passage from Donum vitae, the 1987 Vatican Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origins and on the Dignity of Human Procreation:

'Spouses mutually express their personal love in the ‘language of the body,’ which clearly involves both ‘spousal meanings’ and parental ones. The conjugal act by which the couple mutually expresses their self-gift at the same time expresses openness to the gift of life. It is an act that is inseparably corporal and spiritual. It is in their bodies and through their bodies that the spouses consummate their marriage and are able to become father and mother.'

The following passage from Finnis can serve to bring this section to a close:

'The union of the reproductive organs of husband and wife really unites them biologically (and their biological reality is part of, not merely an instrument of, their personal reality); reproduction is one function and so, in respect of that function, the spouses are indeed one reality, and their sexual union can actualize and allow them to experience their real common good - their marriage with the two goods, parenthood and friendship, which (leaving aside the order of grace) are the parts of its wholeness as an intelligible common good even if, independently of what the spouses will, their capacity biological parenthood will not be fulfilled by that act of genital union.'
[J. Finnis "Law, Morality, and Sexual Orientation" Notre Dame Law Review 69 (1994)]"

Prof. May next proceeds to quote a hysterical account of the dangers of anal intercourse, which he then admits:

".... does not get to the heart of the reason why the choice to engage in homosexual acts damages the nuptial meaning of the body and the good of marriage."

"I will now offer an argument to show this. Patrick Lee and Robert George articulate a claim central to this argument:

'if one chooses to actualize one's bodily, sexual power as an extrinsic means of producing an effect in one's consciousness, then one separates in one's choice oneself as bodily from oneself as an intentional agent. The content of such a choice includes the dis-integration attendant upon a reduction of one's bodily self to the level of an extrinsic instrument.' [P. Lee and R. George: "What Sex Can Be: Self-Alienation, Illusion, or One-Flesh Union" American Journal of Jurisprudence 42 (1997)]

When one treats one's body as intrinsic to one's self, there is a unitary activity, and various bodily actions share in this activity since they are not directed to an extrinsic purpose. In activity of this kind one is freely choosing to instantiate real goods, e.g., the good of play in basketball or the good of health in exercising or the good of friendship in writing a letter or in conversing, and one's efforts to realize those goods involve, where appropriate, one's bodily activity so that, as Finnis says,

'that activity is as much the constitutive subject of what one does as one's act of choice is.' [Finnis, "Personal Integrity, Sexual Morality, and Responsible Parenthood" Anthropos: Rivista sulla Persona e la Famiglia 1.1 (1985)]

Now, I suspect that there is no little utility in this classification, in as far as it can be applied to acts. In fact, I find it redolent of Plato's doctrine that the greatest duty of (wo)mankind is to play in order to entertain the gods. However, the application is not so simple as Prof. May would have us believe. The sex act described in the quote from Lee and George is - roughly speaking - an act of rape. It exhibits no concern for the well-being or contentment of the other person. In particular, the use of the word "power" should be noted. Such a sex-act is wrong for any number of reasons, including (and perhaps summarized by) the analysis presented here. However, there is no reason to believe that hetero-gender sex acts never have this character or that homogender sex acts always do. Moreover all the activities quoted by Prof. May run counter to his argument.

The activity of basketball consists of a set of acts which have no intrinsic value whatever. Only when seen in the wider context of what is really going on can their human significance as "play" be discerned.

Exactly the same can be said about exercising in general, and it must be noted that effective exercising involves pain and discomfort and suffering (none of which are human goods, but in fact evils).

Writing a letter is a clear example of an instrumental good. The letter may be of no intrinsic value whatsoever, it may in fact be drivel; nevertheless in the context of the friendship that it represents it may be invaluable.

"Thus in the marital act, spouses freely choose to instantiate their communion of persons in one flesh open to the gift of life in and through an act in which their bodily activity is as much the constitutive subject of what they are doing as is their act of choice.

However, in sodomitical and other kinds of homosexual behaviour, the joining of the bodies of the persons of the same sex is not such that they become one complete organism."

"The bodies of persons engaging in homosexual acts do not contribute to a communio personarum. Although they may choose such acts as means of experiencing personal intimacy, the resulting experience cannot be the experience of any real unity between them."

"Rather, as Grisez has put it so accurately,

'each one's experience of intimacy is private and incommunicable, and no more a common good than is the mere experience of sexual arousal and orgasm. Therefore, the choice to engage in sodomy for the sake of that experience of intimacy in no way contributes to the partner' real common good as committed friends.' ["Living a Christian Life"]"

"Thus persons choosing homosexual acts choose to use their own and each other's bodies to provide subjective satisfactions, states of consciousness. Thus the body becomes an instrument used and the conscious subject the user."

The conscious self is alienated from the body, resulting in an existential dualism between the body and the conscious subject, i.e.,

'a division between the two insofar as they are co-principles of oneself considered as an integrated, acting, sexual person.' ["Living a Christian Life"]

"Therefore, to choose to engage in homosexual acts is to choose a specific kind of self-disintegrity. The self-integration damaged in this way is the unity of the acting person as conscious subject and sexually functioning body. But, as Grisez continues,

'this specific aspect of self-integration .... is precisely the aspect necessary so that the bodily union of sexual intercourse will be a communion of persons, as marital intercourse is.'["Living a Christian Life"]

Therefore, homosexual acts damage

'the body's capacity for the marital act as an act of self-giving which constitutes a communion of bodily persons, or in other words, the "nuptial meaning of the body".' ["Living a Christian Life"]

"Genital coition is the only bodily act intrinsically capable of generating new human life. Kissing, holding hands, fondling, and anal/oral sex cannot generate children."

"They can be generated through acts of fornication and adultery, but it is not good for children to be begotten in this way."

"For millennia every human culture has recognized the bond linking sex, marriage, and the generation of human life and frowned on begetting children out of wedlock. Although many today think it fitting to generate children outside of marriage, the tragic situations accompanying phenomena such as fatherless children, undisciplined youth, and abandoned women show the shallowness of such thinking."

"Our society, as any society, can survive only if new human persons are generated. The marital union of a man and a woman who have given themselves unreservedly in marriage and who can consummate their union in a beautiful bodily act of conjugal intercourse is the best place to serve as a 'home' for new human life, as the 'place' where this life can take root and grow in love and service to others.  A marriage of this kind contributes uniquely to the common good. It merits legal protection ...."

".... same-sex unions are not the same and sadly merely mimic the real thing. They can in no way be regarded as marriages in the true sense."