Viewpoint
Stunted teaching on sex has role in church’s crisis
By SIDNEY CALLAHAN
The effects of the sex abuse crisis
in the American church aren’t going away. A host of issues concerning
church government and accountability continues to surface. Everyone from the
bishops on down may agree that change is needed, but when it comes to
specifying reforms, disagreements bubble up
Deep and fundamental differences, for instance, emerge when it
comes to the future role of the official teachings of Roman authorities on
matters of sex and gender. Two opposing agendas for the church directly
conflict.
One traditional group sees our current sex abuse troubles as
stemming from past and present infidelities of priest perpetrators to Pope John
Paul II’s articulation of sexual teaching. In this view, sin and evil are
recognized as always present, but abusing priests have been led to violate
their vows of chastity and celibacy because of the debilitating permissiveness
toward sexuality that pervades both the church and the culture. Offending
bishops did not exercise their proper authority of oversight and correction, in
part because they, too, were infected by the climate of laxity and infidelity
to the church’s sexual teachings. Granted, the bishops had to cope with
the ’60s sexual revolution and bad psychological advice, but, goes this
indictment, infidelity lies at the heart of the matter. Many seminaries have
been remiss in not adhering to the strict theological and practical formation
necessary for priests.
The solution? In this neoconservative diagnosis, the American
church and its leaders must conform more strictly to the church’s sexual
teachings as articulated by the Vatican. Disobedience to the hard sayings of
Christianity produces sin and hinders the church from being a countercultural
force. Courage is called for; the bishops in their teaching roles must reassert
the ban on artificial contraception, on women’s ordination, on married
priests, on remarriage of the divorced, and most important, the ban on
homosexual activity, particularly in the seminaries and the priesthood. Only
then will health and integrity be restored.
To get with this program, dissenting Catholic laity and
theologians, along with wavering bishops, must be shaped up to obedience. The
seminaries must be set straight on sexual matters and, if need be, purged of
dangerous influences. It may even be a good idea, say some, to ban the
ordination of homosexuals to the priesthood.
I cannot agree with the above analysis and agenda in good
conscience. I belong to that large centrist, reform-minded group of devoted
Catholics who affirm the creeds, the scriptures and the teachings of Vatican
II, but have come to a far different diagnosis of our current sexual abuse
troubles. Indeed, I see the present teachings on sex and gender as
contributing to the current disarray. The last thing we need is a
reaffirmation of rigid teachings, which are seriously flawed morally and
theologically.
Yes, I agree with the conservative assessment of our sexually
permissive secular culture as destructive and dangerous to men, women,
children, families and the unborn. But I don’t think our present Catholic
stance is helping the situation. The official Catholic teachings on sex and
gender are too inadequate, stunted and skewed to help engender mature chastity
in either a celibate or marital vocation. The distortions on sexuality also
weaken the church’s moral authority in the crucial work of the pro-life
movement and for peace and justice.
While Vatican II marked a positive turn toward accepting human
sexuality as a gift of the Creator, no adequate theology of the body and
sexuality has been developed since. Paul VI’s post-council reaffirmation
of the ban on contraception in Humanae Vitae was a sad regression.
Giving in to conservative fears, the pope reversed the recommendation for
change offered by the majority of the birth control commission he had
appointed. In effect, he repudiated the testimony brought by married lay
members on the burden of the teaching. He also ignored the opinion of
theologians and others. The message given then, and ever since, is that the
experience of the married laity, and the value of sexuality can be discounted.
Not surprisingly, the widespread theological dissent from
Humanae Vitae has been accompanied by disregard for the teaching by the
American laity and the majority of their parish priests. While bishops must
pledge their adherence to the ban on contraception to be appointed, one wonders
how many truly believe that the majority of their faithful laity, priests and
theologians are wrong. While conservatives would see only disobedience,
dissenting Cath-olics see in Vatican teaching an authoritarian reassertion of
the older fear and disdain for sexuality.
Further rejection of the value of sexuality is signaled by Vatican
refusals to consider a married priesthood in the Roman rite, the forbidding of
sexuality to the divorced and remarried, and the absolute prohibition of any
sexual activity in committed homosexual unions. Women’s welfare and
dignity are also seen as threatened when contraceptive methods (that are not
abortifacients) are repudiated.
The traditional overemphasis on biological procreation rather than
psychosocial generativity belies the lived sexual experiences in a changed
social world. John Paul II may have apologized to women for past wrongs, but
his refusal to allow discussion of women’s ordination and his strictness
on sexuality is seen as a de facto repudiation of women’s full sexual
partnership in the church.
The pope upholds his particular view of the complementarity of the
sexes (which he finds revealed in the Genesis creation narrative commanding
procreation) and concludes that in the church there exists a female Marian
principle (no ordination) that complements a male Petrine principle
(ordination). Granted, John Paul II has made efforts to defend the goodness and
sacredness of married heterosexuality in his prolific writings, but his
insistence upon gender complementarity and the ban on contraception ensure that
his teachings fail the needs of ordinary persons. The pope’s romantic
rhetoric is not received beyond a minority.
While Christian teachings and understanding of sexuality and
gender have been evolving over the centuries, at this point we are caught in
both an underestimation of the positive power of sexuality to engender love,
unity and transformation in committed couples, and an overestimation of the
moral, psychosocial and theological significance of gender identity (mostly
female). These inadequacies are systemically interrelated and thwart change.
Authorities fear that if the ban on contraception and procreative gender
complementarity is relaxed, then the way is opened to homosexual unions, which
would further threaten gender complementarity, which in turn would threaten the
ban on women’s ordination, and so on.
All of these lingering denigrations of sexuality and women have
played a part in the sex abuse crisis. Both perpetrators and their bishops were
formed in a seminary system upholding official teachings that either disdained
sexuality or denied its positive power and importance in personal development.
There was a biological emphasis upon procreation and the dangers of lust. In a
climate of distrust, silence reigns. Future priests could hardly be well
prepared for the challenges of mature chastity, interpersonal integrity or
ministry to the married. Sexual lapses could end up being equated with
drunkenness, as just another instance of individual sin.
Slighting the importance of the interpersonal dimension of
sexuality leads to a minimizing of sexual abuse. When the psychosexual value of
sexuality is not recognized, it is easy to deny the enormity of the damage that
sexual abuse can do to a young person’s development. If abusing priests
had been dosing young persons with growth-inhibiting hormones, would the
priests have been so easily forgiven and secretly reassigned?
Secrecy and denial in a segregated clerical system made it easier
for perpetrators to hide. Women, still defined as dangerous and denied equal
status, could be kept at a distance and their witness discounted. Mothers,
fathers, nuns and other family members, as lay persons, remain without a voice,
until they call in the law or the media.
Needless to say, within a distorted sexual teaching focused on
reproduction and the danger of adult women, homosexual encounters could be seen
as safe from consequences and remain relatively invisible. Illicit sexual
activity is more likely when there is little openness or value given to sexual
maturity. Homosexuality remains so officially taboo that it is off the moral
screen and outside the system -- in theory, if not in practice.
So what to do? Obviously children and young people must be
protected. This lesson has been learned. But can moral integrity be restored if
authorities rigidly attempt to enforce conformity to problematic teachings,
especially in the seminaries? Instead, new efforts should be expended to
develop a more adequate Christ-worthy theology of sex and gender. The sense of
the faithful must be consulted. Courage is needed to initiate more honest
discussions and to dispense with deceptions.
But where or when can we have truly free, open dialogue to
confront conflicting agendas? In the universities, in diocesan synods, in newly
formed lay commissions, in local and ecumenical councils?
Hope arises only from the faith that the Holy Spirit has led us
since Vatican II to acknowledge that we are a learning church, ever reforming,
ever on pilgrimage. The sex abuse crisis may force us to admit that we have a
long way to go to develop and appropriate the riches of our Catholic
sacramental tradition. We believe in the goodness of sexual embodiment, the
goodness of committed love, and in gender equality, but working these
affirmations out will not be easy.
Of course, all Catholics recognize the perpetual presence of sin
and self-deception. Humility means to remain teachable and to keep a
willingness to be persuaded by our sisters and brothers in Christ. But humility
and a love of the church cannot countenance silence, especially not at this
time.
Sidney Callahan is professor of moral theology at St.
John’s University, Queens, N.Y.
National Catholic Reporter, March 21,
2003
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