Benedict XVI's latest enthusiasm is, apparently, the "infamy of usury". The original formal condemnation of usury - i.e. interest-bearing loans - emerged at roughly the time the Church also created the formal doctrines condemning Jews and "sodomites" in the early medieval era, so it is not surprising Benedict would seek to re-emphasize it. He recently honored the National Anti-Usury Consultancy, and described interest-bearing accounts as a "social plague," and all financial interest as something that "annihilates the life of the poor." If you are versed in the ancient anti-Semitic tropes of the medieval Church, you will be unsurprised by this language. Just so all you Catholics with 401ks and interest-bearing bank accounts: according to this pope, you are enmeshed in evil. Welcome to the club. By the way, does the Vatican earn interest?
Sullivan, like so many cradle Catholics, is of course largely ignorant of Scripture and it's repeated condemnation of lending money at interest. He is also ignorant of the facts pointed out by C.S. Lewis:
There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: and lending money at interest - what we call investment - is the basis of our whole system. Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong. Some people say that when Moses and Aristotle and the Christians agreed in forbidding interest (or 'usury' as they called it), they could not foresee the joint stock company, and were only thinking of the private moneylender, and that, therefore, we need not bother about what they said. That is a question I cannot decide on. I am not an economist and I simply do not know whether the investment system is responsible for the state we are in or not. That is where we want the Christian economist. But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilizations had agreed (or so it seems at first sight) in condemning the very thing on which we have based our whole life. (Mere Christianity)
Sullivan could, of course, have bothered to find that out before making such an ignorant comment. But that would have interfered with his flat-footed portrayal of Benedict as a conspiracy theorist at war with International Jewish Bankers. And, of course, it would get in the way of his rhetorical linkage of "sodomites" and the Jew who (we all know) the evil FuhrerPope seeks to persecute.
In the interests of promoting light rather than heat, let me suggest that what both parties could use is a recognition of the highly nuanced and contextual history of the treatment of usury in Catholic theology.
To begin with, to answer Andrew's question "does the Vatican earn interest," we turn to the venerable Catholic Encyclopedia, where we learn:
The Holy See admits practically the lawfulness of interest on loans, even for ecclesiastical property, though it has not promulgated any doctrinal decree on the subject. See the replies of the Holy Office dated 18 August, 1830, 31 August, 1831, 17 January, 1838, 26 March, 1840, and 28 February, 1871; and that of the Sacred Penitentiary of 11 February, 1832. These replies will be found collected in "Collectio Lacensis" (Acta et decreta s. conciliorum recentiorum), VI, col. 677, Appendix to the Council of Pondicherry; and in the "Enchiridion" of Father Bucceroni.
Interestingly, that article also instructs that while an earlier pope of Benedict's name (i.e., Benedict XIV) issued an encyclical against usury, which "was promulgated after thorough examination,' that encyclical was "addressed only to the bishops of Italy, and therefore not an infallible Decree."
In a review of Noonan's book, however, Avery Cardinal Dulles cogently argues that:
The biblical strictures on usury were evidently motivated by a concern to prevent the rich from exploiting the destitution of the poor. But when capitalists of early modern times began to supply funds for ventures of industry and commerce, the situation became different. Moralists gradually learned to place limits on the ancient prohibition, so as to allow lenders fair compensation for the time and expenses of the banking business, the risks of loss, and the lenders’ inability to use for their own advantage what they had loaned out to others.
These concessions do not seem to me to be a reversal of the original teaching but rather a nuancing of it. The development, while real, may be seen as homogeneous. In view of the changed economic system the magisterium clarified rather than overturned its previous teaching. Catholic moral teaching, like contemporary criminal law, still condemns usury in the sense of the exaction of unjust or exorbitant interest.
On what specific principles is interest-taking moral or immoral? This was at the heart of the question of usury. Eventually the morality of interest-taking came to be understood as intrinsically bound up in the nature of the thing lent and the impact (or lack thereof) on the person lending it. It is immoral to take interest on the loan of a thing that is completely consumed by its use, for which one has no other use, and for which one incurs no loss by lending it. ...
... it became clear that money in more modern economies—with competitive markets and almost unlimited opportunities for profitable ("fruitful") investment—did not suffer from the same tendency to be "unfruitful" as it had before. In the face of this change, the Church defined what is meant by usury. Session X of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) gave its exact meaning: "For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk."
... A loan that was usurious at one point in history, due to the unfruitfulness of money, is not usurious later, when the development of competitive markets has changed the nature of money itself. But this is not a change of the Church's teaching on usury. Today nearly all commercial transactions, including monetary loans at interest, do not qualify as usury. This constitutes a change only in the nature of the financial transaction itself, not in the teaching of the Church on usury. "Still she maintains dogmatically that there is such a sin as usury, and what it is, as defined in the Fifth Council of Lateran "(ibid., 263).
In sum, Benedict XVI likely was not condemning all lending of money at interest, but rather simply unjust or inequitable interest charges.
I may be as dumb as I look--or dumber--but it seems to me that Eduardo's comments are compelling ... and that Patrick's response doesn't touch it. Discrimination--that is, unjust discrimination, unloving discrimination, ignorant discrimination--is precisely what is at issue. (Would Patrick say, if the magisterium ruled that persons of African ancestry could not be ordained, that "[d]iscrimination is the wrong issue/question, as concerns the life of the
Church as we're discussing it here; the sources of officia and munera
are the heart of the matter, as I see it.") _______________ mp
A couple of people have made reference to the consistency or continuity of Church teaching on homosexuality. I think it important to keep in mind the time period we are talking about. The teachings being referenced in this thread were all written within the last 30 years, which in the life of the Church is not very long.
In thinking about the period, it may be useful to remember that prior to the 1970s, homosexuality was viewed as an illness. It was only in 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association took homosexuality off of its list of medical disorders and in 1974 (shortly before the first of the Vatican documents cited) that the American Psychological Association took it off of its list of mental disorders.
I've already expressed my disappointment with the most recent document. I agree with those who thinkg it treats homosexuals as inferior. I'm also not convinced that the document's position that all those with deep seated homosexual tendencies are thereby completely unfit for the ministry of the priesthood, regardless of their ability to lead celibate lives and regardless of their commitment to the Church's sexual teachings, is consistent with the prior documents.
Eduardo's post appeared while I was drafting my last. I have to run, but first I'd just say in haste that, in my view, the Church's unequivocal affirmations of the equal dignity of all persons are in no way undermined by her affirmation that, by divine law, natural law, or other valid law, certain (categories of) persons have (and others do not) particular offices or functions. The fundamental and unalterable equality of persons frees us to appreciate individuals' particular (and sometimes sacred and elevated) roles in the community. Discrimination is the wrong issue/question, as concerns the life of the Church as we're discussing it here; the sources of officia and munera are the heart of the matter, as I see it.
In the post-Humanae vitae addition to his book Contraception, John Noonan said (I paraphrase, not having the book at hand): "Now the magisterium has spoken; our task is to understand what what has been spoken means." There was a live question in the 1960s about whether the teaching on artificial contraception would be reaffirmed; the story of the path from John XXIII to Humanae vitae, including Paul VI's personal resolution of the question that many had investigated at the instance of the Bishop of Rome, is well known. I agree with Rich: There should be little cause for surprise in the contents of the Congregation's recent Instruction, at least as concerns homosexuality. Certainly, the documents adduced by Fr. Araujo show a continuity of teaching on homosexual attaction's being a "disorder." The textual evidence does not support the claim that the teaching on homosexuality (rather than homosexual acts) is a surprise; though I have the documents here on my desk and could quote the material passages, I'm sure others will want to read and re-read them for themselves. The adduced documents' different purposes account for varying emphases as between homosexual acts and homosexuality; no Church document affirms that homosexuality is not a disorder. Just as violations of human dignity call for fresh declarations of human rights, so too do new assaults on the Church's teaching and work and new challenges in the life of the People of God call for new declarations of the Church's teaching. We hear things we haven't heard before because the Church speaks to the ever-new present, but does anyone suggest that the Church's teaching on homosexuality's being a disorder is not in continuity? The continuity is, I suggest, clear; the separate question is whether the teaching is true. Some will answer in the negative. That the Church's teaching develops, I do not dispute; the question is whether the development is authentic.
The Instruction's particular way of applying the Church's teaching on homosexuality to her teaching on the vocation to the ministerial priesthood was not exactly what I expected. I'm a slow learner. But here, at the heart of the Church where what is at issue is whom God calls to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, I feel little capacity to do more than try to learn. The Bishops as such may not be particularly competent to pass prudential judgment on the contemporary sufficiency of alternatives to capital punishment, but they'd better be, by virtue of their office, competent to judge whom God calls to the ministerial priesthood. The competing theologies that assign responsibility and authority for this judgment to the lay community are just that, competing theologies. Perhaps the recent Instruction will incite more people to embrace such theologies. Still, it is the Bishop alone who can confer priesthood.
I agree with Michael Scaperlanda that we Catholics in the legal academy are called upon to translate, as best we can, what the Church teaches about herself to that wider world in which we the Church must make our way under the mandate to share with all the Good News. I see that already (in my old-home diocese of Phoenix) a man has "resigned" from the priesthood on account of this Instruction. This is very sad. In the words of Cardinal Grocholewski referring to priests with homosexual attractions: "These priestly ordinations are valid, because we not not affirm their invalidity." To abandon the exercise of the priestly ministry for a higher calling strikes this layman, at least, as a path not to be taken.
In response to Richard, I just don't see a way around the view of this document as treating gay people as an inferior class. You and I chose to become married people, something that (under current practice) prohibits us from becoming priests, just as being married to one person prevents us from marrying another. We can debate whether the Church (in practice) treats married people as inferior to celibate clergy, but I think you would have to concede a difference between preventing someone from becoming a priest because they made a life choice to assume an incompatible state and preventing someone from becoming a priest because they are (despite the lack of any choice in the matter) subject to "homosexual tendencies."
The comparison to women is a trickier one. On the one hand, women, like homosexuals, are excluded from the ministry because of who they are, not what they've chosen. And, personally, I do think their exclusion from ordination is based upon a view of them as inferior in some ways, but I can see your argument. (In fact, as I mentioned in my original post, there are some interesting overlaps between the arguments the Church made in this document and some of the more philosophical arguments against female priests. Those arguments, as distinct from the arguments from the scripture and tradition, in the end boil down to an assertion of the "essential maleness" of Christ, an assertion I find to be very weird.) I think this case is different from the case of women, however, because the Church has explicitly said that gay people are to be excluded because they suffer from an objective "disorder." The most relevant of the definitions of "disorder" in the OED is "a disturbance of the bodily (or mental) functions; an ailment, disease." This suggests to me that gay men are excluded from the ministry, not becasue they are essentially different in some evaluatively neutral way, as is (arguably) the Church's position with respect to women, but because they are objectively defective or morally unworthy in some way. It's very hard to read that in a way that does not amount to treating gay people as an inferior class of persons.
The question of willingness to adhere to Church teachings is a separate one, and I'm not sure why, if that is the concern, there is not a direct focus on that issue. Surely there are some gay men out there who are willing (enthusiastically) to tow the Church line on sexuality. I've met some of them. Why shouldn't they be permitted to serve as priests? Instead, the document maligns the ability of gay people as a whole to relate to men and women in a healthy way.
For the record, I do vigorously dissent from many Church teachings on sexuality, and on gay sexuality in particular. I think the natural law arguments that have been deployed in opposition to homosexuality (and birth control) are utterly implausible. I'm sure that admission will lead some people to compeltely disregard my objections to this document. That said, my confusion with this document is totally severable from my dissent. I find this document troubling, even on the Church's own terms. The Church on the one hand says we should not discriminate against gay people and that, in fact, people are not fundamentally gay or straight, but rather children of God. On the other hand, however, it has authored a document that discriminates against gay people precisely by treating them as fundamentally gay and, on that basis alone, disqualifying them from the priesthood. I have a hard time seeing how it can reconcile those two propositions.
I am a bit surprised by the reaction to the Congregation's recent instruction on "persons with homosexual tendencies" and the priesthood. Unless people thought that the document was going to reverse the Catechism's treatment of homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies, this instruction was entirely to be expected. A couple of points.
First, no one has a right to ordination, and the Church's refusal to ordain someone does not mean that the Church regards that person as part of an "inferior class of persons." I can't be ordained because I am married. That doesn't mean that the Church thinks that married state is not a great good. Woman can't be ordained, but that is not because the Church thinks that women are an inferior class of persons. I know that some people think so, but I think that is difficult to maintain about the Church that holds up Mary as the model Christian and that recently named Saints Bridget, Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein), and Catherine of Siena as co-patrons of Europe.
Second, I don't understand the argument that a Church that believes what the Catechism says about homosexual tendencies (that they are objectively disordered) could endorse the view that ordaining men with such tendencies is a good idea. (For a statement about homosexuality that expresses the pyschological perspective that seems to underlie the Congregation's point of view, see the Catholic Medical Association's website under the "publication" heading.) Maybe this view is wrong, but I don't think anyone expected that the Congregation was about to reverse the Catechism.
Third, I think Amy Welborn's comments on this are well taken. Priests ought to be able to communicate the fullness of the Faith, including the Church's teaching on sexual morality. Is it likely that someone who identifies himself as a "gay" priest--and recall that this identification (this celebration) is with a condition that the Church teaches is an objective disorder--will be able to do this effectively.
Patrick Brennan offered a friendly amendment to my posting on homosexuality and Catholic Legal Theory. I appreciate Patrick's post, but speaking solely for myself I must in friendship decline his amendment. I agree with Patrick that "what we face are, in the first instance, questions of theology, not of Catholic legal theory." In developing Catholic Legal Theory, a Catholic worldview (including its theology and philosophy) are brought to interact with the law and legal institutions.
As a lay person involved in the law, I view my vocation as attempting to bring Christ into the world within the particulars (as a law professor at a public unviversity) of my life. To do this, I struggle to learn some theology and philosophy, and I also beg God daily for the grace to conform my life and my will to His. (As you know, I need a lot more grace in this department). For me, this is a full plate.
When it comes to the teachings of the Church (on issues of faith and morals), I try to understand and adhere to them to the best of my ability knowing that professionally these teachings - with a rich 2000 year history of intellectual thought and fervor addressing almost every aspect of life - provide a firm and thick launching pad for my work.
I do not, however, have a professional vocation when it comes to the internal workings of the Church - to the development of doctrine within the Church, to debating whether particular matters are even open for development, etc. I'll leave these internal issues to those who have been called to address them. This does not mean that I am a wilting flower blindly deferring to priests and the institution. More than once, I have privately (as a parishoner not as a law prof) helped our priest to become a better pastor by criticizing (sometimes severely) his behavior.
In the end, I view my professional call as outward looking, helping the world see through the Church's eyes (as Frank Sheed once said), and not inward. Again, I speak only for myself and my calling.
Thanks to Fr. Araujo for passing along the cites to previous discussions of homosexuality. I was intending to post on the Cardinal’s statement (posted below) that there is nothing really new in most recent instruction. In particular, I considered the instruction’s treatment of sexual orientation as a disorder that renders homosexuals unfit for the ministry to be a new wrinkle on the Church’s previous focus on the immorality of homosexual acts (as opposed to homosexual persons). The Church, like the Supreme Court, is forever innovating and then denying that it has ever held a different view, so I’m always suspicious when it protests its consistency.
These earlier documents complicate my view to a degree, because the Church did previously describe “homosexual orientation” as a disorder, but they also provide a vivid example of the point I am making. At first, the Church adheres to a distinction between homosexual acts (which it treats as sinful) and homosexual orientation (which it views as largely artificial). The Church gradually abandons this distinction in favor (in its most recent instruction) of outright discrimination against homosexuals as a separate class of persons.
First, the DECLARATION ON CERTAIN QUESTIONS CONCERNING SEXUAL ETHICS (1975):
In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.[18] This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.
The important thing to note is that the discussion in this document is entirely focused on homosexual acts, not on homosexuals as a separate class of persons. Importantly, the document treats homosexual behavior alongside premarital sex and masturbation, actually giving it the shortest discussion of the three.
The next document is at times even more explicit in this regard, although it begins to hedge a bit. LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE PASTORAL CARE OF HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS (1986):
What, then, are homosexual persons to do who seek to follow the Lord? Fundamentally, they 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. That Cross, for the believer, is a fruitful sacrifice since from that death come life and redemption. While any call to carry the cross or to understand a Christian's suffering in this way will predictably be met with bitter ridicule by some, it should be remembered that this is the way to eternal life for all who follow Christ….The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a "heterosexual" or a "homosexual" and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.
The document also introduces the notion that homosexual orientation is itself a disorder, though it does not make much use of the shift:
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.
In other words, the Church initially focuses its attention on the sinfulness of homosexual acts and treats the concept of sexual orientation as, for the most part, artificial. But the Church changes direction in the 1992 document, SOME CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE RESPONSE TO LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS ON THE NON-DISCRIMINATION OF HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS, and begins to focus a great deal of attention on sexual orientation as such:
"Sexual orientation" does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc. in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder (cf. "Letter," No. 3) and evokes moral concern.
The most recent instruction takes this focus on “homosexual orientation” even farther. Whereas earlier documents appeared to view homosexual orientation as a “cross,” and homosexual chastity as “fruitful sacrifice,” analogous to other areas in which human beings are prone to sinfulness, this document views it as a factor that pollutes homosexuals’ relationships with other human beings to such an extent that it disqualifies them categorically from positions in the ministry. I see no way to square the Church’s most recent statement, with its treatment of homosexuals as something of an inferior class of persons, with its far more moderate and optimistic statement in the 1986 letter that the Church “refuses to consider the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.”
I have read with great interest the recent postings by MOJ members on the Congregation for Education's text, and I would like to offer my own reflections. However, since several provincials (major superiors) of my religious institute have instructed our men not to offer any public comment at this time, I must honor their instruction. For those who continue this discussion, it would be helpful to keep in mind the following Church texts that have addressed elements of the issues associated with the discussion during the past 30 years: (1) the December 29, 1975 "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics" HERE ; (2) the October 1, 1986 "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" HERE ; (3) the July 23, 1992 document "Some Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on Nondiscrimination of Homosexual Persons" HERE ; and, (4) the July 31, 2003 "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons" HERE. RJA sj
