Saturday, December 11, 2004
The news service ZENIT provides an interesting excerpt from a talk given by Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican Secretary for Relations With States. The remarks were given at a Dec. 3 conference, "Religious Freedom: The Cornerstone of Human Dignity."
With respect to the relationship between the "secularity of the state," on the one hand, and the "public dimension of religious freedom," on the other, Lajolo quoted Pope John Paul II’s observation last January that "a healthy dialogue between the state and the churches -- which are not rivals but partners -- can encourage the integral development of the human person and harmony in society." He added, "[w]hen the secularity of states is, as it must be, an expression of true freedom, then it favors dialogue and, therefore, transparent and regular cooperation between civil society and religious groups, in the service of the common good, and it contributes to building up the international community based on participation rather than exclusion, and on respect rather than on contempt."
On the timely and thorny issues of proselytism, evangelism, and coercion, Lajolo stated, "[i]f it is accepted that religious freedom is a right rooted in the very nature of the human person and that, as a result, it is prior to any express recognition on the part of state authorities, then the registration of religious communities cannot be considered as a prerequisite for enjoying such freedom." He added, "religious freedom implies, in the civil sphere, the subjective right of changing one's religion as well. . . . In the international context, marked by an insurgence of religious fundamentalisms, it is more than ever imperative to recall the international ban on coercion, on penal sanctions or on the threat of physical force in order to force adherence to religious creeds or religious communities."
And, commenting on the tendency in the "international community" to "place religious freedom ‘under the umbrella’ of tolerance," Lajolo reminded listeners that "tolerance does not mean ‘a renunciation or a weakening of one's own principles,’ but rather ‘the freedom to adhere to one's own convictions and to accept that others can do the same.’ Those who live with coherence their own religious convictions cannot, as such, be considered intolerant. They become so if, instead of proposing their own convictions and eventually expressing respectful criticism of convictions other than their own, they intend to impose their convictions and exercise either open or surreptitious pressure on the conscience of others."
If you are not already subscribing to ZENIT, you might consider it.
Rick
Friday, December 10, 2004
In my earlier response to Teresa, I said nothing that presupposed that homosexual sexual desire is not, as Teresa said, "disordered". But, as it happens, I do not believe that homosexual sexual desire is disordered in any theologically relevant sense. (I do believe, however, that the magisterium's teaching that homosexual sexual desire is disordered--indeed, "objectively" disordered--is ... well, disordered.) For readers who want to pursue this issue, this is a great place to start:
Stephen J. Pope, The Magisterium's Arguments Against "Same-Sex Marriage": An Ethical Analysis and Critique, Theological Studies, vol. 65, no. 3, September 2004, pp. 530-565.
Theological Studies, you may know, is published by Theological Studies, Inc., for the Society of Jesus in the United States. Stephen Pope, a Roman Catholic, is associate professor of theology at Boston College, a Jesuit university.
Michael P.
Thanks to Teresa for her statement below. I have two brief comments in response.
First. Of course, virtually all of us are "disordered" in one or another respect (or respects). It is theologically mistaken, in my judgment, to hold that the fact that a human being is disordered--broken--in one or another respect means that he cannot represent (re-present) Christ for us in, for example, the Litury of the Eucharist. Indeed, even a sinner can represent Christ for us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. (I wonder whether Teresa believes that the fact that a human being is female means that she cannot represent Christ for us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.)
Second. There are some heterosexual men whose disorder--whose brokenness--would subvert their priestly calling, and the Church should try to discern who these men are and exclude them from the priesthood. The same is true for some homosexual men. But there are also some heterosexual men whose brokenness would be redeemed--men whose disorder would lead them by a tortuous route to commit acts of profound humanity--in their priestly calling, and the Church should try to discern whose these men are and welcome them to the priesthood. The same is true for some homosexual men. In my judgment, to counsel the Church to exclude homosexual men from the priesthood on the basis of an irrebuttable presumption--that homosexual sexual desire is more likely to be subversive of than redemptive in one's priestly calling--when the Church could proceed on the basis of discerning individualized determinations, is to vent an attitude toward homosexual men (i.e., to those homosexual men who present themselves as candidates for the priesthood) that is contrary to the love that Christ manifests and enjoins in the Gospels.
(In any event, I suspect that if the Church were to exclude homosexual men from the priesthood--rather than encourage both homosexual and heterosexual men who present themselves as candidates for the priesthood to be open about their sexuality--the Church wouldn't succeed in keeping homosexual men out of the priesthood; rather, the Church would only make it more likely that the (closeted) homosexual men who become priests are those whose sexuality would eventually be subversive of, rather than redemptive in, their priestly calling.)
Michael P.
Teresa Collett provides the following response to Michael Perry's question on the exclusion of homosexuals from the priesthood:
I am uncertain exactly what Michael means by a "sin against the Gospel," but I assume he means something like the definition of sin given by section 1849 of the Catechism: "an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods."
Assuming we have a shared definition of sin, I think the Church would be justified in adopting a policy of excluding men who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward men from ordination to the priesthood because of the nature and function of the ministerial priesthood, which is to act in the person of Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass and in proclaiming Christ's mystery.
While all of us, and therefore every candidate for ordination, will be subject to various temptations (Romans 3:23), the question is whether the Church is justified in seeing disordered sexual desires as grounds for disqualification from ordination. John Paul II has advanced our understanding of how our sexual nature images God in much of his writing, but perhaps most particularly in his book, "Love and Responsibility". While this text primarily focuses on the nature of married love, it provides a deep understanding of the nature of human sexual identity properly ordered. The priest who is to image Christ to his parish, and be a father to his parishioners must have a rightly ordered sense of the gift of generative partnership that is sexual love.
Compounding the theological difficulty of a priest who has an exclusive homosexual orientation, is the practical problems that confront all of us in living a chaste life in contemporary society. By making the choice to live in accordance with God's law for our lives, we should order our lives to avoid occasions of sin. For a man entering the priesthood, his living conditions may (like those of the military) be "spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy." It is both unwise and sinful to place people in positions of temptation.
