A Cautionary Tale

The story of how the American R C Church got to where it is now in respect to sexuality is, I suggest, a cautionary tale.

As early as the 1950s & early 1960s when R C Bishops heard about priests interfering sexually with children, they worried more about bad publicity from the media than the judgment of Almighty God and so moved these priests on to other parishes, hoping the problem would go away. But it did not. Now the whole of the world knows about some of this immoral activity.

Likewise, the Bishops always knew about active homosexuality in seminaries, a practice that goes on to the present day, and again they have done little or nothing about it, apparently fearing bad publicity more than they fear God himself.

Likewise in regard to Pope Paul’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae” in July 1968, which was greeted by massive public dissent led by professors and religious in the rebellious 1960s, the Bishops have done little to insist that its teaching is to be followed by faithful Catholics. In fact they issued “norms of licit dissent” in late 1968 and have not prevented those who dissented from the official teaching on birth control from being promoted to high positions in the Church in the USA. So those Catholics who seek to be faithful to the Church’s teaching on sexuality and defend it are regarded as extremists and those who teach a modified version of what general, western culture holds, as put into a Christian dress, are regarded as normal.

In other words, artificial birth control has become as essential to pursuing the good life as owning an automobile or having air conditioning for most Catholics. Sexuality is seen as a source of personal pleasure and self fulfilment as long as it is between consenting adults and is respectful of each person concerned. Further, with the creative use of psychology and misuse of canon law, the reality of divorce and remarriage in catholic parishes has been addressed by massively extending the giving of annulments so that some (but not all of) the divorced and remarried can stay in membership of the Church.

Of course, what the secular media has primarily focused on is not the tremendous rebellion of married R Catholics against the law of God for marriage, or of the presence of much homosexual practice in seminaries, or on the abuse of giving annulments for less than good reasons, but on cases of priestly abuse of minors and it is this only which the Bishops, under the watchful eye of the Vatican, have begun seriously to address (but to address apparently not as Prophets of God but rather as Managers and Psychotherapists) this year.

But here is the cautionary tale for those with ears to hear as told by a leading R C layman.

“If the Church has taught wrongly that every marriage act must be open to the transmission of life, as the dissenters believe and teach and as the bishops, in effect allow – that is, if there is no necessary connection between the use of our human sexual faculties and the procreation and education of children in Christian marriage – then there is similarly no necessary connection between the use of these same sexual faculties and marriage itself: Sex need not be limited to marriage in other words.

Moreover by the same logic, the use of the sexual faculties for mere sexual satisfaction or expression need not be limited to actions between those of different sexes: sexual acts carried out on oneself or between people of the same sex cannot be excluded (if there is no necessary connection between sex and procreation). It all hangs together. Further, the same logic applies if we try to exclude sex between adults and children….” (Kenneth D. Whitehead, in latest Touchstone magazine)

If the R C Bishops only truly address the problem of priestly interference with minors then they are not facing the root cause. If the R C Church is to prosper and be true to herself as the Church of GOD in the USA, then she must not only officially teach the whole truth but her Bishops must do all in their power to implement that teaching. They must fear God much more than they fear the media or their own professorial & professional members.

I think that a parallel story can be told of the ECUSA, which also during the 1960s took major steps away from her heritage and continues to reap the bad fruit of the sowing of new seed then. Here again the bishops are a major part of the problem, for they have offered no apostolic leadership.

The Episcopal Church (as did the Lambeth Conference!) welcomed the arrival of birth control, but at the same time, not intentionally at first, absorbed the secular culture that went with it! So it was not long before all kinds of adjustments were being made to the doctrine of marriage, of sexual satisfaction therein and the like; the word “relationship” came into its own first to describe adulterous liaisons and then other (previously sinful) ones; divorce became common and so did remarriage in church; homosexual and lesbian persons saw their opportunity (if sex is for personal satisfaction and enhancement, why not for us as well…etc) and began their successful push for recognition as normal; male priests divorced and remarried; many incoming female clergy came in looking for a career after a divorce; falling membership in ECUSA was buttressed (a) by incoming Roman Catholics who because of marital problems did not feel welcome in their own church, and (b) lesbigay persons seeking a safe home; stories of interference with minors by clergy, organists etc increased and so checks on everybody who came anywhere near children began; and so on.

Merely to address the problem of the abuse of minors (which has to be addressed) or merely (as seems to be the current evangelical approach) to oppose the blessing of homosexual partnerships (which has to be opposed) will not solve any problems in the long term and it will not bring the Church in line with the will of God. Of course abusing children is wrong and so is active homosexuality, but so is (a) much if not most of the modern teaching on the meaning and purpose of marriage in terms of personal autonomy, satisfaction and fulfilment and (b) the present practice of divorce and remarriage of clergy and laity in the church. There has to be a fully positive agenda as well as a negative one in place!

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon