Madam, - The crisis affecting the Church of England and the Anglican Communion about the issue of homosexuality should remind us that it is a question for all Christians, including fundamentalist groups and even the Catholic Church.
References to "God's will" are far too facile, no matter how solemnly proclaimed. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that "basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity (Gen 19:1-29; Rom 1:24-27; I Cor 6:10; I Tim 1:10), Tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered'. They are against natural law" (n. 2357).
But the Church has never explained on what basis "Tradition" can make such a declaration. It has never shown why these four texts must be taken absolutely literally, whereas other commands of God's holy word are not binding in conscience, e.g. the death penalty for a disobedient son (Deut 21:18-21), for various sexual sins (Lev 20:10-16), or for working on the sabbath (Exod 31:14); the stoning to death of a wife found not to be a virgin (Deut 22:20-21); or God's decree that "women are not to wear men's clothing, and men are not to wear women's clothing; the Lord your God hates people who do such things" (Deut 22:5).
The Old Testament writers and St Paul saw homosexuals simply as perverts (as indeed some of them were, just like many heterosexuals in their abuse of God's gift of sexuality); but they were quite ignorant of the fact that the homosexual condition is no more personally chosen by individuals than heterosexuality. Both (and indeed bi-sexuality) are facts of nature, and in Christian theology God is the author of nature.
It is indeed a mystery, but we now know much more of the facts of the case than did previous generations. The question is: "What is God's will in this area?"
Does the Church have a convincing answer? Truth cannot simply be decreed from on high and imposed under "obedience", but only discovered and shared. We speak of the Church's teaching function, but to teach means to explain and convince.
St Paul was totally ignorant of the fact that a very substantial minority of people throughout the world happen to be homosexually orientated by nature. When it came to preaching morality, he had no list of moral precepts revealed by God. He simply drew on Stoic philosophy in his moralising, and in fact he felt that the world would end in his lifetime.
Following the example of Paul, we should seek out the best available information to enlighten our moral thinking. There is a vast amount of knowledge now available from anthropology, sociology, psychology, and sexology. The Second Vatican Council encourages us in our study: "By the very circumstances of their being created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order. We need to respect these. . .for earthly matters and the concerns of faith derive from the same God." (Church in the Modern World, n. 36).
Reference to the "constant teaching of the Church" adds nothing to its value as teaching; mere repetition does not make it more true. Pius IX and Gregory XVI both condemned freedom of conscience as "sheer madness", whereas Vatican II declared it a basic human right.
We are inclined to forget the difference between faith and theology. - Yours, etc.,
Father SEAN FAGAN SM,
Lower Leeson Street,
Dublin 2.