The Catholic bishops of Connecticut support a State Constitutional Convention to draft provisions for blocking gay marriages.Last week, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
This issue requires distinguishing between homosexuality in Catholic theology and Catholic pastoral practice towards homosexuals, even if such distinctions are difficult to make in public discourse.
Begin at the beginning: homosexuality is fiercely condemned in Paul's Epistles. But these condemnations are as much about the culture of paganism as they are about sin.
In Hellenist times, physical sex with young boys was comparable to how we might think today about 30 minutes on the treadmill. Homosexual sex then was a macho's therapeutic release of tension.
Because Hellenistic paganism detached physical sex from marriage or love, Paul wrote against separating the emotions of the soul from the actions of the body. He argued for a holistic Christian sexuality that joined love and marriage.
Most recently, this was also the theme of Pope Benedict XVI's 2005 encyclical that distinguished between eros, physical love, and agape, the spiritual version.
Paul pleaded with the earliest Hellenist Christians to avoid same sex encounters, (indirectly proving that the Church accepted as converts persons formerly engaged in this practice).
Once established after Constantine, the Church was in a position to close down the Roman public baths, the place for homosexual acts, thus driving homosexuals underground.
In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas included Aristotelian philosophy in order to appeal to a universal natural law that could be accepted by reasonable non-believers, such as Jews living in Christian cities or Chinese living at the other end of the world.
Since the natural purpose of sex was to propagate the species, Aquinas argued, the reason for people getting married and having sex was to have children.
Whenever the sex act was not connected to having children, it went against the natural law.
When modern science expanded to include psychology in the 20th Century, however, the premises of this medieval Aristotelianism became too narrow.The II Vatican Council in 1964 fully endorsed the idea that the sex act had the psychological purpose of personal bonding.
In other words, the Church recognized marriage was primarily a spiritual union of love rather than a mere license to have children.
Today Catholicism continues to oppose gay marriages on the premise that since gay sexual unions cannot produce children, they are "unnatural" and must be opposed. This thinking does not directly consider that gay persons might seek to live together for the spiritual and psychological support that comes from Christian love - agape.
Moreover, there is mounting scientific evidence that homosexuality is not merely a choice, but rather a variation in nature. Since the natural law is based on factual premises, it appears that Catholic teaching may have to be revised. Theoretically, homosexual friendships are completely acceptable in Catholic theology -- as long as no physical act of sex ensues.
The Catholic Church has a long history of accepting gay monks and lesbian nuns into religion effectually separating them from homosexual acts. The problem in today's world is that once gays are joined in any kind of union living together, it is presumed that the physical sex is involved. It is a logical presumption, I would add.
The universal reaction against gay marriage by the Church is understandable. In fact, the Vatican just refused credentials to a French ambassador because he is married to another gay man. All bishops are expected to maintain Rome's line of reasoning. However, the Church is simultaneously against discrimination and denounces depriving gay and lesbians of most civil rights or exposing them to persecution. Thus, Catholicism affords dignity to homosexuals, but opposes laws about homosexuality. The two stances are compatible, but complicated.
At some point, the hierarchy will have to decide if gay civil marriage is worth all the energy and resources it takes to fight it. After all, a generation ago U.S. Catholicism decided to accept civil divorce for Catholics.
Catholics still may not divorce and remarry in the Church, but they may avail themselves of the legal protections afforded by public divorce laws.
In a similar way, it is possible that the Church may realize that other issues are clearer to Catholic America than opposition to same-sex civil marriage. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Sotto Voce
(Source: CA)