It was a rare act of cooperation between the Catholic and the Muslim communities of Melbourne: a full page advertisement in The Age of a joint letter of protest. That is, if it weren’t for the content of the letter.
The letter’s authors, the President of the Islamic Society of Victoria and several Victorian Catholic bishops, disingenuously make the unrestricted claim that the Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill legislates for what prayer is legal and what prayer is not. In fact, the scope of the Bill is restricted to forms of prayer about which complaints have been made to the Victorian Health Complaints Commission, prayer of a very specific kind: one aimed at converting from or suppressing forms of sexuality regarded by its supplicants as deviant.
The Muslim community must give their own reasons for regarding non-heterosexual sexualities as deviant. The Catholic community, however, has presented its reasons in its public teachings. The ‘inclination’ to such sexualities, is, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ‘objectively disordered’ (n. 2358).
The disorder is moral because such sexualities are not ordered to the procreative function of marriage that the Church sees as laid down in the natural moral law. This teaching was formulated at a time when the natural sciences also regarded non-heterosexual sexualities as deviant. Thus the teaching of the Church simply provided the moral dimension to the prevailing scientific view of the matter.
In the past 50 years, however, there has been an evolution in both the scientific and theological understanding of human sexuality. In Australia on October 15, 1973, the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Federal Council declared that homosexuality was not an illness.
In its 2013 Edition, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) no longer defined homsexuality as a mental disorder. Recent works in biology such as Bruce Bagemihl’s Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, (Stonewall Inn Editions, St. Martin’s Press, Chicago, 2020), report sexual diversity in the animal as well as the human world. The evolution of science has thus overthrown the empirical assumptions about human sexuality upon which the Church’s moral teaching previously relied.
As the Galileo episode demonstrated, any such conflict between science and religion in the past was compulsorily resolved by papal pronouncement. But even the conservative pope John Paul II apologised for the Church’s treatment of Galileo.
Moreover, in Vatican II the Church unequivocally renounced its competence to answer scientific questions:
“Consequently, we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, which are sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful independence of science and which, from the arguments and controversies they spark, lead many minds to conclude that faith and science are mutually opposed (Gaudium et Spes 7)’.
In short, if the science changes, the Church is now bound by this undertaking to respect the ‘independence of science’ to change the teaching based on it.
By its refusal to change its teaching on non-heterosexual sexualities, the Church tries to escape the evolution of moral consciousness of our time that has led to the embrace of sexual diversity in the scientific and wider communities. In doing so, the Church is resisting another commitment of Vatican II: to move from a ‘static concept of reality to a more dynamic and evolutionary one’ (Gaudium et Spes 5).
Instead of seeking signs of divine guidance in this contemporary evolution of scientific and moral consciousness, these bishops place their trust in human words – such as those of the Catechism of the Catholic Church – expressing the consciousness of a previous stage of evolution on these questions.
This resistance to the dynamic processes which, on the Church’s own teaching, ought to lead to revision of this doctrine makes the bishops all the more culpable for the harm done by suppression/conversion practices.
If such harm could have been defended as morally tolerable 70 years ago on the ground that the whole of society, including the scientific community, then regarded such sexualities as deviant, that defence has now been demolished. The cries of these wounded sheep should now be enough to make their shepherds recognise the call of their Lord in this existential suffering rather than in the abstract doctrinal pronouncements of the past.
Dr. Michael Leahy is a former Melbourne priest, a retired philosopher of education and politics. He maintains a keen interest in the renewal and reform of the Catholic Church.
Comments
22 responses to “To care for the sheep or to preserve Church doctrine? Faith groups are found wanting”
Interesting article. If I understand it correctly, the author (together with the Victorian bill) supports regulating certain forms of prayer, including those directed at suppressing certain forms of sexuality. Does this not show that there are limits to religious freedom?
Further, if it is legitimate to regulate religious freedom in Australia, might it also be legitimate in (say) China?Now we can reasonably debate the limits of such regulation. But we cannot criticise China simply because it seeks to regulate religion. We need to understand the reasons for such regulation, and not simply dismiss such regulation as undermining with “human rights”.
Correction: 5%, 1 in 20 males.
Thanks for the insightful comments. I wrote the article because I believe that the church, despite its present dislocation from its mission, is entrusted with that mission by God and therefore capable of getting back on mission. Getting back on mission, on the evidence of current performance, cannot be left to the hierarchy; the task therefore must fall to the rest of the church, with individual bishops contributing if they will. The task requires a call, and this can manifest itself in various ways, one of which is the abilities to perform relevant tasks. Sadly, the church has for so long been dominated by male, celibate clerics that qualifications for some of these tasks have been distributed disproportionately to them and former clerics. Happily, as some articles in P and I have attested, more females and lay people generally are also manifesting these gifts today. They must all flourish if the essentialist incarnation of church is to give way to the historical one mandated by Vatican II. This requires the church to attend to the cries of wounded sheep like those of non-heterosexual orientations. I applaud those who are already ministering to these people within current doctrinal strictures. However, I insist that these strictures must be removed for the church today to make the saving word of God flesh in our history. I would also caution against making guesses about what former clergy knew about abusive priests and what they disclosed to whom. Such guesses may be unfounded and their expression distract from the task of identifying real problems and addressing them.
Hello Dr. Leahy: The claim that most priests knew of church abuse by about 1970 is not my invention. It was made by Fr. Hodgens. The question which struck me on reading his comment was “why didn’t they speak up?” Well, why didn’t they? In the late 60’s, when I came to the end of my brainwashing, two students I knew went on priest school and another to the Brothers. All were idealistic, decent young men. As I am sure were others who did likewise. What was it about the structures of the so called catholic church which silenced decent people into hoarders of secrets?
Fosco – thank you for including brief explanations associated with your responses: I found them very illuminating. cheers Bill B
Thanks Mick for an informed piece exposing this significant failure in Church teaching. Bishops have audaciously claimed to reject “out-dated and insidious practices of coercion and harm” while opposing the bill in order to protect the Church’s own “out-dated and insidious” teachings and practices regarding sexual orientation, involving both “coercion and harm” in a manner contrary to the most basic teachings of Christianity.
I wonder about the case of an individual who like 20% of males is colour blind, red-green; good science is that the condition is genetically based. But such individuals can still obtain a licence to drive, even at night when there can be lots of confusing lights to manage with the traffic lights. Nevertheless that’s the way the individual finds himself and he should be able to drive at night, willy nilly. As for would be pilots with the same genetic condition, willy nilly?
Michael Leahy is entitled to challenge the Catholic Church leadership’s position on “non heterosexual sexualities” and draw attention to the relevance of more recent received scientific opinion on gender identity and sexual attraction. But he is less than generous with acknowledging what has actually been achieved in meeting the “existential suffering” of homosexual persons who are seek respect and a place within the catholic community.
Had Dr Leahy visited the CDF’s Declaration on certain questions concerning sexual ethics (1975) he would have found highly nuanced statements which attend to the human experience of homosexual persons – statements which offer pastoral solicitude that does not include imposing impossible burdens on the individual. It is true the language of disorder is present, but, tellingly, it is not used exclusively to describe homosexual expression – any sexual activity that is not ordered towards the finality of non contraceptive heterosexual intercourse involving married couples is also described variously as “disordered,” or “intrinsically evil”
That the Church continues with this split level teaching – statements of objective norms ameliorated with much more sensitive pastoral injunctions at the one to one level is a profound problem. Charles Curran is one of the few moral theologians, alive today, who can hold his head high, for trying to dismantle the over reliance on objective norm terminology. More help from lay and clerical thinkers will bring Curran’s project to its fulfillment.
Thank you, Michael, a truly helpful exposition of the hopefully dynamic relationship between science and religion. It is still such a shame to see bishops and imams hopping into bed together as they did in the population conference in Cairo in 1994 and at the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995.
‘Of the last thirty articles almost 100% have been written by priests, ex-priests or Catholic professionals, almost 100% are male, and 100% are Anglo-Irish’ suggests we are the people reading P&I articles about religion. We are mostly older as well because we were there. I can’t see that this is clericalist, sexist, ageist or racist. It just is.
Other people can read P&I and write should they wish. As you suggest they probably have other things to do.
I don’t know how many of the priests/ex-priests contributors knew of the abuse and chose to keep silent. On the one occasion I was suspicious of a teacher who I thought was possibly abusing boys I reported him, he was sacked next day, either the principal or a parent went to the police and the man was found guilty.
I accept that in the 50’s and 60’s young people were brainwashed. Believe it or not so had many of those who became their brainwashers. That is how tribal or essentialist religion works. The extent of the abuse, particularly the extent of the cover up shocked me when at last it all came out. It is a shocking history and we are all tainted by it and it seems some in authority have learned little from it. As Kurt Vonnegut said in Slaughterhouse Five, “And so it goes”. The only thing we can do is try to ensure that it no longer goes.
Hello Graham: The constant theme in the articles uploaded by the editor is that of progressive Catholicism: criticizing clericalism and boy’s club dominance of the so called catholic church. My reason for doing the analysis was to see how the “new Catholicism” matched those advocating it. The results are as stated: a still preaching male, de-reconstructed clericalism. I counted four female contributors. But there was also a personal reason. It took me a while to notice that I was constantly reading articles by priests, ex-priests and no women. In my personal reflection perhaps guided by the Spirit, I realised I too was accepting it as the “natural order” – “It just is”, as you say. Despite many decades I still have a way to go in de-brainwashing from my brainwashing by teachers like you. I do know that becoming a brainwasher required becoming more brainwashed that pew sitters like me. I also know that for some at least, leaving the priesthood was a tough gig.
What did “The Spirit” tell the Bishops when the issue of CSA reared it’s head?
Only a few options;
1. Told them to cover up
2. They (all) ignored his call to look after victims
3. Like the talking snake and Noah’s Ark it’s sheer fantasy
Option 3 is the only valid option as the Bishops in the words of Costelloe “always follow the Holy Spirit”
Time to wise up
Michael has identified the central issue. Vatican II set a new agenda and replaced the old classic/essentialist
mindset with and evolutionary/developmental model. The restorationist policies
of Wojtyla and Ratzinger were not in tune with this. Further they politicized the
conflict, setting up the present-day division. The “objectively disordered”
categorization of homosexuality comes from an essentialist mindset. The energy
of its promotion is political.
Many Catechism of the Catholic Church assertions are not received by a large
proportion of Catholics. Are we, therefore, overreaching in calling them the “teaching
of the Church”?
Hello Fr. Hodgens: Cheryl Blair, a human rights lawyer not just Tony’s wife, said that in 1976 when she was a teenager growing up in Liverpool, church attendance was about 80%; over a generation that has dropped to about 8% and still falling. That trend is much the same in the rest of the Western World. Does this not tell us that a more profound changing is happening? Is it not obvious that Western Culture is being de-Christianized? In the meantime, Francis, the progressive, has fiddled Canon Law to allow Angela Merkel become an altar server. You have said that by the 1970’s you – like most priests – knew of the child abuse but kept silent. We all in life have the right to journey but aren’t we entitled to question whether you know what’s going on?
Grapevine knowledge is often right; but it is also unsubstantiated. We could not accuse.
But we were not impressed.
This is, however, a red herring from Michael’s point that the Victorian
Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill is quite specific that it is only prayer practices specifically aimed at putting pressure on the subject that are prohibited.
Implying that the bill intrudes on prayer practices in general is misinformation. The bishops and Islamic Society are overreaching.
Hello Fr. Hodgens: legal safeguards are not the issue. We pew sitters could only be brainwashed if we believed priests were “instruments of God”. Brainwashing would not work if we realised they had dirty secrets. That’s why the collective secrecy. That most priests knew by the 70’s is your comment. Readers knowing what contributing priests/ex-priests knew means that we can judge how much salt to use when reading their articles. Or even, if we should bother.
Michael’s article is irrelevant. Post-Christian society has moved on. Who still take bishops seriously on sexuality, or anything else? They are only making fools of themselves. The real question is why tens of $billions are being given to teach the so called catholic catechism? From what I have been told, today’s young people at catholic schools are too sensible to take that stuff seriously. But my real concern is Michael. Of the last thirty articles
almost 100% have been written by priests, ex-priests or catholic professionals, almost 100% are male, and 100% are Anglo-Irish. Does not this suggest an unaware clericalism, sexism and racism on the part of P&I? Fr. Hodgens claimed that by the 1970’s most priests had grapevine knowledge of the child sex abuse. How many of the priest/ex-priests contributors knew of the abuse and choose to keep silent? Those of us who in the 50’s and 60’s were brainwashed by these men have a right to know.
Dear Fosco,
I am one of the male, Anglo-Irish, ex-priests (your terminology, not mine – I ‘resigned’) you speak of who writes articles for P & I. I can assure you that while I was in ministry I had no idea that my fellow priests in Australia or Korea (where I was working as a missionary) or elsewhere were abusing children. And after I resigned from priestly ministry in 1976 I was still unaware until the early 2000s. I think my first real awareness of clerical child sexual abuse came with the Irish inquiry into the Dublin Archdiocese in 2006. During the Inquiry I was told by a friend in Ireland that a priest (whom I did not know) was under investigation. I was totally unaware of the cover-up by bishops and its extent until the Murphy Report was published in 2009.
Two years later, in a report I wrote on Parish Ministry in Australia, I stated: “There is unquestionably a crisis [in parish ministry in Australia], verging on disaster” and it “has been exacerbated by the clerical sex-abuse scandals, the cover-ups by bishops, the lack of transparency, accountability and co-responsibility, the failure to fully implement the reforms of Vatican II, inadequate consultative processes, the teaching on family planning and human sexuality, the clerical clinging onto pomp, power, control and privilege ….”
In 2011, Catholics for Renewal (of which I am a member) published an Open Letter to Pope Benedict and the Bishops of Australia. In it we stated: “Our Church has been tainted by injustice and blemished by bad decisions. We still reel from the sexual abuse scandal where the Church ‘s initial response was manifestly inadequate and where some authorities, in their attempts to protect the institutions, exposed innocent young people to grave harm.” Some 8,500 persons signed this Letter.
With Emeritus Professor Des Cahill, I researched and wrote the 2016 RMIT report Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: An Interpretative Review of the Literature and Public Inquiry Reports. It was cited 50 times in the Royal Commission’s Final Report.
I cannot speak for others about when they became aware of clerical child sexual abuse, but when I personably became aware of it, I did what I could to find out and to speak out.
Peter Wilkinson
Hello Peter: thank you for your thoughts. Firstly, I do not think there is any shortage of thoughtful and reflective women, from all sorts of life experiences, who could write an article on progressive Catholicism; likewise, with people of non Anglo-Irish migrant backgrounds. They’re not all bitter, angry and twisted like me. The claim about what 1970’s priests knew is owned by
Fr. Hodgens. Does anybody know what is happening in developing countries where becoming a priest is a good career option, families are poor and the church powerful enough to influence the media? As for the stunt by the bishops, it’s all about the conservative Christian vote in the outer suburbs. We can expect lots of “Labor will take away our rosary beads” slogans until the federal election.
I was teaching a spirituality course at ACU to palliative care nurses during the AIDS crisis in the 1990s. I don’t know if I taught them anything but they taught me a lot. It was also a time when I learned that people I knew and respected were gay. Up till then I didn’t know I knew anyone who was gay. I thought about it and decided that as I’d known and respected or liked them already finding out they were gay made no difference to my respect and care. I’d had no education in the different attractions people felt. I’d had almost none in sexuality and intimacy and friendship except the disturbed approach to all of them in the Church I’d grown up in and been enculturated into. It became a choice of accepting what I was told or trusting my experience. I chose experience.
I think there are so many flawed doctrines in the Catholic Church that in today’s day and age only the indoctrinated can “truly believe”. Having been through a brutal civil legal process in trying to hold the cult to account, I am astounded that the Church via its Bishop and head of Professional Standards continues to put victims thru the legal wringer via its sad and pathetic Legal teams. In a rage yesterday after spending several hours talking a victim out of taking his own life I contacted one of the few priests I trust and asked him straight “ are you aware of what these pricks are doing to already damaged victims?” The answer was an honest “No”. In the ensuing conversation it became abundantly clear that nothing is going to change due to obedience to Rome and the utter weakness of the individuals who are in positions of power in this country. Concerned Catholics groups are really wasting their time – their will be no change, not now, not soon, not ever. It is time you wake up to the reality. Be like the kids who attend Catholic schools now – they don’t believe a word of it. They’re smart enough to work it out for themselves without the fear that many of you were brought up with.
Hi Steve. I am not able to foretell the future but I’d be slow to predict the complete demise of Catholicism. The line of those who have goes back a long way, at least to the Emperor Julian the Apostate and so far none of the Jeremiahs have got it right. That said, I don’t feel confident about much happening in what’s left of my life. We were taught to repeat, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, it being the Church, but I am not holding my breath waiting for genuine reform. I tried that a few times and just ended up breathless. As to the political and legal shenanigans that are so destructive to the victims of abuse I feel ashamed, alienated and angry. When George Pell said at one of the investigations into sex abuse, “It is a sad story but it was of no interest to me” he lost me entirely. As Vicar of Education it was his duty to be interested. When he insisted on the Ellis Defence he lost lots of others. Australia has often had lack lustre bishops. Perhaps it is the result of us starting out as a colony. Maybe it has been a Church problem since the Apostles or at least since Catholicism became the state religion of the Holy Roman Empire. In the mean time keep helping the victims. That is one area in which there is some hope.