425 - Catholic Social and Sexual Teaching: a Methodological Comparison

Catholic Social and Sexual Teaching: a Methodological Comparison

By Charles E. Curran

"My purpose is to examine the ethical methodology employed in two different kinds of official Catholic moral teachings and to point out the clear differences between the methodologies.... The contemporary official Catholic leaching on social issues with its relationality-responsibility model recognizes significant gray areas.... In the contemporary official Catholic leaching on sexual issues, there is little or no mention of such gray areas."

The official hierarchical teaching of the Roman Catholic Church in moral matters has importance not only for church members but for society at large. Attention given to this moral teaching in the popular press illustrates the importance attached to it. Thanks to the popular media, most people in America are aware of the stance taken by the United States Roman Catholic bishops on war and the economy as well as the position of the Vatican on test-tube babies.

There is a general impression, both within and outside the Catholic Church, that Catholic moral teaching in social and sexual areas appears to be somewhat different. From the perspective of the general public, contemporary Catholic social teaching with its criticism of the United States economic system and of our nuclear war and deterrence policy falls into what is often called the "liberal camp." Catholic teaching in sexual matters is definitely in the more "conservative camp."

The impression of differences between official Catholic social and sexual teaching also exists within the Catholic Church itself. Many conservative and neo-conservative Roman Catholics have objected strenuously to the recent social teachings of the United States bishops but

Charles E. Curran, Professor of Moral Theology, The Catholic University of America, has appeared frequently in the church and secular press recently because of Cardinal Ratzinger's declaration in 1986 that he could no longer teach Catholic theology. Professor Curran's views on moral and sexual ethics are well-known through a series of volumes, such as Fundamental Moral Theology (1985), Directions in Catholic Social Ethics (1985), Faithful Dissent (1986), and Toward an American Catholic Theology (1987). While Professor Curran's academic status at Catholic University is being considered, he is in the meantime serving as Visiting Professor of Catholic Studies at Cornell University. This present essay is a revised version of the Neumann Lecture delivered last April at Princeton Theological Seminary.

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seem to have no problems with the official church teaching on sexual ethics. On the other hand, liberal Catholics have applauded the recent social teachings while often dissenting from the sexual teachings.

The purpose of this essay is not to discuss the relationship between social and sexual ethics; nor will I take sides in the dispute between "liberal" and "conservative" Catholics, even though my own position is well-known. My purpose is to examine the ethical methodology employed in two different kinds of official Catholic moral teachings and to point out the clear differences between the methodologies.

I

There exists today a body of official Catholic social teaching going back to Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891.¹ Subsequent encyclicals and official documents were often issued on anniversaries of Rerum Novarum, such as Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno² in 1931, Pope John XXIII's Mater et Magistra³ in 1961, Pope John VI's Octogesima Adveniens⁴ in 1971, and Pope John Paul II's Laborem Excercens⁵ in 1981. In addition, there are other papal documents, as well as documents from the Second Vatican Council and the synods of bishops, that constitute this body of official Catholic social teaching.

One significant question about these documents and other hierarchical social teaching concerns the authoritative nature of such teaching and the response that is due such teaching on the part of Roman Catholic believers. To discuss the nature, extent, and limits of authoritative teaching in the Catholic Church lies beyond the scope of present considerations. However, one point should be made. There are many other hierarchical church teachings from Pope Leo XIII and later that are no longer remembered today. Leo's teaching on the political order is seldom read or even mentioned on the contemporary scene. Leo's political writings generally insist on, at best, a paternalistic or, at worst, an authoritarian view of society.⁶ The unofficial canon of Catholic social teaching today has been brought about by the reception of the church itself and by subsequent popes and the response of the total church. The whole church has played a role in what is viewed today as constituting the body of official Catholic social teaching.

Within the documents themselves, the popes and the episcopal bodies

¹Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum in Etienne Gilson, ed., The Church Speaks to the Modern World: The Social Teachings of Leo XIII (Garden City: Doubleday, 1954), pp. 200-44.
²Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno in Terence p. McLaughlin, ed., The Church and the Reconstruction of the Modern World: The Social Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI (Garden City: Doubleday, 1957), pp. 218-78.

³Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra in David J. O'Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, eds., Renewing the Earth: Catholic Documents on Peace, Justice, and Liberation (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), pp. 44-116.

⁴Pope Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens in O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 347-83.

⁵Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens in Gregory Baum, The Priority of Labor (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 95-152.

⁶E.g., Pope Leo XIII, Diuturnum in Gilson, pp. 140-61.

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explicitly stress the continuity with what went before. Popes are very fond of quoting their predecessors of happy memory. In reality, much change and development have occurred within this body of social teaching. We will study three important methodological issues that have experienced a very significant change in the less than hundred year historical span covered by this body of official Catholic social teaching. These methodological changes in social teaching will be contrasted in the following section with the official teaching on sexual ethics, which has not experienced the same kinds of changes.

(1) Shift to historical consciousness.⁷ Historical consciousness is often contrasted with classicism, which understands reality in terms of the eternal, the immutable, and the unchanging. Historical consciousness gives more importance to the particular, the contingent, the historical, and the individual. Historical consciousness should also be contrasted with the other extreme, sheer existentialism, which sees the present moment as isolated in time and without binding relationships to persons and values in the present. Historical consciousness recognizes the need for both continuity and discontinuity. This discussion about world view tends to be primarily a philosophical endeavor, but there are relationships to the theological. The Catholic theological tradition has recognized historicity in its rejection of the axiom, Scripture alone. Scripture must always be understood, appropriated, communicated, and lived in the light of the historical and cultural realities of the present time. The church cannot simply repeat the words of Scripture. Catholicism has undergone much more development than most people think. Creative fidelity is necessary for any tradition, and such fidelity is consistent with the philosphical world view of historical consciousness.

These two different world views spawn two different methodological approaches. The classicist world view is associated with the deductive methodology, which derives its conclusions from premises considered to be eternal verities. The syllogism well illustrates the deductive approach. Note that in such an approach one's conclusions are as certain as the premises if the logic is correct. Historical consciousness recognizes the need for a more inductive approach. However, the need to maintain both continuity as well as discontinuity argues against a one-sided inductive approach, which by its very nature can never achieve the same degree of certitude for its conclusions as does the deductive methodology of the classicist world view.

There can be no doubt that a significant development toward historical consciousness has occurred in the body of official social teaching. Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno is often called in English "On Reconstructing the Social Order."⁸ In this encyclical, the

⁷I have developed in greater detail this shift to historical consciousness as well as the shift to personalism in my Directions in Catholic Social Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), pp. 6-22.

⁸Gilson, p. 218.

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pope proposes his plan for this reorganization, which is often called moderate corporatism or solidarism. This papal plan, in keeping with the traditional emphasis in the Catholic tradition, sees all the different institutions that are part of society as working together for the common good of all. Catholic social teaching has insisted on the metaphor of society as an organism with all the parts existing for the good of the totality. In such an understanding, labor and capital should not be adversaries fighting one another, but should work together for the common good. Moderate corporatism sees labor, capital, and consumers all working together and forming one group to control what happens in a particular industry. This group would set prices, wages, and the amount of goods to be produced. There are also similar groups on a higher level coordinating and directing the individual industries and professions.

Pope Pius XI proposed his plan for reconstruction as something applicable to the whole world. Of course, the world of Pius XI and his contemporaries was primarily the Eurocentric world. The deductive nature of the plan is quite evident in the encyclical. From a philosophical view of society as an organism, the pope sketched out his approach, which was seen as a middle course between the extremes of individualistic capitalism and collective socialism. In reality, this plan had little chance of succeeding, precisely because it did not correspond to any existing historical reality. So, the popes never entered into the debate of making the plan work in practice. Pope Pius XII, the successor of Pope Pius XI, spoke less and less about this plan as his pontificate continued, and Pope John XXIII basically ignored the proposal.⁹

Such a deductive methodology is in keeping with the neoscholastic thesis approach to theology. However, some developments gradually occurred. Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris still follows a generally deductive approach, but, in this and in his earlier encyclical Mater et Magistra, Pope John XXIII did not give attention to the plan for reconstruction proposed by Pope Pius XI. However, at the end of each of the four chapters or parts of Pacem in Terris, there is a short section on the signs of the times-the special characteristics of the present day.¹⁰ Two years later, Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World of the Second Vatican Council, gives a much greater emphasis to historical consciousness. Each of the five chapters in the second part of the document deals with a specific area of concern and each begins with the signs of the times.

Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Letter Octogesima Adveniens of 1971 shows a very heightened awareness of historical consciousness:

In the face of such widely varying situations, it is difficult for us to utter a unified message and to put forward a solution which has universal validity.

⁹For an interpretation that sees somewhat more continuity between Pope Pius XI and his successors, see John F. Cronin, Social Principles and Economic Life, rev. ed. (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1964), pp. 130-40.

¹⁰Pacem in Terris, nn. 39-45; 75-79; 126-29; 142-45; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 133-35,143,154,158-59.

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Such is not our ambition, nor is it our mission. It is up to the Christian communities to analyze with objectivity the situation which is proper to their own country, to shed on it the light of the gospel's unalterable words and to draw principles of reflection, norms of judgment, and directives for action from the social teaching of the church.... It is up to these Christian communities, with the help of the Holy Spirit, in communion with bishops who hold responsibility, and in dialogue with other Christian brethren and all people of good will, to discern the options and commitments which are called for in order to bring about the social, political, and economic changes seen in many cases to be urgently needed.¹¹

Only forty years earlier Pope Pius XI had put forward a plan for social reconstruction which in his mind had universal validity. The difference between the approaches of these two popes is very great.

The more inductive methodology of Octogesima Adveniens gives great importance to contemporary developments. A large portion of the letter is devoted to two aspirations that have come to the fore in the contemporary consciousness:

While scientific and technological progress continues to overturn human surroundings, patterns of knowledge, work, consumption, and relationships, two aspirations persistently make themselves felt in these new contexts, and they grow stronger to the extent that one becomes better informed and better educated: the aspiration to equality and the aspiration to participation, two forms of human dignity and freedom.¹²

It must be pointed out that the present pope, John Paul II, has pulled back somewhat from Pope Paul VI's insistence on historical consciousness. Laborem Exercens, the 1981 encyclical, is a philosophical reflection on work and its meaning that is intended to address all people. In his other writings, John Paul II definitely moves away from the historical consciousness of Paul VI. His christology, for example, is a christology from above that begins with the logos and not with the historical Jesus.

Two reasons help to explain John Paul II's reluctance to embrace historical consciousness. By temperament and training, the present pope is a philosopher who studied, taught, and wrote in the more classical philosophical mode. Such thinking and writing are clearly congenial to him. In addition, historical consciousness can be seen as something of a threat to the unity and central authority in the church. All today recognize the tensions existing between the church universal as represented by the Bishop of Rome and the national and local churches. Local diversity and pluralism are seen as threats to the unity and authority of the church. There can be no doubt that these existing tensions have made Pope John Paul II very wary of historical consciousness.

However, the present pope does not use a more classicist approach to avoid making some very concrete and critical statements about existing social reality. Laborem Exercens does not shrink from criticizing many aspects of the plight of the worker today.

¹¹Octogesima Adveniens, n. 4; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 353, 354.

¹²Octogesima Adveniens, n. 22; O'Brien and Shannon, p. 364.

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Recent Catholic social theology and ethics have embraced the concept of historical consciousness. Consider, for example, the whole field of liberation theology as well as the importance given to praxis and to social analysis in recent writings.

(2) Shift to the person, with an emphasis on freedom, equality, and participation. Within the time frame of the one hundred year span, there has been a very significant shift in Catholic social teaching, away from an emphasis on human nature with a concomitant stress on order, the acceptance of some inequality, and obedience to the many controlling authorities to a recognition of the vital importance of the human person with the concomitant need for human freedom, equality, and participation.

In the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church opposed freedom and the thought of the Englightenment. Freedom in religion, philosophy, science, and politics threatened the old order in all its aspects. Individualistic freedom forgot about human beings' relationships to God, to God's law, to human society in general, and to other human beings. Continental liberalism with its emphasis on individualistic freedom was seen as the primary enemy of the church.¹³ Even in the nineteenth century, official Catholic teaching did not condemn all slavery as always wrong.¹⁴

Pope Leo XIII was very much a part of this tradition. He stressed order and social cohesiveness rather than freedom. God's law and the natural law govern human existence. Leo's view of society was authoritarian, or at least paternalistic. He often referred to the people as the ignorant multitude that had to be led by their rulers. We must recall, of course, the very low state of literacy existing at that time. In social ethics, freedom was seen as a threat to the social organism. Individualistic capitalism was condemned as a form of economic liberalism that claimed that one could pay whatever wage one could get away with. Leo was no friend of democracy, because no majority could do away with God's law. And freedom of religion could never be promoted, but only, at best, be tolerated as the lesser evil in certain circumstances.¹⁵

Development occurred in the methodology of offical Catholic social teaching precisely because of changing historical circumstances. The Catholic Church's enemy, or, in more recent terminology, the dialogue partner, changed. In the nineteenth century, the church opposed the individualistic liberalism of the day. In the twentieth century, as time went on, the central problem became the rise and existence of totalitarian governments. In this context, the Catholic Church began to defend

¹³ John Courtney Murray, "The Church and Totalitarian Democracy," Theological Studies 13 (1952): 525-63.

¹⁴John Francis Maxwell, Slavery and the Catholic Church (London: Barry Rose Publishers, 1975), pp. 78, 79; Joseph D. Brokhage, Francis Patrick Kenrick's Opinion on Slavery (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1955).

¹⁵ John Courtney Murray, The Problem of Religious Freedom (Westminster: Newman Press, 1965), pp. 52-66; Fr. Refoulé, "L'église et les libertés de Léon XIII a Jean XXIII," Le Suppéement 125(mai 1978): 243-59.

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the freedom and dignity of the human person against the encroachments of totalitarianism. Pope Pius XI wrote encyclical letters in the 1930s against fascism, nazism, and communism.¹⁶ In theory, the Roman Catholic Church opposed all forms of totalitarianism, but there can be no doubt that the Church was more willing in practice to tolerate totalitarianism from the right. After the Second World War, Catholic teaching consistently and constantly attacked communism. (Note that in the 1960s with Pope John XXIII, a change occurred and there ensued a much more nuanced dialogical approach to Marxism.)¹⁷ In the light of this polemic, Catholic teaching stressed the freedom and dignity of the individual.

Pope John XXIII's Pacem in Terris in 1963 signals the Catholic acceptance of the role of freedom. In Mater et Magistra in 1961, John XXIII, in keeping with the Catholic tradition, insisted in a major part of this document that the ideal social order rests on the three values of truth, justice, and love.¹⁸ Two years later, in Pacem in Terris, the pope adds a fourth element-truth, justice, charity, and freedom.¹⁹ Pacem in Terris develops, for the first time, a full-blown treatment of human rights in the Catholic tradition.²⁰ Before that time, Catholic thought had been fearful of rights language, precisely because of the danger of excessive individualism. Catholic social teaching had insisted on duties and obedience to the divine and natural law, and not on rights. In its quite late embracing of the human rights tradition, Pacem in Terris still recognizes the danger of individualism by including economic rights and by insisting on the correlation between rights and duties.

There was one major obstacle or inconsistency in Catholic social teaching in the 1960s. While the tradition was now insisting on the importance of freedom and the dignity of the individual, official hierarchical teaching still could not accept religious freedom. One of the great accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 was the acceptance of religious freedom as demanded by the very dignity of the human person. Religious freedom is understood as freedom from external coercion that forces one to act against one's conscience or prevents one's acting in accord with one's conscience in religious matters.²¹ In accepting this teaching, Vatican II had to admit that a significant development and even change had occurred in Catholic thinking, because, in the nineteenth and twentieth century before 1965, official Catholic teaching had not accepted religious freedom.²² In the

¹⁶McLaughlin, pp. 299-402.

¹⁷Arthur F. McGovern, Marxism: An American Christian Perspective (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1980), pp. 90-131.

¹⁸Mater et Magistra, nn. 212-265; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 102-14.

¹⁹Pacem in Terris, nn. 35, 36; O'Brien and Shannon, p. 132.

²⁰Pacem in Terris, nn. 11-34; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 126-32.

²¹Declaration on Religious Freedom, in O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 285-306.

²²John Courtney Murray, "Vers une intelligence du development de la doctrine de I'Eglise sur la liberte religieuse," in J. Hamer and Y. Congar, eds., Vatican II: La Liberte religieuse, declaration 'Dignitatis humanae personae,' (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1967), pp. II 1-47.

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light of present circumstances, one appreciates all the more both the theoretical and the practical import of this change in Catholic teaching.

In 1971, Pope Paul VI devoted a long section of Octogesima Adveniens to two new aspirations that have become more persistent and stronger in the contemporary context: the aspiration to equality and the aspiration to participation (two forms of human dignity and freedom).²³

Pope John Paul II has strengthened and even developed the shift to personalism. Laborem Exercens in 1981 emphasizes that the subjective aspect of work is more important than the objective, precisely because of the dignity of the human person. The personal aspect of labor is the basis for the priority of labor over capital.

Thus, in the twentieth century, a very significant shift has occurred in the methodology of Catholic social teaching by emphasizing the importance of the dignity and freedom of the human person. Catholic personalism is the basis for many changes in particular teachings in the area of social, political, and economic morality.

(3) Shift to a relationality-responsibility ethical model. In general, three generic ethical models have been used to understand the moral life in a systematic way. The deontological model understands morality primarily in terms of law and obedience to the law. Deontological approaches are often castigated for being legalistic in a pejorative sense, but such is not necessarily the case. Think, for example, of the legal model developed by Kant with its categorical imperative. The teleological model understands morality in the light of an end or goal and the means to attain it. One first determines what the end or goal is. Something is good if it leads toward that goal and evil if it impedes it. In the complexity of human existence, there are many various types of goals and ends-the ultimate end, less ultimate ends, subordinate ends, and so forth. The relationality-responsibility model sees the human person in terms of one's multiple relationships with God, neighbor, world, and self and the call to live responsibly in the midst of these relationships. In systematic understandings of moral theory, one of the models will be primary. One word of caution is necessary. Although one of these models is primary, they are not mutually exclusive. Thus, for example, in a teleological model or in a relationality-responsibility model there will always be place for some laws and norms, but the law model will not be primary.

All agree that the manuals of Catholic moral theology, which existed until the time of the Second Vatican Council, employed the legal model as primary. According to the manuals of moral theology, the proximate, subjective, and intrinsic norm of moral action is conscience. Conscience

²³0ctogesima Adveniens, n. 22; O'Brien and Shannon, p. 364.

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is the dictate of moral reason about the morality of an act. The remote, objective, and extrinsic norm of moral action is law. The function of conscience is thus to obey the law. Law is either divine law or human law. Divine law is twofold. First, the laws which necessarily follow from God as the author and creator of nature involve the eternal law, which is the order or plan existing in the mind of God, and the natural law, which is the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature. Second, divine positive law comes from the free determination of God as the author of revelation. Human law has human beings as its author and can be either church or civil law. Note that all law shares in the eternal law of God and that human law must always be seen in relationship to and subordinate to the natural law and the eternal law. Thus, manuals of moral theology view the moral life as conscience obeying the various laws.²⁴ More specifically, Catholic moral teaching has insisted that most of its moral teaching is based on the natural law, which, in principle, is knowable by all human beings since it is human reason reflecting on human nature.

The emphasis, before the Second Vatican Council, on the legal model as primary in Catholic moral theology is somewhat anomalous in light of the Catholic tradition. Thomas Aquinas, the most significant figure in Roman Catholic theological tradition, was not a deontologist but a teleologist.²⁵ It is true that Thomas does have a treatise on law and the different types of law, just as is found in the manuals, but this treatise is comparatively small and appears only at the end of this discussion of ethical theory. Aquinas was an intrinsic teleologist. His first ethical consideration is the ultimate end of human beings. The ultimate end of human beings is happiness, which is achieved when the fundamental powers or drives of human nature achieve their end. The intellect and the will are the most basic human powers. To know the truth and to love the good constitute the basic fulfillment and happiness of the human being. This happiness occurs in the beatific vision. Morality, in this view, is intrinsic. Something is commanded because it is good for the individual and leads to the ultimate fulfillment and happiness of the individual. However, the neo-scholasticism of the manuals of moral theology truncated Aquinas' moral thought and reduced it to a deontological model.

There can be no doubt that Catholic social teaching in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries basically worked out of a legal model. Even as late as 1963, Pacem in Terris recognized the law model to be the primary structural approach to the whole encyclical. Pacem in Terris begins by insisting that peace on earth can be firmly established only if the order laid down by God be dutifully observed. An astounding order reigns in our world and the greatness of human beings is to understand

²⁴ E.g., Marcellinus Zalba, Theologiae Moralis Summa, I: Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1952).

²⁵Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Pars I^a II^ae (Rome: Marietti, 1952).

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that order. The Creator of the world has imprinted on the human heart an order that conscience reveals and enjoins one to obey.²⁶

But fickleness of opinion often produces this error, that many think that the relationships between human beings and states can be governed by the same laws as the forces and of irrational elements of the universe, whereas the laws governing them are of quite a different kind and are to be sought elsewhere, namely, where the Father of all things wrote them, that is, in human nature.

By these laws, human beings are most admirably taught first of all how they should conduct their mutual dealings among themselves, then how the relationships between the citizens and the public authority of each state should be regulated, then how states should deal with one another, and finally how, on the one hand, individual human beings and states, and, on the other hand, the community of all peoples, should act toward each other, the establishment of such a community being urgently demanded today by the requirements of universal common good.²⁷

This introductory section sets the stage for the four parts of the encyclical, which are the four areas mentioned above. Thus, the law model is highlighted as the approach still followed even in Pacem in Terris.

Pope Paul VI's Octogesima Adveniens in 1971 well illustrates the shift from a legal model to a relationality-responsibility model. As noted above, Paul VI strongly endorses a shift to historical consciousness. From such a perspective, this document does not look for the order and laws inscribed in human nature. Instead, the historical character and the dynamism of the church's social teaching are stressed.

It is with all its dynamism that the social teaching of the church accompanies human beings in their search. If it does not intervene to authenticate a given structure or to propose a ready-made model, it does not thereby limit itself to recalling general principles. It develops through reflection applied to the changing situations of this world, under the driving force of the gospel as the source of renewal when its message is accepted in its totality and with all its demands. It also develops with a sensitivity proper to the church which is characterized by a disinterested will to serve and by attention to the poorest. Finally, it draws upon its rich experience of many centuries which enables it, while continuing its permanent preoccupations, to undertake the daring and creative innovations which the present state of the world requires.²⁸

Octogesima Adveniens does not see conscience in the light of' obedience to law. The most characteristic word to describe the function of conscience in this papal letter is discernment (n. 36). Pope Paul VI also introduces into Catholic social teaching the methodological importance of utopias.

The appeal to a utopia is often a convenient excuse for those who wish to escape from concrete tasks in order to take refuge in an imaginary world. To live in a hypothetical future is a facile alibi for rejecting immediate responsibilities. But it must clearly be recognized that this kind of criticism of existing

²⁶Pacem in Terris, nn. 1-5; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 124,125.

²⁷Pacem in Terris, nn. 6, 7; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 125, 126.

²⁸0ctogesima Adveniens, n. 42; O'Brien and Shannon, p. 375.

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society often provokes the forward-looking imagination both to perceive in the present a discarded possibility hidden within it, and to direct itself toward a fresh future; it thus sustains social dynamism by the confidence that it gives to the inventive powers of the human mind and heart; and, if it refuses no overture, it can also meet the Christian appeal. The Spirit of the Lord, who animates human beings renewed in Christ, continually breaks down the horizons within which one's understanding likes to find security and the limits to which one's activity would willingly restrict itself, there dwells within one a power which urges one to go beyond every system and every ideology. At the heart of the world, there dwells the mystery of the human person discovering oneself to be God's child in the course of a historical and psychological process in which constraint and freedom as well as the weight of sin and the breath of the Spirit alternate and struggle for the upper hand.²⁹

Octogesima Adveniens ends with a recognition of shared responsibility, a call to action, and the realization of a pluralism of possible options.³⁰ Thus, the letter definitely marks a decided shift toward the primacy of the relationality-responsibility model in Catholic social teaching. Development within official Catholic social teaching has thus occurred on three very important methodological concerns.

II

The focus now shifts to official Catholic teaching in the area of sexual morality. Three recent documents will be examined: "Declaration of Sexual Ethics," issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on December 29, 1975;³¹ "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," promulgated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on October 1, 1986;³² and "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation," issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on February 22, 1987.³³

The present discussion centers on methodological issues, but something must be said briefly about the authoritative nature of these documents. There is a hierarchy of official Catholic Church documents. These three documents are not from the pope himself but from one of the Roman congregations. By their very nature, such documents are not expected to break new ground. However, it is interesting that the documents have received wide public discussion. Catholics owe a religious respect to the teaching of these documents, but they are of less authoritative weight than the documents issued by the pope himself.

²⁹Octogesima Adveniens, n. 37; O'Brien and Shannon, p. 371.

³⁰Octogesima Adveniens, nn. 47-52; O'Brien and Shannon, pp. 378-82.

³¹Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Declaration on Sexual Ethics," Origins 5 (1976): 485-94. References to this and the subsequent documents will be to the official paragraph numbers. These documents are also available from the Publications Office, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1312 Massachusetts Ave., n. W., Washington, D.C., 20005.

³²Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," Origins 16 (1986): 377-82.

³³Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation," Origins 16 (1987): 697-711.

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For our present purposes, the focus is on the methodological approaches taken in these documents. Study will show that these: methodological approaches differ sharply from the three methodological approaches found in the contemporary documents on Catholic social teaching.

(1) Classicist rather than historically conscious. The "Declaration. on Sexual Ethics" of 1975 shows very little historical consciousness. In the very beginning of the document, the emphasis on the eternal and the immutable is very clear:

Therefore there can be no true promotion of human dignity unless the essential order of human nature is respected. Of course, in the history of civilization many of the concrete conditions and need of human life have changed and will continue to change. But all evolution of morals and ever), type of life must be kept within the limits imposed by the immutable principles based upon every human person's constitutive elements and essential relations-elements and relations which transcend historical contingencies.

These fundamental principles which can be grasped by reason are contained in "the divine law-eternal, objective, and universal-whereby God orders, directs, and governs the entire universe and all the ways of the human community by a plan conceived in wisdom and love. Human beings have been made by God to participate in this law with the result that under the gentle disposition of divine providence they can come to perceive ever increasingly the unchanging truth." This divine law is accessible to our minds (n. 3).

The "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral. Care of Homosexual Persons" in 1986 bases its teaching on "the divine plan" and "the theology of creation," which tell us of "the creator's sexual design" (nn. 1-7). The "theocratic law" (n. 6) found in Scripture also attests to the church's teaching. Emphasis is frequently put on the! will of God, which is known in the above mentioned ways and is what the church teaches.

This letter points out that many call for a change in the church's teaching on homosexuality because the earlier condemnations were culture-bound (n. 4). The letter acknowledges that the Bible was composed in many different epochs with great cultural and historical diversity and that the church today addresses the gospel to a world which differs in many ways from ancient days (n. 5). In the light of this recognition of historical consciousness, one is not prepared for the opening sentence of the next paragraph: "What should be noticed is that, in the presence of such remarkable diversity, there is nevertheless a, clear consistency within the Scriptures themselves on the moral issue of homosexual behavior" (n. 5). Historical consciousness is mentioned only to deny it in practice.

The "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the: Dignity of Procreation," promulgated in 1987, appeals to the unchangeable and immutable laws of human nature. The laws are described as "inscribed in the very being of man and of woman" (II, B, n. 4). These

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laws are "inscribed in their persons and in their union" (Introduction, n. 5).

This instruction describes its own methodology as deductive: "The moral criteria for medical intervention in procreation are deduced from the dignity of human persons, of their sexuality, and of their origins" (II, B, n. 7). "A first consequence can be deduced from these principles" of the natural law (Introduction, n. 3). In summary, these documents show little or no historical consciousness in their approach to questions of sexuality.

(2) The emphasis is on nature and faculties rather than on the person. In the official hierarchical teaching on sexuality, the methodology gives much more significance to nature and faculties than it does to the person. This has been a constant complaint against the older Catholic methodology in sexual ethics that has led to its teaching on masturbation, artificial contraception, sterilization, artificial insemination, homosexual acts, etc.³⁴ The manuals of moral theology based their sexual ethics on the innate purpose, God-given structure, and finality of the sexual faculty. The sexual faculty has a twofold purpose-procreation and love union. Every sexual actuation must respect that twofold finality and nothing should interfere with this God-given purpose. The sexual act itself must be open to procreation and expressive of love. Such an understanding forms the basis of the Catholic teaching that masturbation, contraception, and artificial insemination, even with the husband's seed, are always wrong.³⁵ In the popular mentality, it was often thought that Catholic opposition to artificial contraception was based on a strong pronatalist position, but such is not the case. Catholic teaching has also condemned artificial insemination with the husband's seed that is done precisely in order to have a child. In my judgment, this condemnation points up the problematic aspect in the methodology of Catholic sexual teaching: the sexual faculty can never be interfered with and the sexual act must always be open to procreation and expressive of love. This natural act must always be present. With many other Catholic revisionist theologians, I maintain that for the good of the person or the good of the marriage one can and should interfere with the sexual faculty and the sexual act. I have claimed that the official teaching is guilty of a physicalism that insists the human person cannot interfere with the physical, biological structure of the sexual faculty or the sexual act. There is no doubt that the official documents under discussion here continue to accept and propose this basic understanding.

The "Declaration on Sexual Ethics" points out that the sexual teaching of the Catholic Church is based "on the finality of the sexual act and on the principal criterion of its morality: it is respect for its

³⁴Luigi Lorenzetti, "Trarnissione della vita hurnana: da un'etica della natura ad un'ettica della persona," Rivista di Teologia Morale 18 (1986) 71:117-29.

³⁵E.g., Marcellinus Zalba, Theologiae Moralis Summa, II: Tractatus De Mandatis Dei et Ecclesiae (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1953), pp. 314-420.

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finality that ensures the moral goodness of this act" (n. 5). Sexual sins are described often in this document as "abuses of the sexual faculty" (n. 6, also nn. 8, 9). The nature of the sexual faculty and the sexual act--not the person--form the ultimate moral criterion in matters of sexual morality.

The letter on homosexuality cites the earlier "Declaration on Sexual Ethics" to point out that homosexual acts are deprived of their essential. and indispensable finality and are intrinsically disordered (n. 3). This. letter points out that only within marriage can the use of the sexual. faculty be morally good (n. 7). However, there does seem to be a, development in this letter in terms of a greater appeal to personalism. The teaching claims to be based on the reality of the human person in one's spiritual and physical dimensions (n. 2). There are more references to the human person throughout this document than in the earlier declaration, but the change is only verbal. The methodology is ultimately still based on the nature of the faculty and of the act, which are then assumed to be the same thing as the person.

The instruction on some aspects of bioethics is very similar to the letter on homosexuality in this regard. There are references to the "intimate structure" of the conjugal act and to the conjugal act as expressing the self gift of the spouses and their openness to the gift of life. The document also appeals to the meaning and values that are expressed in the language of the body and in the union of human persons (II, B, n. 4). Thus, the terms (the finality of the faculty, and of the act and the abuse of the sexual faculty) are not used, but the basic teaching, remains the same. There are many more references to the person and to the rights of persons than in the earlier documents, but the change remains verbal and does not affect the substance of the teaching.

(3) Ethical model. There can be no doubt that the documents in official Catholic teaching on sexuality employ the law model as primary. The "Declaration on Sexual Ethics" in its discussion of ethical methodology insists on the importance of the divine law-eternal, objective, and. universal-whereby God orders, directs, and governs the entire universe (n. 3). This document bases its teaching on the "existence of immutable laws inscribed in the constitutive elements of human nature and which are revealed to be identical in all beings endowed with reason" (n. 4). Throughout the introductory comments, there is no doubt whatsoever that this declaration follows a legal model.

Since sexual ethics concern certain fundamental values of human and Christian life, this general teaching equally applies to sexual ethics. In this domain, there exist principles and norms which the church has always unhesitatingly transmitted as part of her teaching, however much the opinions and morals of the world may have been opposed to them. These principles and norms in no way owe their origin to a certain type of culture, but rather to knowledge of the divine law and of human nature. They therefore cannot be considered as having become out of date or doubtful under the pretext that a new cultural situation has risen (n. 5).

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The "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" is by its very nature more concerned with pastoral care than with an explanation of the moral teaching and the ethical model employed in such teaching (n. 2). However, the occasional references found in this pastoral letter indicate the deontological model at work. There are frequent references to the will of God, the plan of God, and the theology of creation. Traditional Catholic natural law is the basis for this teaching. The teaching of Scripture on this matter is called "theocratic law" (n. 6). The recent instruction on bioethics definitely employs a deontological ethical model:

Thus, the Church once more puts forward the divine law in order to accomplish the work of truth and liberation. For it is out of goodness-in order to indicate the path of life-that God gives human beings his commandments and the grace to observe them (Introduction, n. 1).

The natural moral law expresses and lays down the purposes, rights, and duties which are based upon the bodily and spiritual nature of the human person. Therefore, this law cannot be thought of as simply a set of norms on the biological level; rather, it must be defined as the rational order whereby the human being is called by the Creator to direct and regulate one's life and action and in particular to make use of one's own body (Introduction, n. 3).

This document also cites the following quotation from Mater et Magistra: "The transmission of human life is entrusted by nature to a personal and conscious act and as such is subject to the all-holy laws of God: immutable and inviolable laws which must be recognized and observed" (Introduction, n. 4). Biomedical science and technology have grown immensely in the last few years, but "science and technology require, for their own intrinsic meaning, an unconditional respect for the fundamental criteria of the moral law" (Introduction, n. 2).

A very significant practical difference between a law model and a relationality-responsibility model is illustrated by the teaching proposed in these documents. In a legal model, the primary question is the existence of law. If something is against the law, it is wrong; if there is no law against it, it is acceptable and good. Within such a perspective, there is very little gray area. Something is either forbidden or permitted. Within a relationality-responsibility model, there are more gray areas. Here one recognizes that in the midst of complexity and specificity one cannot always claim a certitude for one's moral positions.

III

The contemporary official Catholic teaching on social issues with its relationality-responsibility model recognizes significant gray areas. Octogesima Adveniens acknowledges the pluralism of options available and the need for discernment. The two recent pastoral letters of the United States Roman Catholic bishops on peace and the economy well illustrate such an approach. The documents make some very particular judgments but they recognize that other Catholics might in good conscience disagree with such a judgmentss. The Bishop's letters call for unity and agreement on the level of principles, but they recognize that

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practical judgements on specific issues cannot claim with absolute certitude to be the only possible solution. The pastoral letter on peace, for example, proposes that the first use of nuclear weapons is always wrong but recognizes that other catholics in good conscience might disagree with such a judgment. ³⁶

In the contemporary official Catholic teaching on sexual issues, there is little or no mention of such gray areas. Something is either forbidden or permitted. Even in the complex question of bioethics, the same approach is used. Certain technologies and interventions are always wrong; others are permitted. Thus, the very way in which topics are treated, namely, either forbidden or permitted, indicates again that a legal model is at work in the hierarchical sexual teaching.

The thesis and the conclusions of this paper are somewhat modest, but still very significant. There can be no doubt that there are three important methodological differences between hierarchical Roman Catholic teaching on social morality and the official hierarchical teaching on sexual morality. Whereas the official social teaching has evolved so that it now employs historical consciousness, personalism, and a relationality-responsibility ethical model, the sexual teaching still emphasizes classicism, human nature and faculties, and a law model of' ethics. The ramifications of these conclusions are most significant and must be thoroughly explored.

³⁶United States Catholic Bishops, "The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response," Origins 13 (1983): 2, 3.