Bishops’ synod: intermediary report on marriage and homosexuality causes perplexity

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D. | October 14, 2014

Although on the surface it seems like an internal affair of the Catholic Church, the Bishop’s Synod on issues related to marriage and the family is of great significance also for non-Catholics, given that the Catholic Church is the only institution of truly world-wide influence that steadfastly defends a correct view on those issues. But how long will it continue doing so?

Liberal mass-media have gleefully commented on the intermediary report that was released yesterday to summarize the outcome of the first week of deliberations, and which seems to indicate possible “openings” with regard to an acceptance of divorce and/or homosexuality by the Church.

At the same time, more traditionally-minded Catholics have expressed their discomfort and perplexity. There appear to be also wide differences of opinion within the synod itself. Reportedly, there is a strong majority of Synod fathers who feel that the views they expressed in their interventions were not correctly reflected in the intermediary report. Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, speaking on behalf of the Polish bishops’ conference of which he is the President, described the document as “unacceptable”, as it “departs from the teaching of John Paul II, and is tainted with traces of anti-marriage ideology”. Even Cardinal Peter Erdö of Esztergom/Budapest (Hungary), who as General Relator had been tasked with the drafting of the intermediary report, declined to assume full responsibility for it, indicating that questions regarding the report’s controversial prose on homosexuality should be addressed to the Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto (Italy), who, as it appears, managed to get those passages into the report against the will of a majority of participants.

In view of all this turmoil, it is certainly not helpful that the Vatican has imposed a very restrictive information policy on the Synod, which makes it very difficult to find out who said what in the synodal aula. As Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, commented some days ago, it would do no damage to let the faithful know what their bishops actually said… The lack of transparency already has let some observers (such as La Stampa’s Marco Tosatti) conclude that this Synod is a “piloted” process.
We are thus left to form our own opinion on the (not very long) document that was presented yesterday to the press.

The most controversial topics it deals with is the due pastoral care for persons who have divorced and (civilly) re-married, and for homosexuals. There is no doubt that these people need pastoral care and attention perhaps even more than other people do. But does this mean that the Church should accept divorce, re-marriage, sodomy, etc.?

With regard to homosexuals, the interim report contains the following statement:

50. Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home. Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?
…
52. Without denying the moral problems connected to homosexual unions it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners. Furthermore, the Church pays special attention to the children who live with couples of the same sex, emphasizing that the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority.

What precisely do these words mean?

Obviously, the assertion that “homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community” is true, and so is the suggestion that they should be offered a fraternal space in the Church. For example, Michelangelo Buonarotti is by many biographers believed to have been homosexual – and undoubtedly he had great gifts and qualities to offer to the Church, which the Church accepted with gratitude.

The problem with statements such as the one quoted here is that they are true with regard not only to homosexuals, but with regard to everyone – including paedophiles, tax-evaders, drug addicts, serial killers, or neo-Nazis. Everyone has (to a greater and lesser extent) some qualities to offer, and the Christian community must be open for everyone, even for those without any remarkable gifts and qualities. The Church is composed of sinners, and it is there to receive and welcome sinners.

But that does not mean that the Church should welcome sin. On the contrary, its mission is to be welcoming to sinners in order to convert them, i.e., to help them to repent and adopt a lifestyle that is morally sound. In the famous parable of the prodigal son, the father showed his mercy by receiving his repenting son back into his house – not by introducing into his house, or himself adopting, the vices in which the son indulged before repenting…

Thus, the statement on “gifts and qualities” is in full line with what the Church has always taught and practiced, but it is a mere truism. The question is: why does such a statement have to be made with particular regard to homosexuals rather than to sinners in general? Is it in order to suggest, albeit indirectly and somewhat surreptitiously, that homosexuality is itself a “gift and quality”? And what is meant by “accepting and valuing their sexual (viz. homosexual) orientation”? If the meaning is that the Church should be aware that there are people who feel attracted to persons of the same sex, and that these people are deserving of pastoral care, then the statement is certainly not revolutionary. The Church has at all times been aware of this. One can “accept” this in the same way as one “accepts” all other facts: it just means that one does not pretend it weren’t the case. But that kind of “acceptance” is not to be confounded with the moral acceptance of homosexual behaviour. People may not be responsible for their sexual proclivities, but they clearly are responsible for their actions.

Much in the same vein, it is not quite clear how one should “value” a homosexual proclivity. Such a proclivity (like any sexual proclivity that is directed towards other targets than persons of the opposite sex of appropriate age) is objectively in contradiction to the order of nature – so, if it has any value, that value must be a negative one. The “gift and quality” of Michelangelo was his artistic genius, not his (alleged) homosexuality.

Yet another question is the principle of “graduality”, i.e. whether a homosexual relationship (which by definition is not a “normal” friendship between persons of the same sex, but one that involves, or is even focussed on, sodomy) becomes “better”, and thus can be considered a step into the right direction, if it is stable and durable rather than instable and transient. But quite obviously, if sodomy is objectively and intrinsically bad, the Church should do its best to lead people away from it, and it should be glad if such a relationship is transient rather than durable. A friendship that leads people to provide mutual aid and solidarity is certainly a good thing – if that friendship is itself not based on vice and debauchery. But there also can be bad friendships, which a person may have to give up in order to return to a morally good life. Sacrifice is good if it serves a good purpose. But what should we think of a man who “sacrifices” his marriage and family in order to move in with a homosexual boyfriend? Such a decision may well be a “sacrifice” – but is it one that the Church should value and praise?

Finally, there is this reference to children living with couples of the same sex. Of course it is true that “the needs and rights of the little ones must always be given priority” – but what exactly does that mean? Is it implied that, depending on the individual circumstances, it may be better for a child to live with such a couple rather than to be placed in an institution? Or does it mean that such situations are entirely unobjectionable, including in cases where they are deliberately and artificially created (e.g., by a homosexual couple that “adopts” a child, or a lesbian couple that makes use of medically assisted reproduction procedures)?

One might raise similar questions with regard to what the report says on the divorce issue (and if I find time in the coming days I might still do so). But from what has been said above it already is possible to draw a general conclusion. The problem of this paper is its ambiguity. It does not explicitly promote errors and heresies (at least not on homosexuality), but it leaves a wide leeway for them. Even worse, it seems to open such a leeway where before there was none. For a Bishop’s Synod that should serve the purpose of clarifying the Church’s stance, this would be a poor outcome.

I am not sure whether any of the Synod’s participants is going to read this. But let me just say this much: ultimately the faith of the Church is not determined by popes and bishops, but by the sensus fidelium. And the sensus fidelium is not necessarily expressed by what “the majority” believes, but by what is believed by those who really remain faithful to the gospel. The homosexualist ideology is not one for which I predict a very long life-span.

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