Happy New Year!

Our Lady of Haddington, pray for us!

John Haldane –the leading Scottish Catholic philosopher- was recently reappointed Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture. His reaction embodies all that I struggle to say much less clearly on this blog:

Reacting to his reappointment, Professor Haldane said;
"One of Pope Benedict's priorities is the re-evangelisation of Western civilisation and bringing Europe back into Christendom. The way to re-evangelise Western civilisation is through cultural dialogue; that is through re-interpreting the arts and philosophy through a Christian perspective. There is a larger issue than declining numbers in churches and that is about convincing at a cultural and intellectual level. As a Catholic intellectual, I am very happy to be associated with this."

The many issues on which Catholics find themselves at odds with ‘modernity’ are in large part cultural ones: previous generations accepted Christian culture but failed to live up to it; our generation no longer even accepts large parts of the Christian world view.

In the end, all the debates about same sex ‘marriage’, euthanasia, the role of religion in the public square and so on boil down to profound cultural challenges to the Catholic world view. The answer to those challenges of course involves the sort of vigorous public and political defence that the Scottish bishops have put up against the proposed same sex ‘marriage’ legislation. But beyond that, it must involve a daily struggle to demonstrate the truth, beauty and goodness of Christianity and, in particular, Catholicism as a culture.

A happy New Year to all my readers!

A reader asks: on civil partnerships

A comment from Frederick on the previous post merits a more extensive treatment than I can give it in a combox. Frederick asks:

If you have no truthful way of sexual expression except with one of your own sex then continence is only possible if you accept some higher authority. The Church can therefore demand what the state can't. It is not reasonable for the state to make demands of people which can only be made in the light of revelation. The state must therefore seek rules which can be applied to those for whom revelation is not part f their experience. If those rules encourage fidelity and reduce promiscuity they must be better than rules which do not. In that sense they can be given some limited support

My reply:

Let’s adopt a distinction common in religious studies between an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ perspective. For a Catholic, the insider perspective isn’t just one perspective amongst many, but the correct perspective on the world. Since we’re both Catholics, let’s stick with that perspective. (So everything I write below assumes that I’m addressing someone who accepts the broad Catholic view of the world: I’d write differently if I were addressing a non-Catholic.)

1)      In order to achieve sanctification –ie the final vocation of the human being- we all need God’s grace (CCC 2021-2). In this, those with homosexual inclinations are no different from any other people. If people reject the idea of grace, they will, of course, fail to co-operate with it and therefore will (at least to some extent) remain in a state of disorder. That isn’t a peculiarity of homosexual disorder, but all human disorders, sexual and otherwise –ie the normal human condition. On that basis, should the state make no demands of anyone, simply because, on their own initiative, none of us can achieve anything?

2)      a) Revelation is a source of knowledge (about eg human nature) but not the only source of knowledge. Of course, if someone rejects revelation, she is going to be in a worse position regarding her understanding than someone who accepts revelation –but that doesn’t, in itself, absolve her of responsibility for those failures of knowledge or immunize her from the effects of those errors.

      b) Another source of knowledge about human nature is the natural law ‘written and engraved in the soul of each and every man’ (Leo XIII quoted in CCC 1954). Another way of putting this is that philosophical reasoning about human flourishing can discern much (and we can argue how much) of what it is to live well without revelation. You seem to assume that knowledge of the wrongness of homosexual activity is dependent on revelation; but (as I have indicated in previous postings) a number of philosophers –ancient and modern- have argued for its wrongness on grounds apart from revelation. (For example see previous postings on John Finnis and John Haldane. For a non-Catholic perspective off this blog, see Roger Scruton.)

3)      I simply reject your claim: ‘If those rules encourage fidelity and reduce promiscuity they must be better than rules which do not.’ My reasons for doing so are given previously in my post. Specifically:

Two answers. Firstly, let me concede the point. Someone who is in a faithful life long homosexual partnership possibly is a better person than someone who is promiscuous. But better still is the person who is celibate. And none of that shows that society would be right to promote civil partnerships: it is quite possible that the social harm in such a promotion –in the undermining of the difference between homosexual and heterosexual activity for example and the encouragement of homosexuality amongst the bisexual- would outweigh its benefits. (Just as it might well be the case that the balance of social harms in promoting condoms might outweigh the benefits to be achieved by (say) the prevention of AIDs in the case of individual sex workers.) So while it might be right for individual homosexuals to reduce their sinfulness by entering into a partnership, it would not be right for society or the Church to promote publicly such arrangements. (One could quite well imagine a priest privately counselling a Mafioso only to hurt and not to kill his victims, but not wishing to make such advice public for fear of encouraging others to hurt and not leave alone.)

Secondly, I’m not sure that it is clear that a homosexual who is in a lifetime faithful partnership is a better person than someone who, eg, indulges in bouts of promiscuity followed by periods of regret.  For a heterosexual couple, the point of sexual restraint is that it is one of the attributes of marriage that make it suitable for childrearing. Now, putting aside theological considerations, that restraint comes at a cost. Some possibilities are lost by such restraint: these might include the ability to move across the world for new job, or the simple loss of exploring a variety of people as sexual partners. For a heterosexual, they are the cost of the pearl of childrearing: these are the sacrifices to be made to achieve a stable environment for childrearing. But such a consideration doesn’t apply to homosexual couples. So I’m not at all sure that, in itself, fidelity in homosexual relationships makes them better than promiscuity. (Fidelity in a Mafioso may well make him a worse person.) I accept that, in individual cases, it may well be better for an individual to abstain from homosexual promiscuity just as, in an individual case, it may be better for someone to abstain from alcohol. But neither case suggests that, in general, promiscuity or drinking is a bad thing.

In short, I don't accept your claim that, even if civil partnerships encouraged fidelity, they would on that ground be advisable a) because they might still cause harm to the social, common good; and b) it isn't clear that fidelity in such a case is even a benefit to the persons concerned.

Civil partnerships (again)

                       Another amicable exchange of views on how best to share the gospel




I had intended to leave off blogging for the Christmas octave/New Year, but an exchange on the question of civil partnerships has sucked me back in!

Caroline Farrow and The Thirsty Gargoyle  -two of my favourite Catholic bloggers- have been defending Archbishop Nichols' statements on civil partnerships on which I have blogged previously. Whilst I tend to agree with much of what they say about the tone of the attacks on Catholic Voices and the Archbishop in the Catholic blogosphere, I don't agree with them on the substance of those attacks, namely, that there is a lack of needful clarity about the Archbishop's views on civil partnerships.

The Gargoyle provides a thoughtful defence of the Archbishop's statements based on the argument that, as interpreted by law, civil partnership legislation does not undermine marriage. He concludes in his article for Catholic Voices:

The bishops were opposed to the scheme as first proposed, and drew on the 2003 CDF document in making a case largely based on the need to defend and promote the traditional understanding of marriage. As codified, however, the 2004 law – while imperfect – does not undermine the unique position of marriage in British law as it does not presuppose that a civil partnership is a homosexual relationship. Treating sexuality and sexual behaviour as private phenomena, it denies homosexual unions a parliamentary imprimatur and does not enshrine them as institutions within the legal structure of the United Kingdom.

Now, I'm not at all sure that I accept his argument, even as it stands: it seems to me, even within its own very narrow terms of legal interpretation, to be a moot point whether it is true to claim that the civil partnership legislation does not presuppose a homosexual relationship. Certainly, this is the view of the barrister, Jacqueline Humphreys as reported by John Smeaton.  Moreover, the Gargoyle's argument rather slides over the change of view implicit in the move from clear opposition to civil partnerships expressed in the English bishops' original response to the consultation to Archbishop Nichols' current statements, noting simply that the response was to the proposed legislation whilst the Archbishop's statements were in response to the enacted legislation. This raises the question: what changes of substance were included in the actual legislation which allowed such a change of view on the part of the bishops?

But it is the narrowness of the Gargoyle's perspective that is my chief objection here. We have, surrounding the legislation, a clear statement of opposition by the English bishops to the draft proposal. We have an entire culture of civil partnerships which blurs the distinction between marriage and civil partnerships (see John Smeaton's blog entry for photos illustrating this). We have confusion among Catholics with same sex attraction as to the Church's position. If -and it's a big if- the Gargoyle's analysis is correct, then it would be helpful, at the least, for clarity to be introduced along the lines of: 'Well, we don't think the legislation itself is necessarily a bad thing, but we certainly don't wish to endorse the use of it to blur the distinction between marriage and civil partnerships, nor do we wish to endorse sexual relationships between same sex partners.'

Behind all this stand, I think, two bigger background issues. First, there is the question of Church politics, particularly a sense among some Catholics that there is almost a war within the Church between the faithful, orthodox Catholics, and a group of sixties', liberal hangovers, with a particular hold on power through an episcopal Magic Circle. To be honest, I have little interest in this sort of debate: as I've said before, having been an Anglican, any local disagreements within the Catholic Church look positively minor, and, to the extent that they are not, I'm really not interested in slagging off fellow Catholics who are trying to be faithful according to the consciences.

Second, however, there is a genuine, theological and moral issue. A great many Catholics seem to have lost confidence in the reasonableness of the Church's traditional moral teaching. There is a feeling among many that there is very little to be said in favour of, eg, teachings on contraception, homosexual activity and pre-marital sex other than 'Rome says so'. And to the extent that this teaching is based simply on authority rather than reason, there is the expectation that it will, eventually, be updated. (Rather like the expectation that an aged uncle's casual racism at the annual Christmas dinner table will solve itself when he eventually drops dead.) Although these Catholics may be happy to defend marriage, they are rather less happy at condemning homosexual activity because, really, they don't believe it can be defended except on the grounds of tradition and authority (which, to the modern mind, are worse than no defence at all).

I am absolutely certain that the Church's teachings on sexual issues can and should be defended on natural law, ie, philosophical grounds. Moreover, I am absolutely certain that a more vigorous articulation and defence of her teachings in this area is an essential element in the culture war that exists between secularized modernity and traditional understandings of human flourishing. To the extent that the question of civil partnerships raises issues surrounding human sexuality -and it clearly does- the position of the Church has generally to be articulated clearly and robustly, even if, on particular occasions (eg particular interviews) the whole story can't be told.

I've already articulated my own view of the Archbishop's statements. I think they are unclear rather than clearly wrong. But to the extent that they are to be clarified by the sort of defence offered by the Gargoyle -ie not (as I would suggest) that the Church (purely on the grounds of practical politics) is not focusing on civil partnerships just now, but rather (as the Gargoyle suggests) it is not focusing on them because, in principle, it is not opposed to them- I think they are wrong or, perhaps more accurately, introducing still further confusion into an area which now needs clarity.

And in doing this, I am perhaps in the enviable position as compared to my English readers of being able to do so both as a defender of Catholic truth and of episcopal authority. As reported recently in the Catholic Herald:

Scotland’s most senior Church leader has reiterated his opposition to the introduction of civil partnerships, which were legalized across Britain in 2004. Cardinal Keith O’Brien said this week that the introduction of civil partnerships  was ‘not in the best interests of our society.’