Priestly Celibacy

What makes a Catholic? Do most Catholics really know what they believe and why? I find the doctrine of papal infallibility disturbing. Does that make me not a Catholic?

Maybe I'm lacking in faith. After all, if I truly believe in God, why have I got such a problem believing that he would keep the Pope, his earthly representative, free from preaching error and heresy to his faithful? Perhaps my issue with papal infallibility is a weakness in my own faith. Don't I believe that God has the power and the will to keep his Church from corruption and from false teachings? Maybe I just don't have enough faith.

On the other hand, is it truly a lack on my part if I don't have faith in an institution which has abused the faith of its congregation over and over again? I'm not just talking about the terribly frequent occurences of molestation of young boys at the hands of their parish priests, but of the even bigger travesty performed by the bishops who ignored the parents' concerns, ignored the children's complaints, and just shifted abusive priests from one parish to another. What a terrible tragedy, to ignore the problem, refuse to discipline or treat the priest for his pathology, and to send him to another unsuspecting parish, where he would be free to molest another set of innocent victims. It is truly disgusting, and it could not have been more fallibly mishandled.

Priestly celibacy was one of the issues to be addressed at Vatican II. Unfortunately, when John XXIII died and Paul VI took over, the issue was shelved. In 1967, he released Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, and that was the end of the discussion. "Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes." Some jewel. The problem of priestly ephebophiles is older than the jewel of celibacy.

And celibate priesthood, which so many Catholics seem to think is a necessary part of their faith, is not as old as they think. The apostles, after all, were married. Priestly celibacy has long been a tradition of the Church, but it wasn't until the year 1078 that Gregory VII made it mandatory in church law. And, according to Fr. Thomas Doyle, who has studied this topic in church literature throughout history, it seems that there have always been sexually abusive priests. In the year 177 (Should I use C.E. to be inclusive, or A.D. since I'm talking about the Church??) abusive priests were excommunicated and called "foes of Christianity." In 1179, offenders were sent to monasteries. In 1568, Pope Pius V sentenced offending priests to secular courts for punishment. The Code of Canon Law condemned priests who exploit minors, who abuse power, and who solicit sexual favours while hearing confession. This is obviously not a new phenomenon.

In 1971, the Vatican commissioned a psychiatrist, Conrad Baars, to study the crisis in the priesthood. He recommended a re-examination of priestly celibacy. Their elevated status distanced them from society; their oath of celibacy distanced them from their own desires. They were psychosexually immature, lonely, depressed, neurotic, and prone to alcoholism.

The Church's current solution seems to be to condemn homosexuality, including condemning gay priests. (This is a documentary from 360 Vision) But statistics show that homosexual men are not any more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexual men. It is true that abusive priests seem to prefer to abuse boys rather than girls, but that is more likely to be linked with their own repressed and thwarted sexuality, and not with a healthy homosexual orientation.

Anyway, in the face of all this, how can any rational person seriously believe that the Pope is infallible? Priestly celibacy is a jewel? How fallible has that statement turned out to be? There is a problem in the church. We need to reexamine this oath of celibacy. Perhaps we also need to reexamine the hierarchical structure of the Church, which led to such a terrible coverup of something so blatantly wrong. Perhaps we need to pay more than lip service to Vatican II's dictum that the laity need to take more involvement in the Church. Something is wrong with the Church, and I believe that much good could be accomplished by removing the old patriarchal system, the laws of enforced celibacy, and by allowing women to act in all ministries. We need a renovation.

Or does that make me not a Catholic?

Rebellion

My characters, my fictional Catholics, understand the church's promise of eternal life but nevertheless find it lacking. For what they really want is life returned to them, the world returned to them, in all its magnificence and love and heartbreaking detail. Life uncompromised by death, death utterly defeated. Anything less is unacceptable.

It is a mad, unreasonable demand, of course, but it is also, it seems to me, the primitive impulse that makes faith necessary. It is the mad, unreasonable demand -- and promise -- made by Christ himself.

When Jesus tells Martha, "Your brother will rise," she replies as any one of us pretty-good-to-middling Catholics might, as one well trained in the language of faith should: "I know he will rise," she replies, "in the resurrection on the last day." If ever a false Messiah had an out, here it was. Jesus had only to tell her, Right you are; you get an A. What he does instead, mad prophet, is refuse such easy comfort. he becomes, John tells us, troubled, deeply perturbed. He weeps. "See how he loved him," the onlookers say. And then Jesus calls Lazarus from the grave. Jesus restores what has vanished, returns Lazarus to life, to his sisters, returns not the soul or the spirit, the memory or the ghost, but the man himself, the profile and the grace, the honest look, the laughter, the love -- and proves to us that death is not forever.

In his refusal to be reconciled, Jesus makes possible our impossible hopes, confirms our own primitive rebellion against that terrible thing that is the death of those we love. And reminds us -- or should remind us, if we can just shake ourselves from the numbing familiarity of the tenets of our church, the platitudes, the rote rituals, and the petty obsessions -- that ours is a mad, rebellious faith, one that flies in the face of all reason, all evidence, all sensible injunctions to be comforted, to be comfortable. A faith that rejects every timid impulse to accept the fact that life goes on pleasantly enough despite all that vanishes, despite death itself.

What I have to say about being Catholic, then, is simply this: Being Catholic is an act of rebellion. A mad, stubborn, outrageous, nonsensical refusal to be comforted by anything less than the glorious impossibility of the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

But as we face the church of the twenty-first century, my hope is that we nonfictional Catholics regain the courage to be difficult, rebellious, mad, the courage to refuse to be comforted. That we refuse to be comforted by the familiar, by the way we've always done things (priests in charge, laity ushering, women running bake sales). That we refuse to be comforted by our own self-satisfied eloquence about the dignity of unborn life while political or practical imperatives silence our objections to the destruction of life in the ghetto or in the death chamber. That we refuse to be comforted by our good, prosperous lives, by the careful picking and choosing of what words of Christ we will take to heart.

My hope for the church, for us, is that we recall the adolescent rebellion that seems a part of most of our biographies as Catholics, recall our youthful dissatisfactions and objections
... and speak them again. Or, if that adolescent rebellion seems too distant to recall, then my hoope is that each of us becomes the garrulous drunk in the congregation, the loudmouthed, inappropriate, indiscreet psycho who cries foul over hypocrisy and deception and illogic and cliche, refusing to accept the easy comfort of assurances that the hierarchy will fix itself, that Jesus doesn't want women to be priests, that it is acceptable for Catholics to acquiesce to a politically defensible but morally unjust war.

At the heart of our beliefs, at the heart of our faith, lies the outrageous conviction that love redeems us, Christ redeems us, even from death. Following this wild proposition, this fulfillment of our most primitive yearnings, every other outrageous thing we expect or demand of ourselves and our church -- honesty, charity, goodness, forgiveness, peace -- surely must begin to seem reasonable, even easy. Every other challenge the twenty-first century brings should seem -- even to the likes of us not-so-great Catholics -- simple enough: a benefit, no doubt, of the simple grace of being Catholic.

--Alice McDermott, The Lunatic in the Pew

First Communion

I went to Confession on Saturday night, for the first time in years. I explained to the priest that I really had no certainty whether or not God existed, but that I have decided to make an attempt to believe. I have leaned on the side of doubt for ten years and could never get over the feeling that I was missing something spiritually. I have come to the decision to lean to the side of faith instead. I wish to return to the Church, return to the Sacraments, and see if that makes me feel more spiritually fulfilled. If there is a God, perhaps I will get a better sense of that through returning to the Church.

The priest surprised me by telling me that everyone doubts, himself included. He said that nobody knows whether or not God exists, but that we must choose to believe.

I had never thought of faith as a choice. But I guess that’s exactly what it is. I am making a leap of faith.

The next morning, my fiance and I went to Church. He is not Catholic. He is an atheist, actually, but has agreed to go to Church with me each week.

Although our (future) kids will be raised with a Catholic mother and an atheist father, just as I was, I want their upbringing to be different. I will not have my kids praying for their father’s conversion. I do not want them to have the perception that I believe their father to be wrong. And he has agreed to go to Mass with us on Sundays, so that he does not give the impression that he believes me to be wrong. And perhaps, in this loving and mutually respectful manner, we will be able to minimize their internal conflict between doubt and faith.

Anyway, we went to church together on Sunday morning, where we discovered that this Mass was also a celebration of First Communion for a grade two class. It was going to be a much longer Mass than we’d accounted for. My fiance had to go home, because he had a roast in the oven and couldn’t spend the extra time in church wondering if our kitchen was burning down. I almost left with him. I hadn’t bargained for an extra-long Mass, either. I didn’t want to be here. I could start next week.

What kept me there was the knowledge that my fiance was going out of his way to make good on his promise to me that he will come to Mass with me every week, in spite of the fact that he doesn’t even believe in God! What a wonderful man I have. He certainly isn’t going for himself, and he won’t want to go for me, if I don’t show him that I believe it to be important! I had to stay.

And it turned out to be a wonderful experience. What could have been more appropriate than to take my first Communion in ten years at a First Holy Communion Mass? I felt I was meant to be there, and I couldn’t believe that I’d almost turned around and walked out when I found out it was going to be a longer than usual service.

The homily was, of course, all about the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Father said that it was as necessary for our spiritual growth as food is for our bodies. And I really believed, for a moment. I felt so happy to be receiving Jesus in the Sacrament. I could hardly wait for my turn to come. I watched the children receive their first Communion with tears in my eyes. Literally! And I could hardly wait for my turn. I stood up before it was time for my row to go, and had to sit down again. I could hardly contain my excitement. It’s really true, I thought. There is a God and I’m about to receive Communion. What a miracle!

And of course my doubt was clouding in. Of course there’s no God, you idiot. You’re just overly emotional from last night. Which may very well have been true. The previous night, after Confession, I’d met with my sister, two of my cousins, and all of my mother’s sisters to pray the rosary for my mother, and then to have a meeting about her alcoholism. We decided that my sister and I are going to confront my mother, and see if she will agree to go to a rehab.

So perhaps my enthusiasm for the Eucharist wasn’t my soul singing out in happiness to be fed with the Bread of Life. Perhaps I was just overtired and overemotional after a very draining evening the night before.

But faith is a choice I must make. And I have made the choice to believe. I wonder if it will get any easier, or if the doubt always comes running in, clouding that moment of true belief, and making it a choice to make all over again.

I really hope that I can resolve this, so that my faith is something I truly believe, and not so much something I must choose to believe over and over again.

NY Times: Homosexuality in Bible

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
October 23, 2004

So when God made homosexuals who fall deeply, achingly in love with each other, did he goof?

That seems implicit in the measures opposing gay marriage on the ballots of 11 states. All may pass; Oregon is the only state where the outcome seems uncertain.

Over the last couple of months, I've been researching the question of how the Bible regards homosexuality. Social liberals tend to be uncomfortable with religious arguments, but that is the ground on which political battles are often decided in America - as when a Texas governor, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, barred the teaching of foreign languages about 80 years ago, saying, "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us."

I think it's presumptuous of conservatives to assume that God is on their side. But since Americans are twice as likely to believe in the Devil as in evolution, I also think it's stupid of liberals to forfeit the religious field.

Some scholars, like Daniel Helminiak, author of "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality," argue that the Bible is not anti-gay. I don't really buy that.
It's true that the story of Sodom is treated by both modern scholars and by ancient Ezekiel as about hospitality, rather than homosexuality. In Sodom, Lot puts up two male strangers for the night. When a lustful mob demands they be handed over, Lot offers his two virgin daughters instead. After some further unpleasantness, God destroys Sodom. As Mark Jordan notes in "The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology," it was only in the 11th century that theologians began to condemn homosexuality as sodomy.

In fact, the most obvious lesson from Sodom is that when you're attacked by an angry mob, the holy thing to do is to offer up your virgin daughters.

Still, the traditionalists seem to me basically correct that the Old Testament does condemn at least male anal sex (scholars disagree about whether the Hebrew phrasing encompasses other sexual contact). While homosexuality never made the Top 10 lists of commandments, a plain reading of the Book of Leviticus is that male anal sex is every bit as bad as other practices that the text condemns, like wearing a polyester-and-cotton shirt (Leviticus 19:19).

As for the New Testament, Jesus never said a word about gays, while he explicitly advised a wealthy man to give away all his assets and arguably warned against bank accounts ("do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth").

Likewise, Jesus praises those who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, but conservative Christians rarely lead the way with self-castration.
Theologians point out that the Bible is big enough to encompass gay relationships and tolerance - as well as episodic condemnations of gays. For example, 1 Samuel can be read as describing gay affairs between David and Jonathan.

In the New Testament, Matthew and Luke describe how Jesus cured the beloved servant of a centurion - and some scholars argue that the wording suggests that the pair were lovers, yet Jesus didn't blanch.

The religious right cites one part of the New Testament that clearly does condemn male homosexuality - not in Jesus' words, but in Paul's. The right has a tougher time explaining why lesbians shouldn't marry because the Bible has no unequivocal condemnation of lesbian sex.

A passage in Romans 1 objects to women engaging in "unnatural" sex, and this probably does mean lesbian sex, according to Bernadette Brooten, the author of a fascinating study of early Christian attitudes toward lesbians. But it's also possible that Paul was referring to sex during menstruation or to women who are aggressive during sex.

In any case, do we really want to make Paul our lawgiver? Will we enforce Paul's instruction that women veil themselves and keep their hair long? (Note to President Bush: If you want to obey Paul, why don't you start by veiling Laura and keeping her hair long, and only then move on to barring gay marriages.)

Given these ambiguities, is there any solution? One would be to emphasize the sentiment in Genesis that "it is not good for the human to be alone," and allow gay lovers to marry.

Or there's another solution. Paul disapproves of marriage except for the sex-obsessed, saying that it is best "to remain unmarried as I am." So if we're going to cherry-pick biblical phrases and ignore the central message of love, then perhaps we should just ban marriage altogether?

NY Times: Candidates

The link above will bring you to a New York Times article about Ratzinger's large influence on the Church. This could really be such an exciting time for the Church, a real opportunity to infuse new life and a new regard for social justice issues into the doctrine. But it's also scary. I'm terrified of Cardinal Ratzinger.

Back to the Church

I have changed in the last ten years, more than I sometimes realize. At 19, when I left the Church, I had major problems with the Apostle's Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and
earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.

Amen.

Faced with the bigotry I found inherent to the Church's teachings, I found myself uneasy with the line "I believe in... the holy Catholic church." When I went to Mass, I could not say it. I could not, in good conscience repeat such a line, when the Church was so obviously against my own conscience in social justice issues.

And so I didn't repeat that line. Which led to more lines that I found myself compelled to drop. Did I really believe in the communion of saints? Weren't some of these stories just folk tales? What about the resurrection of the body? Or the Virgin Mother? Could it just be part of the Church's disdain for sexuality, and for women, that only a woman who was a virgin could be held in high enough regard to be Mother of God? For that matter, how did I know that Jesus was the Son of God? How did I know that God himself was the Creator of heaven and earth? The Genesis story had some obvious problems with literal reality. And really, what evidence did I have that God even existed?

Line by line, the Apostle's Creed fell away from me. When I could no longer repeat a single line of it with any conviction at all, I considered that I was no longer a Catholic. I stopped going to Church. I didn't really miss it. It had been a long time since I'd been to Communion, the focal point of the Mass. I couldn't participate in Communion without first going to Confession, and I certainly couldn't go to Confession without confessing masturbation. And I couldn't confess masturbation without resolving that I wouldn't do it again. And I wasn't prepared to resolve that! I didn't even believe it to be a sin. How could masturbation possibly have any impact on anyone but myself? How could it be a sinful action?

I felt the same way about homosexuality. I couldn't understand how love, between any two people, could be considered to have a negative effect on society. All of the arguments to that effect seemed to be predicated upon the fact that our society is homophobic. If society accepted its gay members, then homosexuality would have no power to divide that society. But as long as a portion of society holds onto that bigotry, they can claim that homosexuality is destructive to their beliefs. I really couldn't see it any other way. Stop being a bigot, and then you won't have to be afraid of the people you are pointing the finger at. Stop being a bigot, and we can all get along.

And these beliefs, fundamental to my own sense of justice, informed my decision to leave the Church. Nineteen is an idealistic age. I couldn't conceive of belonging to a Church that was any less than perfect.

I have changed, somehow, over the last decade. At thirty, I am just as dedicated to causes of social justice. But I recognize that no institution is perfect. There are basically three options available to me: I can leave God utterly; I can find another denomination, one that is closer to my own views; I can attempt to effect change within my own Church.

I attempted the first option in my early twenties. It really didn't work. My faith in God had been deeply ingrained in me from the time I was a child. And without that sense of spirituality, I felt I was missing something. Perhaps God didn't exist, but I felt happier believing that he did. Perhaps I could take it on faith, or even, "for the sake of argument."

Which led me to the second option. I went to university late, in my mid-twenties. I took World Religions, hoping to find something to fill my spiritual void. But I found that my deeply-ingrained Catholicism made it impossible for me to accept anything polytheistic. I also found it impossible to feel comfortable in a faith without Christ. I wasn't entirely without doubt that he was the son of God, but I wasn't without entirely without faith either. If there was a God, I believed that there must be a myriad of ways to worship Him. But Christianity must be my way. Anything else just wasn't comfortable.

I soon found that Protestantism wasn't for me, either. Close, but just not home. Where was the belief in transubstantiation that lay at the heart of my faith, such as it was? Where was the reverance for Mary, as the mother of God?

My upcoming wedding lent an urgency to my soul-searching. I wanted a church wedding. I wanted to raise my children with a faith and trust in God. But I wanted to do it in a church in which I could feel comfortable. My future husband was not raised in any religious tradition, and so it was solely my choice.

I turned to the Anglican church, feeling that its liberal beliefs suited my conscience, while its rich rituals and traditions, so close to the Catholicism of my childhood, suited my need for feeling a familiarity, a sense of "home" in the church.

But! My mother had other ideas. She saw this as a betrayal of her values. She didn't know if she could even attend the ceremony. Wasn't it a mortal sin to attend the wedding of a baptized Catholic in a non-Catholic church? I believe this is a pre-Vatican II dictum of the church. In today's day and age, permission can be obtained from the bishop to be married outside the church. But I didn't want to seek the bishop's permission, because I didn't want to remain Catholic.

A Catholic friend of mine pointed out that Catholics were not necessarily a homogenous group. When he went through a similar crisis of faith, he "decided to stay and fight it out from the inside."

I thought a lot about this, the third option to stay and attempt to effect change in the Church. And I decided that there have been many reasons, over the years, for the Church to split. There have been many very good reasons for Protestant denominations to form. But my path does not seem to be to leave my Church in protest. Perhaps it's equally valid to fight from the inside. I've decided not to leave the Church to those who don't question, to those who hold bigotry as Gospel. And the more I learn, the more I realize that there is a place for me in this Church after all.

And the Apostle's Creed? The creed that I couldn't repeat, which was what finally severed my relationship with the church ten years ago? I have absolutely no issue with saying it now. I can take its credos on faith. Perhaps it is a performative speech act. The more I say "I believe in [each precept]" the more I actually believe in each precept. I will come to each of the credos within the Apostle's Creed, determining my own way to infuse meaning into each of them. I do not have the idealistic fanaticism of the 19-year-old who must understand and endorse every piece in order to repeat it. I can take some things on faith. And I realize that there is more than one meaning to infuse into the line, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church."

My fiance mentioned once to my sister, that I am more religious than I think I am. Turns out he was right.

United Church Ads

Thank God I don't live in the United States, where these ads from the United Church were banned from CBS and NBC for being too controversial. That wouldn't happen in Canada.

United Church Ad 1
United Church Ad 2

I don't have a link to the article, but this is the info:

CBS and NBC shut door on church ad
By Bonnie Miller Rubin and Manya A. Brachear,
Tribune staff reporters.
Tribune staff reporter John Cook contributed to this report
Published December 2, 2004

Catholic New Times Banned by Ontario Bishop

From Lifesite.net:

Pembroke Bishop Richard Smith, the current President of the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops, has banned the dissident Catholic New Times newspaper from parishes in his diocese. "I am hereby directing any parish that facilitates distribution of this newspaper to cease doing so immediately," wrote Bishop Smith in a letter to all pastors dated February 11.

The February edition of the 'Catholic New Times' "editorial comment contains views which are clearly at odds with the teaching of the church on faith and morals," Bishop Smith said. "In my judgement, it is not appropriate to have copies of this newspaper made available through our parishes, as this could be interpreted as diocesan approbation of its views."

This is, in my opinion, irrational. The Catholic New Times is a publication which supports social justice and educated opinion. Its philosophy is one of tolerance, in the spirit of Vatican II, which made impressive reforms to the Church. More reform is necessary, and the writers and editors of CNT make socially progressive and fair pronouncements to that effect.

Christ made apostles of the poor, the misjudged, society's forgotten and downtrodden. He made friends of prostitutes, of lepers. He displayed considerable anger to the rich Pharisees, to the religious leaders who thought themselves above the poor and disenfranchised. He preached tolerance, understanding. When his apostles judged others, he bid them to look first to their own behaviour, before judging their fellows.

Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye," when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Luke 6:41

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

John 8:7

The Gospel teaches tolerance -- something that should be practiced by those who believe homosexuality to be a sin. For myself, I do not believe it to be a sinful action. And I think that those who do believe it to be evil, are terribly inconsistent.

Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness for her monthly period. Do not have sexual relations with your neightbour's wife and defile yourself with her...Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable ...

Everyone who does any of these detestable things -- such persons must be cut off from their people. Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile
yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 18:19-30

I believe (or at least I hope) that I would be hard-pressed to find a member of the Catholic right who believes that having sex during menstruation is sinful. And even adultery, which most people would believe is immoral, does not seem to hold the stigma of homosexuality for these "believers." And yet, Leviticus certainly does not give a hierarchy of sin in this list. There are many sexual "sins" mentioned, and none seem to be counted by God as worse than any other. Why then, are Catholics allowed to have their marriages anulled and to remarry? Why, when someone is "living in sin," do Catholics not protest? Why do these things not hold the stigma of homosexuality?

My opinion is that homosexuality is the easiest-defined. We can create a real "us" and "them" with homosexuality. 'I am not homosexual. I am not tempted to this "sin." I am, however, tempted to have sex while unmarried, while on my period. I can even be tempted to have sex extramaritally. I am uncomfortable viewing these as sinful. I do not want to be ostracized for these sins. Homosexuality, however, not being a temptation for me, is very easily stigmatized as evil. It will never happen to me. I can very easily define homosexuals as "those people," as "them." And I am comfortable judging their activity as sinful, comfortable that in my position as heterosexual, I will never have to suffer that particular stigma. In this position of privilege, I can afford to be inconsistent in my views.' I think this is where homophobia begins. And I hate that.

There is a positive outcome about Bishop Smith banning the CNT from parishes in his dioceses. This decision will possibly afford CNT a moment of media time that it may otherwise not have enjoyed. Perhaps CNT will reach a broader audience as an outcome, and more people will be introduced to the idea of Catholicism with a social conscience.

A Catholic Social Conscience

I found a paper by Father Frank Brennan, delivered to the Australian Catholic University last June. It made me feel quite hopeful about my newfound stance as "Catholic of Conscience." He was speaking on a specific topic, but I think that his statements can be taken to apply to many topics where advocates for social justice differ from the Church's traditional teachings.

My hope is that all these Catholics ... are on a journey of life developing a formed and informed conscience about the many complex issues confronting us all in our world. On some of these issues and decisions, we do obtain useful guidance from our church leaders; but on many we do not. That is not their fault. Life is just too complex and truth so multi-faceted. That's why there is a need to reclaim the Catholic social conscience.

...

Of late there has been some suggestion that there is a competition between conscience and truth, only one of which can enjoy primacy. Some Catholics like Cardinal Pell think other Catholics would do better if they stopped talking about the primacy of conscience. Others think there is a need for more emphasis on the primacy of the individual conscience over against the directives, witness and actions of bishops and even the Pope if we are to have any chance of discerning and living out the complex truth of our life project. I am one of those others. Cardinal Pell, like me, often invokes Thomas More when it comes to limiting the competence of conscience. But some others have hailed Thomas More as the patron saint of the primacy of conscience. At his trial, he said, “Ye must understand that, in things touching conscience, every true and good subject is more bound to have respect to his said conscience and to his soul than to any other thing in all the world besides."

Presently, there is a conflict... about the primacy of conscience.

...

We must always accord primacy to the conscientiously formed and informed conscience, regardless of the person’s place in the church hierarchy. The Christians’ contribution to the contemporary world would be greater if there were more attention to the formation of conscience and to the injunction: inform your conscience and to that conscience be true. For most people, the questions of conscience will not be: am I to believe this church teaching? But “Am I to do this particular act or refrain from it?”

...

Though keen on the primacy of conscience, I do not equate it with simply doing one's own thing or doing what one feels like. I am obliged to follow my conscience in the same way that a bishop is obliged to follow his. Each of must ensure that we have a formed and informed conscience as we decide not only what we will believe, as that is probably the less problematic part, but also as we decide what we will do. Before acting we will search for the truth insofar as the truth is discoverable. But we will then make prudential decisions about what to do, having applied whatever moral principles might apply to the matter under consideration.
...

There are many complex issues in the world today which are not susceptible of unequivocal answers about what is true and what is good or what is the greater good in terms of actions and outcomes. In these situations, I cannot acquit my conscience simply by pleading that I followed what the bishops said, did or failed to do. All of us, like the bishops, are obligated to play our respective roles in the societies of which we are a part, forming and informing our consciences, and acting according to our consciences.

It is encouraging to me to read that this debate about the primacy of conscience is something that is ongoing within the Church. From the context of his essay, I do not know if Father Brennan would go so far as to apply this principle to subjects on which the Church already has a clear dictum. Perhaps he means only to suggest that we must rely on our own consciences to determine our beliefs and actions on subjects on which the Church has no official stance. Either way, it does make me feel that there may be room for me in this Church after all. Below are further quotes, also taken from his essay.

Archbishop George Pell, in his 1999 Acton Lecture:

Catholics should stop talking about the primacy of conscience. This has never been a Catholic doctrine (although this point generally cuts little ice). Moreover, such language is not conducive to identifying what contributes to human development. It is a short cut, which often leads the uninitiated to feel even more complacent while “doing their own thing”.

Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom:

In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience faithfully, in order that he may come to God, for whom he was created. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.

The Church teaching on conscience gives no consolation to the uninitiated thinking they can simply do their own thing. But neither does it accord religious authorities the liberty of insisting upon wooden compliance with their instruction or view of the world. Good conscience must always be accorded primacy even by bishops who would act differently in the circumstances...

The Vatican Council said in Gaudium et Spes, its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

In the depths of our conscience, we detect a law which we do not impose upon ourselves, but which holds us to obedience. Always summoning us to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to our hearts more specifically: do this, shun that. For we have in our hearts a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of the human person; according to it we will be judged.

Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a person. There we are alone with God, whose voice echoes in our depths.

Pope John Paul II, World Peace Day 1999:

People are obliged to follow their conscience in all circumstances and cannot be forced to act against it.

Pope John Paul II, World Day of Peace Address, January 2002:

Respect for a person's conscience, where the image of God himself is reflected (cf. Gen:26-27), means that we can only propose the truth to others, who are then responsible for accepting it. To try to impose on others by violent means what we consider to be the truth is an offence against human dignity, and ultimately an offence against God whose image that person bears.

Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes:

Let the laypeople not imagine that their pastors are always such experts, that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give them a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission. Rather, enlightened by Christian wisdom and giving close attention to the teaching authority of the Church, let the laypeople take on their own distinctive role.

Often enough the Christian view of things will itself suggest some specific solution in certain circumstances. Yet it happens rather frequently, and legitimately so, that with equal sincerity some of the faithful will disagree with others on a given matter. Even against the intentions of their proponents, however, solutions proposed on one side or another may be easily confused by many people with the Gospel message. Hence it is necessary for people to remember that no one is allowed in the aforementioned situations to appropriate the Church's authority for their opinion. They should always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good.

My Struggle with Catholicism

My sister and I were raised by a Catholic mother and an atheist father. We went to church every Sunday, prayed the rosary, attended Catholic school. My atheist father didn't attend Mass or pray with us, but he seemed to believe that it was good and wholesome for kids to believe in God. I somehow got the impression that religion was for "women and children."

My mother had my sister and I pray daily for our father's conversion. This gave me the impression that one of my parents had to be wrong. They couldn't both be right. As a child, I couldn't know how strong an effect this conflict would have on me. I couldn't reconcile my parents' two belief systems.

Despite having a very strong belief as a young child, I began to question more and more things about the church as I grew older. How could light be created on the first day, but the Sun not created until the fourth? Was the Genesis story perhaps not to be taken literally? My mother thought this was rank heresy. Of course the Bible had to be taken literally. She saw no conflict whatsoever between scientific teachings, and a literal interpretation of the Bible. I began to reject my mother's belief system. My father was much more rational. We loved to debate issues together over the dinner table. My mother, on the other hand, closed her eyes to any kind of rational argument, seeing it as an attack on her faith. She just believed, whether it made sense or not.

I lost respect for that kind of blind faith. I could not believe something just because I was told to. So what could I believe? I began to struggle with issues of conscience. Of course I believed abortion was a sin. How could you draw a line between a born child and a nine-month fetus? Or a nine-month fetus and a six-month fetus? There must be a line somewhere, perhaps around the time it develops brain cells. But I didn't know where that line was, and I had to err on the side of the pro-life. On the other hand, I did not believe abortion should be illegal. That led to scared children having unsafe and potentially deadly abortions. The best way to prevent abortions would be to provide more and better information and access to contraceptives.

But the Church was against contraceptives, for the same reason that they were against same sex liasions. I took great issue with this. The official stance of the Church was that the act of homosexuality was a sin, the inclination was not. But it seemed to me that there was a great deal of judgement against those with the inclination. And that there was a great deal more judgement against those who practiced homosexuality, than there was against those who practiced contraception. If "spilling the seed" was a sin, why was it considered a much greater, more stigmatized sin when homosexuals "spilled" than when heterosexuals "spilled?"

At 18, around the time I left home, I also left the Church. I was unable to believe in these teachings, which seemed so obviously unjust. I tried a few other denominations, but was unable to feel at home in a church which didn't have the rituals and ceremony of my own. As I got further and further removed from my faith, I began to doubt whether God even existed. I took World Religions in university, hoping to find a faith to believe in. But nothing seemed plausible to me.

There were times when I began to pray again. When my aunt was dying of liver cancer, when my sister got married, when I went through a particularly difficult breakup. But always, I would eventually leave the Church, unable to reconcile my social concience with its teachings.

I am now engaged to be married. I want a church wedding, for a greater reason than for a pretty location. I miss my faith. I have never been able to completely separate myself from the Catholicism that I was raised in. I have tried for more than ten years to get rid of my Catholic conditioning, if that is all it is. Perhaps God is calling me back. Perhaps there is no God, and it is only my deeply-ingrained Catholic upbringing that makes me miss my faith so much. But I have operated on the premise of no God for over ten years, hoping to overcome that internalized Catholicism, if that's all it is. To no avail. So perhaps it's time to work from the opposite premise. That there is a God, that He is calling me back. If there is a God, maybe by going to church and praying again, I will be able to feel closer to Him. Perhaps I will be given the grace to understand that He exists. Perhaps not. But I have given my faithless side ten years to prove its position. Perhaps it's time to give the faithful side of me the same opportunity.

Catholic - A Definition

cath·o·lic ( P ) Pronounciation Key(kth-lk, kthlk)adj.
1. Of broad or liberal scope; comprehensive: “The 100-odd pages of formulas and constants are surely the most catholic to be found” (Scientific American).
Including or concerning all humankind; universal: “what was of catholic rather than national interest” (J.A. Froude).
Catholic
2. Of or involving the Roman Catholic Church.
3. Of or relating to the universal Christian church.
4. Of or relating to the ancient undivided Christian church.
5. Of or relating to those churches that have claimed to be representatives of the ancient undivided church. n. Catholic
6. A member of a Catholic church, especially a Roman Catholic.
[Middle English catholik, universally accepted, from Old French catholique, from Latin catholicus, universal, from Greek katholikos, from katholou, in general : kat-, kata-, down, along, according to; see cata- + holou(from neuter genitive of holos, whole. See sol- in Indo-European Roots).]

ca·tholi·cal·ly (k-thlk-l) adv.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth EditionCopyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
catholic
adj 1: of or relating to or supporting Catholicism; "the Catholic Church" [syn: Catholic] 2: free from provincial prejudices or attachments; "catholic in one's tastes" n : a member of a Catholic church [syn: Catholic]