Benedict XVI – Page 5

Pope Benedict on Mystical Experiences

Right now in his weekly catecheses, Pope Benedict is giving a series of meditations on female saints from the Middle Ages. Many of them are mystics, and in the first meditation—on St. Hildegard of Bingen—he offers his thoughts on some of the marks of a genuine mystic.

He states:

During the years when she was superior of the Monastery of St Disibodenberg, Hildegard began to dictate the mystical visions that she had been receiving for some time to the monk Volmar, her spiritual director, and to Richardis di Strade, her secretary, a sister of whom she was very fond. As always happens in the life of true mystics, Hildegard too wanted to put herself under the authority of wise people to discern the origin of her visions, fearing that they were the product of illusions and did not come from God.

I think it would be a mistake, here, to assume that the Pope is saying that all genuine mystics must have the kind of fears that St. Hildegard did regarding the authenticity of her visions. One can easily imagine a child visionary, for example, being utterly convinced of the divine origin of his or her experiences. But with the reflectivity of adulthood, a visionary should be willing to acknowledge the possibility that their experiences might be the product of the imagination or otherwise not come from God. The key thing, though, was St. Hildegard’s willingness to submit the phenomena she experienced to evaluation by others—something that indeed should be the response of a true visionary, for Scripture tells us:

Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good [1 Th. 5:19-21].

And,

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world [1 Jn. 4:1].

Pope Benedict continues:

She thus turned to a person who was most highly esteemed in the Church in those times: St Bernard of Clairvaux, of whom I have already spoken in several Catecheses. He calmed and encouraged Hildegard. However, in 1147 she received a further, very important approval. Pope Eugene iii, who was presiding at a Synod in Trier, read a text dictated by Hildegard presented to him by Archbishop Henry of Mainz. The Pope authorized the mystic to write down her visions and to speak in public. From that moment Hildegard’s spiritual prestige continued to grow so that her contemporaries called her the “Teutonic prophetess”. This, dear friends, is the seal of an authentic experience of the Holy Spirit, the source of every charism: the person endowed with supernatural gifts never boasts of them, never flaunts them and, above all, shows complete obedience to the ecclesial authority. Every gift bestowed by the Holy Spirit, is in fact intended for the edification of the Church and the Church, through her Pastors, recognizes its authenticity.

Given that, right now, there is a commission appointed by the Holy See evaluating the mystical phenomena reported at Medjugorje, it is hard not to review the Medjugorje situation in terms of what Pope Benedict says about St. Hildegard—particularly with the noted controversy between the visionary community and the local bishops.

While we will have to wait and see what the commission determines regarding that situation, Pope Benedict’s remarks on St. Hildegard provide a window into the kind of thinking that the commission is likely to apply.

What do you think?

What the Pope Said about Condoms

The Meaning of “Marital Intercourse”

Over on his blog, Steve Kellmeyer has a post in which he argues against the claim that recent Magisterial documents using the phrase “conjugal act” are only addressing the use of contraception within marriage. He argues that the phrase “conjugal act” is to be given a broader meaning.

I appreciate the polite tone that Kellmeyer uses (for he is taking me to task here), and I hope to respond in the same way.

I am sympathetic to the desire to find in recent Magisterial statements a ban on contraception regardless of the circumstances. Indeed, I used to hold that this is what the documents said (in part because I was using faulty translations that rendered “coniugale commercium” as “sexual act” rather than “marital act” or, even more literally, “marital congress” or “marital intercourse”).

Over time, and in consultation with various Latin experts and experts in moral theology, I came to realize that this view is incorrect and that in its recent statements the Magisterium has limited itself to treating the use of contraception within marriage.

In the future it may deal with extramarital situations, but we will have to wait to see what it says. It may say that the same principles apply to extramarital sexual acts or it may not. We will have to see.

In his piece, Kellmeyer acknowledges that

[I]t is true that the 20th century Magisterial pronouncements on contraception all discuss the “conjugal act,”

but argues that

it is NOT the case that this phrasing is only meant to reference the sexual act within marriage.

He proposes several arguments for this, but his basic argument is this:

For precedence, we have the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, who clearly forbid the use of contraceptives regardless of the marital state of the participants.

A bit later on he summarizes his basic argument this way:

In order to reconcile the writings of the Fathers with the Magisterial documents which base themselves on the Fathers, we must assume that “conjugal act” does not strictly confine itself to meaning “the sexual act that takes place within marriage”, rather, it must mean “the sexual act that is supposed to take place within marriage (but often does not)”.

For this argument to be sound one would have to show that the phrase “coniugale commercium” (translated in whatever language the Fathers and Doctors were writing in) was used to refer to sexual intercourse without reference to whether it was occurring in marriage.

This would indeed set a precedent for taking the phrase “coniugale commercium” in something other than its obvious, literal sense. If a substantial series of quotations of this nature could be produced (not just one or two here or there, which would be insufficient to show an established usage) then it would show an established prior usage that was broader in semantic range.

Unfortunately, none of the writings that Kellmeyer cites (many of which were drawn from a Fathers Know Best column that I composed) do this.

It may very well be the case that there is an established tradition of condemning contraception both in and outside of marriage, but that does not tell us what the phrase “coniugale commercium” means. The existence of a broad theme does not tell us the meaning of a specific phrase used to express aspects of that theme in a Magisterial document.

Structurally, the argument seems to be something like:

20th century Magisterial documents use the phrase “coniugale commercium” while condemning contraception.
The passages in these documents that use the phrase “coniugale commercium” must express the totality of any prior Catholic tradition concerning contraception.
There is a prior Catholic tradition that condemns contraception both in an outside of marriage.
Therefore, by using the phrase “coniugale commercium,” 20th century Magisterial documents are condemning contraception both in and outside of marriage.

This argument does not work because the middle premise (line 2) is false. It is not the case that the totality of a prior, broader theme must be what Paul VI is referring to when he uses this phrase.

To the contrary, one cannot take passages from hundreds of years ago that, although on the same general topic, do not use the same language, and insist that they inform the meaning of a single and different phrase in a modern document, contrary to its obvious literal meaning.

I believe firmly in a hermeneutic of continuity, and thus one cannot dismiss a prior, broader tradition as being irrelevant to the modern treatment of contraception. But saying something is relevant to the modern discussion of a broad moral topic is not the same as saying that it must be what was meant by one particular phrase that has an obvious, contrary meaning.

Make no mistake; Latin has a word for “sexual” (i.e., sexualis). If Paul VI had wanted to say “sexual intercourse” in Humanae Vitae then he would have said sexuale commercium.

In fact, he wouldn’t have even needed to say that because the word commercium itself–in context of a sexual discussion–means “intercourse.” (In broader discussions it can refer to non-sexual exchanges, such as social intercourse or business intercourse, but the context tells us that this is the sexual usage.)

What “coniugale” does is specify the kind of intercourse. Not sexual intercourse in general, but specifically marital intercourse: intercourse in marriage.

This is indicated both by the immediate context of the document itself and by the historical context in which the document arose.

Humanae Vitae is not a general meditation on the subject of contraception–the kind of document that might address both marital and extra-marital sex (as with a manual of moral theology). It is specifically a document intended to offer guidance to married couples. This is established as its subject matter from its opening sentences:

The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships.

The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings.

So the purpose of the document is to answer the “new questions” (created by modern socio-economic factors and the new methods of birth control that had been developed–especially the Pill, which did not seem to violate the physical structure of the marital act, the way condoms do) that Humanae Vitae sets out to answer so that married couples may know how to properly live out their vocation.

And the document did not come out of a vacuum. It was the Pope’s 1968 response to the disastrous 1967 report that had been authored (and then leaked to the press) by the Pontificial Commission on Population, Family, and Birth, which had endorsed contraception between married couples.

The Pontificial Commission had been set up during the reign of John XXIII to deal with an upcoming United Nations population conference, but he died before it met. When Paul VI was elected, he expanded and reworked its membership and mission, tasking it in 1964 with answering three questions:

What is the relationship between the primary and secondary ends of marriage? What are the major responsibilities of married couples? How do rhythm [i.e., the rhythm method] and the pill relate to responsible parenthood? [SOURCE].

The Pontifical Commission was not tasked with writing a general moral treatment of human sexuality. It was tasked specifically with analyzing the situation of married couples and their use of contraception in “responsible [and thus marital] parenthood.”

The Commission accordingly crafted a report which, while it was pro-contraception, was focused on the use of contraception by married couples. It is not a general treatise on human sexuality. (READ IT HERE.)

When the Commission’s pro-contraception report was leaked to the press it caused an enormous raising of expectations that the Pope would approve the Pill, and to combat this Paul VI wrote his final encyclical, which was released the next year. Humanae Vitae is his public response to the Commission’s report and his effort to deal–as he says–with the new questions that married couples face.

When he then uses the Latin words meaning “marital intercourse,” we must recognize that this is exactly what he is talking about.

While I as much as anybody would love for Humanae Vitae to settle all questions on the topic of human sexuality, the fact is that it is a document of deliberately limited scope and that its key passage is focused on the use of contraception in relation to marital intercourse.

It is not possible to shoehorn other elements of prior Catholic thought into this passage because this would violate its clear language and force it to answer questions that it is not attempting to address.

As is often the case with the Magisterium, it moves slowly and in a step-wise manner. It doesn’t tend to take on questions without strong reason. The Church already taught that sex outside of marriage is gravely sinful. The mid 20th century had brought about new socio-economic and technological factors that impinged on the question of sexuality within marriage, and this is what both the Pontifical Commission and Humanae Vitae expressly set out to address.

Rather than being a summation of the whole of Catholic thought on sexuality, Humanae Vitae is a document with a sharply limited scope intended to provide moral and pastoral guidance to married couples facing the challenges of the modern world.

There is a lot more that could be said about this (particularly regarding some of the sources Kellmeyer cites), but I hope this provides a basic response to his central argument.

I am also happy to note that he concludes by stating:

So, is the Holy Father’s private theological opinion correct? Is it the case that the use of the condom with the intent to reduce disease transmission less damnable than using the condom without that intention? Probably. Aquinas, whose love for such fine distinctions is precisely what makes him the greatest doctor of the Church, would almost certainly agree that it was.

And that is heartening.

Indeed it is.

Secretive Body Advising the Vatican on Theology

Okay, well, they do meet behind closed doors, but they're not really that secretive. At least they're not any more secretive than every other body that meets behind closed doors. They even give notifications to the press of what they're talking about behind closed doors.

So anyway, there is a group that works for the Holy See known as the International Theological Commission. It isn't one of the regular Vatican dicasteries (departments) but an advisory body. Basically, it's a group of theologians from around the world who are selected by the Holy See to advise on various theological matters.

As such, it writes reports for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (whose prefect is also president of the ITC). These do not of themselves have the character of magisterial statements (at least they don't necessarily), but they are useful summaries of where mainstream Catholic theology is.

This is the group that, a few years ago, issued the document stating that limbo is not the only way to view the fate of unbaptized children.

While the ITC's work goes on throughout the year with work on various issues, the group meets once a year for a week in what's known as a plenary ("full") session.

Next week is that week for 2010!

So what's the group going to be talking about, you ask?

According to the Vatican News Service,

According to a communique published today the commission will study three important themes: the principles of theology, its meaning and its methods; the question of the one God in relation to the three monotheistic religions; and the integration of Church social doctrine into the broader context of Christian doctrine.

While not all topics that the commission talks about end up getting turned into position papers, this is an indication of what subjects the ITC may address in print. So: In the next few years we may see papers on theological method, God in relation to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and the relationship of social doctrine to broader Christian doctrine.

Each a worthy subject.

Also, there's this:

At the end of their deliberations the members of the International Theological Commission will be received in audience by the Holy Father.

I'll be interested to see the transcript of the address the Holy Father gives them. It may contain further pointers about what they're doing and what's likely to come out in the future.

Incidentally, there are two volumes out of the ITC's previous documents, the first collecting them from 1969 (when the commission was founded) through 1985 and the second from 1986 to 2007. Many of these are not available in English anywhere else (that I know of).

They make for fascinating reading. For example, back in 1985 they did a document on the consciousness of Christ (y'know… did he know he was God, know his mission, etc…. all that stuff the trendy theological kids want to deny). In the introduction to the document the commission writes:

In fact, who would trust a Savior who may not have known who he was or was unwilling to be what he was? It is clear, then, that the Church attaches maximum importance to the problem of the awareness (consciousness) and human knowledge of Jesus. We are not dealing with mere theological speculations but with the very foundation of the method and mission of the Church in all its intimacy.

Yeah! Take that, theological trendies!

Anyway, you might want to get the books (and there are Kindle editions, too!)

International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents, 1969-1985

International Theological Commission, Vol II: 1986-2007

New Developments on the Pope and Condoms

Each new day seems to bring several new twists to the pope/condom story, so let’s look at what’s happening now. (PART I OF THIS SERIES, PART TWO.)

First, here are some web resources to check out:

* Ed Peters’ trenchant remarks on L’Osservatore Romano’s PR debacle

* Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi’s initial clarification of the Pope’s remarks

* Reportage on Lombardi’s second clarification

* An interview with Archbishop Burke for his take on what the pope was saying

* Damian Thompson’s latest posts (first post, second post, third post)

I don’t want to unduly pick on Thompson, but blood-crazed ferret that he is, his latest posts continue with a rather snarky, triumphalistic tone toward those he terms “conservative” (meaning theologically orthodox) bloggers, who he perceives as disagreeing with the opinion Pope Benedict expressed in his new interview book, The Light of the World ( YOU CAN ORDER IT HERE).

He continues to insist that

he did say that the use of condoms was justified in certain circumstances [emphasis in oridinal].

Not so fast, Damian. Let’s try to keep from putting words in the Pontiff’s mouth. As you yourself have noted on a prior occasion, the Pope did not use the word “justified” or “permissible” or anything along those lines.

One is tempted to ask, a little cheekily, “What part of the Pope’s statement that the Church ‘does not regard it as a real or moral solution’ don’t you understand?”

The issue requires some care, not for the least of reasons because what the Pope said is (a) not as clear as it could be, (b) there are known translation issues here (e.g., L’Osservatore Romano mistranslating “male prostitute” as “female prostitute,” prompting Lombardi’s second clarification), and (c) other differences in the different language editions of his remarks.

So let’s start with what the Pope said (English version):

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

If you’ve been following the development of the story carefully, you’ll notice that the same phrases keep coming up in this regard. In Lombardi’s first clarification he stated that

” the Pope considers an exceptional circumstance in which the exercise of sexuality represents a real threat to another person’s life. In such a case, the Pope does not morally justify the disordered practice of sexuality but maintains that the use of a condom to reduce the danger of infection can be ‘a first act of responsibility’, ‘a first step on the road toward a more human sexuality’, rather than not using it and exposing the other person to a mortal risk.

And in his second clarification Lombardi states:

“I asked the pope personally if there was a serious distinction in the choice of male instead of female and he said ‘no’,” Lombardi said.

“That is, the point is it (the use of a condom) should be a first step toward responsibility in being aware of the risk of the life of the other person one has relations with,” Lombardi said.

“If it is a man, a woman or a transsexual who does it, we are always at the same point, which is the first step in responsibly avoiding passing on a grave risk to the other.

The fact that the same phrases keep being used—without paraphrases like “justified” or “permitted” or even “lesser evil”—suggest that this use is studied. It is intentional. They are deliberately not using terms like “justified,” “permitted,” and the like.

So if the Pope has chosen not to use such words, let’s not put them in his mouth, shall we?

From what I can tell the “first step” language can be taken in one of two ways, which are as follows:

1) The decision to use a condom represents a first step toward a moral exercise of human sexuality in that it shows the person is inwardly aware that not everything in the sexual sphere is permissible (e.g., risking the life of the other).

2) The decision to use a condom represents a first step toward a moral exercise of human sexuality in that a person is concretely limiting the danger to another.

These two senses are not mutually exclusive. One can view condom use as a first step toward morality in both senses.

The first understanding speaks to the inner attitude and awareness of the person using the condom. On this view one might say, “It’s a good thing that the condom user has at least some awareness of the limits of what is moral. It’s still not justified for him to use a condom—even in the context of an act of homosexual prostitution—but at least he has some kind of moral awareness that may grow with time.”

One also could hold sense (1) and simply not address the issue of whether the use of a condom is justified in such a context. One might simply be noting that the awareness of some moral limits is a good sign and not address the question of whether the condom use is justified.

Or one could say that the moral awareness is good and that using a condom limits the evil of the sex act in question: It may still be an act of homosexual prostitution that poses some risk of HIV to the other, but at least the risk is limited. It’s thus “less evil” than it would be without the condom. This converges with sense (2), above.

Even then, though, it is still misleading to say that the use of condoms is “justified.”

Consider a parallel moral judgment: “If you are going to shoot bullets into someone’s body for no good reason, it is less evil to aim randomly than to aim directly for a vital organ.” This judgment is quite true, but it puts the accent on the wrong moral sylLAble to pass this off with headlines like “Pope: shooting bullets randomly okay in some cases.”

The fundamental moral structure of the overall act is gravely morally disordered, just as is shooting bullets into a person’s body for no good reason. Acts of homosexual prostitution (and heterosexual prostitution!) are always gravely immoral. The most that could be said is that using a condom in such acts in an HIV-positive situation might be “less evil” than not using one.

The Pope, the Church, and for that matter theologically orthodox bloggers, are right to resist misleading characterizations that try to isolate consideration of the condom apart from the larger framework of the moral act, which is gravely evil.

To focus on the condom itself and trumpet it “justified” is to miss the moral forest for a single tree. The overall moral structure of human sexuality is what needs to be the focus of attention, and thus the Pope and his assistants have been assiduously pointing to the forest, though the press (as usual) seem to have myopia.

And it’s not even certain at this point that the Pope is endorsing the “less evil” view just articulated. Many competent readers have looked at his remarks and seemed to think he was endorsing some version of interpretation (1), above (the “moral awareness is good” view rather than the “condom use is less evil” view).

When I initially encountered his remarks, this was one of the first thoughts that suggested itself.

I try to give a careful reading to texts like this, and the Pope’s initial statement, “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals” suggested that the Pope meant more than just the “moral awareness is good” view. The word “basis” seemed in this context to suggest a basis for some kind of action, like the act of using a condom, which would get us to the “condom use is less evil” view.

But I don’t consider this to be decisive since there can be translation issues affecting this, as well as the fact the Pope was speaking rather than writing and he simply may have been a bit tongue-tied or awkward in trying to get across his point.

I thus see there as still being a significant amount of ambiguity here, and I would expect further clarification with time. As things progress, we should get more evidence about whether the Pope intended the moral awareness view or the less evil view.

I also don’t view the fact that the same thing was said about females as males as being any kind of surprise. In philosophy and theology, it is common to select an extreme case for purposes of making the principles clear and then seeing how those principles apply to other cases. It makes sense to start with a male (and thus presumably homosexual) prostitute since there is no procreative potential in his sexual acts and use that to identify principles that may also apply to other situations.

It’s important to note, though, that the Church tends to proceed in a stepwise manner, starting with limited, particular cases, and then filling in the picture by considering others.

At this point we don’t even have a Magisterial action on this question (it was an interview asking the Pope’s personal opinions, after all), but Pope Benedicts remarks—and the subsequent clarifications via Lombardi—represent indicators of what the Magisterium may say in the future.

What do you think?

Understanding the Pope’s Dilemma on Condoms

In yesterday’s post on Pope Benedict’s remarks concerning the use of condoms in AIDS prevention, I promised there would be more to follow, so here ‘tis.

For those who may not be aware, there is a new, book-length interview with Pope Benedict in which he made remarks that were sure to—and were—widely misunderstood and misrepresented in the press. “Press gets religion story wrong” is about as common a narrative as “Dog bites man” or “Sun rises in east.” Go figure.

Anyway, it’s a fascinating book. YOU CAN ORDER IT HERE.

It was inevitable that the press would parse the Pontiff’s comments along the lines of the Pope “modifying the Catholic Church’s absolute ban on the use of condoms,” as Damian Thompson of the Telegraph put it.

I want to give kudos to Thompson, though, for correcting himself very promptly. May his journalistic tribe increase!

The idea that the Catholic Church has an “absolute ban on the use of condoms” is widespread, though, so let’s take a moment to look at it.

Just how absolute is the ban?

Well, as I’ve noted before, on more than one occasion, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (quoting Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae):

“[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil [CCC 2370].

I’ve boldfaced the phrase “conjugal act” because it’s the key to understand what is being said. Many gloss over this phrase and assume it means “sexual act.” It doesn’t. “Conjugal”—like its Latin equivalent, coniugale—doesn’t mean “sexual”; it means “marital.”

If you are having sex with someone you are (heterosexually) married to then you are engaging in the marital act. Otherwise, not. If you are engaging in sexual behavior but not with someone you’re married to then it is a different kind of act (masturbation, adultery, fornication, etc.).

What the Church—in Humanae Vitae and the Catechism—has done is say that one cannot deliberately frustrate the procreative aspect of sexual intercourse between man and wife.

That’s actually a fairly narrow statement. It doesn’t even address all situations that may arise in marriages, because there may be situations in which the law of double effect would allow the toleration of a contraceptive effect as long as this is a side effect of the action rather than being intended as a means or an end.

It thus would rule out the use of a condom to prevent a husband and wife from conceiving a child, but that doesn’t address condom use in other situations. Thus far the Church has not explored the question of condom use—or other, typically contraceptive acts—in cases outside of marriage.

Why not?

The Church holds that all sexual acts outside of marriage are gravely sinful. To start exploring the question of contraceptive use outside of marriage would put the Church in a really weird position that could lead to the subversion of the very moral values it is trying to promote.

We all know how in the public schools sex-ed teachers often pay lip service to the idea that people shouldn’t have sex before marriage and then spend enormous amounts of time spelling out just how to do it and what contraceptive and “safe sex” alternatives there are. The frequent result is thus a message of, “Don’t, but allow me to give you an extended discourse on just what to do in case you decide otherwise.”

School kids recognize the phoniness and pretense of this and that it amounts to a tacit permission for them to go off and sexually misbehave.

The Church, understandably, does not want to be put in the same position. It’s about calling people to authentic moral and ethical values, not giving them advice on how to sin.

And so it’s left the field largely to moral theologians to discuss and not really treated it on the Magisterial level.

That’s something that may change, though. It’s easy to see how changing social factors—including the AIDS crisis—could cause pressure for this question to be treated on the Magisterial level. That’s one reason I’ve addressed this subject in the past, to help people understand what the Magisterium has and has not said thus far, so that if it says something in the future, they will have the context to process and assimilate it.

That this kind of work is needed was evidenced yesterday when many people online were saying how their hearts or stomachs lurched when they encountered the first press reports of the Pope’s remarks.

Now, the Holy See could in the future say that the principles articulated in Humanae Vitae regarding contraception also apply to all sexual acts outside of marriage, or some of them, or none of them. At least it could, hypothetically.

What is it likely to do in practice?

It’s hard to say, but Pope Benedict’s recent interview is suggestive. In the interview he considered the case of a male prostitute. Male prostitutes aren’t all that common from what I’m given to understand. Certainly they aren’t as common as the female variety is supposed to be. Which raises the question of why the Pontiff would zero in on this example.

Presumably, it is because male prostitutes most commonly service male clients, in which case the act is homosexual in nature and thus has no procreative aspect to begin with. The question of contraception thus doesn’t arise because there is no openness to new life in the act in the first place. He also might have chosen this example because males, whether behaving homosexually or heterosexually, have a greater chance of infecting others with HIV, but my guess is that he’s thinking of homosexual prostitution in particular.

It’s easy to see how one could look at that situation and say, “Male homosexual prostitutes are at high risk of both contracting and transmitting HIV; it would be better if they gave up prostitution altogether, but if they are engaging in this activity then the use of a condom would reduce the risk of HIV transmission, and it wouldn’t make the acts they are performing any less open to life than they already are.”

The trouble would be how to present this judgment in a way that does not cause more problems than it solves.

Pope Benedict’s remarks in the interview seem to be an attempt to do just this. He could have phrased himself more clearly, but (a) this was an interview, and in interviews one does not have the kind of leisure to carefully craft one’s remarks that writing allows and (b) he’s straining to find words that communicate the basic moral insight without leading to headlines like “Pope approves condoms!” and “Pope changes Church teaching on sex!”

All in all, his “first step on the road to a more human sexuality” approach is not that bad. Also, addressing the matter in an interview—rather than in a Church document—is a not-that-bad way of getting the subject on the table while blunting some of the problems that could result.

Or not.

One can certainly judge that it would have been better for the Pope to leave the subject unaddressed or to have addressed it in a different way or in a different venue. He himself stated repeatedly in the interview that there have been problems communicating through the press in his reign (even describing the Vatican’s PR efforts as a “failure” on one recent subject), and in hindsight he may (or may not) judge that this was the case here as well.

We’ll have to see.

I have to say that I admire Benedict’s courage.

Oh, and as I predicted, the Holy See swiftly came out with a new statement clarifying the pope’s remarks.

I couldn’t help observing (with some satisfaction) how many of the exact same notes were hit in the clarification that were hit in yesterday’s post, including the fact that the pope was speaking “in a informal and not magisterial form,” to quote papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi.

One last thing: Over at The Telegraph, Damian Thompson does a bit of speculating that I’d like to address.

After quoting from the post I did yesterday, Thompson ponders the case of theologically orthodox bloggers

who claim that the Pope didn’t say what he obviously did say… and then emphasise that he was only speaking in an interview AND how dare L’Osservatore Romano release these quotes out of context. Hmm. There is a strong whiff of cognitive dissonance in the air. I hate to pick a fight with bloggers I admire, and I won’t mention any names, but I get the strong impression that certain conservatives are tying themselves in knots trying not to say what they really think.

Which is that they disagree with the Pope.

I don’t know if I am a blogger who Thompson admires (though if I am, let me say that I also admire Thompson and, in fact, am envious of The Church Times having once called him a “blood-crazed ferret”). However, one might suppose that I am among those he is talking about here since I am one of two bloggers mentioned by name (the other is Eric Giunta) and I did emphasize the interview nature of the Pope’s remarks and the fact that the increasingly-erratic L’Osservatore Romano did a disservice to the public in releasing the comments the way it did.

So let me clear up any potential misunderstanding: I don’t disagree with the Pope on this issue.

There are issues I do disagree with him on (e.g., I tend to be more skeptical of claims regarding global warming than he appears to be), but this isn’t one of them.

I agree that if you’re going to engage in homosexual prostitution that it is better to do so in a way that lessens the chance of getting or giving someone a fatal disease.

I also believe that if you are going to have extramarital sex that it is better to do so with a person who is a willing accomplice rather than raping someone. However, I wouldn’t want to see false and misleading headlines like:

Akin says adultery sometimes permissible to stop rape

Akin: adultery can be justified in some cases

Akin says adultery can be used in the fight against rape

Certainly there is a disanalogy here. Adultery is intrinsically wrong and can never be done, regardless of the circumstances. On the other hand, if Pope Benedict is right that it is better for a person engaging in homosexual prostitution to limit the danger of HIV by using a condom (as I think he is) then this use does not add a new sin to the ones already being committed.

But there is a danger of sending a highly misleading message here. Headlines stating things like “condoms sometimes permissible” and “condoms can be justified in some cases” or “condoms can be used in fight against AIDS” will not be understood by the general public in the limited sense that the Pope is addressing. They will be understood way more broadly than that, and that makes them fundamentally misleading.

I do acknowledge that there is cognitive dissonance here, but it’s not dissonance caused by disagreement with the Pope. It’s caused by the same communications dilemma the Pope faces: How to communicate a moral truth about limiting the harm caused by sin without appearing to give tacit permission to the sin itself or to other, related sins.

The Pope Said WHAT about Condoms???

Pope Benedict’s new book, Light of the World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times, isn’t even officially out yet but is already at the center of an online media controversy.

ORDER THE BOOK
The controversy erupted Saturday morning when L’Osservatore Romano unilaterally violated the embargo on the book by publishing Italian-language extracts of various papal statements, much to the chagrin of publishers around the world, who had been working on a carefully orchestrated launch for the book on Tuesday.

Among the extracts was one dealing with the use of condoms in trying to prevent the spread of AIDS, and the press immediately seized on this (e.g., Reuters, Associated Press , BBC online).

And so we were treated to headlines like:

* Pope says condoms sometimes permissible to stop AIDS

* Pope: condoms can be justified in some cases

* Pope says condoms can be used in the fight against Aids

Particularly egregious is this statement by William Crawley of the BBC:

Pope Benedict appears to have changed the Vatican’s official stance on the use of condoms to a moral position that many Catholic theologians have been recommending for quite some time.

GAH!

Okay, first of all, this is an interview book. The pope is being interviewed. He is not engaging his official teaching capacity. This book is not an encyclical, an apostolic constitution, a papal bull, or anything of the kind. It is not published by the Church. It is an interview conducted by a German-language journalist. Consequently, the book does not represent an act of the Church’s Magisterium and does not have the capacity to “change[] the Vatican’s official stance” on anything. It does not carry dogmatic or canonical force. The book (which is fascinating and unprecedented, though that’s a subject for another post) constitutes the Pope’s personal opinions on the questions he is asked by interviewer Peter Seewald.

And, as Pope Benedict himself notes in the book:

It goes without saying that the Pope can have private opinions that are wrong.

I don’t point this out to suggest that what Pope Benedict says regarding condoms is wrong (we’ll get to that in a moment) but to point out the status of private papal opinions. They are just that: private opinions. Not official Church teaching. So let’s get that straight.

Among the disservices L’Osservatore Romano performed by breaking the book’s embargo in the way it did was the fact that it only published a small part of the section in which Pope Benedict discussed condoms. As a result, the reader could not see the context of his remarks, giving the reader no way to see the context and guaranteeing that the secular press would take the Pope’s remarks out of context (which they would have anyway, but perhaps not this much). Especially egregious is the fact that L’Osservatore Romano omits material in which Benedict clarified his statement on condoms in a follow-up question.

So L’Osservatore Romano has performed a great disservice to both the Catholic and non-Catholic communities.

Fortunately, now you can read the full text of the Pope’s remarks.

Also, in anticipation of the controversy that these statement would produce, Dr. Janet Smith has prepared a helpful guide to what the Pope did and did not say.

Let’s look at the Pope’s remarks and see what he actually said.

Seewald: . . . In Africa you stated that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

Benedict: . . . In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. [EMPHASIS ADDED] Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

Note that the Pope’s overall argument is that condoms will not solve the problem of AIDS. In support of this, he makes several arguments:

1) People can already get condoms, yet it clearly hasn’t solved the problem.

2) The secular realm has proposed the ABC program, where a condom is used only if the first two, truly effective procedures (abstinence and fidelity) have been rejected. Thus even the secular ABC proposal recognizes that condoms are not the unique solution. They don’t work as well as abstinence and fidelity. The first two are better.

3) The fixation on condom use represents a banalization (trivialization) of sexuality that turns the act from being one of love to one of selfishness. For sex to have the positive role it is meant to play, this trivialization of sex—and thus the fixation on condoms—needs to be resisted.

So that’s the background to the statement that the press seized on:

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality. [EMPHASIS ADDED]

There are several things to note here: First, note that the Pope says that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals,” not that there is a basis. This is the language of speculation. But what is the Pope speculating about? That condom use is morally justified? No, that’s not what he’s said: that there may be cases “where this [condom use] can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way to recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed.”

In other words, as Janet Smith puts it,

The Holy Father is simply observing that for some homosexual prostitutes the use of a condom may indicate an awakening of a moral sense; an awakening that sexual pleasure is not the highest value, but that we must take care that we harm no one with our choices. He is not speaking to the morality of the use of a condom, but to something that may be true about the psychological state of those who use them. If such individuals are using condoms to avoid harming another, they may eventually realize that sexual acts between members of the same sex are inherently harmful since they are not in accord with human nature.

At least this is the most one can reasonably infer from the Pope’s remarks, which could be phrased more clearly (and I expect the Vatican will be issuing a clarification quite soon).

Second, note that the Pope immediately follows his statement regarding homosexual prostitutes using condoms with the statement, “But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

By “a humanization of sexuality,” the Pope means recognizing the truth about human sexuality—that it must be exercised in a loving, faithful way between a man and a woman united in matrimony. That is the real solution, not putting on a condom and engaging in promiscuous sex with those infected with a deadly virus.

At this point in the interview, Seewald asks a follow-up question, and it is truly criminal that L’Osservatore Romano did not print this part:

Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

So Benedict reiterates that this is not a real (practical) solution to the AIDS crisis, nor is it a moral solution. Nevertheless, in some cases the use of a condom displays “the intention of reducing the risk of infection” which is “a first step in a movement toward . . . a more human way of living sexuality.”

He thus isn’t saying that the use of condoms is justified but that they can display a particular intent and that this intent is a step in the right direction.

Janet Smith provides a helpful analogy:

If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it. It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries. But it is not the task of the Church to instruct potential bank robbers how to rob banks more safely and certainly not the task of the Church to support programs of providing potential bank robbers with guns that could not use bullets. Nonetheless, the intent of a bank robber to rob a bank in a way that is safer for the employees and customers of the bank may indicate an element of moral responsibility that could be a step towards eventual understanding of the immorality of bank robbing.

There is more that can be said about all this, but what we’ve already seen makes it clear that the Pope’s remarks must be read carefully and that they do not constitute the kind of license for condom use that the media would wish.

More to come.

PART TWO OF THE SERIES: UNDERSTANDING THE POPE’S DILEMMA ON CONDOMS

PART THREE: NEW DEVELOPMENTS ON THE POPE AND CONDOMS

Should You Read Non-Catholic Materials?

A correspondent writes:

I am presently attending a Bible study. During our small group discussion, a question arose from someone in our group.We would like to know if it is wrong for us to read and examine other books and Bibles that are not Catholic-based to see what they have information-wise pertaining to spiritual matters. For example, we both have Life Application Study Bibles and enjoy reading the associated study footnotes.

My opinion is that the Holy Spirit guides us with discernment especially when we pray before reading or delving into other Christian denomination books and Bibles. I guard myself (my heart, mind and spirit) so that I’m not influenced in any way that could conflict with Catholic beliefs. If I’m not sure or confused about an issue (e.g., Why do we believe this and they that?”), I said I then will go to a religious authoritative person to have any questions or issues addressed or I check Internet sites like www.Catholic.com. I believe I am exercising my ‘child-like faith’ with wanting to know and love more, which draws me closer to Him and to others, while using my adult judgment. I also believe that, when we know more about other religions and philosophies (Christian, Jewish, Eastern, scientific, etc.), it helps us to practice love, respect others, and establish a common ground for our relationship and possible future discussions for witnessing for Catholicism. If I didn’t understand or have knowledge of what they believe, I may not be able to convey my Catholic beliefs and doctrines as accurately.

The other person in our small discussion group is concerned that when we read, we can be swayed / influenced to turn from our Catholic beliefs and choose another path. Are we able to guard ourselves enough (with the Holy Spirit’s assistance), spiritually and mentally, to protect our Catholic faith or is avoidance of other doctrines the answer? Is it a matter where it differs per individual and how strong their faith is (figuratively, those who are nursing vs. those eating solid food)?

Please share your opinion and feel free to correct me where I’m wrong. Thank you!

I think that you and the other person in your Bible study have valid points. There is not a one-size-fits-all answer on this one.

On the one hand, there is a great deal to be learned from non-Catholic sources, including non-Catholic religious and philosophical ones. St. Thomas Aquinas did an enormous service for the Church by showing how Christian faith can be related to the thought of non-Christian thinkers, such as (and especially) the pre-Christian philosopher Aristotle. Aquinas’s attitude was that all truth is God’s truth, and so if you find truth in a non-Christian source it not only will not contradict the Christian faith but it also will be of use to Christians. The more truth, the better!

His attitude was thus to exercise critical thinking in reading materials from non-Catholic sources (and from Catholic ones, for that matter!). Although St. Paul said it in a different context, the idea also applies here:

Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)

This philosophy has also carried down to our day. In fact, in the books he is writing on the life of Jesus, Pope Benedict regularly interacts with the ideas of the American Rabbi Jacob Neusner, whose perspective on Jesus he finds to have value, even though he doesn’t agree with everything. (And he’s willing to reference Neusner in public—and thus implicitly encourage others to see what Neusner has to say.)

If you have a good grounding in your Catholic faith and can exercise critical thinking in what you read then there is nothing to fear in non-Catholic writings, and there is much to be learned from them! Though we have the fullness of religious truth, we do not have a monopoly on truth, and the perspectives of others can help bring out things that we as Catholics may not have known or may not have fully worked out yet.

In my own work, I use non-Catholic materials all the time. In fact, my favorite commentaries on the book of Genesis are by Jewish authors (Rashi and Nahum Sarna), there are Evangelical commentaries on certain books of the Bible that I learn a great deal from (the writings of N. T. Wright and James Dunn come to mind), and there are things to be learned even from folks who do not have any faith.

The key to being able to sift through this material and find what is good in it, though, involves more than praying to the Holy Spirit, and here is where I think your friend has a good point. One must also have a firm knowledge of your own faith in order to be able to think critically about material presented from other perspectives.

While one certainly should and must rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance, the Holy Spirit does not promise to protect us from coming to mistaken conclusions just because we pray to him. He also wants us to study, internalize, and thoroughly know our own faith. And then, with his guidance, we can approach materials from other perspectives profitably and with confidence.

Because everybody in our culture is taught to regard himself as an expert on religion from the time of birth, it is easy—often far too easy—for us to imagine that we have the kind of knowledge of our own faith that is needed to accurately identify beliefs that conflict with it. Indeed, we’d often feel insulted if someone suggested that we don’t! “What do you mean I don’t know my Catholic faith well enough to know what contradicts it!”

Yet there are a great many people who, in fact, don’t have a good grasp on the Church’s teaching even though they think they do.

And then there are people who, while they know the teaching of the Church well, may be experiencing an emotional crisis or a crisis of faith of some sort, and this would interfere with their ability to productively and serenely interact with materials from non-Catholic authors.

Certainly the safest course is to stick with Catholic materials, and as a general matter this is advisable, particularly for those who are less educated in their faith or who are going through difficult patches in their lives, but if you are well educated in your faith and able to exercise the critical thinking necessary to profitably sift what you are reading, there is nothing to fear from doing so.

There is thus no one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on each individual and where that person is in their intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journeys.

In terms of the group—since people may be at different stages of those journeys—I would recommend erring on the side of caution (a flock travels at the speed of its slowest member), and if you use non-Catholic materials (or less-reliable Catholic ones, which can even be more insidious since they may have been written by wolves in sheep’s clothing), point out their limitations and strongly caution people against using them uncritically.

I hope this helps, and best of luck!

What are your thoughts?

New Rules on Sex Abuse–What Will the Vatican Announce?

A few months ago, during the height of the latest abuse scandal, the Holy See created a new page on its website offering resources documenting the Church’s response to the problem over the last number of years.

HERE’S THE PAGE.

One of the things they put on it was a brief, layman’s guide to the procedures the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith uses in evaluating cases of priestly sexual abusers.

HERE’S THAT DOCUMENT.

One of the things that document did was say that there is a revision underway of the current regulations, which are set forth in a motu proprio called Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela. Specifically, the document said:

For some time the CDF has undertaken a revision of some of the articles of Motu Proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis tutela, in order to update the said Motu Proprio of 2001 in the light of special faculties granted to the CDF by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Now a plethora of press reports indicate that the publication of the revision is nigh. In fact, according to several press accounts, it was approved by Pope Benedict in a Saturday audience with Cardinal William Levada (head of the CDF) last week. (NOTE: That it was a Saturday audience is kind of odd. Normally the pope meets with the head of the CDF on Fridays, though perhaps not that much should be read into the shift of days.)

There is no way of knowing at this point how accurate the press accounts are of what the new norms will say, but piecing bits together from different reports suggest that there may be interesting things afoot.

First, what kind of form will the new norms take? It appears that they may not be a new motu proprio—which is a document issues by the pope. Instead, they may be an instruction, which is the kind of document the head of the CDF could issue with the approval of the pope.

It also appears that, concerning priestly sexual abuse, they will largely serve to reinforce the status quo. They will not, according to at least one report, mandate a “one strike and you’re out” policy on a global level. This kind of policy is in place in the United States and in certain other countries, but it has not been mandated globally. If the mainstream media goes after the new norms in a big way, expect it to go after this aspect of them as proof the Holy See isn’t doing enough or still doesn’t “get it.”

Another thing the mainstream media may go after is that the new norms will certainly not require bishops all over the world to report suspected abusers to the police. The norms may say something about complying with local law regarding sexual abuse, but they won’t mandate automatic reporting to civil authorities because it would give totalitarian countries—like Communist China or Vietnam or, apparently, Belgium—a new tool for persecuting the Church, or harming the confidentiality of accusers (some will come forward only on the condition they they aren’t going to have to get involved with the criminal justice system, which is one of the reasons such victims have been speaking out against the actions of the Belgian authorities; they had been frank with the Church under conditions of confidentiality, only to have their files seized by the state for possible use in criminal prosecutions, meaning that the victims may be dragged into civil court).

However understandable the Holy See’s motives may be in not mandating universal reporting to the authorities, don’t count on the MSM to understand them.

A change that the media might see as “good but not enough” in the new norms is the extension of the statue of limitations on reporting priestly sexual abuse from 10 years to 20 years, starting with the victim’s 18th birthday. The CDF has the ability to waive the current 10 year statute of limitations, and according to reports it routinely does so, so the extension to 20 years actually would represent a kind of codification of the status quo.

An interesting expansion of the way sex abuse cases will be treated, reportedly, is that possession of child pornography will now be counted as one of the offenses reserved to the CDF.

At least one source as reports that the abuse of mentally impaired adults will be classified as one of the reserved offenses, putting it on par with child sexual abuse.

It is also expected that the document will make certain provisions that are currently handled as “exceptions” to present norms. According to John Allen, the set of exceptions:

• Allows one judge on a church tribunal to be a lay person, and eliminates the requirement of a doctorate in canon law;
• Allows for by-passing trials in especially grave cases, removing abuser priests on the basis of a decree;
• Gives the doctrinal congregation power to “sanate” the acts of lower courts, meaning to clean up any procedural irregularities;
• Establishes that an appeal in abuse cases goes to the doctrinal congregation rather than the Signatura, the Vatican’s highest court.

There are also indications that the new norms may deal with other crimes reserved to the CDF, but these have not been the focus of current reporting.

MORE INFORMATION: HERE, HERE, HERE, AND HERE.

Speculation is that the new norms will be announced in the next two weeks, but of course we’ll have to see whether that is the case, as well as whether the above report correspond to what they will actually say.

Count on the media to try to milk maximum sensationalism out of the story (just look at some of the language used in the New York Times’ preliminary report).

In the meantime, what are your thoughts?

What Do Italian Priests’ Mistresses Want You To Know?

A group of 40 or so mistresses of Italian priests, including Stefania Solomone (pictured), want you—and especially Pope Benedict—to know that they don’t like priestly celibacy.

That’s why they’ve written the Pope a letter (Italian original) on the subject.

The occasion was Pope Benedict’s statement that

“The horizon of the ontological belonging to God also constitutes the proper framework for understanding and reaffirming, in our day too, the value of sacred celibacy which in the Latin Church is a charism required for Sacred Orders and is held in very great consideration in the Eastern Churches . . .

“It is an authentic prophecy of the Kingdom, a sign of consecration with undivided heart to the Lord and to “the affairs of the Lord”, the expression of their gift of self to God and to others. The priest’s vocation is thus most exalted and remains a great mystery, even to us who have received it as a gift. Our limitations and weaknesses must prompt us to live out and preserve with deep faith this precious gift with which Christ has configured us to him, making us sharers in his saving Mission.”

The mistresses particularly objected to the phrase “sacred celibacy,” who seem to have determined to write their letter “from the moment we heard the reaffirmation of the sacredness of what is not sacred in the least.”

This episode just fills me with sadness.

The discipline of celibacy (i.e., remaining unmarried, which implies continence, or abstaining from sexual relations as its corollary in Christian morality) for the service of the Kingdom has been part of Christian patrimony since the time of the apostles. Jesus himself recommended it in the Gospels, though he noted that it was not a gift given to everyone.

How that discipline is applied in particular ages and in particular spheres of the Church is something that has changed over time.

There is no reason in principle why the Church could not change its discipline regarding clerical celibacy in the future. The question is whether it would be prudent to do so, and what form of revision—if any—would be beneficial.

A Catholic can thus legitimately hold the opinion that the Church should modify or even abolish the discipline of clerical celibacy.

There was a period after Vatican II where there was a great expectation that a change in the discipline would be coming in the near future, which created unrealistic hopes in many. It also, no doubt, helped alienate many priests when these unrealistic expectations were not fulfilled, leading many of them into sexual sin (with adult women; wanting permission to marry a woman doesn’t correlate with desires to have sex with children) or out of the priesthood entirely.

The pressure was so great that John Paul II judged it prudent to take the subject off the table, even though it is a matter of Church discipline rather than dogma, and so he and others at the Vatican repeatedly stressed that the subject was not up for discussion.

Pope Benedict has taken a somewhat different tack. In the 2007 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, he allowed the subject to be discussed among the participants. As one might expect, reports at the time indicated that some of the Eastern bishops, who deal with the practical difficulties of a married clergy, were the most vocal in stressing that the Latin Church should not abolish its discipline on this point. So the topic was discussed, and that bishops recommended that it not be pursued further (at least at this time). That’s right there in the propositions that the bishops delivered to the pope as recommendations (see Proposition 11).

So on the one hand, my heart goes out to Pope Benedict, who has been singularly unafraid of dialog on points where the Church could change its discipline, including dialog on this point in particular. Yet as this story gains traction in the world press, he stands to be shoved into the media mold of “mean old celibate pope”—when in reality he has been willing to have the subject of revising the Latin Church’s celibacy discipline be seriously discussed!

My heart also goes out to the mistresses, because they have a human desire to marry those to whom they are romantically attached and are genuinely pained at the situation in which they find themselves.

That’s the position in which mistresses commonly find themselves.

But the thing is . . . they’re mistresses.

They are living a life that is objectively sinful.

They are violating very basic and well-known elements of Christian morality. It’s hard to claim innocent ignorance in this case.

The same thing goes—even moreso—for the priests with whom they are involved.

One can feel for the emotional distress over the situation in which they find themselves, and one can understand their petition for a change in Church law that would allow them to regularize their situations, but at the same time there is a tragic dimension to their situation that remains unacknowledged in their letter: They are, in fact, living in sin.

And it’s a big one, overlaid with sacrilege because priests are involved—a factor that weighs even more heavily on the priest in the relationship than one the mistress, because the priest is responsible for his consecrated person in a way that others are not.

It is a tragedy that these people attached romantic feelings to each other—something that they knew from the beginning was wrong.

So reading the letter is a mixed experience.

In certain passages they make insightful points (particularly regarding the psychological dynamics of their situation). In other passages they articulate positions that a Catholic may legitimately hold.

But then they get into stuff that is flat-out rationalization.

They play the victim card repeatedly, and there is an element of truth to the idea that they are victims—but not as much victims of the law of celibacy (as they would maintain) but rather victims of the men who have been playing with their affections to fulfill their own psychological and sexual impulses.

I’m sorry, but there are lots of people in the world who are romantically off limits to every single one of us. These people include all children, all members of our own sex, all married members of the opposite sex except our spouse, and—if we are married—every other person on the planet except our spouse.

To become romantically or sexually involved with any one of these people is a sin, and anybody with even a basic education in Christian morality knows that.

Not being able to marry or to become romantically involved with someone is not something surprising. It is the norm for every single human being with respect to almost every single other human being.

If you want to marry someone, great. Go out and look for someone you legitimately could marry, but you are not a victim because a particular person you’d like to marry has already taken a vow (or made a promise) of celibacy any more than you are a victim if the person you’d like to marry has already taken marriage vows to someone and is thus one among the billions of people not romantically available to you.

This is just life.

And I’m not sure that’s something the authors of the letter get. At times reading it, describing the struggles that they and their paramours experience, one hears echoes of what ordinary people face and fear. Do priests get lonely? Sure. So do lots of non-priests, including lots of married people. Do they get depressed? Of course. So do lots of people of every age and every condition.

We all experience unpleasant things in life, we all have struggles and pain, and we all encounter situations that would be different in a more perfect world. But the ability to claim victimhood is limited when one has become involved with a person who is not lawfully available to you and with whom you are conducting an objectively sinful affair.

It’s one thing to advocate a change in the Latin Church’s discipline of clerical celibacy (or the Eastern Churches’, for that matter, because they have a version of it, too). It’s another thing to portray oneself as the victim because you are engaging in a relationship that is objectively sinful from the beginning and which you knew to be objectively sinful when you entered it.

If you want to advocate a change, fine. But don’t do so portraying yourself and your paramour as victims and ignoring the real and objectively sinful character of your relationship. You are in control of your actions and your choices. Don’t pretend that you’re not.

As St. Paul, who knew a thing or two about celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, wrote: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

What are your thoughts?