Outreach asked some of the world’s leading Catholic theologians and scholars to reflect on the import of the work of Study Group 9: what it means for the church and for LGBTQ Catholics. We hope this series helps you as well to reflect on this group’s important work. Read more from Outreach’s series here.
Any discipline requires an understanding of what its starting points are, and what it takes as authoritative. In this, theology is no different. It reasons from God’s self-revelation of God’s self in Christ as mediated through Scripture and tradition, a process whose fidelity is assured by the Holy Spirit. Authority operates from the whole body of Christ as the community of that revelation but is uniquely vested in the bishops and the pope. Nothing new can be added to this revelation but we do, as the people of God, unpack its contents over time through authentic development.
Theological discernment is guarded and guided by the bishops and shaped by theologians, but it also involves all the members of the faithful. We might here think of the way the faithful have helped discern the sanctity of saints (Óscar Romero was San Romero in El Salvador long before his canonization) or the importance of lay devotion in unpacking the meaning of Mary, or how married couples embody St. Paul VI’s prophetic teaching on contraception by being open to life in a world often closed to it.
This understanding of theology as done by the whole people of God is essential to what is called synodality and is a key gift of this ecclesial process initiated by Pope Francis. This is apparent in Study Group 9’s “On Emerging Issues.” We need, as it says, the “mobilization of all subjects” when it comes to “the emerging issues that are the object of discernment.” The Synod further advances the idea that shared theological discernment does not only arise from the center of the church—whether that be bishops or laity committed to the full teaching of the church—but also from her peripheries. As Synod Group 9 indicates, this means hearing our homosexual brothers and sisters as they live the faith, struggle with ecclesial teachings, face oppression, and share in the discernment of theology.
Theological discernment is guarded and guided by the bishops and shaped by theologians, but it also involves all the members of the faithful.
The Synod challenges us to consider lived experiences from the whole people of God to understand the self-revelation of God which is continued by the church. Synod group 9 pushes us to see that those who may not be living according to the teachings of the church in certain areas have a voice in this discernment process. Thus, the synod includes the words and experience of two gay men in committed relationships with men, who have both experienced the church’s teaching as painful and yet through experiences of love remain Catholics. Alas, the group did not include women or non-Westerners and did not include any homosexuals who are striving to live chastely according to the Catechism’s teaching. Yet still, these two voices challenge the church to listen.
What I think we will hear is the pain many homosexual Catholics have felt and the real practices of fidelity that they live. Much of this pain is caused by the hatred of homosexuals, a hatred that is a sin. We may also hear the reality of the love experienced by homosexuals in monogamous relations. If one holds, as the church teaches, that the sexual acts in these relationships are sinful, we must also hold that other aspects are deeply good. “The line separating good and evil passes” Alexander Solzenitsyn wrote “through every human heart” and, we might add, through every human relationship. We should not forget the good even when we rightly point out the wrong. In this, heterosexuals and homosexuals are not that different, people who suffer from sexual sin in need of God’s redeeming mercy.
At the same time, I am skeptical of aspects of Synod Group 9’s report. Its insistence on paradigm shifts is hard to reconcile with the church’s self-understanding. Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever and so too, in a real way, is the church, as body of Christ. While it is not always clear what paradigm shift means, the development of doctrine entails a rejection of the standard meaning of paradigm shifts. Reform of a paradigm yes, but not the rupture inherent in paradigm shifts.
Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever and so too, in a real way, is the church, as body of Christ.
Further, Synod Group 9’s articulation of authority is problematic, especially when it lists the responsibilities of ecclesial authority and leaves out tasks like defining teaching and handing on the deposit of faith as received rather than as shifted by new paradigms. Yes, to a listening church and a magisterium that hears the whole body of the faithful. But the teaching we have received must shape our listening.
The Synod, I believe, overstates the idea of reasoning from the experiences of people. This is important but not definitive in the life of the church. While we should listen to conservative Catholics often reject Catholic social teaching, we should clearly state that they are wrong when they oppress migrants and take the side of the rich over the poor. Along these lines, the document, while claiming not to take sides, repeatedly insists on “the overcoming of the theoretical model that derives praxis from a ‘pre-packaged’ doctrine, ‘applying’ general and abstract principles to the concrete and personal situations of life.” Theology is not a deductive system like Euclidian geometry and must learn from people’s lived experiences, but it does have first principles and constant teachings that need to shape our listening and determine our understanding of moral theology. We do need to derive our praxis from our doctrine because there are teachings that are “definitively established.”
Listening is hard. I make no great claim to being good at it, but I pray the Spirit will shape in me a listening heart. May I close with my gratitude that Outreach included me, as a person who holds to what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches on sexual ethics. In creating a space to listen to me, Outreach challenges me to listen to the loving homosexual men and women who have a baptismal citizenship in the church, a citizenship that should not be rejected or downplayed. May this Synod document continue to be a challenge for all of us, offer a path towards rejecting homophobia, provide an opportunity for conversion for all of us regardless of sexual orientation and offer new pathways for theological discernment.
