The first time I went to Rome (in 2004) it was at the invitation of the then Cardinal Ratzinger. We talked about books and education. I’m going again (hurray, I love Rome!) in a few weeks at the same time as the Synod on the Family. But I’m not going because of the Synod. And I am going to see the man in charge of the Apostolic Library, to talk education and books again. That man, Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès OP, when Pope Benedict gave him the job in 2012, said that the Apostolic Library was like the great unseen keel of the barque of Peter: The weight of tradition and prayerful scholarship hidden way beneath the Petrine Plimsoll line plays a key role in keeping us all on course:
“If it were not for the keel, the ship would be subjected to doctrinal winds of any nature or fashions. It is this keel which gives depth to the catechetical work of the Church and her teaching.” Archbishop Bruguès also described the Apostolic Library and the Vatican Secret Archives as “jewels in the crown of the Church” which help prevent us losing our historical memory, exposing themselves to dangerous amnesia, and watching the possibility for progress slip farther away, he said.
“I believe that memory is fundamental for constructing a solid basis for the future”, the former Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education said. “And it is even more important”, he continued, “if the memory to which we are referring is that of the Church”.
(Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/
In all the worry and talk surrounding the forthcoming Synod, let’s take a moment to think about history, remember why we are Catholics in the first place, and calm down. Honestly, nothing has really changed on the theme of sexuality since the Early Church. Divorce was an enormous pastoral issue then. Lots of men were having sex with other men and with boys in the Greek world in which Christianity took root. Abortion was rife. Contraception and early versions of the morning after pill had already been invented at the time of Christ. If anything, many pagans were often more sexually profligate than modern post-christians. We were then, and are still, most of us, like Abbé Prévost and his Manon, a contradictory mixture of beauty and ugliness.
People continue to be deeply motivated by their sexual urges and their need for companionship. And they feel at the same time a call to heroism and truth. And the paradox of these competing forces shakes us all up. The sexual feelings of modern men, as with their forefathers, are still a source of difficulty and shame when they clash with our moral obligations, as they so often do. People have struggled with these crosses for thousands of years.
So, if divorce and homosexuality were on the agenda in the first century, what’s wrong with them being on the agenda in the 21st century? Nothing. It is quite normal that people should be asking these questions and looking for answers. The problem is that if Christ and His Church already addressed these issues with love and clarity back then, how is it that modern man needs a different answer from those given by Jesus and St Paul to the exact same questions all those years ago? Maybe he just needs to be told again, (and again, and again …)
Hey, we all sin. We all long for Christ’s embrace when we have fallen. He picks us up, sets us again on the right course and says ‘Go and sin no more’. It is a compelling message, because in the end it is a choice between returning the love of the Greatest Lover in the universe, or not, and then another choice: Heaven or Hell. What could be more consoling and compelling at the same time?
Of course the Christian life can be difficult for us. It is difficult for a married man who is tired of his wife and is tempted to take a mistress as a way of saving his marriage; it is difficult for his wife too, no doubt, and perhaps for the mistress; it is difficult for a lonely homosexual who cannot cope with his solitude; it is difficult for the beautiful young woman whose husband is seriously disabled after an accident and who weeps every night because she just wants to be held by a man. And what about the man who, by no choice he ever made, seems only to desire intimacy with children and not with adults? What about the bisexual man who finds himself in love with a beautiful woman and also with his best male friend and who wishes he didn’t have to chose between those two loves? There are many categories of people who are faced with a difficult clash between their sexual urges, their thirst for intimacy and affirmation and then the demands of morality.
It is all a mess. And it always has been. At least, ever since Adam and Eve. Ancient Jews, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks faced the same problems. And Christ and his apostles gave answers to people with problem situations such as I describe. These situations are not something new.
Christ is the ultimate answer to these problems, not a committee. The Church can bring Christ’s light and love, but cannot replace them with her own pronouncements. And this is the mistake that a lot of professional church people can easily make.
Some people, in the end, refuse to repent. It can be frustrating and sad, but it is part of the mystery of our free will. It is not the Church’s role to force people into Heaven. And cheap talk and dishonest intellectual or legal fixes are not the answer, nor will they succeed in getting the recalcitrant kicking and screaming into Heaven by a clever trap-door.
I repeat that the ultimate answer to these problems is Christ, not a committee. The touch of Christ, the look of Christ, the love of Christ. That is where the answer is. And in fact the Church cannot vote or define the love of God into or out of existence in general or in specific cases. « But our God lives in heaven; whatever he wants he just does » as the psalm has it. If God wants to love us then He will, whatever the Church may say. And God does love us all, especially the hopeless sinners.
On behalf of sinners, let me say thank-you to God for His unconditional love. If the Holy Father wants to know what I’d like out of his Synod on the Family, I’d say this: clarity, truth and guidance for living. And also, some exhortation to governments and to secular society on how to support the family at this difficult time. As for acceptance and love, anyone who wants that can get it from the Lord without the need for a committee vote. As Cardinal Mueller has so cleverly put it: “We can talk a lot about God, and in the end, do so without faith”. Let’s not fall into that trap. Let’s stay on that even course, steadied by the sound weight of Tradition. And let’s sit down calmly and not rock the boat.
As for what to tell the sinners, especially after a lot of folks are going to be upset that the Catholic Church is not going to change her teachings after all, just tell them the truth. Even when it hurts. The best part of that truth is that we sinners are loved by Almighty God.
Ferdi McDermott founded St Austin Review in 2000. He is Principal of Chavagnes International College, an international Catholic boarding school in France : www.chavagnes.org
Thank you!