A Defence of Homosexuality
How can we begin to think of homosexuality and its unions athwart the epistemology of the family and procreation: how can we begin to re-imagine homosexuality as possessing dignity, opennesses to grace, and a future: how can we understand homosexuality beyond the narrative of failure, of Shakespeare's lament:
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding. (Sonnet I).
This, my friends, is my project, and I hope that you'll join and pray for me.
ASC.
Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genitrix.
I think that positing biological pro-creation, or its possibility, as the only sure sign of the fecundity of an erotic relationship is the first problem here.
ReplyDelete"You see Socrates, what Love wants is not beauty as you think it is...it is reproduction and birth in beauty. Now why reproduction? It's because reproduction goes on forever; it is what mortals have in place of immortality. A lover must desire immortality along with the good, if what we agreed earlier was right, that Love wants to possess the good forever. It follows from our argument that Love must desire immortality" [206e, 207a]
"Now some people are pregnant in body and for this reason turn more toward women and pursue love in that way, providing themselves through childbirth with immortality and remembrance and happiness, as they think, for all time to come; while others are pregnant in soul–because there surely are those who are even more pregnant in their souls than in their bodies, and these are pregnant for what is fitting for a soul to bear and bring to birth. And what is fitting? Widsom and the rest of virtue, which all poets beget, as well as all craftsmen who are said to be creative...[208e, 209...][ Plato's Symposium]
Probably most people reading this blog have read the above before, nonetheless, why not start there? Fecundity is not limited to bios, but there is zoe as well.
Is it proper to speak of homosexuality, in itself, as possessing dignity? The inclination is described by the Church as being intrinsically evil. How is that reconcilable with dignity? I suppose you could speak of a person's dignity or courageous virtue, even though he possessed the inclination, but wouldn't that be in spite of homosexuality? Doesn't the picture thus far painted by the Church force us to think of homosexuality as being strictly an impediment to morality?
ReplyDeleteThe statement is easily "reconciled" with the description by the Church, by the possibility that in this, perhaps, the church is simply wrong.
ReplyDeletePope Benedict, as a young theologian, wrote about the value of tradition in Church teaching - but observed that alongside the valuable tradition, there is also a "distorting" tradition. When the bishops and approved theologians necessarily have no real - life experience of loving, committed and publicly acknowledged sexual relationships, it is surely possible that the current sexual doctrines are part of that "distorting tradition".
More recently, in one of his weekly general audiences last year, Pope Benedict spoke of the importance to the Church of St Joan of Arc. He reminded us that she had been tried, convicted and burned by the recognized theologians and leaders of the church of her day - and was later exonerated, rehabilitated, and eventually canonized. He went on to explicitly draw the obvious conclusion: theologians and leaders of the church can be wrong. On sexual ethics, where the vast majority of Catholics simply do not agree that every genital act must be open to procreation, it is certainly possible that celibate, ivory tower theologians could be wrong.
Church documents are clear that church teaching must pay due attention to the findings of the natural and human sciences - but on the understanding of human sexuality, the Vatican has simply disregarded its own injunction, both on the centrality of procreation, and on the nature of same-sex affectional orientation.
There have recently been some signs of change: the French bishops council on marriage and the family, in their statement of firm opposition to gay marriage have acknowledged that based on the findings of science, there should be stronger civil recognition and protection for same - sex couples. Just this week, the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has said much the same thing. Both are in direct contradiction with the 2003 declaration by the CDF that all attempts at political recognition for such unions, should be opposed.
It now seems that in France, and in Rome, formal Church councils on marriage and family are now concluding that on the matter of recognition for these relationships - the CDF document is wrong.