By M.E. GILLSON
Recently, social media buzzing with debate over whether the Catholic Church would alter moral teaching on homosexuality. A popular media source had run an article about a cardinal who was, reportedly, close to the Pope, but far from Catholic teaching. Folks in the media seem to relish whipping up confusion and speculation with stories about deviant churchmen and suggestions that the Church will reverse age-old morality. Those who opine that she may, only demonstrate their ignorance of Catholicism.
Catholic morality, based on Scripture and two thousands of years of Tradition, aligns with objective truth and cannot be changed by the whims of wayward prelates nor the trends of contemporary society.
Moral precepts are developed from the study of Catholic moral theology. Theology, moral or otherwise, is first and foremost, the study of God. Human nature is also the subject of moral theology, but only because man exists in relationship to God. The Church’s moral theologians, considering God’s self-Revelation and human nature, offer laws to guide human actions. If men and women live according to these, they may have life in Christ, and through Him, communion with God.
Catholic moral theology is not a human construct, nor is it a science for men and women to manipulate. It proceeds from faith in the God who reveals Himself. Because God is eternal and unchangeable, truth subsists in God. Thus, His self-revelation is also the revelation of truth. The Church receives in faith what God has revealed of Himself, first to the people of Israel, and “in these last days,” through His Son (Heb. 1:2). Further, she believes that the Apostles and their successors are the chosen emissaries of Christ to witness to His Gospel to the ends of the Earth. The Church is confident in her authority to teach about divine truth because she trusts her Lord’s promise, “I will be with you always, until the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Though Christ ascended into Heaven, the Church recognizes the fulfillment of his words in the coming of the Spirit. The promised “Spirit of truth,” who would “be with you forever” (John 14:17) and lead the Church to “all truth” (John 16:13). The Church, which is “the Kingdom of Christ now present in mystery” (Lumen Gentium, n. 3) is divinely constituted to receive, guard, and teach truth.
The Church recognizes that God not only revealed Himself supernaturally through patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, but that He also reveals Himself through His “work” of creation. There is no division within God. He is perfect and simple. What He “does” is an outpouring of who He “is.” St Paul wrote, “Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). The material world that God created cannot be divorced from His divine order or “eternal law.” This order, perfection, and design of the eternal law is written into the structure of all of creation as a “natural law.”
Faith is the starting point of Catholic moral theology, but reason is necessary to develop moral precepts. The first pages of Sacred Scripture recount, “God made man in His divine image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). The human person is a unity of body and soul. The body is material — created matter, which is unlike God, who is pure spirit. The spiritual soul that gives life to the body, is in the “likeness” of God, who is rational, free, and immortal. Through the powers of the soul, the human person can recognize the logic of divine and natural truth. Through the rational intellect, men and women discern natural law, and as embodied souls, they may direct their spiritual and physical natures according to that truth.
Contemporary men and women struggle with Catholic moral teaching for a myriad of reasons. Perhaps, above all, because the post-modern thought that permeates all areas of contemporary society, denies the existence of truth or objective reality. Without faith in God and acknowledgment of His divine order, they think everything is a construct by people with power to oppress others. Such a mindset allows, even encourages, the destruction of any design or order because such “constructs” are viewed as limits to freedom.
Pope John Paul II called this an “illusory freedom.” He wrote, “only the freedom which submits to the Truth leads the human person to his true good. The good of the person is to be in the Truth and to do the Truth” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 84).
Post-modernism is antithetical to Christianity because Christianity is not a philosophy, or paradigm, it is faithful and loving adherence to the God who took flesh and proclaimed, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, is the sovereign King who governs the Church. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son, builds up the Body of the Church uniting her to Christ. Catholic moral theology offers men and women teachings on how they must live, so as to be members of the Mystical Body of Christ, and through Him, to achieve eternal communion with God. And God, who “wills that all men be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4), will not permit some rogue heretical cardinal to “change” His Church’s teaching. Rather, the Church is a barque in a storm, commandeered by God, which cannot be capsized by the petty dissonance of particular priests, cardinals, and even Popes.
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