There is always controversy during the development of doctrine and there always has been. No need to get alarmed. The Magisterium will sort it all out eventually. There will be an aggiornamento that will satisfy neither the “Hans Kungs” of the Church nor the “Marcel Lefebvres” and that is how it should be.
Lots of things are intrinsically evil. That doesn’t make them gravely evil. You should read up on what term actually means and where it came from (hint: Thomas Aquinas). It might surprise you. Here’s a good article on it:
www.americamagazine.org
Whose point? We need to be clear that there have been no changes in Church doctrine regarding usury, slavery, torture or religious liberty. Development of doctrine, especially as Bl. John Henry Newman lays it out, is essentially different from change. And many people don’t understand this fact. That’s why you see proponents of women’s ordination, contraception, and state sanctioned same-sex marriage (along with the notion that sexual acts between those of the same sex can ever be morally good) often use the four examples you gave above in their effort to get the Church to change its teaching on these three issues, and others.
People use those four examples, because they are the clearest examples of a 180 degree turn taken by the church when it comes to how we understand certain behaviors. Let’s take the “torture” for example. Catholic Answers provides an excellent analysis of the tortured history of what the church taught about torture over the years. It’s a good article.Luke6_37:
Whose point? We need to be clear that there have been no changes in Church doctrine regarding usury, slavery, torture or religious liberty. Development of doctrine, especially as Bl. John Henry Newman lays it out, is essentially different from change. And many people don’t understand this fact. That’s why you see proponents of women’s ordination, contraception, and state sanctioned same-sex marriage (along with the notion that sexual acts between those of the same sex can ever be morally good) often use the four examples you gave above in their effort to get the Church to change its teaching on these three issues, and others.
The way I see it, the church regards homosexual acts as the failure of a person to fully integrate the meaning of sexuality in the same way that masturbation, fornication and contraception are failures to do so. Such failures are not good by any means, but I have never heard anyone claim they rise to a level of evil that one would attribute to abortion for example. Certainly, there is no will on the part of the Magisterium to seek to outlaw any of these behaviors, which seems to me a tacit indication that the Church feels they are best dealt with on a personal and pastoral level.
It is a good article, and I think it shows how what can be an apparent contradiction is really no contradiction at all. These issues you listed are confusing to understand, yes, but it’s not impossible to sift through.
Also, probably the biggest elephant in the room, IMO, is this: Is Fr. Martin’s assertion, that the prohibition of sexual activity between members of the same sex is on par with the prohibition of mixing two fabrics, a correct and factual statement? Or is he horribly mistaken in his Biblical exegesis? People like Fr. Schmitz and Dr. Mary Healy show that Fr. Martin has completely misunderstood how the laws found in Leviticus and the rest of the Torah relate to us today, and this is a big problem if we are to preach the truth in love to all others.
Jesus gave us both the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. I think He very much wants us to care about the salvation of other souls as well as ours.
Firstly, I think what Fr. Martin is doing is exactly what he says he’s doing - building a bridge between the gay community and the Catholic church. That means, first of all, to treat LGBTQ people with dignity and respect and not reduce their same-sex relationship to simply sex. To do so would in fact be doing exactly what Fr. Schmitz says nobody should do.
This one seems pretty unequivocal.
Also we had warning from Our Lady of Fatima about the attack on the family.
www.ncregister.com
I think a large part of what is at issue for Father Martin and Bishop Barron is the language the Church has used in the past to characterize homosexual acts and by extension LGBTQ people. I think both men agreed that it gets in the way of the Gospel message. There are worse things people can do that are not described in the CCC as “acts of grave depravity” or “intrinsically disordered” even though they are both.Luke6_37:
This one seems pretty unequivocal.
CCC 2357 … Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
What about adultery? Surely that is spoken of using more severe language…
Hmmm…
The problem, though, is that Fr. Martin is ignoring the bridges that have already been built by courageous priests like Fr. John F. Harvey, O.S.F.S, Fr. Paul Check, and Servant of God Cardinal Terrence Cooke. I think we can both admit that what Fr. Martin advocates, as seen in his support of New Ways Ministries, is not in accord what the Courage apostolate promotes, which is legitimately recognized by the Church.
Third, can the Ordinary Magisterium “definitively define” what something in Scripture means? In this specific case, I am not simply pitting Fr. Schmitz’s interpretation against Fr. Martin’s. This interpretation of Fr. Schmitz’s is rooted in St. Paul’s exposition of Leviticus in 1 Cor. 6 and Romans 1. Here he condemns same-sex sexual acts on moral grounds. He does not include the eating of shellfish or the mixing of two fabrics together here (or elsewhere) because those laws focused on the ceremonial aspect of the Law; an aspect which only applied to the Jews in a certain time and place. Fr. Schmitz’s interpretation is further rooted (as if St. Paul were not enough) in prior interpretations that were handed down to the Church by such men as Tertullian, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. This has been the interpretation given by numerous Church Fathers and saints, not to mention Protestant reformers like Calvin. I’ll quote St. Thomas Aquinas here:
The entirety of Question 99 is great for understanding this subject of distinguishing the Law into three groups. For more study, follow this link to a video where Patrick Madrid and Fr. Mike Schmitz have a mock debate. Fr. Schmitz shows how St. Paul makes a connection to Leviticus 18 and 20, showing that these commandments regarding sinful sexual acts (adultery, homosexuality, etc.) are prohibited by moral law. Start around the 52:30 mark to get Madrid’s question, but the real meat pertaining to our discussion here starts around the 56:00 mark through the 1:02:00 mark.
Note how followers of Jesus of Nazareth have always argued on how to interpret Jesus’ relation to the Father. Gnostics denied His humanity. Arians denied His divinity. Today, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon’s deny Jesus’ divinity. The point is, just because there have been disagreements both thousands of years in the past and in the present day, this does not mean that the truth of the matter is not there. Disagreements will keep happening, but it won’t change the truth of the matter: Jesus is divine.
Then do that. You are clearly deeply concerned with this issue. For me, it is no different than other sexual sins. I lump them all together.