The Catechism, homosexuality, gay priests, & Fr. James Martin.

NOTE. I always try to rep­re­sent oth­er peo­ple’s views cor­rect­ly, but being human I some­times make mis­takes. An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post attrib­uted some views to Dea­con Steven Grey­danus that he does not in fact hold. There­fore I have removed that sec­tion of the post, and I apol­o­gize to him and my read­ers for the error.

r. James Mar­tin, the Jesuit and LGBT apol­o­gist, is up to his inno­cent-sound­ing trick­eries again (as though there’s a new thing under the sun). I’ve writ­ten about them before [here and here], but first things first. There’s been a lot of doubt­ing on my Face­book page of late that the Cat­e­chism calls homosexuality—the ori­en­ta­tion itself, inde­pen­dent of any homo­sex­u­al acts—“disordered.” But the does say that, quite plain­ly. Here is CCC 2358:

The num­ber of men and women who have deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies is not neg­li­gi­ble. This incli­na­tion, which is objec­tive­ly [What’s the word?] dis­or­dered, con­sti­tutes for most of them a tri­al. They must be accept­ed with respect, com­pas­sion, and sen­si­tiv­i­ty. Every sign of unjust dis­crim­i­na­tion in their regard should be avoid­ed. These per­sons are called to ful­fill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Chris­tians, to unite to the sac­ri­fice of the Lord’s Cross the dif­fi­cul­ties they may encounter from their con­di­tion.

Now, it’s impor­tant to under­stand that the word “dis­or­der” in §2358 is not a psy­cho­log­i­cal term but a philo­soph­i­cal one. The Catholic Church does not claim that homo­sex­u­al per­sons have a men­tal ill­ness or men­tal dis­or­der; the Cat­e­chism is not the DSM. But their “incli­na­tion” is not ordered toward the prop­er ends of the sex­u­al act, which are (1) pro­cre­ative and (2) uni­tive. And, as the Church under­stands it, for sex to be uni­tive, it must be between com­ple­ments. Two men or two women can not be “com­ple­ments” because sex­u­al­ly they are the same: they have all the same parts. Sex­u­al “com­ple­men­tar­i­ty” is prop­er­ly, and sim­ply, under­stood as two oppo­sites brought to com­ple­tion in each oth­er. A dupli­cate is not a com­ple­ment; a penis can not com­ple­ment anoth­er penis.

Nor does the Cat­e­chism mean that homo­sex­u­al per­sons are dis­or­dered. It is impor­tant to make a dis­tinc­tion, which many fail to make, between an indi­vid­ual per­son and his incli­na­tions.

“But Alt! The Cat­e­chism also spec­i­fies it’s talk­ing about peo­ple with ‘deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies.’ That kind of lan­guage has got to nar­row the dis­cus­sion a lot.”

But it does­n’t. The Cat­e­chism says that the num­ber is “not neg­li­gi­ble.” And we do know what the Church means by “deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al tendencies”—this is not some unde­fined jar­gon that has sneaked in—because in this doc­u­ment, elim­i­nat­ing gay men from con­sid­er­a­tion for the priest­hood, the Con­gre­ga­tion for Catholic Edu­ca­tion con­trasts “deep-seat­ed ten­den­cies” with “tran­si­to­ry” ones:

Dif­fer­ent, how­ev­er, would be the case in which one were deal­ing with homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies that were only the expres­sion of a tran­si­to­ry problem—for exam­ple, that of an ado­les­cence not yet super­seded. Nev­er­the­less, such ten­den­cies must be clear­ly over­come at least three years before ordi­na­tion to the dia­conate.

In oth­er words, by “ten­den­cies” the Church means the incli­na­tion itself, and by “deep-seat­ed” she means per­ma­nent, not tran­si­to­ry, unable to be overcome—if you like, an iden­ti­ty. If you’re a grown man who iden­ti­fies as gay, you have “deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies.”

•••

On August 31, 2005, Pope Bene­dict XVI approved a doc­u­ment elim­i­nat­ing homo­sex­u­al men from con­sid­er­a­tion for the priest­hood, and that restric­tion was based on the Church’s teach­ing in CCC 2357 — 2358. The doc­u­ment is (rather long­ly) enti­tled “Cri­te­ria for the Dis­cern­ment of Voca­tion for Per­sons With Homo­sex­u­al Ten­den­cies in View of Their Admis­sion to the Sem­i­nary and to Holy Orders.” It reads:

In the light of such teach­ing, this Dicas­t­ery, in accord with the Con­gre­ga­tion for Divine Wor­ship and the Dis­ci­pline of the Sacra­ments, believes it nec­es­sary to state clear­ly that the Church, while pro­found­ly respect­ing the per­sons in ques­tion, can­not admit to the sem­i­nary or to holy orders those who prac­tise homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, present deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies or sup­port the so-called “gay cul­ture.”

Such per­sons, in fact, find them­selves in a sit­u­a­tion that grave­ly hin­ders them from relat­ing cor­rect­ly to men and women. One must in no way over­look the neg­a­tive con­se­quences that can derive from the ordi­na­tion of per­sons with deep-seat­ed homo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies.

By say­ing this, the Church does not make the claim that gay Catholics don’t have gifts to offer the body of Christ. Of course they do. We all do. But not all of us can be or should be priests. I can’t be a priest (and I should­n’t be), and that has noth­ing to do with my age or my mar­i­tal sta­tus or whether I still have my ton­sils. If none of those things barred me, I would still not have the inte­ri­or make­up to be a good priest. I dis­cerned for the priest­hood once, and then I dis­cerned oth­er­wise, and that’s a good thing. It’s not as though I must be a priest or I give no val­ue to the Church or to oth­er Catholics. Catholi­cism has many voca­tions. Mine is, I’m a writer. I haven’t some­how been “erased” by this. The Church did­n’t tell me “go away and don’t exist” when she told me I was­n’t called to the priest­hood.

•••

Which brings me to Fr. James Mar­tin. In the wake of the pope’s recent com­ments affirm­ing that gay men may not enter sem­i­nary, Fr. Mar­tin got on X‑née-Twit­ter and wrote:

In my 25 years as a priest and almost 40 as a Jesuit, I’ve known hun­dreds of holy, faith­ful and celi­bate gay priests. They’ve been my supe­ri­ors, my teach­ers, my con­fes­sors, my men­tors, my spir­i­tu­al direc­tors and my friends. And if you’re Catholic, they’ve cel­e­brat­ed Mass­es for you, bap­tized your chil­dren, heard your con­fes­sions, vis­it­ed you in hos­pi­tals, presided at your wed­dings and buried your par­ents. The church would be immea­sur­ably poor­er with­out them.

Fr. Mar­tin is speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly about priest­ly func­tions here. Gay priests have, in his words, been spir­i­tu­al direc­tors, have bap­tized, heard con­fes­sions, cel­e­brat­ed Mass, wed­dings, buri­als.

I find it strange, the idea that unless gay men get to do these things too, the Church is “poor­er.” How so? I don’t think Fr. Mar­tin means that the sacra­ments have extra super-duper pow­er in the hands of gay men, but if that’s not what he means, I’m not sure how the Church is “poor­er” if only straight men are hear­ing con­fes­sions. Abso­lu­tion is not less when a straight man gives it. You might say it’s not less if a gay man gives it, and maybe you’d be right, but that’s not what Fr. Mar­tin actu­al­ly says. He says that gay men hear­ing con­fes­sions make the Church rich­er.

Maybe Fr. Mar­tin only means rich­er in diver­si­ty. I agree that diver­si­ty is a rich­ness, but I don’t know why diver­si­ty has to mean no cri­te­ria for some giv­en voca­tion. A quad­ri­pleg­ic would have an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly dif­fi­cult go of it if he were to try doing the work I do forty hours a week, and would be extreme­ly unlike­ly to be hired, but that does­n’t mean there’s no diver­si­ty among my cowork­ers. Still less does it mean that quad­ri­pleg­ics don’t have gifts to offer the world and can’t find suit­able work. But the nature of being human is that you have lim­its. Our lim­its teach us humil­i­ty.

“But Alt! Fr. Mar­tin is only ref­er­enc­ing gay priests who are already ordained! His com­ments have no bear­ing upon gay Catholics seek­ing entrance to sem­i­nary.”

Yes, but then why tweet this at all? No one’s sug­gest­ing that gay men already in the priest­hood, who are celi­bate, be round­ed up and brought before the Inquisition—no one who mat­ters, any­way. No one is sug­gest­ing that they all be lai­cized. If Fr. Mar­t­in’s mean­ing is not “these men have enriched the priest­hood, there­fore future gay Catholics can too,” he’s going to great lengths to defend what no one dis­putes.

But the more impor­tant prob­lem with Fr. Mar­t­in’s tweet (is that still the right noun?) is the dis­sent in it. I wrote on Face­book that the real issue is “obe­di­ence to what the Church has decid­ed,” and that “if that’s true about the Novus Ordo, it’s no less true about who the Church decides to admit to sem­i­nary.” Some com­plained that Fr. Mar­t­in’s not being “dis­obe­di­ent,” and that it’s lic­it to dis­agree.

In one sense this is cor­rect. We’re not talk­ing about a point of doc­trine but dis­ci­pline. And yet the Church has estab­lished some spe­cif­ic guide­lines about how to dis­agree and how not to, and we find them in Don­um Ver­i­tatis.

It is lic­it to dis­agree and make it known to the Church:

If, despite a loy­al effort on the the­olo­gian’s part, the dif­fi­cul­ties per­sist, the the­olo­gian has the duty to make known to the Mag­is­te­r­i­al author­i­ties the prob­lems raised by the teach­ing in itself, in the argu­ments pro­posed to jus­ti­fy it, or even in the man­ner in which it is pre­sent­ed.

How­ev­er, DV 30 is also clear about how not to do this:

In cas­es like these, the the­olo­gian should avoid turn­ing to the “mass media,” but have recourse to the respon­si­ble author­i­ty, for it is not by seek­ing to exert the pres­sure of pub­lic opin­ion that one con­tributes to the clar­i­fi­ca­tion of doc­tri­nal issues and ren­ders servite to the truth.

It may very well be that Fr. Mar­tin has com­mu­ni­cat­ed his dif­fi­cul­ties to the pope, and if so, I have no prob­lem with that. It is per­fect­ly with­in his right to do so. But I do have a great prob­lem with him tak­ing his dis­agree­ment to his very large social media plat­form and his fre­quent appear­ances in the media. The Church con­sid­ers this an illic­it attempt to “exert the pres­sure of pub­lic opin­ion” on mat­ters that real­ly need the guid­ance of the Holy Spir­it.

It is cer­tain­ly pos­si­ble that the Church could change its guide­lines on the ques­tion of gay priests, giv­en that it’s mere­ly a point of dis­ci­pline and not doc­trine. And speak­ing for myself per­son­al­ly, I have a greater prob­lem with straight priests who aren’t celi­bate than gay priests who are. But I’m also will­ing to affirm that the ratio­nale for the dis­ci­pline involves a point of doc­trine, and unless the doc­trine is wrong or irrel­e­vant to the ques­tion, I can’t sim­ply claim that Bene­dict XVI has left us with a poor­er Church.