Moral Theology Final

IC XC
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NI KA

The assignment was a ten minute presentation on some topic related to Moral Theology. I went over time but within the grace period. This is the presentation text, but not the text as presented, let the reader understand.

On April 8, 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) released a new declaration, Dignitas Infinita. The document provides us with new ways to discuss many moral situations as well as new ways to think about our ministries. Ordained or not, we will all be working in the San Francisco Bay Area and so it is more than likely that we will have contact with some number of persons who experience same-sex attraction. What should our ministry look like as we accompany Catholic men and women who experience same-sex attraction? Where are we going in this act of accompaniment and how can Dignitas Infinita help us?

Dignitas Infinita  (¶20) cites the Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes ¶19: “the dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God”. This, then, is the immediate answer to “Where are we going?” We are responding to the call God has given to us. 

In Dignitas Infinita, the Church makes a unique distinction into four types of human dignity: ontological dignity, moral dignity, social dignity, and existential dignity. (¶7). It says, “The most important among these is the ontological dignity that belongs to the person as such simply because he or she exists and is willed, created, and loved by God.” 

For persons who experience SSA, the Church’s care also begins with that assumption. The Letter to the Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons says, “The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.” (¶10)   “Ontological dignity is indelible and remains valid beyond any circumstances in which the person may find themselves.” This includes those who find themselves experiencing or acting upon SSA.

All our ministry is always directed to persons we must recognize as bearing this “ontological dignity”.  What about the other three?

“When we speak of social dignity, we refer to the quality of a person’s living conditions.” The DDF provides examples of economic poverty, but many types of poverty leave us without “what is minimally necessary to live according to [our] ontological dignity” ¶8. 

It is possible, in the San Francisco area, to meet someone who has never had anything but gay friends and never hung out anywhere socially but at gay clubs and events. They may have been drawn to your parish because of other “gay Catholics”. The liturgy is beautiful, the priest is dynamic, and the fellowship is good. Maybe they express a desire to enter the Church. Yet, everything about our world – media, education, politics – says “gay is good” and “do whatever you want – even join a church.”  They live and move in a world where all these disordered things are treated as normal and they’ve never known another way.

The Catholic faith calls us to live differently and this is very hard. Yet, the difficulty is not a reason for us to shirk our responsibility as teachers. As people seek entrance to the Church, we must show them this other way.

In the context of SSA, Eve Tushnet’s book Gay and Catholic calls all Catholics to help build a church that provides a social climate conducive to each other’s moral maturation. It is something that must be learned though. After a life lived in one way we in the Church need to offer real support in learning to live a different way – in a different community. When we call the new or returning Christian to “Remember your dignity” (Pope St Leo the Great) we are obligated to actually do something for that process.

All of us experience a gap between our lived praxis and our Catholic faith – we are all sinners. What holds us back? This is the moral dignity mentioned by the DDF: something has compromised a person’s freedom to conform to the good. Original sin, choices made in the past, and because of the culture, a person is no longer able to make a firm moral judgment. They do not have a properly formed conscience. 

However, the command to  “stop that!” is not enough. “Homosexual persons are called to chastity.” (CCC ¶2359) The Church calls same-sex actions – and desires – intrinsically disordered, meaning they are not in keeping with the final perfection of the human person. We must be willing to walk with them towards this greater dignity – in word and deed. A constant encouragement is needed.

For both Moral and Social dignity, a local chapter of the Courage apostolate may be the best resource. There are differing degrees of lived praxis in each chapter, but among the group’s goals is to live life in conformity with the Church’s teaching and to support each other in doing the same. (Would that all our parishes were organized along the same lines in all contexts!)

The final call is for Existential Dignity. The DDF says it refers to a “dignified life” and defines it as … to live with peace, joy, and hope with a perception of that ontological dignity that can never be obscured. 

How does this tie into SSA? The clue is in the phrase “dignified life”.  In this life we hold two relationships – the vertical to God and the horizontal to our neighbor. Love of God and Love of Neighbor are the same thing. Our sins and our disordered desires for those sins affect those around us. 

Thus, persons seeking to live a life within the teachings of the Church and committed to a fuller expression of their Catholic Faith may come to you with the realization that this conversation cannot be simply about their choice of sex partners or their abstinence from certain acts. Rather something is off, broken. “They are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives and to unite to with the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter.” The Church underscores that the tendency itself is not a sin. But “…it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” (Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies – 4 November 2005.) As deacons, we may be called to help persons uncover more areas in their lives that are out of whack and intrinsically disordered. 

This is not about “curing” homosexuality. These wounds are as real as the wounds of our Lord on the Cross. Those wounds can be seen on his Resurrection body. The wounds are part of who a person is. We are called to act with compassion and love, healing actions.

After calling Lazarus from the tomb our Lord’s first command is “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:44).  God redeems sinners in his sovereign grace. But to do so he gives us all something to do for the newly resurrected. 

We have to be fully faithful in expressing the teachings of the Church regarding the infinite dignity of each person; we must help persons with SSA to restore their social and moral dignity via our teaching and pastoral presence that helps them return to their freedom to make sound moral choices; and, finally, we must help them begin to uncover the places where the experience of SSA has left them wounded and help them towards the healing of those wounds, even if that means continuing to carry those wounds as their cross.

By way of Update: I’m posting things edited out of this text.

• Expanded section on Moral Dignity. (Added 9 May.)
• Expanded section on Social Dignity. (Added 10 May.)
• Expanded section on Existential Dignity. (Added 11 May.)