Its "established, dogmatic models of the theological approach to sexuality have become anachronistic."

Zacharias made the statement when speaking at a conference in Rome on sexuality and culture at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

New sexual ethic needed

What the Church needs to do now is to develop new theological ethics of sexuality, Zacharias said.

That is "a task for the entire church community" Zacharias (a professor of moral theology at the Salesian University of São Paulo) told the conference on 21 February.

"We cannot ignore that in recent decades there has been a remarkable evolution regarding terminologies, concepts and descriptions related to sexuality" he said.

This has had a profound influence on developments individuals have experienced on their conceptions of their own sexuality, he explained.

He told those at the conference that the Church therefore "should not talk about sexuality without considering the understanding we have of it today".

It should also keep in mind potential problems with modern understandings of sexuality he added.

He quoted the Augustinian theologian Sister Ivone Gebara to make his point.

The Church's "theology of binary sexuality is no longer able to understand the complexity that we discover in ourselves".

Sexuality can't be ignored

Zacharias told his audience he thinks Catholic theology has not helped people integrate their sexuality into the individual "personhood".

The clerical sex abuse crisis involving some of the Church's ordained ministers shows this to be the case, he said.

"Sexuality is a constitutive dimension of each person, a central aspect in the life of human beings that characterises who a person is to the point that it cannot be left out in the process of personal fulfilment."

It doesn't matter what a person's vocation in life is, he said.

Every person's sexuality "has a legitimate role in all phases of their development" he explained.

Therefore it "cannot be confined to the context of marriage" or reduced to a means for procreation.

The Church needs to n overcome "an essentially negative view of sexual desire, as if it were something to be repressed at every moment" and which suppresses a person's desire for love.

"Self-control is self-control, it is not a virtue" he said.

Human love

Zacharias told those at the conference that he thinks sexuality "acquires its true human quality if it is oriented (toward), elevated and integrated into love.

"Authentic love moves one toward self-transcendence, and makes sexuality a 'place of reciprocity,' a place of affirming the good of the other" he said.

"The integration of sexuality does not depend solely on the will of the person."

A challenge for Church theology will involve affirming "the meaning of sexuality in light of an eminently relational anthropology" he suggested.

Sex cannot be treated as a "separate entity, an object for ethical reflection".

It must be considered as part of "the whole of the relationships which it serves".

Source

• UCA News

Fighting the ban, Mike and Catherine "Kitty" Burke (pictured) turned to liberty group Becket Law who have filed a federal lawsuit on their behalf.

The lawsuit seeks to prohibit Massachusetts from using LGBTQ accommodations to decline issuing foster care licences to religious applicants.

It also asks for the Burkes' application to be granted and for them to receive "nominal and compensatory damages" from the defendants.

Catholic beliefs and the State

The lawsuit specifically claims the State of Massachusetts restricted the Catholic couple from fostering children in the State. This decision was based on the Burkes' adherence to Catholic teachings on gender, sexuality and marriage.

"After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents," the Burkes say.

"We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home."

The lawsuit claims the State listed only one reason for denying the Burkes' foster care application: they "would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA."

The lawsuit goes on to say: "As faithful Catholics, the Burkes believe that all children should be loved and supported, and they would never reject a child placed in their home.

"They also believe that children should not undergo procedures that attempt to change their God-given sex, and they uphold Catholic beliefs about marriage and sexuality."

The lawsuit names several defendants, including the Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary and the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families.

It also includes a copy of the State's letter telling the Catholic couple their application to be foster parents had been denied.

The letter says to be licensed as a foster/adoptive parent, applicants must demonstrate their ability "to the satisfaction of the Department".

Quoting the State regulations for Standards for Licensure as a Foster/Pre-adoptive Parent, the letter reads:

"(d) to promote the physical, mental and emotional well-being of a child placed in his or her care, including supporting and respecting a child's sexual orientation or gender identity

"(e) to respect and make efforts to support the integrity of a child's racial, ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious background"

The CF Foster Child Bill of Rights also says every child "shall be treated with respect by DCF staff, foster parents and providers without regard to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and/or disability".

The Massachusetts Health and Human Services and the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families have not responded to requests for comment.

Source

• Fox News

As a moral theologian, I believe it is worth knowing how and why those teachings were formed in the first place.

History helps us to see that underlying that "consistency" are a number of matters that convey an overriding negative estimation of human sexuality.

Christian moral teachings on sexuality evolved haphazardly over the centuries, with successive generations appropriating earlier positions based on very different premises.

In general, a series of fairly negative accretions were added one upon another until, in the 17th century we have basically an absolutely negative estimation of sexual desires.

Thus, with reason, historian James Brundage claims in Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe: "The Christian horror of sex has for centuries placed enormous strain on individual consciences and self-esteem in the Western world."

For the most part, the teachings derive from the concerns of celibate men who, while pursuing a life of holiness, found sexual desires to be obstacles rather than aids in that pursuit.

These sexual desires were not understood as belonging to or needing to be included into a broader understanding of any particular dimension of human personality.

Rather they were as random and as precipitous as they were for anyone who does not have an integrating concept like "sexuality."

As arbitrary, powerful feelings, there was little about their nature that lent to their being conceptually incorporated into an overarching, integrated reality.

The idea of these venereal desires was as unstable as the desires themselves were felt.

Language, too, hindered any tendency to understand these desires as belonging to something more integrated or holistic.

In his The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages, philosopher Pierre Payer reminds us:

A contemporary writer dealing with medieval ideas of sex faces a peculiar problem of language. Treatises entitled, "On sex," are nowhere to be found, nor does one find talk about "sexuality," because medieval Latin had no terms for the English words "sex" and "sexuality." In the strictest sense, there are no discussions of sex in the Middle Ages. … The concept of sex or sexuality as an integral dimension of human persons, as an object of concern, discourse, truth and knowledge, did not emerge until well after the Middle Ages.

Of course, the development of these teachings is so different from the positive language of the body that helped early theologians to continually articulate teachings on the resurrection of the body, the Incarnation and the Eucharist.

As I argue in A History of Catholic Theological Ethics, our tradition on the human body expanded the depth and range of the Christian vocation.

Indeed, whether we talked of the body, the family or the virtues, we considered each of them as gifts.

Our tradition in those areas is indeed complex, but it is also rich, affirming and cogent.

The same cannot be said for the church's teachings on sex.

The tradition on sexual ethics led us not to greatness but to negativity and minutiae. Anything we added to the tradition only cast human sexuality as more and more negative.

For instance, Paul's simple injunction that those who could not remain celibate should marry (1 Corinthians 7:8-9) led later to the Stoics' claim that marital intimacy needed to be validated not by the marriage, as Paul suggested, but by purposing the intimacy for procreation.

That led later to Clement of Alexandria's judgment that sex for pleasure even in marriage was sinful. Why did we problematize marital love as we moved from Paul to Clement? Why did we need to validate marital love when Paul did not?

Still, a look at the patristic period is not as problematic as later periods.

In fact, Augustine's theology is less negative on matters of sex and marriage than both his contemporaries or worse, his 16th- to 19th-century successors.

The negativity emerges more after than with Augustine.

For instance, we could examine the so-called consistent teaching on masturbation, which excepting Clement, was never assessed as a sin until John Cassian (360-435) and Caesarius of Arles (470-542) made it one, but only for monks and nuns who, violated their vows of chastity by masturbating.

Still, eight centuries later, when Pope Innocent III imposed upon the entire church the Easter duty in 1215 requiring an annual confession of all Christians, sexual teachings change.

Now masturbation is considered gravely sinful for all.

The genesis of masturbation as sinful was precisely dependent upon the vow of chastity of those who chose the ascetical life.

What was a sin for a 40-year-old monk in the eighth century became, however, the same sin for a 13-year-old boy or girl in the 13th century.

Worse, as we will see, we made it a very grievous sin. Continue reading

• James F. Keenan SJ is Canisius professor at Boston College, where he is vice provost for global engagement and director of the Jesuit Institute.

"Same-sex feelings and love are not an aberration, but a variant of human sexuality," he says. Homosexuals have a right to church support and blessing.

Dieser (pictured), who is the spokesman on abuse issues for the German bishops' conference, says the current state of Church teaching does not do justice to certain realities when it comes to sexuality.

"The thinking is too simple."

The Church can no longer signal to homosexual people that their feelings are unnatural and that they have to be celibate, he says.

"Homosexuality is — as science shows — not a glitch, not an illness, not an expression of any kind of deficit, and by the way it's not a consequence of original sin, either," the bishop said.

If two lesbians approached him to have a child baptised, he would do it, he says.

"Where is the problem?" he wonders.

Dieser also defended the Synodal Path taken by the church in Germany and its demands for reform.

"The Synodal Path is, after all, a consequence of the uncovering of sexual abuse scandals. And reliable scientific studies show that these scandals have systemic causes in the church," he says.

This week, he and other German bishops will be at the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis and other Vatican officials for their "ad limina" visits. These are periodic visits to report on the status of their dioceses.

He says the bishops also hope to present Francis with the papers that received too little approval from the bishops at the last plenary assembly of the Synodal Path.

He says the aim is to ask Francis for a further development of the Church's teaching.

Rome needs to respond to the proposals and suggestions of the Catholic Church in Germany, because the Vatican had ignored reform proposals from Catholic dioceses of West Germany in the 1970s, says Dieser.

To not respond "would be a failure of authority in the church. We must not ignore the voice of the people of God", he explains.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter

There are features of our Western world's culture that seem to fit the image.

Important aspects of our lives seem to have become disconnected from what gives them meaning. If this is true, it is hardly healthy. I offer the following examples.

"Me" disconnected from "we"; and "my" from "our"

To say modern culture suffers from acute individualism is by now a truism.

Clamours for "my rights" often involve little or no sense of "my responsibilities".

It seems incredible that some would regard public health requirements as infringements of their rights - it's as silly as regarding the road rules as violations of their freedom.

During the pandemic, some have been willing to put other people's lives at risk for no better reason than to enjoy themselves. Obviously, legal restrictions are no substitute for moral formation.

But all is not lost:

• Catastrophes can still bring out the best in people.
• It is still easy to admire individuals who are generous, even risking their own lives for others.
• It is still easy to dislike gross forms of self-centredness and self-aggrandisement.
• People still give generously to charitable causes.
• And it is still easy to pity individuals caught up in over-anxious self-concern.

But there are also subtler forms of disconnect that we can become used to; they become ‘normalised'.

For example, in most if not all cultures, marriage has been a moment of celebration for whole communities. Now, "what we do is nobody else's business". Within an individualist culture, it isn't easy to see anything wrong with this. It's the culture that has become reductionist.

Work used to be regarded as an expression one's person and relationships with others. Now, within the culture we are regarding as ‘normal', it is reduced to a commodity and business transaction. Commercial value attaches to the work, not the person doing it, so work becomes unmoored from its own deepest meaning.

The common denominator to all forms of self-centredness is failure to realise that we can become our own true selves only through being "for others".

This paradox is at the centre of Jesus' teaching.

The drift away from his Gospel has become a drift away from what we need to become our own true selves. This will show up in the uglier kinds of self-centredness.

Facts' unmoored from truth

When truth is reduced to whatever we say to get whatever we want - whether it is true or not - we are targets for manipulation. We become vulnerable to every kind of spin - commercial spin, political spin, and agenda-driven ideologies.

Scientists work hard to establish facts.

They know we need to act on what is objectively true.

Solving crimes, the judicial system, and research in every field are all based on the premise that truth matters.

All these, and most of life, would be turned up-side-down if it were enough to say: "truth is whatever the individual thinks it is - it is true for her/him" and "right is whatever the individual chooses - it is right for him/her".

How could we even say rape or sexual abuse are wrong if it might be "right" for the person doing it?

So, we cannot escape the need to acknowledge an objective difference between true and false, and right and wrong.

Conspiracy theories during the pandemic duped some people into believing claims that were far more bizarre than anything the sciences ever present us with.

What kind of culture is it when they are so gullibly believed?

Parroting cliches is a lazy alternative to serious thinking. For example: lazy thinkers don't distinguish between judging a person's actions (which we may do, and sometimes must), and judging their conscience (which we may not - because we cannot know whether or how much they are guilty before God.)

That is the meaning of the saying: "who am I to judge?"

"Who am I to judge", doesn't mean we can't judge their actions!

But even when we rightly judge that another's actions are wrong, it is often necessary to look further.

Their offending can have deep roots in early experience of abuse or deprivation or cultural alienation.

If we are personally attached to truth, we will look more deeply, and avoid superficial judgments and demonising.

Lazy thinking also buys the slogan used to justify abortion: "it's my body," even though the sciences leave no doubt that the embryo is actually someone else's body.

Sexual activity unmoored from sexuality's meaning

I recently heard some young people say they felt it was wrong to send sexual imagery online, but they didn't know why.

They will not come any closer to knowing through "consent education".

"Consent education" is right to teach the need to avoid activities that are not legal or consensual or safe. But that is as far as it can go because it is unconcerned with sexuality's meaning - other than it being a source of pleasure.

That kind of ‘education' allows, if it doesn't promote, the idea that anything goes provided it is legal, consensual and safe.

But is it?

A more holistic education would allow young people to learn about virtue.

Modesty is the virtue that protects chastity.

Of course, if society has given away the virtue of chastity, then it won't feel any need for modesty. Chastity is the virtue that applies self-respect, restraint and respect for others, to sexuality.

Unchastity involves a lack of self-respect, restraint and respect for others.

The Department of Internal Affairs' statistics regarding the extent of attempts in NZ to access child sex sites, and the increasing demand for younger children, and more violent forms of abuse, show where we go when the meaning of sexuality is ignored, or reduced to pleasure.

There have been strong, organized and determined cultural movements whose agenda has been to "liberate" sexuality from all previous restraints.

We look back incredulously to the 1960's through 1990's when some activists described themselves as ‘victims' of harsh laws aimed at preventing "man-boy love"; and children as ‘victims' because harsh parents didn't want them to have that kind of loving care!!

"Inter-generational sex" and "man-boy love' were euphemisms intended to promote the acceptability of what society calls pederasty.

For some, the aim was to shed categories such as ‘heterosexual' and ‘homosexual' in favour of more fluid and non-binary language. Even though by the 1990's those movements had mostly lost their credibility, the underlying ideologies have a way of re-surfacing.

So sooner or later, we do need to come to the question: what is sexuality's meaning?

What is its purpose?

Yes, it is for pleasure.

But so is unchastity. So, there must be some meaning beyond that.

Honest reflection recognises two purposes that are entwined and come together uniquely in marriage: they are sexuality's potential for deeply nurturing the love of two people, and in a way that is also designed to generate new life as the fruit of their love. And because new life needs to be protected and nurtured, the child's parents need to be in a relationship that is stable, committed and faithful.

Whatever allowances we rightly make for people of various orientations or preferences (see below), ultimately it is marriage that can fulfil sexuality's deepest meanings.

Detached from marriage, sexual activities are detached from sexuality's meaning.

Gender identity unmoored from sexual identity

Gender identity is not a label that is put on us, by ourselves or by others. It is given by nature long before we start making our own decisions.

But what about the tensions between biological reality and psychological/emotional reality that some people experience?

We move closer to an answer when we allow both faith and the sciences to be part of our thinking: the world is a work in progress, and we are part of this evolving world.

This means that none of us is a finished product. We are all at one stage or another of being unfinished.

We can be born with deficiencies, or incur disabilities, some of which last through life.

In fact, we are never finished while death is still in front of us.

When there is something that cannot be resolved or fulfilled within our present span of life, it helps to remember that our life was not something we had a right to in the first place; it is simply a gift. And our present life is not the whole of it.

In that kind of world, personal development does not always take place at the same pace or even follow the usual pattern.

Those who are caught in any of the dilemmas resulting from different stages of, or lines of, development have a right to the same respect and unconditional love as everyone else.

Still, as Professor Kathleen Stock, herself a lesbian, writing about "Why Reality Matters for Feminism," reminds us, there are only two biological sexes and no amount of hormonal or surgical treatment can change that.

She is aware that by seeking surgical or hormonal treatment to support gender change, people are implicitly acknowledging the link between gender identity and sexual identity.

But she is also aware, and critical of, the more recent claim that they should not need to; it should be enough simply to declare that you are male or female, regardless of biological reality.

Is that where the separation of gender identity and sexual identity can take us?

If reality matters, then it matters to acknowledge that, both socially and biologically, male and female find a certain completion in each other, precisely by being each other's ‘opposite' - which is what the ancient Genesis story has been saying all along.

Politics unmoored from the common good

Politics unmoored from the common good is politics unmoored from its own purpose.

The purpose of political involvement is to create a social and economic environment in which everyone has the opportunity to progress towards achieving their own potential and a fulfilling life.

In a true democracy, political parties differ over how to do this, while being united in a common pursuit of the common good.

Partisan self-interest placed above the common good is a throw-back to tribalism, and like ancient forms of tribalism, it undermines the unity that is needed for achieving the common good.

The alternative to the common good is mere partisan power.

This gives rise to all kinds of inequalities and absurdities (e.g. being duped by misinformation and lies that have been discredited by the courts; basing decisions about masks and social distancing not on science but on which political party you belong to!)

We might be surprised at such fickleness, though perhaps less surprised that it happens in a country where States can still pass anti-democratic laws, and that does not yet have a proper separation of powers.

But the lesson for ourselves is how foolish and self-destructive we too could become through unmooring rights from responsibilities. ‘facts' from truth, and politics from pursuit of the common good.

"Religion" unmoored from ordinary life

Early in the Christian tradition, St Iraneus said the glory of God is human beings coming alive through seeing God in all that God has made and all that God is doing in human lives.

We are being drawn to God through the experience of created beauty, goodness and truth.

Popes St John Paul II and Benedict XVI have picked up Iraneus' theme, emphasising that since human beings becoming fully alive is God's agenda in creating and redeeming us, it is also "the route the Church must take."

So, religion is not somehow running alongside our ordinary lives; it is our ordinary lives being made extraordinary, being sanctified, graced - family life, civic life, industrial and commercial life, political life…

Of course, this is unfinished work, and so it will be until God is "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).

In the meantime, people for whom life's shortfalls create a sense of insecurity are the ones more likely to seek escape into "religion" perceived as some kind of separate sphere, or construct built on to life, or, worse, a kind of bubble (even having its own separate language).

This perception of ‘religion" being alongside ordinary life is the assumption of some bloggers, and it seems, even some bishops (in Britain, Ireland, France and USA) who resent government restrictions affecting church gatherings even during a pandemic.

It is as if the sciences and good government don't apply to "religion's" separate sphere.

A concept of religion unmoored from the needs of the common good is unmoored from the ordinary processes of becoming more truly human and fully alive, which is what gives glory to God.

Conclusion

A culture in which so many aspects of life have become unmoored from what gives them meaning is a culture that is reductionist, superficial, utilitarian…

The question is: within that kind of culture, how well equipped can we be to deal with the epic issues of our time - those that degrade human life, human dignity, human rights and the planet itself?

• Peter Cullinane is Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North. He has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum, Rome and a Master of Theology from Otago University. Bishop Cullinane is a former President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference and between 1983 and 2003 he was a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

It might seem obvious that a church facing a crisis of legitimacy caused by clergy raping children would show more humility when claiming to hold ultimate truths about human sexuality.

Instead, in the past month alone, a Rhode Island bishop tweeted that Catholics shouldn't attend gay pride events because they are "especially harmful for children"; a Vatican office issued a document that described transgender people as "provocative" in trying to "annihilate the concept of nature"; and a Catholic high school in Indianapolis that refused to fire a teacher married to a same-sex partner was told by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis that it can no longer call itself Catholic.

There is an unmistakable hubris displayed when some in the church are determined to make sexuality the lynchpin of Catholic identity at a time when bishops have failed to convince their flock that they are prepared to police predators in their own parishes.

Even before abuse scandals exploded into public consciousness more than a decade ago, many Catholics were tuning out the all-male hierarchy's teachings on sexuality.

Surveys show the vast majority of Catholics use birth control and nearly 70 percent now support same-sex marriage.

This isn't simply a matter of the church's image, however.

When the Catholic Church describes sexual intimacy between gay people as "intrinsically disordered," it fails to take into account how this degrading language contributes to higher rates of suicide among LGBTQ people; when it condemns even civil recognition of same-sex unions that don't impede the church's ability to define marriage sacramentally, bishops appear indifferent to the roadblocks committed couples without marriage licenses face in hospitals and other settings.

Unless church leaders are content to drive away a generation of young people, these positions are self-inflicted wounds.

Millennial Catholics understandably ask why centuries of Catholic teaching on human dignity and justice don't apply fully to their LGBTQ friends, family members and teachers.

Those who are raised Catholic are more likely than those raised in any other religion to cite negative religious treatment of gay and lesbian people as the primary reason they leave, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

A document on gender identity released earlier this month from the Vatican's congregation for Catholic education, titled "Male and Female He Created Them," underscores why we need a break from lofty church pronouncements on these issues.

Walk the talk

The document is right in its call for respectful dialogue with LGBTQ people, but the work itself fails to reflect that ideal.

The authors clearly didn't spend time with transgender Catholics.

There was no apparent effort to engage with modern science or contemporary medical insights about gender development.

It feels as if it was written in a bunker sealed off from the world in 1950.

Ray Dever, a Catholic deacon who has a transgender daughter and who ministers to Catholics with transgender family members, called the document "totally divorced from the lived reality of transgender people."

Dever added, "I think that anyone with first-hand experience with gender identity issues will confirm that for an authentically transgender person, being transgender is not a choice, and it is certainly not driven by any gender theory or ideology."

Abstract musings are one thing...

While abstract Vatican musings on sex and gender are unhelpful, the church faces a more urgent crisis in the making in the firing of LGBTQ employees at Catholic schools.

In a rare display of defiance, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis clashed with Archbishop Charles Thompson, who wanted the independently operated school to terminate an employee who is civilly married to a person of the same sex.

The school refused, and the archbishop now says the school can no longer call itself Catholic.

Brebeuf Jesuit's supervisory body, the Midwest Province of Jesuits, said the decision will be appealed through a church process all the way to the Vatican if necessary.

"We felt we could not in conscience dismiss him from employment," the Rev. William Verbryke, president of Brebeuf, told the Jesuit publication America magazine earlier this week, explaining that the teacher in question does not teach religion and is not a campus minister.

After the Jesuit school's decision became national news, another Indiana Catholic high school announced it was complying with the archdiocese and dismissing a teacher in a same-sex marriage.

Administrators at Cathedral High School called it "an agonizing decision" and wrote a letter to the school community.

"In today's climate we know that being Catholic can be challenging and we hope that this action does not dishearten you, and most especially, dishearten Cathedral's young people."

In recent years, more than 70 LGBTQ church employees and Catholic school teachers have been fired or lost their jobs in employment disputes.

Heterosexual Catholics who don't follow church teaching that prohibits birth control or living together before marriage, for example, are not disciplined the same way by Catholic institutions. The scrutiny targeting gay employees alone is discriminatory and disproportionate.

Efforts to narrow Catholic identity to a "pelvic theology" hyperfocused on human sexuality raise questions about what Christians should be known for as we seek to live the gospel.

Are Catholic employees at schools and other Catholic institutions evaluated for how often they visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, treat the environment, confront inequality?

All of these moral issues are central to papal encyclicals, centuries of Catholic social teachings and the ministry of Jesus.

"We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods," Pope Francis said in one of his first interviews after his election.

"The church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall like a house of cards."

A year of abstinence for church leaders preaching about sex would demonstrate a symbolic posture of humility that could substantively show those of us still left in the pews that the hierarchy isn't completely clueless to the stark reality of the present moment.

During their silence on sex and gender, Vatican and local Catholic leaders should get out of their comfort zones and conduct listening sessions with married, divorced, gay, straight and transgender people.

They should step away from the microphone and take notes.

There would be disagreement, but the simple act of flipping the script — priests and bishops quietly in the back instead of holding forth up front — might help clergy recognize there is a wisdom in lived reality and truth not found solely in dusty church documents.

Taking risks and sitting with discomfort is part of a healthy faith.

It's time for our bishops to lead by taking a step back.

• John Gehring is Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life and author of "The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope's Challenge to the American Catholic Church." The views in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of Religion News Service.
• Image: RNS
• First published in RNS. Reproduced with permission.

The question was unexpectedly left hanging in the wake of the final report of the Vatican's synod on young people, which ended Sunday (Oct. 28).

Produced in a unique collaboration between 249 bishops and some three dozen young adults, the approved summary of the proceedings nonetheless had offered a rather diluted and uninspiring welcome to LGBT Catholics.

But as happened in the previous two synods called by Pope Francis to promote a more consultative form of Catholic governance, sex - in particular homosexuality - became a flashpoint.

In fact, conservatives inside the synod hall, aided by conservative Catholic media outlets that amplified their views, waged an intense campaign to excise any mention of the acronym "LGBT" or the word "gay" from the final document.

The traditionalists, who ultimately succeeded, argued that both terms would have effectively validated homosexuality and thus could undermine Catholic teaching against same-sex relationships.

Yet their victory may prove to be more semantic than substantive. The problem for the conservatives lies in the first line of the relevant section of the final document. It reads:

"There are questions related to the body, to affectivity and to sexuality that require a deeper anthropological, theological and pastoral exploration, which should be done in the most appropriate way, whether on a global or local level.

Among these, those that stand out in particular are those relative to the difference and harmony between male and female identities and sexual inclinations."

Translation: The Catholic hierarchy is acknowledging that the church needs to update its understanding of the science of sex and gender, and that also means updating the church's theology on sexuality and its ministry to gay people.

The rest of the passage on homosexuality did seek to reassure traditionalists by reaffirming the "determinative" church view on "the difference and reciprocity between man and woman," and the passage said it was "reductive to define a person's identity solely on the basis of their sexual orientation."

But that first line, inviting "a deeper anthropological, theological and pastoral exploration," worried enough bishops that the section on sexuality passed by just two votes out of 230 cast.

"This document opens up so many minefields," the conservative website, LifeSiteNews, quoted a synod source saying.

Afterward, the opponents' worries only grew.

This section is one of the most "subtle and concerning" problems in the entire document, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, a member of the U.S. delegation and a leader of the conservative faction, told the National Catholic Register.

The Catholic Church "already has a clear, rich, and articulate Christian anthropology," Chaput told the Register.

"It's unhelpful to create doubt or ambiguity around issues of human identity, purpose, and sexuality, unless one is setting the stage to change what the church believes and teaches about all three, starting with sexuality."

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBT Catholics, rarely agrees with churchmen like Chaput. But on this point they were in sync:

"The statement acknowledges that the church still has a lot to learn about sexuality," DeBernardo, wrote in a blog post after the synod.

Certainly, the Catholic research on homosexuality could use an update. Continue reading

The encyclical, written by Pope Paul VI and issued in July 1968, specifically deems artificial contraception as being "absolutely excluded" and "intrinsically wrong".

The British clergy have signed a statement endorsing the encyclical as its 50th anniversary nears.

They argue that Humanae Vitae was prophetic.

"[It] predicted that if artificial contraception became widespread and commonly accepted by society then we would lose our proper understanding of marriage, the family, the dignity of the child and of women, and even a proper appreciation of our bodies and the gift of male and female," they say.

The priests say many people rejected the encyclical's message and warnings when it was published, finding them "difficult to accept and challenging to proclaim.

"Fifty years later, so much has unfolded in our society that has been to the detriment of human life and love", so that "Many have come to appreciate again the wisdom of the Church's teaching," the priests say.

One of the priests commented: "We hope that the Church here will now recognise the importance of Humanae Vitae and place it at the forefront of our pastoral strategies and evangelisation. This marks an important moment for the Church in this country.

"It is hard to get 100 priests - the size of an average diocese - to do anything together but to get 500 is very significant indeed".

Source

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• YouTube

The theme for the October 2018 conference is "Young people, faith, and vocational discernment".

To involve young people in planning and preparation for the conference, the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops held an international seminar earlier this month focusing on the condition of youth in the world.

Twenty-one young people from across the globe attended the event, along with experts and pastoral workers.

The Vatican says the seminar reflected on several themes in relation to youth: identity, otherness, planning, technology, transcendence.

The young advisors were able to impart their own culture and experience to the Vatican planning teams.

The Vatican says young people from different geographical, socio-cultural and religious contexts contributed actively to the study days, also introducing and concluding the event with their own life experiences and reflections.

The Seminar was open to all those interested in the theme. Some 50 guests also took part.

Source

• La Croix
• National Catholic Reporter
• Vatican Radio
• Vatican Radio

Research from the University of New England showed many couples in such facilities are unable to have normal sexual relationships.

This is because of systematic and illegal breaches of their privacy, the study stated.

The study is to be published this month in the journal "Elder Law".

The research stated vehement opposition from religious conservatives meant Australian lawmakers failed to adequately protect the rights of elderly citizens.

"Couples may be separated or provided with single beds only, unable to push them together," the paper stated.

"Staff frequently enter without knocking, commonly ignore ‘do not disturb' signs and often gossip about residents.

"Some Australian aged-care facilities will still segregate sexes, including married couples, and many ignore the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and interest residents."

It was also noted that there was no mandatory staff training about how to respect and respond to consensual sexual relationships between residents.

The paper's lead author, Alison Rahn, noted that a charter of residents' rights was instituted in the 1980s.

"The original version protected the sexual rights of residents," she said.

"But the Catholic Church made sure that was expunged.

"However, the charter still says their privacy must be respected and they have the right to socialise with whoever they choose and to take risks.

"You could read into that to say residents have the right to have their relationships protected, but the reality is much different in most facilities, which are commonly run by religious institutions and charities."

Ms Rahn is a self-described sex therapist and sex educator.

She said rooms in aged-care facilities needed to be built large enough to allow for double beds.

She added that institutionalised separation of couples once they entered aged care should be stopped.

The paper calls for specific human rights legislation for older Australians.

It also calls for laws to be strengthened to protect couples entering aged care together.

Those who form relationships after entering aged care should also be protected, the paper stated.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Alison Rahn website
• Image: Patheos

In a blog post on the New Zealand Catholic bishops' website, Dr John Kleinsman wrote of how the synod's working document made little mention of this goodness.

He told a bishop at the synod on the family of this and also mentioned that there had been little mention of the topic in the synod interventions thus far.

This bishop subsequently made a "free intervention" to the synod attendees on this topic.

Dr Kleinsman, who is director of the Nathaniel Centre, the Catholic bioethics agency in New Zealand, then prepared a 300-word statement on the goodness of sexuality within marriage.

He presented this "modus" to the small group at the synod of which he is a member.

The text noted that in the giving of a married couple to each other in sexual loving, their love is nourished and "they become open to the possibility and miracle of new life".

Dr Kleinsman painted a picture of married loving and life-giving which transcends the relationship of the couple, with implications for the wider community and the world.

The final two paragraphs read: "At a time when the rich Christian vision of sex and sexuality has increasingly been replaced by a much narrower and impoverished understanding for many, Christian couples are called to witness more than ever to the beauty, joy and richness of human sexuality and the proper place of sexual loving in a committed, exclusive and permanent relationship."

"The sexual expression of love within marriage thus has the potential to establish itself as a special expression of Christian evangelisation."

In the blog post, Dr Kleinsman wrote that this statement was discussed in his small group.

It was accepted by the group and it was sent "forward for consideration by the writing party working on the final synod document".

He said the final document of the synod "will be all the poorer if it does not in some way affirm the goodness of sexuality that goes back to the Creation story in Genesis - and God saw it was good".

Dr Kleinsman is married with three adult children.

Sources

• NZCBC
• Image: Marist Messenger

An analysis by Voice of the Family critiqued the Instrumentum Laboris for omissions and ambiguity in wording.

The document "threatens the entire structure of Catholic teaching on marriage, the family and human sexuality", the coalition warned.

A LifeSiteNews article stated that a tactic similar to one enacted at Vatican II is being used.

In order to get wide agreement, vague, ambiguous and even apparently conflicting language is used to appease all sides.

These expressions were later referred to as "time bombs" which some theologians were able to exploit following the council for the purpose of undermining the Church's traditional teachings, the article stated.

One example cited by the coalition is the Instrumentum Laboris's reference to Paul VI's Humanae Vitae without any use of the word "contraception" or any direct reference to any contraceptive method.

The synod document states that the "two principal points" of Humanae Vitae are first about the role of conscience and second "an objective moral norm" without ever defining that moral norm, Voice of the Family objected.

The Instrumentum Laboris is also faulted for stating that "the family, while maintaining its privileged spot in education, cannot be the only place for teaching sexuality. [par 86]"

The Voice of the Family analysis cited the teaching of St Pope John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio, where the pope leaves open the possibility that sex education can be done solely in the home.

He wrote: "Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centres chosen and controlled by them."

Voice of the Family co-founder John Smeaton called on Catholics to oppose "the direction being taken at the synod".

Sources

• LifeSiteNews
• Image: UCANews.com

Writing for the majority Justice Anthony Kennedy contended that committed same-sex partnerships should be treated as fully equivalent in dignity and honor to traditional marriage, and that by not doing so traditional morality is demeaning and oppressive to same-sex persons.

Other events too—such as the media's recent celebration of transgenderism—signal that our culture is moving more and more toward the view that marriage and sexuality lack any objective structure and that the distinction between men and women is utterly insignificant.

Catholics will increasingly be pressured to assent to those views, on pain of being categorized as bigoted and hateful. In addition, the argument will be made that faithful Catholics should just shut up about sexual morality, since it is an unimportant issue in any case.

But it is antithetical to our faith to think of our bodies as having no objective meaning or moral importance, as if they can be treated as having whatever meaning we choose to impose on them. We our called to conform our feelings to what is objectively true, not the other way around.

Our faith is centered on God as truth, and on God who became flesh, died and rose from the dead, and through his priests makes his flesh and blood present for us on our altars.

Our bodies—redeemed by and united to God incarnate—are inherently meaningful and important, not mere occasions for obtaining desirable experiences.

What we believe about marriage and sexuality is an important part of the Gospel. Everyone is called to integrate his or her sexuality with love of God and love of neighbor.

And marriage is a sacrament, one a large portion of Catholics are called to, and that all Catholics are called to promote. Further, as St. Paul teaches, the mystery of the union of the husband and the wife in marriage is a key analogy for understanding Christ's union with his Church (Eph. 5:22-33).

Confusion about marriage leads to confusion about Christ and the Church. So Catholics need to understand and articulate clearly the basics of Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality. Continue reading

Sources

• Patrick Lee holds the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Chair of Bioethics, and is the Director of the Center for Bioethics, at Franciscan University of Steubenville. This article is from The Catholic World Report.
• Image: Popsugar

"Catholics, preserve your decency in summer, too: Don't go to mixed beaches!" reads the poster, uploaded by the Traditionalist Group Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to its Facebook page.

The poster was accompanied by a list of recommended segregated beaches that good Catholics should follow during the holiday season in Spain. Continue reading

Writing on his blog, suspended Redemptorist Fr Tony Flannery mentioned a Scripture passage that refers to Jesus' brothers and sisters.

"We are told that Jesus had four brothers, and an indefinite number of sisters," Flannery wrote.

"This does not fit with the Church's need to present Jesus as the Son of God, conceived in a way that is different from other humans, and Mary as the perpetual virgin.

"So the scholars turned the brothers and sisters into cousins!"

He also said the Gospel account made "a believable statement - that the family of Jesus found it hard to understand what he was about".

"But the Church, who wished to present an idealised version of the Holy Family - Jesus, Mary and Joseph living in peace and harmony - choose to quietly pass over these words of Jesus.

"Not only that: these doctrines about Jesus, Mary and the Holy Family are now part of the essential doctrine of the Church that we all must accept."

Flannery also referred to the "thorn in the flesh" quote from St Paul at last Sunday's Masses.

It, he said, "greatly helped in the Church's efforts to make anything to do with sex the greatest sin".

Flannery was suspended from ministry in 2012 by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for his views on women priests, contraception and homosexuality.

He was a founding member of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Fr Flannery blog
• Image: Irish Independent

The subtitle for the session was "teaching pleasure within your sexuality education programme."

At the conference teachers were shown pamphlets that said sex talks should include a discussion about pleasure.

"There is a fear of talking about pleasure," it said.

Family Planning health promoter Vicky Burgess-Munro said traditional sex education focused on "negative findings" like avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

She said research in 2005 by New Zealand-based Louisa Allen showed pupils were looking for a more positive view of sexuality.

"They were sick of being told just the basics ... They wanted to know how to be good lovers, how to get the most, and most positive, out of their relationships."

Some secondary school principals have been left feeling uneasy.

Christchurch Boys' High principal Nic Hill said it was "interesting ground" but he could not imagine his staff wanting to "get in to technique."

"I'm a little surprised. I don't think that will be happening at Boys' High."

Burnside High School principal Phil Holstein, who is also Canterbury Westland Secondary Principals' Association chairman, said he did not feel comfortable with the advice and he was sure his teachers would feel the same.

"Nor is it appropriate in the form of the health syllabus. I don't think it was ever intended that those things be discussed."

Family Planning provides a range of services to schools, including co-teaching, teacher professional development and resources.

The Ministry of Education recently overhauled its sexuality education guidelines for the first time in more than 10 years. Sexuality education: a guide for principals, boards of trustees, and teachers was released in May.

At the time, student achievement deputy secretary Graham Stoop said schools wanted to be able to give students with the right skills to navigate relationships and keep themselves safe.

Sexuality education is a compulsory part of the health curriculum but schools are free to decide how they teach it.

They do this in consultation with their school community and must consult every two years.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: penz.org.nz

The DVD comes from the British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in collaboration with St Anthony Communications, which specialises in catechetical video presentations.

It has been launched as the Church prepares for the synod on the family in October.

Among the contributors to the DVD are US Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury.

The DVD covers such topics like cohabitation, homosexuality, divorce and re-marriage.

It also features lay experts and married couples who speak in support of the Church's teaching from their own experience.

Continue reading

The Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken (Central Committee of the German Catholics) called for the admittance of civilly remarried divorcees to Communion, acceptance of all forms of cohabitation, the blessing of same-sex couples and the reconsideration of the Church's teaching on contraception.

A document from the ZdK stated that non-marital forms of lived partnerships "make a great contribution" to social cohesion and have to be "treated justly".

It also stated that "values" are found in other forms of communal living, which "have to be honoured, even if they are not to be found in the form of the sacramental marriage".

But Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau called the ZdK's document "incomprehensible".

Continue reading

Creflo Dollar's preaching is on TV2 in New Zealand early every weekday morning.

Televangelist Pastor Creflo Dollar says the close relationship between Ash and Brock was a sign of the cartoon's "gay agenda".

He claims that many of the Pokemon are phallic in nature causing those who watch the cartoon or play the game to desire phallic shapes. Read more

As a parent of teenagers myself, I feel ‘in the thick' of it every day; the emotions of their stage of life, the joy and pain, the confusion and the hormones, the importance of friends, of belonging, of boundaries, and the influence of peer pressure.

Some days my teenage kids come home with stories of friends who are involved in self-harm, disordered eating, thoughts of suicide, bullying, ‘sexting', pornography and more.

On days like these I am grateful for my training in youth ministry and experience in counselling to be able to guide my own children and provide answers in such full-on and often confusing times.

I also realise that not all parents are youth counsellors or specialists and can often feel lost with how to respond when topics like these come up.

Below are two key principles that will put the power back in your court as the parent of a teenager.

1) Stay engaged!
If there is anything we can do as parents, it is to not disengage!

There is often a strong temptation around the ages of 8-12 to start to disengage. This is because now that they can feed themselves, dress themselves and go to the toilet by themselves, it seems like they don't need us as much.

This couldn't be further from the truth. They still need you! Just not in the same way as a toddler or pre-schooler. They now need you more emotionally, to help them make sense of the world, to interpret what happens to them at school, to tell them it's going to be OK.

This is a crucial time when our voices as parents are still louder than that of the media and society, so don't lose this opportunity to speak to them about all you value and believe. Continue reading

• Kym Keady in Restless Press

Kym Keady shares from her own personal experience and draws upon Church teaching to speak to young people about God's amazing plan for their lives.