Sex-How odd of God:

...It's too bad that one must apply the techniques of Kremlinol-ogy to find the inner meaning of hierarchical pronouncements of this kind, but that's the way it is...

...A timorous one...

...ROBERT G. HOYT...

...It is a truism that codes of morality, including sexual morality, do change, and sometimes should...

...Gender discrimination in, say, the job market is obviously unfair to women and hurtful to society...

...Among Catholics who hang in not because of but despite the encyclical, some regard it as a wound that's healed, or as a piece of esoterica that is best kept on a shelf in the closet, or as a useful example, leading to religious maturation, of the limits of the reach of authority...

...Less obviously, sexist attitudes played out in the bedroom demean at least one partner and rob the sex act of human significance for both...

...Does the church's exclusion of women from ordination flow out of inherited, erroneous, patriarchal presuppositions...

...But the text itself doesn't do much propagating, or defending, or explaining...

...The draft names sexism as sin...

...Yes, and no...

...We discover sex, one by one (or two by two...

...It's at least a half-step forward...

...Out of reflections on the "intimate structure" of the sex act, the encyclical says, we must conclude that having sex during the infertile, period leaves the act "open to the transmission of life," and is therefore okay, whereas sex with a condom separates love-making from baby making and is not okay...

...For an example of devolution: The movement toward what is called sexual liberation can lead in several directions, one of them a depersonalized sexuality that represents a net loss, and a severe one, for individuals and society...

...It may have been only an observation in passing...

...they are bound by codes formulated in times when the very biology of sex, not to speak of its psychological dimensions and spiritual potential, was unknown or wrongly understood...

...The draft says nothing at all about "enforcing" the encyclical, either in the confessional or by disciplinary action toward dissenters...

...Day was using what a friend of mine calls "moon vision," looking at copulation and ingestion from afar, as it were, and as though for the first time, seeing their strangeness...

...It was also deromanticizing, in a distinctly non-Chestertonian fashion...

...But it was common-sensical, in a Chestertonian way...

...By way of contrast: In a footnote addressed to male Catholics, the bishops show understanding of how some or most of us, and some or most of them, got hooked on sexism...

...And some think of it as an intellectual scandal in itself and a sign of deeper problems that must be confronted some day, though the day be ever so distant...

...She compared the mechanics of human coupling with the act of eating, which on analysis into its parts also looks odd: You push your fork into a substance, insert it into your mouth, gnash it about, swallow...

...Paul VI then added that' 'the men of our day are particularly capable of seizing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle...

...It could be discussed only in the confessional, and then only if the penitent asked the right question...

...with regard to sexism it says that by passive default and active example the church has been teaching falsehood and practicing injustice, along with practically all other social institutions, for centuries...

...These thoughts are occasioned by the confluence of two events, the twentieth anniversary this month of the issuance of Humanae vitae and the recent publication by a committee of the American bishops of a draft pastoral on "women's concerns...

...We invent sexuality, not all by ourselves but culturally...

...These subgroups of hangers-in aren't all that distinct...

...There are Catholics who will celebrate the anniversary of Humanae vitae as a reaffirmation of the church's unique grasp of moral truth and of its claim to divine guidance...

...There are ex-Catholics who departed the fold for precisely opposite reasons...

...In contrast, the draft pastoral "Partners in the Mystery of Redemption "is certainly not a regressive document, whatever its flaws...

...Humanae vitae was a regressive moment in Catholic history and the history of human sexuality...

...Romance is a component of sexuality for most of us...

...The draft pastoral letter exemplifies that...

...All institutions are conservative, and usefully so...

...And we keep re-inventing it down through the centuries...

...Because of that problem, it took John Courtney Murray much of a lifetime to figure out how to repudiate earlier teaching on religious liberty without seeming to do so...

...With Gaudium et spes, echoed by Humanae vitae, making love when sperm and ovum cannot meet became "noble and worthy...

...Sexuality-defined as what we think, feel, and do about sex-is a social construct...

...So far, so very good...

...Even the encyclical accepts change: Decades ago, when I first wrote for Catholic publications, I was forbidden to mention the rhythm method in print because its moral status wasn't yet all that clear...

...Catholic moralists and hierarchs have a special problem, not limited to but more obvious in the sexual arena...

...What is notable here is that this draft of the letter does not clearly say either Yes or No...

...That refreshingly sensible remark is footnoted with a reference to Humanae vitae, so it's no daring departure...

...Thus the feminist drive for equality is a moral movement in more ways than one...

...In the event, most men and women of our day have tended to regard the pope's conclusion as a nonprinciple, fundamentally unreasonable and non- or even anti-human...

...Change may be for the worse, devolution...

...on a given day, I can agree with any or all of them...

...but they don't propose a dialogue beween sexists and their victims...

...What of contraception and Humanae vitael The draft pays at least as much attention to "voices of alienation" taking issue with the encyclical as to "voices of affirmation" singing its praises...

...I don't remember the context of her reflection, or where it led her...

...When the drafters speak in their own name ("Responding as Bishops"), they practice a sort of minimalism: "The mutual love of Catholic couples should be open to new life...

...It not only asks "compassion" for people who in good conscience act contrary to the encyclical's proscription, it suggests a need for continued dialogue between people who defend the rhythm method and those who are not persuaded by the church's stand...

...but it happens...

...it's useful to be reminded that there's no necessary connection, that romance is something we add to the bare facts...

...their cry for justice is "a clear mandate for the church," which (the draft acknowledges) has been a partner in oppression...

...That's not radically courageous, but given the institutional context-the views of the present pope, the latest curial declaration on the topic-neither is it exactly timorous...

...But the test comes in application...

...or for the better, development...

...The words are solemn but the argument is not serious...

...All this applies to sexual ethics as it does to other aspects of sexuality...

...After quoting a key paragraph of the encyclical (# 13) to convey the "official teaching of the church on artificial contraception," the letter says this teaching must be propagated...

...The problem, of course, is infallibility (along with its cousin, the noninfallible but authentic magisterium...

...With all respect to Dorothy Day, who would never have accepted use of her "moon vision" in opposition to a papal prouncement, there's just not that much truth to be derived from contemplating the intimate structure of the sex act...

...The same grave attention given to the mechanics of eating would lead to a ban oh No-Cal soda, which may give pleasure and satisfy an urge but frustrates the nutritive purpose built into our ingestive equipment...

...It's bizarre...

...Still, one senses a lack of any real enthusiasm for teaching this particular chapter of the book...

...It is supportive of women who "want to uproot the basic causes of injustice in the anthropology, the psychology, the thought patterns and the presuppositions of our culture...