Taking a Chance on God/The Church and the Homosexual
O'Donohoe, James A.
PILGRIMS OF CONSCIENCE TAKING A CHANCE ON GOD John J. McNeill Beacon, $17.95, 213 pp. THE CHURCH AND THE EDAL Third Edition John J. McNeill Beacon, $9.95 paper, 266 pp. James A. O'Donohoe On...
...And he is to be commended for his contribution toward this pastoral end...
...it is also downright incorrect...
...Coming from one who has studied moral theology, it is not only surprising...
...In trying to formulate a pastoral approach in the light of an apparently severe disciplinary church teaching, one mast always be careful not to fudge the latter in attempting to do the former...
...For instance, in the preface to Taking a Chance on God, we read that "The church's traditional position has been that since every homosexual act is sinful and contrary to God's plan, the love that exists between gay and lesbian people is sinful and alienates the lovers from God" (emphasis added...
...In both of his books, John McNeill is not satisfied with the traditional distinction between sin and wrongdoing...
...James A. O'Donohoe On December 29, 1975, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) published a document entitled Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics...
...4) pastorally, homosexuals are to be treated with understanding and their culpability should be judged with prudence...
...In other words, he is of the opinion that there can be "ethically responsible homosexual relationships" and he would define the latter as those which are built on relationships which are "unselfish and constructive...
...It attempts to formulate a theology and a spirituality rooted in the real life experience of homosexuals, designed not only to meet their special needs (to "dispel the shadow of guilt and self-hatred") but also to inform the pastoral action that they are to undertake in the world in which they live...
...McNeill basically argues that a "genuine homosexual" can morally enter into a responsible homogenital relationship involving stability and faithful love...
...In appendix one, the author recommends some goals for the pastoral counseling of homosexuals that he has learned from his therapeutic practice with gay and lesbian clients...
...2) a distinction must be made between those homosexuals whose tendency comes from false education, a lack of normal sexual development, or from other remediable causes, and those homosexuals who are definitively such because of irreversible, innate instinct or incurable pathological condition...
...In this regard, it seems to me that McNeill fails to address adequately what studies show to be more prevalent than fidelity among members of the gay community, namely, the question of homosexual promiscuity...
...spent as a psychotherapist sharing the pain and joy, struggles and triumphs of my lesbian and gay clients as they strove to put together their lives as both gay and Christian...
...In this book, McNeill took issue with three positions which he asserts (without specific reference and careful nuancing) dominated the thinking of moral theologians: (1) "the homosexual condition, and subsequently all homosexual activity, is contrary to the will of God...
...They replied that they had no alternative but to dismiss him from the Society of Jesus...
...In Roman Catholic moral theology, a distinction has always been drawn between objective norm and subjective guilt, and hence between wrongdoing and sinfulness (or between performing a disvalue and doing so with culpability...
...In substance and argumentation, this third edition of The Church and the Homosexual is practically identical with the 1976 original, except for three added appendices and a new preface...
...The flaw lies elsewhere...
...After an anguished period of struggle with his conscience, McNeill told his Jesuit superiors that he felt called to continue his ministry to the homosexual community and intended to do so...
...Ignoring this distinction can be very misleading...
...Such is not the case...
...McNeill describes his new book, Taking a Chance on God, as a "liberating theology for gays, lesbians and their lovers, families, and friends...
...As McNeill points out in much detail, this book took shape as a result of "thousands of hours...
...2) "the presence of the homosexual in the human community is a menace to that community, and especially a threat to the values of the family...
...for if it ceases to do this, it simply collapses the pastoral and the official teaching and in so doing ceases to be truly human because it barters the good that will liberate and humanize for the compromise that will merely comfort...
...The author hopes that reflection on these basic truths may evoke a "spiritual liberation" that will enable homosexuals to "break into history with a new positive self-consciousness...
...Herein lies his difficulty with the teaching of the Catholic church as it was recently reiterated by Vatican documents...
...Regarding homosexuality, the following observations were made: (1) those who would judge indulgently or even excuse homosexual relations do so in opposition to the moral sense of the Christian people and the constant teaching of the official church...
...I cannot argue the point here (as it deserves to be argued in detail), but I think he fudges the issue in failing to articulate his pastoral approach sufficiently within the context of the traditional Christian understanding of the human person and the nature and purpose of human sexuality that have been historically developed by the church and staunchly defended by the Second Vatican Council...
...The final appendix offers a fairly comprehensive history of how the book came to be reprinted at this particular time...
...John McNeil...
...is quite correct in urging the church, today more than ever, to work out a compassionate pastoral theology to guide her dealings with Christians who are constitutive homosexuals...
...McNeill also advances the thesis that "there is a possibility of morally good homosexual relationships and that the love which unites the partners in such a relationship, rather than alienating them from God, can be judged as uniting them more closely with God and as mediating God's presence in our world...
...However, in 1985, shortly after he addressed the annual convention of Dignity, the national Catholic homosexual rights group, he was informed by his provincial that the Vatican Congregation had decreed that he was to "withdraw from any and all ministry to homosexual persons...
...In this regard, the wise statement of Richard McCormick, S.J., has particular relevance: "[G]eriuine morality, while al-ways compassionate and understanding in its meeting with individual distress, must remain prophetic and demanding in the norms through which it invites to a better humanity...
...Appendix two contains some theological and pastoral reflections provoked by the new dimension introduced by the AIDS crisis...
...Such a statement only contributes to popular misunderstanding...
...But in his opinion the task of specifically defining such a relationship is to be left to the Christian homosexual in question...
...Early in 1976, with the imprimi potest of his Jesuit provincial superior, John McNeill published The Church and the Homosexual (Sheed, Andrews & McMeel...
...In 1978, McNeill was notified by his Jesuit superiors that the CDF had ordered the imprimi potest removed from future editions and demanded that he be prohibited from any further writing or lecturing on the question of homosexuality...
...One would have hoped that the author would have revised the first edition...
...3) according to a Christian understanding of the moral order, homosexual acts lack an essential finality, are therefore intrinsically disordered, and can be approved of in no case whatsoever...
...The final decree of dismissal was issued on April 13, 1987...
...3) "the love which unites two homosexuals in a sexual union is a sinful love which separates them from the love of God and places them in danger of eternal damnation...
...He asserts that "genuine homosexuals who engage in genital relations" are doing something not merely subjectively defensible but something objectively virtuous for them...
...The presuppositions, however, are identical with the three theses proposed in The Church and the Homosexual...
...The book articulately presents many of the basic truths of Christianity: the call to intimacy with God, the importance of developing a mature faith, the necessity of dealing with fear and anger, the need to cope with the burden of guilt, shame, and self-hatred, the Christian's relationship with Mary, the advantages of reflection on one's mortality, and the challenge of living in a society that is primarily heterosexual...
...As before, McNeill holds that genital homosexual relationships can be ethically responsible not only in the subjective order of personal conscience (something that most moral theologians would admit) but also in the perspective of the Christian tradition's understanding of human nature (something that the official teaching of the church categorically re-jects...
...For many years, he faithfully observed this silencing...
Vol. 116 • February 1989 • No. 3
