Sexual Challenge

Nobody has opposed the sexual revolution more steadfastly than the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Only last year the Vatican reiterated its condemnation of all sexual relations outside marriage, calling this judgment an "absolute and immutable" part of God's law. In a statement last November the U.S. bishops were equally unyielding, saying that sex is "a moral and human good only within marriage."

Liberal Strength. A growing number of Catholic theologians, priests and educators openly favor a much more permissive policy, however. The most sweeping American challenge yet to the hierarchy's view occurs with this month's publication of a 322-page sex report,* four years in preparation, that was commissioned by the board of the Catholic Theological Society of America. Its 1,000 members include virtually all the church's seminary and university religion teachers in the U.S. and Canada. Human Sexuality was written by a committee of two priests, one nun and two laymen, headed by Father Anthony Kosnik, a moral theologian and dean of Saints Cyril and Methodius Seminary in Michigan. While the report is not an official policy statement of the society of theologians, it shows the increasing strength in its ranks of those who reject official church teachings about sex.

Traditionally, the Catholic Church, like most branches of Christianity and Judaism, has taught that some sexual practices are intrinsically immoral--e.g., adultery and homosexual relations. The report considers this approach "woefully inadequate." Instead of following rules that ban certain types of sex, it says, Christians should decide for themselves whether specific situations are "conducive to creative growth and integration of the human person." To be moral, the committee argues, sex ought to follow seven basic "guidelines." It should be "self-liberating, other-enriching, honest, faithful, socially responsible, life-serving and joyous." How these terms are to be applied may be open to debate.

The report sees need for the "greatest caution" in deciding about extramarital affairs, but it leaves open "the possibility that there may occasionally arrive exceptions, where such relationships [outside marriage] can truly be 'creative' and 'integrative' for all involved, and therefore morally acceptable." It also says that widowed and divorced people cannot be expected to live as though they were "nonsexual beings."

In a detailed treatment of homosexuality, the report contends that biblical condemnations applied to practices associated with pagan worship or to homosexual activity by people who were naturally heterosexual. The committee thinks that priests can recommend stable friendships for homosexuals rather than sexual abstinence, but it does not think that these relationships should be called "marriages."

On other issues, the report:

> Is concerned about masturbation only in cases of "serious psychological maladjustment"; last year's Vatican decree taught that every instance of it is "seriously disordered."

> Considers sexual relations with animals to be pathological if a person prefers such relations even when "heterosexual outlets are available."

> States that much pornography is "neuter or amoral to most adults."

> Accepts sterilization as a legitimate form of birth control, even though the church officially opposes it.

When Father Kosnik's committee delivered its report to the Catholic Theological Society board a year ago, there was a flurry over how to handle it. Jesuit Theologian Avery Dulles, then president of the society, says: "We were aware that it was an explosive document." In an effort to avert criticism, Dulles assigned three scholars to review the work and make suggestions to the committee before the fourth and final draft was written.

Even before official publication, the report has drawn fire. Although the Vatican and the U.S. conference of bishops declined any formal comment, an editorial in Our Sunday Visitor, the biggest national Catholic weekly, fulminated that the report "exposes a festering wound in the church." William May, a Catholic University lay professor of morals, joined with five other conservative scholars to issue a statement condemning the report as "partisan in outlook, poor in scholarship, weak in argumentation, fallacious in its conclusions." Kosnik and his committee members are refusing to answer such criticisms until after next week's meeting of the theological society in Toronto.

Another moral theologian at Catholic University, Father Charles Curran, comes to the defense of the report, however. Though his own views are slightly more conservative, he supports the essence of the document and emphasizes its significance: "The bishops have been talking as though only one or two far-out people somewhere hold such views. But the general approach of this report is very much the majority opinion among moral theologians in this country who are writing on these topics."

*Human Sexuality New Directions in American Catholic Thought: Paulist Press: $8.50.

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