As a Catholic, I Support Marriage Equality

Equality is one of those interesting words that everyone claims to want, but no one is quite sure what it means.  W.C. Fields once proclaimed himself to be free of all prejudices, “I hate everyone equally,” he remarked.  Barry Goldwater, no opponent of “gay rights” himself remarked that “equality... as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty, wrongly understood as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.”  I am not entirely certain what Goldwater meant, but as our society debates the question of marriage rights and equality, a man may be hardly certain what he ought to think about it.  Nonetheless, whatever he may think, what a person ought to think is clear enough:  He ought to support marriage equality.

As a Catholic, I strongly support marriage equality.  I support the right of all men to marry women and the right of all women to marry men.  A man should never be prevented from marrying a woman by the color of his skin, nor should a woman be prevented from marrying a man because of the color of hers, or her social or economic status.  An Italian man should not be denied the right to marry an Irish woman if she will have him, though he may do so at his own peril.  As a Catholic, I recognize that there is no basis in natural law (or history) to deny a black man the right to marry a white woman and that those who until recently would have denied this marriage equality were creating a new and artificial definition of marriage where it required spouses to have the same skin color.  Nonetheless, this unequality was an artificial novelty creating a new definition of marriage with no basis in natual or common law.  As such, it was a violation of marriage equality.

Just as a I support marriage equality, I support the right of all children to have a father and a mother.  I support a marriage equality that attaches mothers and fathers for the purposes of raising children, providing each child with a father and mother.  Regardless of the child’s social and economic status, his religion, his race, or any other factor, each child has an equal right to be raised by a father and mother.  This provides children with greater stability than those denied a father and mother, as well as models for the development of their own sexuality (1).  Children all have the equal right to be raised by a father and a mother for their own sakes, not to become tools for the fulfillment of adult desires.

Just as I support marriage equality, I support the right of those with homosexual inclinations to be supported in their struggle with those inclinations.  I support their right to be loved and not merely tolerated, “which parodies love as flippacy parodies merriment” (C.S. Lewis).  No one who loves anyone ever merely tolerates them.  A wife who loves her husband would never merely tolerate his alcoholism, not even were he born that way.  Mere tolerance is always easier than real love.  It is always easier to give alcohol to an alcoholic than to support him in giving it up.  It is always easier to tell a  person he is fine with the way he is, than that he needs to change.  This may be tolerance, but it is not love. 

Finally, because I support marriage equality, I do not support changing the definition of marriage to include sexual relationships by members of the same sex.  There is no basis for it in natural law, common law, or history.  It is a modern, artificial creation, created by the state and needing  a state to defend it, just like laws that changed the definition of marriage so that it only included members of the same race.  But changing the definition of a thing, never changes its nature.  Because I support marriage equality I support the right of persons with homosexual inclinations to be supported in their struggle with those inclinations so that they too may be able to enjoy true marriage in fact, not merely by redefinition.  To do otherwise would be like claiming to help a blind man “see” by changing the definition of “sight.”

(1). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/was-the-regnerus-study-on-gay-parenting-defective

For more on the benefits of a father and mother on a child’s upbringing see the above study by Regnerus and another article responding to debate of it.

The Adventure of Monogamy

The great English essayist and possibly best prose writer of the twentieth century, G. K. Chesterton once remarked to a man who claimed that Christianity had been tried and found wanting that, on the contrary, “it had been found difficult and left untried.”  He might have been speaking of any number of aspects of Christianity, whether belief in the Incarnation and crucifixion, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles or idea that the humble and poor are blessed rather than the rich and proud.  To some significant extent, I rather suspect that he was speaking in large part about Christian beliefs on human sexuality.  

In no age have Christian sexual teachings been popular.  It is sometimes claimed today that Jesus gave commands that kept with the spirit of his time, but do not fit with ours.  This is nonsense.  Jesus’ concept of human sexuality was no more popular in his age then than today.  He rejected divorce in an age that demanded it with the same vehemence with which modern society does.  He and apostles always assumed that marriage was between  a man and a women, even Paul writing to a pagan Roman society that was no more sympathetic to Christian sexual teaching than pagan modern society (Rom 1:26-27).

The strange thing about modern distaste for Church teaching on monogamy is that in demanding monogamy without divorce, the Church, as C.S. Lewis, remarked in Mere Christianity, does not demand people do something utterly foreign to them.  The Church did not force Romeo to promise Juliet eternal constancy and love, he did that one his own.  Songs, poems, love stories, both modern and ancient, are full of promises of eternal love and fidelity.  Songs promise that “I will love you forever;” they never promise, “I will love you until next Tuesday.”  For all the commonness of modern divorce and promiscuity, man cannot easily escape at least the ideal of fidelity.  The Church does not impose this ideal, it simply demands that man keep it.  

At the lowest level, keeping this promise of fidelity is a matter of integrity.  When a man does what his conscience tells him that he ought do, promise his love forever, he makes an oath that it is a simple matter of honesty and integrity to keep.  Robert Bolt’s Thomas More, in A Man for All Seasons, on being asked why he would not take an oath to save his life, replied that he would not take an oath that he could not keep.  He explained that “when a man takes an oath, he takes his own self into his hands, like water, and if he opens his fingers, he needn’t hope to find himself again.”

Keeping to one woman (or man), though, is not simply a matter of honesty or integrity, but adventure.   As Chesterton remarked, there is simply no fun in taking an oath that I cannot be kept to.  There is no adventure in keeping an promise only when it is easy to do so, or following a road only until the trail darkens.  What adventure would it have been in Lord of the Rings had Fordo turned back at the first sound of a black rider’s footsteps or if Hector fled when the first Greek ships approached Troy?  What if St. Francis gave up at his first hunger pangs?   What if Christ turned back to Galilee at the first shrieking devil?

This comes to the final point.  Frodo did not turn back at the first sounds of a black rider’s steps.  He saw his quest through fire and foes, through darkness and thunder, through fear and doubt and back home.  And he did not come back the same.  His enemy, Saruman, on his return said to him in awe, “you have grown... you are wise and cruel, you have robbed my revenge of its sweetness and I must go hence, indebted to your mercy...”  No one comes through trials the same.  Fulton Sheen liked to remark on the spiritual law running though the universe that “no one shall be crowned unless first he has struggled.”  The adventure leaves no man (or woman) who sees it through the same, if only he have the courage to undertake it.   

Cutting the Wives Out of Ephesians 5

Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21

Yesterday, the twenty-firstSunday in Ordinary Time, the second reading at Mass was the famous (or infamous) excerpt from St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians about husbands and wives. This was the second reading that we selected for our wedding, so obviously, is one we like. So I was annoyed yesterday when the shorter version of it was used.

I generally dislike using the shorter versions, since the longer ones often give more content as well as context. I just don't like "cutting it short." I dislike using the shorter version of this reading in particular, because it seems to cater to mainstream culture's idea of "political correctness" in omitting the verses about wives, but skipping to the way that husbands ought to love their wives. As good and important as it is to read the latter verses in the passage, "Husbands, love your wives...," I think it is important to supply the full context. The whole passage goes together to describe a situation not of male dominance, as many like to think, but one of mutual cooperation and self-giving, things at the heart of a marital relationship. Why do we want to cut half of the equation out?

In a discussion about the reading, a good friend of mine clarified and helped me understand why it can sometimes be reasonable to use the shorter reading of this passage. When the second reading is not going to be addressed in the Homily, it was explained to me, it is sometimes decided to shorten this particular reading from Ephesians because of the widespread misunderstanding of the verses.

It makes some sense that one might desire to draw attention to these particular words of Paul only if they were intended to be explicated more fully. There are so many misunderstandings about this reading that presenting it without giving it full attention satisfies neither the importance of Paul's words on the topic, nor the curiosity of the listeners. It is not enough just to want these words spoken and proclaimed. They must be presented and offered together with their explanation, and with an understanding of what the reception of the verses may be, prior to the understanding of the explanation.

I still fear, though, that the omission itself can too easily be misconstrued, and in such a way as to almost perpetuate the very animosity that about the verses that is sought to be quelled. While we do not want people to hear the passage and come away saying "I can't believe what the Church is saying in that reading," at least after hearing it someone may seek to find out why they are really there try to find out what they mean. In omitting the verses I think it should be feared that people may observe, "Look at the previous verses that they left out— that confirms that Paul was wrong about that."

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”...  As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

John 6:60; 66

This Sunday, the Gospel reading was a continuation of last Sunday's' Gospel in which Jesus tells his Disciples about eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Eucharist. This Sunday continues when some of them respond, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" and some of them left and stopped following the Lord. To the disciples who first heard Jesus's Eucharistic words, the idea of eating his flesh and drinking his blood was nearly impossible to comprehend. It was probably as shocking as some people today may find Paul's words, as writers atthe NCR point out (1). To some people today, the concept of the Eucharist still is difficult to comprehend. But when something is important, we try to understand it. We keep trying to have it explained to us, and keep trying to understand just a little bit more each time.

The same should go for many other things we can find in scripture, including Paul's words to the Ephesians. When we learn something that seems not to make sense to us, do we dismiss it, or do we try to understand it? When hearing something makes us say "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" we ought not be the ones who simply walk away in denial and unbelief. If we do that, we will never understand.

(1) Tom and April Hoopes, "Advice for Wives and Husbands," National Catholic Register.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/advice-for-wives-and-husbands?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegisterDailyBlog+National+Catholic+Register#When:2012-08-26

Redefinitions and Redefining Away: Religion, Marriage, and Life

My wife is a librarian.  This means several things.  First, she likes rules (she loves canon law).  Rules are very important to her, they help keep things, and especially people, neat and orderly.  They keep them out of places they should not be, like behind the library employee’s desk.  Second, she likes order.  Everything needs to be in its proper place.  Heaven help the student worker who puts a book back on a shelf where it doesn’t belong.  Heaven help her husband if he decides to be helpful, puts away the dishes one morning, and does not put the measuring spoons exactly where they belong.

Whether my wife became a librarian because she liked rules and order, or else grew to like them because she became a librarian, I do not know.  I only know that she likes both things. 

The medievals liked order as well.  They were terribly concerned with the meanings of things and wanted to put everything in its proper place.  I never appreciated this until I read G.K. Chesterton’s book on Thomas Aquinas, The Dumb Ox.  Chesterton remarked that having a proper place for things is a far bigger problem in philosophy than in real life.  When I put a thing in the wrong place in real life, no serious consequences ensue, but when something is not put in its proper place in philosophy, that thing ceases to exist.  If God is just a physical being, a giant physical, humanoid figure with a white beard sitting in the sky, then He did not create the universe and there is no place for Him.  He would not exist.  If God is a transcendent being beyond nature, then He has a proper place, and can exist.  

The same can be seen in a smaller example.  Some have remarked today that they word “hero” is over-used.  In past times, a man was a hero who fell on a grenade to save his friends, today every soldier is a “hero.”  Every fireman, a hero.  In this way, the word refers no longer to extraordinary service, but to ordinary service.  It becomes drained of all meaning.  If everyone is a hero, then no one is.  Heroism, having been redefined, no longer exists.  

The same is true of three other things often not put in their proper place and redefined today, religion, marriage, and life.  If they are redefined, as our modern world has attempted to do, they will cease to exist. 

C.S. Lewis once commented on one absurd writer who redefined religion to mean “what man does with his solitude.”  Today, many would have us redefine it to mean the same thing.  Religion is to be solely a private affair, and when it does, it will no longer exist.  Hence, the United States government would redefine religion to mean that a Catholic hospital, or school, or soup kitchen is no longer “religious” because it serves men who are not Christian.  I pass by the obvious point that others have made that by such an absurd standard, Mother Teresa or Jesus Christ himself would not have counted as religious.  Rather, the point here is that as the domain allowed to “religion” becomes smaller and smaller, religion itself, being redefined and removed from its proper place, will cease to exist, as is no doubt the goal of those who would so redefine it

Marriage too is being redefined today.  What was once a committed relationship (for life) between a man and a woman for mutual love and help for the upbringing of children has slowly been redefined.  The level of commitment required has been lessened by no-fault divorce laws.  The upbringing of children has become optional through birth control.  By such, marriage has been weakened.  At least 40% of children today are born to single parents.  4,000 more are aborted per day.  Now even the requirement that marriage be between a man and a woman is being redefined away.  Marriage has been redefined to be a relationship between two individuals to be kept until one party wishes to break it.  Soon even the requirement that it be between two people may be gone.  Having been redefined, marriage will cease to exist.

Finally, what counts as human life is being redefined today.  It has already been redefined so that it does not include a child in the womb.  Two medical “ethicists” have suggested that a child after-birth does not count as a living human person either, and so now advocate infanticide (1).  Human life is being redefined away.  Or as one writer put it, An ethicist’s job is like a magician’s. The main job of both is to distract you from the obvious. The magician uses sleight of hand to pretend to make people disappear. But when ethicists do it, people disappear for real”(2).  

Life, religion, and marriage are today being removed from their proper places, as forces attempt to redefine them.  And as they are redefined, they are redefined away.  They will no longer exist. As one atheist philosopher said of morality without God, “the words remain, but the meaning is gone.”  So it is here.  The words, “religion,” “marriage,” and “life” will remain, but the meaning will be gone.

(1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html

(2) http://www.jillstanek.com/2012/03/ethicists-magicians-who-can-make-people-disappear-for-real/

Obstacles to Understanding NFP

NFP part 2

(Thoughts continued from NFP Part 1)

One main obstacle to understanding NFP is that it is constantly compared to and considered as an alternative to contraception. NFP is not contraception, nor is it an alternative to it. Contraception is contrary to Natural Law, and is against the sacrament of marriage itself. Morally, it is simply not even relevant in a discussion on NFP. It would be as if during a discussion on hospital vs. home care for the terminally ill, someone was to chime in and say, "Well, what's wrong with euthanasia?" NFP is not "Catholic contraception," any more than annulment is "Catholic divorce." Approaching it with a contraceptive mindset is an obstacle to properly understanding both marital sexuality and Natural Family Planning.

NFP exists as an effective, scientifically-based alternative to complete abstinence. It is not an alternative to contraception. NFP allows a married couple to still have sex in their marriage, because sex is part of marriage. This brings us to the second obstacle to understanding:

The second obstacle is to forget that sex is an integral part of marriage. Sex is not just something that is only allowed once you're married. (You can't even validly get married if you can't physically consummate- that's how intrinsically important it is.) It is literally part of living the sacrament of marriage, which was given to us by God, not designed by man. It is unitive, and procreative, and also, of course, pleasurable. However, if all three of these characteristics are not present, it falls to an act of lust, rather than love. Lust is defined as "self-seeking sexual desire," or the use of another for self-gratification.[1] One should not want sex only for the pleasure, nor only for unity, nor only for procreation. Contraception is against natural law and Church teaching because it intentionally severs the connection between sexuality and one of its major purposes.

A third obstacle to understanding NFP is that is it too often confused with the "rhythm method" or some other out-dated or ineffective means of spacing pregnancies. This confusion always calls into question the actual effectiveness of NFP. I would like to think that this obstacle may be the easiest to clear up, since use of NFP is not necessary in order to simply understand and acknowledge the facts about it. The fact is that NFP is based on science. It is based upon knowing how the female body properly works, and using that knowledge prudently. If NFP users follow the rules of their method diligently, it can be highly effective in avoiding pregnancy if necessary. The highly convenient corollary is that it is also very helpful when a couple begins trying to conceive.

Additionally, the information that NFP helps its users to establish can be useful to everyone, not only Catholics. For instance, many contraceptive users also employ fertility awareness as a means of knowing when they will "need" to use contraception in order not to conceive. This is the difference between Natural Family Planning (NFP) and the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). The book we used to learn NFP was actually a book on FAM. I had seen it recommended numerous times on the Catholic Answers Forum before I bought it (FAM simply becomes NFP by abstinence). It is a highly informative book about women's bodies and fertility cycles. The fact that this book is written for a primarily secular audience is a testament to how useful the benefits of fertility awareness really are for all women, not only Catholics who are using NFP. [2]

Along with a few other bloggers who have recently expressed their opinions, I think that NFP does need to be evangelized. It needs to be evangelized effectively. In order for it to be effective, information about NFP needs to cover all of its facets, though, not only the ones most relevant to us Catholics. There must be an appropriate balance between Natural Law, and Catholic teaching and morality, and facts about the female body and fertility awareness that are informed by medical science. If the scientific information is spread as well as the Catholic information, perhaps it could correct some of the misinformation that is out there. I think that more people will be open to at least hearing facts based on science, especially people who are completely engrossed in secular culture. NFP is like many other moral issues that can be supported both by theological and secular arguments. We need to be well-versed in both in order to get our information across.

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[1] Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2009), 26, 131.

[2] Toni Weschler, Taking Charge of Your Fertility (New York: Collins, 2006)

The method Weschler teaches is essentially sympto-thermal NFP. While her FAM method allows for use of barrier methods, she does say that abstinence is most effective. She also lists a number of Catholic NFP resources in the back of the book.

Natural Law and Family Planning

NFP part 1

                                                             

When we hear or look at the phrase "Natural Family Planning" what comes to mind first? With the first word of the phrase being "natural," some people may, unfortunately, think that the only thing NFP has going for it is that it is not artificial. Sometimes this may even feed into the common misconception that the Church's main disagreement with contraception is that it is artificial. Other obstacles to understanding NFP come from mainstream culture's inherently contraceptive mindset.

To explain the above misconception, I think it is important to point out that "Natural" is not the main event of the phrase, "Natural Family Planning." In fact, "natural" is not an event at all-- it's a descriptor. Remember when learning grammar, being told to find the verb of the sentence to figure out what's going on with the subject? Well, in Natural Family Planning, both grammatically and ideologically, the subject here is a family and the action is planning. NFP is most importantly about planning a family. Planning is intended to mean anticipation of something actually happening eventually, not an act of indefinite postponement.  Included in the planning are the important aspects of knowing how to do the planning and commitment to carrying out the plans. "Natural" is the adjective describing the means of carrying out the plans.

Being natural is important to the context of the family planning, but not in the way many may think. The "N" in NFP does not merely mean "not-artificial." This important descriptor not only signifies a lack of man-made intervention, but it conveys a context of God-established law.  Natural law dictates that procreation results from sexuality. For this reason, the main purpose and intent of Natural Family Planning is to plan a family, and to do so in cooperation (not contradiction) with Natural Law. This is what it means to be "open to life."[1] Being open to life does not mean that a woman ought to become pregnant as often as possible. It does mean that a couple ought not to take actions that directly interfere with the natural result of sexuality.

To most people, NFP (aided by the mistaken idea that it is meant solely to serve as Catholic contraception) is only a mindset that comes into play during the "let's not have a(nother) child yet" stage. However, the principle of abiding by natural law continues to apply once conception is being actively sought. The statement that procreation results from sexuality as a principle of natural law deserves more elaboration on this. As we know, artificial contraception is against natural law, not only because it is artificial, but because it intentionally severs sexuality from its natural (law) result. Just as sexuality ought not to be severed from its natural result, so too must sexuality's result not be severed from its natural source. Thus, the principles employed in Natural Family Planning, as an ideology based upon natural law, are applied to both ends of the family planning spectrum. When these concepts are ignored, there is a two-fold result. The result is a culture that is both contraceptive in seeing children as a burden to be avoided but also, paradoxically, one that has a view of human life so consumerized that children are also seen as things to be procured according to desire.[2]

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[1] For further explanation on being open to life, there is really good post explaining openness to life at Conversion Diary, by Jennifer Fulwiler

[2] Two previous topics of mine: Contraceptive Culture and The Paradox Surrounding Conception

Thoughts continued in NFP part 2, Obstacles to Understanding NFP 

The Paradox Surrounding Conception

“This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.”

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat 1/3/11 (1)
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This quotation is a pretty concise observation of what is so very disturbing about the attitude of mainstream culture toward the conception of human life. In mainstream society we observe not only a rejection of the sanctity of human life, but also a rejection of the sanctity of the covenant of marriage (which in turn causes a distortion of sexuality’s proper context as well as a degradation of the value of the family) and most of all, a rejection of God.
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Rejecting God inherently becomes a rejection of at least some aspect of human dignity. Fulton Sheen has said, “…a person is a person only when seen in an image of God” (2). If God does not exist, then man cannot possess His image. The connection between sexuality and the sanctity of life exists because of that image of God, the imago Dei, which we all not only possess but are also called to uphold in our own lives (3). The revelation of the imago Dei, as Anderson and Granados explain in Called to Love, begins in the family (4). The basis of the family is the covenant of marriage, which itself is the vocation to having a family. What has been happening in recent decades though, has been the separation of sexuality from marriage, and the rejection of God from human love.
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Mainstream culture has become a culture of using our bodies to suit personal desire, especially where sexuality and conception are concerned. The way conception is viewed in society is often very distorted by personal desire, and that desire is usually toward one of two extremes. The more obvious extreme is the view of the conception of children as a burden to be avoided, in favor of engaging in non-marital and contracepted sex (A previous topic of mine). At the other extreme, the mindset seems quite the opposite. Once a couple has decided that they want to conceive children, they may develop a sense of entitlement that they believe allows them to pursue conception as an instrinsic right and by any means necessary (or desired). The general attitude seems to view the conception (or contraception) of children as some sort commodity, which can merely be either acquired or rejected upon desire. It is insisted that children are something that can be avoided at will through an abuse of sexuality, and also insisted that children may also be produced at will by an imitation of sexual function. Thus, medical science has developed a myriad of technologies that offer us both the ability to falsify the correct reproductive aspects of our bodies, and to imitate the biological function of sexuality.
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I have been casually following a series of articles on NPR entitled “Making Babies: 21^st Century Families” (Found here). The articles are about various situations surrounding the use of IVF. These articles show a human sexuality that is becoming increasingly consumerized, an attitude partly permitted by advances in technology. The scenarios show the mindset that conception is primarily something for parents to procure for themselves. These behaviors are not symbolic of how God calls us to love, but are a sign of the misunderstanding of His call, which results in a distortion of the means of following it. Marriage is the vocation to family, and it is right that married couples should wish to become parents. The problem arises when the means by which they try to fulfill that vocation becomes an inappropriate one. IVF is immoral is not just because it is something artificial, but because of what it is specifically an artificial simulation of. It is an artificial simulation of the very means by which a husband and wife are called within their love to be co-creators with God of the human person (which bears the imago Dei).
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The "cafeteria style" set of sexual ethics that has developed is based upon want, desire, gratification, selfishness, use, and most of all, subjectivity. People are quick to take from sexuality whichever of its single aspects that suits their purposes at the moment, but are strikingly hesitant to recognize sexuality as the whole of all its facets and to accept it in its proper context: as a physical expression of the vows of matrimony, being together “free, total, faithful and fruitful” (5).

Notes:

(1) A good quotation printed in one of the parish bulletins for "Respect Life Month." I tried, but can’t find the actual article.

(2) Fulton Sheen. Three to Get Married. (New York: Scepter Publishers, 1996), 7

(3) Cf. The explanation of the imago Dei: the imago Dei includes not only the image of God, but also the likeness. The “likeness” is the dynamic part of the imago Dei, which man is called to continuously perfect: “man is born as God’s image, but he has to complete the imago Dei through his free yes to God.”

Carl Anderson and Jose Granados. Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 85.

(4) ibid., 86.

(5) Christopher West. Theology of the Body for Beginners. (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2009), 89.