Quest Conference 2001
DITCHINGHAM, NORFOLK
A report
Members of Quest met for their 20th annual conference from 20th to 22nd July at All Hallows Conference and Retreat Centre, Ditchingham, Norfolk. The conference topic was Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality; members were addressed by James O'Connell and Gareth Moore.
James O'Connell, Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, spoke on 'Christianity and Gayness: searching for truth, freedom and joy'. After characterizing Scripture, history (tradition) and reason as the three sources of morality, he went on to deplore the use of Scripture as a quarry for texts taken out of context, which 'tends to be used to underpin the organisational control exercised by clerics and to bolster conservative judgments formulated by elders'. This method has been most evident in the area of sexual behaviour, where it has picked out homosexual behaviour and ignored a group of other examples where the condemnations would be regarded as out-of-date. This results in a 'lego' theory of morality: 'It is as if the concept of sexual orientation had never been formulated and homosexuals were still seen as heterosexuals behaving badly'. While Jesus took over the best features of Hebrew moral thought, he went beyond it and 'proposed values but did not lay down rules'. Yet despite St Paul's strictures on the Law, the Code of Canon Law contains 110 canons on marriage, some of them divided into many sections, 'a convoluted and arcane marital legislation'. Despite these tendencies, Christianity brings only 'the broadest generalities' to bear on large areas of contemporary ethical debate. However, the community is central to Christian behaviour: it has formed us, nourishes us at the Eucharist, and (should) support us. So gay people should value supportive fellowship in the local community and among like-minded and thoughtful Christians and the networks they provide. But …
the sad thing is that the authorities of the Church of Christ have failed to interpret the central moral drive and historical nuances of their scriptures; they have remained caught in the trap of traditional natural law; they have put order before love; and they have imposed much hardship on vulnerable individuals. However in recent times they have begun to run into the hostility of the community of the Church as well the opposition of its thinkers. In the case of contraception they have promulgated a non-received teaching; in the case of communion for divorced and re-married persons they have gradually ceased to have the support of the faithful; and in the case of gay people they have lost the intellectual case, have lost the agreement of fine theologians, have been exposed to the gibes of thoughtful journalists, and have been surely, if gradually, losing the approval of the faithful. Church authorities – the Curia and others – are going to learn the hard way that a static moral teaching will fall into disrepute in changing times.
Professor O'Connell then considered, briefly and tentatively, the topics of soliciting for casual sex, bisexuality and cross-dressing. The latter he regarded as a matter of aesthetics rather than morality; bisexuality, he thought, required a choice; and as to soliciting, 'Sin does not lie in indulging in such practices but rather in not seeking to deal with them'. In conclusion, he suggested that we are the first Western generation to be free to be gay: largely exempt from criminal sanctions, accepted by intellectual and most media opinion, and having 'gained the backing of Catholicism's finest moral theologians'. 'You may create an availability that fits between those who are celibate and those married with children. Your future is yours to make'.
In the discussion that followed, Professor O'Connell was asked what was his vision of the Church of the future. He disowned any global description, saying that we should have to find our way forward, but warned that after a period of tight centralisation there was a danger of a period of anarchy between warring factions. It could be like the Soviet Union after Brezhnev. While we should apply Occam's razor to canon law, some regulation would still be needed. But, pressed for a single key reform, he suggested limiting the term of office of bishops (including the Pope) to four or five years; and he yearned for bishops who would speak to and not for the Church.
Father Gareth Moore, O.P., who teaches philosophy at Blackfriars, Oxford, speaking under the title 'Happy and Gay? Empirical Observation and Catholic Sexual Theory', examined an argument to be found in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1986 letter to bishops on The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (§7) and repeated by Bishop Smith of East Anglia in a recent television programme, Queer and Catholic. The argument is to the effect that those who engage in sexual activity that is not potentially reproductive will, in the long run, be unhappy. The argument assumes that avoiding such sexual activity is a law of God. Since God's commandments are not just arbitrary but, rather, he cares for each thing according to what is good for it (Aquinas), they are the voice of reason and a rule of life for flourishing. So lesbian and gay sexual activity are comparable to smoking: both will do you harm in the long run, in one case ruin your lungs, in the other result in unhappiness. The conclusion of the argument thus makes a prediction, which can be tested empirically. We have only to look at long-term same-sex relationships in which the partners have been sexually active and see whether they are unhappy. But when we do so, we find, on the contrary, that there are many examples of happy long-term sexual relationships between persons of the same sex. Hence (by modus tollendo tollens), at least one of the premisses of the argument is false. Unless you want to give up the idea that God's commandments are for our good, it then follows that sexual activity which is not potentially reproductive is not, as such, against God's law. In conclusion, Father Moore wondered whether those who have propounded this argument have ever bothered to test it empirically by asking long-term lesbian and gay sexual partners if their relationships were happy; once, when this question was put to one of them, the (straight-faced) reply was that he had once watched a gay pride march! It is reminiscent of the refusal of clerics to accept Galileo's challenge to look down the telescope.
After a good dinner and an entertaining speech by Michael Carson, a question-and-answer session was chaired the following morning by Mark Dowd, the producer and presenter of Queer and Catholic. In addition to the two speakers of the day before, the panel included Michael Carson and the Conference Chaplain, Dom Mark Barrett, O.S.B., of Worth Abbey. A question on blessings for lesbian gay partnerships prompted discussion of the recent case in which a bishop withdrew at very short notice from celebrating a Mass for 25 years of friendship and the pursuit of justice between two people because certain newspapers proclaimed that theirs was, in fact, a gay partnership. One member of the panel wondered how the headline 'Bishops against friendship and justice' would have been received. Another urged us to have a care for diocesan priests and their bishops, fear today being 'a massive element in clerical life' and, as they become older, fear of losing their livelihood. Yet another member of the panel noted that diocesan priests have no rights and lack freedom, living under an autocratic and over-personalized system: they are an 'abandoned group'. As to public blessings of gay partnerships, the panel thought this unlikely until such partnerships become legally recognized, but that it was anyhow unnecessary; just as marriage was an exchange of promises between the partners, with a priest merely as witness on behalf of the Church, so gay partners could also exchange promises. Finally the panel was asked about the role of Quest in the twenty-first century. One member said that its role was to provide an example of fellowship and to sensitize all our humanity, another to provide role models for Catholics growing up gay, a third to be a reference point, because the Catholic community can often be very anti-gay and the gay community very anti-Catholic.
At the AGM, which followed in the late morning, the Chair reported that no answer had yet been received from the Bishops' Conference, which had been asked nine months previously for a meeting between its representatives and Quest to discuss pastoral provision for lesbian and gay people in England & Wales, together with the possibility for setting up a mechanism to discuss what attitude should be taken to impending government legislation affecting lesbians and gays. In the circumstances, the committee had decided to go ahead on its own with an initiative to improve pastoral provision, with the emphasis upon ways of making lesbian and gay Catholics welcome, as such, in their parishes and dioceses. This was approved by the AGM. In the afternoon the conference concluded with Mass concelebrated by the Chaplain and a priest member. It is customary for the new Chair to give a short address just before the blessing: on this occasion, he was able to point to increased membership, especially of younger people, and larger attendance at the Conference, as a sign that Quest has now recovered from the years when it was under clerical pressure to change its aims, while the new initiative showed that its pastoral concerns remained central. They have, however, been taken forward to a new stage. Previously, pastoral provision was conceived primarily in terms of individual counselling by priests, a private one-to-one relationship. Now, it was being thought of more widely as integration and acceptance of lesbian and gay Catholics into the ecclesial community qua lesbian and gay, no longer under a cloak of dissimulation.