Quest Digest 3

Issue 3: January 2004
Morality, Conscience and Legislation

Sensitivity and Compassion?^[1]

Almost three years have now passed since the last issue of Quest Digest. This is a long gap, even though the intention was to produce an issue only when enough material, likely to be of interest to those who are not members of Quest, was available. The present issue, consequently, is larger than usual and is mainly taken up by papers delivered at annual Quest conferences in the meantime.

'Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality' was the theme of our 2001 conference, held at Ditchingham in Norfolk, when Professor O'Connell and Fr Gareth Moore, OP, spoke to us. Professor O'Connell's paper has already been published in Quest Bulletin^[2], our publication for members, but is reprinted here. Fr Moore's paper was not available in manuscript before his death; rather than leave a blank, I have reconstructed it - reasonably accurately, I hope - from notes that I took at the time.

The topic of the 2002 conference, held at London Colney in Hertfordshire, was 'Questions of Conscience', when we were addressed by Dr Linda Hogan of the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College, Dublin, formerly of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Leeds, and author of Confronting the Truth: Conscience in the Catholic Tradition^[3]. Our second speaker was James Alison, formerly a Dominican priest, author, inter alia, of faith beyond resentment: fragments catholic and gay³.

During the last year, a spate of legislation and legislative proposals affecting lesbian and gay people has come both from the European Union and from our own government. The purpose of our 2003 conference, in Birmingham, was to consider these developments and the issues they raise; hence the theme 'Legislation: Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics'. Our first speaker, Ian Buist, formerly a senior civil servant in the Colonial Office, and a member of the United Reformed Church who has prepared submissions to government departments for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement on various legislative proposals, gave us a masterly survey of the relevant legislation and attendant problems. He was followed by Mark Watson, a solicitor, currently Marketing Director of PlanetOut Partners UK, who has worked in the Immigration Service and Stonewall.

Naturally, the Department of Trade and Industry's current proposals to give legal recognition to same-sex partnerships particularly exercised both the speakers and Quest members at the conference. Just at this time the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales announced that it had formed a working group under the chairmanship of Bishop John Hine to advise it how to respond to the DTI's proposals and, almost simultaneously, a document strongly opposed to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, describing it as 'the legalization of evil'^[4] was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Quest immediately invited Bishop Hine or a member of the working group to attend our conference in Birmingham, but none was available, and he invited Quest, instead, to send him any relevant material from the conference or arising out of it. At the conference, a resolution was passed nem. con. that

This Quest Conference urges the working party of the Bishops' Conference on civil partnerships to welcome and give general support to the government's proposals in this area, and to assess them in the light of the criteria set out by Cardinal Hume in his Note of 1997.

This resolution was communicated to Bishop Hine, together with copies of the papers by Ian Buist and Mark Watson printed here and evidence prepared by a small working party, appointed by the committee immediately after the conference, that addressed the Vatican document as well as assessing the DTI's proposals in the light of Cardinal Hume's three criteria, mentioned in the resolution quoted above. This evidence, together with Quest's evidence to the DTI, has already been published on our website, but is included here as well in a final section entitled 'Civil Partnerships'.

The curious fate of the working group chaired by Bishop Hine was documented in The Tablet^[5]. Our Archivist, in a subsequent letter, contrasted the procedure on this occasion with that followed some fifty years ago, when the Home Office asked the hierarchy to consider whether homosexual acts between men should be decriminalized^[6]. Cardinal Griffin set up a committee representative of relevant interests: a moral theologian, a PP, a Recorder/QC, a psychiatrist and a psychiatric social worker, under the chairmanship of the Catholic chaplain to the University of London, Mgr Tomlinson, whose homosexual orientation was known and respected. The bishops accepted the committee's unanimous advice in favour of decriminalisation and reiterated it to the Home Office.

But was not this also, in the CDF's book, 'legalization of evil'? Cardinal Godfrey, who succeeded Griffin, was challenged in similar terms, and replied:

Two questions of fact arise:

If the law takes cognizance of private acts of homosexuality and makes them crimes, do worse evils follow for the common good?

Since homosexual acts between consenting adults are now crimes in law, would a change in the law harm the common good by seeming to condone homosexual conduct?

Ecclesiastical authority could rightly give a decision on this question of fact as well as on the question of moral law, if the answers to questions of fact were overwhelmingly clear. As, however, various answers are possible in the opinion of prudent men, Catholics are free to make up their own minds on these two questions of fact.^[7]

Cardinal Hume may have been influenced by these remarks in formulating his own criteria, for he said:

These are matters of practical judgement and assessment of social consequences, and thus must be considered case by case and this without prejudice to Catholic teaching concerning homosexual acts. It may well be, however, that Catholics will reach diverse conclusions about particular legislative proposals even taking into account these criteria.^[8]

Yet Bishop Hine's submission gives no hint of the different views on same-sex partnerships, often at variance with those of bishops and Vatican officials, which are permissible to and held by many Catholics irrespective of their sexual orientation.

This incident must cast a procedural shadow over the prospects for any worthwhile outcome to consultations by the Bishops' Conference and raise doubts about what it understands by 'dialogue' within the Church. It points up the urgency of establishing a transparent procedure for consultations on the model of that laid down by the Cabinet Office for the government and published as Annex D of the DTI's document on Civil Partnerships. The following excerpt is pertinent:

Responses should be carefully and open-mindedly analysed, and the results made widely available, with an account of the views expressed, and the reasons for decisions finally taken.^[9]

The submission that Bishop Hine eventually sent to the government on behalf of the Bishops' Conference betrayed little acquaintance either with our evidence or with that submitted by the Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, but was marked, instead, by uncritical acceptance of the arguments of the CDF (although it adopts a much more conciliatory tone than the latter). Its blanket rejection of all legal recognition of same-sex partnerships will ensure that it carries no weight with the DTI, and an opportunity has been missed to improve the legislation proposed. If the bishops wished to object to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships tout court, they should have done so at the earlier stage of consultation, before the present proposals were drawn up; yet the Bishops' Conference is not among the List of Consultees at that stage given in Annex C. The time has long passed for the government to consider whether legal recognition should be given to same-sex partnerships; that has already been decided, and is supported by all three political parties; what is now at issue is the form recognition should take.

The incident also raises a very serious issue for the Catholic Church, namely, the treatment by Church officials of differing opinions within the Church. Anyone who speaks to Catholics about their beliefs knows that what they actually believe and what they are supposed (by Church officials) to believe often do not coincide. This is not surprising. In any large community there will be differences of opinion. A pretence that such differences do not exist is, however, dishonest, while an attempt to suppress them is dangerous. Truth is always hard-won: consensus emerges from sincere dialogue, with reasons given and examined on both sides. It cannot be imposed; people have to be convinced.

Even Catholics need discernment when reading Church documents; witness a theologian writing at the height of the modernist 'crisis', almost a century ago:

These points are the more delicate, because . the Pope is demanding an absolute assent to formularies which are not of faith, at least in all their parts, so that authority binds us while not binding itself. And so I answer that in doctrinal matter authority can only bind us in the measure in which it binds itself. . the publication of (a) decree and of (an) encyclical . cannot have suppressed the rights of theological criticism, but, on the contrary, has made this necessary so that one may be able to . give each proposition its proper value; . The publication of the decree . and the encyclical . constitutes in divers degrees an act of the ecclesiastical magisterium which imposes on the Catholic a double duty.

The duty of respect due to every act of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and, in particular, for the magisterium.

The duty of assent of the mind to the doctrines taught, but of an assent which is correlative and proportioned to each order of truth according to the nature of that order: the truths of Divine faith being received as of Divine faith, the philosophic truths being received as such, the historical truths as facts, etc.

And if in these documents propositions are to be found which are simply the expression of opinion susceptible of modification by a deeper examination, and, in any case, dealing with matters outside the faith, then it is clear that the publication of the decree . and the encyclical . cannot have the effect of changing the nature of these propositions, nor afford them the benefit of an assent of faith, but only one of respect due to an act of the magisterium. In other words, the duty of respect extends to all parts of the document in question; the duty of assent of the mind is subordinated to the nature and character of each of the propositions contained in it.^[10]

These nuances, while affording necessary protection to the individual Catholic, are not enough to safeguard the evangelical dimension of Church pronouncements. It is often forgotten that the latter are read by or reported to other Christians and to people of all faiths and none. Today, even by comparison with fifty years ago, people are encouraged to think for themselves and formulate their own views. Any attempt to dragoon the faithful to follow a 'party line' which goes beyond - often far beyond - what is of faith will, evangelically speaking, be counter-productive and serve only to bring Christianity, and especially Catholicism, into disrepute. No surer method could be devised of alienating people from the Church and emptying the pews; and if that is happening today, Church officials need to ask themselves why. Archbishop Worlock once said that contraception is not the acid test of Christianity; the way Christians deal with their intra-denominational disagreements, by contrast, immediately displays to the world whether they really believe that we should love our neighbours as ourselves.

Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality

Christianity and Gayness:
Searching for Truth, Freedom and Joy

James O'Connell
Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies, University of Bradford

The sources of morality: reason, history and scripture

Moral issues require human judgments; and such judgments arise for people in every culture. In other words, we, humans, in dealing with one another have in every generation to face up to issues of truth and freedom, justice and respect, compassion and forgiveness. Undoubtedly history, culture and circumstances condition our judgments. Christians in using rational reflection in making judgments about right and wrong in behaviour have also drawn on scripture for evidence. Yet I will argue that the Hebrew and Christian scriptures have at times been used to support judgements that, even if they were culled initially from scripture, derive mainly from historical and cultural sources. The danger with using scripture to back judgments arising out of history and culture is that the latter judgments then appear to have a divine sanction that they would not otherwise have had; and they prove much more difficult to revise when they are seen as sacred rather than as human judgments.

Problems in drawing on scripture have come not only from its uneven and disparate development but also from the way in which passages have been quarried to provide material on particular aspects of morality. Such picking and choosing has been more evident in judgments on sexual behaviour than in most other areas. Yet the documents of the Hebrew scriptures are often contradictory, sometimes inhumane, always deeply conditioned by the conditions of their times, and, not least, influenced by the groups to which the scripture writers belonged. The trouble with the quarrying approach is that it tends to be used to underpin the organisational control exercised by clerics and to bolster conservative judgments formulated by elders - whether aristocrats in some communities or rich farmers in others - of society. That approach moves quickly over the impurity of menstruating women, a declaration of abomination against cross-dressers, death penalties for adultery, and a prohibition against a man marrying again a woman whom he had earlier divorced. Yet a stricture against homosexual behaviour is cited as if that rejection were not as out of date as the other examples just cited. It is as if the concept of sexual orientation had never been formulated and homosexuals were still seen as heterosexuals behaving badly.

The gentle teaching of Christ

It is however true that once we get to the Christian scriptures attitudes have changed radically. If Jesus and his followers took over the finest developments of Hebrew thinking, Jesus also reached beyond his tradition. He was just and compassionate beyond his tradition, he forgave sinners, and he welcomed the outcasts of his society. He eventually died outside the gate at the hands of the religious and political authorities. Jesus had taught by conveying attitudes and giving advice, sketching principles and illustrating them. Broadly speaking, he proposed values but did not lay down rules. I believe that he provided a human ideal that is still significant in, and relevant to, our times. One has only to listen to his sayings:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the log in your own? (Matthew 7:1-3)

He taught his followers to love and to respond to force with non-violence:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who persecute you . To the person who slaps you on one cheek, present the other cheek too; to the person who takes your cloak, do not refuse your tunic. (Luke 6:27ff)

He chose people who were mostly not rich to work with him and urged them to trust God and to offer their services free:

You received without charge, give without charge. Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with a few coppers . with no haversack - or spare tunic. (Matthew 10:10)

He said that being a disciple wasn't going to be easy:

If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. (Luke 16:24ff)

With reference to his own family he says:

Who is my mother, who are my brothers? . Anyone who does the will of my father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother. (Matthew 12:46ff)

It seems to me that once Christ has been sensitively listened to - and when Paul's strictures on law have been understood - then we cannot permit the community of Christ to be turned into a mere organisation nor into a social code bristling with laws. Yet it is sadly true, for example, that a reported saying of Christ about marriage has turned an ideal into a law and provided a basis for convoluted and arcane marital legislation in the Code of Canon Law. Such transformation reminds us that if the Church is historically reformed, it is also in every age requiring to be reformed.

Freedom and community in Christian living

I want to argue several things: first, we need to talk less about the Bible's authority than to learn from its capacity to inspire thoughtfulness and to stimulate goodness; second, if in this approach the scriptures animate and nourish Christian ethics rather than lay down rules, it is the community worked on by the Holy Spirit that reaches conclusions; and, third, we may have to accept that the scriptures have nothing directly to say about AIDS or contraception, investment banking or Third World deforestation. Christian teaching has only the broadest, even if deeply thoughtful, generalities to bring to bear on huge areas of contemporary ethical debate.

To put my contentions in a positive form: the Christian narrative tells about a God who is an intelligent and purposeful creator, who has care for the whole world and each individual, whose purposes are realized in the liberating life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and who guards a community that continues in the Spirit. From this narrative we come to understand that each human being is to be respected and loved, that we are to be faithful to one another and to our promises, that we are to speak the truth in love, that we are to forgive those who wrong us, that we are to protect the poor and weak, that we need to work to set aside unjust structures, and that we are to be respectful stewards of creation. While ethical challenges are posed for all humans, what Christianity does is to offer us a motivation that comes from faithfulness to God, seeing Christ in our neighbour, and acting in the Spirit. In this process moral discernment calls for a dialogue between faith today and the faith of the apostolic community.

Community is central to Christian behaviour. When Paul was accused of failing to uphold morality by setting aside the law, he responded in a three-fold teaching: we have been freed by Christ and draw our strength from personal contact with him; we have discernment through the Spirit on how we should act; and we find support within the Christian community. Within this community each individual is made to the image of God and re-made through the Spirit to the image of the reconciling Christ; God dwells in each one; and the final destination of each one is union with God. Those individuals who have put on Christ see Christ in each other; and together they seek to love God in Christ.

In the actual conduct of life we are shaped in community through learning what God has done for us; we gather around the Eucharist in memory of Christ, bring our fellowship to that meal, and find our fellowship nurtured there; and in making an individual way in the world we draw on the help that the community of the local and world-wide Church offers us. In that social context gay people should value - where it is available - the worth of supportive fellowship in the local or parochial community. They also need to build support structures among gays and others that they can draw on. In addition, one may add that in our times a community of support may well not be confined to the local or geographical community but may depend on fellowship among like-minded and thoughtful Christians who live far apart, as well as on the networks they provide throughout the Church.

In formulating more specific values for our circumstances where scripture furnishes only general orientations but profound inspiration we have to draw on rational and methodological reflection. Here, in taking account of the networking of orders - mental, biological and physical - within human persons and society we are at the heart of the social construction of reality, including morality. The social construction of reality is creative but it is not arbitrary - just as the use of language is creative but it is not arbitrary. It needs constantly to take respect for the individual into account; and it has to consider carefully the functional nature of biology, the interdependence of human community, and the aesthetics of behaviour. But it may, for example, while taking the broad maxim 'thou shalt not kill' into account, set it aside for the sake of defending the vulnerable innocent. Similarly it may, for example, while taking biology into account integrate biology into a broader human whole. Hence, a person who finds his or her sexual psychology at odds with their biology may on reflection decide to offer a certain primacy to their psychology. This does not make the group or the individual morally sovereign. Rather it makes respect for the individual-in-society sovereign.

In other words, we are obliged in each individual situation to decide the integration of the foundation of morality which is respect for persons and its guidelines which help us to combine social means and ends, the requirements of community, and aesthetic behaviour. In many situations thinking cannot depend on precedent only or on general maxims but has to argue creatively in the light of new situations or individual circumstances. Being moral depends on loyalty to a person or persons, not conformity to a system or order. In other words, the one fundamental criterion for judging creatively the coherence of order is the good of the person and the love of, or respectful relationships with, our neighbours. Interestingly, in making this roundabout and rational way we have come back to the heart of the morality of love of neighbours that Christ enjoined. In a Christian context it also leads us to understanding that we are not primarily sexual beings or ethnic or racial beings but individuals who have put on Christ and who have done so with our physical and cultural dimensions.

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 laid burdens of hardship on vulnerable individuals. Fortunately 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 failed to win 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.

Sundry moral issues

We need to keep in mind that respect for the individual in society and love for our neighbour in Christ lie behind our judgments, offer grounds for tolerance, and suggest how we strive for human ideals. Yet while we pursue the ideal given to us by Christ, we have to acknowledge that we are flawed and sinful people. Time and again we need the forgiveness of God and our neighbour. In the Lord's prayer we even offer God a dangerous measuring rod for forgiving us: forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Christ also insisted that we hold back from judging because God alone sees the heart. We can see flaws but need to be reluctant to judge the sin, sometimes even in ourselves.

In this context I want to raise some issues that trouble the gay community and to which there may be no easy answer: cruising and cottaging, bisexuality and transsexuality as well as the lesser problems involved in cross-dressing and body ornamentation. I won't deal with sado-masochism but the same principles apply.

(a) Cruising and cottaging: In dealing with certain practices we have to take the history of gay people into account as well as the temperament of individual persons. For many centuries gay people have been discriminated against and marginalised. By and large the ethos and laws of society impeded secure relationships; and they drove homosexuals to furtiveness and the margins. Such history lives in the minds and bones of people - as in the medical area of life the psychoses of cancer, tuberculosis and heart trouble live long after it has become possible for medicine to deal with these illnesses and for life to continue. For similar psychological reasons cruising and cottaging endure after their time has reasonably gone, and also partly because social views and the remnants of laws still tell against homosexuals and maintain or provoke older behaviour. In other words, some people will remain flawed even when the conditions of healing have gradually become available. They are still led to indulge in practices that prevent the deepening of friendship, that avoid a committed sexual relationship, and that expose them to illness and death.

Yet in spite of the flaws of cruising and related practices there may well be some persons who can only find in that way some society and sexual relief. The religious challenge for such people is to face up to their flaws and to contend with them. Sin does not lie in indulging in such practices but rather in not trying, however unsuccessfully, to deal with them. Personal and social obligation lies in making efforts to revise structures and set aside attitudes that collude to drive people into the margins of spasmodic gratification, loneliness and danger.

(b) Choosing a sex: Bisexuality can be taken positively in that it opens up the choice for a minority of persons to take a partner who is either heterosexual or homosexual. I have hesitations about the integrity of having sexual relations of both kinds simultaneously. Yet people are driven by strange urges; and it is not for me simply to condemn them. Again I suggest that the challenge of integrity may lie in coping with sexual compulsions rather than in immediately succeeding in dealing with them. However, particularly in the case of someone who has a settled partner, faithfulness becomes a crucial issue; and it must add to other human motives for maintaining consistency in sexuality.

(c) Anomalous dressing: Cross-dressing and ornamentation (body piercing and tattoos) are issues of aesthetics rather than morality. In the case of a stable partnership it may be a matter of respect and sharing to secure agreement to cross-dressing. Also, while some gay persons may dislike body piercings, and while many may be upset by ostentatious tattoos and exotic forms of dress, one has to accept that such dislike and upset is predominantly aesthetic, that is, a matter of taste. It may be further argued that flamboyant behaviour that may bring the gay community into some disrepute as well as in individual cases inviting physical violence from homophobes is best avoided. However there is an issue of basic freedom for individuals in making their choices. On the one hand, it is a freedom of expression that some gay people insist on against the repression of the past. On the other hand, it is also true that colourful gay dressing has as fashions change gradually become more socially acceptable. Few things change as fast as tastes.

Making use of freedom: travelling light with love

You are the first Western generation of homosexuals who while you still encounter clerical obtuseness and elements of popular prejudice are broadly, if not completely, exempt from the threat of criminal law. More important again, you have won over intellectual and most media opinion, gained the backing of Catholicism's finest moral theologians, and secured the reluctant if real acceptance of Anglican bishops. In a powerful sense you have been freed. You are free to be persons who are gay. Your future is yours to make.

In the intimacy of your lives you can express faithfulness to a partner, experience the worth of human giving and receiving, and overcome those difficulties of drawing close to one another that exist wherever two persons seek to unite in love and partnership. You may have to exercise a discipline of love in unions where structures are weaker and often less supported than in marriage and maintain a correspondingly greater search for spiritual strength. In this context it seems reasonable and just, grounded in faith and inspired by love to look for a blessing of gay partnerships that are settled and serious. It is a way of asking God's grace on a union and offering the Christian community a way of providing symbols and support to gay Christians. Discretion may suggest that while prevailing official attitudes remain in position such blessings should be sought privately from well-disposed clerics. But there is nothing also to prevent gay Christians from gathering among themselves and with others in informal ceremonies where Christ is present to exchange their consents and where Christian witnesses pledge their support for a loving union.

We need, however, to be reminded that gay people like all others may accept celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God, renouncing the urges and contact of the flesh, accepting the loneliness of a solitary path, taking each hand but not holding on to any, working in various areas of life - actors and musicians, teachers and clerics, not least - so that many others may find full joy and abundant life.

You who have belonged to a persecuted community can face towards the world together in offering love to the afflicted, in identifying with marginalised minorities, and in forgiving your enemies. You may well bring to victims a gentleness that has been engendered by your own experience and sensibilities. You travel more lightly burdened than do those encumbered with, if also comforted by, children; and you may well take up challenges in social areas where those with children cannot easily go. You may offer your love to many other brothers and sisters or seek spiritual children in place of the children of the flesh who belong to heterosexual marriage. Some of you also may want to extend a home and love to children who have lost families; and you are likely to do that well. You may create an availability that fits between those who are celibate and those married with children. You may live better than most with a sense of detachment from property. In a word, through your search for truth, your example of goodness and your sense of beauty you can enrich the world of our time.

Conclusion

Let me end in wishing you three gifts that are embedded in the great gift of Christian love: truth, freedom and joy. The gift of truth is the courage to recognise people and the world for what they are, and to find this courage in Christ who is himself truth. The gift of freedom, which you have through the Spirit, is your capacity to make your future, to reject threats, and to set aside fears. The gift of joy is rejoicing in being what you are, in what God who is father and mother has made you, in being at ease with your own bodies and thoughts, in finding happiness in loving, and in reaching fulfilment in stretching out generously to embrace the whole world. May you gather these three gifts together - truth, freedom and joy - in the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

An Empirical Claim

Gareth Moore, OP
late of Blackfriars, Oxford

Fr Gareth Moore died of cancer on 6 December 2002 at the early age of 54. He was professed as a Dominican in 1978 and ordained in 1982. Subsequently he became Bursar of Blackfriars as well as teaching philosophy, Old Testament and Hebrew there. In 1995 he was elected Prior at Rixensart, near Brussels, where he remodelled the life of the priory until returning to Oxford the year before he died. The editor of Quest Digest did not receive a typescript of his talk; what follows is a reconstruction from the Editor's notes, taken at the time, and must not be assumed accurate in every detail, though it is faithful to the general argument. Nor did the talk have a title; the title above is due to the Editor. Although the talk concentrates upon a single argument, and although the ground is covered in Fr Moore's posthumous work A Question of Truth: Christianity and Homosexuality (London: Continuum, 2003, especially pp.157-63), it seemed worthwhile reproducing here by way of illustrating the following remarks made about him in The Times' obituary: 'Moore was a Catholic priest and friar for whom truth was paramount . He never used his mind to diminish or to bully, always to enlighten and disclose what was true or what was false. He never wished to see true doctrine expressed in bad arguments'; or, again, the quotation from Simone Weil that he set at the beginning of A Question of Truth: 'If ever it comes to a choice between Jesus and truth, we must always choose truth, because disloyalty to truth will always prove in the long run to have been disloyalty to Jesus.'

In a recent television program, a gay couple, Joe (47) and Eric (32), appeared, members of the Metropolitan Community Church, who had made a formal commitment to each other and were living - apparently happily - with each other. Asked to comment on their relationship, Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff began by saying that the Church is not obsessed with genital acts, but must nevertheless preach the values of the Gospel, because Christians believe that following Jesus leads to life and truth: and tradition without truth is, as St Cyprian said, just error grown old. One of the Gospel values is that gay sex is wrong; so, however Joe and Eric may perceive it, sex for them is not a life-enhancing experience, because God did not intend it. On the contrary, God's will is that, in sex, reproduction should always be possible; so Joe and Eric will not find happiness in their relationship, because they have the wrong kind of sex. In this he was echoing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith^[11].

The roots of this view lie in the thought that God's commands are not arbitrary. He wants us to flourish, to which it is essential that our organs work properly. As St Thomas Aquinas says, God cares for each thing according to what is good for it: the 'law of God' is a rule of life for human flourishing and is the voice of reason. But because relationships are social, bad ones also destroy happiness. Often, however, we are blind to this, because our desires get in the way, and we need others to tell us what is really happening. So here: the Church tells us that gay sex is like smoking; just as we have lungs to inhale the air we need to live, not to damage ourselves with nicotine, so our sex organs are given to us in order that we may reproduce, not for sterile pleasures, and our true happiness lies in having children. Joe and Eric are unwise rather than evil; what they are doing will not lead them to happiness.

This assumes, of course, that avoiding gay sex is, in every circumstance, however faithful the relationship in which it occurs, a law of God and, to justify the assumption, appeal is made both to the Bible and to natural law. As yet, there is no consensus among scholars about these arguments. But here, we are offered an empirical test, since the view predicts that, in the long run, gay sex will lead to unhappiness for those who engage in it. A general logical point must be made about the relationship between theories and predictions that follow from them: if a prediction turns out to be false, the theory from which is follows cannot, as a whole, be true; but if a prediction is verified, that does not prove that the theory is true ('If A, then B; but not B; therefore not A' is a valid pattern of argument, but 'If A, then B; but B; therefore A' is invalid). Hence the example of an unhappy gay couple does not show that the Vatican's theory is true, but a single example of a happy gay couple would show it false.

Unfortunately, there is a serious problem in assessing examples that might be cited. Happiness is not measurable; two people may disagree whether a third person is or is not happy, and his own assessment may be self-deception. Yet the correct assessment will usually become clearer over the long term, and evidence one way or the other can pile up. For example, it has been claimed that suicide rates among young gay men show that they are a pretty miserable lot, being 1 in 5 as against 1 in 25 for the population as a whole, so that they are five times more likely to commit suicide than young heterosexual men. However, this does not take into account the effects of environmental factors. In the thirties and forties, there were doubtless many more unhappy Jews than non-Jews in Germany, but that doesn't show that it is a sin to be Jewish. Moreover, the prediction was that people who have gay sex will be unhappy, not just that being gay leads to unhappiness.

If we ask what, as a matter of experience, makes people happy, part of the answer would be: doing what you want to do and having a significant relationship with another person (which usually includes sex). Is this expectation fulfilled? Well, there are plenty of examples of very happy homosexual relationships persisting after years of sexual activity. This is just a matter of observation; it is not a question of dissent from any doctrine. Have the officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and their spokesmen such as Archbishop Smith, actually asked gay couples about their relationships? There are echoes, here, of Rome's treatment of Galileo; the Church no longer teaches, on the ground that to believe otherwise would impugn both the Bible and its own teaching authority, that the earth cannot turn and move in space.

Questions of Conscience

Living with Contradictions:
Disagreement and Dialogue in the Church

Linda Hogan
Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College, Dublin.

There are many complications involved in belonging to a church that has placed such a high value on legalistic conformity to a set of fixed rules and precepts. This paper attempts to address some of these issues in the context of a discussion about conscience in the Catholic tradition, focussing on the way in which the tension between the magisterium and individuals is played out. Obviously this is an issue for all those who belong to the Catholic tradition. It comes sharply into focus in relation to many ethical issues, and especially many issues in sexual ethics. But perhaps the tensions are nowhere more acute at the moment than in relation to homosexual desire.

Let me just explain at the outset that, although I'm not going to develop it here, my own understanding is that homosexual sex is not an incomplete or less perfect expression of human sexuality. Sexuality is part of our embodied identity; it is endlessly evolving and is an aspect of our lives that we experience as complicated, thrilling and sometimes difficult. This is true of sexual desire whether it is expressed heterosexually, homosexually or bisexually. My take on the ethics of sex is that it is in the quality of relationships, and in issues of justice and care, that the moral dimensions of sexuality are located, and not in sexual acts themselves - whatever their complexion. And issues of justice, mutuality and truthfulness are challenges and difficulties that we encounter regardless of who we desire or love, and in relationships that are not primarily sexual as well as those that are. Moreover relationships and encounters are never simple and unambiguous. They can be both affirming and undermining at different times; they usually involve a dialectic of joy, pain and even tedium. Nor is longevity necessarily an indication of a relationship's strength or integrity - sometimes security and comfort can trump mutuality and love. So these general points ground my belief, that all sexual relationships, homosexual and heterosexual, whether they are brief or long term, have the capacity to reflect the best of our humanity, to embody those aspects of our existence that make it truly valuable. Having said this however I don't want to be trapped by the theological idealisation of sexuality that is sometimes evident in Catholic thinking - the kind of idealisation that really bears very little relation to reality. There has been a tendency in the past 30 years to idealise heterosexual sex within marriage, in an effort perhaps to make up for the centuries of denigration. So I wish to avoid this kind of over-inflated rhetoric about sexuality. However in so doing I also want to affirm that I regard heterosexual and homosexual sex as having the same potential and value. I don't want to say they are identical in terms of experience, but that they are identical in terms of their ethical/moral potential or quality. So for me the most pressing thing for Catholic sexual ethics is the need to hear the voices of women and men who are involved in gay and lesbian relationships, so that discussions of the ethics of sex would take account of the diversity of sexual desire.

But how does one live in a church that refuses to accept that homosexual desire and sex is a good and valuable expression of sexuality? It seems that in the near future at any rate, there will not be any change (in a positive direction) in the Church's teaching on homosexuality. Indeed it seems more likely that the Church will become even more draconian in policing its rule that homosexual relationships are not acceptable. My approach to this is that it is really a question of conscience. I disagree fundamentally with Church teaching on this issue. In my view it reflects an institutionalised homophobia that is evident in many aspects of culture and society. So then the question is how one harnesses other aspects of the tradition to find a place from which to dissent - and here I think that aspects of the Church's teaching on conscience can be helpful.

As one might expect of a tradition that is over 2,000 years old, the Church's theology of conscience is one that involves many strands. There have been competing theologies of conscience within the tradition; it is not one simple unambiguous narrative of moral freedom. Different theologies of conscience reflect and embody particular understandings of the nature of the person, of morality and of Church. Indeed the nature of conscience itself involves such difficult questions that disagreement is somewhat inevitable. As such, within the Church we shall need to begin to live with the contradictions that flow from the ambiguous nature of conscience itself. The language of conscience refers to the personal discernment of moral truths and value. However since this is somewhat vague and abstract, theologians through the ages have struggled to delineate precisely what it involves. Inevitably, throughout history theologians have tended to emphasise either the objective or the subjective aspects of morality and as a result theologies of conscience have tended to be either theologies of obedience or of freedom.

In the Christian tradition, at the most basic level conscience is understood as the personal discernment of good and evil, in the context of relationship with a loving God. As such it is not purely subjective, arbitrary nor private. And although it is concerned with individual, discrete moments of choosing, it also reflects the manner in which particular choices are patterned into a unity that is the moral character. As a result conscience embodies the culmination of moral reflection, which can be rational, intuitive, emotional and imaginative. Conscience also reflects the fact that Christians do not profess a purely private faith, but rather belong to a worshipping community. Although it is thoroughly personal, conscience is rooted in the narratives and traditions of the Church and involves personal engagement with the cumulative wisdom of the community.

The view of conscience that I work with also reflects the Aristotelian conviction that ethics is not an exact science and that we should not expect the same degree of precision and certitude from morality that one might expect from some other disciplines^[12]. One of the reasons why this is the case is because 'circumstances alter cases' and intentions and consequences do have a bearing on the morality of a particular practice or decision. Thus I would reject moral theologies that evaluate acts in isolation from the contexts in which they are performed and would endorse an understanding of conscience that confronts the complexities of persons and of contexts.

An inevitable result of these complexities is the presence of serious disagreement among Catholics regarding the morality of particular issues. The nature of the moral enterprise makes this inescapable, as do the limitations and failures that are part of the human condition. And of course it is not only the presence of conflicting views on morality that is problematic within the church today; difficulty also resides in the Church's inability to live fruitfully amidst the reality of difference and disagreement.

The nature and authority of Church teaching

At the heart of the contemporary struggle within the Church to articulate a renewed way of being Church in the world is a complex discussion regarding the role of Church teaching on moral matters. The magisterium certainly has a role to play in articulating the values that ought to shape our moral sense and in providing clear guidance in the ever more complicated situations of contemporary life. However during this present pontiff's tenure the authority of this guidance or teaching of the magisterium has been expanded and exaggerated.

One recent example was occasioned by the 1998 Apostolic Letter Ad Tuendam Fidem. In this text Pope John Paul II announced the insertion of new canons into the Code of Canon Law and also expanded the already controversial 1989 Profession of Faith^[13]. The purpose was to introduce a new category of moral doctrine, that is 'a doctrine definitively proposed by the Church.'^[14] Now this new term 'definitive teaching' is highly problematic and really represents an attempt to create the impression of infallibility for a teaching that is no more than the magisterium's best opinion at this moment in history on a particular issue - a far cry from infallibility. Yet according to the papal letter any definitive teaching must be 'embraced and held' as 'irreformable'. Thus here is one example of what has popularly been termed as a creeping infallibility within the Church today.

Ladislas Örsy is very good on this point. He argues that today teachings that represent the Church's current but not conclusive thinking on a range of issues are being presented with excessive weight and authority. The commentary that accompanied the papal letter discussed the issue of definitive teaching more fully. It explained that, with regard to this type of teaching, which includes the doctrine that priestly ordination is reserved only to men and the teaching on the invalidity of Anglican orders, 'whoever denies these truths would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.'^[15] The deeply worrying logic of this position seems to be that people cannot continue a respectful and loyal dialogue within the Church on a number of unresolved issues.

One of the most problematic aspects of these debates is that they tend to facilitate the creation of false distinctions between respect for Church teaching and the necessity for personal moral responsibility. These conflicts can perpetuate the mistaken assumption that the teaching Church corresponds to the magisterium and that the learning Church is the clergy and laity. Furthermore they can promote a false sense of the nature of obedience in the context of a community of faith and morals. Of course Catholics are expected to give careful consideration to teachings that come from the magisterium - although I would say that this principle is seriously undermined by the exclusive and clerical nature of the magisterium. I would like to see a magisterium drawn from the diverse constituencies within the Church and not associated exclusively with any particular ministry. However, although it is important to give due attention to the teaching authorities within the Church, the Christian tradition has continuously insisted that moral responsibility and choice resides ultimately with each individual. We cannot export our moral choices or hand over our decision-making to any other person or body. As such we must be obedient to our own discernment of the Spirit, we must adhere to our own consciences. Obedience therefore can never be construed as the blind submission of one's will and intellect, particularly if one's considered judgement pulls one in the opposite direction.

Through its history the Church's own understanding of the nature and authority of its teaching has been extremely nuanced and sensitive. However another cause of debate today is the belief that recent magisterial pronouncements ignore the subtle gradations of authority, which belong to the different forms of Church teaching and that they claim a status that is at odds with their nature. Francis Sullivan has discussed this issue at length, and makes the point that many of the magisterium's statements make excessive claims regarding the degree of obedience that is due to them.

In his contribution to this debate Richard Gaillardetz makes the point that 'all Catholics have a right to know that ecclesiastical pronouncements differ significantly, not only in their content but in their authoritative character. They must also know that their response to Church teaching {should correlate} to the . character of the teaching itself. What is at stake here is nothing less than a proper understanding of what constitutes Church membership and the fact that, in Catholic teaching, not all disagreement with ecclesiastical pronouncements necessarily separates one from the Roman Catholic communion.'^[16]

It takes a significant degree of knowledge to discern the authority of the various forms of Church teaching. Indeed one of the most frequent criticisms of the teaching offices of the Church is that they have failed to help people to identify the appropriate weight that should be given to any pronouncement. Thus the important gradations of authority are frequently blurred.

Örsy develops this point, suggesting that increasingly today the authority of certain pronouncements is sometimes upgraded, 'falsifying the binding force of its message.'^[17] Indeed André Naud makes the point that 'along with the infallible magisterium properly exercised in the Church, there is another 'uncertain' magisterium that teaches with less authority and must honestly acknowledge the possibility of error.'^[18] Yet we are rarely appraised of the nature and authority of this important and voluminous form of teaching. Much of the Church's teaching on homosexuality falls into the category of non-infallible teaching. It is, one might say, the tradition's best guess or best estimation about the morality of homosexual sex, but it is not infallible. Yet it is presented as though it is and any dissent from that position is dealt with severely.

Assent and dissent

In the past 20 years within the Catholic Church much ink has been spilled over the issue of dissent, the nature of the authority of the magisterium and the opportunities for manoeuvre within that framework. And no doubt these are very important. However such discussions do seem to entrench rather than alleviate difficulties and appear to make real dialogue even more unlikely. In terms of fundamental disagreement with the magisterium on the matter of gay and lesbian sex for example, one of the difficulties of conducting the discussion exclusively in terms of dissent is that one inevitably perpetuates a legalistic model of morality. With such a model the complexities of the moral enterprise are discussed primarily in the language of obedience. In addition relationships in an already fragmented Church are fractured further and entrenched positions become even more solid.

An alternative, following Kevin Kelly's suggestion, would be to focus first on what is, after all, of central concern in all moral debates, how we can best understand the good and loving thing to do in each given situation. When disagreements occur, as they inevitably will, given the nature of the moral enterprise, then a further issue of how to harmonise the insights of each perspective would need to be considered. With such a model, however, we should be more inclined to keep our attention focussed on creating a dialogue to achieve agreement and to find ways of living fruitfully in the midst of difference. This kind of approach acknowledges the important role that the Church has in the formation of conscience. It also reflects the reality that the Church operates within the constraints of culture and time and that its own understanding is inevitably limited by such factors. In addition it conveys a sense of the Church's tradition as developmental and dynamic rather than as unchanging. But most of all it reminds us that one's ultimate concern must be with what is good and true in a given context.

The duty of conscience is not to assent to magisterial teaching, but to try to work towards the articulation of the good in each context. One hopes and expects that normally these two will coincide. However when they do not, one's duty continues to be to strive to embody, in one's decisions, that which one has come to understand to be good and true. It is not that situations of disagreement will be avoided with this approach: such a claim would be fanciful. However, when the unambiguous intention is to seek the good, albeit often in complicated and indeterminate circumstances, then the issue of assent or dissent remains of secondary importance.

The paradigm of law as conceived within a hierarchical Church cannot accommodate the many possible reasons for dissent among the faithful, and as such is wholly inappropriate as a way of understanding and resolving the complexities of the moral life. Differences of opinion tend to be put down to error on the part of the laity. The possibility that the position of the magisterium may be in error is rarely even considered. Nor is the possibility that a final resolution of particular issues may not yet be achieved, because of our continued lack of understanding.

However within a different kind of paradigm differences of opinion between individuals and the magisterium can be regarded as an inevitable aspect of the dynamic nature of human growth and understanding. Furthermore they are recognised as arising necessarily from the unity-in-difference that is the essence of vibrant communities. Rather than being ruled out, loyal opposition is essential if a community is to flourish. Loyal opposition signals a primary commitment to seek the truth, even if it leads one to depart from one's community's understanding of that truth. But it also signals a degree of confidence in the community, so that even when there are differences of opinion, one remains faithful to it.

Development and change in the moral tradition

In his poem 'The Settle Bed' Seamus Heaney evokes the seemingly unchangeable nature of tradition. He speaks of an inheritance

'upright, rudimentary, unshiftably planked
In the long long ago, yet willable forward
Again and again and again, cargoed with
Its own dumb, tongue-and-groove worthiness
And un-get-roundable weight . ' ^[19]

This is precisely how many people experience the heritage of the Church's moral teaching. Respectful of its upright and worthy purpose we feel trapped by its un-get-roundable weight. Its weight can paralyse one's sense of purpose and confidence in one's own discernment. Yet this is not at all what is intended for a community with a rich moral inheritance. Once we can see that the tradition of moral guidance and teaching is nothing more than the accumulated wisdom and insight of our forebears, then it becomes something supple we can work with, planked in the long ago, yet willable forward.

One of the reasons why the tradition of moral teaching seems to be weighty and unyielding is because we fail to appreciate the developments and changes that are themselves part of the tradition. We tend to operate with an overly simplistic and unified view of the moral teaching of the Church. We assume that the position now being taught on, for example, slavery, marriage or human rights is essentially the same as, or at least consistent with what the Church taught in the past. Yet with the example of human rights this is clearly not the case. When, in 1789 the National Constituent Assembly of France declared that 'men are born and remain free and equal in rights' and that 'the aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and inviolable rights of man,'^[20] the Vatican reacted immediately to condemn it. In 1791 Pius VI in his Quod Aliquantum claimed that it was anathema for Catholics to accept the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He insisted that 'this equality, this liberty, so highly exalted by the National Assembly, have then as their only result the overthrow of the Catholic religion.'^[21] Yet by 1963, a mere two centuries later, John XXIII insisted that 'any human society if it is to be well ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely that every human being is a person, that is, his nature is endowed with intelligence and free-will. Indeed precisely because he is a person he has rights and obligations flowing directly and simultaneously from his very nature. And as these rights are universal and inviolable so they cannot in any way be surrendered.'^[22]

This is not simply a conflict between two texts pulling in alternative directions. The tradition has changed, and changed radically. Once the concept of inviolable and natural rights was anathema, today it forms a central plank of the Church's understanding of how the dignity of the person is to be protected and promoted.

John Noonan discusses other examples of change in the Church's moral teaching. In the cases of usury, marriage, slavery, torture and religious freedom, Noonan documents the real and substantial changes which have taken place in the Church's teaching, over the centuries. Yet we do not immediately or easily think of this kind of flexibility when we speak of the Church's moral doctrine or teaching.

Thus when we examine the substance of what is often presented to us as an unchanging tradition, we can see that the notion of a static tradition of moral teaching is a myth. Of course there has long since been an acceptance of the idea of development in the Church's moral teaching in the abstract. Yet while the principle of development and change in the Church's moral doctrine is widely accepted, individual moral doctrines are presented as if they were universal in their scope, exceptionless in their application and timeless in character. In short, when it comes to particular moral teachings, the possibility of change and development, which is conceded in the abstract, is rarely acknowledged. As a result certain moral teachings, such as those relating to contraception, homosexuality, or divorce and remarriage, are invested with a degree of certainty and inflexibility which is unwarranted.

Individual moral judgement is not exercised in a vacuum. It is shaped by and shapes the believing community's witness to the faith. However neither is individual moral judgement the prisoner of past understandings. One need not be paralysed by a misconceived notion of the moral tradition as monolithic and unchanging. For, as Seamus Heaney reminds us, we can 'conquer that weight' because

'whatever is given
Can always be reimagined, however four-square
Plank-thick, hull-stupid and out of its time
It happens to be . ' ^[23]

The Church and moral failure

In the same way that individual moral discernment is a complex and delicate phenomenon, so too is the institutional process. It may seem inappropriate to speak of the institutional Church in such terms, but being in part a human institution, it is subject to some of the same difficulties that complicate individual moral deliberation. Indeed not only is the Church limited by its human frailties. It is further hampered by the inevitable conflicts that arise as a result of the variety of views and roles that legitimately comprise the institution. This makes moral failure inevitable. In terms of individuals we often speak of the failures of reason, emotion, intuition and imagination that account for many of the instances of individual moral failure. Although one cannot speak of the institutional Church as possessing rationality or an emotional life, the limitations that comprise the Church's moral failures can be seen in similar terms.

When the institutional Church, through the magisterium, comes to a judgement about the acceptability or not of a particular practice or process, it does so using the same resources that are available to ordinary people. Christians believe that moral judgements are made with the guidance of the Spirit, in dialogue with the inherited wisdom of the tradition and in the context of the community's religious narratives and symbols. But they are also made by people who are subject to limitations. We trust that each judgment and teaching is well reasoned. However in the same way as an individual's assessment may be flawed through limited or incomplete knowledge, or through a misunderstanding of the situation, so too can an institution's. Just as individuals occasionally have to make decisions in the face of uncertainty or without all the information we know to be relevant, so too does the Church. The emotional responses of the individuals who make up the magisterium also come into play when it teaches. These can take the form of excessive emotions, lack of an appropriate emotional response because of the inability to empathise with a particular kind of abuse or a deep-seated fear of change. The intuitions at play within the community may also lead it to disregard important new insights or to ignore voices long marginalised. Nor is it difficult to envisage how a failure of imagination might be possible. When an institution, through its members as well as through those entrusted with its governance, becomes locked into a mind-set and way of being, then it is difficult for it to make necessary leaps of imagination. It is often when such failure occurs that the prophetic voices of our age are most urgently heard. All institutions are susceptible to the failure of imagination; it is a hazard of institutional life.

Yet many of the most significant and enduring moral insights of the institutional Church have come when, against the tide of history, and with great imaginative courage, the magisterium has articulated a truly radical position. One could see the change in the Church's teaching on religious freedom as an example of this imaginative leap. The belief that error has no rights totally determined the Church's approach to religious liberty for centuries. Many theologians and bishops even believed in using force to compel heretics to return to the Church. Yet during Vatican II, the Church took a truly bold and imaginative step and reversed the teaching of centuries. In Dignitatis humanae, the Church insisted that 'the human person has a right to religious freedom, that it is based on the very dignity of the human person and that this right must be given recognition in the constitutional order of society.'^[24] One of my hopes is that we are living through a time of transition within the Church - a time when the old certainties are being restated with such venom precisely because the tide of history is working against them. In this category of old certainties I include the fear and loathing of sex, and particularly homosexual sex. In some respects therefore it is possible to interpret this current period as the last gasp of a model of Church that has had its day.

Mary Grey's inspiring and challenging Beyond the Dark Night: A Way Forward for the Church? ^[25] expresses well the ambiguity that is involved in living in what she calls these twilight decades. She speaks of the collapse of the edifice of an overly centralised Church, and of being left in a place wherein we only have fragments and hints of other ways of being Church. In this place of hope and uncertainty it is entirely understandable that many seek to re-establish the old patterns of thought and practice and to reaffirm the certainties of an earlier time. Yet her hope, and mine, is that out of this rubble will emerge an inclusive and holistic faith, one that would celebrate rather than denigrate human sexuality in its many manifestations.

Institutional moral failure can also be aggravated by self-deception. In order to preserve the reputation and standing of the institution there can be a refusal to acknowledge or accept the reality of past moral failures. Bad decisions can be rationalised, mixed motives can be explained in a positive light, the memories and narratives of the past can be constructed in order to flatter and internal critics can be silenced. As with individual self-deception, much of this can be unconscious, or at least not deliberately intended. Institutional self-deception can also be accomplished in a more indirect manner. The institution can avoid finding things out, it can ignore uncomfortable or troubling signs, it can bury inconvenient information and it can look the other way.

This could be said to fall into the 'twilight of knowing and not knowing'^[26], to use a much overused phrase. I think that there is a lot in this sphere of thinking that pertains to the Church's irrational homophobia. The absurdity of a theology that constructs one singular account of the nature and essence of human sexuality and regards everything else as deviant is the most extreme expression of this self-deception. But there are many other examples. In this case a fictional account of its past and its present leads to the perpetuation of its position, but only when the Church begins to accept and then to value the diversity of human sexuality will this particular failure begin to be addressed.

Unbinding the Gay Conscience

James Alison

Some of you may have known Benjamin O'Sullivan, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey who killed himself early in 1996. As far as I can tell, Benjamin was set up by a reporter from the News of the World, and the only thing which prevented his death from being a murder was that Benjamin himself consented to the voice of the lynch mob and became the hand that put him to death. I felt that his death was brought about because this extremely attractive, apparently self-confident, effervescent young man had been unable to stand up as an ordinary gay man to the voice of the lynch mob. And the reason he had been unable to stand up to them was because he was bound in his conscience. Shortly after his ordination he had expressed a fear to me that he wasn't really a priest, because 'if they had known' surely they wouldn't have ordained him. That hardly anyone who knew Benjamin well can have failed to know that he was gay is of course not relevant: the person caught in the trap looks at the world through fear-coloured spectacles, and fear darkens rather than illumines what it projects. But this gives a hint of what I mean by a bound conscience: the sort of person who can't stand up and be what they are, who can't trust in the goodness of what they are being given to become, whatever the lynch mob may throw at them, the sort of person who labours instead in a world of half-truths, any belonging being a half-belonging, because always feeling that 'if they knew' then 'I wouldn't really be allowed here'. Which translates into a permanent and deep feeling of 'I'm not really allowed here'.

It seemed to me, and seems to me, and I told this to Cardinal Hume when I visited him to talk about Benjamin sometime later, that the fact that the Church can no longer easily say, as Peter could to the man lame from birth at the Beautiful Gate in Acts 3, 'in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, walk' is, while sad, something I can live with. But if the Church, and by that I mean if we, cannot even unbind a conscience like Benjamin's, then we really are fit for nothing more than to be thrown out and trodden under foot like the saltless salt we are become.

I realised, after this, that given that our hierarchs were not going to do anything, in fact, probably are not able to do anything, paralysed themselves so often by the same bound conscience which afflicted Benjamin, that I had to write something which would contribute to the unbinding of the gay conscience, try to find the other-given authority to be able to say 'In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, stand and be'. And the result of my failure to do that in a systematic way is the book called faith beyond resentment: fragments catholic and gay^[27] which I think some of you have read.

All I could do in that book was come up with some sign posts to my sense that if the Jesus of the Gospels really is alive and in our midst, and if he really is what God's self-disclosure to us looks like, then unbinding the gay conscience is very much the sort of thing that he finds himself doing here and now. He is God's pastoring of the sheep whom the shepherds have abandoned, and it does make sense to work out what that looks like.

If the question, then, is not 'what would Jesus do', but 'what is Jesus doing' (and I take it that the latter is the authentically Catholic question, presupposing the Real Presence of Jesus in an ongoing project, rather than a textual presence in a receding past), then it makes sense to spend a little time reflecting on the power of the One who unbinds our conscience.

Let me say first that in an ideal world, Peter would realise that he had been given the power to bind and loose specifically so as to be able to open heaven to the gentiles. He would pronounce those words 'God has shown me that I should not call any human profane or impure'^[28], and gay people would find themselves with unbound conscience as brothers and sisters in the Church on the same footing as everyone else, that is to say, as sons and daughters and heirs.

But in fact, it seems to me that we find ourselves in a strange moment in that story from Acts 10. We find ourselves in the tiny gap after Peter has preached to us about Jesus, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and power^[29], after we have believed that message, and so realise that Jesus is Good News for us, and after the Holy Spirit has come down upon us, so that we are beginning to live the life of loved children and are able to speak well of God^[30]. But we find ourselves in the tiny space before Peter has found it in him to declare ''Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.'^[31]

If you want a reality check on this, then consider what the current teaching of the Vatican Congregations is: 'the homosexual inclination, though not itself a sin, constitutes a tendency towards behaviour that is intrinsically evil, and therefore must be considered objectively disordered'. If you read that phrase in the light of the passage from Acts which I have just recalled, you can see quite clearly that it is a piece of backsliding. Where Peter said 'God has shown me that I should not call any human profane or unclean' his modern minions say 'While it is true that gay people are not profane or unclean, they must in fact be considered to be so'.

So, we find ourselves living at a time of Petrine backsliding from the Gospel, and yet beginning to be aware that the reception of the Good News, and our own unbinding does not come from Peter, but from God, and that Peter later on gets to understand and confirm this. This is a perfectly understandable biblical pattern which we can inhabit while we wait for Peter.

Now what I would like to do today is start to examine the binding and the unbinding. What does it look like? I suppose the first step is to look at what being 'bound' means. A bound conscience is one which cannot go this way or that, forward or backwards, is paralysed, scandalized. In that sense it is a form of living death, and those afflicted by it are living dead, and many of us are or have been such people. Let me give some examples of what I mean. We are familiar with the notion of a 'double-bind' or a 'Catch 22 situation'. A bound conscience is a sense of being formed by a double bind or a series of double binds. For instance: 'My command is that you should love, but your love is sick'; or 'You should just go away and die, but it is forbidden to kill yourself'; or 'The only acceptable way for me to live is a celibate life, but if they knew who I really was, they wouldn't allow me to join' or 'Of course you can join, but you mustn't say who you really are' or 'You cannot be gay, but you must be honest'. Many of us have been inducted into just such patterns of desire over time. They classically follow the form 'Imitate me, do not imitate me'. If you find yourself gravitationally pulled towards someone, and yet the message given to you is 'Be like me, do not be like me' you will be scandalised, eventually you will judder to a halt, unable to move forwards or backwards.

What I would like to suggest is that in all these cases we are dealing with a self that has been formed by being given contradictory desires without being given any ability to discern where they might appropriately be applied. In other words, two instructions are received as on the same level as each other, pointing in two different directions at once, and the result is paralysis. This is what σκάνδαλον - skandalon - refers to in the New Testament - scandal, or stumbling block. Someone who is scandalised is someone who is paralysed into an inability to move. And the undoing of σκάνδαλα - skandala -, which means the unbinding of double binds that do not allow people to be, is what the Gospel is supposed to be about.

I want to make it quite clear that we are dealing with something very basic and central to the Gospel here. It is perfectly possible to present the Gospel in such a way that it is a sort of double bind. Any sort of presentation of the Christian faith which says 'I love you but I do not love you', or 'I don't love you as you are, but if you become someone different I will love you' is in fact preaching a double-bind, a stumbling block, a pathway to paralysis.

Let's imagine the conversation between a false god and the self:

Fg: I want to love you, but I can't love you as you are, because you are sinful and objectively disordered.

Self: Well, what then must I do to be loved?

Fg: You must become someone different.

Self: I'm up for it, show me how.

Fg: Love isn't something that can be earned, it just is.

Self: Well then how do I get to become the sort of person who can be loved?

Fg: If I were you I would start somewhere else.

Self: That's a great help. How do I start somewhere else?

Fg: You can't, because even starting off for somewhere else starts from you, and you can't be loved.

Self: Well if I can't start off from somewhere else, and I can't start off from where I am, what can I do?

Fg: Give up on the love thing; just obey and be paralysed.

That's how powerful it is to receive our sense of self, our identity, our desire, in imitation of, through the regard of, eyes which give us a mixed message, a double bind.

Now if the Gospel means anything at all it means that the Good News about God is unambivalent, that there are no 'if's and 'but's in God, God's love is unconditional. And this means, above all, that there are no double binds in God. That God desires that our desire should flow free, life-giving and untrammelled, because it is in that flow of desire that we are called into being.

Well, if that is the case, imagine then what might be a conversation between the Unambivalently loving God and the self:

UlG: I love you.

Self: But I'm full of shit, how can you love me?

UlG: I love you.

Self: But you can't love me, I'm part of all this muck.

UlG: It's you that I love.

Self: How can it be me that you love when I've been involved in bad relationships, dark rooms, machinations against other people?

UlG: It's you that I love.

Self: But .

UlG: It's you that I love.

Self: But .

UlG: It's you that I love.

Self: OK then, so are you just going to leave me in the shit?

UlG: Because I love you, you are relaxing into my love and you will find yourself becoming loveable, indeed becoming someone that you will scarcely recognise.

Self: Hadn't I better do something to get all ready for this becoming loveable?

UlG: Only if you haven't yet got it that it's I who do the work and you who get to shine. Because I love you, you are relaxing into being loved and will find yourself doing loveable things because you are loved.

Self: I think I could go along with this.

Or to put it in a nutshell, when faced with the standard Irish joke about 'How do I get to Dublin?' and being told 'If I were you I wouldn't start from here', the Gospel response, that is to say the regard of Christ, tells us: 'I will come with you starting from where you are'.

Now I put it to you as a question: is the teaching of the Vatican Congregations that I quoted to you before compatible with the Gospel, or is it compatible with the bad Irish joke? I'll quote it for you again: 'the homosexual inclination, though not itself a sin, constitutes a tendency towards behaviour that is intrinsically evil, and therefore must be considered objectively disordered'.

To me at least it is clear. This teaching is interposing itself between the regard of Christ and our own sense of being in a way which tends to pervert the simple regard of one who loves us as we are, and as loved we will find ourselves becoming someone different. It is teaching us instead that God will only love us if we start from somewhere else. That is to say, the teaching is in the technical sense a 'skandalon', a stumbling-block, something which aggravates a double-bind rather than undoing it. It is because I think that the teaching is incompatible with the Gospel at this very fundamental level that I also think that, despite the protestations of the current office-holders in the Roman Curia, it cannot in fact be the teaching of the Church.

A dimension of this which I have brought out more or less strongly, and which may not be obvious when people talk about conscience^[32], is the importance of understanding that our conscience is always related to and formed by what is other than us, prior to us, outside us. It is not as though there is a 'real' private voice somewhere inside us that gives us infallible deliverances that are right. On the contrary, what constitutes our 'inside' is a more or less well-managed conversation between different voices which have called us into being one way or another, through parents, education, Church, politicians, and which often enough have tied us up. We are called into being as bodies acting in the world through those voices. This means that when it comes to the unbinding of conscience, it is not ever a question of searching back under all the voices for some innocent voice that I know to be a 'good conscience'. That is merely a terrible form of self-deception. No, both the being given a self and a sense of self through language, and the unbinding of the conscience are always the work of someone else, outside us, and the most important thing is 'to which other are we listening'? Who is the 'other' who can unbind our conscience, who can induct us into desiring without double-binds?

I rather suspect that this helps to bring out part of the impression which Jesus left on those to whom he spoke, and is therefore rather the impression that he leaves when he speaks to us: 'for he taught them as one who had authority, not as the scribes'^[33] or 'my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me'^[34]. Speaking with authority means speaking from within the power of the author, the beginner, the creator and can be recognised precisely because it unbinds double-binds and stumbling blocks which cannot be from God because no good Creator could possibly treat his creatures in this way.

I would like to dwell a little more on the effects on us of this regard, the one that looks at us and says, 'I love you, and as you discover yourself loved you will find yourself becoming something else'. I want to say something apparently rather banal here, but I think it is rather important. I think that we would be wise to send the word 'love' to the laundry and use the word 'like' instead. I say this for the following reason. You have probably met people, as I have, who tell us that they love gay people, and that is why they are so keen to change us. In other words their 'love' does not include the word 'like'. It means something like: 'I feel that in obedience to God's love for sinners I must stop you being who you are'.

But in fact the word 'like' is rather more difficult to twist into a lie than the word 'love', because we know when someone likes us. We can tell because they enjoy being with us, alongside us, want to share our time and company. Well, what I would like to suggest is that if our understanding of love does not include liking, or at least being prepared to learn to like, then there's a good chance that we're talking about the sort of love that can slip a double-bind over us, that is really saying to us 'My love for you means that I will like you if you become someone else'.

Well, it seems to me that the doctrine of the incarnation of Our Lord, the image of God coming among us as the likeness of humans,^[35] is a strong statement that the divine regard is one of liking us, here and now, as we are. Glad to be with us. And this means that the one who looks at us with love is not just looking at us with a penetrating and inscrutable gaze of utter otherness, but is looking at us with the delight of one who enjoys our company, who wants to be one with us, to share in something with us. Sure, as we learn to relax into that being loved we are going to find that we are quite different from what we thought we were, and that our patterns of desire will become quite different, which is what it means to find that the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in us in and through the reformation of our desire. But the regard does not first knock down so as then to build up, as we so often imagine it, rather as though Jesus was a sergeant-major whose job it is to give hell to the recruits and make them feel awful so that later, after they've lost their identities, they'll start to feel good new identities as soldiers, and then they'll discover he has a heart of gold.

No, our faith is that the eyes of God that are in Christ, and thus the divine regard through which we can receive new being, are eyes that like us, from alongside, at the same level as us. Which means, do not control us, do not try to 'know better than us' who we are, but want to participate in a discovery with us of who we are to become.

And that means that there is no plot to lose. There is only an adventure of trusting in the goodness of the one who loves us and seeing what we would really like to do.

Our Lord put it this way:

For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.'^[36]

The key feature of this parable is that it is the imagination of the servants as to what their master is like which is the determining factor of their conscience and thus the wellspring of their activity. The first two servants clearly imagined their master being away as an opportunity to do something delightful. Because they trusted that their master was the sort of daring fellow who would do rash and crazy things for which there was no script, would dare, would experiment, would risk losing things and so would end up multiplying things greatly. In other words, they perceived their master's regard for them as one of liking them enough to be daring them and encouraging them to be adventurous, and so, imagining and trusting that abundance would multiply, they indeed multiplied abundance. The third servant revealed exactly what regard he had laboured under: his imagination of who the master is comes out in his own words:

Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

He acted according to his imagination. And his imagination was one of a double bind, perfectly captured in the phrase 'reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow'. His perception of the other was of one who did not like him and thus had put an impossible burden on him, and so all he had done was simply sulk. He had been bound, the living dead, moving neither forward nor backward. It is no wonder that in Luke's version, the master says 'Out of your own mouth I will condemn you, you wicked servant'^[37], because it is in fact the servant's own perception that has bound him.

Now I put it to you that the Eucharistic presence of Jesus in our midst is the way God constantly reminds us, calls us into mind, of his regard, one of liking us, encouraging us to be daring with him, during the time of the 'absence of the master', and that our having our conscience unbound means our becoming able to trust in the regard of one who likes us and so is delighted that we will come up with crazy new daring schemes which didn't seem to be part of the programme at all. And it is according to our conscience that we will act. If our conscience accepts the regard of, and wants to be like, someone who likes us, who is daring, creative, innovative, effervescent, unafraid, risk-taking and so on, then we will find ourselves behaving like that, being able to stand up and take the rap, delighting in finding ways of getting people off the hook, never taking no for an answer, refusing to believe that something is impossible for God; and that is who we will become.

Someone of unbound conscience can dare to get it wrong, because they don't have to get it right. If you have to get it right, that means that you don't dare to get it wrong, which means that you are afraid of what will happen to you if you do get it wrong. But the Catholic and Christian understanding of conscience is that because we know that we are liked we can get it wrong, and it doesn't matter, because we are not frightened of punishment, but able to learn from our mistakes. In fact, if we can't dare to be wrong, then we can't truly get it right, because our being right will be a form of protection against what is other than us, what is unknown, exciting, big and causing us to be bigger-minded, magnanimous. A good conscience is not a feeling of self-satisfaction at having got it right; it is much more the underlying excitement of knowing yourself on the way somewhere, which is perfectly compatible with a deep sorrow of realisation at having got something wrong. This is the excitement of being a son or daughter who is on an adventure, not the contractual precision of a slave who has to get something right because he has no sense of being on the inside of the project of whoever is in charge, and merely senses the other as arbitrary and capricious, as someone who will glower at what is not perfect.

Well, what does it mean to you that God does not merely 'love' us gay people in a clinical, arms-length sense, but likes us, enjoys our company, wants to be in on the adventure with us, see where we can take the adventure of being human? Is it not true that the mere phrase 'I like you' gives permission to be, is creative of space, suggests 'I'm curious to accompany you', means delight? And if that is the case, why don't we dare to imagine that God does actually want us to be free and happy, starting exactly from where we are; that our desire for a loving partner, or to build a crazy community project full of eccentric queens making a difference to society and Church, is something which could well lead to fulfilment, a fulfilment much bigger than we could imagine. Just because Peter hasn't yet got it, doesn't mean that the Spirit can be stopped from unbinding our desire. Just because our hierarchs seem unable to dare even to offer us the sort of eucharistic space which is our baptismal new-birthright doesn't mean that our consciences need be bowed down by, bound by, all that heaviness of decline management, that defensive bureaucratic inability to negotiate as adults with adults. For that heaviness and that inability says something about them, and need say nothing about us.

Consciences are unbound for a doing and a becoming, and that, I think is where we find ourselves now: given that the only judgment we will receive will be that of freedom^[38], what do we want to dare to do, starting now? What would it be fun to present our master with on his return?

One final point. I think we are very privileged to be gay and lesbian Catholics at this time, and this is in part because of the growing sense that we are in on the inner dynamic of the project that is the sharing of the Good News about God with the world. I want to point out that one of the features of the texts of the apostolic witnesses in the New Testament is that they are marked to a very strong degree by the notion of a sort of 'coming out', a leaving behind something which while theoretically good in itself, had turned into a trap. Sometimes this is presented in a moralistic way as people leaving something bad to join something good. Well, I think it is much closer to the mark to see it as people leaving something apparently 'good' - whether the 'Law' or the decencies of Roman civil religion, and instead becoming free. Paul is keen that the freedom not turn into licentiousness, but he is much, much more keen that people don't go back into 'goodness' with its bound consciences and its comforting dependency on group approval^[39]. Which of the following two propositions do you think is closer to the witness of the New Testament?

A gay Catholic holds that 'not going back like a dog to its vomit' means, first and foremost, not going back to gay meeting-places, relationships, places where there is a risk of sex;

Or:

A gay Catholic holds that 'not going back like a dog to its vomit'^[40] means, first and foremost, refusing the lure of the ecclesiastical closet which binds conscience and makes people unfree, leading to dysfunctional relations and an inability to love and to tell the truth.

What does the teaching about not putting new wine in old wineskins, or about avoiding the leaven of the Pharisees, mean if it isn't part of the way the author of all things speaks into being a daring conscience?

So, where shall we take it?

Legislation:
Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics

Equality and Sexuality:
Britain's Fast-Changing Laws

Ian Buist CB
Secretary, URC Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement

These 12 months are seeing the most dramatic and radical changes in the social rules by which gay and lesbian people live since 1967. But the changes are piecemeal, so the wider public, and even our own community, are largely unaware of what is going on. We need to stand back and take an overview. That shows an unmistakeable, and I hope fundamental, trend, whose consequences will be very far-reaching.

For the wider public, the row within the Church of England over the intended appointment of Canon Jeffrey John has put the issue of gay rights and responsibilities under an unprecedented spotlight. The huge wave of public comment is not likely to leave any of the traditional churches unaffected. There are certainly sympathetic views among the Catholic lay community which might be tapped to support your aims. It has not gone unnoticed that Canon John is not suffering because of his now celibate orientation and lifestyle, but because of his beliefs which he will not recant. It is very evident that the whole issue is not going to go away. So this is a special moment, which presents special opportunities.

In this talk I shall first run through the legal changes in summary. I shall deal at the end with the two latest and most controversial - employment equality and civil partnerships. After that I shall go into the arguments and reasons for the latter in a bit more detail. Finally I shall make some suggestions for actions which Quest and its members could take to help move the process along, both in the short and the long term.

Changes in the law

First, then, to the individual changes made or mooted in the law:

Immigration rules. Unmarried partners may now obtain leave to enter or remain in Britain on the basis of a relationship of more than two years with a British citizen or other person settled in the UK. The rules apply to same-sex and other couples.

Adoption and Children Act, 2002. This will, amongst other things, allow suitable couples to adopt children, including gay or lesbian couples. Formerly, individual lesbian or gay people could adopt, but partners jointly could not.

Housing tenancies. The Government is to equalise the rights of same-sex couples to succeed to a tenancy. The Court of Appeal ruled last November that same-sex partners could inherit a Rent Act tenancy.

Sexual Offences Bill, 2003. This Bill replaces all existing legislation on sexual offences. One of its founding principles, welcomed in the Lords by all three main parties, is no discrimination by gender or orientation. To those who fought for equality in the 1970s, these changes in the criminal law were the first and most important goal.

Repeal of 'Section 28'. The Government is committed to abolishing this, with its obnoxious reference to homosexuality 'as a pretended family relationship'. Discussion after the split in the Conservative Party on the matter concentrated not so much on keeping it, as on what, if anything, should replace it. On 10 July, the Lords voted against a replacement provision by 180 to 130 - a huge turn-out. Section 28 is now dead.

Employment Equality Regulations, 2003. Passed in June 2003, these implement an EU Directive, which binds all existing and new member States. This requires legislation to ban discrimination at work on grounds of race, age, disability, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. The latter three must be in force by 2 December 2003. The Regulations cover indirect, as well as direct, discrimination, including harassment, and training, including vocational training. The Directive allows faith-based organisations a special exemption to discriminate on grounds of belief, but not other grounds, in specific posts where they can prove it is genuinely required by the job, its context and their ethos. This is more or less reproduced in the Religion or Belief Regulations. A separate provision was included at the last minute in the Sexual Orientation Regulations. This allows requirements relating to sexual orientation to be applied in some circumstances where the employment is 'for the purposes of an organised religion'. LGCM, the trades unions, and others fought this new provision. It will almost certainly be challenged in the British courts, and in the European Court of Justice, as going beyond what the Directive permits. Indeed, the NUT announced on Monday that it would take the Government to judicial review to try to get the provision struck down even before it comes into force. Their move is likely to be supported by other unions, and by NGO members of the 'coalition of the willing' set up by LGCM and Stonewall to combat the Government's decision. But in any case the Regulations will apply to the generality of jobs in British society. If the provision stands, there will therefore be an increasing gap between the rules for equality applying to 'religious employers' and to others.

I should say something here about the role of the Churches in this affair. Public consultation on the draft Regulations ended in February. Between then and their publication on 8 May, there was private discussion between the Archbishops' Council of the C of E, accompanied by Archbishops Vincent Nichols and Peter Smith, and the Government, over the former's demand for more or less wholesale exemption from the Sexual Orientation Regulations. What they got was an exemption allowing discrimination where the employment was 'for the purposes of an organised religion' (undefined), and the discrimination was either to comply with the doctrines of the religion, or (in individual cases) to 'avoid conflict with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion's followers'. This was modelled on the law allowing the Churches not to appoint women as priests. But it obviously puts the real power in the hands of any vocal, possibly homophobic, minority. No heed was paid to the likely effects where e.g. Muslim or other religions might take a fundamentalist line against employment of any homosexuals at all. The Government lawyers admitted to a Parliamentary Select Committee that any body controlled to some extent by religious representatives might be able to discriminate, and that theoretically even window-cleaners could be affected. There was no consultation at all with those likely to be adversely affected - including AMICUS, which represents clergy workers, or indeed LGCM. The Select Committee of both Houses advised that the provision was of doubtful legality, and criticised the failure to consult. Despite this, the Government steamrollered the provision through. They probably calculate that if it falls in the courts they can at least say to the Church leaders that they did their best . It is understandable that Church leaders should try to preserve their right to apply their celibacy rules for priests, etc. But they are greatly at fault in not having limited their demands to the absolute minimum in the interests of protecting others from injustice and discrimination.

Civil registration of same-sex partnerships. A Bill sponsored by Lord Lester to introduce the registration of all partnerships was widely welcomed in the Lords early in 2002. On 30 June the Government issued proposals for a new law to register same-sex partnerships. This would not legally be marriage, but would create parallel treatment in law for registered and married couples. Such partnerships are already legally sanctioned in Belgium. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. In Belgium and Netherlands they amount to full marriage, but more limited partnership rights are also available. In Denmark and Sweden such partnership is virtually equivalent to marriage. In the last few weeks the Supreme Court in Ontario has ordered that same-sex couples may now marry. Partnerships are already legalised in Quebec, British Columbia and Nova Scotia. The Canadian Government has just announced that it will legislate federally for this throughout the whole of Canada. Three U.S. States have such laws (California, Hawaii and Vermont), and three in Australia (A.C.T., New South Wales and Victoria). New Zealand is now debating a similar law.

The Government's proposals follow the 'full' Danish and Swedish models, and not the more restricted models from France and elsewhere. Partnerships could be registered from 16 with parental consent, and 18 without. The same prohibited degrees would apply as for marriage: no partnerships with close relatives. The immigration waiting period would be abolished. Registered partners could be recognised as 'next of kin'. Registered partners would have the same protection over domestic violence as married spouses. Partnerships would have to be exclusive, as for marriage, and intended to be life-long. Termination would require the same process of attempted reconciliation and divorce. The Government recognises that the tax system would have to be changed to equalise the position of the two groups. Anyone already married would have to divorce before registration. The process itself would be handled by existing Registrars, and all the details would be part of the public domain. As for Church or other blessings, they say only that 'Any additional ceremony would be for the couple to arrange.'

Let me note here that in New Zealand the Catholic Bishops, while opposing gay marriage, supported the registration of same-sex couples to ensure their civil and proprietorial rights. And the Swiss Bishops, in 2002, publicly recognised the merits of civil registration for same-sex partners, while refusing to give a Catholic blessing to such unions. As soon as these proposals came out, the Catholic Bishops' Conference in England and Wales set up a Working Party to determine their response. The proposals are open to consultation only until 30 September.

I shall say something more about the forthcoming debate in a moment. But first I want to ask why all this is happening at all.

Reasons for the development of fuller equality in Britain

1 The first is the spreading acceptance of a single framework of human rights and corresponding responsibilities as the basis for social and public relationships throughout Europe and beyond. Powerful agents: the European Convention on Human Rights, and the judgments of the Strasbourg Court; its incorporation into British law (the Human Rights Act); and the commitment of the EU to implementing such rights throughout all its members (backed by the ECJ in Luxembourg).

Your branch of the Church takes a strong doctrinal stand on social justice and the removal of inequalities. The enactment of the EU Equal Treatment Directive has given a powerful shove to all the lobby groups interested in attacking discrimination on all of the six so-called 'strands'. There are big questions still unresolved about how Employment Equality can be consistently enforced and supported - there is no body to advise and support complainants and employers over sexual orientation or religion or belief discrimination. Lord Lester put forward an overarching Equality Bill earlier this year, but the Government is not going to do more than it has to, certainly this side of a General Election. There are increasing pressures and desires for all to work together. I attended last week the first meeting of an 'Equalities Coalition', promoted by the Fawcett Society (the Law Society is also interested). I was encouraged to hear the representative of the National Board of Catholic Women stress the need for us to talk and break down boundaries, in the interests of securing justice. People are hoping for something wider than what we are getting. So gay, and other, rights are increasingly being subsumed within the wider notion of human rights and human equality.

On the international, and specifically European, dimension I think you might want to ask Mark Watson's views. A prime mover here is the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), whose work in Brussels is now to be supplemented by a special East European office paid for by a British foundation. I hope Quest is aware of and involved with ILGA and its faith equivalent.

2 The second reason for altered attitudes is the greater visibility of homosexuals, and their acceptance as a minority like any other. There is plainly now a consensus on orientation as a 'given', and we would want to claim that as indeed God-given. Open gays and lesbians are seen among Ministers of the Crown, senior police officers, public officials at all levels, including diplomats - even the Security Services are recruiting from those in a stable relationship. One of my deepest satisfactions recently was being thanked by a diplomat I knew only by name for what I had done 30 years ago by 'coming out'. She said the attitudes of the Service were now completely supportive.

3 The third mover for change has been the change in 'good manners', following the flight from traditional marriage among heterosexuals. This seems to me to have intensified. Previously, unmarried partners often decided to marry when they had children. Now they more commonly do not. We all now have to recognise introductions of 'my partner' in every social gathering, often among our own family members. Paradoxically, same-sex couples are moving the other way; with increasing confidence, as citizens and taxpayers, they are looking for more public commitment on their part, and recognition of their unions by others, and not fewer legal responsibilities. The two are crossing over in the middle.

The partnership debate

The chief issue will be: 'Will the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships strengthen the solidity of society. and reinforce the institution of marriage, or will it instead undermine and weaken them?' The guidance I have had from your Chairman shows that this is a central preoccupation also for the framing of Catholic attitudes. The Government is obliged to assess the costs and benefits of any proposal for legislation, and you should look at paragraph 5.1 of Annex A of the DTI document for that assessment. It is unequivocal. Same-sex couple registration will encourage stable relationships, an important asset to the whole community; increase social acceptance and cut intolerance; and add 'life satisfaction' economic benefits worth from £6bn to £60bn to our collective annual income. 'Strong and stable families provide the best basis for raising children and for building strong and supportive communities . Strengthening adult couple relationships not only benefits the couples themselves, but also other relatives they support and care for, and in particular their children . '

There will be shouts that the Government is betraying its promise not to introduce 'gay marriage'. Legally that will not be so; there will not be access to marriage as in the Netherlands, Belgium etc. But the rights and duties will in virtually every respect be parallel. Some, like Peter Tatchell, have started arguing that any scheme should apply to heterosexual as well as same-sex partnerships. I am against this. If the obligations are similar then the heterosexual couples can get married. If there were a scheme for what they are prepared to tolerate, and no more, we should end up with an inferior kind of union for same-sex couples. LGCM itself, and its RC Caucus, have issued separate Press statements welcoming the Government's proposals, on which we shall comment in detail later, before the deadline.

Before leaving this for later discussion, I think we should ask ourselves what drives so many gays/lesbians to seek recognition in law of what they covenant together? I am convinced that it does not arise only from a feeling of discrimination. It stems from something much more fundamental - the inborn desire to find 'the other half', with which all humans are acquainted, and which I believe to be God-given. Most of our literature reflects our preoccupation with this desire. The play-off between 'earthly' and 'heavenly' love is a common theme also in religious writers - I am thinking of people like François Mauriac, who deals with it centrally in many or most of his books (eg The River of Fire and Galigai). But the most original, and earliest, picture comes from the comic poet Aristophanes' funny but revolutionary fable in Plato's 'Symposium'. Everyone at the dinner party has to make a speech in praise of love. Aristophanes relates that human beings used to have three sexes, male, female and hermaphrodite, and that everyone had four legs and arms, four eyes and two joined heads. Being wicked and inventive, they rapidly came to threaten Olympus. So Zeus ordered Apollo to cut them all in half, turn round the heads and genitals, and make them walk upright instead of on all fours. 'And if they cause any more trouble, we'll cut them in half again and they can hop on one leg!' Ever since, we severed halves go around looking for our true mate; the two male halves are gays, the two female halves lesbians, and the hermaphrodites heterosexuals. Hence the compelling desire to re-unite. Aristophanes', or Plato's, picture is revolutionary not only in recognising different orientations, but in putting an equal, even romantic, love at the heart of heterosexual marriage. This is not at all how marriage was actually perceived in ancient Athens, any more than nowadays in South Asia or the Middle East.

I believe this is what drives us, when we have found 'the right person', to want to make public and binding emotional and financial covenants for life - as serious and vital a rite as marriage itself - and to have those promises acknowledged and supported not only by families and friends but by the whole community. The desire for such a covenant of course is biblical - look at 1 Samuel 18:4. Jonathan and David's covenant was also, significantly, renewed later twice, each time 'before the Lord'. Many gay and lesbian couples today similarly want to covenant openly before God (see the stream of requests to LGCM to arrange blessings).

Implications for the Churches and other religions

The stresses caused by current arguments over such issues are growing. As the Churches dwindle, the gap between the rules which some religious leaders would like to make universal, and those that the general public and the State will actually enforce, gets wider. Our adherents are also citizens and members of ordinary society, so they too feel these tensions. A re-examination of the essentials of each faith, what and to whom its mission is, and how much from the past is 'baggage' to be offloaded, or instead to be cherished, cannot long be evaded. It is time in any case to abjure the tempting right to try to regulate the lives of a widely unbelieving society.

I think this division can easily be understood by the Catholic community, so long excluded from political power (although I do not much notice it among Catholic members of the House of Lords). It is possible to support laws for the public generally, while trying to maintain belief disciplines for those who subscribe to the relevant faith (cf. halal/kosher meat; the Islamic ban on interest, etc.)

I understand that Catholic moral theology differentiates the Church's theology of chastity from its theology of justice. Fr James Keenan, SJ, has recently affirmed that while the Church prohibits all sexual activity except non-contraceptive relations between husband and wife, it in no way endorses the unequal or discriminatory treatment of divorced heterosexuals nor of gays and lesbians. 'On the contrary, it obliges society to recognise that all of these people retain their full range of human and civil rights because of their inherent dignity as human persons.' He goes on to recall the statement of the U.S. Bishops that 'the fundamental rights of homosexual persons must be defended and that all of us must strive to eliminate any forms of injustice, oppression or violence against them.' If the interests of social justice, including those for homosexuals, are presented with sufficient force, we might hope that the CBCEW Working Party could be persuaded to follow its brothers in New Zealand.

Suggestions for Quest and its members

I hope that you will collectively and individually consider what you might do to encourage acceptance of the proposals for civil registration among Catholics generally, and by the CBCEW Working Party in particular. You could prepare your own submission to the Working Party (whether or not they ask for such contributions). You should also respond to the Government paper before 30 September. You could consider contacting bodies like the National Board of Catholic Women, whom I mentioned earlier.

Beyond this there is a much harder and longer task. Given what we now know both about human and indeed animal sexuality, does the doctrinal description of homosexuality as 'objectively disordered' in any way correspond to the facts? Dr Bruce Bagemihl's survey of same-sex relationships and behaviour among animals and birds (everything from ant-bears to zebras) - it is called 'Biological Exuberance' - gives the lie to the notion that these are a purely human and 'sinful' aberration (the consequence of 'idolatry', according to St Paul in Romans 1:22-27). Getting this re-examined seems to me essential.

Apart from this, it is not entirely clear that your Church accepts the objective existence of people with a different and inborn (therefore God-given) orientation. Nor is it clear how it will cope when Church members, engaged in same-sex partners

Quest: a Group for Lesbian and Gay Catholics

Quest Digest 3

Issue 3: January 2004
Morality, Conscience and Legislation

Contents

Sensitivity and Compassion?

Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality

Questions of Conscience

Legislation: Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics

Civil Partnerships

Sensitivity and Compassion?^[1]

Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality

Christianity and Gayness:
Searching for Truth, Freedom and Joy

The sources of morality: reason, history and scripture

The gentle teaching of Christ

Freedom and community in Christian living

Sundry moral issues

Making use of freedom: travelling light with love

Conclusion

An Empirical Claim

Questions of Conscience

Living with Contradictions:
Disagreement and Dialogue in the Church

The nature and authority of Church teaching

Assent and dissent

Development and change in the moral tradition

The Church and moral failure

Unbinding the Gay Conscience

Legislation:
Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics

Equality and Sexuality:
Britain's Fast-Changing Laws

Changes in the law

Reasons for the development of fuller equality in Britain

The partnership debate

Implications for the Churches and other religions

Suggestions for Quest and its members

Quest: a Group for Lesbian and Gay Catholics

Quest Digest 3

Issue 3: January 2004 Morality, Conscience and Legislation

Contents

Sensitivity and Compassion?

Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality

Questions of Conscience

Legislation: Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics

Civil Partnerships

Sensitivity and Compassion? [1]

Catholic Morality and Sexual Reality

Christianity and Gayness: Searching for Truth, Freedom and Joy

The sources of morality: reason, history and scripture

The gentle teaching of Christ

Freedom and community in Christian living

Sundry moral issues

Making use of freedom: travelling light with love

Conclusion

An Empirical Claim

Questions of Conscience

Living with Contradictions: Disagreement and Dialogue in the Church

The nature and authority of Church teaching

Assent and dissent

Development and change in the moral tradition

The Church and moral failure

Unbinding the Gay Conscience

Legislation: Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics

Equality and Sexuality: Britain's Fast-Changing Laws

Changes in the law

Reasons for the development of fuller equality in Britain

The partnership debate

Implications for the Churches and other religions

Suggestions for Quest and its members

Issue 3: January 2004
Morality, Conscience and Legislation

Sensitivity and Compassion?^[1]

Christianity and Gayness:
Searching for Truth, Freedom and Joy

Living with Contradictions:
Disagreement and Dialogue in the Church

Legislation:
Implications for Gay and Lesbian Catholics

Equality and Sexuality:
Britain's Fast-Changing Laws