Catholic Church, Theology

Conscience and the Queer Catholic

A couple of recent posts, on Bishop Conry’s words about contraception and concience, and about British Catholics’ views on homosexuality, have drawn me into some extensive exchanges on facebook (on my own facebook page, and at the Soho Masses Community group) with a much more orthodox gay Catholic than I, Aaron S-C, who has his own blog at An English Gay Catholic, where he writes from a perspective he describes as

a “side B, gay affirming” blog which means that I advocate celibacy, chaste same-sex relationships, and an affirming and inclusive language that prioritises hospitality towards gay and lesbian people and their experiences in the Church.

My posts also drew a hostile post at Protect the Pope, and an ensuing lengthy, horrified attack in my own comments thread. Responding to these, and to email correspondence on some interesting current developments, have somewhat interfered with a whole host of posts I had been planning to publish on some other themes I had been working on.

As some of these exchanges raised important topics of more general interest, and as I dislike wasting any effort expended, I will be publishing as independent posts, some extracts from these exchanges, especially on the important issue of conscience, but also on the gender binary, on the Biblical evidence, and (I hope) on Aquinas and natural law. (Aaron, meanwhile, has already published his own thought on conscience at An Englush Gay Catholic, under the title, “What’s Primacy of Conscience got to do with Obsequium Religiosum?”. Take a look, to balance my more heterodox perspective).

Before getting into the specifics of earlier discussions, I offer first some preparatory thoughts on conscience, and it’s formation in my own life, which has taken me from a position of complete orthodoxy as a young man, to a position of substantial disagreement (on sexual teaching) today.

First, I reject out of hand any suggestion that because I find the rigidity of church prohibitions on artificial contraception, and on sex before marriage, and on masturbation, and on remarriage after divorce, and on same - sex erotic activity, I therefore accept or encourage any form of sexual licence, whereby anything goes. The primacy of conscience simply does not mean that anything goes, or do whatever you please, under the cover of some kind of permission “in conscience”. Quite obviously, the primacy of conscience requires proper and sound formation. The challenge lies in developing that proper and sound formation.

I do not accept that this formation is as simple as just memorizing the Catechism. We must always bear in mind at least the possibility that the doctrine as presented in the Catechism could be simply wrong, that Church teaching embraces several levels, not all of the same degree of importance, and that matters of sexual ethics belong in the lowest level - which does not in fact require absolute obedience. As my reader Chris Sullivan noted in a recent comment on conscience

”very little, if anything, about Catholic sexual teaching is taught infallibly, and certainly not contraception or homosexual acts”.

So, the process of conscience formation is a complex one, potentially incorporating numerous strands, In my own case, that has come from extensive study, of church documents, books on moral theology, church history, and scriptural exegesis, as well as spiritual direction by a very senior priest with two doctorates (one in spirituality), and very extensive prayer, including in a particularly intense, six – day guided retreat largely devoted to this subject.

I will be writing more on many of these approaches to conscience formation, and on the importance in Christian tradition of what is sometimes an obligation to dissent.

Quest, the British organization for gay and lesbian Catholics, is also greatly interested in this subject. There is a proposal before us, to arrange a training workshop on the subject of conscience from an LGBT perspective. I am pleased to report that earlier this week, Ruby Almeida, the chair of Quest, and I, were privileged to meet with Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton in a most constructive, extended discussion on ways to improve and extend existing ministry to LGBT Catholics, especially in the light of the current “Crossing the Threshold” project, to draw lapsed Catholics back into the sacramental life of the Church. We offered the bishop any help we could in this project as it applies to the LGBT community, and that led to some discussion on conscience. He was particularly interested to hear of our proposed workshop, which leaves me determined that it will indeed go ahead - conceivably with some guidance or other support from Bishop Kieran and the “Crossing the Threshold” project.

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