SAME-SEX RELATIONS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: HOW LAW AND DOCTRINE HAVE EVOLVED, 1820–2020

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Reid

AbstractThis article surveys the evolution of the Catholic Church's official response to same-sex relations over the last two centuries. While the church has not altered its condemnation of same-sex relations, the justifications it offers for this negative judgment have shifted substantially, and they have moved, especially recently, in a direction that makes possible the acceptance of same-sex relations at some future—and perhaps not too-distant—date. This article explores the manualist tradition of the nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries; twentieth-century developments in canon law; and the period of retrenchment and reaction under popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Its final section looks at developments under Pope Francis. It closes by considering the way the church's teaching shifted over the course of its history—penance and the forgiveness of sins; anti-Semitism; and the sin against natural-law of taking interest on a loan (usury). It proposes that we might witness the church undergo a similar shift on same-sex relations.

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-281
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Kużelewska ◽  
Marta Michalczuk-Wlizło

Abstract There is room for everyone in the Catholic Church, but there is no consent for same-sex marriage in that Church as marriage only between a baptized man and a woman is a sacrament. Same-sex marriage is inconsistent with the Holy Scripture where marriage is based on God’s natural law. This official Scripture’s interpretation results in lack of possibility to reconciliate the official teaching of the Church with the recognition of same-sex marriage. The world is moving forward and so are the opinions of Christians and their growing support for same-sex marriage. Such marriage is recognized in thirty states worldwide, including states with dominant Catholic religion. Regardless the official teaching, the Catholic Church’s position is not uniform. The paper discusses the official interpretation of the Scripture concerning homosexuals, analyses the position of the Catholic Church toward same-sex marriage and indicates differences in Christians’ attitudes with respect to same-sex couples in Western and Eastern Europe.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Piotr Wojnicz

The increase in migration at the international level also increases the number of religiouslymixed marriages. The Catholic Church advises against entering into such marriages because thisissue refers to the laws of God and the question of preserving faith. The Catholic Church approvesof mixed marriages in terms of nationality or race because belonging to the Church is primarilydetermined by faith in Jesus Christ and baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity. Independentlyof canon law, progressive social secularization is noticeable on that subject matter.


1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-381
Author(s):  
Arthur R. Liebscher

To the dismay of today's social progressives, the Argentine Catholic church addresses the moral situation of its people but also shies away from specific political positions or other hint of secular involvement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the church set out to secure its place in national leadership by strengthening religious institutions and withdrawing clergy from politics. The church struggled to overcome a heritage of organizational weakness in order to promote evangelization, that is, to extend its spiritual influence within Argentina. The bishop of the central city of Córdoba, Franciscan Friar Zenón Bustos y Ferreyra (1905-1925), reinforced pastoral care, catechesis, and education. After 1912, as politics became more heated, Bustos insisted that priests abstain from partisan activities and dedicate themselves to ministry. The church casts itself in the role of national guardian, not of the government, but of the faith and morals of the people.


2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-408
Author(s):  
Daniel Ude Asue

This essay discusses Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill in Nigeria, with a focus on the contribution of the Nigerian Catholic Church to the law. Though the Catholic Church in Nigeria did not actively contribute towards the public debates about homosexuality that resulted into the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill it nevertheless welcomed the bill. However, the official teachings of the Catholic Church and elucidations from the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria could potentially contribute to creating an inclusive society. In what way can we potentially utilize the principles of Catholic Social Teaching to make room for an inclusion of homosexual persons in the life of the church and in society?


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Jan Dyduch

The Catholic Church observes the year 1994 as International Year of the Family in accordance to the announcement made by the United Nations. For this reason it is proper to talk over the obligations and the rights which a family exercises in a secular society and in the Curch. These rights and obligations are contained and treated in the following postconciliar documents of the Church: 1. The Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 1968; 2. The Adhortation Familiaris Consortio, 1981; 3. The Codex of Canon Law, 1983; 4. The Charter of the Family Right, 1983; 5. The Adhortation Christifideles Laici, 1988. Propagating of the family rights and obligations is necessary in view of the situation of the contemporary family, encountered by a multiple crisis. Calling in question of the sense of the family, the mentality adverse to life, and divorces are the most severe indications of that crisis. The basic right and obligation of a family is its service to the life itself, expressed in the procreating and upbringing of children. Doing this, a family needs protection and support from a civil authority which ought to maintain the appropriate policy favourable for the family and its development. A Christian family, sacramentally incorporated into the organism of the Universal Church, constitutes a „Home Church” and participates in Christ’s triple mission: prophetic-evangelizing, priestly-santifying and royal-apostolic. The family is a subject of the Church’s constant pastoral care.


Author(s):  
Philip Gleason

The eruption of anti-Catholic feeling that reached its climax around 1950 is best understood as a backlash against what was regarded as undue Catholic influence in politics, public morality, and general social policy. Although it testified in a negative way to the reality of the Catholic Revival, it came as a shock to Catholics who did not think they had given just cause for complaint. Their predominant reaction was an impassioned rejection of the charges against them. At the same time, however, reasonable Catholics wished to mitigate the existing tensions by removing any grounds for legitimate criticism. Hence a more irenic and accommodationist line of thought developed, which, though based on the natural law, set in motion tendencies not fully consonant with the premises of the the Catholic Revival. To understand how these crosscurrents affected the ideological context of Catholic higher education, we turn first to the anti-Catholic backlash. Suspicion of and hostility toward the Catholic church, which had subsided after the Al Smith campaign of 1928, began to reawaken in the mid-thirties. Political liberals, a group which included secular humanists as well as Protestants and Jews, were the first affected. On the domestic scene, Father Coughlin’s shift to an anti-New Deal position in 1935-36 alerted them to the fascist potentialities of his influence. Over the next few years, their fears were reinforced by his growing extremism on the menace of Communism, his increasingly open anti-Semitism, and the sometimes violent behavior of his “Christian Front” followers, especially in New York City. Internationally, the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in 1936, was the decisive issue. To American liberals, the war was a clear-cut contest between fascism and democracy, and the church had shown its true colors by rallying to the fascists. But most American Catholics, deeply shocked by the widespread desecration of churches and slaughter of priests that marked the early months of the war, saw the struggle as a conflict between Christian civilization and atheistic Communism. They bitterly resented the indifference displayed by American liberals to the persecution of the church in Spain.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-334
Author(s):  
Peter McCullough

This article aims to provide an introductory historical sketch of the origins of the Church of England as a background for canon law in the present-day Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. Written by a specialist for non-specialists, it summarises the widely held view among ecclesiastical historians that if the Church of England could ever be said to have had a ‘normative’ period, it is not to be found in its formative years in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, and that, in particular, the origins of the Church of England and of what we now call ‘Anglicanism’ are not the same thing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-169
Author(s):  
John Morgan

AbstractThis essay examines pressures and theological developments regarding sexuality and birth control within Anglicanism, as represented by statements from Lambeth Conferences and in discussions in the Church of England during the early to mid twentieth century, and notes some of the changes in ‘official’ position within US churches and especially The Episcopal Church. It offers comparison with the developments in moral theology within the Roman Catholic Church after 1930 and asks if, and by what means, the two Communions may come to agree on the specific issue of contraception.


Author(s):  
Jane Shaw

The churches of the Anglican Communion discussed issues of sex and gender throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Arguments about gender focused on the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate. Debates about sexuality covered polygamy, divorce and remarriage, and homosexuality. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, these debates became intensely focused on homosexuality and were particularly fierce as liberals and conservatives responded to openly gay bishops and the blessing and marriage of same-sex couples. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the sex and gender debates had become less acrimonious, the Anglican Communion had not split on these issues as some feared, but the ‘disconnect’ between society and the Church, at least in the West, on issues such as the Church of England’s prevarication on female bishops and opposition to gay marriage, had decreased the Church’s credibility for many.


1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-253
Author(s):  
George Marshall

Ever since the Reformation, and increasingly since the example set by Newman, the Church of England has had to contend with the lure of Rome; in every generation there have been clergymen who converted to the Roman Catholic Church, a group either statistically insignificant or a momentous sign of the future, depending on one’s viewpoint. From the nineteenth century Newman and Manning stand out. From the first two decades of the twentieth century among the figures best remembered are Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) and Ronald Arbuthnot Knox (1888–1957). They are remembered, not because they were more saintly or more scholarly than others, but because they were both writers and therefore are responsible for their own memorials. What is more, they both followed Newman in publishing an account of the circumstances of their conversion. This is a genre which continues to hold interest. The two works demonstrate, among other things, the continuing influence of Newman’s writings about the identity of the Church.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document