Sullivan and the Pope
by Lisa Fabrizio

Every Catholic on Earth believes he is a sinner, from this writer up to and including the new Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, we believe we have the church to steer us to our Redeemer through the sacrament of penance and reconciliation to forgive our sins, as a precious gift of grace from God. It is this belief, along with many others, that unites us to what we call the one true Church.

With the death on John Paul II and the installation of the new pope, the whole world has seen numerous images of Catholics from around the world converging on Rome to worship God and to pray. People of different colors, dress and customs united in celebration of the masses in St. Peter's Square, where, before distribution of Holy Communion, all were reminded to be "conscious of the conditions necessary for sincere and fruitful communion." This means chiefly to be free of un-absolved mortal, or grave sin.

What we have also seen is a vocal group of American Catholics calling on the church to modify its teachings so that they would be sinners no more. For example, for thousands of years, many cultures, including ours, saw homosexual behavior as illegal or immoral or both. Catholic teaching certainly did and does. Yet, since the sexual revolution of the 1960's, nearly all forms of adult sex have not only become legal in most Western nations, but today, those who oppose unrestricted sexuality are themselves seen as immoral.

Chief among these is Pope Benedict who finds himself in the bullseye. One of the most critical of those advancing homosexuality as a proper moral course for Catholics is the prominent journalist and intellectual, Andrew Sullivan. He writes, "In a society with a huge gay population, the Pope has declared that homosexuals have an innate tendency towards 'intrinsic moral evil' and are therefore 'objectively disordered.' He has also argued that the exercise of conscience is a sinful delusion if it doesn't comport with church doctrine."

Here, the Pope is taken to task for citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2357, 1790-94) which he helped re-edit and which, according to his predecessor, is derived from "Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." For a 'non-progressive' follower of the church, it doesn't get any clearer than that and therein lies the problem.

Although the Catechism goes on to say that homosexuals are to be "accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity" (2358), they are also "called to chastity," as are any who would use the sexual act outside of marriage, which is defined as the union of man and woman in both the New and Old Testaments (1614). For his part, Mr. Sullivan acknowledges the fact that this and other differences could lead to a permanent fracture:

If this forces liberal Americans to leave the church, so be it. In 1970 Ratzinger wrote of the 18th-century church in Europe, reeling from the Enlightenment, that it was "a church reduced in size and diminished in social prestige, yet become fruitful from a new interior power, a power that released formative forces for the individual and for society. And this is his vision for the American Catholic Church in the future: purged of wayward priests, lackadaisical believers and the liberal throngs that still cling to Catholicism's basic tenets and rituals, while differing with it on social, cultural and sexual issues."

I don't know which tenets Mr. Sullivan's throngs believe on matters independent of social, cultural and sexual issues, but how can rituals bear any significance independent of church teaching on these matters?

Membership in the Catholic Church requires more than just the way in which we believe in God. The Ten Commandments and other precepts of the church exist to shape human behavior in order that its adherents may follow Jesus Christ through the "narrow gate" to our Father in heaven. To believe otherwise is to say, "I believe that the church can help save me, but I will choose how."

There are many, many churches that believe one can gain Christ's salvation through various combinations of scripture, faith and grace, but the Catholic Church cannot alter her doctrine based on changing social mores or the wishes of her flock. To do so would be to deny her whole history and reason for being.

Mr. Sullivan concludes his piece by predicting that the Pope's elevation could throw gas on the flames that are America's culture wars but that "modern, open-minded Catholics can only hope the church isn't burnt in the process."

Given the casualties of those wars--40 million lives aborted, countless others euthanized and genetic engineering on the way--they may just drive many lapsed Catholics back into the arms of the Pope's church.

Lisa Fabrizio is a columnist who hails from Connecticut.

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