- Feb 5, 2002
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Cardinal Robert W. McElroy’s most recent essay relies heavily on flimsy arguments and dubious history, and often ignores the clear and perennial teachings of the Church.
When I was a young seminarian I studied moral theology under the tutelage of the late, great Germain Grisez (1929-2018). I did not agree with all aspects of his “new natural law” theory, but his deep devotion to Catholic orthodoxy and his stout defense of Humanae Vitae in the face of fierce criticism impressed me. But what impressed me even more was his unwavering commitment to rigorous, free, and open scholarly debate, which gave him a deep charity toward proportionalist moral theologians with whom he was engaged in debate. This led him to instill in us a sense of deep intellectual fairness to our interlocutors, eschewing all forms of “straw man” argumentation and having a rigorous devotion to accurate representation of all pertinent theological data.
Unfortunately, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy’s “latest “clarification” of his views on Catholic moral theology in matters of sexuality displays none of the qualities of fairness, rigor, and accuracy championed by Grisez. I think that should matter. Furthermore, there really is nothing in his latest missive that clarifies anything at all and is rather a mere doubling-down on, and a repetition of, what he has said before. He does not, in any specific way, deal with the substance of his critic’s arguments, but simply does an end-run around them by proffering the same straw man arguments as in his previous America magazine essay.
McElroy’s primary issue is with the moral conclusions that have been drawn within the Church’s traditional moral theology.He once again explicitly rejects the notion that all sexual sins have as their moral object acts which constitute “grave matter”:
The moral tradition that all sexual sins are grave matter springs from an abstract, deductivist and truncated notion of the Christian moral life that yields a definition of sin jarringly inconsistent with the larger universe of Catholic moral teaching. This is because it proceeds from the intellect alone.
You The clear agenda is to legitimate the view that most sexual sins are “merely” venial, if indeed sins at all in many cases. Should the Church adopt his views, McElroy has to know that the net effect would be, on a practical level, that most Catholics would now simply adopt an utterly relativistic and latitudinarian approach to sexual morality. They would, rightly, deduce that the Church had now finally “come to its senses” and baptized the sexual revolution.
Continued below.
www.catholicworldreport.com
When I was a young seminarian I studied moral theology under the tutelage of the late, great Germain Grisez (1929-2018). I did not agree with all aspects of his “new natural law” theory, but his deep devotion to Catholic orthodoxy and his stout defense of Humanae Vitae in the face of fierce criticism impressed me. But what impressed me even more was his unwavering commitment to rigorous, free, and open scholarly debate, which gave him a deep charity toward proportionalist moral theologians with whom he was engaged in debate. This led him to instill in us a sense of deep intellectual fairness to our interlocutors, eschewing all forms of “straw man” argumentation and having a rigorous devotion to accurate representation of all pertinent theological data.
Unfortunately, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy’s “latest “clarification” of his views on Catholic moral theology in matters of sexuality displays none of the qualities of fairness, rigor, and accuracy championed by Grisez. I think that should matter. Furthermore, there really is nothing in his latest missive that clarifies anything at all and is rather a mere doubling-down on, and a repetition of, what he has said before. He does not, in any specific way, deal with the substance of his critic’s arguments, but simply does an end-run around them by proffering the same straw man arguments as in his previous America magazine essay.
McElroy’s primary issue is with the moral conclusions that have been drawn within the Church’s traditional moral theology.He once again explicitly rejects the notion that all sexual sins have as their moral object acts which constitute “grave matter”:
The moral tradition that all sexual sins are grave matter springs from an abstract, deductivist and truncated notion of the Christian moral life that yields a definition of sin jarringly inconsistent with the larger universe of Catholic moral teaching. This is because it proceeds from the intellect alone.
You The clear agenda is to legitimate the view that most sexual sins are “merely” venial, if indeed sins at all in many cases. Should the Church adopt his views, McElroy has to know that the net effect would be, on a practical level, that most Catholics would now simply adopt an utterly relativistic and latitudinarian approach to sexual morality. They would, rightly, deduce that the Church had now finally “come to its senses” and baptized the sexual revolution.
Continued below.
On Cardinal McElroy’s misguided “clarifications” on sin, sex, and conscience
www.catholicworldreport.com
