Church Doctrine and Natural Reason in Matters of Sex

Abstract

The Synodal Way of the Catholic Church in Germany has approved of the public blessing, by its ministers, of homosexual couples. This decision, and the underlying idea of revising Catholic teaching on sexual morality, form the background of the following reflexions. What is to be the role of a) epistemological and ethical considerations, b) the authority of church doctrine, and c) the verdicts of conscience, when bishops, other clergy, theologians, and Catholics generally feel a need to reconsider questions of sexual morality? Regarding arguments in favour of forms of non-marital sex, I’ll point to a number of defects: inconsistencies, questionable interpretations of Scripture and magisterium, and misleading uses of terms such as change of moral consciousness, natural disposition, “autonomous responsibility”, love, and discrimination. On the other hand, those who argue against any approval by the Church of homosexual practices seem to overestimate both the possibility of drawing valid ethical conclusions from a conception of human nature and the reliability of conscience. Having concluded that, nevertheless, communion with the Catholic Church excludes any policy of publicly blessing homosexual couples, I end by determining what I think at present hinders a rational assessment of this thesis.