Cardinal McElroy’s Attack on Church Teachings on Sexuality Is a Pastoral Disaster

National Catholic Register, 26 January 2023

Jettisoning the distinction between ‘orientation and activity’ means the end of chastity as a virtue to be strived for — or implies that ‘the LBGT community’ is not capable of chastity and should therefore be preached a lesser Gospel.

That a cardinal wishes to change the Church’s teaching on the morality of same-sex sexual acts is not new. But there is a new one advocating just that, and one of the newest in the college at that.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, created a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019 and appointed relator general of the synodal process on synodality for a synodal Church, has been advocating for such a change because the “sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.” 

Now, Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, created a cardinal by Pope Francis just last August, recently joined Cardinal Hollerich with a wide-ranging essay in America magazine. Cardinal McElroy argues that the synodal process on synodality for a synodal Church is an opportune time to revisit — and revise — some doctrines of the Church. Among those are the question of priestly ordination for women, but his main focus was on “radical inclusion of L.G.B.T. people.”

There has been much reaction, and more will certainly follow. Here, I would just draw attention to one aspect of Cardinal McElroy’s pastoral approach: the abolition of chastity.

Cardinal McElroy, in his discussion of Holy Communion, objects to traditional Catholic teaching that “all sexual actions outside of marriage are so gravely evil that they constitute objectively an action that can sever a believer’s relationship with God” — mortal sin, in usual parlance.

“This objection should be faced head on,” he writes, and so he does:

“The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not. Rather, the dignity of every person as a child of God struggling in this world, and the loving outreach of God, must be the heart, soul, face and substance of the church’s stance and pastoral action.”

In traditional pastoral practice, the two ought to go together, affirming the dignity of every person while also advising that sinful acts be avoided.

Cardinal McElroy’s argument — that “the distinction between orientation and activity” cannot be a “principal focus” — undermines a great deal more than he allows. Indeed, as a confessor, he would know how crucial the distinction is. A penitent who mentions an involuntary desire for adulterous relations but resists the temptation is not only not guilty of a sin, but is practicing virtue. A penitent who entertains such desires but does not act upon them is guilty of a sin, though likely not a grave one. And the penitent who engages in adultery is guilty of a mortal sin.

That distinction may not be the “principal focus” — the principal focus is always God’s love and mercy — but the distinction is pastorally essential.

There are any number of sexual sins — pornography, masturbation and fornication being the most common — where the distinction between an orientation, a disposition, a desire, a habit and a particular act is absolutely fundamental.

I don’t know how pre-Cana classes are run in San Diego, but presumably cohabitation and fornication are addressed. The “distinction between orientation and activity” does not apply only to homosexuality.

Heterosexual engaged couples are certainly oriented toward conjugal union, but actual conjugal union is sinful before marriage. I would concur that this ought not be the “principal focus” of marriage preparation, but it can hardly be set aside for fear of “dividing” the pre-Cana classes into those who are striving for chastity and those who are not.

Continue reading at the National Catholic Register.