The Challenge of Fidelity to Catholic Faith by Catholic Institutions – Part 3

Earlier articles (here and here) reviewed Helen Alvaré’s 2022 book Religious Freedom after the Sexual Revolution, discussing the new, hostile, legal environment in which Catholic institutions must function, in which there are legal efforts to require these Catholic educational, health, or charitable institutions to cooperate in activities that Catholic moral theology defines as sin. The new morality of individual autonomy, the religious nature and purpose of Catholic institutions, the Christian ethic of love versus a secular ethic of individual self-determination, possible responses to common accusations against institutional adherence to Catholic morality, and evidential support for Catholic morality in the areas of cohabitation and contraception were all reviewed. Finally, Alvaré reviewed evidential support for Catholic teaching in the areas of abortion, same-sex relations and same-sex marriage, and transgender drugs and surgeries, which is discussed below.

Evidential Support for the Church’s Teaching on Abortion and Homosexuality

Concerning abortion, Alvaré noted that Catholic institutions have faced pressure for the last fifty years to fund abortions in their health insurance policies, and Catholic health care institutions face pressure to perform abortions, particularly Catholic hospitals in remote, rural areas or which are merging with non-Catholic hospitals. There is unchanging and intense pro-abortion rhetoric, equating abortion with “women’s freedom” or “women’s health.” Against this, the Church has the unchanging witness of Scripture not to murder, a two-thousand year old tradition, current and active support of the Church’s leadership, and the conclusive discovery of modern science that a new human being comes into existence at conception. She noted that for women in crisis pregnancies, “the Church has devoted literally thousands of centers, homes, services, funding sources, and whole parishes and other churches to assist these women and their children” (in contrast to pro-abortion groups, which have none of these).

It should also be noted concerning abortion, that it is “never or almost never necessary to save the life of the mother,” according to both the mid-twentieth century pro-abortion advocates Mary Calderone and Alan Guttmacher, and recently by anti-abortion Donna Harrison of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. The Supreme Court originally defined health with respect to abortion to include “emotional or psychological” health, and so every requested abortion is vital to a woman’s health, according to such logic. Alvaré observed that research into the effects of abortion on women seem off-limits to state and federal governments. The National Institutes of Health “has never commissioned a long-term study to evaluate the health of women postabortion” (her emphasis). What research there is “on average” leads to the conclusion that it “psychologically harms women.” She observed that the plurality of justices in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) decision simply asserted that abortion is vital to women’s economic and social equality, relying on “listeners’ simplistic intuition” that this is correct.

Regarding same-sex behavior, she observed that same-sex attracted people tend to view condemnation of their behavior as an attack on their person (which is something we don’t do with other misbehavior; murderers and thieves retain their equality and dignity as human beings, however they are punished). Antidiscrimination laws were originally enacted to protect status (race, sex, etc.), not conduct. But sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) laws are interpreted by many courts to protect conduct, thus making the requirement of Biblical and Christian norms about homosexuality illegal. (This writer would add that behaviors cannot possibly be free and equal, without making all crimes legal, nor can autonomy be restricted to sexual issues, since transgenderism has destroyed the objective meaning of sex, nor can any criterion of “harm” be used, since protected categories cannot be judged harmful). Catholic teaching about love on the other hand shows that by its nature, sexual bonding must be male-female bonding. Catholic institutions may refuse to cooperate in same-sex conduct (e.g., in employment and insurance), without excluding people who are merely same-sex attracted. For a more detailed discussion of Catholic teaching regarding same-sex behavior, Alvaré pointed to Louis J. Cameli’s Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality: New Paths to Understanding (2012).

Alvaré suggested that any “public explanation” of Catholic teaching begin by pointing out that “the pattern of adult, romantic love scripture repeatedly proposes is the male-female relationship, capable of one-flesh union and the procreation of children.” This, she said, also gives us “a glimpse” of the “permanent, interpenetrating bond” of the persons of the Trinity. “God fashions human love to involve a going out to an other, and a receiving of an other, in an exchange of gifts that leads to new life demanding mutual care and exceptional sacrifice.” Denying “the two-sexed structure of love, wherein each person is ‘completed by one who is other than self’ easily impairs our understanding of ‘being’ as intrinsically relational and creative.” (emphasis in text quoting a 2019 Vatican document, “Male and Female He Created Them”).

She also referred to theologian Livio Melina, who observed that the opposite-sex natures of human beings “teach us that each person is limited, and has a vocation to go out of himself or herself to love another, who is in some important respect different from him or her.” But, Alvaré said, “same-sex pairings … obscure these aspects of created nature and even suggest the opposite, due to the absence of difference, union, and the possibility of children as a definitive, embodied future.” She also observes that Cameli adds in connection with the Biblical and Christian concept of love that there is a “loss of self involved in unity with another person,” which is necessarily involved in opposite-sex relations. Same-sex relations, instead, focus on “erotic pleasure,” and “countermands God’s design of human sexuality to bring about connection, claiming and being claimed, and the creation of new life.”

The basic Catholic teaching on same-sex behavior, she said, is the same as that concerning cohabitation and contraception, that it is prohibited in order to safeguard the true love God intended for humans to have, and the “freedom, happiness, dignity, and self-knowledge” that results. She noted that “despite the remarkable diversity” between the eras when the Bible was written, it has a “clear consistency” on homosexuality. In particular, Jesus articulated “the norm of opposite-sex relations intended for a permanent, faithful, procreative, one-flesh union” (Matt. 19:4-6). She quoted the Vatican’s 1986 statement “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” saying that the Church’s judgment regarding homosexuality “is not based on isolated phrases or facile theological argument, but on the solid foundation of a constant Biblical testimony.”  After giving an extensive quote of Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 1:18-28), she observed that the Vatican statement said that “Paul is ‘at a loss’ to find a clearer example of humanity’s ‘disharmony’ with God.”

While Alvaré did say regarding empirical evidence in support of the Church’s teaching that more work needs to be done on the actual lives of people involved in same-sex relations free from secular pressure (to accept homosexuality) or “intra-church politics,” she did point to evidence supportive of the Church’s doctrine. Same-sex relationships are more likely (p. 210) to be cohabitation than marriage. Individuals in same-sex relationships are more likely to engage in infidelity (sexual acts outside the relationship) and therefore more likely to spread disease (p. 210). There is a greater likelihood of violence in the relationship. She pointed out that same-sex marriages dissolve at much higher rates (especially those of female couples) than opposite-sex marriages. One study, she said, shows that same-sex couples (both married and cohabiting) have a 3.1 higher rater of dissolution relative to opposite-sex cohabiting couples, and 11.5 times higher rate than opposite-sex married couples (p. 210). She also said that the higher rate of dissolution among female couples is “consequential for children,” since they are more likely to have children in the relationship (27 percent for females compared to 9 percent for males). A 2019 study showed that 62 percent of children raised by affluent lesbian couples had experienced the breakup of the couple, while a Dutch study (2020) showed that 55 percent of children in same-sex households experienced the couple’s breakup. Another 2020 study presented evidence suggesting that having children tends to stabilize opposite-sex couples, and de-stabilized same-sex couples (p. 214).

Outside the universe of coupled homosexuals, she pointed to a 2017 article in the pro-LGBT Huffington Post that discussed the “substance abuse, loneliness, depression, suicide, and suicidal ideation” common in the world of male homosexuals. She notes the article’s author attributes these pathologies to minority stress or bullying, but he also observes that abuse and indulgence of the flesh are due to this all-male environment. “The challenges of masculinity get magnified in a community of men.” Men in this environment are abusive to one another “because, basically, we’re men.” From this evidence, it reasonable to infer, she said, that “the absence of the Christian pattern of love – involving union across differences leading to procreation … matters both for the adults involved and for their children’s experience of freedom. dignity, and happiness.”

Defending itself in court, a Catholic institution could say (in a more extensive statement than quoted here) that a Catholic institution must defer to Catholic teaching which “defers to the Word of God, accepts his design, and is demanding … [it] is not ours to overthrow, no matter how much the Church may suffer for it. This pattern has been supported and taught by the Church for two millennia. Currently available scientific and experiential data support its wisdom.”

Evidential Support Against Transgender Drugs and Surgeries

Transgenderism, or self-defined sex, and the demand for drugs and surgeries to attempt sex change “is sweeping the nation,” and results in demands for these drugs and surgeries by Catholic hospitals. It also may result in demands to integrate “housing, bathrooms, and dressing rooms.” All of these demands contradict “Catholic norms.” According to Catholic teaching “each person is made by God and not self-made. Thus, each person should respect what God has made, and not ‘manipulate’ human nature ‘at will.’”

Secondly, understanding one’s own real sex, discerned from the body, is vital to personal development and dignity. “People grow and develop – at the biological, physiological, emotional, and mental levels – in relation to their sex.” Also, “given the unity of body and soul” one’s real sex is also related to spiritual development. Testimonies of women, in particular, who have attempted to transition to a male identity testify to the alienation that they felt. Medical science also confirms that an individual’s real sex is determined at conception and is inscribed in the nucleus of each cell of the body. It is present in each “person’s endocrinology, anatomy, and neurology.” The small number of inter-sex persons does not disconfirm this, but only reinforces that to know what sex is, we must refer to male/female differences.

Thirdly, one’s true sex is vital to the development of relationships. “Catholic teaching speaks about this a great deal. Our sex shapes our relations with all others. It enables the realization of reciprocity and complementarity between the sexes – not only that which can make new life – but that which can enrich the world at large. It is differences that enable the possibility for giving gifts.”

Scientists do not know what causes people to identify with the opposite sex (gender dysphoria). Not surprisingly then, Alvaré observed that the American Psychiatric Association has acknowledged that no “highly reliable studies” confirm that “gender-affirming” treatments are effective. A thirty-year study in Sweden of persons who underwent sexual anatomy altering surgery showed, despite an early improvement in mental health, that “transitioned” persons had a suicide rate 19 times higher than the general population. A forty-five year study from the Netherlands also confirmed a suicide rate higher than the general population. She noted however, a “lack of long-term follow-up of patients who have undergone transgender treatments.” Much of the literature concerning these treatments is characterized by “a lack of randomized prospective trial design, very small sample sizes, recruitment bias, short study duration, high subject dropout rates, and reliance on questionable ‘expert’ opinion.”

The most staggering aspect of the transgender movement to most people has surely been the attempt to “transition” minors with drugs to stop the onset of puberty, cross-sex hormones, and surgery to remove healthy organs and create the appearance of the anatomy of the opposite sex. Alvaré noted the opinion of the British High Court in a lawsuit in Great Britain. There it was found that doctors began “gender transitioning” after just a few hours of consultation with minors and accepted the assurances of adolescents that they wanted to go ahead with transitioning despite loss of future fertility and sexual function. The court commented that “children of this age cannot understand the implications of matters such as the loss of the ability to orgasm, the potential need to construct a neo-vagina, or the loss of fertility.” Further, “there is no age-appropriate way to explain to these many children what losing their fertility or full sexual function may mean to them in later years.”  

Alvaré proposed that a Catholic institution faced with a lawsuit concerning transgenderism say (in part) to a court: “Christian teaching about human beings accepts God’s created design and demonstrates solicitude for vulnerable people. God does not mistakenly put a human being in the wrong body, even though people suffering identity distress come to believe that this is so. Faith and reason are harmonious here. It is empirically evident that vulnerable people are susceptible to the echo chamber that supports transgender drugs and surgeries. At the same time, no evidence shows that transgender identifying individuals are generally helped by treatments altering their sexual appearance; on the contrary, a great deal of evidence indicates that many of these treatments cause serious, lifelong physical and emotional harm in violation of basic bioethical principles. ‘Trans-affirming’ drugs and surgeries alter a vulnerable person’s understanding of his or her relationship with God and harm individual development and personal relationships.”

Conclusion

The overriding concerns of Alvaré’s book are twofold. First, that Catholic institutions need to make a better case than they have in both law courts and the court of public opinion that they are religious institutions, whose services are not merely social services, but a religious exercise, which must function by religious standards. The “church autonomy” doctrine should cover these institutions, so that not only the provision of services, but also their internal functioning is understood to be governed by religious standards, free of judicial inquiry. Secondly, but crucially, there needs to be a better case made both in courts and to the public that the Christian doctrine of the sanctity of life (especially regarding unborn children, and the aged and infirm), and the sexual morality of opposite-sex monogamy are at least reasonably good, supported by empirical evidence, even if many people do not agree with Catholic morality in detail. Very helpfully, in her chapter on empirical support of Catholic doctrine she included at the end of discussing each issue (cohabitation, contraception, abortion, same-sex relations, and transgenderism) a persuasive statement that could be made to a court.   

A fundamental clash is between the Christian and Catholic sanctity of life morality (which reasonably has opposite-sex monogamy as a corollary), and the secular quality of life morality, in which moral autonomy determines how moral, and finally legal decisions are made. The American doctrine of religious freedom originated and developed at a time of moral and (broadly Judeo-Christian) religious consensus. That consensus is no longer there, although it continues to be held by religious and social conservatives. But because the old consensus is no longer there for society at large, religious freedom is no defense against attacks on it, just as religious freedom proved no defense when nineteenth century Mormons stepped outside the religious and moral consensus of their day on the issue of polygamy. Much depends on the future political direction of the country, although both Trump Administrations put in place heartening policies supporting religious freedom.

While Alvaré is correct that we must make every effort to show that traditional Judeo-Christian morality is at least reasonably good, it is most important, both in our duty to God, and to show courts and the public the need for accommodation of religious standards, that we not violate the religious precepts we hold, and understand that God has given us, regardless of human laws and state penalties. Love of God and neighbor requires nothing less.

More from IRD:

The Challenge of Fidelity to Catholic Faith by Catholic Institutions – Part 1

The Challenge of Fidelity to Catholic Faith by Catholic Institutions – Part 2

Helen Alvaré archived articles