VATICAN COMBATS TODAY'S MANICHEANS: Chris Roberts

...The Manichaeans were a quasi-Christian sect who could not believe that a good God would be involved in the material world. They emphasized that what matters in a person is immaterial spirit, and that our bodies are indifferent or even hostile to spiritual pursuits.

Augustine, although once a Manichaean himself, studied the Bible and changed his mind. He deduced that our bodies, like all of material creation, are not hostile or indifferent, because in Genesis, God calls them good. Although we are beset by sin and suffering, the problem lies in our pride and selfishness, and not in the mere fact of having been embodied.

On that basis, and buttressed by the implications of Christ's Incarnation and the Resurrection, Augustine believed that God loves what he has made, and that God works with and through materiality for our redemption. In other words, when we think about ethical problems related to the body, we shouldn't act as if the body were a curse, as if it were an obstacle to ignore, overcome or tame. ...

The present Vatican document works on these premises. The basic claim in the letter is that the material existence of humankind as male and female is not meaningless. Sexual difference is not a neutral bystander in our redemption. There are other claims and other arguments in the letter, but they all relate to this core point. ...

For example, arguments on behalf of gay marriage that say that the sexual difference is irrelevant, that what really matters is love and keeping a covenant, don't touch the Vatican where it counts. Whatever one wants to say about the beauty of these ideals, or the justice or fairness of denying marriage to gay people, this line of critique misses Augustine's point. The Vatican's letter simply cannot entertain the notion that sexual difference is neutral or irrelevant. God made it; it must be for some good purpose, and it cannot be treated as merely biological raw material, liable to be valued or not according to human preferences.

The letter claims that sexual difference has a "nuptial significance," by which it means that having a sex implies a vocation, an orientation of self-giving with regard to the opposite sex. This is not to insist on compulsory marriage or coupling of any sort, and it is a more basic point than any arguments about procreation. Nuptiality or "self-gift" has a precise meaning in this letter, and can mean either marriage or celibate singleness.

Marriage, because God loves us by means of covenants, and therefore men and women should love each other the same way. Marriage takes the biology of sexual difference and places it in an arena of promise-keeping and mutual service, disclosing our biology's true meaning. ...

...But for those who want something better, this letter, despite all its shortcomings, offers a challenge: How would you reform traditional sexual ethics without undermining basic beliefs about God and the significance of creation, including sexual difference?

if you subscribe to the Nat'l Catholic Reporter you can read the rest...

posted by Eve at 3:48 PM | link

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