Angelus News | July 29, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 15
On the cover: A pilgrim walks on his knees outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2019. For our special pilgrimage issue, on Page 10 Mike Aquilina writes on how the urge to leave everything and travel afar is as old as Christianity itself. On Page 14, Elise Ureneck recounts the unexpected graces of her last pilgrimage with her late mother, and on Page 16, California historian Stephen Binz points the way to the pilgrim path in our own backyard. On Page 20, Pasadena native Jenny Gorman Patton tells of finding the healing she needed, rather than the one she wanted, at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, France.
On the cover: A pilgrim walks on his knees outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2019. For our special pilgrimage issue, on Page 10 Mike Aquilina writes on how the urge to leave everything and travel afar is as old as Christianity itself. On Page 14, Elise Ureneck recounts the unexpected graces of her last pilgrimage with her late mother, and on Page 16, California historian Stephen Binz points the way to the pilgrim path in our own backyard. On Page 20, Pasadena native Jenny Gorman Patton tells of finding the healing she needed, rather than the one she wanted, at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, France.
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trine officials before being published.<br />
She acknowledged that some of its<br />
statements seem to contradict Church<br />
teaching, implying in particular that<br />
there are no actions that are intrinsically<br />
evil.<br />
The president of the academy, Archbishop<br />
Vincenzo Paglia, claims in the<br />
book’s introduction that it heralds a<br />
“paradigm shift” in moral theology,<br />
one which dismisses the old teaching<br />
as a “handbook of formulas” that<br />
doesn’t adequately capture the “existential<br />
aspects that are most relevant<br />
to the dramatic nature of the human<br />
condition and addressed from the<br />
perspective of an anthropology that is<br />
appropriate to the cultural mediation<br />
of faith in today’s world.”<br />
Since what is being called for here is<br />
a shift affecting the whole of Catholic<br />
moral theology, those making this<br />
argument wouldn’t have to stop with<br />
issues like contraception and in vitro<br />
fertilization, but could also hypothetically<br />
revisit the Church’s teaching<br />
against racism, torture, and sexual violence<br />
— all of which are prohibited in<br />
each and every act without exception.<br />
After all, there are Catholics (especially<br />
when it comes to torture)<br />
who will also dismiss such teachings<br />
as applying a simplistic “handbook<br />
of formulas” to what can be a much<br />
more complex moral situation.<br />
Let’s hope and pray that this is just<br />
the wishful thinking of a small group<br />
of seminar participants, so that the<br />
Church’s teaching that sins like racism,<br />
torture, and sexual violence are<br />
always and everywhere impermissible<br />
remains.<br />
But let’s also realize that it is literally<br />
the worst time ever to be challenging<br />
the teaching of “Humanae Vitae.” It<br />
is true, as critics have said for multiple<br />
generations, that most Catholics have<br />
rejected the Church’s teaching in that<br />
document. But the Catholic Church’s<br />
teaching, whether about contraception<br />
or about our radical duties to give<br />
our wealth to the poor, is not subject<br />
to a popularity contest.<br />
By any objective measure, the<br />
Church’s teaching in “Humanae Vitae”<br />
is more relevant than it has ever<br />
been. A few reasons why:<br />
• The separation of sex from openness<br />
to procreation has produced<br />
a hookup culture in which the<br />
primary script for sex involves intentionally<br />
using another person’s<br />
body as a mere object and then discarding<br />
them. That this throwaway<br />
sexual culture very often crosses<br />
the line into sexual violence is a<br />
feature, not a bug.<br />
• Virtual porn already dominates the<br />
lives of large majorities of young<br />
people, but in separating sex from<br />
marriage open to procreation, that<br />
kind of person-less sexual behavior<br />
will become our culture’s norm,<br />
especially with the advent of the<br />
so-called “metaverse” and sex<br />
robots driven by artificial intelligence.<br />
• Happily, more and more women<br />
are rejecting the patriarchal<br />
expectation that they will “choose”<br />
to pump their bodies full of dangerous<br />
hormones as the price of<br />
admission not only for dating and<br />
relationships, but for following<br />
their educational and vocational<br />
dreams. More and more women<br />
(including those who are secular<br />
in their approach) are honoring<br />
their given, embodied femininity<br />
by using the latest technology to<br />
practice various eco-friendly and<br />
strikingly effective versions of the<br />
fertility awareness method.<br />
• It now clear that it is virtually<br />
impossible to separate the logic<br />
of contraception from the logic of<br />
abortion. Indeed, until very recently<br />
the United States was governed<br />
by abortion law (Planned Parenthood<br />
v. Casey), which insisted that<br />
women need abortion as a backup<br />
to contraception. Abortion is the<br />
fail-safe for participation in sexual<br />
culture created by contraception.<br />
• When reproduction is separated<br />
from sex and moved to a laboratory,<br />
gross ableism follows. Indeed,<br />
disabled embryonic children are<br />
discarded and those with genetically<br />
preferred traits are implanted —<br />
a practice that will become even<br />
more common. Furthermore, this<br />
culture of reproduction mirrors the<br />
excesses of our country’s consumerist<br />
practices, producing millions<br />
of “extra” embryos destined for<br />
the absurd fate of perpetual frozen<br />
storage.<br />
• This model of reproduction as disconnected<br />
from sex has led to the<br />
rejection of the idea that having<br />
children is an unmerited gift from<br />
God. Instead, it pushes in the direction<br />
of a so-called “right to have<br />
children” which may (especially if<br />
one is older and/or gay or lesbian)<br />
require mandatory coverage of in<br />
vitro fertilization. One wonders<br />
what such a shift will require of<br />
vulnerable women who are already<br />
structurally coerced into renting<br />
their bodies to serve the fertility of<br />
others.<br />
The Church’s teaching on the<br />
inherent connection between sex<br />
and procreation was not only divinely<br />
inspired, but has never been more urgent<br />
in the consumerist West. Instead<br />
of resurrecting a played-out attempt<br />
to undermine this teaching, Catholic<br />
moral theologians should be working<br />
on new and creative ways to invite all<br />
people of goodwill to see its truth.<br />
One obvious way to move toward this<br />
goal: U.S. and European Catholics<br />
should take a harder look at how and<br />
why Catholics in Africa and other<br />
places in the developing world have<br />
not capitulated to our consumer<br />
throwaway culture in the areas of sex<br />
and procreation. This is an opportunity<br />
to listen to peoples who can provide<br />
language and strategies — based on<br />
their lived experience — for helping<br />
the world see the truth St. Paul VI<br />
taught in “Humanae Vitae.”<br />
Charlie Camosy is professor of<br />
Medical Humanities at the Creighton<br />
University School of Medicine.<br />
In addition, he holds the Monsignor<br />
Curran Fellowship in Moral Theology<br />
at St. Joseph Seminary in New York.<br />
His most recent book is “Losing Our<br />
Dignity: How Secularized Medicine is<br />
Undermining Fundamental Human<br />
Equality” (New City Press, $22.95).<br />
<strong>July</strong> <strong>29</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 27