The grace of good sense

A popular Hollywood movie and a recent U.S. public Television documentary have focused on the life and work of Alfred Kinsey, the renowned twentieth century sex researcher. Both retrospectives served as eloquent reminders of how the contemporary rights of sexual minorities in societies such as our own were hard-won victories brought about by the courage and sacrifice of people like Alfred Kinsey

Fifty years ago they took on the scientific community of the day and faced virulent social and political opposition by daring to demonstrate the rich, lived diversity of human sexuality.

Contemporary liberation theologies have encouraged us to acknowledge that human faithfulness in history doesn't evolve effortlessly in accordance with some innate law of progress. Rather, individuals, societies and institutions are regularly challenged by wrenching struggles to open their hearts and minds to those not being accorded equality. They may even undergo painful collective conversions.

The long history of the Christian Church demonstrates how much we are part of the human community and live this same historically conditioned vocation. We have always had to find our way forward--not through extraordinary illumination miraculously bestowed upon our leadership--but by struggling within and among ourselves to discern anew what our faith demands of us at our own time and place in history. As believers, we have experienced repeated painful disagreements and conversions in order to arrive at consensus on issues which now seem so self-evident to us: slavery, human rights, democracy, social justice, gender equality (if only in our social teaching!), to name but a few.

That there would be disagreement today in our society and in the church on the cutting-edge issue of same-sex marriage is a natural manifestation of our human and Christian calling to continually struggle to discern the signs of the times, as Vatican II so prophetically challenged us to do.

What has been deeply troubling however has been the inability of our hierarchy to allow our church to struggle collectively over its position. Even though this is clearly a public policy issue, and not a matter of fundamental dogma, open dialogue has not been tolerated and any hint of dissent fiercely repressed.

As we enter the final phase of resolving this issue as a nation, many Canadian Catholics feel disappointed and frustrated. Our bishops' high-profile public campaign has simply not done justice to our tradition. A century of advances in our understanding of human sexuality and all the valuable work done by Christian theologians in integrating that understanding into our sexual theology, seem embarrassingly absent--making our church appear curiously isolated from contemporary experience.

But the Catholic Church in Canada also has a great deal to be thankful for. Statistical surveys indicate that more than half of Canadian Catholics agree with the government's proposed changes to the definition of marriage. This, in spite of a massive mobilization of the Bishops to shape church opinion on the national stage and at the local parish level.

Most Catholics have come to a different conclusion than the bishops exactly as they are obliged to do--by listening to their own properly formed consciences. They know--from their experience, in their minds, and in their hearts--that support for this recognition of the fundamental rights of a minority is a fair and loving response for a contemporary Canadian Christian.

In the final analysis, our Canadian church has been blessed with the grace of good sense--a "sensus fidelium" that flows out of the lived contemporary experience of committed and responsible Christians. It is "the faithful" who have rescued and preserved our church's authentic social witness.

Tim Ryan writes from Toronto.

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