Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics

CATHOLIC MORAL THOUGHT

General Editor: Romanus Cessario, O.P.

Sex and Virtue

An Introduction to Sexual Ethics

John S. Grabowski

The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, D.C.

Copyright © 2003

The Catholic University of America Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

∞

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Grabowski, John S.

      Sex and virtue : an introduction to sexual ethics / John S. Grabowski.

                   p. cm.—(Catholic moral thought)

          Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8132-1345-2 (cloth : alk. paper) —

ISBN 0-8132-1346-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

         1. Sex—Religious aspects—Catholic Church. 2. Sexual ethics. 3. Catholic Church—Doctrines. I. Title. II. Series.

BX1795.S48 G73 2004

241'.66—dc21

2002015319

ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-2053-6 (electronic)

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Clashing Symbols: Sex, Conscience, and Authority

I. The Experience of Alienation

II. Sex: The American Ethos

III. Humanae vitae: Flashpoint of Controversy

IV. The Legal Powder Keg

V. A Twofold Alienation

2. Covenant and Sacrament

I. Biblical Interpretation

II. The Nature of Covenant

III. Sex as Covenantal: Genesis 2

IV. Covenantal Sexuality Fallen and Redeemed

V. Intercourse as Anamnesis: Theological Developments

3. Kingdom, Discipleship, Character

I. Conversion and Discipleship

II. Kingdom, Covenant, Beatitude

III. The Character of a Disciple

IV. Sex and Character

V. Toward a Spirituality of Christian Sexuality

4. Sex and Chastity

I. Chastity and Early Christianity

II. Chastity in Aquinas

III. The Eclipse of Chastity in Moral Teaching

IV. Chastity and Personalism

V. Psychological Perspectives

VI. Chastity and Culture

5. Male and Female: Equality, Difference, Dignity

I. Genesis Revisited

II. Other Biblical Teaching

III. Contemporary Reflections

IV. Ethical Import

V. Conclusion

6. Covenant Fidelity, Fertility, and the Gift of Self

I. Fertility and the Gift of Self

II. Some Implications

III. Further Questions

IV. A Test Case for Growth in Marital Chastity: The Practice of Periodic Continence

7. Teaching Sex: Education, Sexuality, Character

I. Vision and Values

II. Practices Make Perfect

III. Moral Norms: Only the Beginning

IV. An Authentic Gradualism

V. The Role of Community

VI. Friendship

VII. Toward a Culture of Life

VIII. Conclusion

Works Cited

Index

Acknowledgments

The Assumption of Mary, like all Marian doctrines, not only further reveals the mystery of Christ but sheds light on the dignity and destiny of all of the redeemed as well. For her flesh, born to human parents through sexual union, now lives in the presence of the Triune God. Such is the destiny of all men and women united to her Son in faith and love, whether married, single, or celibate. This book is a reflection on learning how to live well and love well as a body person in the hope of sharing the beatitude she now enjoys.

Portions of Chapter 2 previously appeared in Église et Théologie. Portions of Chapter 4 previously appeared in The Living Light. I am grateful for the permission given by these two fine publications to reuse and rework some of that material.

Many persons have contributed to this project. I am indebted to Amy Vineyard Ekeh, Ted Whapham, and Aaron Massey for invaluable research and editorial assistance. My daughter, Rachel Grabowski, generously helped to check Latin references in Migne's Patrologia Latina and also provided needed perspective (Dad, do you know that St. Augustine wrote way too much?). I am grateful to the members of the Missouri Valley Association of Catholic Theologians, particularly its president, Dr. Lawrence J. Welch, for helpful feedback and suggestions on portions of this work presented at its annual meetings. I have also benefitted from generous and helpful criticism by Dr. William E. May of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and Dr. Paul J. Wadell of St. Norbert's College who reviewed this work for The Catholic University of America Press. I am particularly indebted to Dr. David McGonagle of The Catholic University of America Press and Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P., the general editor of this series, for taking the initiative to organize this series, for the invitation to contribute to it, and for their encouragement and suggestions about my manuscript along the way. Finally, I am grateful for the support and encouragement of my wife, Claire, from whom I have learned more about virtue and friendship than anything gained through my work over eleven years of teaching moral theology.

Washington, D.C.

August 15, 2002

Feast of the Assumption

Introduction

The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) in its decree on priestly formation called for the renewal of moral theology. In particular, Vatican II specified that moral theology needed livelier contact with the mystery of Christ and should be more thoroughly nourished by scriptural teaching.¹ The decades following Vatican II have seen a variety of responses to this call. Among these treatments one often finds disagreement not only on specific moral questions, but on the very sources and methods to be used in moral reasoning.

How, then, can one begin to discern what constitutes authentic renewal in moral theology? One way to approach this question is to ask what prompted the Second Vatican Council fathers to issue this summons. What were the characteristics of Catholic moral theology prior to Vatican II that required change or renewal?

Historical analysis has shown that the Catholic moral thought of the manuals (the textbooks that dominated Catholic moral theology between the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council) was characterized by a focus on law and sin.² The moral life was conceived of as a series of largely unrelated acts that were judged to be good or bad on the basis of law. This judgment could take place interiorly in one's conscience or exteriorly in the domain of human acts, but in both arenas the question of morality concerned what bearing relevant moral laws (whether natural, divine positive, or ecclesiastical) had on the matter at hand. Hence Catholic moral thinking between the Council of Trent and Vatican II was heavily legalistic and act-centered. Little attention was given to the person and to his or her own moral growth and development. Scripture was often employed to provide isolated authoritative laws abstracted from their place in the history of salvation (e.g., the Ten Commandments) or proof texts to embellish conclusions reached by other means. The moral life thus considered was not well integrated with the mystery of salvation.

Given this historical backdrop, Vatican II's summons becomes more clear. There are at least three marks of authentic renewal that can be gleaned from Vatican II's teaching. First, genuine renewal within moral theology requires its immersion within the teaching of Scripture, the study of which is the soul of sacred theology.³ But Scripture is also integral to the experience of Christian moral living. For it is Scripture, along with the sacraments, that affords the primary contact for believers with the person and the mystery of Christ in their lives of faith.⁴ This contact with the person of Christ is especially intense in prayerful reading of the text, either in the context of personal or of liturgical worship. Thus the assimilation of Scripture in careful study and prayerful reflection is at the heart of an authentic renewal of moral theology and Christian living.⁵

Second, authentic renewal also necessitates greater focus on the human person (vs. a preoccupation with human acts) who is fully revealed by Christ.⁶ As Gaudium et spes, Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church, notes:

The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of Man take on light…Christ, the final Adam, by the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear.⁷

The livelier contact with the mystery of Christ called for in postconciliar moral theology necessarily brings the human person created for and redeemed by him into sharper focus. As the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ is the concrete answer to perennial human questions about goodness and morality.⁸

Third, this focus on the human person redeemed by Christ and called to communion with the Trinity requires an account of how a person can grow in moral goodness or holiness.⁹ It is not enough to offer juridical criteria for analyzing isolated acts that are unconnected from one another and the person who authors them. Rather, one must consider the role human acts play in the moral becoming of the person. While human finitude means that there are real limits to the freedom men and women possess, they still possess the ability to define themselves as moral beings through their freely chosen behaviors and attitudes. That is, human beings create for themselves a specific moral character through their free choices and actions.

There have been a number of attempts to recover this focus on the moral dynamism of the human person in postconciliar theology. Fundamental option theory has attempted to balance the previous focus on specific acts with an account of the deep transcendental freedom of the person vis-à-vis God and the moral goodness expressed through the whole of his or her life.¹⁰ However, the relationship between this transcendental freedom and concrete human actions is sometimes less than clear, and, in some articulations of the theory, seems to undercut the possibility of mortal sin.¹¹

A better account of the dynamic interplay between moral character and specific moral choices is provided by the recent revival of virtue language and theory. The last two decades have witnessed an explosion of studies in philosophy, ethics, and theology on this topic by a host of scholars, as well as a resurgence of popular interest.¹² Insofar as virtue can uphold the importance of specific moral actions as both illustrating and shaping moral character without reducing the whole of morality to isolated acts, it can make an important and positive contribution to the renewal of moral theology for which Vatican II called. Further, historical study has shown that such an approach better reflects the understanding of morality found in early Christianity and among the great Scholastic doctors of the High Middle Ages.¹³ Because premodern moral theology was not divorced from soteriology and spirituality, its moral vision was more closely connected with the mystery of Christ and the life of faith. Likewise, a recovery of virtue theory can offer a wider and more theologically fruitful vision of the moral life.

In spite of the plethora of studies on virtue language in its historical context and prospects for its contemporary application, there is further work to be done in this area. Namely, there is need for the application of virtue theory to specific branches of moral theology. This application is one goal of the series of which this present volume is a part.

The specific task of this book is to undertake a systematic application of biblical and virtue-based categories to the topic of sexuality in the hope of contributing to the ongoing renewal of moral theology sparked by the Second Vatican Council. While such a project has been partially begun by others such as Lisa Sowle Cahill, this study will attempt to recover basic biblical themes (i.e., covenant, beatitude, and discipleship) other than those on which she has focused (i.e., community and identification with the marginalized) and to give more weight to virtue itself rather than to human goods and empirical experience in an account of human flourishing.¹⁴ This study will therefore contend that the biblical theology of covenant fidelity wedded to an account of chastity as an integral part of human flourishing can provide a suitable framework for a Christian approach to issues of sexuality in a contemporary context.

In order to establish this thesis, it will be necessary to examine a number of issues: the current historical setting regarding attitudes and practices concerning sexuality; key biblical, historical, and contemporary resources for articulating a virtue-based approach to sexual ethics; current issues with which such an approach must wrestle; and some description of how to foster growth in moral virtue, particularly chastity.

Because the acquisition of virtue takes place within specific historical and cultural contexts, Chapter 1 will examine the current understanding of sexuality in Western culture, using the United States as a case in point. It will explore the tension experienced by large numbers of contemporary first-world Catholics in trying to relate the phenomenon of sexuality to their faith. These Catholics live in a culture that prizes individual autonomy and valorizes sexual expression as integral to personal fulfillment, yet they are confronted by authoritative Church teachings often perceived as hostile to such values and divorced from their own experience. Further, in the wake of the controversy over Humanae vitae and subsequent scandals, many preachers and religious educators in the Church have stopped addressing the subject of sexuality altogether. But in historical perspective, Paul VI's encyclical was but the spark that ignited the powder keg created by centuries of envisioning morality as a struggle between freedom and law.

Building on the work of recent biblical scholarship on covenant, Chapter 2 will locate the foundation for a biblical understanding of sexual union in its being a gesture that recalls and enacts a couple's covenantal pledge to one another. This understanding, which emerges from the second creation account of Genesis, is enlarged by its juxtaposition with Israel's covenant with Yahweh in later pentateuchal traditions and prophetic theology. It is transposed to a new theological context by the New Testament, which uses the mutual submission of husband and wife and their one flesh union as a mystery signifying the relationship of Christ and the Church (see Eph 5:21–33). This understanding of sex as a covenantal reality will be briefly traced through the church's liturgical and sacramental tradition.

Chapter 3 will consider other key biblical themes that can be used to frame an understanding of sexuality. Chief among these are Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of God, the invitation to discipleship, the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount (particularly the Beatitudes), and New Testament descriptions of Christian character. Some implications of overlaying these varied themes on the covenantal motif of the previous chapter will be developed in the form of a contemporary sketch of a spirituality of sexuality within marriage.

The recovery of an ethic of virtue, particularly chastity, from various historical settings and in light of some contemporary impulses, will be the aim of Chapter 4. Early Christianity, while offering no systematic account of morality, nevertheless does offer a focus on beatitude that transcends individual discussions of chastity carried on in the midst of the evolving disciplines of sexual renunciation, marriage, and penance. Aquinas's work in the High Middle Ages provides a systematic approach that integrates a discussion of human nature into a larger theological account of virtue. Modern psychology and philosophical personalism can provide further nuances in understanding the acquisition and expression of this virtue in a contemporary context.

Chapter 5 examines the human person as a sexual being—as male or female. The changing social and political status of women and the rise of feminist theory has raised fundamental questions as to how to properly account for both the equality and the differences of women and men. This study will locate the equality of the sexes in their possession of a shared human nature, while arguing that sexual difference may be understood as a fundamental relation constitutive of personhood. Chapter 5 will also consider some fundamental threats to the dignity of women and men as sexual beings, such as pornography, casual and commercial sex, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual violence.

There are other pressing contemporary issues beyond the effort to articulate the equal dignity of the sexes and to oppose those things that undermine it. There is also the widespread view that regards sex in terms of pleasure and individual fulfillment unconnected to any form of covenantal commitment. Further, there is the contemporary suspicion of fertility, which sees it as a biological constraint or a danger to a planet with a growing population and limited resources. Such views are antithetical to the thrust of the Church's tradition. Chapter 6 notes the primacy of the procreative purpose of sex within this tradition and how this can be integrated with the self-donation made possible through chastity. It will also focus on particular ethical questions regarding marital sexuality and practices that can foster conjugal chastity.

Chapter 7, the final chapter, considers issues of education in human sexuality. How does one avoid simply lapsing into the legalism of the past centuries of moral thought, while at the same time avoiding the relativism in which contemporary culture is awash? A focus on virtue and character can indeed provide a mean between these equally unhealthy extremes. While rules have a place in education in sexuality, these are but an initial stage in the interiorization of values necessary to human sexual flourishing. Equally or perhaps more important is the presentation of a compelling vision of human sexuality in the light of Christian faith that can provide a viable alternative to dominant cultural ideologies that trivialize sex and concrete practices that can enable growth in moral freedom. Such a vision in turn must be internalized both individually and communally through specific practices that shape moral action.

1. Second Vatican Council, Decree on Priestly Formation, Optatum totius, no. 16. The citation is from The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (Piscataway, N.J.: New Century Publishers, 1966), 452. Subsequent references to Council documents will be to this edition.

2. See John Mahoney, S.J., The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1987), 224–58; and Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 254–79, 327–53. Pinckaers, in particular, traces these tendencies to the corruption of Thomistic categories by nominalism (see pp. 240–53). For a helpful overview of the casuist systems to which this outlook gave birth, see Romanus Cessario, O.P., An Introduction to Moral Theology, Catholic Moral Thought Series 1 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 229–42.

3. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei verbum, no. 24. The citation is from Documents of Vatican II, 127.

4. Cf. Dei verbum, no. 21. It is significant that the first part of Pope John Paul II's landmark encyclical on moral theology Veritatis splendor (nos. 6–27) is an extended mediation on Jesus' dialogue with the Rich Young Man in Matthew 19. The treatment of the elements of fundamental moral theology that follow (freedom and law, conscience and truth, fundamental choice, sin, and human acts) are thus placed upon a biblical foundation in the form of Christ's call to discipleship.

5. On the importance of prayerful reading of Scripture by all the faithful as key to genuine renewal of Christian living and moral theology, see Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 316–23.

6. On the need for a Christological and biblical basis for the renewal of moral theology called for by the Council, see Livio Melina, Moral Theology and the Ecclesial Sense: Points for a Theological ‘Re-Dimensioning’ of Morality, Communio 19 (1992): 67–93.

7. Pastoral Constitution on the Church, Gaudium et spes, no. 22. The citation is from Documents of Vatican II, 220. For a more complete consideration of theological anthropology as the starting point for moral theology, see Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology, 4–8, 22–38.

8. Cf. Veritatis splendor, nos. 6–8. For a more complete account of the Christological basis of the moral life and the virtues, see Livio Melina, Sharing in Christ's Virtues: For a Renewal of Moral Theology in Light of Veritatis Splendor, trans. William E. May (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001).

9. In Jesus Christ and in his Spirit, the Christian is a ‘new creation,’ a child of God; by his actions he shows his likeness or unlikeness to the image of the Son who is the first born among many bretheren (cf. Rom 8:29), he lives out his fidelity or infidelity to the gift of the Spirit, and he opens or closes himself to eternal life, to the communion of vision, love and happiness with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Vertiatis splendor, no. 73). The citation is from the Vatican translation (Boston: St. Paul's Books and Media, 1993), 92.

10. Scholars who have contributed to the development and articulation of this theory include Karl Rahner, S.J., Bernard Häring, Josef Fuchs, S.J., and Timothy O'Connell. For a summary and overview of the theory, see Richard Gula, S.S., Reason Informed by Faith: Foundations of Christian Morality (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 75–83.

11. On the problems of some versions of the theory, see William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1990). Cf. Veritatis splendor, nos. 67–68.

12. In the area of moral philosophy, this would include the works of Alasdair MacIntyre and Yves Simon. In the theological arena, this would include the works of Christian ethicists such as Stanley Hauerwas and Gilbert Meilaender, as well as Catholic moral theologians such as Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Benedict Ashley, O.P., Romanus Cessario, O.P., Jean Porter, and Paul Wadell. As a barometer of popular interest, one might point to the success of William J. Bennett's Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).

13. See esp. Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 195–239. It should be noted that Pinckaers also finds a basis for the prominence of virtue-based teaching in early Christianity within the New Testament in the teaching of Paul and the patristic interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount (see pp. 104–67).

14. In her early work Cahill emphasized the theme of community in biblical sexual ethics. See Between the Sexes: Foundations for a Christian Ethics of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). Her more recent work has supplemented this with an emphasis on identification with the marginalized. See Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics, New Studies in Christian Ethics 5 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996). It is in this latter work that she identifies her work more closely with an Aristotlelian-Thomistic account of human flourishing. An overall difficulty with these works is that Cahill's revisionist commitments place her at odds with the Church's tradition and teaching on issues such as the morality of contraception, homogenital sex, and reproductive technologies.

CHAPTER 1

Clashing Symbols

Sex, Conscience, and Authority

Before examining biblical and historical sources that can be used to shape a contemporary sexual ethic, some attention must be given to the actual cultural situation to which such an ethic is addressed. This is necessary for a number of reasons.

First, it is important to attend to the context in which biblical teaching can be received and heard. While it is reductionist to totally identify the teaching of Scripture with one's own cultural horizon and experience, modern hermeneutical theory has made it clear that one's cultural horizon and experience does impact the reading of the biblical text. Therefore some awareness of this horizon, along with appropriate use of critical methods, can serve to guard against various forms of eisegesis, reading one's own ideas and presuppositions into the text.¹ In this way some awareness of the cultural matrix in which it is received can aid in the hearing and reception of God's word in Scripture.

Second, unlike other more abstract forms of moral theory, a virtue-based approach is ordered to actual praxis in specific historical situations. This means that one must attend to the actual cultural setting, symbols, and social attitudes that might impact the development of specific kinds of excellence that are integral to human flourishing. In this case, it means paying attention to the intellectual and cultural forces that have shaped contemporary attitudes toward sexuality.

Third, a certain historical perspective can shed some light not simply on the complex confluence of current cultural ideas that shape a perception of sexuality, but also on the equally complicated and often contentious debates about ethics to which they have given rise. Arguments about sexual morality may not be new, but the last thirty years have witnessed debates of unprecedented scope and intensity. These have taken place not simply within the Catholic Church, but in many Christian churches and in other religious traditions as well.

This chapter will examine current cultural attitudes about sexuality and their impact particularly on Catholic Christians. The focus of this examination will be on the experience of Catholics in Western industrialized nations, using the United States as a case in point.² It will be argued that many such Catholics experience a kind of disconnect between their faith and the experience of sexuality, shaped as it is by cultural symbols and attitudes. The roots of this alienation can be traced to a number of sources: the powerful and diverse influences that have shaped Western and U.S attitudes toward sexuality; the controversy surrounding Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae vitae; and the entrenched legalism of the Catholic moral tradition in the modern period which this controversy exposed.

I. The Experience of Alienation

Numerous studies, polls, and surveys highlight the fact that there is a disturbing gap between