What Covers a Multitude of Sins?

• STEPHEN P. WHITE

There is no such thing as a private sin.

 

Our moral failings — whatever they may be — have consequences that extend out far beyond our own personal guilt or innocence.  My own moral failings have consequences for my wife and children, for my friends, and so on.  My failings cause others to suffer, often in invisible ways.  My sin breeds sin and stymies virtue, in myself and in others.  How much better off would those around me be if I were a saint?

Sometimes, we are only just able to glimpse the moral filaments that connect our actions to the lives of those arounds us.  At other times, the consequences of our sins are all too apparent.  Every father who has caught his own uncharitable words in the mouth of one of his children knows the power of his own bad example.  Sometimes sins we foolishly hoped would remain secret are drawn into the light for all to see, to our own horror and humiliation.

Such moments of recognition can be occasions for grace to stir the conscience — like the cock crow that brought Peter to bitter tears.  But such occasions, in which we are put on the spot by our own consciences, do not always result in repentance and conversion.  At least not immediately.

In Mark's Gospel, a rich man comes to Jesus eager to do what he must do to inherit eternal life.  The man is at first pleased to hear that he has done all that is required, but his pleasure turns to disappointment when Our Lord asks for more.  We all know the story:

"You are lacking in one thing.  Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

The rich man was so close; he was lacking only one thing.  But he would not give up his attachment.  And Christ, who "looking at him, loved him," let him go.

Iwas reminded of this passage this week by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's response (here) to a question about "blessings for unions of persons of the same sex."  The CDF's ruling, backed by Pope Francis, is that same-sex unions cannot be blessed: "[God] does not and cannot bless sin."  This has caused anguish among those who have long hoped that the Church would find a way around Scripture and Tradition to embrace same-sex unions.

That this comes from Pope Francis — the pope of "Who am I to judge," the pope who offered measured support for same-sex civil unions, the pope in whom so many had placed their hopes for a sweeping change in doctrine — has made this an even more bitter pill to swallow.

The German bishops, who many expected to openly embrace such blessings through their Binding Synodal Process, are "not happy."  Hundreds of German priests are openly defiant.  Many other Catholics are outraged.  Some are simply walking away.

Which brings me back to the story of the rich man.

God offers mercy to all, but His offer of mercy does not spare us difficult choices.

For those of us who see the CDF's clarification as necessary and welcome, as I do, it might be tempting to dismiss this anger and dissent with, "Good!  If they will cling to what is dear rather than follow the truth, then let them go!"

It may come to that.  Some may leave, but it would not be happy thing.  The Church is for sinners.

No.  To jeer at the defeat of others in the face of hard truths is hubris.  We are all of us in need of mercy; knowing that ought to humble us.

I was reminded of the story of the rich man, not by those who are walking away from Christ and His Church on account of a hard teaching, but because it is so easy to see myself in the place of the rich man: proud, content, and unwilling to let go of what prevents me growing closer to God.

What the Church asks of Catholics with same sex-attraction may be unambiguous and simple chastity — but that does not make it easy.  God offers mercy to all, but His offer of mercy does not spare us difficult choices.  In a sense, God's greatest mercy is that choice: he offers us a way out, narrow though it may be, rather than leaving us as we are.  And though He looks at us and loves us, as he did the rich man, he leaves it to us to accept the offer.  Or not.

That thought should make us all tremble.

In the weeks and months ahead, there will be much discussion of the CDF's statement.  There will be many hard truths to defend and arguments to be made.  The issue will undoubtedly get dragged into our political debates: think of the Equality Act currently before Congress.  And it is likely to continue generating acrimony between and among Catholics.

But if sin breeds sin and stymies virtue, then love accomplishes the opposite.  As welcome as the clarity of the CDF statement may be, that clarity does not absolve any of us from the work of loving our enemies, let alone our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We pass up the opportunity to love at our own peril.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2021/03/18/what-covers-a-multitude-of-sins/

 

Acknowledgement

Stephen P. White, "What Covers a Multitude of Sins?" The Catholic Thing (March 18, 2021).

Reprinted with permission from The Catholic Thing.  Image credit: Heinrich Hofmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Author

Stephen P. White is a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. White's work focuses on the application of Catholic social teaching to a broad spectrum of contemporary political and cultural issues. His is the author of Red, White, Blue, and Catholic.

God Made You This Way—Not!

Regis Nicoll

According to a gay victim of the clerical sex scandal in Chile, Pope Francis told him, “You have to be happy with who you are. God made you this way.” It’s the conclusion reached by many Christians with same-sex attraction, whose stories share telling similarities.

They knew they were different at a young age. Throughout life, they struggled to hide their feelings and appear normal. After years of enduring rejection, low self-esteem, and depression, they learned to accept homosexuality as part of “who I am.” Eventually, they went public with their “true” identity.

Two StoriesIn an editorial for The Huffington Post, country music artist and professed Christian, Chely Wright wrote about growing up in rural Kansas. As a young girl, she developed a love for God through the influence of her Christian home and community. It was also as a young girl—aged nine, as she recalls—that she realized she was gay.

At age nine? When I was nine, I had some knowledge of the physiological differences between boys and girls, no knowledge of sexual orientation, and as for same-sex orientation … you’re kidding, right?

Nevertheless, over time Chely came to believe “that God had made me exactly as I was supposed to be.”

More familiar in Christian circles is Ray Boltz. After a two-decade career of no. 1 singles, gold albums, and Dove awards, Boltz tired of living “the lie.” The lie. Despite a 33-year marriage that produced four children, the Christian music superstar was gay. Says Boltz,

“I’d denied it ever since I was a kid. I became a Christian, I thought that was the way to deal with this and I prayed hard and tried for 30-some years and then at the end, I was just going, ‘I’m still gay. I know I am.’ And I just got to the place where I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Boltz talks of years in the hidden life, enduring depression, undergoing therapy, taking various psychiatric medications, and becoming suicidal. Then, on December 26, 2004, he disclosed the life-long secret to his family.

It was at that point, Boltz recounts “where I accepted my sexuality and who I was.” It was also the point where his marriage crumbled. (Within a year, he and his wife separated; three years later they divorced.)

Boltz eventually moved to Florida where, he says, he could be himself, free to date and live a “normal gay life.” “If this is the way God made me,” Boltz reflects, “then this is the way I’m going to live. It’s not like God made me this way and he’ll send me to hell if I am who he created me to be … I really feel closer to God because I no longer hate myself.”

Common to Chely Wright, Ray Boltz, and Christian gay advocates is the belief that our desires are fundamental to our essence, part of our God wiring. Since that is the way God created us, they reason, satisfying our desires is not only not sinful, but sanctified.

The truth is that while some desires come from God—the desire for transcendence, for example—others come from an unsettled combination of nature and nurture.

Orthodox Christianity holds that creation, as God made it, was originally good and later became corrupted by man’s rebellion. Today, the whole world bears the pathologies of a virus that has been infecting planet Earth for untold millennia. So, when a person claims that an unbiblical desire is part of “how God made me,” they are conflating dysfunction with design.

Form and FunctionAn axiom in architecture is “form follows function.” That is, the form, or design, of a thing depends on the purpose, or function, the designer intended it to serve. A John Deere tractor is designed for clearing and plowing fields. A Daimler Smart car is designed for high gas mileage and tight parking. Both products are perfectly engineered for their specialized purposes.

If, per chance, a person wanted to plow his field with a Smart car, or commute to the city in his tractor, it would be the desire of the owner, not the intent of the designer or the design of the product, that was disordered. Setting aside the moral arguments about same-sex desire, from physiological considerations alone, it is disordered because it is contrary to the function its “form” is intended to serve.

Human sexuality is uniquely designed to satisfy an essential biological purpose: reproduction. In a very real way, when a husband and wife come together they form a single biological unit through their “hand-in-glove” complementarity. It is a function that same-sex individuals are incapable of accomplishing. They can only transmogrify the sex act to indulge in sensual gratification.

Sex involves pleasure but, as C.S. Lewis once pointed out, that is no more the purpose of sex than it is the purpose of eating. In both cases, sensual enjoyment is the byproduct of functions that are indispensable to life and the continuation of the species.

Since form follows function, it is reasonable to conclude that God, as Master Architect, would not implant a desire within us that is inconsistent with our form and his purpose. What’s more, we can be sure that whatever causes same-sex orientation, even if it is ultimately traced to inheritance, it is not God, any more than he would be the cause of other congenital disorders, like club feet or cleft palates.

The book of Nature is clear: the “form, fit, and features” of a man and woman are complementary to fulfilling a basic function of life that no single individual, or same-sex pair, can. It’s a point that the Book of Scripture is clear on as well.

The Book of ScriptureIn the opening chapter of Genesis, God forms two types of creatures—male and female—born out of his desire to create and fill the universe. God could have given Adam a male “helper.” Instead, he gave him one whose design was such that, when joined with his in perfect fit, enabled them to accomplish the first divine command given to man: “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Because of their harmonizing architecture, Adam and Eve were more than the sum of their parts. For when they came together, they became one; but in their oneness produced a third, and then a fourth. Such is the mystery of biblical math.

Same-sex couplings, by contrast, can never be unitive or multiplicative because they lack the complementary features to do so. Consequently, the biblical reproach of homosexual sex is not some religious relic proved false by modern science; it’s a timeless judgment against behavior that is contrary to our God-given design and purpose.

Jesus reaffirms the human design in the Gospel of Mark: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one.”

That would have been an opportune time for Jesus to be inclusive and expand marriage to other constellations of relationships (man-man, woman-woman, groups, human-nonhuman, etc). Instead, he expands the reach of the Law. (Evidently, he didn’t foresee the revelations of twentieth-century science!)

In a series of “You have heard … but I tell you,” Jesus informs his audience that not only is adultery wrong, even lustful looks are wrong. Notice that Jesus does not limit this teaching to married people, but to those who entertain desires for someone other than their spouse. Since there is no biblical provision for same-sex marriage, all unrestrained homosexual desire would also be, in Jesus’s judgment, sinful. (But then, Jesus probably wasn’t aware of modern insights from “personal experiences” either.)

All that said, as sinners, homosexuals are no different from anyone else. Each of us is grappling with our own menu of sinful thoughts and behaviors. The church is to be a place where we are neither affirmed in our sins (whatever they may be) nor condemned for them; but a place where we are joined together on the life-long journey of transformation, overcoming sin’s gravitational pull, if incrementally and incompletely, through the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit and the caring community of faith.

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/god-made-way-not

Editor’s note: Pictured above is a detail from “Idyll, Ancient Family” painted by William Bouguereau after 1860.