Bishops on faith, love, family and sex

GOD, LOVE, LIFE AND SEX: Guide and Resource for Christian Living, Marriage and Family. Published by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (2013). 233pp. R40

Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher
At a time when Catholics are subject to the ever-more pervasive influence of secular values which stand in contradiction to those taught by the Catholic Church, an accessible compendium of Catholic teachings on family life and sexual morality is essential in filling a void.

No doubt, God, Love, Life and Sex — nominally written by South Africa’s five metropolitan bishops but actually a broader collective effort — is accessible. It is written in simple language, and at the heavily subsidised price of R40 it is affordable to most Catholics.

With their book, the bishops explicitly invite those Catholics who have reservations about some Church teachings — whom they frequently describe as “confused” — to be open to persuasion, by appeal to obedience and to reason.

Some chapters are very good. The bishops take some time to discuss the clerical abuse scandal with commendable candour, and their condemnation of the exploitation and abuse of women merits amplification, especially when they say that cultural excuses for dominating women are incompatible with the faith. They also acknowledge quite forthrightly that in this regard the Catholic Church’s history is not at all unblemished.

The bishops are advocating what they term a “Christian feminism” that draws from the philosophy of complementarity, which they explain in some detail.

The chapters on abuse, rape, human trafficking and pornography and on abortion especially are quite excellent.

What a pity, then, that the book holds up St Maria Goretti as a model for chastity because she was mortally wounded in fighting off a rapist.

In a country such as South Africa, where rape is so common, this archaic view sends an appalling, even if unintended, message that a rape victim has somehow failed in her call to chastity by being subjected to sexual assault.

The section on homosexuality is inevitably bound to be sensitive, but whatever one’s views on LBGT issues are, the bishops are unequivocal in saying that the discrimination and hatred of gay people has no place in Christian life.

The section on euthanasia would have been better served had it not been coupled with suicide, which the bishops then entirely neglect to discuss.

This is an opportunity missed, since suicide affects many families and is still poorly understood, even among some priests. Moreover, to link it with euthanasia serves to exacerbate the stigma attached to those cases in which mental health led to suicide.

One may hope that a future edition of the book will note that there is a big difference between elective euthanasia and suicide: whereas the former is a conscious, deliberate act to end one’s life — and therefore is putatively a sinful act — the latter most often is the consequence of mental disease, and therefore not necessarily chosen consciously and deliberately. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well.

Although the book is extensively footnoted, some arguments offered in support of Church teachings are unattributed or cite outdated scholarship. For example, the condom is described as inherently unsafe in preventing the transmission of HIV on the basis of one study from 1987. The current position of the US-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is that “condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV”.

There is no agenda in this. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the bishops are at one in saying that the only safe way of prevention HIV-infection is “to abstain from sexual activity or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship [the Church would limit that to marriage] with an uninfected partner”.

Some readers will be left searching for something more solid than is offered in these 233 pages, but most readers will be grateful for a book which affirms them in living, or trying to live, a life that accords with the teachings of the Church.

On a minor point of editing, it seems unfortunate that references to “our present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI” were not redacted before publication, almost half a year after the pope announced his retirement.

The bishops were brave to tackle a series of controversial issues in one digestible volume, and they must be commended for deciding to do so.

The book will probably sell out. If it does, the bishops may be well served by issuing a revised second edition which finetunes some areas of content.

• Also see the God, Love, Life and Sex website