Exploring sexuality in the Catholic context

The Rev. Ken Himes, O.F.M., chair of the theology department, braved a cold night and a recently diagnosed case of Walking Pneumonia to speak to a packed house at Boston College on "Learning to Teach: The Challenge of Catholic Sexual Ethics." The event, co-sponsored by the GLBTQ Leadership Council (GLC) and the theology department, was held in the Honors Library this past Wednesday night.

The conversation-style presentation covered topics as varied as the changing demographics of the church, celibacy, and the questions of homosexuality in the church. Himes opened the night by emphasizing his lack of academic experience on the topic of Catholic sexual ethics.

"I'm not here to talk to you as head of the theology department and the reason for this is in all of my years of teaching, I have never taught a course on sexual ethics," Himes said. "I don't claim any great academic expertise on sexual ethics."

Instead, Himes said, his background in sexual ethics consists of the many conversations about the topic that he had participated in over the years.

After his academic disclaimer, Himes launched into a history of Pope Paul VI's encyclical, or letter to all the churches, titled "Humanae Vitae." The encyclical, published in July 1968, reaffirmed the church's ban on all types of artificial contraception and expanded the ban to include the recently developed oral contraceptive, or birth control pill. This ban has shaped the Catholic Church's position on contraceptives for nearly 50 years.

Such a ban has clear ramifications on Catholic colleges like BC. Because of "Humanae Vitae," none of the health centers on the BC campus are allowed to offer any form of contraceptive or any type of counseling that suggests the use of contraceptives.

This is in large part responsible for BC's failing grade on a national college sexual health report card, sponsored by Trojan condoms. As previously reported by The Heights, BC scored a 1.91 out of 4.0, putting the school at 120th place out of 139 schools.

"Humanae Vitae's" influence went beyond just a ban on contraceptives to also affect the kind of conversations that Catholics had about sexual ethics.

"In many ways, much of the conversation about sexual ethics in Roman Catholicism is a just piece of the puzzle," Himes said, "and often lurking beneath the water, is a larger or different question about the authority of the church to teach: who can teach and how teaching should be thought about in the church."

The style of teaching should have changed dramatically, Himes said, as the demographics of the Catholic Church changed. He used the example of his father and his sister to illustrate the changing face of Roman Catholicism.

His father, Himes said, was a blue-collar man who was used to taking orders, not giving them. Himes' sister, on the other hand, is an executive in charge of hundreds of people.

Himes used the microcosm of his own family to illustrate the larger changes going on in Roman Catholicism. Catholics today are more likely to be white-collar workers in leadership positions than their counterparts of 50 years ago. Such a change in demographics was never really matched by a change in teaching style within the church, Himes said.

"The crisis of authority [within the church] was going to happen because the demographics were changing," Himes said. "And because the audience has changed, you can't teach the same way."

Himes noted that the change in demographics also illustrated a change in style of thought. Where American Catholics of other times would hear the word of the church and accept it as is, Catholics today are much more likely to question the church's views and positions.

Such questions, Himes noted, should be answered and discussed. In his opinion, the church's reaction to questions is often to repeat itself, only louder, or to just throw the questioner out of the theoretical room, a reaction that Himes believes is the wrong one.

"The good teacher sees that the questioner is not being defiant by asking questions," Himes said. "The good teacher says 'Here's an opportunity for me to teach better.'"

As far as the answers to the big questions on sexual ethics, Himes said that he believed that the Catholic Church had the answer to the big question right, but the answer to many others "less than right."

"Sex matters, and if you get it wrong, you screw up your own life and the lives of other people," Himes said. "It really does have an impact on your happiness, your grasp of yourself, and your ability to form healthy relationships. The church is absolutely right to say sex is important.

"Does all sex before marriage just count as premarital? Is everyone with a homosexual orientation morally disordered?" Himes said. "On all of those questions, I think the church needs to rethink and have some conversations."

Conversation is exactly what Wednesday night's event was about. The event was the joint brainchild of Amy Kyleen Lute, an organizer of the event and A&S '09, and Celso Perez, GLC president and A&S '09.

"We thought there was a need on campus to talk about Catholic sexual ethics and really to engage those questions," Perez said. "Like Father Himes said, not to be passive, obedient, not simply affirm what the teaching is but to actually engage it."

The event was the first in a series that will cover various questions of sexual ethics within the church. There will be two or more each semester, each focusing on various controversial topics of sexual ethics within the church.

Faith was another important component of the discussion. Lute and Perez, both committed Catholics, believe that the conversations should serve to ask tough questions and find answers that give attendees a broader sense of their beliefs.

"I think being Catholic is about making your faith your own and if that means challenging what you're told in order to integrate it with your experience, then that's a necessary step to really truly believing the Word," Lute said.