Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you and your family: your family of origin and your chosen families as well. If it seems trite to focus on family at Christmas, being in a loving community is the essence of the message of Jesus. I have been moved by a post by Jacob Kohlhaas, an associate professor of moral theology at Loras College in the New Ways Ministry daily blog. He concludes:

Within the historical tradition of the Church, there are many different understandings of kinship. At its best, the Christian understanding of the family is rooted in the unity of Christian baptism and the fact that all persons share a common creator. Contemporary social scientific research provides a complex picture of the various social and economic forces that interact to affect family forms and family well-being. And Catholic Social Teaching offers a surprising wealth of resources for reimagining the work of parenthood and our common call to commit ourselves to others. This all points to the possibility of uncovering a more actively faithful, even if less certain, path towards rethinking parenthood in the Catholic tradition.

Kohlhaas’ larger argument is that the Bishops have prioritized sexual ethics in their teaching that has resulted in an impoverished understanding of parenthood itself. I want to use his insight and replace “gender ideology” in this sentence for “sexual ethics” and “priesthood” for “parenthood.” He argues that “this behavior has actively reshaped understanding of Catholic social values as issues from health care access [ordination of deacons] to adoption [preaching at Mass] seem approachable only through this sex-first lens.” I can do this substitution for much of his article.

He writes, “what does fascinate me is how little the arguments in this case had to do with the actual work of parenting [priesthood]. What it takes to actually be a good parent [priest] rarely rose to the level of consideration.

“But following the publication of Humanae vitae [Ordinatio Sacerdotalis] in 1968 [1994] the Catholic hierarchy committed itself to a narrow path on matters of human sexuality [gender] and came to assert this commitment as centrally important. The road traveled since then has always been committed to defending a certain vision of a moral order that is absolute, philosophically abstract, and singly governed by the Church’s own authority.
The complexities of actual lived human experiences fit uneasily into this guiding framework, but, having come so far against so much opposition, Catholic leaders are now essentially locked into their defensive posture. In this predicament, engagement with human experiences and emerging social scientific evidence will always take a back seat to fears of “gender ideology” [no need for brackets here] and the “homosexual lifestyle” [women, LGBTQ people]. With no place left to turn and no clear way out, the remaining option is to force perceptions of reality into the limits of the existing paradigm for as long as it can possibly hold.”

Kohlhaas’ book is Beyond Biology: Rethinking Parenthood in the Catholic Tradition in case you want to rethink parenthood during this Christmas season, and I extend my gratitude to him for writing my blog during this busy week.

 What actually inspired me to write about families at Christmas was this Francis Chronicle:

As a child, I loved our family crèche and would play with the figures and the environment year after year. Now I have only a little fold-up wooden version but it reminds me of those families who do not have the luxury of reading books about parenthood. They are much more immersed in the actual work of good parenting and, even more, doing their best to see that their families survive. Let us raise them up as we pray before the sheltering manger this Christmas.