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Human Sexuality—A Review of Reviews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

James Gaffney
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Type
Review Article
Information
Horizons , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Spring 1978 , pp. 81 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1978

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References

1 Kosnik, Anthony, Carroll, William, Cunningham, Agnes, Modras, Ronald, Schulte, James, Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought (New York: Paulist Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

2 May, William E. and Harvey, John F., “On Understanding Human Sexuality: A Critique of the C.T.S.A. Study,” Communio 4 (Fall, 1977), p. 195Google Scholar.

3 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, “Time Makes Ancient Good Uncouth: The Catholic Report on Sexuality,” The Christian Century 93 (August 3-10, 1977), p. 682Google Scholar.

4 Montague, George T., “A Scriptural Response to the Report on Human Sexuality,” America 137 (October 29, 1977), p. 284Google Scholar. The fact that none of the book's five authors is a specialist in biblical studies has, at least in private, drawn some unfavorable comment from biblical scholars.

5 Idem. In this respect, as in other important respects, the book's lack of explicitness concerning its methodology, and the justification of its methodology, tends to arouse suspicions.

6 Idem. Very few reviewers seem to have appreciated that the only “absolutes” the authors declare to be undiscoverable in the Bible are (not declarative but) imperative propositions with regard (not to morality in general but only) to sex. There is no warrant for Montague's inference that on the authors' presupposition “nothing revealed in the Bible could ever claim lasting validity for the Church.”

7 Idem.

8 Driver, Tom F., “A Stride Toward Sanity,” Christianity and Crisis 37 (October 31, 1977), p. 244Google Scholar. This is probably the most heartily enthusiastic review the book has received in this country so far, introducing it as a “milestone of a book…, sane, courageous, charitable, hopeful, judicious, biblical, Christian and Catholic.”

9 Kosnik, et al., Human Sexuality, p. 31Google Scholar.

10 Meehan, Francis X., “Love and Sexuality in Catholic Tradition,” America 137 (October 15, 1977), p. 231Google Scholar.

11 May, and Harvey, , “On Understanding Human Sexuality,” p. 199Google Scholar.

12 Gaffney, James, “A Brace of Controversies: Sex and Authority,” America 137 (July 9, 1977), p. 15Google Scholar.

13 Kosnik, , et al., Human Sexuality, p. 77Google Scholar.

14 Meehan, , “Love and Sexuality in Catholic Tradition,” p. 232Google Scholar.

15 Driver, , “A Stride Toward Sanity,” p. 244Google Scholar. Some critical perspectives on the obscurity of this definition are suggested by Milhaven, John Giles, “Human Sexuality” (review), National Catholic Reporter 13 (June 17, 1977), p. 8Google Scholar.

16 May, and Harvey, , “On Understanding Human Sexuality,” p. 198Google Scholar. Milhaven, “Human Sexuality,” however, calls attention to the limiting capacity of the definition's reference to “male or female,” especially with regard to homosexuality.

17 May, and Harvey, , “On Understanding Human Sexuality,” p. 203Google Scholar.

18 Kosnik, , et a1., Human Sexuality, p. 92Google Scholar.

19 Cunneen, Joe, “Two Rousing Cheers,” Christianity and Crisis 37 (October 31, 1977), p. 248Google Scholar.

20 May, and Harvey, , “On Understanding Human Sexuality,” p. 205Google Scholar. McInerny, Ralph, “Sexual Criteria by Committee,” Commonweal 114 (August 5, 1977), pp. 505–507Google Scholar, reflects a similar point of view in a highly simplified fashion.

21 Cunneen, , “Two Rousing Cheers,” p. 248Google Scholar. Driver, , “A Stride Toward Sanity,” p. 246Google Scholar.

22 Driver, , “A Stride Toward Sanity,” p. 245Google Scholar.

23 Cunneen, , “Two Rousing Cheers,” p. 248Google Scholar.