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Which Gradualism? Whose Relationships?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2016

Jason King
Jason King*
Affiliation:
Saint Vincent College
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Abstract

The 2014 extraordinary meeting of the Synod of Bishops explicitly referenced gradualism three times in the Relatio post Disceptationem. Is this moral theology concept helpful for analyzing relationships? This question is more difficult than it first seems. One needs to first ask “which gradualism,” as the three references imply three different understandings: Gradualism as Growth in Holiness, Gradualism as Pastoral Practice, and Gradualism as Inclusivism. Second, one must ask “whose relationship” it can help. I turn to hookup culture as it is a ubiquitous phenomenon on college campuses. As only Gradualism as Inclusivism proves helpful in hookup culture, it has the best potential to help those pursuing good relationships that might not readily align with church teaching.

Keywords

gradualismSynod of Bishopsmarriagehookup culture
Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , June 2016 , pp. 86 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2016 

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References

1 Zach Noble, Facebook message to author, January 16, 2015. Noble is a journalist and assistant editor for The Blaze, http://www.theblaze.com. The comment is used with permission.

2 Synod of Bishops 2014, Eleventh General Assembly, Relatio post Disceptationem, http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/relatio-post-disceptationem-2014-synod-bishops-family.

3 Synod of Bishops 2014, Eleventh General Assembly, Relatio Synodi, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20141018_relatio-synodi-familia_en.html.

4 New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2002), s.vv. “Synod of Bishops (Fifth General Assembly, 1980),” “McQuaid, Bernard John,” “Missiology,” and “Homosexuals, Pastoral Care of.”

5 Pope John Paul II, On the Role of the Christian Family for the Modern World (Familiaris Consortio), November 22, 1981, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html. See note 95 to Familiaris Consortio, which cites Pope John Paul II, Homily at the Close of the Sixth Synod of Bishops, October 25, 1980, §8.

6 James Keenan, A History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century: From Confessing Sins to Liberating Consciences (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), 146–51.

7 See Josef Fuchs, Christian Morality: The Word Becomes Flesh (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987), 33–37; Keenan, A History of Catholic Moral Theology, 147; Thomas Reese, “Law of Graduality: Living with the Imperfect,” National Catholic Reporter, October 31, 2014, http://ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/law-graduality-living-imperfect; David Cloutier, “Gradualism and Holiness,” dotCommonweal, October 13, 2014, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/gradualism-and-holiness-0.

8 Keenan, A History of Catholic Moral Theology, 146–51.

9 Ibid., 148–49.

10 Ibid., 147.

11 Ibid., 149.

12 See Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family (New York: Paulist Press, 2014); and Robert Dodaro, OSA, Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014).

13 Keenan, A History of Catholic Moral Theology, 147.

14 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Always Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions for Pastoral Ministers (1997), http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/homosexuality/always-our-children.cfm.

15 See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, October 1, 1986, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html.

16 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification Regarding Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS, May 31, 1999, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19990531_gramick-nugent-notification_en.html.

17 Pope Benedict XVI, The Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times: A Conversation with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 19.

18 Rachel Donadio and Laurie Goodstein, “In Rare Cases, Pope Justifies Use of Condoms,” New York Times, November 21, 2010, A1.

19 See John Allen, “Vatican Statement on Benedict XVI and Condoms,” National Catholic Reporter, November 21, 2010, http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/vatican-statement-benedict-xvi-and-condoms.

20 Pamela Paul, Pornified: How Pornography Is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

21 Mark, Kristen P., Janssen, Erick, and Milhausen, Robin R., “Infidelity in Heterosexual Couples: Demographic, Interpersonal, and Personality-Related Predictors of Extradyadic Sex,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 40, no. 5 (2011): 971–82CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

22 National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, “Understanding Intimate Partner Violence: Fact Sheet 2014,” http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ipv-factsheet.pdf.

23 Rachel K. Jones and Joerg Dreweke, Countering Conventional Wisdom: New Evidence on Religion and Contraceptive Use (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2011), 5. Although the Guttmacher Institute is controversial because of its advocacy of and origin in Planned Parenthood, these statistics on religion and contraception use are among those few available. In addition, most consider these numbers to be fairly accurate because (a) Catholics seem to use contraception at the same rates as everyone else, and (b) these are the rates for everyone else.

24 Christian Smith, Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults in, out of, and Gone from the Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 225–26.

25 Of the studies noted, none indicated that religious affiliation made any difference. Religion has been known to have some effects on sexual behavior, but the effects are usually confined to a limited number of individuals with additional markers of religiosity. See Alwin, Duane, Felson, Jacob, Walker, Edward, and Tufis, Paula, “Measuring Religious Identities in Surveys,” Public Opinion Quarterly 70, no. 4 (2006): 530–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCullough, Michael and Willoughby, Brian, “Religion, Self-Regulations, and Self-Control: Associations, Explanations, and Implications,” Psychological Bulletin 135, no. 1 (2009): 69–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Penhollow, Tina, Young, Michael, and Denny, George, “Impact of Personal and Organizational Religiosity on College Student Sexual Behavior,” American Journal of Health Studies 27, no. 1 (2012): 13–22Google Scholar.

26 For more technical definitions, see Paul Knitter, No Other Name: A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward the World Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), 123; Alan Race, Christianity and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (London: SCM Press, 1983), 62–67; Wayne Teasdale, Catholicism in Dialogue: Conversations across Traditions (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2004), 88–92.

27 Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church (Dominus Iesus), August 6, 2000, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html, can be read as a defense against relativism. Most of the critics felt it was a step backward to a kind of colonialism. See Dunn, Matthew, “The CDF's Declaration Dominus Iesus and Pope John Paul II,” Louvain Studies 36, no. 1 (2012): 46–75Google Scholar, for a summary of the critiques against Dominus Iesus.

28 For a summary of both positive and negative reactions to the reports, see Michael Sean Winter, “Reactions to the Synod,” National Catholic Reporter, October 15, 2014, http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/reactions-synod.

29 Mauro Velati, “Completing the Conciliar Agenda,” in The History of Vatican II, vol. 5, The Council and the Transition: The Fourth Period and the End of the Council, ed. Guiseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), 213.

30 Ibid., 214.

31 Ibid., 217–18.

32 See Jacques Dupuis, SJ, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997).

33 Raimon Panikkar, The Intra-Religious Dialogue, rev. ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999).

34 See Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, “Nostra Aetate: The State of the Question,” Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue, Rediscovering Vatican II (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2005), 225–58, for a detailed account of this work in interreligious dialogue.

35 Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 105–6.

36 Garcia, Justin, Reiber, Chris, Massey, Sean G., and Merriwether, Ann M., “Sexual HookUp Culture: A Review,” Review of General Psychology 16, no. 2 (2012): 163–64CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

37 Heldman, Caroline and Wade, Lisa, “Hook-Up Culture: Setting a New Research Agenda,” Sexual Research Social Policy 7 (2010): 324CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 See Fielder, Robyn L., Walsh, Jennifer L., Carey, Kate B., and Carey, Michael P., “Predictors of Sexual Hookups: A Theory-Based, Prospective Study of First-Year College Women,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 42 (2013): 1425–41CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; and Heldman and Wade, “Hook-Up Culture,” 323–33.

39 Garcia et al., “Sexual HookUp Culture,” 167–68.

40 Ibid.

41 Heldman and Wade, “Hook-Up Culture,” 325.

42 Regnerus and Uecker, Premarital Sex in America, 104. Also see Owen, Jess, Rhoades, Galena, Stanley, Scott, and Fincham, Frank, “‘Hooking Up’ among College Students: Demographic and Psychosocial Correlates,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 39 (2010): 653–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Understanding Sexual Violence,” http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/sv-factsheet.pdf.

44 Donna Freitas, The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused about Intimacy (New York: Basic Books, 2013), 70–73.

45 See Stevenson, Betsy and Wolfers, Justin, “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 1 (2006): 267–88Google Scholar.

46 See Smith, Young Catholic America, 113–17, on how students typically ignore, but rarely outright reject, church teachings.

47 Anonymous, Facebook message to author, October 15, 2014. This comment is used with permission.

48 See Kahn, Arnold S., “What College Women Do and Do Not Experience as Rape,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 28 (2004): 9–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mann, Ruth and Hollin, Clive, “Sexual Offenders' Explanation for Their Offending,” Journal of Sexual Aggression 13, no. 1 (March 2007): 3–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Michael Planty and Christopher Krebs, “Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994–2010,” U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (March 2013), 6, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvsv9410.pdf.

50 See Garcia et al., “Sexual HookUp Culture,” 167–68; and Heldman and Wade, “Hook-Up Culture,” 325.

51 For why this is and possible ways forward, see Terrence Tilley, Inventing Catholic Tradition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000).

52 Freitas, The End of Sex, as well as Freitas, Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

53 Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, “In Control? The Hookup Culture and the Practice of Relationships,” in Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, ed. David Cloutier (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010), 47–61; and Davis-Zimmerman, , “Hooking Up: Sex, Theology, and Today's ‘Unhooked’ Dating Practices,” Horizons 37, no. 1 (2010): 72–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Kelly, Conor, “Sexism in Practice: Feminist Ethics Evaluating the Hookup Culture,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 28, no. 2 (September 2012): 27–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Megan McCabe, “Hookup Culture as Rape Culture: A Shared Complicity,” Daily Theology, http://dailytheology.org/2015/09/15/hookup-culture-as-rape-culture-a-shared-complicity/; and McCabe, “Create in Me a Just Heart: Treating Pornography as Structural Sin,” America: The National Catholic Review, February 8, 2016, http://americamagazine.org/issue/create-me-just-heart.