UK Bishops Marriage and Family Life Project: leaflet on homosexuality (1)

I offer here a first thought on this leaflet. The text of the leaflet can be found here, and I am for once following a rule I have (but sometimes break) - respond to the original and not to the media coverage of it! The website suggests that the leaflet was first published in May 2007, so I am not sure what has now brought it to the attention of the media.

A reflection at Antagonistic Pots and Pans about recent reports of an increase in the number of children being born with Downs Syndrome is also relevant. Here is part of that post:

"But one of the biggest factors at play is people changing their attitudes. There is far more support, and advances in medicine mean that it is not uncommon for sufferers to live into their sixties."

This 'change in attitude' claim is what struck me. If attitudes change, then yes, we've still lost on many counts on the legislative level, but that legislation (to abort DS babies and all the other recent additional horrors) would lie there unused, as it would be abhorrent in society's view not to protect every life from conception to its natural end.

[But see John Smeaton's precautionary post here]

What I suspect, though, is that, if a parish community were to learn that a Mum-to-be in the parish was expecting a baby that had a high risk of being born with Downs Syndrome, they really would not have a properly developed response strategy. Considerable pastoral skill is needed to respond in a way that is both supportive of the Mum-to-be and her family and that is faithful to the teaching of the Church; a (dogmatic) restatement of the Church's teaching on abortion does not comprise such a strategy. I feel that there is an un-preparedness of Catholic parish communities, that is, of parish clergy in collaboration with their lay people, to respond to these sorts of situations. The causes of such un-preparedness lie in weaknesses in theological/catechetical formation and in the gift/grace of charity, a tendency to oppose these two at a practical level rather than to synthesise them.

So the idea of producing a leaflet about how parish communities should respond when Catholics with a homosexual inclination approach and wish to take part in the life of the parish seems to me to be a matter of very sound pastoral intent. Most parishes, including those with priests who are well formed, will simply have no real idea about how to make such a response; and it does take a considerable pastoral skill and thought beforehand.

The leaflet produced by the Bishop's Project for Marriage and Family Life is flawed. It does not represent the synthesis of Catholic teaching and charity that I suggest forms the structure of an effective pastoral response. Time permitting, I will look at this in more detail in a later post.

What would be a good idea would be to prepare an alternative leaflet that does not suffer the failures of the one just produced.