Church Teaching on Sexuality and Gender Must Reflect LGBT People’s Realities, Says Theologian

The Catholic Church must treat LGBT people as a reality and develop a theology of sex and gender that reflects that reality, wrote a theologian at Fordham University.

Dr. Craig Ford wrote in Commonweal about the present inadequacies of church teaching on LGBT issues and the need for their renewal. Noting the Synod on Youth’s choice to not include the term “LGBT” despite it being used in preparatory documents as one example, Ford commented:

“Our theology of sex and gender does not reflect the actual world that God has created for us. It reflects, instead, an understanding from the world of another time.”

Ford made two further points about the need for church teaching and theology on LGBT issues to reflect lived realities. First, he highlighted the dichotomy used by some of “doctrinal” and “pastoral” approaches to these issues, using Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM, Cap., and Fr. James Martin, SJ, as examples of opposing sides in this debate. Ford commented that the “doctrinal” approach of the former is a “nonstarter for queer persons.” He advocated the pastoral approach as the only path:

“The use of the term [LGBTQ+ Catholic] assures queer persons that, regardless of how the theological conversation ends around sexuality, it nevertheless begins with each person on equal footing. In other words—and as Francis in his papacy has relentlessly pointed out through comments validating the experience of queer persons—there is no other approach to queer issues other than to maintain a humble respect for how queer persons experience their own embodiment. There is, then, no other approach besides a pastoral approach. Such is the way of mercy—indeed, such is the way of the Lord Jesus—that Francis is trying to model for us.”

Ford continued his critique by suggesting the debate over terminology “distracts us from the conversation that we should be having” on how to update theologies of sex and gender so they align with reality. Promoting an ethic that develops first from reality, he wrote “we cannot talk about what the world should be like until we come to an understanding of what the world is like.” He explained:

“The truth is that our theology of sex and gender does not reflect the actual world that God has created for us. It reflects, instead, an understanding from the world of another time. But more importantly, such a theology does not reflect a truly Catholic method of studying sexuality, which has typically come through the framework of natural law. The natural law, as an ethical framework, represents an approach to human flourishing that begins with an honest assessment of what it’s like to be humans running about in the world. This requires, in the case of understanding human sexuality, a broad consultation with scientific and philosophical approaches to human sexuality. Only after this point can we begin to ask what light the Gospel shines on what it would mean for human beings to flourish as sexual and gendered creatures.”