Denver Catholic

18 JULY 22-AUGUST 11, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Awkward? Or wise? A sked to name books that gave me the greatest intellectual jolt in recent decades, I'd quickly cite two. N.T Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God (For- tress Press) accepts every grand-slam bid from the guild of Scriptural deconstruc- tionists and skeptics, calmly replies, "I'll see you and raise you" — and then takes the game with a fl ourish, leaving the unbiased reader convinced of, well, the resurrection of the Son of God. Then there is The Sources of Chris- tian Ethics, by Servais Pinckaers, OP (Catholic University of America Press). If I could put one book into the hands of every (and I mean every) combatant in the post-Amoris Laetitia debate, Father Pinckaers' masterpiece would be it. Why? Because so much of the controversy over Pope Francis's post-synodal apostolic exhortation refl ects the hard rules/soft rules argu- ment about the Christian moral life that Pinckaers explodes. The moral life, he insists, is not fi rst and foremost a matter of rules; it's a matter of beati- tude. The Sermon on the Mount is the Magna Carta of Christian ethics. Yes, there are rules, or moral norms, but the Church teaches them in order to lead stumbling humanity toward hap- piness by helping us grow in the vir- tues that make for human fl ourishing. The recovery of this insight — that beatitude is the goal of the moral life and that the virtues are at the heart of Christian morality — is one of the great achievements of post-Vatican II Cath- olic theology. Too many churchmen seem unaware of it, though, and so they remain frozen in time, trapped in the hard rules/soft rules debate. Thus it's been interesting in recent months to see renewed references to the moral theology of Father Bernhard Häring, C.SS.R. Häring, an anti-Nazi hero during World War II, had a signifi cant infl uence on the immediate post-Vat- ican II period; yet, he too seemed strangely imprisoned in a pre-Vatican II mindset. He was something of a rules-centered ethicist before the Council; he remained something of a rules-centered ethicist after the Coun- cil. What changed was his approach to the rules: He was a rigorist before the Council and a laxist afterwards. But the rules-centered paradigm was the same. Which is to say, Father Häring missed the Pinckaers Revolution. And judging from the commentary in the wake of Amoris Laetitia, so did a lot of others, not least among those who think of themselves as the party of Catholic progress. This is very unfortunate. The Church can and must do a better job of explaining that, behind every "no" the Church says to this, that, or the other human failing or foible, there is a resounding "yes:" A "yes" to beat- itude, a "yes" to human fl ourishing, a "yes" to noble living, a "yes" to a particular virtue. Grasp the "yes," and each "no" begins to make sense as an invitation to live the virtues that make for a truly fulfi lled life. The Pinckaers approach to the moral life gets us to "yes." The rules-based approach — in its hard (rigorist) or soft (laxist) form — fi nds it hard to do that. I might add that there isn't a shred of empirical evidence to suggest that the lax-rules approach is pastorally successful in bringing the bored, alienated, indi› erent, or confused back to a full and sustained practice of the faith, whereas there's lot of evidence that the living parts of the Church are those that have embraced the Pinckaers approach–which had a decisive infl uence on John Paul II's encyclical on the renewal of Catholic moral theology, Veritatis Splendor. But that's a tale for another time. I was reminded of the Pinckaers/ Häring divide when, a few months back, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster told a meeting in London that the Church would "persist" in being "awkward" when challenged by the many forms of the sexual revolution. But is that quite the right image? Is the Church being "awkward" (or "obstinate," another term the cardinal used)? The 21st-century Church that proclaims certain moral truths in the face of sharp cultural opposition isn't being di› erent for the sake of being di› erent or mule-headed; and it isn't being deliberately clumsy. The Church of the New Evangelization is saying, "Here's what we think makes for the happiness you seek. Here are the virtues that make for that happi- ness, according to millennia of expe- rience. Let's talk about it." That's true pastoral accompaniment. The Catholic Di© erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Teen Vogue's anti-theology of the body I f your daughter has a subscrip- tion to Teen Vogue, I would strongly urge you to cancel it. Immediately. The magazine recently featured a how-to arti- cle about a particular sexual act that I will leave unnamed. (Let's just say that, aside from its myriad other risks, it would leave these girls particularly prone to hemorrhoids.) I initially didn't read the article, to avoid giving them clicks, and also not particularly wanting that information in my head. But writing about it, I thought I should know what it said. So I skimmed it. And now I want to throw up. Lest you wonder if this was merely a cautionary piece — well, it was not. It was, in fact, a full-fl edged endorsement. The phrase "feels awe- some" appeared at least three times. Throw in a few "delightfuls," some "perfectly normal" and the reassur- ance that people have been doing this since the beginning of time, and you'll start to get the idea. These people are not interested in what is best for your daughters. I brought it up on Facebook, and naturally my timeline is exploding with concerned mothers. Panicked mothers. I don't blame them. What's a parent supposed to do in a situation like this — in world like this? Do you really need to sit your kid down and have a long talk about each and every sexual variant that crosses their path? Do you have to research the risks, explain in great detail why it isn't "awesome"? Do we have to infl ict all of this darkness onto our kids? In a word, no. In the 30 years I have been speaking on chastity, I have found that leading with warnings — about diseases, risks, pregnancy, even sin — is not particularly e› ective. It's negative. It's dark. And teens, whose neurological capacity to assess risk isn't even fully developed, tend not to believe us anyway. So what do we do instead? We inspire them. When I was a senior in college, I heard a series of talks on the Church's teaching on sex and marriage, based in the Theology of the Body. I was completely blown away. It was beau- tiful. It was about real love — the deepest desire of my heart. It was about the God who loves me, and about the incredible plan he designed for our bodies and our relationships. It uplifted me. It inspired me. It made me want beauty and goodness and truth in my life. And it helped me to see all of these other counterfeits for exactly what they were. Abuses. The misuse and distortion of something profoundly good. I am a big fan of crowding out the ugly with the beautiful. Once teens have a context — once they appreciate the beauty of God's plan for sex and love — the other dis- cussions get a lot easier. Sin? Easy to understand — taking his plan out of context does damage to ourselves and others, so of course God doesn't want us to do it. Physical and emotional risks? Same thing. Most importantly, if they fully understand that sex speaks the lan- guage of marriage, they won't be so inclined to "experiment." Obviously, I can't give you that entire teaching in the 600 words I have here. But I wrote a book that does that. It's called Real Love, and you can fi nd it on Amazon. Even if your kids aren't reading Teen Vogue, kids around them proba- bly are. You need to be proactive. Get lots of good information into their brains and their hearts. So that when they see the dark stu› , they will recognize it for what it is. Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver and the author of We're On a Mission from God and Real Love. MARY BETH BONACCI

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