Second Sight

It is over two years since I wrote in general terms about the concept of the natural law (July 4 2008) but some recent correspondence in this paper suggests that there are certain aspects which could profitably be revisited. I have in mind, simply as examples, letters from Simon Reilly and Hugh Dwan (July 30).

Mr Reilly tells us that, being written in the heart of man, natural law is not subject to change and is self-evident. This, as a broad statement, is unexceptionable but, without refinement, it can lead to misunderstanding – and so wrong inferences. While it is certainly true of the major principles such as that the good should be done and evil avoided, that injustice is wrong, that moral principles are universally applicable – and so on, it is not so when judging the application of the more detailed tenets.

Since such tenets are derived from the circumstances of human nature, change is always possible. For example, the human reproductive system evolved to favour frequent pregnancies to cope with high early mortality. Such fertility would now be unsustainable, so natural family planning, which would formerly have been condemned, has become virtuous. Similarly, our relatively recent ability to donate a kidney to someone in need is seen as an act of love and not prohibited “mutilation”, as our earlier understanding would have judged it.

A second factor can be new knowledge. And, in the 19th century – when the microscope corrected our Aristotelean understanding of conception – the moral status of early abortion was changed correspondingly. Nowadays we realise at an increasing depth the interfusion between the psychological and biological elements in the human being. In the light of this knowledge we can see the potential inadequacy of absolute moral dicta based on biological phenomena. We might note, as a minor example of this approach, that one may, in justified cases, deceive but that telling an actual lie is held, “by its very nature”, to be always wrong because it violates the purpose of speech.

This is not to suggest that the inferences which may be drawn from the biological nature of human acts are irrelevant to natural law decisions, but rather that they should be part of the evidence to be weighed rather than the final arbiter.

That such tenets are not always self-evident can be illustrated by many examples. So I just choose some well-known ones.

It was not evident to the Church that everyone had a natural law right to freedom of religious conscience and practice. So Vatican II and the teaching of John XXIII corrected a misapprehension of centuries. And corrected it so effectively that Pope John Paul was able to say, with a straight face, that the Holy See “has always been vigorous in defending freedom of conscience and religious liberty”. I imagine that the odd heretic raised a singed eyebrow at that.

Slavery, which Pope John Paul condemned as intrinsically evil, was condoned throughout most of the Church’s history. And, if I remind you of the long history of the castration of youths for the sake of the glory of God and the Sistine choir, it is only to exemplify how some natural law applications have been far from self-evident.

We are very aware of the outstanding contemporary example of widespread episcopal collusion favouring the interests of the abuser over the rights of the abused. In rightly condemning corrupt individual priests and nuns we may forget that the real scandal lies in the institutionalised blindness to the duty owed to the victims.

Which brings me to Mr Dwan’s reminder that Pope Paul claimed that “no member of the faithful could deny the Church’s competence in her Magisterium to interpret the natural moral law”. Leaving aside what Karl Rahner described as the “many doctrines which were once universally held but have proved to be problematic or erroneous”, we are still left with analysing what is meant by interpreting the natural moral law.

For the Magisterium to elucidate and witness to the natural law and its applications in particular circumstances is of course an invaluable service. But it differs in kind from its authoritative teaching based on revelation and tradition. Since natural law is patent to reason, such interpretations must equally be patent to reason and, like any legal body interpreting a law, the reasons for any conclusions should be given. Of course an inconclusive natural law argument may well be paralleled or supplemented by Revelation or by some other factor to which the Church has privileged access – but this is not, by definition, a discernment of natural law through reason.

A straightforward example is provided by monogamous marriage. While natural law strongly supports the concept, it is accepted that reason could allow polygamy in certain unusual circumstances. Moses was not condemned for permitting it among the Jews, yet Jesus makes it clear that it was not God’s intention for the human race – clarifying the divine will through revelation.

The principles here, if not my examples, are of course related to Aquinas, whose teachings on the natural law have been seminal both in Christian and secular thinking. I would encourage anyone who wishes to look into the question more deeply to start with him and then proceed to the Catechism, in which natural law has several references. It is particularly valuable on the relationship of natural law to the divine law and also on the ease with which sin and habit can cloud our grasp of what the natural law demands. Perhaps the missing element here is that it does not clarify that sin and habit can cloud the vision of institutions as well as individuals.

Lots of opportunity to argue about this one…

This contribution, and the two comments which follow immediately, have been copied from “The culture of community”. The comprehensiveness of John Candido’s contribution suggests that it should be posted separately to allow for the points made to be explored.

John Candido on 27 Apr 2010 at 12:49 pm

The Catholic Church in parts is a thoroughly disgusting institution. The Vatican is insensitive to outside opinion because it is so wrapped up in its own collective ego and position of power. Nobody elects them except themselves. The laity have no say as to who will be a Bishop, or any other high-ranking prelate within our dioceses or within the Vatican. Ask yourself, do they talk to anybody outside their inner circle? No, they do not. Why not? Because nobody has any power to remove anybody within the Vatican except the Pope, who can only go by resignation or death. What is so obvious about the Vatican is that as an institution, it is self-perpetuating, unelectable, and therefore moribund as a consequence. This is the essence of the Vatican.

Parts of the Vatican are tainted by a disgusting group of celibate paedophile protectors, who have the gall and arrogance to defend clergy who have commited crimes against children. In addition, the Pope’s capacity to govern the church is now under question because of decisions he took while he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and for former decisions he made while he was an Archbishop in his native Germany. His suitability to govern is also under question because of decisions he has taken while holding the office of Pope. Vis-a-vis, the apointment of Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson as a catholic bishop, his risable comment about condom use in Africa, for his poor handling of ecumenical relations with the Anglican Church in England, and for inadvertently insulting the people of the Islamic faith through a speech he gave at a German university. Sadly, it looks increasingly the case that the Pope should resign his office.

Please pause for a moment and contemplate what has happend to thousands of vulnerable children around the world. What parts of the Vatican and other diocesan bishops have done by protecting priests who have committed serious crimes is to spit into the faces of children, spit into the faces of women who have been abused, and spit upon the very face of Christ himself! And in tandem with their own bankrupt policies of clergy management, they have also treated the law with total contempt. There is no question that the modern world is aghast by this and will not acknowledge the church as having any credibility or integrity.

The Vatican as an institution lacks the virtues of courage and humility, and a governing culture bounded by transparency and accountability. These virtues and values of governance are linked, because you need courage in order to be humble and you need both courage and humility in order to accomodate transparency and accountability. To wit, the church needs to humbly admit its searing errors regarding child abusers and summon the courage to reform its structures, processes, disciplines, policies, and doctrines. In addition, it needs a thorough updating through doctrinal reform by looking at the knowledge gained through the research of universities into the human condition. It must incorporate into its doctrines a modern understanding of psychology, psychiatry, genetics, sexology, sociology, and anthropology. To fail to reform their thoroughly mediaeval doctrinal positions on sex, sexuality, and birth control, is utterly non-catholic because it is not consistent with the truth of modern knowledge as the world knows it. To remain ignorant of a modern understanding of human beings in order to maintain the status quo on all her teachings, is to truely lack courage and humility. In consequence, the Vatican is a poorly led coward’s paradise populated by paedophile protectors and law breakers.

One essential starting point that the church cannot compromise on is the notion that every human being, believer and non-believer alike, is absolutely entitled to their own conscience. The primacy of the individual conscience is an unasailable reality that cannot be diluted by any individual or power structure. It will take some courage and humility for the Vatican, their apologists, as well as the multitude of sycophants and conservative ratbags around the world, to accept this unconditionally. Any attempts to dilute this teaching on conscience while the modern secular world is watching will be fatal for the church’s mission to spread the Gospel. Not only will she be exposed for the antediluvian fossil that she is, but the modern world will declare her a risible farce.

How do we resist a power structure that is dysfunctional, vainglorious, self-perpetuating, and unassailable? What I have done over the last decade is to stop going to mass for good and to take up Christian Meditation, as rediscovered and taught by the late Fr. John Main OSB and currently led by Fr. Lawrence Freeman OSB. I will never return to this dark and forbidding institution, which claims an affinity with Jesus Christ, until it is thoroughly reformed and reconstructed. The Vatican is a pox on the Gospel, but she will never see this in a millenia. In addition, don’t send your children to mass or to a catholic school and stop giving any money to their charities and schools. Children can still be taught about the Gospel through personal instruction and the example of their families. Use the internet and the mass media to highlight your disatisfaction, and wherever possible litigate against any church employed individual or structure, that you have reasonable grounds to believe has committed crimes or assisted criminals.

The modern, civilised, and cosmopolitan world that we have grown up in demands that we take whatever civilised and legal action that is within our means, in order to rectify error in our church. The Catholic Church is currently in a very poor state and it needs our activism and our prayers. She must rediscover humility and courage, together with modern values of governance, such as transparency and accountability. We the laity and whoever is with us, must seek to change what is a structurely moribund institution, by confidently exposing lies, obfuscation, criminality, and ecclesiastical dysfunctionality.

claret on 27 Apr 2010 at 9:35 pm

I know that this is the most serious of subjects but I can’t help wondering what made John stop when he had just got started?!

It would seem that his views on the ‘primary of conscience’ are a ‘get out of jail free’ card that we should all have. Taken to a logical degree it might even be a matter of consience for a priest deprived of a natural outlet for his sexual desires through marriage, as demanded by the Church, to successfully reason with his consience ( as some have done,) that the objects of their sexual perversions enjoyed what was happening to them

(as some would have at the time,)and so it was sinless.

That aside i wonder what posters thought about the letter from the Bishops of England and Wales that was read out at Mass last weekend. (John is excused this as he does not attend Mass any more. Incidentally does Fr. Freeman?)

For me it fell short as it did not address the harm done to those lay Catholics who have loyally kept the faith. It did not say a word about what would happen to any member of the clergy convicted of criminal offences in the future. It said nothing about reform. As John rightly points out this is a letter from unaccountable Bishops who would seem to have taken no account of what any lay Catholic has to say. A corrupt power system sustained by corrupt power.

st.joseph on 28 Apr 2010 at 8:45 am

The Gospel reading for todays Mass is taken from St Johns Gospel.12;44-50. It is worth a look.

When the Body of Christ is suffering we who belong to His Body suffers too.

But however the Gospel reading today ought to give us consolation and to hang in there,The Eucharist gives us Life.

And He has said it.

We are so Blessed to be able to receive Our Lord in the Mass.

Jesus did not deny His Body and Blood to Judas, so why should we deny it to ourselves! No one can say we are worthy of such a Gift.

One key issue in the debate which took place while the Children, Schools and Families Bill (2009) was being discussed was the emphasis on the Magisterium’s constant teaching that parents are the first educators of their children and that they, rather than the state, had ultimate responsibility for family life education. But this teaching requires, in my view, a continuing and mighty consideration because it imposes on parents a great responsibility.

It was my habit when preparing engaged couples for marriage to ask them, during the appropriate session, from whom they had first learned the facts of life. Regularly, nine out of 10 reported that this was in the playground or its equivalent. In practice Catholic children’s first explicit educators are often misinformed friends.

I can remember my friend Patrick enthusiastically explaining “the facts” to me when I was 10 years old. His version had struck me as bizarre when contrasted with the accurate account I had received long before from my parents. Yet it remains true that parents are necessarily the first and foundational educators, even if that education is negative by its default.

When does the process start? I have heard the age of five suggested, But this is five years too late. Sex education starts at birth. In fact, to be absolutely accurate it starts some time before birth.

Over-anxiety is a great enemy of mature sexual attitudes, and we know that high (as opposed to normal) levels of anxiety in a pregnant mother can increase the risk of an over-anxious child.

Infancy is the time when we first learn how love is expressed through physical contact. And gradual social interaction leads the baby to understand that its universe contains other people with their own separate needs to which it must respond. Few psychologists would disagree that the essential foundation for trusting intimate relationships is largely made or marred by the age of three.

Despite its influence on mature sexuality we might instinctively refrain from describing such a young age group as overtly sexual. Yet of course infants are overtly sexual, as any observant mother of children of both sexes will know.

We may not accept the significance that Freud gave to infant sexual feelings, but we should not deny the evidence which he used. If we equate genital sexual feelings and fantasies with loss of innocence (which I do not) then that innocence is lost very early.

But children do move into a latency period which lasts until the first prickings of puberty begin. This period is of course a key opportunity for explicit sexually connected information. The parental belief that this curtails childhood is simply an unwitting cover-up for a problem which lies with the parent rather than the child.

A child has a natural curiosity about its own origins and, of course, the birth of further siblings or the pregnancies of family friends. If children learn from the start that their questions are welcomed and are answered, naturally, at the right level this will continue. The young are curious to hear about new life, and, at the right time, to understand the special nature and expressions of married love. My friend, Eugene Byrne, has saved me the trouble of listing these (Letters, April 16). At this stage such knowledge is absorbed quite naturally; there is no embarrassment in the child, as there will be once the taboo caused by puberty starts.

I recall my four-year-old asking about the new baby. In fact I didn’t answer; I asked the six-year-old to explain to her sibling. Which she did, leaving me only a minor point or two to clarify. It was a good occasion.

In this atmosphere it is easy and natural for queries and comments triggered by television, the school playground and even sex education given at school to be raised and discussed. This provides an opportunity to clear up misunderstandings or examine public values critically, as they arise.

This is, of course, the opposite of sexualisation, to which our children are being exposed every day. Sexualisation is the belief that sexual attraction is the key to earning self-esteem and esteem from others. And nowadays it seems to involve the belief that actual sexual activity is expected behaviour.

We cannot protect our children entirely from external and peer pressure but we can, in the ways I have described, build the foundation on which sexuality is seen as a great and privileged gift from God.

The approach I have described will encourage parents to take an active interest in what the school is doing, and how. There is nothing to be gained by looking over a teacher’s shoulder but we should at least be sure that the teachers involved are among the best in the school, and are ready to explain their educational approach at each stage -  showing how they communicate deep Catholic values in a way which relates to the actual experiences of the children. Thus the school and the parents can work together to ensure that this very important element of education is achieved successfully.

I need hardly mention that throughout childhood the parental marriage will, for good or ill, prove a powerful, unconscious model. Fortunately we are  not required to be perfect. Children need to learn from us how to cope with failures and problems, as well as with success.

Society has, of course, a legitimate interest in family life education because of its responsibility for the stability of society. The fact that, at present, its secular agenda reflects a bankrupt social ethos which fragments society does not affect this principle. We may hope that our own work will provide a good example from which society can learn.

Not a strange dream to have at Eastertide. Christ, blooded with scourging and the crown of thorns, being mocked by his tormentors. But my waking mind saw clearly that the figure was Christ and Pope Benedict at the same time.

It is part of my job, and often my penance, to see virtually every comment on the Pope which is published in the English-speaking world. And, although the latest batch started with his statement on condoms and Aids in Africa, they now of course refer to his attitudes towards paedophilia, as Archbishop of Munich, as head of the CDF and as Pope. And we can be sure that these remarks will come thicker and faster as the Papal visit approaches.

I have no intention of producing an apologia for the Pope. Sometimes he has done or said exactly the right thing, sometimes more prudence  and less naivety would have been helpful. But in no instance has he acted without loving and thoughtful concern. Which is a great deal more than can be said of many of his critics, in their smug and ignorant righteousness.

That may be uncharitable, so I will try to make up for it by redoubling my prayers for the Pope this Easter.

O     O     O

I have not found it possible to give a brief, yet adequately detailed, account of the various elements in the stories which led to the accusations being made about the Pope. But below I give links to pieces which will help those who want to investigate them. And indeed to comment, where appropriate. I need hardly say that most of the world’s press have shown a greater interest in hate headlines than in constructive commentary.

A detailed and expert account regarding the secrecy imposed on those involved in paedophila cases.

Account of the Pope’s level of responsibility and attitude towards paedophile cases.

Vatican statement on Fr Lawrence Murphy

A revealing account by the Church judge in the Murphy case.

Discussion of the New York Times story on Fr Peter Hullermann

The human race is sitting on a time bomb. It is not the sort of time bomb which might or might not explode: it most certainly will explode - disastrously, and it is doubtful whether we can do more than mitigate some of its effects.
I am not speaking of global warming, I am speaking of population. And, if we cannot predict the future with certainty, we can at least predict the number and shape of populations over appropriate time scales with reasonable confidence. The prospect makes me shudder.
The Church teaches that marriage is centred on the procreation of children, and exhorts us to be generous in the size of our families - only limiting them for serious reason. And the Church is absolutely right. The explosion we face is not too many hungry mouths and too few resources. On the contrary, the problem is that we do not have enough children.
Am I barmy? After all, the world’s population has doubled since the 1950s, and is expected to reach over nine billion by 2050. And it’s true that in the shorter term, and in the light of climate change, we will have to make more efficient use of resources, including artificial means, to feed the world. We shall succeed, but that will not solve the real problem. That lies in the fact that, on a worldwide basis, fertility is dropping, and people are living longer. The result has to be that the average age will rise, and there will be fewer and fewer active people to support those who are too old to work.
Let me dip my toes into statistical water. In 1950 around 200 million people were 60 or over; today it is 700 million, by 2050 it will be two billion. The rate of growth in the number of old people is more than twice that of the world population as a whole. Now think of the possible consequences. The ratio of working people to retired people, which was 12 to one in 1950, will be four to one in 2050. (It will be two to one in Europe by that date.)This will create a huge tax burden to meet social security costs when, as is usually the case, they are paid from current taxation and not out of a long-term fund.
The current financial downturn will not help the situation. Not only have many pension schemes been obliged to change benefits from a percentage of earnings at retirement to an investment fund whose results depend on investment success and volatile annuity rates, but individual pension “pots” have been reduced. Intergenerational financial assistance will be much reduced since working children will be relatively fewer and taxed more heavily. And older people living alone (predominantly women) will be vulnerable to much greater isolation.
Developed and developing countries are on a different time-scale. Already developed countries have a much lower ratio of employed to retired, but the developing countries are catching up and, since the changes will occur more quickly, there will be less time to adjust. I leave the effects of political unrest and international security to your imagination.
If you would like to check my summary and look into further detail, try Googling the UN World Population Ageing Report 2009. I promise you that the executive summary will make “each particular hair stand an end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine”.
But the worst is yet to come. Do you recognise the following figures: 2.1, 1.96, 1.37, 1.82? The first is the number of children each woman must have on average to replace the population in a developed country. The remaining figures are the median ones achieved between 2005 and 2010 in Ireland, Malta and Britain. I have included two “Catholic” countries, but I could have chosen almost any developed country.
We are simply not reproducing ourselves. And this is why the world population will begin to fall after 2050 - when the effects of population ageing have worked their way through. A good thing, too, you may say, looking at the birth rate of developing countries. But the birth rate of developing countries is a function of high, early, mortality rates; it will fall to European levels as standards of living rise and economic contraception is widely available. Always has, always will.
A problem lies in the fact that the fertility rate of a country is a decision of personal convenience not a decision of government. Even China, with its draconian legal curbs, achieves 1.73 children per woman, virtually the same as Britain. But our prosperity is, rightly or wrongly, founded on modified market forces. A falling population means falling consumption, and that means economic depression on an unprecedented scale and unprecedented length.
Do the maths. I calculate, assuming a rate of 1.5 children per average woman, that a given population of 100 per cent will reduce to one per cent in 15 generations. Eventually the human race will get all the way back to Adam and Eve - and we can wrap it up and all go home.
You can see this illustrated informatively and amusingly here. But look at the information rather than the entertainment. It’s serious. I have seen it suggested that every married woman, who is in a position to do so, should aim at a family of three children. That looks about right because it allows for the unmarried, the infertile and those who have grave reason for restricting their families. It won’t solve the problems I have described in this column but it will be a step or two towards reducing them. A quick check tells me that my wife and daughters have a fertility rate of 3.2. So we pass, but many of you will have done much better.

You will no doubt have heard that the Charities Commission, which effectively prevented Catholic adoption societies from continuing to operate under a Catholic banner, has been instructed by the Court to review its decision. It seems very likely that our adoption societies will be able to meet the remaining criteria without difficulty.

The key Regulation in the Equality Act reads like this:
18.—(1) Nothing in these Regulations shall make it unlawful for a person to provide benefits only to persons of a particular sexual orientation, if—
(a) he acts in pursuance of a charitable instrument, and
(b) the restriction of benefits to persons of that sexual orientation is imposed by reason of or on the grounds of the provisions of the charitable instrument.

There is an irony here, Apparently the regulation was inserted at the behest of the homosexual lobby to prevent their charities being sued for discrimination by heterosexuals.

Of course schadenfreude is unknown on this blog, but I have to admit that I greeted the news with a cheery smile. Any group of people, which seeks to restrict basic Catholic rights, while enhancing its own, is always likely to slip on its own  banana skin.

O     O     O
It was announced last week that Ed Balls, whom we have discussed much in connection with sex education, has been invited to appear on Any Questions (Radio 4. Friday evening and Saturday lunchtime). If he appears and is asked to speak on such matters it may well be that some of you will have a comment or two to make on this blog. I hope so.

What do you want from this column? One of the advantages of Second Sight Blog is that I get enough feedback to make a judgment. And one topic which is popular is apologetics. This is perhaps because the media is so full of anti-Catholic propaganda that readers need information to explain matters to their friends. And others would just like the facts for their own peace of mind. A good example of this is provided by the Pope’s statement, when he visited  Cameroon, that condoms are not the answer to HIV. Although he said this last March, the clamour gets louder as the Pope’s visit approaches.

That does not surprise me. If condoms are effective in preventing HIV/Aids, it must follow that an increased use of condoms will leads to a reduction in infection. Only someone as doctrinaire as the Pope or as brain-washed as a Catholic could believe otherwise. So let’s have a quiz.

1) Are condoms really effective in checking the transmission of the Aids virus in sexual congress?

2) Does the Church forbid the use of barrier contraceptives in all circumstances?

3) Is the Pope correct in saying that condoms are not the solution to the Aids epidemic in Africa?

Just pause and think about your answers before reading on.

The answer to Question 1 is yes. Several studies considered by the World Health Organisation of “always” condom users showed a transmission rate of one for every 100 person years, compared with seven for non-condom users. That is a very high level of protection.

This may raise an eyebrow. Did not Cardinal Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, say that condoms were a very unreliable protection against transmission?

Indeed he did. He simply declined to accept the established scientific evidence. That was a matter for his conscience. In addition, it is important to remember that condoms must be used correctly and invariably. They must also be of good quality and in good condition.

The answer to the second question is no. The Church’s teaching on artificial contraception is based on the total giving of oneself, and one’s faculties, in the physical expression of marriage. She makes no statement about the use of contraceptives outside marriage; and that would equally apply to homosexual acts.

This puts us into the position of having to make up our own minds. It seems clear to me that to fornicate while choosing to risk an unwanted pregnancy or the transmission of serious disease multiplies the sin as an offence against love. I am aware that some people hold that because two sins would be involved, the offence is doubled. Fortunately God is not an accountant : his criterion is not mathematics but love.

The answer to the third question is yes. The Pope’s statement was entirely in accord with the latest scientific evidence. It would have saved an enormous amount of newsprint, and - sadly - scandal, had he made this clear at the time.

The confusion arises because in Sub-Saharan Africa HIV/Aids is a pandemic. It is not confined to discrete groups where a well-motivated and dedicated campaign of condom use might have good results. It is too widespread for that.

There are some endemic difficulties in several African countries which interfere with the effectiveness of condoms. One of these is that there is a macho anti-condom culture, but more importantly there is a habit of multiple sexual partners. Edward C Green (a social anthropologist from the Harvard School of Public Health with no objection to condoms in principle) says: “These ongoing multiple concurrent sex partnerships resemble a giant, invisible web of relationships through which HIV/Aids spreads. A study in Malawi showed that even though the average number of sexual partners was only slightly over two, fully two-thirds of this population was interconnected through such networks of overlapping, ongoing relationships.” In Cameroon, where the Pope made his statement, the incidence of HIV is four times as high for women with three or more partners, compared to those with one partner. Green also notes that the enormous efforts at condom distribution over long periods of time have had no limiting effect on the spread of infection.

In fact, the only campaigns which have shown any success are those focused on the chaste sexual habits which happen to have been championed by the Catholic Church. This does not mean that condoms have no value; they have been useful in reducing infection stemming from the sex industry. But it should be noted here that the Church has had no reason to make a ruling on this - see Question 2. For the sake of completeness here I should mention that male circumcision also has a significant effect on the reduction of transmission.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) does, however, have a duty to make a ruling on the lawfulness of infected married couples using condoms, since doubts on the issue have been raised at the most senior clerical levels. It’s awkward, of course. Either it doesn’t know (and uncertain laws don’t bind); or it is not prepared to admit that the principle of deriving unconditional imperatives from the structure of human acts is faulty; or it is terrified of stating publicly that its rules are more important than human lives.

The failure to give an answer after so many years (see Vatican Notebook, February 12) raises once again the question of the use or misuse of authority. Since human life and the stability of marriage are the issues at stake here the failure to respond is a serious cause of scandal.

But you may be able to explain better than I why the CDF has neglected this question. I look forward to hearing your views on www.secondsightblog.com.

We are rightly concerned about secular attempts to lay down how we should teach our beliefs about the proper use of sexuality. The threatened Bill on children, schools and families would, on first reading, appear to do just that.

But we will be relieved to read that we will remain entirely free to teach full Catholic doctrine. And if you think that to be of no significance, take a look at the steam rising out of the ears of the secularists at what they see as a flagrant betrayal of the principle of non-discrimination.

No, the difficulty lies with the obligation to give children a fair and balanced view of the issue being discussed and to recognise that there are alternative views which others hold, and are entitled to hold, even though we may believe them to be mistaken. That is no more than straightforward Catholic teaching on the sovereignty of conscience.

But I want to go beyond that and argue that a new educational approach will bring its own advantage. Not that it is a big challenge to get better results than the traditional spoon-feeding approach. Spoon-feeding has not worked because young people on the verge of adulthood are unwilling to accept authority blindly. They may profess to do so in the classroom, but they are aware that real life is different and, when temptation looms, defences fall. It is true of them, as it is true of us, that “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”.

There is no formula guaranteed to send our young out into the world as perfect models of Christian chastity and virtue. But it is possible to help many to understand for themselves and live out their understanding. If some of these then make mistakes, at least they have a solid background to which they can return.

The principle is straightforward. The school is rightly obliged to give the teaching of the Church. It is a Catholic school and that’s what it says on the tin. In doing so it must give the full reasons why it holds a doctrine. But it must also evaluate, with scrupulous fairness, the opposing arguments. It is only then that the pupils are truly free to accept and internalise the Church’s teaching.

What has been lost? Those who do not accept would not have accepted the spoonfeeding approach at any useful level. What has been gained? Those who accept are able to make a free, internalised commitment. All whose previous knowledge of the debate was scanty or misinformed are now fully briefed, and ready to defend their beliefs against all comers. Let me illustrate this approach with some examples.

The Church teaches that sexual congress is such an invaluable gift of oneself that it belongs only within the unconditional commitment of marriage. We all know the general arguments for this, and the competent teacher will be able to display the strong sociological evidence in support. Everyone will be aware of the powerful temptations which draw many into a betrayal of this gift. The only reward for pretending otherwise is loss of credibility. It would be more useful to ask pupils to compare Catholic teaching with the proposition that sex is appropriate in casual relationships, or as a form of entertainment. Do we really put such little trust in our ability to present the Church’s good or in our young’s ability to recognise it? And, if so, what have we been doing as parents?

Contraception involves the problem that if teachers, clerical or lay, follow the pattern of surveys then the majority will not, in practice, accept the Church’s blanket condemnation of artificial forms. But here the orthodox teaching must also be given, accompanied by the best evidence, both theological and sociological. The choice here is simple: either leave the children with their half-baked erroneous ideas or teach them the facts on contraception - from which methods are abortifacient to the level of safety they give against conception and disease. This is general knowledge, not advocacy of a way of life. But every parent must face the question: What would I do if I knew that my child was involved sexually, against my wishes, and I didn’t know whether they were protected? Bear in mind that the Church’s teaching on contraception applies only to marriage.

I hardly dare enter the subject of homosexuality for the thunder of red rags and bulls charging over the horizon. So I will confine myself to saying that bullying a gay person on the grounds of orientation or lifestyle is a sin against love far greater than any which might be imputed against homosexual acts.

For me, strength of feeling makes the question of abortion the test case. Unsurprisingly, our pupils are aware that abortions take place, and that we condemn this as the taking of innocent life. What the pupils need is a proper understanding of the wonderful work of God in how the baby grows and flowers from the foetus to their newborn brother or sister. The duty of balance requires that ultrasound scans should be used, since the emotional factor is normally inhibited by the invisibility of the baby. And full information on the practical provision available for the prospective mother is necessary information.

But pupils should also understand how fear, family pressure or plain ignorance leads some women to have abortions. We must be clear about the objective wrong of abortion but we are in no position to judge the mother. Rather, she should be the object of our prayers, and our practical help - particularly if she chooses abortion. Needless to say, our practical help does not include colluding with the abortion.

I am sure that some readers will think that I have sold the pass. I would say to them: take consolation from the fact that the credibility among the young towards the Church’s sexual teachings could scarcely be lower than it is today. There is nothing to lose. And bear in mind that secular schools must provide similar objective information about our views. I don’t think this is what the champions of the Bill had in mind - but, if they provided the noose, they too must be prepared to hang in it.

Quentin de la Bedoyere was a marriage counsellor under Catholic auspices for 20 years, working with schools, with engaged couples and in remedial counselling. His major work on counselling, Managing People and Problems, was published by Gower Press in 1988, later in paperback. It has appeared in several European languages. He has five children and 14 grandchildren

A decade ago John Paul II emphasised the error of treating the Church as though it were a multinational corporation and thus subject to a purely human form of authority. While the point is well taken, the human side of the Church remains vulnerable to our fallen human nature. We see a clear precedent in the strictures which Jesus reserved for the leaders of Judaism despite their guardianship of the divine covenant.

Most people will recall that Lord Acton’s claim that power tends to corrupt was written about the Renaissance popes. Fewer will know (if only because of its very recent publication) of a study which measures and confirms this tendency, under experimental conditions. In simple terms, the more powerful (and secure) you are, the higher the standards you are likely to enforce on the people you control, and the lower the standards you apply to yourself. In other words, power is a serious “occasion of sin”.

We learnt, at our mother’s knee, that if occasions of sin cannot be avoided, they must be minimised by prudent precautions. Thus all those who hold ecclesiastical authority, from pope to priest, must work actively against the corruption of power. We have seen in microcosm what happens in a national clergy whose power is so institutionalised that even independent civil authority defers. In macrocosm we must accept that the Church has been corrupted by power at least since it became the pet religion of the Roman Empire. We should not be surprised; it is only continual, active defence against the corruption of power which can mitigate even if it cannot entirely avoid.

While abuse of power is found in other religions, the Catholic Church’s case is particularly difficult because its unity depends on a firm basis of revealed doctrine and the lynchpin of the successor to St Peter. It cannot be otherwise, nor would we wish it, but the danger of this near-absolute power is exceedingly great. It may be useful to look at some examples at random.

Outstanding, of course, has been the refusal to allow freedom of conscience in choice of religion. Error was held to have no rights. The result was enforcement of Catholic teaching, including the extremes of torture and death. It led to the Catholic colonisation of territories, and so the use of civil force for preservation. There are few behaviours which we deplore in Islam which have not been enthusiastically pursued by the Church in its time. Even in later days when this was achieved through concordats, it continued. When Vatican II finally accepted the full rights of conscience, the tardiness in dismantling the shameful concordat with Franco’s Spain demonstrated the lingering desire to maintain power at the expense of the individual. When John Paul II announced in 2001 that the Holy See “has always been vigorous in defending freedom of conscience and religious liberty”, we are lost for comment.

Vatican II rightly emphasised that the bishops, although acting in communion with the Pope, hold their diocesan powers independently as successors to the Apostles. But it has become hard to distinguish in practice the difference between being in communion and simply being a delegate. And this is made all the more obscure by the relatively novel practice of the pope choosing the diocesan bishops. A new bishop should, of course, be chosen by the local Church, with full consultation at all levels, while the Pope retains a veto which would only be used with extreme rarity. This would be a charitable way of protecting a pope from the temptation to use placemen.

I have written before about the Church’s own principle of subsidiarity - that decisions should always be taken at the lowest practicable level. In general this is continually breached (perhaps the arrogation of the translation of the English translation of the liturgy by the Vatican is the outstanding current example).

And the attitude towards being a listening community is well summed up by the Congregation for the Clergy’s statement: “All believers have the right and duty to take an active part in the mission given to the Church… but they do not have either the right or duty to give advice to the hierarchy in their exercise of their pastoral task.” Can we imagine a modern business, hoping to be successful, informing its members that they have neither the right nor the duty to give advice to management?

We do in fact know a good deal about how secular cultures form, how they are preserved and how they change. This may give us some clues. Here, however, I will simply quote from two recent popes, both presumably guided by the same Spirit.

First: “The Church has always opposed errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations…”

Second: “To protect the Catholic faith against errors arising from the part of some of the Christian faithful it appeared highly necessary to us, whose principal task is to confirm his brethren in faith, to add (new) norms to the text of the presently valid Code of Canon Law, in order to impose expressly the duty to preserve the truths proposed definitively by the Magisterium of the Church, and, concerning the same matter, to institute canonical sanctions (against the violators).”

You may see, as one senior theologian did, a marked contrast between the two approaches to the use of authority. Which one relates, do you think, most closely to the Gospel? How can the Church at all levels maintain its God given authority while minimising the abuse of power? The answers to those questions may define the course of what the Church will give the world over the long distant future.

What is the most misused word in the debates which surround the Church’s actions and relationships? My prime candidate is the word “authority”. With menacing inevitability it is always reduced to command and obedience. In doing so we condemn ourselves to live in a mindframe which the better elements in the secular world began to abandon by the mid 20th century, and which carries all the penal overtones of medieval autocracy. But true authority is not like that at all.

We get a glimmer of true authority by recalling that God who sustains us in existence from moment to moment by his constant omnipotence did not bear down on us: he gave us free will. When we thoroughly messed that up he did not abandon us but gave himself in total sacrifice to redeem us from our arrogant misuse of his gift, and then provided us with every means to flourish as sons rather than servants.

If that is a flavour of authority at the divine scale how would it translate on the human scale of, say, an ordinary secular, commercial organisation?

This is certainly not a democracy. The owners may, within the constraints of the law, exercise full authority - from setting the objectives, the standards, the routines, the rewards and the sanctions. But that authority may be exercised in radically different ways.

Well into the 20th century it was accepted wisdom that workers were primarily responsive to rewards and punishments. They were not of the calibre to take responsibility or to think for themselves, and thus tasks had to be set out in detail, and timed to ensure the appropriate level of outcome. In a sense the worker was a machine who happened to be human. It was called “scientific management”.

From the middle of the century onwards it began to be understood that, generally speaking, an enterprise was far more successful if the workers were treated as intelligent human beings who reacted well to responsibility. Authority became primarily a leadership activity, inspiring and co-ordinating the willing and co-operative workers - who brought their minds as well as their bodies to the task.

This change was not a result of increased virtue on the part of management but partly because more and more jobs actually required active thought, and primarily because enterprises run in this way tended to be much more successful. If you do not immediately recognise names like Maslow, Herzberg, Likert and McGregor, it is because the battle between worker as machine, and worker as human being, was won far enough in the past for it to be taken largely for granted.

Certain characteristics of these new organisations are worth noting. The first is that the leadership was clear about the ethos and objectives of the business. It had its key success factors and values: for the most part they could be summarised on a sheet of paper. But they would be communicated and applied in a variety of different ways - by example, through the questions asked or in general formal or informal discussion. Rarely, if ever, were they issued as orders, there was no need. There was greater emphasis on encouraging successful behaviour than on fault-finding.

Second, communication - upwards, downwards and sideways - was encouraged. This enhanced the sense of participation, and the organisation benefited continually from the experience of staff at different levels.

Third, the organisation tended to be very open. Naturally there will always be some confidential information but the leadership instinct was to keep everybody as well informed as possible. (Keeping quiet only when you had to, as opposed to telling people only when you had to.)

Of course, for brevity, I have painted a bad guy/good guy picture. The reality was more complex. The application of worker responsibility would differ between an accountancy office and an advertising agency, for instance. And considerable ingenuity would be required when much of the work was mechanical by necessity. Many firms claimed to promote worker responsibility while disingenuously reducing it in other ways. Other firms had bad initial experiences - a residue of past habits - and abandoned change. There were organisations who took the new thinking as an excuse for eschewing active leadership; we see this particularly in organisations where the discipline of the market does not apply. And, naturally, there were, and remain, managements who feel that the workforce cannot be trusted, and so the business remains in a constant state of tension and high personnel turnover.

The question of authority in the Church is sensitive at the present time, in view of the reports on abuse in Ireland. There can be no doubt that the misuse of authority played a large part in the sorry history. Not only was it employed to protect the strong against the weak, but it was employed in the interests of secrecy rather than openness. Even the Holy See has been accused of a culpable blind eye.

We should start off of course by considering whether this was simply an aberration of time, circumstance and place. But then we must consider to what extent it might relate to the way that the Church exercises authority. Do we see the organisation communicating its core values in an effective and inspirational way - with an emphasis on what we get right rather than what we get wrong? Are the members of the community seen as responsible, trustworthy, and focused on the same objectives? Is the Church an example to the world of openness and good communication? Do outsiders still say of us, as Tertullian claimed, “Look how they love one another.”

I do not doubt that I will one day feel motivated to answer that question with more concrete detail. But I shall be grateful if you tell us what you think.