Seeing with a Coherent Moral Vision

There’s a familiar caricature of certain divisions within the Church (at least, within the Western context) that runs something like this: on one side are those who emphasize social justice and love of neighbor; on the other, those who stress doctrine and personal moral behavior. It’s a caricature, but not one entirely without basis.

With this in mind, Pope Leo recently remarked to reporters: “We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, the only issue is sexual. In reality, there are much greater and more important issues—justice, equality, freedom of men and women, and freedom of religion—that would all take priority.”

Some have reacted negatively to the pope’s remarks, accusing him of downplaying sexual morality in a way that echoes prevailing cultural trends. Others have questioned this sort of “ranking” of issues. Rather than getting into the weeds of wording or the nuances of interpretation, let’s focus on the basic truth he points to: the Christian moral vision is a coherent whole. The Gospel pulls together social justice, love of neighbor, doctrine, and the necessity of personal moral behavior (sexual and otherwise). The moment we begin to diminish elements of the Gospel, we begin to unravel the whole.

The point here is not merely that Catholic social teaching and sexual morality are both important – the point is that they are part of a coherent whole. In “Sex and Catholic Social Teaching,” Helen Alvaré notes that the Church’s “social teachings concerning sexual and family relations grew out of the same religious commitments that grounded our teachings about extra-familial relations.” One cannot rightly claim to seek social justice while overlooking familial (and thus sexual) morality, as the serious social problems that have arisen from the movement for sexual liberation remind us (c.f., “Assessing the Movement for Sexual Liberation”). Put bluntly: sexual behavior has social consequences. At the same time, one cannot overlook the fact that the Church’s moral teachings on sexual and familial issues arise from and exist within a greater context of human dignity and love of neighbor, which places demands on us beyond the confines of sex and family. While the Christian duty to love one’s neighbor often begins in the context of the family, it does not end there.