AIDS Stand: Bishops Meld Moral, Real

On again, off again, on again . . . . People are understandably confused by the Catholic bishops’ differences over the issue of educating people to “safe” sexual practices to help prevent the spread of AIDS.

Last month an administrative board of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference released a policy paper constituting the church’s “gospel response” to AIDS. Within the 30 pages was a section that endorsed, on a limited basis, the public-health recommendation for education about the use of condoms by sexually active people who are at risk for AIDS. Several prominent bishops objected, and the president of the conference has said that the matter should be discussed by all the 300-plus bishops at their annual meeting in June.

Unfortunately, the media’s focus on the conflict among the bishops has obscured issues that concern both sides of the disagreement.

As is all too apparent, the AIDS epidemic has triggered reassessment of the “sexual revolution.” That phenomenon is generally traced to the advent of “the pill,” which in its effectiveness against unwanted pregnancy loosened traditional social restraints on sexual behavior. In turn, the climate of social permissiveness brought homosexuality into the open.

While providing guidance on the practical question of AIDS education, the bishops in their December statement direct most of their attention to the moral and social dimensions of present-day attitudes toward sexual behavior.

The bishops do not condone the use of condoms, much less advocate them as a solution to the threat of AIDS. Their statement is a careful balance, realistically facing the need to head off a broader medical crisis and simultaneously insisting on the need for morally responsible sexual behavior. Basically their position on the ethical aspects of human sexuality continues the traditional Catholic position; what has changed is the social context in which the phenomenon of homosexuality has engaged the public interest.

While AIDS is not confined to the gay community, it is certainly prevalent there. In public perception the two are linked, and candid dealings with the disease cannot avoid discussion of homosexuality. In such discussion, which has only very recently become open, it might be helpful if we all began with an admission of considerable ignorance. Before any judgment about homosexual behavior can be made, we need to know what it is that we are talking about, and at present our knowledge is inadequate. For one thing, we tend to lump under this one label, homosexuality , a wide range of psychological makeup and consequent behavior; yet concrete distinctions must be acknowledged when making any responsible moral judgment.

Some things are clear and need to be stated clearly:

No matter what his or her sexual orientation, each human possesses basic rights and dignity and deserves reverence as a person.

Mature and caring love--genuine friendship--that enriches both the lover and the one loved is always good.

Human sexuality, while inseparably intertwined with reproduction and with the passionate pleasure that nature uses to invite reproduction, is most importantly a personal reality; human sexuality has profound symbolic power to create a personal intimacy that is necessary to community well-being.

Sexual behavior, insofar as it reveres or demeans the personhood and distinctive goodness of each person, nurtures or diminishes the person’s capacity to love maturely, which is the index of any individual’s or any society’s humanity.

As individuals and as a society, we need to discover and overcome the fear-rooted prejudices and stereotypes that have characterized the heterosexual approach to homosexuality.

While there is the need to confront the realities of homosexuality in an honest and positive way, there remains a broader need in our society: the need to develop understanding and attitudes about sexuality that are accurate and unbiased--that are not a legitimation of behavior that we desire or a presumption of moral superiority.

Sex is neither divine nor diabolical; it can be a source of depersonalization or of personal development. It is too powerful a social and psychological force to be trivialized in casual behavior, but it is also not meant to be the object of ethical obsession.

This is the dialectic with which the U.S. bishops, like the rest of us, are wrestling, and there are no simple answers. There is, however, a need for all of us to express our thoughts and our unanswered questions so that a shared wisdom can provide principles out of which responsible, even if divergent, decisions can emerge. Happily, there is more of this than there used to be.

The Catholic bishops’ statement is a needed contribution to the public discourse. If, as some claim, Catholic teaching about sexual ethics still leans too far toward total negative judgment on all non-marital sexual activity, this is certainly more than balanced by widespread indifference to sexual morality in much of our society. In an ethically pluralistic nation like the United States it is important that people witness to what they believe to be true. Genuine pluralism is a process of shared learning and a diversity of well-grounded opinions. Many voices must be heard and listened to. Tradition has something valuable to contribute to such learning.