Catechism Expected to Offend, Comfort

Homosexual acts are grave depravities, but homosexuals must be accepted with respect. Euthanasia is murder, but doctors may discontinue burdensome means to preserve life. Women may not be priests, but sex discrimination must be eliminated.

These are among the teachings contained in the new English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is expected to be an instant bestseller when a first printing of 566,000 copies hits bookstores Wednesday. The document will comfort and offend the faithful on both ends of the political and theological spectrum, say some prominent church observers.

Vatican II was proposed to open up the windows of the church to the modern world, and the first catechism since the historic council of the 1960s does not back away from council teachings or hesitate to venture into cutting-edge issues in medical ethics.

“Those who thought it would turn the clock back to pre-Vatican II days will be disappointed,” said Bernard Marthaler, a professor of religion at the Catholic University of America.

But neither will liberals or conservatives be completely satisfied, he said, with the document that confronts contemporary society on issues ranging from the gravity of abortion and divorce to the sinfulness of tax fraud or poisoning the environment.

In an analysis in Commonweal magazine last year, Timothy Luke Johnson, a professor of the New Testament at Emory University, said there is an apparent schizophrenic quality to some of the catechism teachings.

For example, the catechism closes the door on the issue of women’s ordination, but upholds the equal dignity of men and women and declares that every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex must be eradicated.

In the area of homosexuality, the catechism appears to break new ground by saying men and women with deep-seated homosexual tendencies do not choose their condition; “for most of them it is a trial.”

Still, basing itself on the Bible, “which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,” the catechism declared that under no circumstance can homosexual behavior be approved.

Even subtler ethical distinctions are made in the area of medical ethics.

In the end, particularly as new technological advances create unprecedented issues in medical ethics, Catholics will have to make their own ethical decisions in individual cases, some scholars say.

The catechism maintains: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.”

Catholics expecting the catechism to be a rule book for life “are going to be horribly disappointed,” said the Rev. James Hennessey, a historian at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y.