One of the common themes of Pope Francis’ pontificate is the minimization of sexual irregularities or “sins below the belt.” On at least three occasions, he has declared that these sins are far less grave than other sins like hatred or envy.
At a meeting with Portuguese Jesuits, Pope Francis lamented that the Church still looks at the so-called “sins of the flesh” with a “magnifying glass” just as it has “done so long for the sixth commandment.” Other evils, he claimed, such as exploitation of workers, lying, and cheating, were virtually ignored while “sins below the waist were relevant.” Pope Francis went on to elaborate that these sins require sensitivity and creative pastoral care. Given their complexity, there is no simple or uniform solution such as living a chaste lifestyle.
Several years earlier in a book-length interview conducted by Dominique Wolton, the pope also conveyed a gnostic attitude about sexual transgressions: “There is a great danger for preachers, and it is that of condemning only the morality that is – pardon me – ‘below the belt.’” He went on to say that compared to sins of hatred and envy “sins of the flesh are the lightest sins, because the flesh is weak.” The most dangerous sins, in this perspective, “are those of the spirit” or “angelism,” the sins of pride and vanity.
Francis mentioned his admiration for a Cardinal who confided in him that as soon as someone brings up these sins “below the belt,” he immediately responds, “I understand, let’s move on.” In this way, the penitent or parishioner will realize that “there are other mistakes that are much more important.”
One wonders what this Cardinal would say to a young man caught up in the vice of pornography, as many people are today, given that this urge once satisfied can easily evolve into a crippling obsession that disrupts a person’s mature self-possession. As Aquinas tells us, “concupiscence, if indulged, gathers strength.”
There are many progressive Catholics with a reflexive hostility to the Church’s sexual moral doctrine who agree with the pope’s attempt to minimize the reality of grave sexual sin. They complain that the Catholic Church’s obsession with sexual sins diverts its attention from social evils mentioned. In a Washington Post article on Pope Francis’ speech to his fellow Jesuits, David Gibson chastised American Church leaders for their laser-like focus on “pelvic theology” and for being held “captive to the culture war mentality.”
The pope’s permissive attitude is reflected in writings such as Amoris laetitia, Fiducia supplicans, and answers to various Dubia, which echo the same tangled reasoning about the weakness of the flesh.
This principle certainly forms the basis for the novel pastoral changes found in Fiducia supplicans, which eschews any reference to “grave sin” or the need for “conversion” when discussing “irregular unions.” If sexual disorders are not such serious offenses, what can be so improper about blessing irregular and same-sex unions that fail to live up to the ideal of indissoluble, monogamous marriage?
This heterodoxy represents not only a radical breach with the teachings of the pope’s predecessors but also a retreat from “ascetic Christianity.” The great Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce predicted that progressive Catholicism would ultimately yield to society’s “erotic offensive” by repudiating the Church’s sacred doctrines on asceticism and mortification.
True to form, progressives have passionately argued that “private” virtues such as chastity and purity have been excessively over-emphasized, especially since the Counter-Reformation; that this “sexophobic” morality is both outdated and repressive.
To validate these claims, they turn to the pillars of modern civilization, science and social sciences, which encourage a more libertine sexual ethic. “Scientism” and “sociologism,” therefore, which rest on a tenuous foundation, displace the transcendent order of nature and morality.
Del Noce anticipated this division of the virtues and its linkage to the steady erosion of ascetic Christianity. What fills the void is a “secularized Christianity” that is more amenable to our liberal, post-modern culture.
In this new moment of Christianity, the social and political virtues (like charity), destined to advance the human condition, sweep away the passive and private virtues such as chastity and purity.
Hence, we rarely if ever hear this pope talk about chastity and purity nor do these virtues find a home in documents like Amoris laetitia. Pope Francis lavishes ample praise on New Ways Ministry, a group that unabashedly affirms the homosexual lifestyle, but has nothing to say about Courage, which calls for chastity in accord with Church teaching.
For the pope and other progressives, the battle to protect marriage and the traditional family or halt rampant promiscuity is perceived as far less urgent than the need to help the poor and the persecuted.
Strange things happen, however, when the Church loses her coherence and concentrates only on the public or social virtues. When the poor and the persecuted (e.g., the Africans) cling to traditional sexual morality they are branded with the scarlet letter of homophobia. As a result, they are treated with suspicion and condescension by Catholic progressives. Thus, the division of virtues turns out to be divisive in paradoxical ways and ends up undermining even the Church’s social justice mission.
There is little doubt that this pope has edged the Church much closer to a secularized version of Christianity with its fragmented and reductive vision of virtue and the Church’s mission. This development is an unmitigated tragedy because an ascetic Christianity that preserves and promotes all the virtues is the only authentic Christianity.
Ascetic Christianity is rooted deeply in the soil of the Apostolic tradition, witnessed to by countless saints and martyrs, and affirmed by Jesus Himself who condemned even what John Paul II called the “concupiscent look” as a form of “adultery in the heart.” (Matthew 5:27)
Progressives may well argue that they are more enlightened about these matters, but their light is one that casts far too many shadows.
