John Paul II’s Moral Theology on Trial: A Reply to Charles E. Curran

The Thomist 69 (2005): 279-312 JOHN PAUL H'S MORAL THEOLOGY ON TRIAL: A REPLY TO CHARLES E. CURRAN WILLIAM E. MAY John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family Washington, D.C. E. CHRISTIAN BRUGGER Institute for Psychological Sciences Arlington, Virginia HARLES CURRAN'S The Moral Theology of Pope John Paul 111 contains an introduction, six chapters, and an afterword. In the introduction Curran stresses that he will address the moral teaching and moral theology ofJohn Paul H "as pope" and thus will not consider his prepapal moral writings (5). Successive chapters consider the following aspects of the pope's moral theology: theological presuppositions; theological methodology ; ethical foundations and method; conscience, human acts, and human life; marriage, sexuality, gender, and family; and social teaching. Curran's analysis is principally concerned with the pope's most authoritative writings, that is, his fourteen encydical letters, although he also considers less authoritative documents such as apostolic exhortations and per se nonauthoritative documents such as his Wednesday audiences known as "The Theology of the Body." His first purpose, he says, is to "analyze and criticize the moral theology of John Paul II" on the basis of Curran's own "'understanding of the Catholic moral tradition today" (5). In the afterword he says that he thinks thatJohn Paul H's "major failure" was 1 Charles E. Curran. The Moral Theology of Pope John Paul II. Washington, D.C. Georgetown University Press, 2005. xii+262 pages. $26.95. ISBN 1-58901-042-6. In Moral Traditions Series, James F. Keenan, S.J., series editor. 279 280 WILLIAM E. MAY and E. CHRISTIAN BRUGGER not emphasizing or at times even recognizing the Catholic approach "as a living tradition" (253). In the course of his work Curran makes more than a score of extremely serious charges that, if true, would be sufficient thoroughly to discredit John Paul II as a moral teacher. Here we will consider eight of Curran's principal criticisms in order to show their inaccuracy and falsity. The same could be done for his other charges. According to Curran, John Paul II (1) adopts a deductive, "classicist" moral method and fails to acknowledge the role of "historical consciousness;" (2) fails to recognize the significance of "change" in Church teaching on moral questions; (3) misuses Scripture in Veritatis splendor; (4) seriously misunderstands the teaching of Dignitatis humanae on the use of coercive power by the state; (5) presents a seriously flawed natural law method; (6) has a legalistic notion of conscience; (7) advances a "theology of the body" irrelevant to many persons; and (8) so emphasizes sexual complementarity that one is led to conclude that "men and women who are not married are not complete and lack something about their humanity." I. A "CLASSICIST" MElHOD VS. "HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS" An overarching criticism of the pope's ethical method is that it is "classicist." By this Curran means a deductive method of moral reasoning which moves from abstract, unchanging, universal principles to concrete and particular conclusions. Classicism sees reality "in terms of the static, the immutable, the eternal, and the unchanging," assumes the existence "of a universal human reason that all have," and pays little attention to "experience, finitude, and sin as affecting how we know and act" (107). Curran juxtaposes this method to what he judges to be the more adequate moral method of "historical consciousness." By this he means an inductive method of moral reasoning that begins with the particular, the historical, and the concrete and moves to JOI-IN PAUL II'S MORAL THEOLOGY ON TRIAL 281 moral general conclusions. Historical consciousness occupies itself with "the subject-the person who knows and decides": We all bring with ourselves the experience that has shaped our persons. People look through different lenses as they seek truth and try to do good. In addition, our own finitude and sinfulness color our knowing and acting. (Ibid.) Curran's "classicist" charge against the pope's theology deserves careful consideration, since in the past thirty-five years magisterial teaching has frequently been charged with the same deficiency.2 The deficiency, Curran says, is most pronounced in the 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor. Among a list of seven problems...