Family Ethics: Practices for Christians

Chapter Three: Grace, Sin, and Holy Families

C H A P T E R T H R E E Grace, Sin, and Holy Families The Limits of a Theology of Ideals Having established in chapters 1 and 2 that both Catholic sacramental theology and Catholic social teaching point to a need for a social ethic attentive to family concerns, it may seem appropriate to begin analyzing everyday moral issues faced by families, with the hope of sketching what an ideal Christian life might look like. However, before beginning ethical analysis, it is important to address what may be a stumbling block for many readers: an idealized approach to family prevalent in Catholic theology and devotional life. In Catholic liturgy and popular piety, the dominant image of the family is the holy family. This family is most commonly portrayed as abounding in quiet harmony, with each member attentive to the duties of his or her role—Mary, submissive and nurturing; Joseph, quietly protective, a good provider; and Jesus, the holy obedient child.1 In addition to the holy family, large families who sacrifice financial gain in order to cooperate with God in the creation of new life have been considered ideal. Images of large, pious families gathered at daily Mass or bedtime rosaries, are common in popular Catholic literature, and these families have been frequently invoked as models by the magisterium, theologians , and leaders of lay family movements.2 Even today these images often remain with those addressed by Catholic theology and shape responses to everything written about families. John Paul II, for instance, writes, “The family has a mission to guard, reveal, and communicate love, and this is a living reflection of and a real sharing in God’s love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the church, his bride,” speaking of both an ideal and a reality, a gift and a task.3 When Catholics read this, images of holy families cannot be far from their minds. The pope asks families to “become what you are” or to live up to the mission that is rightfully yours, to your truest identity.4 His description of the ideal Christian family has the power to be both inspiring and potentially alienating. Faced with an image that is manifestly different from their own lives, many turn away, assuming that theology about families will elicit feelings of guilt or inferiority. Or, knowing the strengths of their structurally imperfect families, they disregard what seems to be sentimental piety without nuance. In short, images of holy families often stand in the way of right hearing and impair right response. Any theology of the family needs to address this problem if it is to have any hope of reaching ordinary families. In much of recent Catholic family theology, family difficulties are spoken of as irregularities after the theological vision has been constructed.5 However, it is not enough to acknowledge the difficulties that broken, flawed, or interfaith families may face in living out an ideal that is constructed without those problems in mind; these problems and imperfections belong to all of us and ought to be reflected in our theological thinking. Literature is a crucial source for correcting this problem, for it “can contribute to our understanding of what it would be like to lead lives of various sorts and thereby help to guide us in constructing our own lives.”6 In this chapter I argue that in order to avoid constructing a potentially alienating, overly idealistic theology of the family, the realities of imperfection, sin, and disunity must be brought to the forefront of theological thinking and writing. In what follows I treat the fiction of Flannery O’Connor as prophetic resource that illuminates the necessity of bringing sin and imperfection to the center of a family ethic situated in the tradition of Catholic systematic theology and social teaching. The concluding section will show that because O’Connor’s vision was not only attentive The Limits of a Theology of Ideals 67 to human finitude but also rooted in solidarity and everyday morality, it provides a good foundation for the kind of family ethics that will occupy the rest of this book. O’Connor’s Gift to Theology Flannery O’Connor (1925–64), American Catholic writer of two novels and thirty short stories, was criticized in her time for not publishing stories that would inspire a large audience to strive for greater holiness. Her own mother...