Catholic Online Forum

What about the argument that vast numbers of Catholics ignore the church's teachings about sexuality? Doesn't the church have a problem conveying its moral principles to its own flock? "Do we ever!" the archbishop replies with a hearty laugh. "I'm not afraid to admit that we have an internal catechetical challenge—a towering one—in convincing our own people of the moral beauty and coherence of what we teach. That's a biggie."

For this he faults the church leadership. "We have gotten gun-shy . . . in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality." He dates this diffidence to "the mid- and late '60s, when the whole world seemed to be caving in, and where Catholics in general got the impression that what the Second Vatican Council taught, first and foremost, is that we should be chums with the world, and that the best thing the church can do is become more and more like everybody else."

The "flash point," the archbishop says, was "Humanae Vitae," Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical reasserting the church's teachings on sex, marriage and reproduction, including its opposition to artificial contraception. It "brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the church, that I think most of us—and I'm using the first-person plural intentionally, including myself—kind of subconsciously said, 'Whoa. We'd better never talk about that, because it's just too hot to handle.' We forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day."

Without my having raised the subject, he adds that the church's sex-abuse scandal "intensified our laryngitis over speaking about issues of chastity and sexual morality, because we almost thought, 'I'll blush if I do. . . . After what some priests and some bishops, albeit a tiny minority, have done, how will I have any credibility in speaking on that?'"

Yet the archbishop says he sees a hunger, especially among young adults, for a more authoritative church voice on sexuality. "They will be quick to say, 'By the way, we want you to know that we might not be able to obey it. . . . But we want to hear it. And in justice, you as our pastors need to tell us, and you need to challenge us.'"

When the Archbishop Met the President

Well. There is a lot in that article. I agree that Obama comes off as deceitful and arrogant.

I'm wondering... who is Sister Carol Keehan's bishop and can't she be pulled out of public life (the way Fr Pavone was)?

CHA created a firestorm within the Catholic Church when it defied the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and came out in support of Barack Obama's health care overhaul, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[1] The USCCB believes the overhaul could provide for taxpayer funded abortion; the CHA said this was a "false claim".[2] CHA was heavily criticized for subverting the bishops' authority. At least one bishop, Thomas Joseph Tobin of the Diocese of Providence, withdrew his diocese's hospitals from membership in the CHA, saying, "Your enthusiastic support of the legislation, in contradiction of the bishops of the United States, provided an excuse for members of Congress, misled the public and caused a serious scandal for many members of the church" and said it was "embarrassing" to be associated with the CHA.[3] Archbishop Joseph Naumann said Keehan, who met with Obama before endorsing the bill,[4] was "incredibly naive or disingenuous" for saying that the bill prevented taxpayer funding of abortions.[5] Cardinal Francis George, who was president of the USCCB at the time, reported that he and other bishops tried to reach out to Keehan both before and after the vote; he also said that in choosing Obama over the Church, she had "weakened the moral voice of the bishops in the U.S."