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Life Arts    H4'ed 3/29/23

Two American Jesuits Discuss Rape in Catholic Moral Theology

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) March 29, 2023: Perhaps all of my 564 OEN articles are idiosyncratic. However that may be, my present OEN article is admittedly idiosyncratic.

I am here going to write about two contemporary American Jesuits: (1) Thomas J. Reese, a journalist and columnist; and (2) James F. Keenan, a moral theologian at Boston College.

Father Reese's book Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church (Harvard University Press, 1996) has also been published in four different translations.

Father Keenan's book A History of Catholic Theological Ethics (Paulist Press, 2022) has been reviewed by me in my 2,000-word OEN article "An Accessible and Learned History of Catholic Moral Theology" (dated October 27, 2022):

Click Here

Now, Father Reese published the guest op-ed commentary "A reading list for seminarians and other Catholic conservatives" (dated March 27, 2023) in the National Catholic Reporter:

Click Here

In it, among other things, he says, "Today, I am reading A History of Catholic Moral Ethics by Jesuit Fr. James Keenan." Nevertheless, the cover of Keenan's book is one of only four books covers pictured at the beginning of Reese's NCR article.

In addition, a bit earlier in Reese's NCR article, he says, "Another book that transformed my theological views was Contraception by [the American Catholic layman] John T. Noonan, which told the history of the church's teaching on contraception. I remember throwing the book at the wall after reading the section describing how the Irish confessional manuals had a bigger penance for contraception than for rape, because rape was a 'natural' act. Game over."

Now, Father Keenan published the guest op-ed commentary "It's time for a Catholic ethic that sees sexuality as a gift, not a curse" (dated March 28, 2023) in the National Catholic Reporter:

Click Here

In it, by coincidence, Father Keenan says, "In Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists [Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965], Judge John T. Noonan, Jr., describes these language games: 'There is never any attempt to provide a biological description of the acts condemned. Medical terms are eschewed. The vagina is usually described as "the vessel" or "the fit vessel." Ejaculation is often described as "pollution." The term "coitus interruptus" is never employed, but the usual description is "outside the fit vessel."

"What links all these sins together is basically that the semen went elsewhere than the 'fit vessel' and by going elsewhere the sin was 'unnatural.'"

By coincidence with Father Reese's above-mentioned NCR article, Father Keenan then says, "From albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas until the 20th century, the moral treatises distinguish between sexual sins 'in accordance with nature' and those 'contrary to nature.' While the former could include fornication, adultery, incest, and even rape, in general the latter sins (solitary or mutual masturbation, contraception, anal or oral intercourse, bestiality) were considered more grievous, such was the obsession with the finality of semen and the 'fit vessel.' That masturbation was so long and consistently taught to be more grievous than rape might give us pause about the argument from consistency. And, it might also suggest how inadequately grievous rape was considered by the celibate theologians."

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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