Catholic Moral Theology in the United States

A History

Charles E. Curran

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781589011953
• eBook ISBN: 9781589012912
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

In this magisterial volume Charles E. Curran surveys the historical development of Catholic moral theology in the United States from its 19th century roots to the present day. He begins by tracing the development of pre-Vatican II moral theology that, with the exception of social ethics, had the limited purpose of training future confessors to know what actions are sinful and the degree of sinfulness.

Curran then explores and illuminates the post-Vatican II era with chapters on the effect of the Council on the scope and substance of moral theology, the impact of Humanae vitae, Pope Paul VI's encyclical condemning artificial contraception, fundamental moral theology, sexuality and marriage, bioethics, and social ethics.

Curran's perspective is unique: For nearly 50 years, he has been a major influence on the development of the field and has witnessed first-hand the dramatic increase in the number and diversity of moral theologians in the academy and the Church. No one is more qualified to write this first and only comprehensive history of Catholic moral theology in the United States.

1

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Moral theology is a systematic, thematic, and reflexive study of Christian moral life and actions. From the very beginning, the community of the disciples of Jesus concerned itself with how Christians should respond to God’s gift in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Even in New Testament times, Christians referred to their religion as “the way.” Morality is the actual living out of the Christian life; moral theology is a second-order discourse that stands back and reflects in a systematic way on Christian life and actions.

Moral theology involves different degrees of systematization. From the earliest times, it has been associated with the sacrament of penance.¹ In sixth-century Ireland, a new form of penance emerged, which then spread to the continent and to the whole Catholic world. Penance now involved the confession of sins to a priest who imposed a penance and through the mercy and forgiveness of God absolved the sinner and reconciled the sinner to the community of the Church and to God. The older form of penance was called “public penance” and generally could be received only once in a lifetime. Now penance could be received frequently. To assist the priest, libri paenitentiales came into existence to point out the appropriate penance that should be assigned for particular sins.

A more academic and systematic approach to moral theology began in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Three significant factors influenced this more systematic approach—the founding of universities, dialogue with Aristotelian thought, and the founding of religious orders dedicated to scholarship. The teachings of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) well illustrate a systematic approach to moral theology. In the theology of Aquinas, no separate discipline called “moral theology” existed. Aquinas dealt with the human response to God’s gift and the moral life in the second part of the Summa theologiae. The term moral theology appeared for the first time in the writings of Alan of Lille (d. 1202).² Later academics, especially in the sixteenth-century Thomistic renewal, developed moral theology through commentaries on the second part of the Summa. At the same time, as the more academic and systematic approach to moral theology occurred on the pastoral level, books also called Summae gave guidance for confessors in the sacrament of penance. The cruder form of these practical Summae simply followed an alphabetical approach to all issues, but the Summa of Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459) was more systematic, providing a good picture of the life of fifteenth-century Florence. Among other topics, long discussions were included of the obligations of all the professions and states in life of the Christian people.

Moral theology has always experienced the tension between a more practical and pastoral approach, associated especially with the sacrament of penance, and a more theoretical and academic approach, associated with the university world. This tension continues to exist in contemporary Catholic moral theology.

MANUALS OF MORAL THEOLOGY

This chapter focuses on the origins of moral theology in the United States in the nineteenth century. At that time, moral theology was identified with what were called “manuals of moral theology.” What was the nature of these manuals, and how did they come into existence?

The manuals of moral theology owe their origin to the Council of Trent, the sixteenth-century council that tried to reform the Catholic Church after the Protestant Reformation.³ In its fourteenth session, in 1551, Trent dealt with the sacrament of penance. Its focus was twofold. Although the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 required all Catholics to confess their mortal sins once a year, the fifteenth century saw a crisis with regard to the use of auricular confession. Trent reiterated the obligation to confess mortal sins once a year. In addition to addressing the practical problem, Trent also responded to the teachings of the Reformation with regard to penance. Private confession in his own life was esteemed by Luther, but he emphasized the forgiveness of God, which comes from the word of God as preached by ministers of that word. The other reformers did not give much importance to penance.

The Council of Trent in its teaching recognized two characteristics of Catholic moral theology—mediation and the human response to God’s gift. The divine is mediated through the human; God’s forgiveness comes to us in and through the visible Church in the person of the priest. The human response to God’s gift called for contrition, the confession of one’s sins, and personal works of satisfaction.

Trent understood the sacrament of penance primarily in juridical terms, with the priest acting as a judge to determine whether absolution is to be given or denied. The penitent is required by divine law to confess all mortal sins according to number and species so that the confessor can pronounce the sentence of remission or retention of sin. The confessor also determines an appropriate penance. Trent overemphasized the juridical nature of penance, but its approach profoundly influenced the development of moral theology.

A second important Tridentine influence on the future of moral theology came from the council’s insistence on the founding of seminaries to ensure that future priests were trained to carry out their role and mission in general and specifically in the sacrament of penance. These two emphases in Trent gave rise to what became known as the “manuals of moral theology” that continued in existence in the Catholic world until Vatican Council II in the 1960s.

The new genre of moral theology, the Institutiones morales (generally referred to in English as the “manuals”), came into existence through the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540 with the special mission of carrying out the reform of the Church in light of the Council of Trent. In 1603 the Jesuit John Azor published his Institutiones morales based on the two-year course he taught to Jesuit seminarians in accordance with the Ratio studiorum of the Jesuits to prepare future priests to hear confessions. In light of the Tridentine understanding of penance, the sacrament was often called “confession” rather than “penance.” The first-year course covered human acts, conscience, sins, and the Decalogue, excluding the seventh commandment. The second year treated the seventh commandment, sacraments, censures, and the different duties of particular individuals.

The Institutiones morales, or manuals, came into existence to train seminarians for the hearing of confessions in their future ministry. In a sense, they were a creative adaptation to the needs of the time, but unfortunately the manuals later became identified with the whole of moral theology. Trent’s view of penance was too juridical and did not emphasize enough other aspects of the sacrament of penance, such as praise and thanks to God for the gift of forgiveness. The manuals separated moral theology from all other theological aspects, including the dogmatic, the spiritual, and the sacramental. The use of scripture was frequently reduced to providing proof texts for particular conclusions based on natural law. With their practical orientation, the manuals of moral theology paid little attention to the theoretical aspects. Furthermore, they said nothing about grace and the virtues. The purpose of the manuals was to point out which acts were sinful and the degree to which each was sinful.

To understand nineteenth-century moral theology, one must be acquainted with the major developments that occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In these centuries a sharp discussion between the two extremes of laxism and rigorism arose. The Holy Office (the predecessor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), under Pope Alexander VII, in 1665–66, condemned forty-five laxist propositions, and under Pope Innocent XI, in 1679, condemned sixty-five laxist propositions. In 1690 the Holy Office, under Pope Alexander VIII, condemned thirty-two rigorist positions often associated with Jansenism, a French-based approach to the Christian moral life. These actions constituted the first major involvement of the papacy in specific moral actions and had the beneficial effect of condemning the extremes. But these condemnations did not bring peace and tranquility to moral theology. The eighteenth century witnessed a continuing struggle between rigorous and benign approaches. The primary issue was the uncertainty that arose when the existence of a law or obligation was doubtful. Historians describe this debate as the struggle over probabilism. Adherents of the more rigorous position maintained that one had to follow the law unless the argument for freedom was more probable. (The word “probable” comes from the Latin and really means “provable,” not the contemporary “likely.”) Moderate probabilism maintained that one did not have to obey the law if the opinion for freedom was truly probable.

The details of this bitter struggle lie beyond the focus of this book, but in the eighteenth century Alphonsus Liguori’s moderate probabilism struck the middle way between rigorism and laxism. Alphonsus’s moral theology followed the general approach, style, and format of the manuals. He began teaching Redemptorist students in 1744 and chose the manual of the Jesuit Hermann Busenbaum for a textbook. The first edition of his moral theology in 1748 consisted of his annotations on the text of Busenbaum. Such an approach was very common among the manualists. In later years Alphonsus toyed with the idea of moving away entirely from Busenbaum, though he never did. However, he added more and more of his own material and in later editions no longer mentioned Busenbaum on the title page. Alphonsus ultimately published nine editions of his moral theology. Leonard Gaudé in 1905 published a critical edition of Alphonsus’s moral theology.⁴

Alphonsus’s middle way and his outstanding contribution to moral theology in the eighteenth century came not only from his theory of moderate probabilism but also from his pastoral prudence and his understanding of conscience and the sacrament of penance. Although Alphonsus followed the manuals in seeing law as the primary ethical model and was concerned primarily with determining what actions were sinful and the degree to which each was sinful, he showed a sensitive pastoral prudence in regard to the solution of particular cases and issues. His commonsense approach led him to consider all the different circumstances of a case. Alphonsus himself pointed out that he began as a rigorist whose approach was based on Genet, the textbook he used as a student, but he changed his approach as a result of his own pastoral experience, which led him to embrace a benign understanding.⁵

Alphonsus followed the legal method of the manuals but with a somewhat nuanced understanding of that approach. Law constitutes the remote and material norm of human actions, but conscience is the proximate and formal norm of human actions. The formal norm ultimately gives final meaning to the act. Conscience should follow the dictates of the law, but the goodness of human action becomes known to us through its approbation by conscience. Such an approach opposes the rigorism that sees the objective law alone as determining all morality.⁶ Thus, for exampl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 The Nineteenth Century
• 2 The Twentieth Century before Vatican II
• 3 Twentieth-Century Social Ethics before Vatican II
• 4 The Setting of Moral Theology after Vactican II
• 5 The Aftermath of Humanae Vitae
• 6 The Aftermath of Vatican II and Other Developments
• 7 Fundamental Moral Theology
• 8 Sexuality and Marriage
• 9 Bioethics
• 10 Social Ethics
• Conclusions: Looking Backward and Forward
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• Index