[I posted this at Mirror of Justice in response to this post by Robert George.]
I appreciate the care with which Robby has articulated the issues in his post below.
Robby tells us, in his post, what he understands the magisterium to say about its own teaching authority and about same-sex unions. He also tells us what he understands to be the status of what the magisterium says about same-sex unions, if not what he understands the magisterium to say about the status of what it says about same-sex unions.
The focus of my dispute is not what Robby understands the magisterium to say about its own teaching authority or about same-sex unions. (Nor is my focus what Robby understands to be the status of what the magisterium says about same-sex unions.) Rather, the focus of my dispute is what the magisterium says about those two topics: I dispute what the magisterium says not only about same-sex unions but also, and more fundamentally, about its own teaching authority. Why? See Hans Kung, Infallible? An Unresolved Enquiry. For fuller theological and historical context, see Hans Kung, My Struggle for Freedom: Memoirs; Hans Kung, Disputed Truth: Memoirs Volume 2. See also Charles Curran, Loyal Dissent: Memoirs of a Catholic Theologian.
Let's return to where this particular to-and-fro began.
Archbishop Chaput believes that the magisterium's teaching about contraception and its related teaching about same-sex unions are "teachings of Jesus Christ". Like many other Catholics, and many other Christians, I believe that those teachings are false teachings. I believe that the magisterium's teaching about same-sex unions is not only a false teaching but, worse, a false teaching that helps to underwrite an unjust political-legal situation. So you can understand why I, like many other Catholics and many other Christians, viscerally recoil from the notion that the magisterium's teaching about same-sex unions is a "teaching of Jesus Christ".
In any event, we now understand that Archbishop Chaput was not speaking literally when he said that the magisterium's teaching about same-sex unions is a "teaching of Jesus Christ". He was speaking theologically (for want of a better term): "We, the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, speak for Jesus Christ; at least, we do when we say we do. In that sense, and not in any literal sense, if we teach X about same-sex unions, and we say, implicitly if not explicitly, that we teach X infallibly, then Jesus teaches X about same-sex unions."
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