Ruth Institute President Contributes
“The Ruth Institute maintains that traditional Christian sexual ethics, as taught most fully by the Catholic Church, is both reasonable and humane,” stated Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, in response to the Synod on Synodality currently going on in Rome.
“However, these teachings have had dissenters within the Catholic Church for decades. Under Pope Francis, dissent has been given a new lease on life, as displayed at the current Synod. That is why I am pleased and proud to be a contributor to the important new collection of essays, Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality.”
The latest round of the multi-part Synod on Synodality refers to “lived experience” as a reason to change Catholic teaching on marriage, family, and human sexuality. Morse observed, “The ‘lived experience’ idea supposedly shows that Church teaching is too hard for ordinary mortals to live by. Saying the Church’s teaching is unrealistically difficult is the latest excuse for abandoning sexual morality altogether.”
In response to this line of argument, theologians Deborah Savage and Robert Fastiggi put together, with many high-profile Catholic contributors, an important new volume, Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality. This is an intellectually serious and pastorally compassionate counterweight to the Synod.
The volume begins with contributions by philosophers showing that the “lived experience” idea can be found in the writings of Pope St. John Paul II, precisely in support of the traditional teachings on human sexuality. But this book goes beyond the purely philosophical argumentation. Unlike previous attempts to respond to dissent on Catholic sexual morality, this volume includes chapters illustrating the real-life consequences of abandoning Catholic sexual morality.
“That is where the Ruth Institute comes in,” Morse explained. “For years, we’ve been writing about the suffering people endure because they aren’t doing what the Church says. Children of divorce or unmarried parents suffer tremendously, and mostly silently, from their parents’ failure to live according to Church teaching. Men and women who identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender often have traumatic experiences in their past.”
“I’m pleased to bring the experience of children of divorce and those who have left pride behind in my contribution to Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality. If only the Synod would emphasize their stories.”
The volume includes contributions from people who regret postponing childbearing, people who journeyed away from an LGBT lifestyle, along with a doctor’s catalogue of the medical problems associated with hormonal contraception. Morse’s chapter is entitled, “The Sexual Revolution and Its Victims: The Church Was Right All Along.”
