Q&A 13
Q. Why do you insist on getting into other people's lives? Why not just let homosexuals be. If it doesn't harm other people it can't be wrong.
A. Here I borrow heavily from the author of the Chronicles of Narnia. Mankind can be likened to a fleet of ships on a voyage. The voyage will only be a success if:
a) the individual ships avoid colliding and getting into each other's way
b) each individual ship remains seaworthy with her engines in good order
c) the entire fleet is actually headed where it is meant to go
The voyage will fail if any of these three is missing. They must all be present together:
a) If they collide into each other, none will remain in good working condition for long... Perhaps they will even sink;
b) If the individual ships are not in good working condition, they will not be able to steer properly to make headway or to avoid collisions;
c) Even if they are in good condition and avoid collisions, the voyage will fail if they are meant to arrive at the port of Mombasa and instead arrive in Port Elizabeth.
But when a man says about something he wants to do, "It can't be wrong because it doesn't do anyone else any harm," he is thinking only of the first thing. He is thinking it does not matter what his ship is like inside provided that he does not run into the next ship. Which is normal since the results of bad morality in that sphere are so obvious and press on us every day: war and poverty and corruption and lies and shoddy work. And also, as long as you stick to the first thing, there is very little disagreement about morality. Almost all people at all times have agreed (in theory) that human beings ought to be honest and kind and helpful to one another.
But what is the good of telling the ships how to steer so as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all? What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, lustand self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them?
We cannot stop with social ethics and public norms; we must go further into personal ethics and individual virtue. They are inextricably linked. And the Church too doesn't split them: she doesn't stop at repeating to us Christ's words "You must love one another as I have loved you". She also repeats his other words "If a man look at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
The social and the personal: inter-related, intertwined, interdependent. Much like enjoying a beer on your own is a personal affair that has social repercussions when you drink and drive.
Great week!
19thJuly 2015