The theologian Maurizio Chiodi: “homosexuals. A pastoral beyond the rhetoric of openings "

Interview by Luciano Moia to the moral theologian Don Maurizio Chiodi* published on us Family & Vita, monthly supplement attached to Avvenire of 28 July 2019, pp.34-37

What is sexual desire? What is Eros? What is the relationship between and motions and freedoms? What connection between self -experience and encounter with the other? Answering these questions means restoring meaning to an inclusive anthropology, capable of opening up to new pastoral paths with and for homosexual people. And the reflection of Don Maurizio Chiodi, professor of moral theology at the theological faculty of northern Italy. "As a Church, and as theologians, we must have the courage to rethink these questions by overcoming the temptation to answer simply by invoking human "nature", understood as an unchangeable substance".

The Church has started a difficult path to give concreteness to the invitation of Pope Francis (at 250) regarding the need to accompany homosexual people "to fully achieve the will of God in their lives, respecting the dignity of each and avoiding every discrimination. Three years after the publication of post -synodal exhortation something has moved, but there are still many resistance. Do you believe that the Church is not yet ready to start a truly inclusive pastoral with these people?

Perhaps, rather than saying that the Church is starting new paths, it can be said that today, also thanks to Pope Francis, these pastoral paths are acquiring greater visibility and feels it is implied. The difficulties are many. I would summarize them in two, for simplicity. The first is of a general order and is linked to the crisis of social costume, which is characterized by the fort of decrease in shared behaviors: today the autonomy of the subject is exalted, but these are increasingly uncertain and confused.
Thus, the phenomenon of individualistic privatization of a subject folded on himself, his affections, desires and emotions is accentuated. The links, which also exist, are difficult to recognize kings, because they have lived in a self -centered way and are sought only if rewarding. If we add to this the extraordinary technical-scientific discoveries, where everything that is technically possible seems good, we understand how today the moral question appears less and less evident, at all levels.
In this climate, and it is the second difficulty, the temptation of Christians is to resort to the language of the past, attaching itself to a legalist moralist, reduced to rules from
Observe. At n. 305 of Amoris laetitia Francesco says, of course talking about the shepherds and referring to those who live in "irregular" situations, but the same thing
It can be said for everyone, «that a shepherd cannot feel satisfied only by applying moral laws as if they were stones that launch themselves against the life of the for
Sone ». Pastoral difficulties are closely linked to the resistance to think of the homosexual question, oscillating from the discomfort of those who "do not know what to say»To the auspastic of openings and renewals sometimes uncoordinated or rhetorical.

Also in the final document of the Synod of Bishops on young people, pastoral attention to homosexual people are solicited, but so far there are no "guidelines" to set up a specific path. What criteria should you move?

From my point of view of theologian, I believe that the pastoral perspectives could be illuminated by a reflection on the fundamental anthropological and theological questions, implicated in the "Pastoral care of homosexual people", As was named after the document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1 October 1986), signed by Cardinal Ratzinger.
These questions go to the root of universal human experience: what is sexual desire (Eros)? What relationship is there between feeling (emotions) and will (freedom)? What is your body, with the desire that lives it on? What connection is there between self -experience and encounter with the other? What is culture?
As a Church, and as theologians, we must have the courage to rethink these questions by overcoming the temptation to answer simply by invoking human "nature", understood as an immutable substance and known by reason once and in an innate, and identified with the The biological body that would become the basic "natural data".
In man, in fact, all that is organic organic originally refers to his own body, the body of flesh, and this body refers to the personal self. In turn, the Self refines the other and to the others, in the complex forms of socio-cultural relations. In this horizon, for the believer, the great question of the relationship between the creature and the origin is born, which is God.

Those who criticize the decision of the dioceses to open the doors to homosexual people usually move on two registers. Absolute intolerants claim that it is not right to give space to "guilty" people of a sin that, according to the catechism of Pius X, "cries revenge in the eyes of God". Masked intolerants believe that not is right to "ghettoize" from the point of pastoral view these people and that It would be enough to direct towards ordinary proposals. What does it answer re to these criticisms?

First of all, it must be said that the aforementioned document on the "Pastoral care of homosexual people ", taking up a 1975 text, he said clearly that
"The particular inclination of the homosexual person», As such, cannot be considered sin (n.3), since it is not a choice, but belongs to what the subject discovers in himself, in the most different ways. It cannot therefore be said that a pastoral care for these people transforms us into accomplices of a sin, because precisely sin there is not and also because, in any case, pastoral care does not deny anyone.
If then it is right to encourage an ad hoc pastoral, personally I have no doubts, but with a caution. I believe it is good to offer the possibility of groups, associations or initiatives, both for homosexual people and for their families - avoiding any form of undue "pressure groups" where these believers are active protagonists and not simple spectators of a cure that would be to others. However, this attention should remain a possibility, for those who want it, without limiting the access of homosexual people to ordinary pastoral initiatives.

The Diocese of Turin He was at the center of strong controversy for his decision to propose believing homosexuals a path on loyalty. The meeting, after the criticisms of 2018, was then held last April. And the attacks have repeated themselves in the belief that it is inconsistent to speak of loyalty to people who should not be encouraged to remain "faithful to sin" but only to change life. How do you evaluate these "advice"?

It all depends on the meaning that is given to the word loyalty. Talking about loyalty to sin is a contradiction in terms. I don't think a Christian group can or want to speak with this language and in this way. Loyalty for a believer is always his response to the gift of grace who, starting with baptism, has involved him in a personal and ecclesial experience, a journey and an experience of faith: to this he refers the meaning of the word loyalty. And fidelity to the gift of God, in his own history, within the Church.

Pope Francis often speaks of inclusiveness, integration, mercy, welcome. Are there biblical foundations to extend these pastoral attitudes also to homosexual people?

First of all, no one is excluded from mercy if not those who self -exclude: this is the case of the hypocritical, as is clear in the Gospel. To no one Jesus has addressed words as hard as to hypocrites, namely those who presume righteous, as can be seen in many evangelical steps, from 23.1-12 mt to Lk 18.9-14. The question, then, would open to a biblical speech that is much more complex than it is commonly affirmed: what does the writing of homosexuality says? I would like to limit myself to the beautiful text of Gen 2,18. It is a word that says the sense of Eros, the sexal rio desid: "This time/ is bone from my bones,/ meat from my meat. / It will be called a woman, / because man has been removed from the man». It is nice that the first word of a person - 'Adam of Gen 1-2 is every man-is linked to the recognition of one/or it is together something else and as herself.
It is interesting that here the sexual difference is affirmed as the first and indispensable evidence of the difference, but this does not mean that the encounter with the other is reduced to sexual difference: from the black/black, young/old, sick/healthy etc. . The forms of the difference are countless. The word of Genesis says that there is an original relationship between itself and more from itself. This also applies to identity and sexual relationship: nobody can say that he is a man (male), if not passing through the encounter with the woman (female) and vice versa.
At the next verse, Genesis says that the sense of sexual desire (or eros) is the communion of "a single meat" (v. 24). It should be remembered that the verb "will join", to the future, indicates an open action to the drama: between promise and fulfillment, there is the decision of freedom. In other words "unite" is a task, which arises from a good, which is a "vocation" to be accommodated responsibly and not a simple "natural" fact or an unchanging starting point. The relationship, in the couple, implies the continuous transition between separation and unity, difference and alliance, reciprocity and asymmetry.
Now I believe that the evidence of this difference, before in the feeling of falling in love, is first of all in the experience in which every child experiences the relationship with the father and mother. The evidence of this difference is also at the origin of the homosexual person and therefore belongs to his identity. But, in homosexual people, this difference is not felt as a form of one's desire (feel) and therefore does not become an ethical personal task (will).
The reason why, in a concrete person, this desire is missing, it cannot be said in the abstract, but always depends on his experience, in a complex intertwining of personal factors, bodily, family, relational, cultural. To actually investigate these "origins", the contribution of the so -called "human sciences", in particular psychology, sociology and medicine, is very important.

Do you agree with those who claim that the documents within a homosexual couple should be evaluated on the basis of the spiritual fruits that produce, whether or not ordered to build the good of the person?

The famous ethical-anthropological question of the relationship between inclination and acts opens here. However, we must avoid establishing a clear separation or division between the two aspects. The inclination and acting are inseparable. Just to avoid the risk of dualism, I would talk about an ethical task that arises from a promise of good. The first moral task, for everyone, is to give name and assume one's own historical experience, the one that identifies us in our singularity, to live good relationships with others: we are all called to respond to the good received and, starting from this, a decide on ourselves. Secondly, the homosexual person is also called, in his specific way, to travel a path of caste, virtuous relationships, capable of friendship and fraternity. To this commitment, which arises from the gift of God, nobody can escape.
Thirdly, as Pope Francis recalled, albeit regarding another question, the "divorced divorced", it is clear that, within a historical perspective, everyone is asked not only what is possible, but but Even what is possible at him at a determined moment of his life.
Fourthly, the ethical task concerns the acting and choices of homosexual people, as for everyone. In this horizon, the delicate question arises, concerning a homosexual couple relationship.
From this point of view, it seems to me to be difficult-indeed impossible-to give pre-compliant answers, as if from an anthropological theory they could immediately deduce all the practical responses. I believe that the relationships of homosexual couples present gaps and undeniable differences that prevent them from equating them to heterosexual couples, canceling their nevertheless diversity, the moral task concerns the actual possibilities, that is, the possible good, that takes into account the actual history of a subject .
For this reason, I would not exclude that, under certain conditions, a homosexual couple relationship is, for that subject, the most fruitful way to live good relationships, taking into account their symbolic meaning, which is together personal, re -rational and social. This, for example, happens when the stable relationship is the only way to avoid sexual wandering or other humiliating and degrading forms of erotic relationships or when it is help and stimulus to walk on the path of good relationships.

Do you believe that a more inclusive attitude from the Church can induce homosexuals that today are definitely distant to look more attention to a path of faith?

Not only is it possible, but it is necessary. Of course, this must avoid easy ease and improvisations. And a way to go with wisdom and discernment, also using pastoral experiences already tested. The grace of the Gospel and the path it presents, at the root, are no different for the gay world, compared to the call addressed to everyone, even if each has its specific forms. In the end, however, within the same community, we are all engaged in the common sequence of the Lord.

* Don Maurizio Chiodi, priest of the diocese of Bergamo, is a professor of moral theology at the theological faculty of northern Italy. Among the many positions he was diocesan consultant of the Italian Catholic Medici Association for the Bergamo section; Member of the Ethical Committee of the Ospedali Riuniti of Bergamo; Member of the Ethics Committee of the Medea Institute of our family of Bosisio Parini; member of the ethical committee of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute of Mi
lano. Since September 2012 he has been part of the Bioethical Board of the Brescia Poliambulanza.
Exterminated his bibliography. Among the latest works: "Consciousness and discernment in Amoris Laetitia", in L Regno- Documentis LXIII (2018) 183 197. "Consciousness and discernment: what relationship with the norm "? On chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia, in «Theologians 43 (2018), 18-47; "Health and salvation: the relationship between anthropology and theology. Synthesis notes ", in E. Borghi - A. Cargnelli - A. Bondolfi, Word & Words. The care of the other. Biblical, theological, ethical and social reflections, Biblical Association of Switzerland Tiliana, Lugano 2018, 89 102; "Consciousness and discernment. Text and context of Chapter VIII of Amoris Laetitia“, Saint Paul 2018.