Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality by Kippley John

Author:Kippley, John [Kippley, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898709735
Published: 2014-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

THE HARD CASES

This chapter is written primarily for the priests, deacons, teachers, ministers, and counselors who openly teach and preach the Christian teaching reaffirmed by Humanae Vitae and who also promote the practical help of natural family planning, and I will address them directly.

You will not promote this teaching very long before you will start to hear the hard cases. Some of the cases are hard by reason of nature, and some difficulties are self-inflicted, even if unknowingly. In other cases you will be hearing from people, almost invariably wives, who are victimized by a spouse’s unchastity and sometimes compulsive sexual behavior.

Counseling Principles

Because you are most likely a sensitive person, you will be tempted to give in to false compassion, and therefore you may find it helpful to review periodically the principles of truly compassionate Christian counseling. To put it another way, as a co-founder of the Couple to Couple League and author of items dealing with Christian sexuality, I have seen and heard my share of difficult cases and honest inquiries about right and wrong. I want to share with you some of the things that encourage me to do my best to teach the truth as the Church teaches it.

Cardinal Newman’s counsel

The first item is attributed to John Henry Cardinal Newman. I got it from a priest who used it in a homily, but I was unable to get further information about the source. I find it both comforting and inspirational.

I Have My Mission

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.

I have my mission.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing.

I shall do good. I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His word. Therefore I will trust Him.

Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away.

If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him

If I am in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.

If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.

He does nothing in vain.

He knows what He is about.

Karl Rahner, S.J., on situation ethics

This quotation comes from Karl Rahner’s Nature and Grace, which was published in English in 1964, when he was still thoroughly orthodox.1 The entire quotation forms one sentence, a Rahnerian specialty.

If we Christians, when faced with a moral decision, really realized

that the world is under the Cross on which God himself hung nailed and pierced,

that obedience to God’s law can also entail man’s death,

that we may not do evil in order that good may come of it,

that it is an error and heresy of this eudomonic modern age to hold that the morally right thing can never lead to a tragic situation from which in this world there is no way out;

if we really realized that as Christians we must

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