Another of Creation's great mysteries

Bishop Richard J. Sklba wrote the "Herald of Hope" column for the January 12, 2006 Catholic Herald.

The recent Vatican Instruction on ministry and homosexuality has been greeted in very different ways. Some people were grateful for the reaffirmation of traditional sexual morality in the midst of what may seem to be so much contemporary confusion and ambiguity.

Some people were grateful for the reaffirmation of Church teaching on sexual morality in the midst of so much contemporary child molesting and other sexual abuse by priests, which was then ignored and covered up by bishops.

The need, recognized by all Catholic moralists, to reintroduce some subjective dimensions into the ethics which measure our human relationships, has left many fearful that all objective moral standards have been eliminated from Christian life.

So our fears must be groundless in the face of an asserted consensus of Catholic moralists. And yet Archbishop Dolan has publicly declined to say our Archdiocese won't be bankrupted by abuse claims, and somewhere there's a canceled check for $450,000 to Paul Marcoux and his lawyers.

In terms of ministry, the fact of the matter is that our people have a right to expect integrity from their clergy and fidelity to the fundamental promises of life.

Our people might expect integrity in our clergy in the sense of fidelity to Church teaching, including explaining rather than undercutting a Vatican instruction.

At the same time, others have observed, the Instruction seems to go beyond external behavior to the mystery which remains at the core of a person's identity.

This "mystery passage" by Bishop Sklba parallels that of the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, reiterated in Lawrence v. Texas.

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

The Court goes on in Casey to reaffirm that abortion is beyond the reach of the state's judgment, and then in Lawrence that sodomy is also. Bishop Sklba uses his "mystery passage" similarly, to imply an issue is beyond the Church's judgment.