Sir, - Fr Tom Ingoldsby states (July 20th) that "some of the ideas expressed by Fr O'Leary may be more confusing than helpful". The ideas in question are: (1) Vatican II's teaching on freedom of conscience; (2) The teaching of Episcopal conferences, the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church that the human rights of homosexuals must be defended;
(3) The teaching of Paul VI that objectively immoral acts can be excusable, diminished in guilt, or subjectively defensible.
Paul VI was very anxious not to lay heavy burdens on others without raising a finger to lift them himself. Thus he tolerated, countenanced, or himself formulated liberal interpretations of his teachings on sexual ethics. Some factions in the Church today may well see this pastoral latitude as confusing and unhelpful, but I do not know of any official statement that condemns it.
Fr Ingoldsby says that the European Court declared homosexual acts to be a human right. This seems to be a misrepresentation. I do not have the text of the court's judgement, but as I remember it, the issue all along was the right of gay people to be free of unjust discrimination. Since it was discriminatory, the law against homosexual acts was also unjust to gay people who did not indulge in those acts. Exactly such "unjust discrimination" is denounced in the Catechism.
The record of the Catholic Church's dealings with gay people is undoubtedly a shameful one, and apologies are long overdue. But there have been some timid signs of decency in official quarters of late. In yoking Catholic authority to a vicious and discredited law, Fr Ingoldsby does no service to gay people or to the Church. - Yours, etc., Rev Joseph S. O'Leary, DD,
Suginami-ku, Tokyo, Japan.