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May 16, 2018Precision of terms in the field hospital by Ann Schneible
During my tenure as a journalist in Rome, I had the opportunity to cover the 2014 and 2015 Synods on the Family, and one of the topics of discussion was the Catholic Church's languagesurrounding certain pastoral matters, particularly homosexuality. It wasn't a question of Latin vs. modern languages that we were concerned with. Rather, it was the magisterium's mode of expression (best translated by the Italian word "linguaggio") when addressing this topic: specifically, the terms "objectively" and "intrinsically disordered" used to describe same-sex attractions (SSA) and same-sex intimate acts, respectively.
In today's cultural climate, where it is becoming increasingly easy to (even inadvertently) close someone off to constructive dialogue with the wrong word, these terms present a significant pastoral and communications challenge. Critics of the Church's language on this issue have long decried this terminology, which they say implies that homosexuality is a disorder, and that it singles out SSA persons in a way that suggests that men and women with this experience are particularly grievous sinners due to an attraction which they never chose. However, as executive director of Courage International, Father Philip Bochanski told Crux in 2017, this is simply not the case. [...]
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