Drifting Toward Irrelevance? The Laity, Sexual Ethics, and the Future of the Church
One of the more disturbing indicators of trouble in today's church is its seeming irrelevance to many Catholics when it comes to moral decision-making. The situation has multiple causes, but is linked in an especially immediate way to the crisis over contraception that marked the 1960s. This ar...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Catholic Historical Society
2007
|
| In: |
American catholic studies
Year: 2007, Volume: 118, Issue: 2, Pages: 1-20 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | One of the more disturbing indicators of trouble in today's church is its seeming irrelevance to many Catholics when it comes to moral decision-making. The situation has multiple causes, but is linked in an especially immediate way to the crisis over contraception that marked the 1960s. This article does three things. First, it provides a brief sketch of Catholic pastoral practice with regard to contraception in the United States in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. Second, it looks more closely at developments on the pastoral front in the late 1940s and the 1950s - developments that were intimately linked to the crisis of the mid-1960s. Third, it explores the crisis itself and its consequences for subsequent generations of Catholics. Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical issued in 1968, brought an unfortunate end to a messy, contentious, but necessary conversation among Catholics about the meaning and purpose of sexuality, love, and marriage. The silence that followed Humanae Vitae created a kind of moral vacuum, especially for Catholics born in recent decades, and does much to explain the seeming irrelevance of the church for moral deliberation among a great many Catholics, particularly but not exclusively the young. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2161-8534 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American catholic studies
|