Progressive Moralism Misleads

Cardinal Robert McElroy sings from the old progressive hymnal. I lived and prayed my way through the Episcopal Church’s embrace of the sexual revolution during the 1990s, so I’m alive to the ways in which the cardinal from San Diego recycles old clichés in a recent America magazine essay, “Cardinal McElroy on ‘radical inclusion’ for L.G.B.T. people, women and others in the Catholic Church.”

Moral and doctrinal standards become “structures and cultures of exclusion.” Words such as “dialogue” and “inclusion” function as sacred incantations. There are commendations of unity and warnings of “­polarization”—from the pen of someone utterly convinced that any resistance to the progressive agenda is motivated by racism, sexism, or some other pathology that rejects Jesus’s call for “radical inclusion.” Here’s McElroy’s characterization of my view that homosexual acts are immoral: “It is a demonic mystery of the human soul why so many men and women have a profound and visceral animus toward members of the L.G.B.T communities.” I’m accustomed to these kinds of denunciations. They invariably follow calls for “radical inclusion.”

It’s all tiresomely familiar. But one echo in particular caught my attention. While serving on various governing bodies and study committees as an Episcopalian, I was lectured on many occasions about the purportedly misguided emphasis that traditional morality places on sexual sins. McElroy takes up this talking point: “The effect of the tradition that all sexual acts outside of marriage constitute objectively grave sin has been to focus the Christian moral life disproportionately on sexual activity.” By his analysis, this undue focus is “at the very center of our structures of exclusion from the Eucharist.” In other words, we’re too fixated on what we do with our bodies, when we should be more concerned about racism, refugees, the homeless, and other issues of social justice.

This sounds very righteous—but it is not. It shifts our focus away from sins we actually commit and toward circumstances over which we have little or no control. McElroy is keen to emphasize “structures,” as in “structures of exclusion” and “structures of marginalization.” They must be eliminated. In the case of “exclusion” of women, the “structures” can be changed only through canonical and doctrinal changes that would allow women to assume positions of leadership, including ordination to the permanent diaconate. McElroy wants similar changes to allow divorced and remarried people and homosexual couples to be full participants in the Eucharistic community. Let’s leave aside the merits of these progressive proposals and focus on a simple fact: Revising canons and defining doctrines are the responsibility of ecclesiastical authorities, not of people in the pews. I can have an opinion about the ordination of women, perhaps a passionate one. (For the record, I am strongly opposed.) I can form or join a pressure group. But ruling on this question is not my responsibility.

The same holds for the entire menu of progressive causes that are supposedly more important than the question of whom I have sex with and how. I do not decide homeless policy in New York City, nor do I decide refugee policy for the United States. I don’t set tax rates; I am not voting on laws that establish welfare benefits, regulate labor relations, or authorize the use of military force. As a citizen in a democracy, I have some responsibility, given my role as a voter or letter-writer to my representatives, but it is attenuated. Even full-time activists and lobbyists stand at a moral distance, as it were. They persuade, cajole, and exhort; they do not decide. By contrast, we are each directly responsible for our sexual sins. When I was younger, it was entirely within my power to sleep with my girlfriend. Today, it’s up to me whether I cheat on my wife. Sexual sins are not the only sins for which I bear direct ­responsibility. Lying, ­gossiping, and cheating on your taxes may be influenced by “structures of sin,” but they only happen insofar as the individual wills that which is wrong. Circumstances can make these sins more or less grave, but no one needs a degree in moral theology to recognize that they are personal sins; they are committed by me. These sins reflect my character.

Moreover, personal and intimate sexual acts affect our souls in direct and significant ways. This is why rape is a much greater assault on human dignity than robbery. It’s also why sexual sins play a prominent role in our moral imaginations. When police wrongfully kill, the moral gravity is certainly great, not only because a life has been taken without just cause, but also because injustices committed by officers of the law undermine the rule of law, which is the foundation of civilization. But the recent death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis is not my fault, and no amount of theorizing about “structures of sin” can make it so. Our consciences are lucid enough to recognize the difference between social evils and our own sins. That’s because our consciences have no difficulty in recognizing that sexual misconduct and other personal transgressions are our fault in a way that the existence of injustice in society is not.

Progressive moralists are aware that our consciences do not admit to complicity with remote evils. For this reason, McElroy and others invariably adopt a version of “silence is violence.” If I am to avoid the “sin” of complicity with “structures of exclusion,” then I must have the right progressive opinions and put the appropriate signs on my lawn. In other words, if I do not actively support the cardinal’s efforts, then I’m complicit with the unjust status quo. This complicity makes me the worst kind of sinner, captive to “a demonic mystery of the human soul,” and so forth.

Again, I don’t want to argue here the substantive questions of right and wrong when it comes to sex. My point is different. Our consciences tell us that, yes, our theological, moral, and political opinions are matters of moral significance. It is corrupting to advocate for things that are false and wrong. (I’ve written about the corrupting effects of ardent talk of “white privilege” and other antiracist tropes, in “Antiracist Hysteria,” December 2020.) But we know that our convictions, opinions, and ideas can be ephemeral, whereas our actions are all too real, which is why it is a graver sin to engage in sodomy than to believe that sodomy is not such a big deal, morally speaking. This is not to excuse McElroy. When those in positions of authority teach falsely, they encourage others to sin. See Jesus’s warning in Matthew 18:6.

Progressive moralism is a perversion of our present moment. It arises when people become too ardent about their general views of how things should be done. They take “silence is violence” with great seriousness, throwing themselves into causes and movements. In its most extreme form, this transposition of the moral life from the personal to the political regards denunciation of those who are insufficiently committed (to say nothing of those who disagree) as the highest moral calling. Thus the identifiable type, the social justice warrior and his zeal for cancellation: Hate has no home here.

Postconciliar Catholicism has incubated this perversion. It has given a privileged place to a progressive moralism that exploits powerful spiritual motivations: horror over injustice, a desire for moral heroism, intimations of the Kingdom of God. This moralism shifts our attention away from sin and toward “structures of sin.” Concern for the state of our souls is crowded out by concerns about the state of society. Priests would rather promote causes than hear confessions. Prayer and worship give way to advocacy and activism. Holding the right views and supporting the right movements (radical inclusion!) become the royal ways of righteousness. Among the faithful, a sense of sin diminishes, as the neglect of the sacrament of reconciliation indicates. And reasons to go to church diminish as well. The progressive moralism of leaders like McElroy is indistinguishable from the priorities and causes of secular progressives. Why not slice out the extraneous theology (which only burdens us with old-fashioned views about sex) and become a secular progressive? Occam’s razor used in this way is one explanation for the decline of mainline Protestantism.

There’s another dynamic as well. Some do not ignore their consciences. They allow that Cardinal McElroy may be correct about some aspects of this or that “structure of sin.” And even if wrong, he’s certainly entitled to his opinions. But these people—and I count myself among them—recognize that what he is saying about the relative insignificance of personal sins and the supposedly more decisive “structures of sin” is not true. Our consciences tell us that what we do with our sexual organs matters a great deal, precisely because, as with our tongues (see the Epistle of James), we have direct control over them, and therefore unmediated responsibility. And our consciences tell us that, when it comes to church governance and secular politics, our responsibility is mediated and, in many cases, very attenuated. Insofar as McElroy says otherwise, as does this pontificate more generally, we withdraw our spiritual obedience, and rightly so. One cannot in good conscience obey those who one knows are teaching falsehoods.