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S i d e b a r
Moral Norms Aren't Universally Applicable?
By Fr. Ray Ryland
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This Rock
Volume 12, Number 5
 May-June 2001 
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Victimization is high in the pantheon of the politically correct. Fr. Rausch hits a new high-or low-in a passage on page 83 of Reconciling Faith and Reason. It occurs in the chapter "Sexual Morality" (where he spends, incidentally, more time trying to justify "stable" homosexual relationships than on any other topic). He writes, "The questions raised by those who have been marginalized by the Church's teaching-those in second marriages without annulments, gays and lesbians trying to live in faithful relationships, those unable to afford or support more children-will continue to trouble the Church."
Add to the crime of victimization the additional tragedy of marginalization. Following this line of thinking, every murderer, rapist, adulterer, liar-insert your sin of choice-has been "marginalized" by the Church's teaching. And the only way the Church can bring an end to this crime is to stop teaching.
The next sentence after the quote above is this: "This is where the current debate is joined, not about the existence of moral norms rooted in our human nature [which Fr. Rausch is willing to concede], but over the question of whether those norms are universally applicable."
This is an astonishing posing of the issue. There are moral norms rooted in human nature but not universally applicable? Then those to whom they are not applicable in Fr. Rausch's opinion are something other than normal humans
Fr. Ray Ryland, a convert and former Episcopal priest, is chaplain of the Coming Home Network and lecturer in theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He writes from Steubenville, Ohio, where he lives with Ruth, his wife of fifty-five years.
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