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- Home
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This apartment is currently off the market. Go to the building page to see availabilities.
$5,7952 Bedroom, 2 Baths
Available immediately
One Year, Market Rate Lease
Liberty Plaza 10 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10005
Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
Wall Street
Downtown Office
Uptown Office
(888) 458-6444
Apartment Features
AMAZING VIEWS! This 2 Bedroom home has a generously spaced combined living and dining room, a windowed kitchen with granite finishes, washer and dryer, tons of closet space & 2 marble baths. And again.....just wait till you see this view!
Building Features & Amenities
- Elevator
- Full-time Doorman
- Valet
- Laundry in Building
- Fitness Center
- Indoor Pool
- Residents Lounge
- Business Center
- Childrens Playroom
- Rooftop Deck
- Residents Garden
- WiFi Access
- Laundry in Basement
- Package Receiving
- Free Weights
- Sauna
- Landscaped Roof Deck
- Sundeck
- Courtyard/Plaza
- Intercom
- Video Intercom
- Units: 287
- High-rise (26+ Floors)
- Built 2004
- Rental Property
Built in the financial district, Liberty Plaza is a home that inspires tenants' affection. What sets it apart is that it was originally designed as luxury apartment building and is not a building that was converted for residential use. That means the one, two, and three-bedroom homes are well-thought out. Built from the ground up, they accommodate a comfortable, sophisticated lifestyle for individuals and families. Plaza homes offer flowing layouts, large, comfortable rooms with high ceilings, natural light, and closet space. Tenants make great use of the fitness center, saunas, and other amenities. The block's natural boundaries of Wall Street, Broadway, and the East River create a unique sense of neighborhood in the FiDi area.
Application and Move-in Information
- Insurent Accepted
Owner / Manager / Leasing Information for Liberty Plaza
For more information on this listing, contact:
Property Management:
Glenwood Management


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Order A Car Fax Report
We have used car finance options, including no money down and bad credit financing, for people in the San Diego, California area with any credit score.
Search San Diego, California for the cheapest used cars for sale at your chosen price range. We have cheap used trucks for sale under $6,000.
The 2016 model year marked the emergence of the third-generation Hyundai Tucson, so we didn't expect much in the way of changes for the 2017 model. However, Hyundai has announced a few updates for the 2017 model.
Continue Reading »
Earlier today, it was announced that Futurliner #3 will be crossing the block Saturday, August 5 at 2:00 pm Mountain Time as part of Motorsports Auction Group's Hot August Nights collector car auction taking place August 4-6 in Reno, Nevada.
We guess it's best to call it a custom – rather than concept - vehicle. In any case that's what we're calling the latest Honda-based 2016 Civic Sedan creation that was commissioned by SEGA and made its debut on July 22nd at SEGA's sold-out Sonic the Hedgehog 25th Anniversary event at the House of Blues in San Diego as part of that city's annual Comic-Con soiree.
Based on the same platform that underpins the current Honda Accord, the Acura TLX first went on sale in the fall of 2014 as a 2015 model. As expected, no major changes are in store for the 2017 model year, especially in light of the fact that, through June of this year, sales of Acura's most popular sedan are down by nearly 15%.

subset: commoncrawl


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Eight years ago on, Friday October 8th 2004, Pentaho was founded to (1) make a disruptive impact in the BI space (2) screw around with the big proprietary vendors (3) have a lot of fun along the way. It's been a great ride…but we have so much more to accomplish! Looking forward to the future with this phenomenal team that has come together over the years.
Happy B'Day Pentaho


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I have several blocks of data to save into post meta, including 'file_property', 'workspace_property', 'user_property','access_type', 'usage_tracking'. Each block in itself is an array. Should I save them all as one post-meta, or save each single data sepeartely? I feel the post-meta table might be a bit too long if one post has 20 to 30 meta-key, but if all in one, I'm not sure if it's convinient when query or update, so to ask.
In most cases its better to store the meta as a single array and in that save database queries.
The only down side to storing the data as an array is it's nearly impossible to query based on sirealized data.
So my rule is if i need to query based on that data the it gets its own field anything else goes in an array.
The only disadvantage is that arrays and objects need to converted to a storable value, so you get a a weird looking string as the meta value. In most cases this is not a problem, but it becomes one when the meta value (data) is large and you need to make queries that do value comparisons. Take WP's user capabilities as an example.
My advice is to avoid both solutions whenever possible. If your data consists of well defined representations, like values that can have only a-z characters for example, then you can implode/explode those values as needed. This way you can still keep them into a single meta field, but into a much nicer form than serialized / json_encoded data.
You answered this yourself: you get a slightly faster query when reading it.
Ask yourself if you need to get posts ordered by
user_property, or posts that have a specific
user_property etc. If you do, then you have to create post meta for each of those.


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Why are Blu-ray player manufacturers such cheapskates?
i just bought a new receiver that handles HDMI, so, i'm now in the market for a bluray player. in doing research and seeing what's available, i've noticed something that really irks me. most of the bluray players i've looked at only come with a composite cable. yeah, that's right, composite, not even component. why do manufacturers feel the need to be so cheap when an HDMI cable can be had for less than $1??
now, it's not that i need an HDMI cable. i have plenty thanks to deals.woot. but, come on, a composite cable? seriously? throw us a friggin bone here Sony, LG, Samsung et al.
secondary question:
anyone know of a recent bluray player that converts 50hz content to 60hz?
28 Answers answer
Wh...what? What's even the point of that?
Really good observation. I have no idea.
I've often wondered that myself. If I were selling a new BR player to someone who wasn't tech savy, I'd want them to get the best experience right out of the box, instead of being frustrated that they spent so much, but see no change in quality. Don't quote me on this but composite isn't even a digital signal, which completely defeats the purpose of BR in the first place (being HD.)
Maybe there is a warehouse full of composite cables left over from the early 2000s that all these manufacturers share. Possibly located next to the VGA cable storage warehouse.
@eraten: Whoops...W-A-R-E-H-O-U-S-E. I misread that as "whorehouse". I suppose it's possible, but it would be...different.
Same reason why most vehicles don't include a spare tire or an ashtray... It's not "needed".
@jsoko: Those are slightly different. Spare tires have been replaced by run-flat tires, which are likely better since a disturbing number of people were dramatically misusing the donut space-saver spare tires (I can't even tell you how many people I see doing 75+ mph on donut spares on their drive wheels).
As for ashtrays, smokers don't use 'em - they throw their burning cigarettes carelessly out the window anyways. What's the point? It might as well just be a cup holder since it will just end up filled with coins and other miscellany.
The sad thing is when the HD spec first came out and they started selling upconverting dvd players I had gotten one that included an hdmi cable. The sad fact is that manufacturers are colluding with cable manufacturer to NOT included the cables in the box so they can pay another 30 - 50 bucks for the cables at the store.
@lparsons42: It's really not different at all... Why supply a $1 HDMI cable when they can supply a 15 cent cable (prices for point, not calculated)? 85 cents more profit there, then they can sell the cable for $10-25 and make $9-24 later. Ash trays/cigarette lighters can be purchased from the dealer as a "smokers package" for $50 after the cost of the vehicle. No manufacturer has run-flat tires stock on a vehicle, if anything they give you a "tire repair kit" with your vehicle purchase as a replacement.
@murixbob: Sadly that is the most logical reason. I remember when HD was first starting out and HDMI cables were close to $100, if not over that in most stores.
@lparsons42 I see your point, but no cars that I know of come equipped with runflats standard, they just aren't cost-effective and people will abuse it just the same. I have however seen base-model Chevy's and Ford's come with a can of "fix-a-flat" in lieu of a spare tire. But by the time most drivers realize that weird vibration and burning smell is a flat tire, they're riding on rims anyhow so fix-a-flat really don't help out.
@murixbob: Same thing has been done with printers and USB cables for years.
@thedogma: How can you use a printer without any cable (unless it's wirelees)? At least the Blueray makers are supplying some kind of cable! lol
@lparsons42: I saw that guy, yesterday. We were doing 80, when he passed us on his donut, car was packed with kids, none in car seats.
edit: For the record, I am a smoker, who has never, and I mean never, thrown a cigarette out the car window, lit or otherwise.
While I agree with you and see the point, my guess is this:
I am very willing to bet that there are still far more TV sets, receivers etc that do NOT have HDMI capabilities but do have plain old component jacks. Therefore, they are sending the cable that is most likely to work right out of the box.
And yes, especially with a Blu-Ray player it's sort of silly to use component cables it pretty much is guaranteed to at least work if they are in there.
The fact that it likely saves them a few pennies per unit is just the icing on the cake that makes their accountants salivate and twitch with glee.
@jsoko: lol who knows. It's just a way for the companies to make more money. Buying a printer? Oh the cables not included, so in order to take it home and use it you need to pay an extra $20.
I have to imagine that darn near everyone has at least one USB A to B (ie printer) cable at this point. Cant imagine someone needing one with a new printer anymore.
@jsoko: I'm pretty sure my BMW came with run-flat tires standard.
@jsoko: My 2008 Mini Cooper S came with runflats standard.
Back on topic, perhaps the manufacturers are trying to provide lowest common denominator functionality? Conceivably, not everybody buying a blu-ray deck has a TV that can accept HDMI inputs, or even component inputs. This way, their product will work with (effectively) every TV made in the last... 30? years.
On topic, it's not about the $1 cost of an HDMI cable, it's about the potential to sell a name-brand HDMI cable in the store as an add-on accessory for $20 or more. And yes, it's the same theory as USB cables and printers.
@dcalotta: Downside is - there's no point in having a Bluray player with a composite output, since you're not going to get a HD image (assuming a composite input only TV is even capable of HD). Might as well stick with a DVD player until you've got a TV that can take advantage of the higher definition source.
@pg318: You know that and I know that, but I think you're giving a lot of credit to a lot of people. My almost inlaws have a 50something inch TV that they have plugged into their digital cable via coax. They're thrilled with it. If they had a blu ray player, you could connect it with some twine and they'd love it.
I don't know about that conspiracy theory with them colluding with cable makers.
The more logical (Occam's Razor-ish) reason is that, while the cable itself is cheap, the whole process is not cost-beneficial. First, they'd have to find a source, negotiage contracts, payments which may or may not include foreign exchange issues, shipping, customs and other financial and legal issues. They'll also have to decide on the appropriate length and other features of the cable. Then they also have to re-design the packaging, i.e. the foam or styrofoam inner to include slots to hold the cables which require them to well redesign it with the industrial engineers, reconfigure the machine that makes the styro inner, test package it so that it fits and then test it for falls, crush, etc. And finally, modify the assembly line to package it properly. And with the additional weight though slight, they can ship fewer players.
So it's not really that simple as saying the cable only costs $1.
Yes to LCD and logistics.
Consider also razor thin margins and the selling volume.
$1 cable per unit at 1 million units is $1 million profit right off the top.
@first2summit: If they are colluding, it wouldn't be with the cable makers, but with the stores that sell their players. The stores like to sell people $40 HDMI cables, and it's harder to do that if there is one in the box. Add the cable, you sellers' are more inclined to sell another brand and you spend a buck or more per unit. Leave out the cable, the seller is happy, and you get your extra buck.
@publiclurker: Yes, I should have included the stores as well as the cable makers, too.
Consider what it takes to collude - look at all the different manufacturers who aren't packaging the cables and all the retailers, even just the big ones, they have to collude with. This would be like some super secret mafia type summit. And then for this to have occurred for so long without anyone including the FTC hearing about it and filing suit is a lot.
This is why I mention Occam's Razor - you have to make a lot of BIG assumptions for this to be possible. Instead, someone could have suggested adding a cable and someone else did the quick process I described and killed the idea. Or they looked to the printer manufacturers and said they don't include USB cables and they're doing fine so why should we?
My blu-ray player had the HDMI cable included. Apparently, YMMV.
I don't think my player came with a cable. If it did, it certainly wasn't HDMI, and I threw it into the misc tech box without a second thought.
To answer your other question, this list is I believe regularly updated: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=95245
I would actually just recommend going with an older player off the list on ebay, though. I got an older LG for about $30, and it works just fine. The new players are just more devices that the manufacturers can put apps on and mark up the price. My Panasonic has a curious feature that allows one to eject the disc by waving your hand over the top of the device, instead of pressing the button that would easily be within reach to anyone in hand waving range. That probably cost an extra $25 right there.
@stark: i saw that list while researching. the problem is finding some of those older players can be challenging at times. where'd you get the LG player you were talking about?
@carl669: I just searched a few of them out on eBay. I ended up with an LG 370, which doesn't have wifi, but is otherwise fairly indistinguishable from my $200 player.
A cursory glance shows a few of the ones near the top of the list are available for ~$40 at Buy it Now prices. Make sure you read the descriptions, of course; Most in that price range are used, and I noticed a few that state the BluRay function wasn't working, but the rest of the unit was.
Its because consumers are cheap. Consider this, 25 years ago in the late 80s a VCR cost $400-$500, and at the time median household income was around $24,000. Todays median household income is $50,000, you didn't pay $800-1000 for that blu-ray player did you?
You mean plain old composite, not "plain old component."


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text: Theo and Raquel Motherwell are the only newcomers to the sleepy town of Wick in fifteen-year-old Ginger Pritt's memory. Hampered by a lingering innocence while her best friend, Cherry, grows more and more embroiled with boys, Ginger is instantly attracted to the worldliness of this dashing couple. But as Ginger's keen imagination takes up the seductive mystery of their past, she is only left with more questions. Who—or what—exactly, are the Motherwells? And what is it they want with her? Both a lyrical coming-of-age story and a spine-tingling tale of ghostly menace, The Beginners introduces Rebecca Wolff as an exciting new talent in fiction.


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text: Entertainment Arts Baltimore arts and culture gifts [Pictures] Baltimore artists, authors and musicians have plenty of gift inspiration to offer. Here's a sampling. This photo gallery is featured in these articles: Business Retailers test new formats during holidays Consuming Interests Cyber Monday spending sets record Consuming Interests Miracle on Main Streets kicks off Wednesday


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Help, my site is suddenly populated with weird characters, like this:
"Do what you love and do it often,†"If you don't like your job, quit,†and "Travel often; Getting lost will help you find yourself.â€
What do I do to remove it?
Help, my site is suddenly populated with weird characters, like this:
What do I do to remove it?
It appears that the site is still using the Unicode character set from the page header, but the database may have been corrupted. Ask Linode for a backup restore and/or if they changed anything with their MySQL servers.
If you don't run your own regular database backups, you should. Try WordPress › WP-DB-Backup « WordPress Plugins.
You can also use phpmyadmin at Linode to check the collation of the database and repair it. Or use WordPress › Portable phpMyAdmin « WordPress Plugins from inside the WP admin.
You can try commenting out the encoding type in the wp-config. Sometimes that works.


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Me and a friend have been trying to find a way to get the position of a second point (B on the picture) having the first point (A), the length of the chord (d) and the radius (r).
It must be possible right? We know the solution will be two possible points but since it's a semicircle we also know the x coordinate of B will have to be lower than A and the y coordinate must be always greater than 0. Think you can help?
Here's a picture to illustrate the example:
Thanks in advance!


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Australian Open: Djokovic wins 17th straight match
Sharapova routs Venus
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I want to install Steam and other programs to a different partition, how do I pick where Ubuntu Software Center will install them? How do I pick where Steam games will be installed?
Steam is not located together with the Steam games. The Steam application will be located in your system area and available to all users. Your Steam games will be located in your /home directory.
Packages are installed in different places on the filesystem, they are not just installed in one directory.
For example, here are all the files installed by the
You could move all these files to a new partition, and then create symlinks from the original locations to the new locations, but this is more trouble than its worth.
If you want to combine two hard disks into one partition, you can use LVM or RAID to do that.
In Steam's case, downloaded games are installed in
You could also manually move the


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Coconut grove lifestyle waking distance to the shops beautiful condominium For sale call yaleny green 305-9721134 no realtorMore info Email a friend
Aventura. Penthouse. 2 stories. 2bedrooms/2.5bath. Water View. Low Maintenance: $555/mo.Total Area: 1537sqft. Boutique building, great location, 2 parking spaces, fitness and party room,swimming room, Jacuzzi, walk to Aventura Mall, great deal, Asking: $...More info Email a friend
Deerfield beach 2/2 New kitchen cabinets and appliances, all new bathrooms, new closets, totally renovated with many pluses. first floor unit with beautiful garden and pool view. Parking in front of unit. very well managed building. Sellers MOTIVATED!! ...More info Email a friend
Condo on the intra-coastal, 3 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms, 18th floor, hurricane shutters on all windows and sliding glass doors, 2 terraces, new upgraded kitchen w/ stainless steel appliances, granite counter-tops, wood cabinets, plantation shutters on ...More info Email a friend
Best Location. Completely remodeled 1/1 beautiful floors, 1st floor. $146,000. Call owner agent. 786 256-9525 or 305 962-1116.More info Email a friend
PUBLIC AUCTION FRIDAY, AUG. 5th Bellini at Williams Island 3/3 Condo 2,235 sf- private elevator, Corner-water view-high luxury 8% BP - Info how to Bid visit www.BELLINIAUCTION.com (305) 984-0694 Lidio Britto, Auctioneer AU3541More info Email a friend
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9 Feb 2010 2:35 PM #1
GXT Widget Expander
If you've used GXT's Grid and RowExpander plugin, you know what I'm talking about. The current design lacks the ability to put arbitrary widgets into the expanded row. XTemplate is great but it falls short when you want richer user interaction inside the expanded row (something like Google Reader's grid).
At my work I created a modified RowExpander (I call it WidgetExpander) to tackle this limitation and it has been working great. So I created a project on Github (http://github.com/kevinjqiu/gxt-widget-expander) to open source this part. Hopefully you'll find this useful as I did.
9 Feb 2010 9:56 PM #2
I've been using the one that Arno came up with, I tweaked a bit and he formalized but I've had a few problems with it.
I'll give this a go and report back!
12 Feb 2010 12:51 PM #3
nice :-)
one thing i see that the expander cache the widgets. if the models are changing later then the changes are not visible with this plugin. maybe add some handling to make it working with changed models. or a option to disable the caching.This forum needs your help: you got hints from the community and now you have fixed your code? dont just reply with "now its fixed" or "i found the error"! please take the time to post also an detailed answer with the working code.
GreaseMonkey Script for a GXT-only Forum: it hides ExtJs here: New Posts • Search Results • Advanced Search form • Category overview http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthrea...041#post410041
16 Feb 2010 9:11 AM #4
27 Jul 2011 8:56 PM #5
This plugin looks awesome and is exactly what I need. I also noticed the plugin made by Arno, any recommendations on which one is easier to use?
I simply want to use this for a Ticketing system type WebApp, where the use can click the Plus to expand the Ticket topic and be able submit an entire form or response. Which plugin would you recommend, to do something like that, where I want the row expander to just expand into a blank form.
I am a little bit confussed with this one only in the fact that in the Demo Application it calls
final WidgetExpander<User> expander = new WidgetExpander<User>
But because my form wont really have a DataModel what would i want to do? like what if i just wanted to add a button or checkbox
28 May 2013 6:27 AM #6
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
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- Buenos Aires, Argentina
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I'm trying to use this WidgetExpander grid plugin in a nested way and having troubles, when I have a grid inside a grid it works just fine, but if the second grid has also the plugin to get another grid inside (2 levels of nesting) it doesn't work.
Has anyone faced this?
Thanks in Advance.
26 Jan 2016 11:25 PM #7
This project aims to add flexibility to GXT row expander by enabling putting arbitrary widgets in the expanded row. GXT's grid widget is great, especially with the RowExpander plugin, it allows the creation of a Google Reader style grid (a list with expandable rows).


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Star of BAFTA award-winning 'The Inbetweeners' and BBC Three's 'Cuckoo', much-loved towering beacon of comedy Greg Davies is one of the most successful stand-ups in the UK. Following a sold-out 2012 tour and due to popular demand, Greg's critically-acclaimed and riotously funny show, The Back of My Mum's Head, comes to a venue near you in 2013.
This show will be funny, but to be clear, if you're looking for insight into the human condition you'll be better off eating a bun or picking up a stick…
"One of this country's best comedians" - The Times
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Greg Davies
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Engagement or Retreat?
Last summer Commonweal published a controversial essay by Joseph Bottum, "The Things We Share: A Catholic's Case for Same-Sex Marriage." Bottum, the former editor of First Things, had long publicly opposed same-sex marriage, but in "The Things We Share" he argued that it was no longer prudent for American Catholics to oppose the legal recognition of same-sex civil marriage—because such opposition had likely become a lost cause; because the only good arguments against same-sex marriage were no longer intelligible in an essentially post-Christian culture; and because same-sex civil marriage might end up being good for gay couples, as well as for America's marriage culture more generally. According to Bottum, Catholics should instead concentrate their efforts on the "re-enchantment" of a culture that had forgotten "the essential God-hauntedness" of the world. Because he did not argue for a change in church teaching, many readers of Bottum's essay criticized him for not going far enough. Many conservatives, meanwhile, criticized him for going much too far.
We invited Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist at the New York Times, and Jamie Manson of the National Catholic Reporter to comment on Bottum's argument. Manson's piece appears below; Douthat's piece, which we posted Wednesday, appears here, and Joseph Bottum's response to both is here.
On the first day same-sex marriage became legal in New York State, in July 2011, I headed to Washington Square Park to witness the marriage of two women. The couple, who had been together for nineteen years, first exchanged vows and rings in a commitment ceremony seventeen years ago. The vows they repeated on that Sunday afternoon gave them, at last, equal protection under the law.
After the ceremony, we celebrated with pizza, strawberries, and Prosecco (smuggled into the park in coolers). The twenty people in attendance, whose ages ranged from twenty-one to well over seventy, all shared two things in common with the couple. We were all either gay or lesbian, and we all remained deeply committed to our Catholic faith. The married couple—both former nuns—first met at Mass two decades ago. And it was directly to Mass that they, and most of the wedding party, headed after the festivities.
Seeing these two women still so completely in love after two decades together, few could deny how naturally they complemented one another on every level. But for all of the special and spiritual aspects of the afternoon, I was struck most by how ordinary it was. I wished that those who regard same-sex marriage with contempt, fear, or concern could have observed that celebration. What they would have witnessed would probably have borne a striking resemblance to other weddings they've attended: friends weeping over the couple's vows, taking tons of pictures, and enjoying a great party.
Joseph Bottum is certainly correct that "same-sex marriage is already here; it's not as though we can halt it"—and that strenuously resisting state recognition of same-sex marriage is an expensive, damaging battle for the Catholic hierarchy. In his view, "American Catholics should accept state recognition of same-sex marriage simply because they are Americans."
I would take that further. As someone preparing to enter a same-sex marriage with my partner of five years, I think American Catholics can and should accept recognition of same-sex marriage because they are Catholics. The church should revise its attitude toward same-sex relationships not simply because the culture is moving in that direction—which by itself, as Bottum says, is no reason to alter any moral teaching—but because it has become clear that that what the church teaches about homosexuality is not true.
Bottum writes that "the thin notions of natural law deployed against same-sex marriage in recent times are unpersuasive, and, what's more, they deserve to be unpersuasive—for their thinness reflects their lack of rich truth about the spiritual meanings present in this created world." I agree, though I suspect the truth I have in mind is not what Bottum is gesturing toward. Anyone with an experience of loving same-sex relationships will find unpersuasive the Catholic teaching that such relationships are sinful by their very nature because only sex acts that have the potential to create new life are licit.
Such a strict interpretation of natural law reduces human beings to their biological functions, and fails to appreciate persons in their totality as the emotional, spiritual, and physical beings that God created us to be. Most of us have realized that the potential to procreate does not by itself lead to the flourishing of married couples. Many childless couples have demonstrated that their relationships can also be fruitful and life-giving. So why must same-sex couples be regarded as incapable of marriage?
In her book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, Margaret Farley proposes that, in addition to meeting the norms of equality, mutuality, and commitment, a just and loving sexual relationship should also demonstrate fruitfulness—which need not be limited to conceiving and raising children. Some married couples are called to be parents, Farley explains, but all married couples are called to bring the life of God into the world by caring for one another, nourishing other relationships, working to mend our broken world, and being a sign of faithfulness to their community.
Rather than making procreation and genital complementarity the fundamental criteria for marriage, we should instead be asking whether spouses are a visible, tangible sign of God's loving presence in our midst. Does their relationship help them flourish as individuals and as a couple? Does their commitment inspire others to deepen their fidelity and devotion? Are they a sign of the power of forgiveness, mercy, and unconditional love? Are the sacrifices that they make for one another an incarnation of the selfless love to which Jesus calls us?
Many of us know same-sex couples that fit this description, and, sadly, we know married heterosexual couples that do not. Reducing these couples to the functions of their anatomies simply does not do justice to the Catholic understanding of human persons. Recognizing the potential of a gay or lesbian couple to fulfill the requirements of sacramental marriage would be one way to embrace "the spiritual meanings present in this created world," as Bottum puts it. The growing acceptance of same-sex relationships and the push for same-sex marriage is not, I would argue, a sign that reality needs re-enchanting, but a sign that our culture may be more receptive to a challenging spiritual vision of married love and commitment than Bottum suspects.
Bottum seems to want to table the question of whether gay and lesbian relationships are sinful until some future date when the church and the culture are better equipped to discuss it. "After the long hard work of restoring cultural sensitivity to the metaphysical meanings reflected in all of reality," he says, "Catholics will have enough experience to decide what measure of the deep spirituality of nuptials, almost absent in present culture, can reside in same-sex unions." For people like myself, and the friends who joined me that Sunday in Washington Square Park, that suggestion is unsatisfactory. By all means, we should work to make our culture more sensitive to the deep spirituality of nuptials. But same-sex couples shouldn't have to wait for the success of that project, whatever that might look like, before we can participate.
It may take centuries before the Catholic hierarchy recognizes that marriages like the one I witnessed in the park, or the one I hope to enter, are holy unions with the potential to bring the life of God more fully into our world. But just as most of our culture has already concluded that same-sex relationships are equally deserving of protection under the law, for many Catholics the question of whether gays and lesbians are capable of living the vocation of marriage is already settled.
About the Author
Jamie L. Manson is a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. She is also NCR's book-review editor.
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"Such a strict interpretation of natural law reduces human beings to their biological functions"
Not at all: it simply recognizes that our body (including our sexual organs and how we use them) is very significant. Conversely, to affirm that our biology is irrelevant to the way we love, and to our spiritual make-up, is a form of Gnosticism,
I give Jamie Manson credit for a very clear exposition of a common approach to arguing for church recognition of same sex marriage. She notes a common claim, one which Bottum also accepts: that the church's opposition to same sex marriage is rooted primarily in natural law. Accepting this claim leads to the inference that, if only the natural-law argument can be refuted, or natural law itself can be reinterpreted, then there is no longer a reason for the church to oppose same sex marriage.
Such claims on the part of church authorities frequently are countered by the rhetorical approach that Manson employs:
She gives testimony of personal experience, of having witnessed the goodness and even holiness of same sex unions;
- She attempts to show how this transformational personal experience aligns with a corrected interpretation of natural law: if we expand our understanding of notions like fruitfulness to encompass more than literal, biological reproduction, then we see that there is no conflict between the natural law and same sex unions
Naturally, this strategy depends on the primacy of natural law. But I think Luke Timothy Johnson had it right in a Commonweal essay from a number of years ago: church opposition to homosexual acts ultimately is rooted in Scripture, and perhaps as a corollary, in the church's own moral tradition (which would seem to include the church's interpretation of natural law as it pertains to marriage). Thus, ultimately, the barrier to recognizing same sex unions is not natural law, but Scripture - that is to say, divine revelation. Johnson, who supports recognition of same sex unions, to his great credit is upfront and honest about the challenge, and presents some creative exegetical responses.
If Johnson is right about the role that revelation plays in the church's opposition to same sex unions, and I believe he is, then I agree that his approach - a different exegesis - is the only way that the church would be able to accept same sex marriages (until, we may suppose, the 2nd Coming). My own view is that testimony from personal experience, which in charity we should accept as true and sincere, is not adequate to counter the divine-revelation-rooted opposition of the church.
@Carlo Lancellotti
To quote prominent theologian Todd Salzman :
"No one is arguing that homosexual activity is moral because it is natural for those with a homosexual orientation, for that would treat natural facts as moral justification. To be moral, any sexual act, whether homosexual or heterosexual, must be not only natural but also just, loving and in accord with holistic complementarity (sexual, personal and biological). Holistic complementarity includes "orientation", personal, and biological complementarity, and the integration and manifestation of all three in just, loving, committed sexual acts (in a committed marital relationship) that facilitate a person's ability to love God, neighbor, and self in a more profound and holy way."
Our biology is not irrelevant but biology does not, solely by itself, determine the morality of voluntary human action. The RCC does not recognize a same-sex orientation as a natural orientation that someone is born with (and an agent does not choose). They consider a same-sex orientation as an "objective disorder of a universal heterosexual orientation". However, no prominent scienific organization, (e.g., the American Psychiatric or Psychological Associations or the Natiional Institutes of Health) that have studied same-sex orientation has concluded that it is a intrinsic or objective disorder of a universal heterosexual orientation.
Keep in mind a most important fact. In ancient times, everyone was assumed to be heterosexual. Thus, homosexual acts commtted by heterosexuals were unnatural, an abomination and immoral. No one knew about a same-sex orientation. Thus, how can we justify the context and ancient beliefs about human orientation and apply those beliefs to the sexual acts of people born with a same-sex orientation in a committed, faithful, loving and lifelong relationship?
Jim Pauwels,
I agree that hidden behind the natural law arguments is a theological foundation that causes the arguments to be less persuasive to those not predisposed to the worldview and conclusions. Without special pleading about our genitals being different, the argument falls apart.
Jim Pauwels,
Thanks for your comments.
I would argue that what is hidden behind the natural law is not necearritly a theological or even a Scriptural foundation, but a error in anthropology.
As I mentioned, in ancient times everyone was considered heterosexual and homosexual acts choosen by heterosexuals were unnatural, an abomination and immoral. I totally agree!! However, what the RCC has not adequately addressed is this erroneous anthropology. There argument pivots largely to Genesis and philosophical anthropology and symbolic speculation. I ask: was it possible that the ancient writer of Genesis likely suffered from a similar confusion about a universal human orientation, namely, there was no knowledge that people could be born with a same-gender orientation.
Today, the RCC asserts that such an same-gender orientation is "an objective disorder" of a universal heterosexual orientation which is the person's true self. There is no convincing existential evidence given to support this assertion.
I don't believe that the RCC will reverse its teachings on marriage or homosexuality. I only hope that they might find a pastoral solution.
Mike Barberi:
"However, no prominent scienific organization, (e.g., the American Psychiatric or Psychological Associations or the Natiional Institutes of Health) that have studied same-sex orientation has concluded that it is a intrinsic or objective disorder of a universal heterosexual orientation."
I have a very hard time imagining how any empirical science could ever establish that (or the opposite statement, for that matter). Psychology, for example, must necessary rely on definitions (in this case "order," and "disorder") which by imply metaphysical assumptions and should be discussed philosophically (and, for Catholics, theologically) because they are pre-scientific.
I have read many times that JPII believed that homosexual inclinations are not a matter of choice but are inborn. Unfortunately, I don't have a reference.
Thanks to Jamie Manson for a beautifully written piece. I love the way she accentuated the positive and drew out from the positive notes in Bottum's piece, and indeed in Catholic tradition generally, a set of attitudes that will be useful to all Catholics coming to terms with their friends' and relatives' samesex marriages.
Thank you Jamie for a very clearly written response. Best wishes for your wedding. We will keep you both in our prayers.
God Bless
The Catechism of the Catholic Church seems quite clear that the Church leans on her understanding of natural law for her position. Recent Popes have criticised the natural law argument and have tended to shy away from it in their arguments. It's a human philosophy, not divine revelation, and not a very solid foundation for arguments about the morality of same sex acts. Today it does not enjoy much popular, or Catholic, support.
The scriptural case against homosexual acts is remarkably weak. Rabbi Jacob Milgrom in his Anchor Bible commentary on Leviticus points out that the verses there are part of the purity code, (including bans on easting shelfish), which is only binding on Jewish men living in Israel, and certainly not on gentile Chirstians in America. In Romans', Paul does not say same sex acts are sinful, but shameful. Being crucified is shameful.
There are no scriptural verses clearly speaking against lesbianism.
Despite the prevalance of homosexuality in Roman and Greek society at the time, none of Gospel authors thought it was sufficiently central to Christ's teaching to include in their Gospels. In Catholic doctrine it is not infallibly defined, is not dogma, and does not even make encyclical teaching. In the scale of doctrine, this is taught with a rather low level of authority.
I would argue that the Catholic doctrine is about sex acts which are not open to conception (which includes many heterosexual acts) and that the question of marriage is a different question and one not addressed by the tradition. The moral object of the vows taken at state same sex weddings, to love and be faithfull for life, speak nothing of sex, and are clearly morally good and ought to be supported, celebrated and encouraged. There is nothing in a state same sex marriage ceremony which in any way contradicts Catholic doctrine.
The Catholic opposition to legalising same sex marriage does not rest on a philosophy of sex or a scriptural exegesis. It rests on a Social Justice argument that marriage open to procreation is a great social good which justly deserves a special social and legal recognition. This is not an argument which modern people find very convincing and it has clear limitations in the cases of orhpans, adoption, infertile marriages etc. Not to mention that many same sex couples are also raising children (often their own) and also deserve in Social Justice the protection and status due their families.
God Bless
Holistic complementarity includes "orientation", personal, and biological complementarity,
Mike, even if we assume this is correct, homosexual relationships fail the biological complementarity. So the best they can achieve under this definition is a Holistic 2 out of 3. Not really holistic.
Are sexual relations "biological"? Only, I'd say, when sperm meets ovum. Otherwise they are physical relations that have the psychological, spiritual, or moral bearing that the participants find in them.
Thank you Jamie for a well thought out anti-Christian response to the question of SSM and homosexual relations in general. However, the fact - thank God - remains, that the Catholic Church will not change its right-minded position on this issue in any time less than glacial. It seems another case of a homosexual - so over-run by his libido - that it clouds his opinions on the matter. And that's what they are - opinions - and very bad ones at that.
Calling Jamie's reponse anti-Christian is very uncharitable.
No - my response may be "harsh" - but it is not "uncharitable" - as I did not speak to his person, but to his thought - which is - in the end - irreconciable with the Catholic faith on this issue.
Dear Perry Turchi,
Just to clarify, I'm actually a woman, not a man.
I find it remarkable that you would publicly claim to have any knowledge of my libidio.
But most remarkable of all is your insistance that my theological reflection on my own life--and the lives of so many of my friends and family--constitutes nothing more than a bad opinion, whereas you, in fact, know the absolute truth about the nature of my relationship with my partner.
Can you imagine anyone ever being so presumptuous about your life, let alone in such a public forum?
Jamie Manson
Where there is joy, there is God.
The sexual acts couples who are infertile, those married after menopause and those who limit sexual intercourse to infertile times for a long time or a lifetime for good reasons (as Pius XII permitted), fail biological complementarity. These acts of sexual intercourse are not open to procreation, nor are they biologically apt for procreation. The Church does not justify sexual acts in a marriage because the marriage has children, nor does a specific number of children justify sexual intercourse in a marriage. In fact, the moral justificaion of sexual intercourse in marriage does not rest on fucundity at all.
If this is true, then many marriages fail the requirement of biological complementarity.
Carlo Lancellotti,
You will have to educate yourself on the study in question. I recently read a doctoral dissertation on homosexuality. It covered all the most relevant scientific studies and evidence about this issue. What is moral is not solely defined metaphyscially or philosophically because as you claim, a same-gender orientation is pre-scientific. I don't understand that logic or argument at all. For your information, it is the chruch/magisterium that says a same-gender orientaion is an objective disordered condition of a universal heterosexual orientation. Is this based on philosophical anthropology and symbolic speculation, and not scientific fact? If so, do you think it is reasonable, practical and morally justifiable that a specfic large segment of the population who are born with a same-gender orientation must practice a lifetime of sexual abstinence?
Not to mention the savagery presently attends, an further awaits those who have the audacity of maintaining the "traditional" idea of marriage (once held in high esteem by nearly the entire human race up to - and including Barack Obama in 2008):http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/catholic-schools-pressed-to-give-up-m...
Mike Barberi:
as you certainly know the magisterium (e.g. the cathechism) never uses the word "orientation." If I recall correctly the language of the cathechism, it speaks of "deep-seated inclination" which is quite different from "orientation," inasmuch the latter term want to convey a defining character trait as opposed to a psychological phenomenon. The magisterium simply recognizes that we are created males and females and this is deeply significant, no matter whom we feel sexually attracted to.
As for "scientific facts" I never said orientation is pre-scientific. I said the determination of what constitutes a disorder or not is pre-scientific. I invite you to read again more carefully my previous comment.
As for your final question, I will turn around: do you think that our instincts (sexual attraction in particular) should determine what is best for us and will bring us to happiness, let alone what is moral?
The sexual acts couples who are infertile
It's not a question of infertility which determines complementarity. It's a question of the sex organs complementarity; the entrances to the alimentary canal are not sex organs. Even infertile heterosexual couples are complementary. And their infertility is an infirmity which may be the result of advanced age, not a complete inability. But I don't expect you to agree, even though it's the truth.
constitutes nothing more than a bad opinion,
It's not a bad opinion, it's a falsehood. Truth is elsewhere.
Alexander Pruss is one of the brilliant new analytic Thomists and a conservative Catholic. He has a new book out, "One Body: An Essay on Christian Sexual Ethics". What I've read of it is interesting enough, but I note that it can't be said to be a work on natural law sexual ethics. He uses some natural law concepts occasionally, but not as part of a system. In other words, he, though he accepts the Church's teachings on sexuality, he apparently doesn't think much of its natural law premises. I also note that he has named the book "an Essay", a try -- more evidence that he isn't satisfied with current Catholic sexual ethics, not even his own entirely.
Perhaps another sign of the times among conservative Catholic ethicists is that John Finnis, of Oxford and Notre Dame and perhaps the most respected of current natural law theorists, says in his highly complimentary blurb of the book that Pruss' "principal argument for the key answers is very different from the one I have articulated over the last fifteen years". And Robert P. George also contributes an extremely positive blurb but doesn't mention natural law ethics.
So I'm wondering, what in the world is going on in the barque of the conservative Catholic ethicists? They're obviously not jumping ship, but do they think that current natural law sexual ethics is less than persuasive? Are they tacking? Hmmm.
Ann Olivier:
I am surprised you seem to identify Catholic sexual ethics with natural law (at least in the strict sense of the word as represented by Finnis and George). As you probably know, the dominant current in Catholic sexual ethics over the last few decades (in the sense, at least, that it was embraced by the papacy) has not been natutural law but rather the more phenomenological-existential school well represented by the works of JP II himself (e.g. "Person and act" and "Love and Responsibility", the Wednesday cathechesis etc.). To be brutally honest, the fact that so many well-informed people in the US think that Catholic sexual ethics is based on natural law is another example of how sometimes this country is a "big island" in relation to the rest of the Catholic world.
One significant problem with legalizing SSM in the current judicial, political and cultural climate, is that such a law will be used to intimidate and silence those who disagree. Not only in the world of journalism, but just as importantly, in the much larger worlds of commerce, education and others. It has already happened and is happening. Once incorporated, there will be progressive calls for "tolerance" - but these will be short lived. Impatience with those individuals and institutions that fail to "get with the program of SSM" will result in legal and public pressure dealt to punish those, who now will be thought to simply be the contemporary version of Bull Connor.
Thus, I challenge my Catholic friends in this blog to overlook my unfortunately worded previous comments ( born of frustration rather than clear headed and charitable thinking), and attend to the matters just expressed, which I follow up with these questions:
1. What will your responses be when fellow Christians are systematically eliminated from certain professions because they, in conscience, cannot collaborate with their gay brothers and sisters, in an intimate form of activity, if not celebration of the gay lifestyle? Photographers, Bakers, etc.
2. What will your responses be when the same are punished by the coercive power of the state (and of its increasing, and various institutions) with the loss of their livelihoods, and potential jail time - having been prosecuted under vexed "hate-crime" statutes?
3. What will your responses be when, after dismissing such concerns as being overactive fear mongering (or something of the sort), only to increasingly and uncomfortably have to attend to actual cases of coercion - naively having thought that "things would not turn out this way"?
4. How then will you reassess (or come to finally appreciate) the Church's deeper philosophical and anthropological reasons for opposing the various presuppositions of the "sexual revolution", of which the current craze for SSM is a symptom of - if and when the deleterious social consequences of such a radical re-definition if marriage play themselves out?
Carlo --
My comment is concerned with the current Catholic ethicists who are *conservative* Catholics. The conservative Catholics, so far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong) generally still subscribe (with some adjustments) to the traditional natural law sexual ethics of Aquinas. I'm thinking of the likes of Anscombe, MacIntyre, Finnis, Grisez, and George. JP II, off course, while not rejecting natural law (so far as I know) did base his system on the phenomenologists, not Thomas, but how many ethicists outside of the Church take JP II seriously as a major ethist?
The irony, of course, is that contemporary non-Catholic ethicists are much more likely to take Anscombe, et al, seriously than they do JP II. (Yes, I could be wrong.)
Carlo Lanceellotti,
The magisterium calls a same-gender orientation (the term often used in modern theological discusssions) "an objective disorder" of a universal heterosexual orientation.
The CDF clarifies the meaning of truly human sexual acts in its "Consideration Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons". It first states that homosexual unions lack "the conjugal dimension which represents the human and ordered form of sexuality." It then articulates the principle that "sexual relations are human when and insofar as they express and promote the mutual assistance of the sexes in marriage and are open to the transmission of life". This is the unitive-procreative principle that in the 20th century became the foundational principle for all Catholic sexual teaching. The CDF uses the term "sexual complementarity" in relation to this principle which includes parenting and the education of children, and on this foundation defends heterosexual marriage and condemns homosexual unions. The term "complementarity" has appeared only relatively recently in magisterial sexual teachings, in JP II's Familiaris consortio (1981).
The magisterium also teaches that "for serious reasons and obeying moral precepts" it is not necessary that married couples biologically reproduce. They can still enter into a valid and sacramental relationship. In light of this teaching, JP II's statement that "each and every marital act must remain open to the transmission of life" is morally ambiguous in the cases of infertile couples, couples in which the wife is postmenopausal, and couples who practice permitted NFP with the specific intention of avoiding the transmission of life. I ask: In which way are sexual acts between couples "open to the transmission of life"?
As to your assertion that an order or disorder is pre-scientific is merely the way that the magisterium interprets Scripture in one version of philosophical anthropology. However, this discussion immediately shifts to moral justification and definition of human sexual acts as I have just previously commented.
I could go into much detail, but suffice it to say that what is natural is not the moral and sexual instincts by themselves do not constitute the moral either. As Aquinas teaches, the morality of voluntary humans acts are determined by the good motiviations, ends, intentions and circumstances of the agent(s), provided that their exterior acts are virtuous and appropriate, suitable and proportionate to the good in those ends. However, the magisterium does not ascribe to a particular moral method for sexual ethics. This frees them to decide what is good and evil, moral and immoral, without being consistent with any moral method (except their authority). Such laws are legalistic and most are declared to be moral absolutes where there no room for development.
I am afraid we are moving into deeper waters, so I will stop here.
See my recent reply to Carlo Lancellotti for my related comments to yours.
Also, for your information, prominent theologians Janet Smith and Christopher West (noted defenders of magisterial teachings) have said that anal intercourse between heterosexual married couples are not immoral provided that they do not result in "completion". So much for a consensus about sexual complementarity.
What is physcial is not the moral. The purpose of the sex organs was an inital argument by the defenders of magisterial teachings in the aftermath of Humanae Vitae. However, such arguments were declared biologism, legalistic and physcalistic. Traditionalist theologians have dropped this argument in favor of other ones.
"My comment is concerned with the current Catholic ethicists who are *conservative* Catholics. The conservative Catholics, so far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong) generally still subscribe (with some adjustments) to the traditional natural law sexual ethics of Aquinas."
Again, that's a somewhat US-centric and academic perspective. But even in the US, if you look at the whole crowd at the John Paul II Institute (e.g. David Schindler etc. Do you consider them conservative?), their approach is very different. You can also find lots of people who pursue the "theology of the body" thing, both inside and outside academia.
Whether secular scholar regard JP II as a serious ethicist is besides the point. Certainly his teaching on marriage and sexuality had a major intellectual impact and cathalyzed a major renewal in Catholic philosophical anthropology.
Speaking of that, in my opinion one of the scourges of North-Americal academic ethics is the tendency to pursue ethic as a specialized, independent field, whereas ethics should always be studied in the broader context of philosophical anthropology. The end result is that so-called "liberal" Catholic ethicist have proven again and again incapable of critiquing secular sexual ethics, precisely because they have always accepted uncritically its anthropological presuppositions.
Mike Barberi:
"The magisterium calls a same-gender orientation (the term often used in modern theological discusssions) "an objective disorder" of a universal heterosexual orientation."
I have never seen such language ("univeral heterosexual orientation") used by any magisterial document. I suspect you are reading the documents throught the lenses of contemporary US culture.
Carlo Lancellotti,
Perhaps I was not completely clear. The quotation marks should have been only made on the words "an objective disorder". I ask you: what do you think an objective disorder is referring to? IMO, the term refers to a disordered condition of a heterosexual nature or orientation, an orientation or nature that the magisterium claims to be our true selves, something we all are born with. This claim is not based on existential reality or scientific fact but one version of philosophical anthropology.
My reference to a universal human orienation or nature is from the works of theologicans. If you call this comtemporary culture, then all magisterium teachings are influenced by the comtemporary culture of time and place.
Carlo Lancellotti and Anne,
Pardon my interference but I do have something important to say about Aquinas's teaching on the natural law.
I quote moral theologian Bill Murphy: "Thomas taught that the proximate good and end intended by the agent indicates the essence of the human act whereas the relation to the natural end, which corresponds to what is phyiscally caused...is accidental. Of course, accidental does not mean irrelevant, although it does indicate clearly that Thomas's understanding of the natural law is not centered in the non-frustration or normativity of natural ends."
There is a legitimate dispute that so-called natural teleology is to be interpreted as morally binding. Where is the role of reason and virtue in such a moral theory? The appeals to nature, and the claims of revealing the moral order, without the further mediation of reason have been rejected by most theologians as legalistic, physcialistic or biologistic.
Mike Barberi,
I'd say Smith and West are showing the result of building a theology around an axiom that there is only one place for a man to morally have an orgasm and working from there. All other dimensions of the sexual act are neglected. I can't help but be reminded of Pharisees creating complicating rulings on what does and does not count of work without any curiousity about what the purpose of the Sabbath is.
Mike Barberi:
if you recall, I already commented about the fact that the words "inclination" and "orientation" have very different implications. In particular, the word "orientation" is anthropologically very loaded, inasmuch as it claims to be a fundamental psycho-somatic characteristic, which can take several forms (hetero-sexual, homo-sexual etc.) which have all more or less the same status and are neutral with respect to the fulfillment of our vocation as embodied souls. In other words, the hidden implication is that our given condition as males and females is essentially irrelevant in determining the appropriate form of our sexual self-gift. As far as I can tell, on the other hand, the notion of "disorder" refers not to an orientation but to an "inclination" towards an exercise of sexuality that ultimately conflicts with our biological make-up, which the magisterium regards as very significant.
Hence, I will ask again the question I asked before: do you think that our instincts (sexual attraction in particular) should determine what is best for us and will bring us to happiness, let alone what is moral? And that if such instincts conflict with the giveness of our bodies as capable of reproduction through union with a person of the opposite sex, such giveness should simply be rejected as "biologistic?" But why? It sounds like a very arbitrary stance to affirm the determinative character of a supposedly fundamental "orientation" while rejecting the objective symbolic-sacramental significance of our being create male and female (where both words imply a "for:" to be created male is to be "created for" the female and vice versa).
such arguments were declared biologism, legalistic and physcalistic
That's just name calling. It's not a reason or argument and it's essentially equivalent to slander
". . . the objective symbolic-sacramental significance of our being create male and female (where both words imply a "for:" to be created male is to be "created for" the female and vice versa)."
Carlo --
I'm sure you didn't mean that as insulting to the single people of this world, but it is. It's part of the whole Vatican mythology of what men and women are, yes, for. According to what you say above, we singles are mistakes. The view is sort of a refinement of Aristotle's view that all women were mistakes of nature. Sigh.
You seem to think that all Catholics who criticize the current magisterium on sexuality (in some respects) are enemies of natural law theory. Apparently there are three natural law adherents who criticize Aquinas in some respects who post regularly on this blog -- Mike, Lisa and me. You really need to change your thinkng about that a bit.
You also sometimes seem to forget that even Aquinas held that although the first principles of natural law are sure, that as we get into more and more specific problems that our thinking becomes less and less certain. Aquinas, humble to the end, was willing to admit his own fallibility in ethical matters. Would that Rome were as humble.
It seems to me that there are two main reasons that Alasdair MacIntyre inspires such great respect generally in the community of ethicisists are 1) he has shown the great relevancre of A-T natural law theory, and 2) he is willing to admit, like Thomas, that at least some aspects of natural law theory can admit of revision. Would that Rome knew this.
"1. What will your responses be when fellow Christians are systematically eliminated from certain professions because they, in conscience, cannot collaborate with their gay brothers and sisters, in an intimate form of activity, if not celebration of the gay lifestyle? Photographers, Bakers, etc.". At the moment, it is gays who are being systematically eliiminated from certain professions -- teaching at Catholic schools, Catholic ministry, etc. The hypothetical photographers and bakers are already collaborating in marriages deemed immoral by the churches, so this is a made-up moral dilemma.
"2. What will your responses be when the same are punished by the coercive power of the state (and of its increasing, and various institutions) with the loss of their livelihoods, and potential jail time - having been prosecuted under vexed "hate-crime" statutes?"
The expelled gay teachers are the ones actually suffering the loss of their livelihoods. The hypothetical photographers and bakers would not be prosecuted for hate crimes; this is another made-up issue.
"3. What will your responses be when, after dismissing such concerns as being overactive fear mongering (or something of the sort), only to increasingly and uncomfortably have to attend to actual cases of coercion - naively having thought that "things would not turn out this way"?"
Again, how would the coercion be any greater than is currently felt by bakers who have to bake cakes for immoral heterosexual weddings?
"4. How then will you reassess (or come to finally appreciate) the Church's deeper philosophical and anthropological reasons for opposing the various presuppositions of the "sexual revolution", of which the current craze for SSM is a symptom - if and when the deleterious social consequences of such a radical re-definition if marriage play themselves out?"
In fact the gay marriage movement goes in the opposite direction from the sexual revolution, which was not at all about long-term fidelity and its insitutional embodiment.
"You also sometimes seem to forget that even Aquinas held that although the first principles of natural law are sure, that as we get into more and more specific problems that our thinking becomes less and less certain. Aquinas, humble to the end, was willing to admit his own fallibility in ethical matters."
Some people here refer to "the Christian faith on this issue" -- which shows how wildly distorted our pereception of Catholic sexual ethics has become.
Sexual ethics is not a matter of faith, not a doctrine. It is a rational effort to discern ethical responsibilities, working with the values and principles of natural law.
The church's reflection on this is hortatory not doctrinal, and efforts to raise some basic principles ("marriage is indissoluble") to the level of binding doctrine invariably fall flat, because the general priniciple is attended by so many apparent exceptions or at least inflections in its practical working-out that erecting it into a dogma fails to get at the intended target.
"According to what you say above, we singles are mistakes."
Sorry, but you really, really missed the point here, which is that ultimately everybody is FOR ... God!!
The "for" implied in sexual difference is a sign/metaphor/sacrament of this deeper "being for." But if you cancel the sign you cancel the signified. So much so that in Catholic theology, the vocation to virginity is not understood as a denial of our sexuality (of our being made for another), but rather its fulfillment at a deeper level. This is absolutely crucial...
On this topic I highly recommend von Balthatsar's "The Christian's state of life."
Joseph O'Leary:
"Sexual ethics is not a matter of faith, not a doctrine. It is a rational effort to discern ethical responsibilities, working with the values and principles of natural law."
Such sharp dicotomy is very dubious. How can your "rational effort" not be deeply affected by the understanding of the human condition provided by revelation? Reason is one, and the "intelligence of faith" is still intelligence.
Biology is destiny. Or is it? What if the principal sexual organ is not the genitals, but the mind or brain? And what if this brain, whether through nature or nurture, matures in ways that do not always correspond with the genitals? This could lead to all kinds of variations such as same-sex unions, bisexuality, and transgendering. I think it is well within the contours of Catholic thology and natural law to give primacy to the brain, and to start over from there in working out the ethics of sexuality. This is how I make sense of pastoral encounter with these issues today. I explore mind rather than genitals.
Fr. Ken Smits, Capuchin
Carlo Lancellotti,
Your argument fails on several grounds. Your comments at the end of your second sentence is a good example when you say: that heterosexual or homosexual are terms denoting an inclination and are neutral to "our vocation as embodied souls". This is assertion is ambiguous. Our given condition as males and females is "not irrelevant" in determining the "appropriate form of our sexual self-gift". These terms are terms that JP II used to declare contraception intrinsically evil and immoral. You are using the same argument. If you want I can send you, in confidence, an essay which will be published shortly, on this issue. I say "in confidence" because it would not be appropriate for me to distribute it before it is printed and in the Catholic theological publication domain. You are fixated on a teaching that is highly disputed, a teaching that formed, in part, the argument about the "Theology of the Body". This self-gifting theme and argument is complex and I covered it in 18 pages. Hence, we will have to agree to disagree unless we want to drag this conversation into deeper waters.
As to your argument that the "disorder"the CDF refers to is an "inclination" towards an exercise of sexuality that ultimately conflcts with our biological make-up, does not in any way determine morality. The mere possession of male or female genitals is insignificant to constitute heterosexual complementarity because genitals must also function properly. If they cannot function complementarily, as they cannot in either male of female impotence, neither heterogenital nor reproductive complementarity is possible. The magisterium does not require couples to biologially reproduce for the marriage and sexual acts to be sacramentally licit.
As to your other claims: On what basis is your claim that an orientation or equally descriptive a "nature" a disordered inclination that one is born with? I think we are playing word gymnastics here and neglecting a method that determines what is moral and immoral as your other question of me implies. It seems you are resting on a "magisterium's proclamation" as your moral method, pure and simple.
I answered your question about our instincts but either you ignored it or did not undersand it. I repeat: the morality of voluntary human action is based on the good motivations, intentions, ends and circumstances of the agent(s) provided the exterior action choosen is in accordance with virtue and is appropriate, suitable and proportionate to the good in the agent's end. That is the teaching of Aquinas. When you argue over a teaching, and rely of a moral absolute that the magisterium professes as truth, there can be no debate, no scholarly contribution to a better understanding of truth, Scripture, anthropology, theology, et al. Hence, for example your reference to "self-gift" and all that it implies (according to JP II) has been debated for the past 40 years. It is not accepted but disputed for legitimate reasons. It is loaded with claims of how we, in vocation as embodied souls, are to behave in relationship as the morally right action steming from, in part, an inclination. You cannot isolate the act from the person or his nature and determine what is right, or merely ask a question about following one's inclination, and not enter into the morality of voluntary human action.
We are called to love God and neighbor and to flourish. Happiness is a relative term and while it is not immoral to seek earthly happiness, we are called to seek our "ultimate happiness" in God. Along the way, we are confronted with many moral dilemmas and differcult circumstances where the answers are not found in any "answer book". We can be guided by Scripture and the magisterium, but this does not mean that every teaching of the magisterium is the absolute moral truth with certainty.
If our instincts, such as our heterosexual or homosexual instincts, conflict with our given and born nature, we need to question them. I don't think you accept that people are born with a homosexual nature. I think you believe that we are all born with a God-given heterosexual nature. On the issue you raised about "the givenness of our bodies as capable of reproduction", for one thing, our bodies are not always capable of reproduction, and many of our actions, claimed to be morally right, are deliberate, willful, physical acts based on the motivation, end and intention of ensuring that every one of our sexual acts (in marriage or union) are not procreative. How do we call some heterosexual sexual acts moral when they are not procreative, and homosexual acts that are not procreative immoral?
Finally, what is "the objective-symbolic-sacramental siginificance" of being created male and female, and how does this translate to the moral? A teaching based on symbolic speculation and philosophical anthropology cannot be claimed to be a moral absolute. It cannot be the only word or the last word based on symbolic speculation.
I hope my response to your multi-facited, interrelated argument is clearer.
By your comments, it is clear to me that you are not familiar with the theological debate that has been going on for the past 40 years over such issues. My description of certain arguments as biologiistic, legalistic and physicalist can be found in both tradionalist essys and revisionist theological essays over many decades of scholarly debate. They are not name-calling as you erroneous assert. I suggest you adequaely educate yourself on this matter before you accuse me of the equilvent of slander.
Beyond all the apparent "vexed" philosophical and theological disputation here, I have a few very basic questions that I would like to ask of those in favor of a revisionist assessment of marriage:
1. What relationships would NOT be justified being called "marriage" and/or ought NOT be recognized by the State or found enshrined in said State or Federal Constitution?
2. And, under such "constructivist" arguments, often given by said revisionists, what would be the reasons and justifications for "discriminating" against such named unions?
I am nearly chafing under the utter simplicity of these questions, and having ask them. Yet they do seem very pertinent to the political, legal and cultural context within which this whole matter is being debated.
Mike Barberi:
thanks for the detailed response. On most of what you said we shall indeed have to agree to disagree, also because this is not the best medium for this type of discussion. I will only comment on your claim
"I don't think you accept that people are born with a homosexual nature. I think you believe that we are all born with a God-given heterosexual nature."
by saying, that, no, I do not accept there is any such thing as either a heterosexual or homosexual nature. If anything, there is a human nature, which includes a sexual or erotic aspect. However such aspect cannot be isolated artificially and easily categorized. Moreover, human nature itself is marked by the "desiderium naturale videndi Deum." Therefore, sexual inclinations must be lived (and judged) in the context of our relationship with God the creator, who is also the creator of our biology. To affirm that our biology is a "given" that must be respected is not "biologistic" precisely it is part of the creator's plan for us. Your insistence on the existence of "heterosexual nature" or "sexual orientation" is actually much more biologistic (or, if you prefer "psychologistic") because you arbitrarily attribute normative moral value to psychological phenomena whicho therwise cannot be integrated with what scripture and tradition tell us about the Creator's plan for human sexuality.
@Mr. O'Leary: I'm not sure where you are coming from on the matter, but the cases of photographers and bakers who are being subject to lawsuits are NOT "hypothetical". To the contrary, they are real. This is not a "made up issue" as you naively claim. A SMALL sampling:
The only example(s) you gave of Gays being "systematically eliminated" - were those let go from Catholic educational institutions. Well... those schools often have (and should increasingly have, given the current environment) "morality clauses" which explicitly enumerate those behaviors which would result in possible dismissal. I am unaware of anyone being dismissed simply due to their having same-sex-attraction, i.e., being "gay". If there are, I would oppose that. I don't even oppose homosexuals being ordained into the priesthood, provided they intend to live a celibrate lifestyle, which is required of all priests in the "Roman Rite".
I also find breathtakingly naive - the assertion that "the gay marriage movement goes in the opposite direction from the sexual revolution, which was not at all about long-term fidelity and its insitutional embodiment." Concerning this, I render a link below:
Again, for the sake of brevity, I give just a "sample". The evidence against your assertion can be documented with ample evidence: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/20/opinion/george-gay-marriage/
In the end, I don't believe that the "revisionists" who actually are in the position of effecting the legalizing of SSM (especially in politics and the judiciary) are ultimately interested in, nor patient with giving intellectual arguments for the expansion of civil marriage to include SS coupling (or other non-traditional relationships). They simply want to drive through legislation to get this thing done, and to permanently hamstring those who "dont get with the program" of SSM. To hell with moving more slowly in order to incorporate the reasoned arguments against SSM into the discussion. After all, they are simply "holdovers" from a more "bigoted" age of the Bull Connors of the world.
Carlo Lancellotti,
Thank you for responding. I do appreciate your point of view, but do not agree with it.
I would like to know your explanation and justification for your belief that we are all "not born" with either a heterosexual or homosexual nature. Perhaps you can point to some scholarly theological works. Have you studied moral theology? Are you familiar with the theological debate? Are you familiar with the works of James Alison, Michael Lawler, Todd Salzman or Joseph Selling...among others?
According to the magisterium the homosexual orientation is an objective or intrinsic disorder. But what is the term disorder mean? Science has shown from mental health and from animal biology that it is entirely natural, and not in any scientific sense disordered. The magisterium says that such a disorder is not be viewed in this sense, but in the theological sense. Just what does "disordered" mean "theologically"?
Beyond meaning that it is not ordered to procreation, that I have countered by my examples in my previous comments, I have not worked out what a theological meaning might be.
The Vatican theologians have conceded that the condition of homosexuality is entirely natural, and so not disordered in this sense. However, they have not offered any clear explanation of what meaning it does have.
Does the meaning of homosexuality have a meaning in any reality that can be measured? Or is it merely a verbal construct used by those theologians to reach the conclusions they want?
According to Catholic theology, the acts flowing from a nuetral or positive inclination could not be intrinscially evil. So, any moral judgment on this inclination must depend on use. If homosexual orientation or inclination is morally neutral, then the judgment that homosexual acts that follow naturally from that orientation or inclination are disrordered does not logically follow. It is like saying, it is ok to be left handed as long as you don't write with your left hand. Of course, this brings us back to the morality of voluntary human action and arguments that homosexual acts are not open to the transmission of life.
I conclude with James Alison that homosexuality has an unstable meaning. As such, we will need to await the day when the magisterium will change its teaching or pastoral application of the moral norm underpinning the teaching...OR provid us with a convincing moral theory in support of these teachings. Until this happens, our Church will continue to be profoundly divided over this moral issue.
I agree that our voluntary human actions must be lived and judged "morally" in the context of our relationship with God, but also in the context of our relationship with others, with virtue, and in the context of our good motivations, good ends-intentions and good circumstances provided that our exterior actions are also appropriate, suitable, and proportionate to the good in the agent(s) ends.
Lastly, no one knows God's procreative plan with moral certainty. I never said that a homosexual nature or sexual orientation was biologistic or psychologistic, and I don't "arbitrarily" attribute normative moral value to psychological phenomena. I do believe that science has an important role to play in helping us to understand what it means to be human and about homosexuality, as one source of truth and not the morally determinate source, in the morality of voluntary human action. As for Scripture, our ancient fathers thought that we are all born with a heterosexual nature or orientation. No one knew anything about a homosexual nature or orientation, or whether certain sexual acts between same-gender persons could be moral in the context of a committed, faithful, loving and lifelong relationship.
Perry Turchi,
I would define legal marriage as a durable, exclusive relationship between two unrelated adults that creates a hybrid legal entitiy with mutual rights and responsbilities. The law doesn't care why a particular couple chooses to marry. It only cares that they meet the requirements.
I found this essay to be remarkably off point and judgmental. Being charitable forces me to ascribe the offending language as being written by someone who has never been married. I advise printing this out and putting it in a keepsake box with the other memorabilia from your wedding and looking at it five years hence. Here is where you went off the rails, from my perspective:
"Farley explains, but all married couples are called to bring the life of God into the world by caring for one another, nourishing other relationships, working to mend our broken world, and being a sign of faithfulness to their community. . .
All married couples? How about all PEOPLE, married or not. The notion that marriage is a "singular" state (not intended to be a pun) associated with an outward facing care and nourishment of others could, truly, only have been written by someone who is not married. This is almost Mormon in its implicit elevation of the married state as being exalted over singleness. It is definitely not consistent with NT Christianity.
"Rather than making procreation and genital complementarity the fundamental criteria for marriage, we should instead be asking whether spouses are a visible, tangible sign of God's loving presence in our midst. . . .
"Criteria"? What? Are you proposing a test after one or two years of married life to determine whether two people deserve to stay married on the basis that, in someone's judgment (whose?), the spouses are a visible and tangible sign of God's loving presence -- what if it is only one of the spouses? What if by that time they have children? I mean, what in heaven's name are you saying here, exactly?
"Many of us know same-sex couples that fit this description, and, sadly, we know married heterosexual couples that do not."
"Many of you know"? What do you know? Do you eavesdrop in their bedroom? Do you know their challenges and disappointments and expectations and needs, met and unmet? (Which brought to mind the following poem, "Eros Turannos" at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/2042.)
Seriously, Ms. Manson, what you have written makes it seem as if you are making a fetish of marriage. As much as I do not agree with the Church's aggressive targeting of same sex marriage, I know this from being married: most marriages "work" when people think being married is worthwhile in spite of (often enough) not meeting criteria and ideals set forth by people like you and those you quote. It is not just commitment to the other person or to lofty ideals, to a certain extent, it is commitment to the idea of marriage. That can't be everything, of course, there are marriages that deserve to be undone, but if there is one thing marriage does not need, it is another set of ideals that make it seem unattainable to even more people.
I really and truly wish you the best, but I sometimes joke that if there is something harder than being married I haven't figured out what it is. Setting yourself up as a judge of whether other people's marriages meet your criteria is probably not a good way to start your married life.
Dear Barbara,
You paint a beautiful picture of marriage. Really nothing harder? War, famine, abuse, rape? What about cancer or death of a close loved one? My experience of marriage, and as well as that of many other people I know may contradict your experience.
I also think that it is clear that Ms. Manson does not exalt singleness over marriage, being that she quoted the work of Sr. Margaret Farley, who is a nun in the order of the Sisters of Mercy. She just happens to be responding to someone who wrote about marriage and therefore is writing in the same vein.
I do find it interesting that you call Ms. Manson a "judge of whether other people's marriages meet [her] criteria," when you have already characterized her marriage five years down the road.
Tina Romano
Ms. Manson wrote: "Many of us know same-sex couples that fit this description, and, sadly, we know married heterosexual couples that do not." It was fair for me to characterize this statement as a judgment about other people's marriages.
It is not fair for you to state that I have done the same thing. I haven't characterized anyone's marriage five years down the road. I counseled her to save her piece and look at it five years from now. I would counsel others -- for instance, those who write their own vows -- to do the same thing. I don't know what she'll find, because I don't know her, her betrothed, or what fortune or misfortune they will encounter, but having been married for 25 years, I bet she will reconsider what she wrote from the experience of having been married for five years no matter what she encounters.
And actually, I said that she was exalting "marriage" over singleness, so I don't know whether you misread or miswrote.
And no, really, I don't think there is anything harder that takes place in the ordinary course of one's life. All the things you mention qualify as violent or intended to harm or extraordinary acts of humans or nature. Marriage is expected, and is supposed to be happy and contribute to flourishing. Anything that requires you to make a commitment for the future requires optimism and expectation of good things, but it also requires a certain commitment to roll with the punches, so to speak, and it shocks a lot of people that marriage takes so much effort and requires so much self-abnegation (at times).
Of course, there is a spectrum. Likewise there are ups and downs and unexpected occurrences (job loss, children who are far more challenging than you are equipped to deal with, and lots more, good and bad). And just to be very clear, I do not oppose SSM, nor do I like the definition she is countering, which really is a form of biological reductivism, just as she says it is.
But I don't think it's helpful to drench the institution with more happy talk about people who are "still so completely in love after two decades together," and who so clearly and completely complement each other. That's great for them, it is, but if you really think people who don't fit that mold don't meet your criteria for marriage, well, that's not my idea of marriage, and yes, I think it is harmful to hold it up as a way to define the institution for all people, which is what the point of Ms. Manson's article was -- to offer an alternative way of viewing marriage.
My description of certain arguments as biologiistic, legalistic and physicalist can be found in both tradionalist essys and revisionist theological essays over many decades of scholarly debate
Mike, those are still names not arguments. And they are not reasons to support homosexual activity which has clearly be evaluated as a grave sin by the faithful for the past 2000 years. They are more akin to people trying to justify behavior they want to engage in than rational arguments supporting the behavior. Heterosexual relationships are fundamentally different from homosexual ones simply by the capability to procreate whether it's actually realized or not. That means those type of relationships are not the same and do not justify the same legal treatment. But believe what you want.
" Perry Turchi May 31, 2014 - 10:52am
One significant problem with legalizing SSM in the current judicial, political and cultural climate, is that such a law will be used to intimidate and silence those who disagree. Not only in the world of journalism, but just as importantly, in the much larger worlds of commerce, education and others. It has already happened and is happening. Once incorporated, there will be progressive calls for "tolerance" - but these will be short lived. Impatience with those individuals and institutions that fail to "get with the program of SSM" will result in legal and public pressure dealt to punish those, who now will be thought to simply be the contemporary version of Bull Connor. "
Also known as the domino theory or the Henney Penney school of "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
It seems clear to me that you have not followed by arguments on this article. I would ask you to do so if you want to debate. My arguments on this blog are far form name-calling and I will not repeat them.
However, your repeating the magisterium teaching is an argument about authority which, by itself and in your short inadequate summary, is a weak theological argument. For your information, the capabilty to procreate is not a moral norm for marriage because fucundity is not an asolute requirement. I ask: How is your term 'different' in the context of heterosexual and homosexual relationships specifically morally relavant? Are sexual acts of heterosexual couples who are infertile symbolic when there is no capabilty to procreate or mataphorically open to the transmission of life? A relevant article discussing this issue is from Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler: Truly Human Sexual Acts: A Response to Patrick Lee and Robert George, in Theological Studies 69 (2008)....
"The hermeneutics of the body and the nuptial metaphor applied to heterosexual couples can be extended to homosexual couples as well, because in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships the partners, as sexual beings, give their bodies to one another and are "theologically communicative", that is they are witnesses to the community of God's constancy and steadfast fidelity. In their witness, homosexual couples have "symbolic significance" in their sexuality through embodied interpersonal union, just as heterosexual couples, both fertile and infertile, have "symbolic significance" in the sexuality in their embodided interpersonal union. Heterosgenital complemenarity is not a determining factor. Rather, two genitally embodied persons, heterosexual or homosexual, in permanent interpersonal union, who reflect God's constant love and steadfast fidelity, are the determining factor."
I am familiar with the debate and do not claim that my arguments on this blog are the absolute moral truth, but are legitimate reasons for a rethinking of this teaching.
Dear Barbara,
I was sorry to read that you had such an adverse reaction to my essay. While my friends were indeed very much in love at their wedding, I did not mean to make their experience normative for everyone. I only used that story as a point of departure. The point was to demonstrate the balance they found between their loving commitment and their Catholic identity.
The intention was never to have them "drench" the piece or hold them up as an icon, as you suggest. In fact, in the section where I write about the criteria for marriage, I had the kinds of marital struggles to which you allude in mind:
"Are they a sign of the power of forgiveness, mercy, and unconditional love? Are the sacrifices that they make for one another an incarnation of the selfless love to which Jesus calls us?"
I do not know you or anything about your marriage, but your words suggest that you have had to show much unconditional love, mercy and sacrifice. That was precisely what I was trying to honor with those words. I wish I could have elaborated, but the word count was quite strict and there was much to respond to!
When I followed up with the line:
"Many of us know same-sex couples that fit this description, and, sadly, we know married heterosexual couples that do not."
I really was thinking about relationships where there is abuse, violence, addiction, control and/or a radical lack of presence or concern for the other. I certainly didn't have in mind marriages that, though not "blissfully happy" (and how many are?), nevertheless show great devotion and a deep commitment to faithfulness, not only in the face of adversity, but even in the monotonous face of the ordinary times, too.
My partner and I have been committed to one another for over five years now, and lots of stress was "front-loaded" on us in our first year: job-loss, death of a parent, my own serious illness. Somehow we've managed to get through it, stick together, stay strong and even still have fun. But we've learned a lot about forgiveness, sacrifice and unconditional love in that time. Life will bring us many more lessons in the future.
I hope you will wish us well. I wish you well. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.
I think the correct argument lies in your last paragraph. Homily explanations of scripture and parables often begin with " first of all you have to understand the context of the times in which this was written". Why would this not recontextualize the persons whom we now know were born as they are so far as sexual orientation is concerned--and not making a free will choice? The perpetual church-versus-science scenario. Who perceives homosexuality more clearly?


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text:
Is the following statement interesting or even trivial ?
- For every $n$ - dimensional associative algebra $A$ over a field $F$ there is a $n +1$ - dimensional nonassociative algebra $V_A$ over $F$ with the following properties :
$1.$ $V_A$ is non commutative and non power associative !
$2.$ $A$ is isomorphic to $N(V_A)$, where $N(V_A)$ is the nucleus of $V_A$.
$3.$ If $n +1$ is odd then $Z(V_A ) = N(V_A)$, where $Z(V_A)$ is the center of $V_A$.
Ps - Sorry guys I have changed the formulation few times.The last change was due to a typo, I meant $V_A$ to be of dimension $n + 1$ ! I will now stop, thanks for all the replies...
Thank you