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A Church That Can And Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching (Erasmus Institute Books)

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After seminal books on the history of moral teaching (usury, contraception, abortion, bribes, divorce and religious liberty) John T. Noonan, Jr. has attempted to tie them all together by articulating a coherent approach to the problem of doctrinal development in the Roman Catholic Church. He applies his formidable erudition to three issues where church teaching has reversed itself definitively (slavery, usury, and religious liberty) and to one that is still in progress (divorce). Half of the book deals with the teaching and practice on slavery - from toleration to defense and finally to condemnation, almost as an after-thought, at the Second Vatican Council. Having already written books on the other three topics, Noonan deals with them more succinctly but with no less acumen.

Noonan has the rare capacity to look the historical record straight in the face. He neither hides from the facts nor tries to spin them. He weighs and evaluates facts like the judge that he is (US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit) seeking whatever meaning they yield - no more, no less. He notes that none of the great minds of the past "were capable of rising above their circumstances in all areas of moral doctrine." Augustine approved the torture of heretics and Aquinas justified their execution if they relapsed; Erasmus failed to criticize the European slave trade; Bartolome de Las Casas did not object to the inquisition; and "St. Alfonso de'Ligouri owned a personal slave."

Embarrassing as the historical record is when viewed from our vantage point at the end of centuries of development, Noonan's dispassionate examination leads to many insights. In the last section of his book, "The Test of the Teaching," Noonan puts forth a synthesis. Argument from analogy, a sense of vital balance, logic, and experience, "understood broadly to include empathy, identification with the experience of the other," are the tools that lead to development. However, the criterion for judging development of doctrine is the rule of faith guided by love of God and neighbor. Noonan closes with a quote from Augustine. "If it seems to anyone that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, in such a way that by that understanding he does not build up that double love of God and of neighbor, he has not yet understood them." The same goes for doctrinal development.

I would take issue with Noonan's repeated assertion that the Latin translation of Luke 6:35 ("Lend, hoping nothing therefrom.") was a mistake. The New Revised Translation of the Bible has: "Lend expecting nothing in return." Besides, Noonan himself admits that the driving force of the prohibition of usury (taking any interest on a loan) was the common understanding dating back to Aristotle that money was not fruitful. The gospel citation was window-dressing. Another criticism relates to an omission. For some reason Noonan failed to mention the brilliant 1963 speech by Bishop Emile DeSmedt introducing what eventually became the Vatican Council's Decree on Religious Liberty in 1965. Yet, he gives several pages to Archbishop Michel Lefebvre's attempt to refute DeSmedt. Finally, I wonder how long readers will have to wait for authors to give references to information on the Internet. Noonan gives none.

These criticisms aside, Noonan has written a provocative and insightful book that is well worth reading and may even become a classic.

Here are excerpts from Avery Cardinal Dulles' review in "First Things" (Oct 2005).
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The overarching thesis seems to be that in all these areas social change makes it possible for Christians to overcome the blindness that had previously afflicted their moral vision. The doctrinal change, in Noonan's estimation, is in many cases an about-face, repudiating the erroneous past teaching of the magisterium itself.

More than half of the book deals with slavery...Jesus, though he repeatedly denounced sin as a kind of moral slavery, said not a word against slavery as a social institution. Nor did the writers of the New Testament. Peter and Paul exhort slaves to be obedient to their masters. Paul urges Philemon to treat his converted slave Onesimus as a brother in Christ. While discreetly suggesting that he manumit Onesimus, he does not say that Philemon is morally obliged to free Onesimus....

...[T]he popes were far from silent. As soon as the enslavement of native populations by European colonists started, they began to protest, although Noonan gives only a few isolated examples. Eugene IV in 1435 condemned the enslavement of the peoples of the newly colonized Canary Islands and, under pain of excommunication, ordered all such slaves to be immediately set free. Pius II and Sixtus IV emphatically repeated these prohibitions. In a bull addressed to all the faithful of the Christian world Paul III in 1537 condemned the enslavement of Indians in North and South America. Gregory XIV in 1591 ordered the freeing of all the Filipino slaves held by Spaniards. Urban VIII in 1639 issued a bull applying the principles of Paul III to Portuguese colonies in South America and requiring the liberation of all Indian slaves.

In 1781 Benedict XIV renewed the call of previous popes to free the Indian slaves of South America. Thus it was no break with previous teaching when Gregory XVI in 1839 issued a general condemnation of the enslavement of Indians and Blacks. In particular, he condemned the importation of Negro slaves from Africa. Leo XIII followed along the path set by Gregory XVI.

...In A Church That Can and Cannot Change, Noonan gives only a few glimpses of this complex history. He correctly notes that the Catholic magisterium in past centuries never made an absolute condemnation of slavery as such. But he contends that John Paul II reversed the traditional teaching. In support he quotes a statement of John Paul II in 1992. Speaking at the infamous "House of Slaves" on the Island of Gorée in Senegal, from which innumerable slaves had been exported, he declared: "It is fitting to confess in all truth and humility this sin of man against man, this sin of man against God." Noonan adds: "What this confession did not remark was how recently the sin had been discovered." But if we look up the quotation, we will find that the pope is here speaking of the slave trade, which had repeatedly been condemned. Far from changing the doctrine, John Paul is explicitly reaffirming the position of Pope Pius II, whom he quotes as having declared in 1492 that the slave trade was an enormous crime, magnum scelus.

Noonan has one further argument for doctrinal change. In 1993, in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II took, from Vatican II's pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, a long list of social evils: "homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide . . . mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as sub-human living conditions, arbitrary imprisonments, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat laborers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons." Where Vatican II had called these practices "shameful" (probra), John Paul II calls them "intrinsically evil." In the same encyclical the pope teaches that intrinsically evil acts are prohibited always and everywhere, without any exception.

Did John Paul II, by including slavery in his list of social evils, effect the revolution in Catholic moral theology that Noonan attributes to him? It seems to me that if he had wanted to assert his position as definitive he would have had to say more clearly how he was defining slavery. He would have had to make it clear that he was rejecting the nuanced views of the biblical writers and Catholic theologians for so many past centuries. If any form of slavery could be justified under any conditions, slavery as such would not be, in the technical sense, intrinsically evil.

According to the logic of Noonan's argument, whatever holds for slavery would have to be said for deportations, subhuman living conditions, and degrading conditions of work. But could not degrading or subhuman conditions be inevitable, for example, after some great natural disaster in which mere survival is an achievement? Individual deportations of undesirable aliens occur continually as a matter of national policy today; mass deportations could perhaps be necessary for the sake of peace and security. If pressed, I suspect, the pope would have admitted the need for some qualifications, but he could not have specified these without a rather long excursus that would have been distracting in the framework of his encyclical. So far as I am aware, he never repeated his assertion that slavery is intrinsically evil. Neither the Catechism of the Catholic Church nor the recent Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church... speaks so absolutely.

For all these reasons Noonan's case for a reversal of doctrine is unconvincing. Jacques Maritain provided some helpful distinctions in his book The Rights of Man and Natural Law....[C]ertain attenuated forms of servitude, such as serfdom, are not opposed to natural law except in its secondary requirements or aspirations. These lesser forms of servitude...cannot be eliminated except by degrees....These concessions do not seem to me to be a reversal of the original teaching but rather a nuancing of it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The history of the church's positions on slavery, usury, and religious freedom are certainly revealing.

One thing that struck me is how many of these changes came to fruition in our own lifetimes and specifically in the Second Vatican Council. I agree with the author that few appreciate what a moral revolution that was.

I have a few criticisms of the book, however. The first has to do with Noonan's omission of the church's sustained persecution of pagan religions that went on for three centuries. According to some historians, it was a form of genocide. The church's use of homicide and torture as a standard mode of operation did not begin with the Inquisition in the 12th century.

Noonan also dismisses the ancient prescriptions of usury as "useless" and describes as "nostalgic" those who, like Peter Maurin and Jacques Maritain, state they are still of value. Karl Marx's definitive critique of how capitalism works can hardly be described as nostalgic. Half the people in the world today live in socialist countries with strong market controls This should give us pause before casually dismissing Aristotle's belief that interest unnaturally attributes to money a power it does not have. There are many today who question whether capitalism can provide a sustainable economy.

Noonan also fails even to mention the significance of the declaration of the infallibility of the Pope in 1870. He weasels around the issue of infallibility by claiming that most of the teachings of the church are not infallible. Whether one is speaking of the teaching authority of the Pope, the bishops, the council, or the whole church, the whole issue of infallibility is central to the ability of the church's ability to cope with change in the world.

What other books will have to investigate is where our moral values come from. As is evident from this book, the hierarchical apparatus of the Catholic Church did not lead the way in abolishing slavery or promoting religious freedom. Instead, it had to be dragged to the table. While we go to church expecting inspiration and guidance, it may be that the moral beliefs that really affect our lives come from other sources.

For one willing to read this book sentence by sentence, the reward is immense. The implications of Noonan's conclusions are in fact shattering. But Noonan speaks in a soft voice. His examination of moral theology throughout Chrisitan history is meticulous and brilliant. He is straightforward, uncompromising and above all clear. His study is graceful as well as intelligent, elegant as well as penetrating, and his findings compel us to examine our theological inheritance with a conscience. Quote from the book: "Change is not a thing to be ashamed of, to be whispered about, to be disguised or held from the light of day, as grave guardians sometimes think." A challenging and encouraging work.

A Church That Can And Cannot Change: The Development Of Catholic Moral Teaching by John T. Noonan, Jr. (Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California) is a scholarly and innovative modern approach to the teachings of Catholic fundamentals within the context of the modern church. Offering the reader a comprehensive introduction of the teachings of the church as they pertain to issues of freedom and conscience, lending for a profit, and the condition of slavery, A Church That Can And Cannot Change offers a detailed and specific analysis of the particulars in the ideals and progressive evolution of the Catholic Church. A Church That Can And Cannot Change is very highly recommended reading for seminary students, the clergy, the laity, interested in Catholic theology, ideals of moral, developmental, and ethical teachings.

How do doctrinal changes or developments happen in a church that must accomodate insights accumulated over time and within cultures newly encountered? John Thomas Noonan, a layman and a great legal scholar, confronts the discontinuities in Catholic teaching with candor and insight. Theologians and involved Catholics of all persuations will find the book helpful and challenging. He concentrates on specific issues such as slavery, marriage, and usury and then moves to a theory that will surprise many because it is so obvious but so ignored by professional theologians and teachers. A must read.

A very well-written work that describes the journey of the Catholic Church to the truth about slavery, usury, freedom of religion, and divorce. The depth of knowledge of Mr. Noonan about the Church's history with regard to these moral issues is astounding!

I thought the section on slavery was a little long and would like to have seen the last chapter added to with his thoughts on modern ethical issues. I will again review it with my thoughts but the author would have helped my thinking. Hopefully there will be another book!