link [chroniclesmagazine.org]
Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmosby Fr. Hugh Barbour | March 31st, 2009 
“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon . . .
terrible as an army with banners?â€
—Song of Songs 6:10
“Si direbbe che persino la luna si è affrettata stasera—osservatelo in alto—a guardare a questo spettacolo.â€
(“One might almost think that the moon—just look at him up there—hurried up tonight to see this spectacle.â€) These were words that Pope John XXIII extemporaneously addressed to the crowd gathered in Piazza San Pietro on the moonlit evening of October 11, 1962, the opening day of the Second Vatican Council. The blessed pontiff spoke warmly of his expectation that the council would conclude “prima di Natale,†which being interpreted is “before Christmas.†On this point at least, “Good Pope John†was not a prophet. But how could he have thought otherwise? Everything had been meticulously prepared; the documents were all ready, expounding the Faith and refuting modern errors with vigor and copious footnotes. Well, no, as the saying goes, “the Rhine flowed into the Tiber,†and by Christmas the carefully worded schemata were practically all gone (except the “easy†one on liturgy: another less-than-prophetic but, in this case, collegial, not papal, surmise), and the council’s work indefinitely to-be-continued.
January 25 of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the surprise announcement of Pope John XXIII that he intended to convoke a general council. From 1959 to 1962, the soon-to-be-jettisoned constitutions and decrees that would have been discussed were composed by preparatory committees of eminent Roman theologians. Among these is one document that is remarkable for its keen prescience and consequent pastoral anxiety. It never even made it to the floor of the council. Its full title was Schema Constitutionis Dogmaticae de Castitate, Matrimonio, Familia, Virginitate. Yes, there was a separate dogmatic constitution on chastity (marital, familial, and virginal) and every word of it now reads like a prophecy—not a Delphic utterance, but as clear-sighted as Daniel. Reading the rejected schema, one cannot help but be struck by the sharp focus and clarity whereby chastity and all that opposes it in the modern world were confronted. Nor can one deny—without questioning the value of the many other matters treated by the council—that in the face of all that has come to pass in the meantime this precision and firmness would have been the greatest thing the council might have offered to the world.
Practically every moral threat in the realm of human sexuality is addressed. It deals with homosexuality: “It is most evil to hold that the most filthy affections for persons of the same sex are in fact a privilege of a higher level of culture.†It deals with surgical sex changes: “Utterly wicked are those attempts to change one’s proper sex when it can be sufficiently determined.†Genetic manipulation: “In no case can a right be given . . . to introduce into the human body procreative cells of another species, or the inverse, or to unite human cells from either sex in a laboratory . . . even if only the progress of science be intended.†Sex education: â€
