THE PRESIDENT, THE POPE AND THE UNCONSCIOUS WIFE

In 1958/9, Bishop Karol Wojtyla gave a series of lectures in the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland. These formed the basis for his book Love and Responsibility published in Polish in 1960. An English translation was published in 1981, three years after Wojtyla had become Pope John Paul II.

On page 271 of the English edition, the following text appears in the course of a discussion on the sex act.

It is in the very nature of the act that the man plays the active role and takes the initiative, while the woman is a comparatively passive partner, whose function it is to accept and to experience. For the purposes of the sexual act i t is enough for her to be passive and unresisting, so much so that it may even take place without her volition while she is in a state in which she has no awareness at all of what is happening - for instance while she is asleep, or unconscious.

Note: for ease of reading, I will put this quote in bold italics where it recurs below.

In 2009, in a volume entitled Responding to the Ryan Report, edited by Tony Flannery, Seán Fagan wrote the following.

Karol Wojtyla's Love and Responsibility published in Polish in 1960 and in English in 1981 when he was pope, tried to present romantic love in contrast to Augustine's theology, but modern Catholic women are not impressed by much of his thinking. For example, speaking of intercourse he explains that 'it is in the very nature of the act that the man plays the active role and takes the initiative, whilst the woman is a comparatively passive partner, whose function it is to accept and experience. For the purpose of the sexual act it is enough for her to be passive and unresisting, so much so that it can even take place without her volition, while she is a state in which she has no awareness at all of what is happening, for instance when she is asleep or unconscious.' Can this be Catholic Church teaching? It sounds like rape.

In 2019, Angela Hanley quoted the above paragraph in her book on Seán Fagan.

And, at an event in Trinity College on 2 November 2019, former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, quoted the original Wojtyla text, attributing it to Pope John Paul II as his view of sex and marriage and pointing out that he had been made a saint in spite of it. This is what she said, following a reference by Joan Chittester to the invisibility of women in the Catholic church.

Absolutely. Even more the invisible, deliberately made invisible, deliberately meant to stay invisible structurally. Structurally the architecture of the church is designed to create the invisibility and maintain the invisibility and the powerlessness of women. To corral us. If you just bear with me could I just read a little section from the writings of Pope John Paul ll? This is a recent pope. So we are not talking about the Dark Ages. We’re talking about a recent pope from his book “Love and Responsibility”. This is his description of marriage, of sex and marriage. This is a short thing.
'It’s the very nature of the act that the man plays the active role and takes the initiative while the woman is a comparatively passive partner whose function it is to accept and experience. For the purpose of the sexual act it is enough for her to be passive and unresisting, so much so that it can take place without her volition, while she is in a state in which she has no awareness at all of what is happening, for instance when she is asleep or unconscious.'
That is how we are treated in the church, expected to be asleep, unconscious, while men get on with doing what they have to do. And here’s the sequel to that: When Fr Seán Fagan called Pope John Paul out on that and said the obvious, he asked a question: He said: Can this really be Catholic Church teaching he said. It sounds like rape.
What happened? Pope John Paul becomes a saint. Seán Fagan becomes silenced. That’s our church.”

Well, the reactions came thick and fast, pointing out that while Wojtyla wrote the words in question, they were introducing an argument the conclusion of which was the opposite of what was being attributed to him.

In response, Mary McAleese dug in, responding on 8/11/2019 to an earlier critical letter in the Irish Times.

Sir, – Dr Thomas Finegan accuses me of shoddy scholarly treatment of Pope John Paul (Letters, November 7th).
I am afraid the accusation is more easily and accurately made of his own treatment of my use of a passage from the pope’s book Love and Responsibility. It is very clear Dr Finegan did not check the context in which I used the passage. It was explicitly stated by me that I was not talking about the sex act at all but by analogy using the passage to describe the position and role of women in the church generally, with men seen as dominant initiators and women as passive receivers. A simple and factually correct statement.
Fr Fagan correctly described the passage in its original sex act context as a description of rape. And it is clear Fr Finegan agrees that is a correct description. There is an obvious, inexorable and transferable logic that Dr Finegan has missed entirely and which was the sole point of the reference. – Yours, etc,
MARY McALEESE,
Cootehall,
Co Roscommon.

Unconscious Wife

Mary McAleese wrote another response to a further letter from Dr. Finegan on 11/11/2019.

Sir, – It is the case that under common law (based on canon law) the crime of rape in many jurisdictions including Ireland was defined as non-consensual sex with a person who was not one’s spouse. The notion of marital rape did not enter our criminal law until 1990.

Surely Fr Finegan (Letters, November 9th) must accept the fact that at the time of writing Love and Responsibility in 1960 and republishing it in 1981, church teaching was that within marriage consent to sex was presumed and so the concept of marital rape was non-existent.

Fr Sean Fagan was a champion of the change that led to the redefinition of rape to include marital rape. His view did not sit well with religious authorities for even those who saw non-consensual sex in marriage as problematic to the point of sinful were opposed to extending the definition of rape to such sex within marriage.

I know of no document at that time where the Holy See suggests that non-consensual sex in marriage should be regarded as and criminalised as marital rape. That includes Love and Responsibility.

Perhaps Fr Finegan can point us to such references. Or perhaps he can agree he has this argument badly wrong. – Yours, etc,

MARY McALEESE,
Boyle,
Co Roscommon.

Karol Wojtyla

Following which Breda O'Brien wrote an op-ed in the Irish Times, recapping on the whole affair and suggesting that Mary McAleese should simply apologise for misquoting the Pope and move on.

Breda O'Brien: A simple, dignified apology from McAleese would suffice

Former president should say she never intended to imply Pope John Paul II endorsed marital rape

Sat, Nov 16, 2019

In the 1950s, a young Polish priest was lecturing in ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), a university which not long previously had been closed by the Nazis. At the time, KUL was under severe restrictions by the Soviet regime, which loathed the university’s courage and academic independence.

The young priest developed a lively student discussion and social action group. From this and his work with young engaged and married couples a book grew, called Love and Responsibility. Written before both the Second Vatican Council and the 1960s sexual revolution, it was far ahead of its time in its frank discussion of sexuality, insisting that love definitively rules out ever using another person and that women were entitled to satisfying sex lives.

For instance, the author points out that women have more erogenous zones than men. He says that love for spouses means learning about each other’s bodies so that both can fully enjoy sexual climax. He insists that men be unselfish in sex.

However inadvertently, by citing Wojtyla in this way to make this point, McAleese attributes to the author the very opposite position to the one that he holds

The young priest was Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II. At a recent conference, Mary McAleese chose a passage from Love and Responsibility where Wojtyla states that, from a physiological point of view, a man could have sexual intercourse even if a women were asleep or unconscious. It is worth watching the former president’s delivery of this passage.

Here is the transcript: “If you’ll just bear with me, can I just read a little section from the writings of Pope John Paul II? This is a recent pope so we’re not talking about the Dark Ages, we are talking about a recent pope from his book Love and Responsibility. This is his description of marriage, of sex in marriage. It’s a short thing. “It is in the very nature of the act that the man plays the active role and takes the initiative, while the woman is a comparatively passive partner, whose function it is to accept and to experience. For the purpose of the sexual act it is enough for her to be passive and unresisting, so much so that it can even take place without her volition [gasps from the audience] while she is in a state in which she has no awareness at all of what is happening – for instance, when she is asleep or unconscious.” [More gasps] “This is how we are treated in the church, expected to be asleep or unconscious while men get on with doing what they have to do. And here is the sequel to that: when Fr Seán Fagan called Pope John Paul out on that and said the obvious, he asked a question; he said, can this really be the Catholic church teaching? He said it sounds like rape. What happened? Pope John Paul becomes a saint, Seán Fagan becomes silenced. That’s our church.”

Opposite position

However inadvertently, by citing Wojtyla in this way to make this point, McAleese attributes to the author the very opposite position to the one that he holds.

The book is widely available and speaks for itself. Mere paragraphs after the passage quoted by Dr McAleese, Wojtyla insists that intercourse should never lead to climax for the man alone, “but that climax must be reached in harmony, not at the expense of one partner, but with both partners fully involved”. It is followed by: “Love demands that the reactions of the other person, the sexual partner, be fully taken into account.” He believes the physiological aspect of sex must always be put at the service of authentic, selfless love.

When subsequenlty challenged (in the letters page of this paper) for choosing a passage taken out of context as a description of Wojtyla’s teaching on sex and marriage, McAleese declared that she has been misunderstood. She “explicitly stated” that she “was not talking about the sex act at all but by analogy using the passage to describe the position and role of women in the church generally, with men seen as dominant initiators and women as passive receivers”.

Criminalised

When taken to task again by Dr Tom Finegan, she suggested in a further letter that it is was due to the influence of the church’s canon law that marital rape was only criminalised in Ireland in 1990.

Why choose an extract and present it in a way that allows an inaccurate and highly damaging impression of the author’s views to be formed?

That canon law was a key causal factor seems unlikely, given that Britain, which has not been Catholic since 1536, only recognised marital rape as a crime in 1991. Be that as it may, the central question remains: when seeking an analogy for how she believes women in the church are treated, why choose an extract and present it in a way that allows an inaccurate and highly damaging impression of the author’s views to be formed?

Given her status as a highly regarded former president, theologian and university chancellor, the dignified thing for Mary McAleese to do would be to issue a simple statement along the lines of: “I never intended to imply that Karol Wojtyla endorsed marital rape and if any impression was given that he did, I am sorry.

And there the matter rests for now, I think.

I am a fan of Mary McAleese, both while she was President of Ireland and in her subsequent role as critic of the Roman Catholic Church's teaching and treatment of women and LGBT people. And I was very upset at how she got this so wrong and then dug in.

So I thought I'd check it out. I got a copy of Love and Responsibility and I have to say I agree completely with Breda O'Brien, except for her suggested wording of the apology and her assertion that the book is widely available. I had to get my copy from the far side of the country.

In his approach to sex in marriage (where else?) Wojtyla adopts a layered approach. He first sets out the purely physical situation regarding the sex act - what is physically possible. This is a neutral description of the facts and carries no emotional, moral or ethical overtones. He then applies the emotional and ethical layers leading to the conclusion that sex must be by mutual consent and never for the pleasure of one partner to the exclusion of the other. He goes on to develop this mutuality as active and far from passive.

So his view is exactly the opposite of the one attributed to him by Mary McAleese. As to the church's view at the time that is another matter. I am well familiar with the advice given in the confessional to women whose health or life itself could be at risk from another pregnancy. "Go home and do your duty."

I do not accept that Mary did not attribute the words quoted to Wojtyla's own view. Go back up and read her top and tail to the quote.

But how did she get into this position in the first place? My own feeling is that she had not read the book, or she'd have known better, but that she accepted the interpretation directly from Seán Fagan's writing, not realising he was plain wrong in this case.

Seán Fagan RIP

So, how did Seán Fagan fall into this trap. Surely he could not take that view after reading the book. Did he then take it second hand from someone else without properly checking out the source? Unfortunately we may never know as Seán is no longer with us. As readers of this blog will know I am a big fan of Seán's. The whole thing is so sad.

It occurred to me to wonder, had Seán Fagan been confronted with his mistake, would he have dug in like Mary McAleese, or would he have apologised and moved on? I would hope the latter, but, again, we'll never know.

The Lessons

First, when you're using a quote to criticise someone, particularly such an explosive quote, make sure you go to the original source and check out the context.

Second, when you make a mistake, fess up immediately and move on. Digging in makes it harder to stop digging and you only do yourself more damage in the long run.