Probabilism and the transgender penitent

 

I studied moral theology in the early 1960s. At that time there was an interpretation of the sacrament of "confession" that saw the priest-confessor as a judge. I think the interpretation was based on John 20:23, where Jesus said, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained." Your job as a confessor was to judge whether the penitent's sins should be forgiven or retained (not forgiven).

If the confessor was to be a judge, the confessor had to be educated to give sound judgments. Thus arose a system of reasoning called "probabilism."

The system depended on the availability of a set of moral theology authors, some of whom would say a particular behavior was permissible, and some would say it was sinful. That in itself strains credibility. How many confessors would have a shelf of moral textbooks? Confessors would not have such a shelf, but moral theology professors would, and moral theologians taught in seminaries.

When a penitent confessed that he had had a vasectomy, the confessor was to consult the shelf of authors who discussed vasectomy. If only one author said that vasectomy was forbidden, the confessor should refuse absolution. The probabilist would say that even if there are only a few authors who permit the surgery, while the majority forbade it, the confessor should still grant absolution. There would be at least some probability that vasectomy was not sinful.

Franciscan tradition favored probabilism. When in doubt, judge in favor of the penitent. That was the bottom line.

We simply do not know enough about transgenderism to make dogmatic statements about what is moral and what is not moral about it. What we do know is that there are more people who claim transgender experience than there used to be. There are people who were labeled male at birth but who experience the world from a very early age as a female would experience it. Those people tell us that they are not deliberately faking the experience, and they are not being deceived by medical people out to make a profit.

So what do we do with such people?

We wait while experience accumulates. Science moves slowly. To prove something is harmful requires much careful research done honestly. In time we will know what is harmful and what is not. But until then, we should err in favor of the person claiming to be transgender. We should honor their description of their experience. To do otherwise disrespects them. Disrespect is not loving.

To use the old language, there is a probability that accepting transgenderism is harmless, and so anyone in a position to pass judgment on it should err in favor of the transgender person. We could be wrong, but only time will tell.

Serious study of sexuality is not more than a century old. There is much that we do not know. An appeal to "natural law" is irrelevant when nature creates a condition. When that happens, our attitude should be, "Withhold judgment, wait for good research, and in the meantime do not accuse people of acting immorally."

To do otherwise makes us risk the Galileo error. The Church rushed to judgment and condemned Galileo, and it took centuries for popes to apologize. We shouldn't do that again.