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Thinking lately about moral infantilism and folks who have contacted me to discuss their struggle at accepting they are gay while remaining within the confines of the Catholic world in which they grew up. They want to fit their adult moral sensibility into childhood rules. /1
Naturally, this goal causes them pain, even anguish, since the very point of being an adult emotionally, intellectually, morally, is to subject childhood moral formulas (and childhood catechetical formulas) to adult critical scrutiny. /2
I think of Ellen Douglas's 1998 book Truth: Four Stories I Am Finally Old Enough to Tell, in which she notes that it took years of growth as an adult to confront truth β about white Southern racist violence towards Black Southerners β she knew as a child, but could not speak. /3
One of the experiences growing up white and Southern is, for many of us, if our consciences and intellectual awareness ever develop, is that many of the "truths" handed down to us as children were wrong. They were crippling. They were toxic. /4
Because of that formative experience, I'm puzzled by people, especially religious ones, who want to fit adult awareness into childhood religious formulas β never recognizing that those childhood formulas may simply be wrong, toxic, crippling. /5
This is moral infantilism, and it's deliberately inculcated by more than one religious group. Religious leaders often infantilize their flocks because they themselves are morally and intellectually infantile. They cannot help adults find moral maturity as a result. /6
Religious leaders often infantilize their flocks because morally and intellectually stunted adherents are easier to control and manipulate.
A telling sign of moral infantilism: the attempt to resolve complex adult moral dilemmas with a simple "rule." /7
A telling sign of moral infantilism: the attempt to resolve complex adult moral dilemmas with a simple "rule." /7
Catholic moral theology promulgated by the magisterium for decades now has done a tremendous disservice to Catholics by inculcating the notion that a single, simple moral rule can solve all sorts of moral dilemmas β as if dilemmas are not precisely caused by conflicting norms. /8
The idea that we can make adult political decisions on the basis of a single simplistic rule β "I vote anti-abortion, and that sums it up" β is infantile. It overlooks the complexity of the MANY moral norms with which adults have to deal as they made informed decisions. /9
But, again, for political reasons and reasons of control, top Catholic magisterial leaders have deliberately inculcated this approach in their flock, deliberately infantilizing them β and the results for the entire culture have been grim. /10
