On Sustainability
Religion in Society
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
Global Studies
Organization Studies
Reda Sadki
William Cope
Jason Berg.png "Rita van Haren")
Rita van Haren
Eric PatnoudesVivencio Ballano’s Shares
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"We're Not an Ideology But Persons With Human Dignity" (Gender and the Catholic Church, #3)
This book sociologically argues that the nonbinary sexuality and gender of the LGBTQI are not recent inventions of gay rights movements and activism that constitute an ideology. Homosexuality and gender diversity have long been existing in society since Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve. The gender identities of the LGBTQI community cannot be fully understood using the deductive moral framework of natural law but by inductive sociological research and theory that view gender as social and cultural realities. Recent papal pronouncements and church documents have inaccurately labeled gender as an ideology rather than an authentic human experience. This volume contends that gender and the LGBTQI community are not mere social construction and ideology but represent a community of persons with human dignity. It recommends an updating of the Catholic Church's philosophical moral framework on sex and gender to unconditionally welcome the LGBTQI group in the Catholic Church.
Credit: Vivencio Ballano
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God's Call: Why I Entered the Seminary (My Religious Vocation and Journey Vol. 1)
This book details my spiritual conversion and experience of God's call in my life as a Catholic Christian and sociologist. It narrates how my accidental reading of the Bible had led to my spiritual journey with Christ. Thinking that God called me to become a Catholic priest, I abandoned my dream to become a pilot and engineer and entered the Catholic seminary--only to discover that He had other plans for me beyond the priesthood. This short volume illustrates how God can reveal His call through ordinary human events and experiences, requiring Christian discernment, prayer, and generous personal response from those who are called. It also provides a glimpse of what the seminary life would look like to the reader. This volume therefore appeals to those who want to discover God's call in their personal and spiritual lives as Christians.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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"We are God's Children Too!": Resisting Homophobia and Natural Law for Full LGBTQI Integration in the Catholic Church (Gender and the Catholic Church, #2)
This book affirms the human dignity of the members of the LGBTQI as Children of God who should be fully accepted in the Catholic Church. It sociologically analyzes how institutional homophobia or fear of homosexuality and the traditional natural law morality that only allows heterosexuality and gender complementarity of male and female constitute the primary ecclesial and conceptual hindrance toward the full integration of the gender-diverse LGBTQI in the Catholic Church. It recommends the updating of the Church's natural moral framework and adoption of a sociological-synodal moral framework to overcome homophobia and unconditionally welcome the gay community in the Catholic Church with full moral rights like heterosexuals as God's Children.
Credit: Vivencio Ballano
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Why Can't Pope Francis and the Catholic Church Fully Accept the LGBTQI?: A Sociological-Synodal Exploration and Solution
Pope Francis appears to be fully welcoming the LGBTQI community in the Catholic Church in his media interviews and writings. However, a closer sociological analysis would reveal that he remains conservative in his moral doctrine and resistant to LGBTQI inclusivity with his continued subscription to the Church's natural law morality. This book argues that unless the Catholic Church updates its natural law moral framework and incorporates the inductive theological approach and sociological theory and research method on sexuality, gender, and gender diversity, Francis's moral dilemma between upholding official moral doctrines and accepting the LGBTQI Catholics unconditionally in the Catholic Church could never be resolved. This book proposes some alternatives for the full integration of the gay community in the Church that apply the sociological-synodal moral framework.
Credit: Vivencio Ballano
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Resolving Contemporary Moral Issues in the Catholic Church
This chapter explores how the quantitative and qualitative research methods of sociology and inductive synodal theology of Pope Francis can be utilized to resolve contemporary moral issues in his latest ecclesial reform project called the Synod on Synodality. It explores how universal polls and surveys to be done through Catholic research networks can prepare the synod to understand the general sentiment of all Catholics on urgent moral issues such as homosexuality, same-sex union, and LGBTQI inclusivity. It also recommends the use of the sociological qualitative research methods in the churchwide synodal consultations and roundtable discussions on these issues to validate and triangulate survey results to resolve them inductively in spirit of Francis’s synodality. It argues that resolving contemporary moral issues in the Catholic Church requires synodal listening, sociological research methods, and synodal forum between Catholic moral theologians and sociologists to achieve Pope Francis’s synodal Church.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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Transgender Sexuality, Synodality, Sex Change, and Catholic Morality
This chapter analyzes the moral situation and empirical foundation of the emerging transgender sexuality in the contemporary world and how a synodal church as envisioned by Pope Francis in his Synod on Synodality can resolve transgenderism in the Catholic Church. Using Francis’s inductive theology and sociological perspectives as the conceptual guide, it attempts to assess the morality of sex change that uses the modern medical technology. It contends that the synodal and sociological approach can guide the synod to appropriately judge the transgender sexuality of the LGBTQI community beyond appearance and external acts to understand motives of why transgenders resort to sex change for social acceptance in the Church and society.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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LGBTQI Inclusivity Proposals and Pope Francis’s Synodal Church
This chapter provides four major proposals to attain greater inclusivity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersexual (LGBTQI) community in the Roman Catholic Church, applying Pope Francis’s synodality, inductive synodal theology, and sociological analysis. It proposes a (1) structural cognitive change in the traditional church teaching on homosexuality and gender identity, (2) synodal consultation between Catholic theologians and sociologists to update the traditional gender moral teachings, (3) greater participation of sociologists and the gay community in Pope Francis’s Synod on Synodality’s roundtable discussions, and an (4) intimate dialogue between Catholic bishops and the LGBTQI representatives in synodal consultations to generate greater ecclesial resistance against the social discrimination and victimization of the gay community in society as well as against institutional homophobia in the Catholic Church
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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Gender and “Gender Ideology” in the Catholic Church
Applying Pope Francis’s synodal theological approach and sociological arguments, this chapter’s aim is to analyze the Roman Catholic Church’s understanding of gender and the complex concept of “gender ideology” as well as the role of gender, ideology, gender theory, and feminist gender theory in sociology and the social sciences. It argues that the adoption of a strictly metaphysical approach to morality based on natural law theory in the Catholic Church is a primary factor in the marginalization of the LGBTQI community in the Christian community. It clarifies why the current church moral teachings sideline the positive aspects of gender theories in sociology and feminism. It recommends an interdisciplinary synodal dialogue between Catholic moral theologians and sociologists to reconcile conflicting views on gender and gender theory.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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Reappraising Gender Complementarity and Heterosexual Marriage in the Catholic Church
This chapter reappraises the Catholic Church’s traditional moral teaching on gender complementarity and gender criteria in heterosexual marriage in light of Pope Francis’s inductive synodal theology and modern sociology to explore the moral acceptability of same-sex union in the Church. Specifically, it investigates the empirical foundation of the gender complementarity in the book of Genesis, which has become the essential condition for Christian marriage. It argues that the human author/s of Genesis only understood gender as biological reality rather than saw it as a social and cultural experience in society in their biblical message. This chapter recommends a sociological reevaluation of the empirical basis of gender complementarity and heterosexual marriage in the Catholic Church to allow the full acceptance of same-sex union and full lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersexual (LGBTQI) inclusivity in the Christian community.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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Homosexuality, Same-Sex Union, and LGBTQI Inclusivity in the Catholic Church
Applying an experimental approach that combines Pope Francis’s inductive synod theological method and sociological perspectives, this chapter analyzes the empirical foundations of homosexuality, homosexual union, and gender diversity in the contemporary world as well as the Catholic Church’s deductive theological approach for resolving moral issues based on natural law theory. It argues that deciding the urgent gender moral issues on gender diversity, same-sex union, and full inclusion of the LGBTQI group in the Church in light of Pope Francis’s inductive synodal theology requires listening to nonbinary people’s lived experiences and accurately learning from them through scientific sociological research before passing moral judgment and initiating ecclesial action to resolve them. It recommends that the Catholic Church should revisit and update the empirical foundation of its traditional moral teachings on sex, gender, and gender complementarity to integrate the gay community in Church in order to achieve Francis’s inclusive synodal church.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
