Because marriage equality is so prevalent in Catholic countries, Joe Grayland pose whether Catholic theology more than Protestant theology is more open to same-sex blessings?

Is there a difference between catholic and protestant theology – more than evangelical protestant theology?

James Alison responds to these questions.

“Intrinsic to Catholic theology is the notion that grace builds on nature and so once we work out what ‘is’; a homosexual person, grace flows, people flourish says James Alison.

So ‘yes’ is the answer.”

Alison points out that in his experience most Catholics, are not particularly worried about what the bible says about Gay and Lesbian people because “most Catholics don’t derive their faith from the bible – the bible goes along with their faith”.

In countries that were previously identified as Catholic, Alison sees a changing face to Catholic theology as a result of the impact of evangelical Protestantism.

In noting the change Alison says the ‘ground music’ of ‘ordinary religious discourse’ is now Protestant.

He puts this down to the evangelical and protestant groups not being elitist, and not identified with the ruling hierarchies.

He notes the irony that the Catholic Church has to sort of reply to newfound circumstance with more charismatic type worship, and this is adding to their problem.

Tom O’Loughlin considers that since the 1079’s the Catholic/ Protestant distinction in theology is no longer viable

O’Loughlin says that the way western Christian churches do theology distinguishes them: those that do theology as a “creative attempt to make sense of reality” and have a “creative interaction with the real” is fundamentally different from those who do theology as “a set of answers” that answer every question ever posed.

The danger with the ‘do theology as a set of answers’ approach—used in evangelical and dogmatic right-wing catholicism—is to create a very “secure world that knows all the answers” that it finds in a book of ancient writings.

Alison concludes with his Flash of Insight:

“That the top-down assumption”, concerning the blessing of same-gender couples, has made itself ridiculous”.