At Cross Purposes? On the Use of "Bearing One’s Cross" in Christian Bioethics
Tobias Winright, Associate Professor, Health Care Ethics and Theological Ethics, Saint Louis University
According to the Catholic magisterial document on bioethics, Donum Vitae (1987), 'sterility is certainly a difficult trial', one that calls spouses to regard as 'an opportunity for sharing in a particular way in the Lord's Cross, the source of spiritual fruitfulness'. Commenting on Donum Vitae, William E. May writes, 'Spouses suffering from sterility must bear their cross' rather than resort to homologous artificial insemination. Likewise, on assisted reproductive technologies in general, May holds that infertile couples 'do not have a "right" to a child and that God may give them the cross of childlessness to carry. If he does, they must remember that he will be their Simon of Cyrene, ready to help them bear the cross he gives them.' Indeed, a number of Catholic and other Christian bioethicists similarly refer to 'bearing one's cross' in connection with sterility and infertility. For instance, Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., devotes a section of his book to 'The Cross of Infertility and the Use of ART', concluding, 'In faith, we know that carrying the Cross of the Lord, despite the great suffering involved, can be a great privilege of redemptive value'. This paper interrogates such references to the cross in Christian bioethics. Are they appropriate? More importantly, are they consonant with what Jesus meant when he 'called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me"' (Mk 8:34; see Lk 14:27)?
Stanley Hauerwas has questioned such appeals to 'bearing the cross', arguing 'that Christians are under no obligation to interpret their misfortunes by identifying them with Christ's cross...because such identification can be self-deceptive, but also because, more importantly, it can trivialize Christ's cross by making it a generalized symbol of the inexplicability of suffering'. On this, Hauerwas draws on John Howard Yoder, who wrote that the cross 'was not an inexplicable or chance event, which happened to strike him like illness or accident.... The cross of Calvary was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt or nagging in-law; it was the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling his society', and the early Christians had to be told what the consequences of following him likely would be. Still, Hauerwas, after receiving a letter from a Catholic woman who was ill, nuanced his criticism of such invocations of 'bearing one's cross', acknowledging that suffering from illness can 'be made part of the telos of our service to one another in and outside the community'--but adding that 'it is not appropriate for us to try to force that account on another'.
By bringing these contrasting understandings of 'bearing one's cross' into conversation, I not only offer a critique of its possible abuse in Christian bioethics, I also propose how it might be rightly used for a theopolitical bioethics.
Stanley Hauerwas has questioned such appeals to 'bearing the cross', arguing 'that Christians are under no obligation to interpret their misfortunes by identifying them with Christ's cross...because such identification can be self-deceptive, but also because, more importantly, it can trivialize Christ's cross by making it a generalized symbol of the inexplicability of suffering'. On this, Hauerwas draws on John Howard Yoder, who wrote that the cross 'was not an inexplicable or chance event, which happened to strike him like illness or accident.... The cross of Calvary was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt or nagging in-law; it was the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling his society', and the early Christians had to be told what the consequences of following him likely would be. Still, Hauerwas, after receiving a letter from a Catholic woman who was ill, nuanced his criticism of such invocations of 'bearing one's cross', acknowledging that suffering from illness can 'be made part of the telos of our service to one another in and outside the community'--but adding that 'it is not appropriate for us to try to force that account on another'.
By bringing these contrasting understandings of 'bearing one's cross' into conversation, I not only offer a critique of its possible abuse in Christian bioethics, I also propose how it might be rightly used for a theopolitical bioethics.