Reconciling Agency and Tradition: A Critical-Liberative Theological Dismantling of the Contra Naturam and Complementarian Imago Dei Frameworks in Catholic Sexual Ethics

Abstract

Januarius Asongu*

This article employs Critical-Liberative Theology (CLT) to conduct a systematic deconstruction of the two principal theological frameworks used to exclude same-sex relationships from sacramental recognition in Roman Catholic teaching: the contra naturam (against nature) argument from natural law and the complementarian Imago Dei (Image of God) argument from theological anthropology. Building on the analysis of ecclesial authority and moral diversion in Fiducia Supplicans this study integrates CLT’s threefold method—critical rationality, liberative praxis, and attentive listening to conscience and the sensus fidelium—to demonstrate that these frameworks function not as timeless truths but as historically conditioned hermeneutics that protect institutional power, enforce heteronormativity, and inflict structural violence [1]. Through rigorous philosophical and theological analysis, the study demonstrates the internal collapse of the contra naturam logic when examined alongside the Church’s own sanctioned practices of clerical celibacy and Natural Family Planning (NFP). Simultaneously, it dismantles the complementarian Imago Dei argument as a theologically reductionist interpretation of Genesis 1:27 that erroneously equates biological duality with the fullness of the divine image. The article further argues that these combined frameworks perpetrate epistemic injustice by silencing LGBTQ+ Catholic testimony while enabling a moral diversion that allows a credibility-compromised hierarchy to deflect scrutiny from systemic failures like the clerical abuse crisis [1]. Moving beyond critique, the study proposes an emancipatory reconstruction of Catholic sexual ethics centered on a plural theology of vocation, an expansive covenant-based understanding of the Imago Dei, and the primacy of the informed conscience as mediated through the sensus fidelium. The conclusion asserts that fidelity to the developing tradition and the Gospel mandate of liberation necessitates abandoning these exclusionary frameworks in favor of an ethic that recognizes the sanctity of life-giving, covenantal love in all its diverse forms.

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