१८ नोव्हेंबर, २०१५

"Because of the beautiful meaning and dignity communicated by our bodies — which communicate our very selves — our bodies should be treated with the greatest respect."

"We, and therefore our bodies, are not meant to be used but loved. As Karol Wojtyła (St. John Paul II) taught, the opposite of love is not hate but rather using a person, as if he or she were an object. To love others is to recognize them as the gift they are, to seek what is truly good and best for them, and never to use them and thereby objectify them as something less than persons. The body, then, is not raw, biological matter open to manipulation but is rather inseparable from who we are.... Deliberately viewing pornography is a grave sin against chastity. Sexual intimacy and the pleasure that derives from it are gifts from God and should remain personal and private, enjoyed within the sacred bond of marriage alone. Such intimacy should not be put on display or be watched by any other person, even if that person is one’s own spouse. Nor should the human body be unveiled or treated in a way that objectifies it sexually and reduces it to an erotic stimulant.... Regardless of the relationship between the parties, looking at another person with lust — as only a sexual object to enjoy, control, and use — is a sin. It is a disordered view of the person, because it is ordered toward use, as of a thing, rather than love, which pertains to persons...."

I'm reading "Create in Me a Clean Heart/A Pastoral Response to Pornography" issued by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday.

५४ टिप्पण्या:

Mr. Colby म्हणाले...

From a Terry Pratchett novel:

An old woman (who happens to be a witch) and a priest are sitting by the road having a conversation.

(The conversation starts on the classic subject of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?")

"Sixteen!"
"You've counted sixteen?" said Oats eventually.
"No, but it is as good an answer as any you'll get. And that's what you holy men discuss is it?"
"Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin, for example."
"And what do they think? Against it, are they?"
"It is not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray."
"Nope."
"Pardon?"
There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
"It's a lot more complicated than that--"
"No it ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."
"Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-"
"But they Starts with thinking about people as things…"

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

That Pope got it right. He was the anti-Communist Polish guy. What a perfect teaching of Christianity.

We need him back in place of the Marxist Jesuit game of thrones player sitting on Peter's seat in the Vatican today.

Rob म्हणाले...

Any bishop who doesn't think bodies are to be used can suck my dick. (h/t Roseanne Barr, who said the same of anyone who didn't think she was feminine enough)

AlbertAnonymous म्हणाले...

JPII is also famous for having said "The problem with pornography is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little."

Great turn of phrase.

Laslo Spatula म्हणाले...

I'm confused by the premise.

I am Laslo.

Paddy O म्हणाले...

"He was the anti-Communist Polish guy."

Communism also treats people as things. Whenever a system denigrates or de-personalizes anybody it is sinful. That includes a lot of religious expressions, of course, which is why Jesus had words about the Pharisees. Pornography and religion can have a lot in common. People become pawns or tools or cogs to fund the system or provide satisfaction to those with power.

AlbertAnonymous म्हणाले...

Professor, I don't know why you decided to read this piece, but maybe you should also read JPII's "Theology of the Body" for a more complete perspective.

Careful though, I'm sure it'll rattle your preconceived liberal views/views of the Church.

As the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen said: “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

Keep reading Professor. There's always hope...

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

@AlbertAnonymous

Thanks. I mainly agree with this teaching about love and that sex should always be in the context of love. I don't think it's good to exclude gay people, though.

mikee म्हणाले...

The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. "Using" someone's body is showing indifference to the person. Two or more people engaged in consensual using of each other for mere physical pleasure shows indifference not only for the other person but for oneself as well.



66 म्हणाले...

Hi Ann--

Just so you know, "I mainly agree with this teaching" and "I don't think it's good to exclude gay people, though" are contradictory statements. The Church's teaching on sex is that sex is a gift from God when it is ordered to procreation inside the bonds of holy matrimony. Outside this context, sex is an offense against God as it is perverting one of his gifts in the pursuit of mere pleasure.

Ron Winkleheimer म्हणाले...

I mainly agree with this teaching about love and that sex should always be in the context of love.

I'm not trying to be snarky and I agree with you, but I am curious. From what premises are you drawing this conclusion?

Monkeyboy म्हणाले...

And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.

I just wanted to post to say that I love that passage. PTerry will be missed,

The Godfather म्हणाले...

I've read the Bible -- Old Testament, New Testament, Apocrypha, some parts multiple times. I haven't found any place where Scripture says that (as 66 asserts) "sex is a gift from God when it is ordered to procreation inside the bonds of holy matrimony. Outside this context, sex is an offense against God as it is perverting one of his gifts in the pursuit of mere pleasure." Yes, I know there are a few passages in Leviticus and a couple of Paul's epistles that condemn homosexual acts, but even these aren't based on the principle espoused by 66 and allegedly by the Roman Catholic Church. It seems that the RC Church has expressed an opinion on this subject, but not one that a non-Catholic is required to accept.

Paddy O म्हणाले...

"I mainly agree with this teaching" and "I don't think it's good to exclude gay people, though" are contradictory statements. The Church's teaching on sex..."

They're not contradictory. The Church's "teaching on sex" does not necessarily correlate to the official doctrines on the topic, especially if we see "teaching" related to how the Church expresses through the variety of words and deeds. I'd suggest that the very category of 'homosexual' derives from Church objectifying people as sins, thus leading to the post-Christian embrace of these categories as positive rather than negative. Gay marriage, then, comes out of the very ways that the Church (in all its forms) sought to categorize and use individuals, rather than see them as real persons, loved by God. That's why gay marriage is uniquely Western (so far).

It's not an act, it's an ontology--I am this, rather than I do this--is the result of objectifying people for many centuries. Thus, as someone defined in certain ways they see fullness in light of relating wholly to another in the ways of love and commitment that marriage affirms. The great majority of even faithful Catholics hold to a different understanding of sexuality as love/bonding rather than procreation.

So, Ann's agreement seems to highlight the lack of coherence in the expression of the teaching.

The expressed teaching is different than the intended teaching, for sure, but we can see what has been taught by looking at our society that has been shaped for millenia by the Church, explicitly so until the last fifty years or so.

AlbertAnonymous म्हणाले...

Professor: "I mainly agree with this teaching about love and that sex should always be in the context of love. I don't think it's good to exclude gay people, though."

I know the teachings are sometimes hardest when our own family members aren't following them, but Church teaching doesn't exclude gay people. Are you suggesting it does?

It's not "love" in a generic sense that allows for sexual intimacy. After all, we're taught to love everyone. But we're not taught to have sex with everyone. Just the opposite.

Sexual intimacy is intended only between the committed and sacramentally married man and wife. And the reason it is intended in such a limited way is because sex is ordered to lead to the creation of human life.

Unmarried couples are not to be having sex. Married people aren't to be having sex outside the marriage. None are to be having sex that isn't ordered to the creation of human life.

Gays aren't excluded.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

The point of pornography is getting rid of an obsession, an obsession that God has given you to deal with, until you outgrow it at an advanced age.

It's for a hormone flood that turns off some brain wiring temporarily, not for treating women as an object. The women pictured aren't noticed.

The point of the wiring is evolutionary. The variants that have it survive, the others don't.

It would be nice if the Pope were clued in. That's the trouble with celibacy. No experience and hence cluelessness.

66 म्हणाले...

Hi Godfather --

I did not assert that the teaching I summarized is stated in the Bible, only that it is a teaching of the Church. As I'm sure you know, Jesus founded the Church and give it certain authority to teach and preach in his name. At the time Jesus invested that authority in the Church, there was no Bible (or at least no New Testament). It would be roughly another 100 years or so until the NT was complete, and another 200 or so years until the Church compiled the current cannon of the Bible. Yet all through those early years, the Church continued to teach and preach.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

"I know the teachings are sometimes hardest when our own family members aren't following them, but Church teaching doesn't exclude gay people. Are you suggesting it does?"

I'm not Catholic, so the teaching doesn't burden me. It's just some opinion that is persuasive to the extent that it is persuasive. Gay people are excluded from being in the category of people who can fulfill their sexual feelings through love and marriage. They're not excluded in that they have the option to live a life without sexual relations. I don't think marrying a member of the opposite sex fits the teaching very well.

The teaching relies an awful lot on looking at the physical bodies of males and females and "reading" them like a text. I think the part about love and not exploiting others makes better sense.

PackerBronco म्हणाले...

A great passage and definitely a challenge to people who belong to the Church of the Holy Orgasm.

n.n म्हणाले...

And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply...

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.


Transgender/homosexual and recreational sexual relations are antithetical to God's first commandment and monogamous marriage ("cleave"), and the former behavior is incompatible with evolutionary fitness.

That said, dispensing with the Judeo-Christian religion and with biological imperatives, and embracing #LoveWins, what is the basis for selective exclusion in liberal societies other than a pro-choice quasi-religion?

YoungHegelian म्हणाले...

This formulation from the Bishops emphasizes sin as treating moral subjects as means when they always must be treated only as ends. What I find interesting about this statement is that it's located in the intersection of Scholastic & Kantian ethics ("Yeah, YH, you would find that interestin', woodint ya?").

Scholastic ethics sees all moral acts as teleological, given towards the proper realization of a natural end. Kantian ethics sees morality more as the subject's fullest realization of its freedom through by its obedience to its internal moral law. But, when it comes to intersubjective moral relations, the two intersect. For Scholastic ethics, the moral ends of another subject are always equal to yours. For the Kantians, another subject is equivalent in his moral freedom to yours, and thus cannot be used as an "object", a means to an a moral or any other end.

Don't beat me up on the details here. I'm typing this up at a local pizza parlor during a late lunch. I also guess that means that the RCC isn't gonna canonize Vanessa del Rio any time soon.

YoungHegelian म्हणाले...

Oh, and this also means that, in spite of what you might have heard, Onan is not a proper role model.

66 म्हणाले...

You would make an excellent Catholic, Ann. It is absolutely correct to say that the teaching relies on looking at the physical bodies of males and females and reading them as a text. The Church has taught from its beginning that the will of God can be discerned through reason. The complementarity of men and women is an important part of the Church's teaching on sexuality.

Bay Area Guy म्हणाले...

It's a very moving and deep observation by the great Pope -- albeit a bit out of step with the modern world (this may be a good thing).

But, it's more aspirational than practical, where sexual anarchy and chaos has been militantly promoted by the Left since the 60s.

Regarding pornography, I would say this to young people: On Friday and Sat nights, you should be out with your friends, drinking, laughing, reveling, and meeting girls. If you are doing this well, you probably won't need a lot of porn.

In contrast, if you're a young man spending weekend nights alone with porn, rather than with real live people, having real live merriment, well, you probably need some help.







J. Farmer म्हणाले...

I think there is something about the dehumanized, mechanized sexual choreography of porn that is just appealing to the male brain on a very primitive level.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Imus interviewed Larry Flynt. Flynt said that commercial porn was doing just fine. If you bought an adult film recently, it's 9 times out of ten one of mine, he said.

Imus commented that he read that men only watch an average of seven minutes of such films.

I understand that's true, said Flynt.

n.n म्हणाले...

Bay Area Guy:

It's not just the modern world. Contrary to common misconceptions, progressive morality is a primitive (i.e. ancient) indulgence in base desires. Presumably, mature humans (i.e. "adults") are capable of exerting greater control over their behavior; but, instead, it is the adults (e.g. pornographers, abortionists) who are maneuvering to degrade the juvenile mind and body.

J. Farmer:

It is simultaneously appealing and repulsive. Normal males will autonomically respond to explicit images and debasing behaviors but consciously reject and avoid them.

rhhardin:

Pornographers are exploiting and profiting from the sexual and gender dysfunction normalized or promoted in liberal and repressive societies equally.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"it is ordered toward use, as of a thing, rather than love"

So are many aspects of social relationships. Few, if any relationships, and not even the most loving ones in all their complexity, avoid being "ordered toward use" at least part of the time.

For example, even a YoungHegelian pizza eater treats the baker as a mere instrument to satisfy his bodily desire. Nothing wrong with that, in principle. But it means that the big axiom needs to be applied flexibly and cannot, by itself, suffice to denounce lust and porn.

It is disturbing that a YoungHegelian should reach back to mere Kantian ethics. Surely you've transcended that?


YoungHegelian म्हणाले...

@Sebastian,

It is disturbing that a YoungHegelian should reach back to mere Kantian ethics. Surely you've transcended that?

No, me & the Big K, we still be tight.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"No, me & the Big K, we still be tight."

As an occasional OldKantian myself, I appreciate that.

AlbertAnonymous म्हणाले...

Professor: "I'm not Catholic, so the teaching doesn't burden me. It's just some opinion that is persuasive to the extent that it is persuasive. Gay people are excluded from being in the category of people who can fulfill their sexual feelings through love and marriage."

Well then professor, the teaching shouldn't burden most of the gay people either. I doubt many of them remain Catholic. For those that do, I'm sure there is some burden. I am burdened in my own way by some of the teachings. But we all have burdens of one kind or another. "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle..." and "the narrow gate" and all that.

But the last quoted sentence is illuminating. The point isn't to get married so you can fulfill sexual feelings. Re-read the piece that started this whole post and discussion. Its about the whole of the person, and complete selfless love, that may sometimes include sexual intimacy but only if it is ordered toward the creation of human life. Married people aren't supposed to simply "fulfill their sexual feelings" either.

I suspect maybe you think the sex is the end rather than the means. That's NOT the teaching. Keep reading Professor....

Theranter म्हणाले...

Careful Professor, I read Theology of the Body, Fides et Ratio, assorted other Ratinger writings, and a lot of Edith Stein-ish literature, then took a hard look at the whole 'Mother Mary' thing (incredible) and wham--in a few years went from atheist to Catholic.

The Godfather म्हणाले...

Yes, @66, I do understand that "Jesus founded the Church and give it certain authority to teach and preach in his name." What galls me about people like you is your insistance that this means that Jesus founded the Roman Catholic Church and all of us have to obey the "authority" of the Roman Catholic Church. The church that Jesus founded is the universal church of all believing Christians, and it doesn't have a single authoritative hierarchy. I hope and pray that I'm a member of the univeral church, but I'm not a Roman Catholic. If the Roman Catholic Church says gays are sinful because they don't settle down with a good woman and make lots of Roman Catholic babies, the Church is entitled to its opinion, but I don't have to agree. And I don't.

Are you so much of a fool that you believe that your Church says that couples, like my wife and me, who are beyond the age of child bearing commit an offense against God when we have sex because we are "perverting one of God's gifts in the pursuit of mere pleasure"?

AlbertAnonymous म्हणाले...

Godfather:

You must be one of those about whom the Venerable Fulton Sheen was speaking when he said “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”


"If the Roman Catholic Church says gays are sinful because they don't settle down with a good woman and make lots of Roman Catholic babies, the Church is entitled to its opinion, but I don't have to agree. And I don't."

The Roman Catholic Church doesn't say any such thing.

"Are you so much of a fool that you believe that your Church says that couples, like my wife and me, who are beyond the age of child bearing commit an offense against God when we have sex..."

Again, the Roman Catholic Church doesn't say any such thing.

Might I suggest, and I mean this in the most charitable way, that you spend a little time reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church to see what the teachings really are. You may find that you and Jesus' church on earth are not that far apart. Although...

"What galls me about people like you is your insistance [sic] that this means that Jesus founded the Roman Catholic Church and all of us have to obey the "authority" of the Roman Catholic Church. The church that Jesus founded is the universal church of all believing Christians, and it doesn't have a single authoritative hierarchy."

You are Peter and upon this Rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Apostolic succession. Jesus did indeed found the Roman Catholic Church, and its authoritative hierarchy.

Try Catholic.com. Again, meant with all appropriate charity. I'm not busting your balls.

CStanley म्हणाले...

"The teaching relies an awful lot on looking at the physical bodies of males and females and "reading" them like a text. I think the part about love and not exploiting others makes better sense."

Another commenter beat me to it, but yes, we do look at the bodies of males and females and plainly read them to see that they were created in a complementary fashion for a purpose, and that the sexual attraction between the two is meant to create children. The feelings of emotional intimacy and pleasure serve to bond the two. Taking the sexual pleasure as an end to itself is a form of using the other person's body, even if the other person consents and feels pleasure too.

YoungHegelian म्हणाले...

@Godfather,

The church that Jesus founded is the universal church of all believing Christians,

You understand that while you berate 66 for making a non-Biblical claim, you then go ahead & make one yourself. Jesus nor Paul nor the Evangelists ever say anything like "what we've got here is the universal church of all believing Christians". That is an interpretation of the texts. It's really hard to tell what the early Church thought of itself. In any case, within 100 years, it had changed dramatically from apostolic times.

As for married couples having post-menopausal sex, where did you ever get the idea that that was forbidden by Catholic teaching? It most certainly is not.

sinz52 म्हणाले...

"Unmarried couples are not to be having sex. Married people aren't to be having sex outside the marriage. None are to be having sex that isn't ordered to the creation of human life. "

To me, that has the same relationship to sex that anorexia has to eating. No one needs to starve just because he or she has no spouse.

Paddy O म्हणाले...

"Jesus did indeed found the Roman Catholic Church, and its authoritative hierarchy."

Jesus founded the Church, the later Roman Bishop decided it would be defined by Rome. This interpretation of the verse is an example of reading the theology back into the text. It wasn't interpreted this way at first, and wasn't for a long while, and still isn't interpreted as though the RCC is itself the Church. The Orthodox Churches lay claim to both the earlier ecclesiology and the oldest churches. The community of bishops understood Rome's importance but not Rome's control, so Rome split itself off from the historic church.

Later, when Protestants split off from the Roman Catholic Church they did so with a similar impulse. Rome was the first Protestant congregation, protesting against the Orthodox pattern, making additions to the Nicene creed, instituting a pattern that wasn't in place for the earliest centuries.

It's always been a lot more about power than Gospel. No wonder people who don't care about power want to go the way of love wherever they can find it. The struggles over who gets to define who is in and out became more about objectifying the presence of the Spirit for the sake of power and all that came with it.

Jason म्हणाले...

I mainly agree with this teaching about love and that sex should always be in the context of love. I don't think it's good to exclude gay people, though.

SWING and a miss!!

mccullough म्हणाले...

Like taking golf lessons from infants

Jason म्हणाले...

"Are you so much of a fool that you believe that your Church says that couples, like my wife and me, who are beyond the age of child bearing commit an offense against God when we have sex..."


Is that what you've been told the RCC teaches? You should be pretty ticked at whoever you learned that from.

AlbertAnonymous म्हणाले...

"and still isn't interpreted as though the RCC is itself the Church."

Tell that to the RCC and its apostolic succession. It begs to differ. Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom. He turned over the church to Peter and his successors.

"The Orthodox Churches lay claim to both the earlier ecclesiology and the oldest churches"

I'm sure they do. All the splinters lay claim to things they believe will give them legitimacy.

CStanley म्हणाले...

The Godfather isn't Catholic, so I assume he hasn't read the Catechism and is just making an incorrect inference.

Paddy O म्हणाले...

"All the splinters lay claim to things they believe will give them legitimacy."

Ah, I see you don't know church history. Your arguments make more sense if you're just going by dogmatic assertion.

The Orthodox stayed the same. The RCC added to the creed (filioque) and to the way the hierachy had been understood.

"All the splinters lay claim to things they believe will give them legitimacy."

Which is why you're clinging to the passage about Peter as somehow establishing the authority of Rome. That's a later use of the passage to legitimize splintering off to new patterns.

This whole debate raises the question, of course, about how the Church can claim moral authority about marriage when it can't even keep its own unity? The various partners all blaming each other for irreconciliable differences. Meanwhile, the real issue is that all the various parties were lusting after other partners, so were willing to ditch the unity when money or power beckoned.

CStanley म्हणाले...

That's a clever argument, Paddy, but the moral authority of the Church doesn't derive from perfection of its members, either clergy or laity. Sure, leading win love and example is always something to strive for, but it doesn't make the teacher either true or false.

The Godfather म्हणाले...

I’m pleased that we’ve managed to have a relatively civil discussion of ecclesiology and theology in the context of a post about pornography, without any of us using dirty words.

Now a response to a few comments. Jason, CStanley, YoungHegalian, and AlbertAnonymous say that I misunderstand Roman Catholic theology when I say that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that couples, like my wife and me, who are beyond the age of child bearing, commit an offense against God when we have sex. They say I ought to read the Catechism to learn better. But I didn’t say that this is what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. In fact I said that it was foolish to believe that this is what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. I was criticizing 66 who said (1:17 pm) “The Church’s teaching on sex is that sex is a gift from God when it is ordered to procreation inside the bonds of holy matrimony. Outside that context, sex is an offense against God as it is perverting one of his gifts in the pursuit of mere pleasure.” If 66 were correct that sex is an offense against God unless it is for the purpose of procreation, then sex by couples beyond the age of child bearing would be an offense against God. I certainly don’t endorse 66’s understanding of the Roman Catholic Church’s position on this issue, and if Jason, CStanley, YoungHegalian, and Albert Anonymous think that position is wrong, it is 66, not me, that they ought to educate.

(But if older heterosexuals don’t offend God by having sex for “mere pleasure”, why does it offend God if homosexuals have sex for “mere pleasure”?)

YoungHegelian (5:27 pm) characterizes as a “non-Biblical claim” my belief that the church that Jesus founded is the universal church of all believing Christians. So does AlbertAnonymous (5:17 pm). What’s really at issue here is the Roman Catholic Church’s assertion that “there is no salvation” outside that church. I suppose we could debate this issue forever without changing any minds. As I read scripture, Jesus did not ordain the Church of Rome as the only and authoritative vessel of his grace for all time. Yes, Jesus said that Peter was the rock on which his congregation would be founded, punning on the fact that in both Greek and Aramaic Peter’s name was similar to the word for rock (Matt. 16:17-19). The Roman Catholic Church’s claim that Peter was the first Pope, even if true, does not mean that two thousand years later the Church of Rome is the sole legitimate authority on Christian theology. Even in Peter’s lifetime, Paul was able to criticize him for getting Christ’s teachings wrong (Gal. 2:11-14).

CStanley (6:25 pm) is partially right when he says I am not Catholic. I’m not Roman Catholic, I’m an Episcopalian – but we claim that our clergy is just as much in the Apostolic Succession as the Roman Catholics do. However, I don’t rely on that to give my theological arguments any special weight, nor am I persuaded when others use it.

When the time comes, I will be happy to meet my Roman Catholic friends in the heavenly city, and expect to enjoy their surprise at finding me there, too.

William म्हणाले...

When I was young, pornography--at least in the explicit form in which it exists today--didn't exist. Sex was a far more potent and mysterious force to those who came of age in that era. I suppose there's an upside to that, but we were ignorant and clumsy. There was a downside to that.......I would guess that nowadays all young men have the anatomy and physiology of the female body down pat. Maybe the techniques they have learned from watching porn have allowed them to achieve greater intimacy with their partner. I mean it's possible........The Church has an outside chance of banning late term abortions, but I don't envision much success on the porn front.

CStanley म्हणाले...

William, I do t see an effort on the Church's part to ban pornography. Instead, there's a recognition of the damage it causes and a call for healing for those who have been ensnared by it.

CStanley म्हणाले...

Godfather- that was lovely and I agree that it is refreshing to have a civil discussion. You might be surprised to learn that I too look forward to meeting you in heaven, as I have no reason to believe that non-Catholics don't achieve salvation.

As for the teachings on marriage, there's a difference between sexual relations between married spouses who can't concieve either due to infertility or age and homosexuals who can never concieve because their union does not bring together male and female. The marital conjugal act does not have to be procreative every time for it to be a true to its intended form (this is also why natural family planning is permissible.) One facet of this involves the concept of scandal, that is, leading others away from the truth. Two married people above the age of 60 does not cause scandal- they still give witness to marriage as the uniting of man and woman- but obviously that is not true for homosexual couples. And so as we see today, young people have taken the message that the purpose of marriage is to maximize personal pleasure and sexual satisfaction.

So, while I'm glad that you know that the Church does not forbid sex between older spouses, I hope this sheds light on the reasoning. I also hope you will learn more about the Church's views on salvation, so that you will not continue to think that Roman Catholics believe that Christians of other denominations are condemned to hell unless they convert.

Renee म्हणाले...

There has been a few articles lately about how porn is somehow not bad for someone. Predators usually never see that they are harmful to themselves, they don't feel it. Everyone dies it, and because sex is indeed normal, this distortion of it seems plausibly ok.

I have very strong opinions about porn, and due to privacy of past relationships I've seen the addiction. I don't speak ill of my ex from twenty years ago. (This was prior to the internet!). His use of it, prevented him from loving me. In fact I think he did love me, he would of made a terrible spouse and father. I would always have to compete with pornography.

A lot of people struggle with it, and it's everywhere. They actually love their spouse and family or desire a relationship (romantic or friendship), but it steals their ability to & misdirects it. This is why we have the public screen rule in our home. My children can read and see what I have on my screen, and vice versa. No screens (TVs.phones) in our bedrooms.

Pornography is equivalent of a bird humping a rock and the scientists in observation joke how dumb the bird is, who is unable to mate with another bird. We watch a lot of PBS nature. Sex is awkward enough in real life, watching for entertainment and masturbation really is quite foolish when you look at the bigger picture.

The Godfather म्हणाले...

Thanks, CStanley. See you there.

mtrobertslaw म्हणाले...

The very best sex is always within the context of love. I think women arrive at this truth much easier than men.

Jason म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
OGWiseman म्हणाले...

This statement seems a little out of step with the times...if it had been written in 1965. It's amazing how swiftly and how completely this worldview has been eradicated from public life.