This is by David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, and I assume the headline represents his opinion, not something Leo is doing openly, using those words.
Let's read:
Dedicating his first encyclical to social justice would show how much Leo, like his predecessor Pope Francis, is trying to shift Catholicism away from the near fixation on “pelvic theology,” or sexual morality, that has come to define Catholicism, especially in Leo’s home country, the United States. The concern is that decades of focusing on “sins below the waist,” as Pope Francis memorably put it, has fueled the church’s culture war agenda and driven many people away from the central teachings of the Gospels....
The church’s emphasis on sexuality began in earnest in the 16th century as moral theologians started to codify various aspects of Catholic practice.... Various sexual sins, from adultery to masturbation, were favorites because they were easy to judge — you either had sex or you didn’t....
Is that right? I'm not Catholic but I thought there were plenty of sexual sins you could commit inside your mind. I mean your cranium.
To say "pelvic theology" is to localize sin in a region of the body and to suggest that anyone focused on it is a bit creepy and perverse and distracted from what is more important — the mind, perhaps, but really, the material world, AKA "social justice."
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66 ટિપ્પણીઓ:
…so the New Church of Chicago Corruption is going to selectively enforce the Catholic faith. Let’s relax those uptight sins like sex before marriage, one spouse. ‘that’s not who we are’ said another Chicago Pope. Instead let’s covet thy neighbors wealth and stealing is a virtue, not a sin. Capisce?
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned....
out : pelvic theology
in : pelvic thrusting
Even Tucker Calson acknowledges that Jesus was a socialist.
Writing that "pelvic theology" defines Catholicism tells you more about the NYT than it does about Leo.
Pants are problematic in the quest for a borderless world.
The lefty intelligentsia (epitomized in the NYT) hates orthodox Christianity and especially the Catholic Church. It is a retrograde movement that is resisting the arc of history bending towards leftism and liberalism. It is incredibly frustrating to them that after thousands of articles the Church won't be beaten down into submission. Thus articles like this idiotic ranting about "pelvic theology".
Well fordham is another Old Gods shrine now
Pope Elvis the Pelvis™
If you pay attention to your own experiences in life, you’ll realize that the two are intertwined.
I’m a Catholic Church musician. I am constantly amazed by what non-Catholics think goes on in the Church. There have been no papal proclamations re-ordering the Church’s teachings on sex. Believe me, I would have heard them proclaimed from the pulpit. The public perception of the Church’s stance on homosexuality is particularly off base. The Church does not reserve a special category of sin for homosexual acts. All sex except for sex within sanctified marriage for the purpose of procreation is the same sin… adultery. There is no guard outside the door to Mass checking out sexual identity. The Catholic Church is for sinners.
Chesterton's chastity belt
Impure thoughts used to be big.
Christians have been in constant conflict with each other for 1,000+ years. The simple Jesus teachings were fleshed out by his followers (apostles), and then by a series of theologians. Upon becoming Rome's state religion, "church academics" did what they always do and debate everything. It wasn't long before the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox church split. Theologians argued about how many angels could dance on the head of pin. There was a very long period of religion mixed with corruption and kings and politics. Many local groups smuggled in paganism (e.g., Christmas trees) to keep their traditional beliefs under the radar. Superficial themed cults, schisms, and "heretics" appeared. The Protestants and Spanish Inquistion happened. The missionaries mixed business with "missionary position" rules and had a bare grasp on local convert cultures.
It's Iran-style politics when a religion was accepted by 90%+ and part of government.
Since the industrial revolution and falling belief/attendance, Catholics and others shifted to "deal making" with their believers. Pelosi and Biden are nominal Catholics who fully ignore "below the belt" teachings. That's where Francis and Leo come in -- political and left figureheads who do what it takes to remain relevant.
Greed is big except for the Hutts
Shouting Thomas said...
"The Catholic Church is for sinners."
I would agree with this. And I would add that one of the stories from the Bible that has prominence in the Church is Jesus telling the crowd gathered to stone an adulterous woman, "let him among you without sin cast the first stone." I also remember the final line of the Mass from the priest being, "Go forth and sin no more." However, I looked online for what it is currently and now more commonly appears to be "Go forth, the Mass is ended."
“Since the industrial revolution and falling belief/attendance, Catholics and others shifted to "deal making" with their believers.”
No. This idea is a reflection of a failure to understand where the Church is experiencing growth, Latin America, the Philippines and Africa. The West is increasingly secular and, thus, less and less a focus of Rome’s attention. Substitute and assistant priests in my region (the NE) are entirely from Africa and the Philippines.
Jesus was a fisherman, not a whoremonger. Social justice anywhere is injustice everywhere. #HateLovesAbortion
"Jesus was a fisherman, not a whoremonger."
What was Mary Magdalen's profession prior to meeting Jesus?
@Shouting Thomas --
I'm aware of tropical religous growth there and among protestants too, but it's so distinct that it might as well be a different church entirely. There was an era where "The Pope is an Italian" and where Henry VIII's destruction mattered. The European church and all that entailed is a dead museum today.
Converts from distant cultures create their own rules and branch radically.
Enigma does us the favor of collecting all the stereotypes and misconceptions together in one spot. I do have to admire the long-term view that permits one to characterize a thousand years as "soon", however.
Thank you, I try. Stereotypes are rooted in facts. Be they DEI crap or Catholic.
The Vault Dweller said...
Shouting Thomas said...
"The Catholic Church is for sinners."
I would agree with this. And I would add that one of the stories from the Bible that has prominence in the Church is Jesus telling the crowd gathered to stone an adulterous woman, "let him among you without sin cast the first stone." I also remember the final line of the Mass from the priest being, "Go forth and sin no more." However, I looked online for what it is currently and now more commonly appears to be "Go forth, the Mass is ended."
5/22/26, 7:20 AM
————- ———————-
The most interesting thing about the story of the stoning of the adulteress has for some reason been omitted from scripture.
After Jesus admonishes the crowd by proclaiming that he who is without sin should cast the first stone. All of a sudden a stone flew out from the crowd and bonked the woman on the head. Jesus turned to the crowd to see who threw the stone and in exasperation said “mother”.
Great Marian joke, AMDG! CC, JSM
In the moral case, people strive to escape their bonds, not burdens.
"Even Tucker Calson [sic] acknowledges that Jesus was a socialist."
Yeah, that must be right. When Jesus was asked, "Am I my brother's keeper" his response was brilliant. IIRC wasn't it, "Freak no. Let Caesar take care of him."
AND
"Jesus was a fisherman, not a whoremonger."
What was Mary Magdalen's profession prior to meeting Jesus?"
There is a difference between not condemning something and being a patron....
Finally, does "pelvic theology" include abortion or just the first act?
@AMDG
An immaculately conceived joke.
Her story is akin to women working to overcome social justice activists who entertain abortive ideation spending time and sharing space with abortionists.
Misidentified Sinner
The misconception of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute or a woman of disrepute is a striking example of misinterpretation and conflation in Christian history.
This erroneous identification seems to have originated from the conflation of her story with those of other women in the Bible, particularly the sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet in Luke’s Gospel.
"There is a difference between not condemning something and being a patron...."
True. Which is why I think many Catholics, while fine with having gay parishioners balk at the Church blessing same-sex couples.
In the case of trans, tolerate the sinner (e.g. homos), not celebrate the sins (e.g. couplets).
They are being too cute. Pope John Paul II's teachings on the Theology of the Body have become very popular in the Church, especially among young people. One of its focuses is sex as a spiritual unitive act (as well as a procreative act) between a man and a woman and the importance of the sacrament of marriage to that unitive act. It is contrary to the world's permissive sexual culture. Pope Francis tried to actively suppress the Theology of the Body movement by putting people in charge of its institutes in Rome who had more secularly aligned philosophies. You can see this hostility in the NY Times take (or Fordham's maybe, it is run by Jesuits after all)
I'm sorry to hear that Pope Leo might also share Francis's disregard for the Theology of the Body. However, I don't think the story actually shows any evidence of disregard. It only shows his desire to focus on other issues instead. I'll reserve my judgement for now. If he quietly re-aligns the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences to their original mission and beliefs, then I will think better of him. If he does the opposite, then I will think less of him.
The Vault Dweller said...
I also remember the final line of the Mass from the priest being, "Go forth and sin no more." However, I looked online for what it is currently and now more commonly appears to be "Go forth, the Mass is ended."
I remember it being "The Mass is ended, go in peace [to love and serve the Lord]." (Last part optional, I think)
There's no evidence Mary Magdalene was a hooker. That was made up in the 6th century.
"Should I work on making myself better, or making others (society) better?"
Catholicism used to focus on the former, but found that the latter takes less effort.
I don’t recall Jesus having much to say about cocks and pussies, but I do recall his skepticism about rich people making it to Heaven.
Mary magdalenes story is about redemption but modern culture venerates the sin (it needa no forgiveness)
One thinks the jesus seminar and other garbage is greater than the word
Has anyone cited 'naughty bits' yet?
My access is bad, so I'll send this before reviewing the comments.
Fascinating discussion.
“ Even Tucker Calson acknowledges that Jesus was a socialist.”
What? Has he not read the Parable of the Talents? Jesus was a big fan of active investing. Since Carlson and many other proponents of socialism make lots of money promoting it they are the last to ask about anything.
The Pooe knows that sex sells.
pope
Let us gird our loins with the pelvic girdle of sexual theocracy.
"The Pope knows that sex sells."
But does he know how it smells?
Jesus helped the poor. Mary helped the whore. They walked with the men and women they aided to escape their bondage.
Bob Boyd said...
“Pants are problematic in the quest for a borderless world.”
Trevor Lefkowitz liked this comment.
Mary wanted women to escape the RAAT race. She joined Jesus in common principle.
Earnest Prole said...
“I don’t recall Jesus having much to say about cocks and pussies.”
I think some people confuse theology with Team America: World Police.
Actually jesus was very demanding on that acore 'if you lolk on someone with lust, you are committing adultery' pelvic theology indeed
If it's different in the US, that may have something to do with the Irish and something to do with the (very anti-Irish, anti-Catholic) Puritan streak in the country. Maybe it was also a reaction against Catholicism's reputation for laxity about sex in some European countries. I would warn the Pope about the "slippery slope" to Sodom and Gomorrah.
If you ignore the Word what good are you
Alternate Headline:
In Pivot Away From Pelvic Theology, Pope Leo Begins Phase Out of Stirrups In the Confessional
It wasn't long before the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox church split.
For certain values of "long"....
Constantine summoned the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and the Great Schism occurred in 1054.
A bit of an expected evolution once you consider that the celibate clergy didn't become a thing until the 12th century. And this logically meant the "copulating laity" rose in importance.
This is a 12th-century development. It has extraordinary consequences.
They ripple away from this great change in the nature of Western priesthood through interviews about marriage because the logic of making all clergy celibate is that the laity are now the only people who are practicing sex — within marriage, of course. Otherwise, it’s illicit. Now, you’ve got this situation because of a celibate clergy. Logically, you have what you might call copulating laity. That’s something new in the history of marriage in Christianity. It means, in the end, that what you must say about a marriage is that it must be open to the possibility of procreation.
Now, if you look back in Christian history before that, there are a lot of instances of marriage which are deliberately celibate, chaste. The people involved get married and they remain virgins as a token of their purity. There are saints’ stories like this. In England, we have a very famous saint, St. Etheldreda, who became the first abbess of Ely, which is now a wonderful, great Romanesque and Gothic cathedral in eastern England. It started life as an Anglo-Saxon monastery founded by this princess, Etheldreda, who was not just a princess.
She’d been married twice to two different Anglo-Saxon kings, and in both cases, she had refused to give them sex, which is a bit disconcerting if you’re a king because what you want is an heir to the throne. She must have been an extraordinary lady. Anyway, second marriage, they gave up. The king said, “All right, you win. You clearly want to be a nun. Go off and be a nun and found a new monastery.”
This is an enormously popular story in Anglo-Saxon England, but it’s a story which would make no sense after the 12th century, if you look at it closely, because marriage is supposed to be about procreation. The church tells you that."
---Conversations with Tyler, January 21, 2026, Diarmaid MacCulloch on Christianity, Sex, and Unsettling Settled Facts (Ep. 268)
Obviously, the Church would develop an interest in controlling the laity's copulating. Now some are promoting a change since birthing more Catholics has lowered in priority.
This scholar and the Pope will be hard pressed to find biblical support for elevating “social justice” as defined by modern leftists above condemning sin, including sexual sin. Our Lord, for example, surely commanded that we assist “widows and orphans,” but I missed the part where he admonished us to embrace DEI or same sex marriage. Can someone help me here?
Very silly article (I expect no better from the NYT). Every Pope, including the supposedly arch-conservative John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have issued social encyclicals in their papacy. There is nothing vaguely new in Pope Leo doing so as well.
Enigma,
Now address the "misconception" part.
I do wonder how many African church leaders you actually know..
Even Tucker Calson (sic) acknowledges that Jesus was a socialist.
Well, if Tucker said it ....
/rolls eyes
Jesus was, at the start of his ministry, a 30 year old Jewish bachelor with no known sexual partners or desires. Several of his apostles were married, and his sayings strongly support the significance and permanence of the institution of marriage.
Within his culture, boys and girls married near puberty. He must have been trained in his father's trade. I have no idea why he :left Nazareth to follow John at the River Jordan.
Catholic sexual theology has little canonical support for any particular erotic viewpoint beyond one that emphasizes love and honesty. Still,the core Catholic notion of a magisterium founded upon centuries of continuing revelation doesn't give a pope much room to maneuver.
JK Brown - I love Diarmaid MacCulloch, but I am not following his logic. Banning the clergy (maybe 1% of the population) from marriage means the other 99% suddenly have to get to work making babies? I don't see how it was some kind of emergency. Or is he talking about the Western church's tendency to generate doctrine when it isn't needed, so you got this whole concept of the 'vocation of the laity,' which includes marriage and reproduction? Maybe I should listen to the whole podcast. CC, JSM
To follow up on Ampersand, Jesus loved to use the marital analogy for the relationship between Christ and the church. Which of course is an extension of the Old Testament marital analogy for the relationship between God and Israel - usually with the added twist that Israel is being an unfaithful spouse.
I have always had a hard time with the bridal analogy because the 1st century Jewish marriage was not a love relationship, or much of an equal relationship. Most of the marriages were like Joseph/Mary: a very young, innocent girl and an older, established man who paid for the privilege. That's supposed to be my relationship to JC? Now that I am putting it in writing, maybe it's not that bad of an analogy. JC certainly is older and established, and he paid for the privilege of being 'married' to us. And we are innocent, even in our sinfulness: we often sin because we can't figure out a better way to do things.
And don't get me started on my difficulty with the Good Shepherd analogy. He's taking me to be sheared!? CC, JSM
I imagine Pope Leo - like his predecessors - will opine about CAGW and that it is somehow a duty of good Catholics to fall in line in favor of wind and solar.
Pope Francis - a Jesuit no less - was all in favor of wind and solar energy to “protect our common home.”
Really out of his circle of competence and a total embarrassment. How the Pope and his Vatican minions couldn’t see how wind and solar radically raise energy prices just show how stupid they all are.
I guess they are so isolated from reality that they apparently have never heard of “energy poverty” in Europe. It’s a real thing.
Like I said, a total embarrassment and destroyed his credibility.
The Jesuits taught me how to think; not what to think.
Lately I've posted and seen my posts vanish. How can our civilization hope to progress if my posts disappear?
"He's taking me to be sheared?"
Bierce wrote (IIRC)--
By ancient analogy we are told
How first the church became "the fold."
The sheep into the fold are steered,
Protected from the wolf,
And sheared.
JSM,
You are overthinking things; Jesus was speaking in metaphors and analogies - - not allegories where you are supposed to find as many correspondences as possible between the image and the item.
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