Tag Archives: chastity

Genuflection and prostitution

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Almost alone among Christians, Catholics maintain a tight (even unitary) relation between what is physical and what is not.  We avoid any thought of material things being innately bad and immaterial things somehow being superior.  A good case can be made that this is the central disagreement between Catholicism and Protestantism, especially the Evangelical branch.

There’s an aspect of this which might seem minor, but it’s not.  Here is a quote from St. Thomas More (the fellow who stood up to Henry VIII in England and was beheaded for his stand).

A reverent attitude of the body, though it takes its origin and character from the soul, increases by a kind of reflex the soul’s own reverence and devotion to God.

What Thomas More is saying is that the motive for physical gesture and posture in worship or devotion starts out in the non-physical, in my soul and intellect and will.  This motive is expressed in my body as, for example, I bow or genuflect or kneel or make the sign of the cross.  Then there is sort of a rebound or reflex from my postured body that reinforces the motive that started things in the first place.  That’s actually pretty subtle and common sensible at the same time.  My posture or my gesture affects and even effects my spiritual person.

A couple of personal examples of what St. Thomas More is talking about

Before I was reconciled to the Catholic Church, the church I attended made no provision for gesture or posture in worship.  The only two postures we had were standing up or sitting down.  We stood up or sat down according to what the song leader told us to do.  One thing that meant is that walking into the church building (we called it the auditorium) was no different in gesture than walking into a grocery store.  You just walked in and looked for someone to talk to or a place to sit.  And that omission of any reverent posture or gesture upon entering the auditorium contributed in a subtle-yet-significant way to the attitude that the space was no different than any other.  Which at least for me resulted in a frame of mind and spirituality which was also not too much different than when I was at the library.

It’s quite different now that I’m Catholic.

As a Catholic, when I enter the church, a gesture immediately reminds me of my baptism and its significance in my life.  Because of baptism, I belong to Jesus, I am “in him” to use St. Paul’s remarkably intimate language.  I enter the church and I make the sign of the cross with blessed water on my hand.  And it changes things, it really does.  This gesture starts in my soul, moves to my hand, recollects me before God as I whisper his Trinitarian name – then it sort of boomerangs back to my mind and soul and helps prepare me to mingle my worship with other Christians and with angels in heaven.  It is a simple gesture that manages to relate me to the passion of Jesus, the fellowship of the church, and the communion of saints.  Big stuff!

Here’s another.  It’s a gesture of the priest, not me, yet his gesture has power for me.  I always sneak a peek when Father does this because of the effect it has on me.  At the end of some Masses, usually on “special” Sundays, he will tell us to bow our heads and pray for God’s blessing.  Then he raises his hands over the whole congregation and invokes a three-part blessing on us all, as we respond “amen” each time.  It is so priestly and pastoral and gentle and solemn.  God’s priest, the one authorized by Jesus to act on his behalf, lifts his hands in blessing over me and my brothers and sisters, speaking words we share with tens of thousands of Catholic parishes across the world that day.  I don’t know… the gesture reminds me of Moses and Jesus and Rome – I am blessed and sent on my way with an almost magnificent gesture – somehow this gesture simultaneously pulls my awareness into the congregation and into my own personal relation to God.  I don’t understand the power of this gesture, but I cannot deny it.

Here is more from a good article on these things from a good Catholic blog.

So it appears that Thomas More is correct.  My soul tells my body to assume a reverent, worshipful posture.  My body does as it is told, and this posture reinforces in a wonderful way what prompted it to happen in the first place.  What I am spiritually is influenced directly and within my own person by my body.

I just want to make what could seem a weird connection to chastity and to prostitution

If the sign of the cross can affect my entire outlook, both physical and spiritual, then just think about what St. Paul says about prostitution.  Please notice that Paul writes this to Christians, not to pagans:

 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take Christ’s members and make them the members of a prostitute?  Of course not!  [Or] do you not know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For “the two,” it says, “will become one flesh.”  But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.  Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body.  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been purchased at a price.  Therefore, glorify God in your body.  I Corinthians 6:16-20

To the Church of Christ in Corinth he addresses the problem of sexual sin and he urges chastity.  Does anyone doubt that in our own time, a time of what seems like unbridled sexual activity with an attitude of entitlement to “write my own rules”, does anyone doubt there are those who sin in this way within the Church today?

What Paul writes applies to all forms of sexual impurity.  What he writes also applies to the soul-body-soul cycle that Thomas More describes.  Whether it’s masturbation, or pornography, or sex outside marriage, the rule is the same.  The sinful motive that arises in your mind and then prompts the sin you do with your body, completes a cycle by reinforcing the very motive that started things in the first place.  Paul says this sort of sin is unlike any of the others – it is a sin against one’s own body.

If you are in a cycle like this even while you are a Christian, don’t kid yourself.  Break the cycle now.  Reinforce the righteous motives in your soul by using your body only for what is righteous.  Do you wonder what constitutes righteous behavior in matters of sex and chastity?  Do you need forgiveness and helpful advice?  Talk to your priest.  He won’t be shocked.  He loves you and knows how to help.  Would you rather start with the internet?  Here is the “chastity” section on Catholic Answers. Or if you deal with a same-sex attraction, here is another good website.

Reverent gestures dispose both mind and body toward God in a virtuous interaction.

Sexual immorality draws both mind and body away from God.

Use the things of this world to learn to love the things of heaven.

Good grief, they’re only condoms

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Most people believe that contraceptives are OK, a personal choice like antibacterial soap or seat belts – most of the time, they think it just makes sense to use a condom.  People have sex after all, and there’s no need to spread STD’s and unwanted babies.  Use a condom or a pill.  Then here comes the Pope and bishops flipping out about contraceptives and saying “no”.  Critics wonder why the Catholic Church doesn’t just stick to prayers and pretty clothes for the priests, and leave real life to people who live it.  Then they say if there is anybody that has no business preaching about sex, it’s the Catholic Church. 

As in many things, the Catholic response to contraception is based on the most fundamental principles of human life.  It is borne of 2,000 years contemplating God’s revelation, forming what Joseph Cardinal Bernardin called “a seamless garment” of truth concerning what it means to be human and to affirm life. 

Here are some talking points that are good to keep in mind if the subject of Catholics and contraception comes up. 

The rock-solid rock bottom of the Catholic opposition to contraceptives.  It might be tempting to open a paint can with a car key, but it isn’t a very good idea.  First, that’s not what a car key is made for and second, when the key breaks there are just terrible consequences.  It’s like that with contraceptives.  

Sex has purpose.  God gave us sex in order (1)to create human souls and (2)to unite husband and wife in an unparalleled way as they give themselves completely to each other.  Contraceptives by their very nature, by their very intent, by the methods they employ, oppose these two purposes.  A barrier is placed between the couple, a failure to give oneself wholly is encouraged, and new human souls are made nearly impossible. 

By using contraceptives, sex that is selfish (as opposed to self-giving) and sterile (as opposed to creating human souls) is encouraged.  Contraceptives encourage the explosion of casual sex we have seen in America since the mid-1960’s.  Sex is used for the wrong reasons and there are terrible consequences.  Sexual predation and addiction, pornography, multiple partners, broken marriages, prevented marriages, the living of life at a superficial level to find only personal gratification in physical pleasure.  Contraception encourages all of these and more because the two intended purposes of sex are violated.  Sex becomes just a recreational activity, something to do on Saturday night if you’re lucky.  

Even with married people, contraceptives oppose the two-fold purpose of sex.  

Condoms do not even prevent pregnancy and STD’s overall.  There’s no point denying that in a single sexual encounter, contraceptives greatly diminish pregnancies and STD’s.  That’s what they do.  But since the ready availability of contraceptives enabled the explosion of casual sex in the last 50 years, in the overall situation they increase the incidence of unwanted pregnancies and STD’s.  People are having way more sex and the end result is more unwanted pregnancies, more abortions, and more STD’s – because so many more sex acts occur. 

Contraceptives do not cause all of this just by themselves, but they do provide the necessary ground (the technology, if you will) for people to let sex be casual, repetitive and intended for no other purpose than pleasure. 

People keep saying they read that “98% of Catholic women use contraceptives sometime in their life.”      This has been all over the newspapers, despite the fact that figure is pure bull feathers.  Like a lot of statistics, this one has been thrown around in the last few weeks by folks who either don’t understand what they are citing or (this one’s my guess… Am I just paranoid?) by people who will grab at anything that has any chance of bashing the Catholic Church.  Here’s a lot of detail on this phony statistic.    

 Nothing like 98% of Catholic women use contraceptives at some point in their life.  To be sure, tragically the per cent of Catholic women who do is still way too high, but that does not alter the truth of the Church’s consistent opposition to contraception. 

Was Pope Paul VI some kind of prophet?  Or does the Catholic Church just understand these things?  It seems impossible to deny that sexual objectification of women has exploded in the last 20 years.  Internet porn.  The almost universal use of sex to sell everything.  10-year-old girls dressing like sex objects.  Women subjecting themselves to eating disorders in order to conform to some standard of sexual desirability.  

Pope Paul VI wrote this in his almost infamous and definitely prophetic 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae:

It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

 For the entire history of Christianity, there has been almost universal opposition to contraception.  What was once the universal opposition in all Christianity to contraception, is now maintained only by the Catholic Church.  Only we are left.  Here’s some history on that.  

 It is not as if the Catholic Church dreamed up the opposition to contraception so it could spoil the party.  The Church has always taught this.  It has nothing to do with a male hierarchy, nothing to do with celibate priests, and nothing to do with a reaction to modern life.  It has everything to do with the glory of human life and the exalted purpose of sex.

I wrote more about the subject last November. 

 

It matters what a thing is made for. 

Sex is made to create new human souls and to join man and woman in marriage.

The 2,000-year teaching of the Church opposes contraception and is prophetic.

I don’t get it (Part Two)

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This post is about whether all gay sex is wrong.  It’s sort of long because there are several things going on in such a question. 

Last week in a post titled “I Don’t Get It”, I argued that sometimes we are called to believe something that we don’t understand.  In those cases, we use what we do understand to help with the things we do not understand.  People do this all the time. 

A lot of attention is given these days to the morality of gay sex.  The Catholic Church says all gay sex is wrong.  The Church uses a pretty tough term to describe gay sex – “intrinsically disordered”.  Here’s a quote from then-Cardinal Ratzinger to the Catholic Bishops in 1986 (he references a 1975 document on sexual ethics)

[T]he Congregation took note of the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions. These were described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being “intrinsically disordered”, and able in no case to be approved of (cf. n. 8, $4).

In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration, however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not.

 In other words, all gay sex is wrong.  Can that be right?

 Are people born gay?  If they are, doesn’t that mean gay sex is ok?

Some people (usually Christian fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals) believe pretty strongly that no one is born gay, that a same-sex attraction must be an acquired behavior and is somehow the responsibility of the gay person.  As far as I can tell, they believe this because if someone could be “born gay” then either (a)nature made them this way, so it’s natural, so gay must be ok or (b)even worse, God made them this way and that means he either did something wrong or maybe God is saying gay is ok and if that’s true then the world ends tomorrow, so get your hat. 

I have lived with a same-sex attraction all my life – it is the only sexuality I have ever known.  It certainly feels like I was born gay.  My parents are regular kind of people.  Dad is a masculine, fairly assertive fellow who is bright and always involved with me in a loving way.  He taught me patience and giving 100% even when the odds are against you.  And he taught me loyalty and how to work.  Not sure it means much, but we played sports together.  Mom is just great, taught me and helped formed me, then got out of the way while I made all the mistakes kids make and then some.  The idea that my parents made me gay is absurd.  And for sure, I didn’t make some sort of sex-identity decision when I was five years old.  That, too, is absurd. 

Psychologists have no definitive answer to the question whether some people are born gay.  They make some good points with interesting research.  But they cannot find the cause of homosexuality.  I suspect it’s because there are a range of causes. 

But here’s the deal  –  it doesn’t really matter how I got gay.  What matters is what I do about it.  What matters is the kind of human being I am.  Having a same-sex attraction by itself doesn’t make me good or bad.  It just makes me what I am. 

None of this is surprising.  My experience is that some people seem to be born mean, just plain mean from the word “go”.  Others start out real grabby and stingy and don’t want to share anything – and for whatever reason, they stay that way.  Others are born sweet and patient – or shy – or whatever.  The bottom line is that some people have a harder time from the very beginning and others have an easier.  

And God makes a provision for that.  This is in Luke 12.  “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return”, which just means that God knows what we’re up against and he is smart enough and kind enough to make allowances.  (But it also means he is no pushover.) 

This is the part I don’t understand

Based on the Bible and its consistent tradition, the Catholic Church has for 2,000 years maintained that the only legitimate sexual activity is between a man and a woman who are married to each other.  The church teaches these relations must be “open to life” and should constitute a giving of self by the partners to each other, at least as an ideal.  If a wife and husband are unable to have children either due to sterility or to old age, they are still permitted to engage in sex as part of their mutual giving of self and as a source of joy.  The catechism (para 2362) calls such sex “noble and honorable… (it) enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude”.  In the case of a sterile heterosexual couple, it doesn’t matter that sex cannot produce a child.  

So as an individual Catholic… the part I don’t understand (at least not completely) is why the only sex I have ever desired is forbidden.   It’s obvious that this kind of sex doesn’t make babies, but neither does the sex of sterile heterosexuals and everyone says they can have sex.  What’s more, it is possible for gay sex to be part of mutual giving and support between the partners.  I know that it can.  And it can be a source of joy and gratitude.  So I have this question of why I have to do without sex just because I’m gay. 

Again, I understand that merely being born gay (or anything else) doesn’t give me rights in and of itself.  But I can’t get out of my mind that even though I could give myself to another person in what seems to be a situation completely parallel to a sterile couple, I’m nevertheless told I must be celibate for my whole life.  (Just by the way, I don’t buy the stuff about converting gay people to be straight, at least not people like me.  Everything about it seems bogus to me.) 

So why have I chosen chastity?

When you get right down to it, I choose chastity as a consequence of something else I have chosen —  I have chosen to obey my conscience combined with scripture and the Catholic Church.  I have chosen to rely on the church and conscience and the Bible.  So this is a bigger issue than just sex. 

  • First off, let me say there aren’t all that many Bible verses about gay sex.  And there is disagreement between committed and trained Christian scholars as to what those few verses about gay sex actually mean.  There are six verses that come up in all the Biblical discussions about homosexuality.  At the bottom of this post I have the six passages listed.  There’s no doubt that some sex practices are condemned in these passages. The question is whether these verses condemn all gay sex or only some gay sex.
  • So why don’t I decide to accept the interpretation of these verses that the so-called liberal scholars take in allowing gay sex?  After all, they are Christians and they have studied before reaching these conclusions.  There are two reasons and they run as deep as the fabric of my life.  Like everything about the subject of sex, there is more to it than just sex.
  • First, my conscience and intellect will not permit me.  Attempts to make the passages condemn only very limited sex practices do not carry the day against the simple context and words of the passages; these attempts seem to be straining against the plain language of the passages to me.  It isn’t that the arguments to limit what the passages forbid are without merit.  Like plenty of other things, there are points on both sides.  It’s just that I cannot conscientiously decide in favor of the permissive interpretations.
  • And second, I trust the Catholic Church.  The 2,000-year magisterial teaching of the church confirms my conscience and my understanding of the Bible that all gay sex is forbidden.  So my intellect and my conscience and the church all point the same direction — if I reject them all, the consequence is disastrous for my integrity. 
  • I am not a Catholic robot.  I do have reasons for trusting the Catholic Church.  On the home page of this blog is a link called Why I Converted to Catholicism.  It isn’t a formal defense of Catholicism or anything like that – it is my personal statement of confidence in the Catholic Church and I do have reasons for my confidence.
  • But I am not a sexual robot, either.  Nothing forces me to engage in sex.  Nothing says I am somehow a lesser being without sex.  On the contrary, the authority I find most reliable, namely God united to his church, tells me that it is sex outside marriage that makes me a lesser being. 

A word about obedience

This blog tries to make the case that it is smart to be chaste, because you get back more than you give up.  This blog argues that chastity for the sake of Jesus is a bargain and that the reason God and the church tell us to be chaste is because they love us.  So I want to say a little something about obedience. 

People obey all the time.  There’s nothing sinister about obedience, nor does it somehow mean you’re less of an individual because you obey another person or an institution.  It doesn’t mean you are weak if you obey.  Soldiers make a career of obedience and they are not weak. 

There are at least two reasons we obey and they usually both apply.  One reason is pragmatic.  We obey because it just won’t work if everybody does their own thing in every context.  We obey traffic laws because it’s the only way tens of thousands of cars can be on the same streets at the same time.  If nobody obeyed, you couldn’t drive.  Literally.  Or if you want to be a Boy Scout, you obey the rules because if nobody obeyed the rules there wouldn’t even be a Boy Scouts. 

But there is more.  We obey because we understand that in many contexts it benefits us as a person.  Far from being some sort of surrender of our rights, obedience very often makes us more of a person than would failure to obey.  We obey because we recognize an authority that is legitimately our superior and that has our best interest at heart.  If you obey a personal trainer at the gym or a doctor when you’re sick, that’s sort of got “duh” written all over it.  Of course you obey them  –  you want to achieve a physical improvement and they know more about this stuff than you do. 

It is the same with a teacher in school or a parent.  They know more about the subject or about life in general than you do (at least, while you’re growing up), and since they can show you how to improve you obey them.  You obey because it makes you better off.

 And it is the same with God and Jesus and the church.  Since God made you, he knows you better than you know yourself.  Since Jesus has acted in history to do what it takes to cancel out the penalty for your failings and since he has lived life as a human while simultaneously being God, then he has a uniquely personal and beneficial position toward you.  Since the church was created directly by God, it is entirely possible that disobedience of the church is the same thing as disobedience of God.

God and the church want to benefit you in ways your personal trainer or your mom cannot do.  Look in my post Chastity for the sake of Jesus is a good bargain for some of things that God and the church can do to make you better off.  Chastity for the sake of Jesus really is a bargain.  I gave up sex and I received a much larger benefit.  It is exactly what Jesus promises in Mark 10:29,30

Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.

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The main Bible passages about gay sex

Here is a website http://www.religioustolerance.org/homglance.htm that is pretty even-handed regarding gay sex and the Bible.  I have no affiliation with this website  –  I’m not endorsing the site.  I’m just saying the authors seem fair to both sides of the discussion about what the Bible says about gay sex. 

  • Romans 1:26,27  This is the only passage that talks both about sex between women and between men.  The others speak only of sex between men.  This is the passage fundamentalists use the most.  The passage should be read in the context of the whole chapter.
  • Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13  The discussion on these passages is whether all gay sex is forbidden, or only ritualistic sex connected to pagan religions.
  • I Cor. 6:9,10 and I Tim. 1:9,10  Gay sex is included in a list of sins.  The debate is about what kind of sex.
  • Gen 19 and Jude 1:7  The story of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Catholics telling me about sexual morality? You must be kidding.

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It’s not hard to see why someone would think asking the Catholic Church about sexual morality is like asking Joseph Stalin for help with a summer camp.  The appalling sins of priests who used their position to torment vulnerable children are exceeded only by the failure of bishops for decades to purge the church of this evil. 

It doesn’t take an atheist to think the church is hypocritical in these matters.  Has hypocrisy cost the Catholic Church all credibility when it comes to matters of sexual purity?  Is it smart to ignore the Catholic teaching on sex? 

My goal in the next few paragraphs is to make a case for listening to Catholic teaching on sex.  If you are considering a conversion to Jesus as a Catholic, but the sex scandal makes you wonder, then please consider the following. 

Jesus has two things to say about hypocrites – one might surprise you

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes a hypocrite who tries to give instructions to other people.  He pictures the hypocrite as having a 2 x 4 piece of lumber sticking out his eye, yet he is trying to pull a splinter out of someone else’s eye.  This guy can’t see a thing, but that doesn’t stop him from undertaking the painfully sensitive task of poking around in somebody else’s eye. 

Jesus draws the obvious conclusion about the hypocrite – he should get rid of the 2 x 4 before he tries to correct someone else.  This is big stuff to anyone who is a Christian because Jesus is the unquestioned head of the church – and he seems to believe a hypocrite has no standing to correct someone else. 

Maybe that doesn’t look so good for the Catholic Church talking about sex these days… 

Yet, just like “real life”, it’s not so simple.  Days before he was killed, Jesus again blasts hypocritical leaders who “sit in the seat of Moses” and teach people what to do, yet they break the commands themselves.  He tells people to avoid imitating these hypocrites, yet at the same time he tells the people to obey what these leaders teach.  He makes a distinction between what those hypocrites taught and whether their personal lives should be an example of how to live. 

So it looks like even a hypocrite could teach truthfully. 

Three LITTLE reasons to accept the Catholic Church’s teaching on sex

  • The validity of the Catholic teaching on sex does not depend on some jerk priests in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  The teaching on sex is old, some of it thousands of years old since it goes back to the Ten Commandments.  That there were men willing to hide behind Catholic vestments in order to prey on children doesn’t mean what they taught is incorrect.  It just means they are among the greatest sinners ever.
  • It is not the church that is a hypocrite.  It’s the priests and bishops who passed themselves off as something they weren’t even trying to be, namely sincere followers and imitators of Jesus. 
  • The issue of hypocrites and criminals in organizations is an old one.  It’s heart-breaking (it really is) when a worthy institution like the United Way or the United Nations or the US government turns out to have harbored some miscreant.  It offends justice and makes it harder to accomplish the good the institution pursues.  But it doesn’t mean the United Way is no good  –  it means someone who worked for them was no good.  The same is true for the Catholic Church. 

One BIG reason to accept the Catholic Church’s teaching on sex

The big reason is Jesus.  Jesus is everything. 

There are excellent, even compelling reasons to believe Jesus was resurrected from the dead.  Everything depends on this.  A guy who gets up out of his grave and has a quality of existence never before seen –  that guy demands to be paid attention to!  He especially demands attention when he makes the claim he can give you the same life he has and give you that life in such a way we dare to call it eternal.  

Jesus left a church which he intends to use to give you that life.  The fullest embodiment of that church is the Catholic Church.  Not every gift God gives us is given through the church.  But because it is his primary purpose that we love other people and serve them, especially other Christians, then it follows that most of his gifts are either given through the church or in the context of the church.  

Don’t drop Jesus because of the Church

With all its failings, some of them disasters, the Catholic Church has been able to lead souls to God for 2,000 years.  Her teaching and sacraments offer the chance to touch a world beyond our imagining and to touch that world now.  And then we are given to live in that world for all eternity after we leave this one.  To live forever in a world of permanence and perfection where we will be enabled to fulfill every wholesome dream of humanity. 

Over a billion people believe this promise of God as Catholics.  They are not fools.  They live lives of hope and faith and love with the supernatural help of God.  Please consider the gifts God gives through his church.   And please consider what she teaches regarding sex. Before you reject the Catholic Church because of sinful priests, please consider the points I try to make in this little summary of why I converted to Catholicism.   

Or go to Dave Armstrong’s massive website of Catholic evidences.  This is Armstrong’s home page.    Or here’s a place in his website where you can pick from several subjects in favor of the Church.  
Or go to this site where thousands of questions about the Catholic Church are answered.