WikiPortallus: Catholic teachings on sexual morality.html

Catholic teachings on sexual morality draw from natural law, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and are promulgated authoritatively by the Magisterium. Sexual morality evaluates the goodness of sexual behavior, and often provides general principles by which one is able to evaluate the morality of specific actions.

The Catholic Church teaches that human life and human sexuality are both inseparable and sacred. ^[1] Because Catholics believe God created human beings in his own image and likeness and that he found everything he created to be "very good,"^[2] the Catholic Church teaches that human body and sex must likewise be good. The Catechism teaches that "the flesh is the hinge of salvation."^[3] The Church considers the expression of love between husband and wife to be an elevated form of human activity, joining as it does, husband and wife in complete mutual self-giving, and opening their relationship to new life. “The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, ‘noble and worthy.’”^[4] It is in cases in which sexual expression is sought outside sacramental marriage, or in which the procreative function of sexual expression within marriage is deliberately frustrated, that the Catholic Church expresses grave moral concern.

However the Church does teach that sexual intercourse outside of marriage is contrary to its purpose. The "conjugal act" aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul"^[5] since the marriage bond is to be a sign of the love between God and humanity.^[6]

Among the sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography, homosexual practices^[7] and contraception.^[8] Besides being considered a grave sin, the procurement or assistance in abortion can carry the penalty of excommunication.^[9]

Sources of Catholic sexual morality

Natural law

Natural law (Latin: lex naturalis) is an ethical theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere.^[10] Despite pagan associations with natural law theory, a number (though not all) of the early Church Fathers sought to incorporate it into Christianity (the suspect devotion of the Stoics to pagan worship no doubt aided in this adoption).

Sacred scripture

The creation stories in Genesis 1-3 provide insights into anthropology that inform Catholic sexual morality. The following verses are frequently cited in Catholic studies of sexual morality:

Two of the Ten Commandments directly address sexual morality, forbidding adultery and coveting a neighbor's wife. See Exodus 20:14, 17; Deuteronomy 5:18, 21.

Jesus comments on these commandments in Matthew 5:27-28: "You have heard that it was said, `You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Jesus makes reference to the passages from Genesis in his teachings on marriage in Matthew 19: "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."

Fathers of the church

Saint Augustine wrote movingly of his conversion to Christianity in his Confessions, including aspects of conversion related to sexual behavior. The following passage from his autobiography describes a critical turning point in his appropriation of Catholic sexual morality:

Medieval theologians

Saint Thomas Aquinas dealt with sexual morality as an aspect of the virtue of temperance, and incorporates Scripture throughout his account. In his Summa Theologiae he writes about chastity:

Recent magisterial teachings

The Catholic teaching on specific subjects

Adultery

Chastity

Catholicism defines chastity as the virtue that moderates the sexual appetite.^[15] Unmarried Catholics express chastity through sexual abstinence. Sexual intercourse within marriage is considered chaste when it retains the twofold significance of union and procreation.^[16] Pope John Paul II wrote,

Because sex is considered chaste only within context of marriage it has come to be called the nuptial act in Catholic passages. Among Catholics, the nuptial act is considered to be the conjoining of two human beings through sexual intercourse, considered an act of love between two married persons, and is considered in this way, a gift from God. While discussing chastity, the Catechism of the Catholic Church lists several transgressions and sins against it.^[18]

Lust

Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes. ^[19]

Masturbation

Masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action. The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose ^[20]

Fornication

Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young. ^[21]

Pornography

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.^[22]

Prostitution

Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also men, children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added sin of scandal.). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social pressure.^[23]

Rape

Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.^[24]

Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved..^[25]

Use of condoms

Use of a condom to prevent pregnancy, just as with any other method of contraception, is a grave sin according to Catholic teaching. This is derived from the teachings of the culture of life and the 'openness to fertility' as discussed in the catechism: "By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory." ^[26] However, there is currently no official teaching on the morality of condom use to prevent disease.

A number of arguments have been presented by theologians on both sides of the issue. A common position of church leaders is that officially permitting condom use as a method of preventing disease could be interpreted as permitting fornication, which degrades and debases sex.{{{author}}}, {{{title}}}, [[{{{publisher}}}]], {{{date}}}. A small minority of Catholic teachers hold that, because sex is to be used for the purpose of creating life, married couples who do not intend to have children should not be engaging in sexual activity at all -- those who do not wish to have children should remain celibate.

On the other hand, ^[27] supporters of condom promotion by the Catholic church invoke the principle of 'added evil'. In short, any sin is a single act, and is not necessarily made worse by lesser 'evil acts' "Sins within the same species are distinguished numerically according to the number of complete acts of the will in regard to total objects. A total object is one which, either in itself or by the intention of the sinner, forms a complete whole and is not referred to another action as a part of the whole." ^[28] Based on this position, fornication, would not be made a worse by the use of condoms. ^[29]

A more complicated question is whether condoms would be permissible to protect one married partner from disease; this question requires an articulation of the fundamental nature of sex within marriage as well as a theory of action and the role of intention in moral acts. Traditional Catholic teaching holds that sex within marriage serves two purposes, as an expression of love and commitment between the man and woman, and for the purpose of having children. ^[30] Since sex is not forbidden between a man and a woman should they be unable to have children (if, for example, the man were to be rendered infertile by testicular cancer), according to the Catechism, "Spouses to whom God has not granted children can nevertheless have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian terms. Their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality, and of sacrifice." ^[30] Within this framework, sex within marriage and procreation are not one and the same, and viewing condom use as a disease-preventative measure would be a way to justify the use of condoms within marriage in some cases. This would be viewed as equivalent to any other drug that happens to have fertility-related side effects while treating a disease.

Catholic teachings on sexual morality.html

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