The list of Popes

[Jerry Freeman]

Regarding the Church's attitude towards sex, there is, in my opinion, a negative attitude towards sex inherent in the doctrine that every act must be open to procreation because God made sex for procreation and it is somehow sinful and against the will of God to have sex that is not open to conception.

It clearly isn't true that the only reason for sex is making babies. It is one of the ways we are able to form strong bonds that sustain a couple over the extended time of a committed relationship. The very existence of committed relationships is crucial to caring for children, creating communities, and even to the health and longevity of the individuals themselves.

In addition, there seems to be an idea that sexual desire is impure. The idea that Mary would somehow be purer than other women because she remained a virgin and was never tainted by sexual desire seems to be deeply imbedded in the tradition.

Again, "Man against God, God against man, man against nature, nature against man ... ."

Best wishes,
Jerry

[jim stone]

There are soldiers who are married and soldiers who are not. They have to be available for duty in faraway places in much more rigorous conditions than would be usual for priests. There are a great many positions in the world where one may be transferred to another place without having much say about it. Most of the people in such positions are married.

Right, but being sent off to war isn't (hopefully) for the
rest of your life. The married soldier's wife and kids stay
behind awaiting his return. Not a realistic option if
the assignment is for the rest of his life. Of course people
aren't typically shooting at priests, but there
are conditions sufficiently rigorous physically and
culturally, where priests end up, that it would
be unfair to the wife and kids--as my protestant
minister friend in benares observed.

Also I don't know what the relation of priests to
monastics is--are priests supposed to be monastics?
Should monastics marry?

As mentioned, I don't know much about priests.

[jim stone]

Regarding the Church's attitude towards sex, there is, in my opinion, a negative attitude towards sex inherent in the doctrine that every act must be open to procreation because God made sex for procreation and it is somehow sinful and against the will of God to have sex that is not open to conception.

It clearly isn't true that the only reason for sex is making babies. It is one of the ways we are able to form strong bonds that sustain a couple over the extended time of a committed relationship. The very existence of committed relationships is crucial to caring for children, creating communities, and even to the health and longevity of the individuals themselves.

In addition, there seems to be an idea that sexual desire is impure. The idea that Mary would somehow be purer than other women because she remained a virgin and was never tainted by sexual desire seems to be deeply imbedded in the tradition.

Again, "Man against God, God against man, man against nature, nature against man ... ."

Best wishes,
Jerry

I don't think it's the view of the Church that it is sinful and
against the will of God to have sex that isn't open to
procreation. For instance there is no problem with old
people having sex. Also 'natural' birth control is
permitted. Also I don't think it's the view of the
Church that the only reason to have sex is to make
babies. The idea that one shouldn't use technology to thwart
the procreative possibility of sex
is consistent with
the view that sex has several functions.

I think the justification here is in Aquinas,
and is actually pretty interesting.

[Jerry Freeman]

The things you're talking about are all relative, and there are relative advantages and disadvantages to any set of circumstances. I don't see anything essential about marriage that is fundamentally incompatable with priesthood.

Soldiers are prepared to die in battle. You could make a case for soldiers remaining single because being married would somehow impair their ability to devote themselves to a mission in which they might die. As a practical matter, that doesn't seem to be an absolute impediment for soldiers, and I don't see how the lifetime commitment of a priest would automatically be an impediment, either. Isn't marriage also supposed to be a lifetime commitment? Seems very compatible with the lifetime commitment of priesthood to me. I think a great many women would find the fact that the man is capable of making lifelong commitments to be rather a positive thing.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[missy]

There are priest that belong to certain orders (Jesuits, Franciscans, etc.) and priest that are termed "secular" that don't belong to an order and were ordained after attending the seminary set up by the diocese or archdiocese. In an archdiocese the size of Cincinnati (which takes up all of south-western Ohio and above Dayton) I think we had three men ordained last year. Usually priests are now in their 30's or older when ordained, they usually have college educations and have been in the work force for a while. In recent years, there was also someone in his late 50's who was ordained after his wife passed away.

There are also "brothers" (Christian Brothers, Franciscans, etc.) that aren't priests, but are the male equivalent to nuns (and honestly, I've never understood why someone would become a brother). Brothers basically have the same duties as nuns (teaching, etc.) and live similar lifestyles (group, celebate, etc.) but cannot concecrate the Host, or perform the Sacraments.

But - there just AREN'T enough priests, nuns, brothers, what-have-you to fulfill any of the needs of the Church. I'm not sure family wise the numbers of our parish currently, but I do know we have 550 kids in grades K - 8. There are 5 Catholic churches with schools within 2 miles of my home, along with 2 boys and one girls high school. (Cincinnati is the second largest Catholic school district in the country, after Boston). I think we probably have the "youngest" priest of all of these churches (all have at least one "associate" priest who is really a "retired" priest) and he's at least 60. We have one nun, she's the director of religious education, and we "share" her with the 5 other parishes. I know we don't and I don't think any of the other 4 schools have any nuns teaching. The archdiocese has a policy that if you have less than 200 families in your parish and your priest can no longer perform duties (such as health, death, etc) you do NOT get another priest but must close your parish and combine into another (this happened to us 11 years ago - we combined to our current parish and sold the buildings and grounds).

I don't know what the "answer" is - but there better be one soon.

Missy

[Lorenzo]

Celibacy in the priesthood is a discipline, not a doctrine.

[jim stone]

I think the Catholic problem with 'artificial' contraception
flows from a respect for nature, as God's creation,
therefore holy.

If you leave me your tree to take care of, I'm its
steward. In return I rest in its shade and
eat its fruit. Caring for it must respect its natural functions--
they determine what taking care of it is. How then
am I to use technology? If the tree is split by
lightening, I tar it up and bind it together with
wire. But I do not carve my initials in it
or inject it with chemicals to prevent
it from having flowers because I find
them a nuisance. To do that is hubris,
to suppose the tree is MINE in a way it
isn't; I fail as a steward. It manifests a
disordered relation to the natural order,
God's creation.

The human body is a piece of nature; as God's
creation, it is holy. It is not mine to do with
as I will. I am its steward. Tattoos are the equivalent of
carving my initials in the tree. This manifests
a sort of hubris, that the body is mine in a
way that it isn't. It manifests a disrespect
toward nature. I use technology to care for
the body; what counts as caring for it is determined
by its natural functions. Technology (medicine, surgery) can
be deployed to save its life, not to
thwart its functions when they are
incoveninet to me. Artificial contraception
is like injecting the tree with chemicals
to prevent it from having flowers
because I find them a nuisance. To do so
is hubris, to suppose the body is MINE
in a way it isn't; it is to fail as a steward;
it's disrespect for nature.

Compare this reverential attitude to
the Buddha's deploring the human
body and 'its stinking orifices.'

[Jerry Freeman]

Jim, those explanations seem logical on their face, but the practical effect is contrary to the stated reasons for the doctrines.

It creates excessive stress and can bring overwhelming hardships to a couple/family if they are forced to bear children without recourse to any control over family size. The argument that some sort of reverence for the body is the basis of the dictate doesn't hold water in light of the greater impact. There is a clear lack of reverence for the things that would be damaged if such a policy could somehow be universally enforced, and those things are just as much from God as what the doctrine purports to defend. As a practical matter, most Catholics, at least in this country, simply ignore the doctrine because it just doesn't work.

There is also the responsibility, enshrined in scripture, of being good stewards of the Earth. "Go forth and multiply" seems to have been pretty well taken care of by the generations who have filled the planet with humanity since Adam and Eve. I think we should be happy with our success in that regard and not worry much about offending God by not multiplying enough.

I would be suprised if God really wants us to "Go forth and multiply until the planet's resources are exhausted, vast numbers of My species have been driven to extinction, and you have brought yourselves to the brink of annihilation due to the sheer weight of your numbers upon the Earth." Doesn't seem plausible that God would operate that way.

In general, I would say the Church should just get out of the bedroom as much as possible and stop making such meddlesome, arbitrary, and IMO, clearly unnecessary rules.

Obviously, such things as the proscription against adultery do fall within the Church's purview, but there's far too much top down micromanaging of things that are better left for individuals to sort out in keeping with their own sense of God's will.

As things stand, regardless of the stated reasons, "sanctity of the body, etc.," and in spite of various proclamations about the wholesomeness of sex under the exactly correct circumstances, these rules can and very often do throw a negative cloud over marital relations and sexuality in general and, together with ideas like Mary's remaining "untainted" by sexual desire, very definitely contribute to an unnatural anxiety about sex.

In general, I've observed that there tends to be a characteristic uptightness among people I know who were raised Catholic. It seems that whatever they do in any sphere of life, there's always an internal second guessing going on about whether it is against the rules, a constant self judging that seems to be centered on the word "should" and seems to carry an ongoing judgment that they don't measure up.

In making these observations, I'm not talking about a vague impression intuited from a distance. Arleen was raised Catholic, and she practically drives herself nuts in this way, as does another close friend who confides in me quite a lot.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[carrie]

Artificial contraception
is like injecting the tree with chemicals
to prevent it from having flowers
because I find them a nuisance.

As I understand this post, jim, you are not putting your own beliefs forward as much as trying to rephrase what you believe the Catholic position to be. But I'm snagging here: why assume only that the flowers are felt to be a nuisance? Maybe the flowers are so treasured that the steward only wants to allow them to come forth when they can be given the care they deserve, when the weather will support them, when the hurricane season is past...Is this so different from patching up a lightning split?

Ah, I see Jerry's raised this point too.

Carol

[Guest]

Too much sex makes people blind and their spelling worsens, thats the real reason for celibacy.

I mean who ever heard of a Catholic pastor who was a bad speller?

[Dale]

Regarding the Church's attitude towards sex, there is, in my opinion, a negative attitude towards sex inherent in the doctrine that every act must be open to procreation because God made sex for procreation and it is somehow sinful and against the will of God to have sex that is not open to conception.

It clearly isn't true that the only reason for sex is making babies. It is one of the ways we are able to form strong bonds that sustain a couple over the extended time of a committed relationship. The very existence of committed relationships is crucial to caring for children, creating communities, and even to the health and longevity of the individuals themselves.

In addition, there seems to be an idea that sexual desire is impure. The idea that Mary would somehow be purer than other women because she remained a virgin and was never tainted by sexual desire seems to be deeply imbedded in the tradition.

Again, "Man against God, God against man, man against nature, nature against man ... ."

Best wishes,
Jerry

I don't think it's the view of the Church that it is sinful and
against the will of God to have sex that isn't open to
procreation. For instance there is no problem with old
people having sex. Also 'natural' birth control is
permitted. Also I don't think it's the view of the
Church that the only reason to have sex is to make
babies. The idea that one shouldn't use technology to thwart
the procreative possibility of sex
is consistent with
the view that sex has several functions.

I think the justification here is in Aquinas,
and is actually pretty interesting.

Well, it's partly a kind of semantics issue, but is in fact true that the Church officially regards as sinful any sexual act not open to procreation. JIm points out some understandable cases that do sound like exceptions but, according to the Church, aren't. I have struggled with this a bit.

A range of sexual behaviors is regarded as nonsinful for married people when those acts are "open to procreation." This doesn't really go to the issue of the possiblity of procreation, or even the intent, exactly, but "openness" on the part of the couple. So, a married couple who, from a medical perspective are undisputably beyond childbearing years, may still be, in a spiritual sense, "open" to procreation. So it is, at least now days, someone who has any medical condition, of no fault of his/her own, which makes procreation technically impossible. As long as he or she is "open", the Church is cool with it.

This teaching creates problems and this is an area in which I wish there was reform. It used to create particularly painful problems. There were some bishops, for example, who would not allow a medically impotent person to get married. This was an inconsistent application of the teaching of course, and I haven't heard any cases like that in several years.

When people, say for example, homosexual folks, complain about the church regarding all homosexual conduct as sinful, I offer only the consolation that almost ALL sexual conduct is regarded as sinful by the church. The acceptable behavior is sex acts, oriented or open to procreation, between legimately married men and women. Period. By the way, some non-procreative sexual behavior between married persons IS permissable if is oriented toward, or leads up to, the sex act that IS oriented toward procreation.

It'll make you want to go Methodist, sometimes.

[jim stone]

Artificial contraception
is like injecting the tree with chemicals
to prevent it from having flowers
because I find them a nuisance.

As I understand this post, jim, you are not putting your own beliefs forward as much as trying to rephrase what you believe the Catholic position to be. But I'm snagging here: why assume only that the flowers are felt to be a nuisance? Maybe the flowers are so treasured that the steward only wants to allow them to come forth when they can be given the care they deserve, when the weather will support them, when the hurricane season is past...Is this so different from patching up a lightning split?

Ah, I see Jerry's raised this point too.

Carol

The point was, I think, that what's the matter with
artificial means of birth control, for Catholicism,
is what's the matter with carving one's initials in
a tree. It isn't my tree; I'm its steward. My job
is to care for it. Caring for it consists in preserving
its natural functions. Using technology to thwart
them isn't taking care of it--even if I treasure the
flowers, injecting the tree with chemicals to
stop the tree from producing them isn't taking
care of it. It's manipulating it for my own purposes,
which may be good ones, but it isn't my role to interfere with the
natural workings of the tree--except to preserve its
function, most especially its life.

So if I'm going to Africa and I go to a Catholic physician
and ask to have my appendix removed, so as to reduce
the risk of appendicitis, s/he may refuse.

Whatever one thinks about the Catholic attitude toward
contraception, I think it's worth counting this picture.
If natural things are holy, and not ours, it may have
implications like these.

[jim stone]

Regarding the Church's attitude towards sex, there is, in my opinion, a negative attitude towards sex inherent in the doctrine that every act must be open to procreation because God made sex for procreation and it is somehow sinful and against the will of God to have sex that is not open to conception.

It clearly isn't true that the only reason for sex is making babies. It is one of the ways we are able to form strong bonds that sustain a couple over the extended time of a committed relationship. The very existence of committed relationships is crucial to caring for children, creating communities, and even to the health and longevity of the individuals themselves.

In addition, there seems to be an idea that sexual desire is impure. The idea that Mary would somehow be purer than other women because she remained a virgin and was never tainted by sexual desire seems to be deeply imbedded in the tradition.

Again, "Man against God, God against man, man against nature, nature against man ... ."

Best wishes,
Jerry

I don't think it's the view of the Church that it is sinful and
against the will of God to have sex that isn't open to
procreation. For instance there is no problem with old
people having sex. Also 'natural' birth control is
permitted. Also I don't think it's the view of the
Church that the only reason to have sex is to make
babies. The idea that one shouldn't use technology to thwart
the procreative possibility of sex
is consistent with
the view that sex has several functions.

I think the justification here is in Aquinas,
and is actually pretty interesting.

Well, it's partly a kind of semantics issue, but is in fact true that the Church officially regards as sinful any sexual act not open to procreation. JIm points out some understandable cases that do sound like exceptions but, according to the Church, aren't. I have struggled with this a bit.

A range of sexual behaviors is regarded as nonsinful for married people when those acts are "open to procreation." This doesn't really go to the issue of the possiblity of procreation, or even the intent, exactly, but "openness" on the part of the couple. So, a married couple who, from a medical perspective are undisputably beyond childbearing years, may still be, in a spiritual sense, "open" to procreation. So it is, at least now days, someone who has any medical condition, of no fault of his/her own, which makes procreation technically impossible. As long as he or she is "open", the Church is cool with it.

This teaching creates problems and this is an area in which I wish there was reform. It used to create particularly painful problems. There were some bishops, for example, who would not allow a medically impotent person to get married. This was an inconsistent application of the teaching of course, and I haven't heard any cases like that in several years.

When people, say for example, homosexual folks, complain about the church regarding all homosexual conduct as sinful, I offer only the consolation that almost ALL sexual conduct is regarded as sinful by the church. The acceptable behavior is sex acts, oriented or open to procreation, between legimately married men and women. Period. By the way, some non-procreative sexual behavior between married persons IS permissable if is oriented toward, or leads up to, the sex act that IS oriented toward procreation.

It'll make you want to go Methodist, sometimes.

I take your point, and I suppose this is a semantic issue, as you say.
Behaviour that isn't open to procreation, as you (and, I appreciate,
the Church) are using the words, would appear to come down to
behaviour that involves
technological means meant to thwart the possibility of procreation.

[Cynth]

It'll make you want to go Methodist, sometimes.

I don't know about the Methodists, but I was raised as a Presbyterian and my mother and grandmother belonged to the Evangelical Free Church. I wouldn't go looking to the Protestants for a good time.

[jim stone]

I'm not a Catholic, I'm an atheist. I reject the Catholic teaching
about birth control. I do not like nature very well, in any case.
Still I think its worth understanding.

According to the Bible Mary had other children, and there is no Biblical
support
for the idea that she didn't like sex or that she was
tainted by having it.

She conceived as a virgin for two reason, I think.
First, so that Jesus would not acquire original sin
from Joseph, and second, so that in some sense
the child would be God incarnate, not just a man.

I believe the conservative Catholic response to the standard
arguments for contraceptives goes something like
this, FWIW.

Statistically the more people are encouraged to use contraceptives,
the higher the rate of unwanted pregnancies.
There is a causal link--contraceptives, closing the
possibility to conception, further a culture of
promiscuity, which leads, contraceptives or not,
to reckless sex, which leads to unwanted pregnancies.
Also this finally leads to greater risks for
STD. Also to the break up of families,
considerable grief for children,
not to mention lots of abortions (in the mid 80s,
when contraceptives were certainly very widely
used in the USA, nearly one pregnancy in four ended in
abortion). Also to a higher
rate of children born out of wedlock.

Catholic countries where people are actually
practicing are not teeming with people; population
isn't a problem, nor is AIDs a major problem, even where
poverty is (Latin America). There seem to be
two chief sources of difficulty--the first is a culture
of promiscuity, as in Africa and Thailand. Second
are circumstances where people feel they must have
lots of children as social security. In India you need
two surviving sons if you are to survive when you are
old; given infant mortality and the rate of females
born, that means ten children. Note that these
are countries that are not predominately Christian.
The explosion of population occurred since
the late 40s in mostly non-Christian parts of
the third world.

The idea that Catholic views on contraceptives are
the source of population difficulties or STD are
factually mistaken. The idea that we are going
to solve these difficulties by encouraging the
use of contraceptives is unrealistic; these
increase the culture of promiscuity, here and
elsewhere, they lead to higher rates of unwanted
pregnancy over all, and they will not help the situation
where people are procreating at a rapid rate
as a means of social security.

The safest situation, every which way, is addressing
social security problems, as the Church's doctrines
on economic justice command us to do, and instilling
a deep respect for family and sex within marriage,
as Catholicism does. Here we address the real
causes. Throwing contraceptives at people doesn't
work; indeed, it pours oil on the flames.
A disordered attitude toward God's creation, to nature,
leads to trouble.