The Roman Catholic Church and Sex...Is there Hope for a Reformation?

This post is focused on the Roman Catholic Church.  But first,   full disclosure… I am Protestant…but also consider myself to be catholic.  I am a Christian who exercises the faith within the  Episcopal Church, a denomination that grew out of the Church of England.

The Church of England is reformed, but in the end, the Reformation in England was a conservative one.  With numerous ups and downs, movements this way and that, the Church of England ended up by affirming what it considers to be the essentials of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church;

1) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments 

2) The Sacraments commanded by Jesus in Scripture, Holy Communion and Holy Baptism 

3) The Creeds especially the Nicene Creed which was agreed upon in Ecumenical Councils and

4) The apostolic ministry of Bishops. 

 So that is where I am coming from.  Now, back to the Roman Catholic Church.

I know that using the descriptive, “Roman”, is controversial. (See McBrien's "Catholicism" for his argument for not using the descriptive, "Roman."    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO4GOD2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

The descriptive, "Roman" is not perfect, but it is better than conceding the word “catholic” to those Christian groups in communion with the Bishop of Rome.  Without the descriptive word, “Roman” it would seem that only those churches in communion with Rome are catholic.  That is simply not true.

In reality, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church is much larger than the churches currently in communion with or recognized by Rome. I know that the Roman Catholic Church uses the term differently, but I disagree.  So, when talking about the Roman Catholic Church, I am talking about all those churches which are in some way formally related to the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Pope. I am talking about churches which concede authority to that one person.

Now, the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church. I disagree.   I include the Roman Catholic Church and I only wish they would include me…and the Lutherans, Methodists, the Baptists and so on, as a part of the Church.  What all these churches hold in common is so much more than the differences.

Regardless, and with that as a preface, here’s the bee in my bonnet at the present moment. The Roman Catholic Church has been guilty of incredible perversity and sin.  I am not talking about way back when, I am talking about recent history.  As one instance, the New York Times (March 2, 2016 page A 15)  ran this headline, “Pennsylvania Diocese Leaders Knew of Sex Abuse for Decades, Grand Jury Says.”  This is one in along line of stories about the awful, and awfully sinful behavior of the Roman Catholic Church.

There are many, many reasons the Roman Catholic Church protected evil predators.  I think that their governance structure, which has no place for the rank and file, for lay people, is a factor.  It was too easy for the ordained folks to circle the wagons.  And this is not even to address the fact that women are not given full status or included in decision making, either as lay people or as "religious." 

But I also think a big part of the problem lies with the Roman Catholic understanding of sexuality.  Since about the year 1000 the Roman Catholic Church decreed that clergy should be celibate.  Hardly any of them were, but without priests having "legitimate" children, the Roman Catholic Church could protect its interests and property.  (I put "legitimate" in quotes.  My father taught me that adults can certainly act in illegitimate ways, but children are always legitimate.)

This elevation of celibacy might have been a practical matter in a lot of ways.   But it couldn’t have been made without sexual intercourse being seen as somehow not quite proper for holy people.  There was a denigration of robust human sexuality, leading I think, to a misunderstanding and suppression of sexual response in the name of spiritual progress.  Suppression ends badly.

So…what is the Roman Catholic teaching about sex?  Here you go…and I am using the official “Catechism of the (Roman) Catholic Church” as my source.   

“People should cultivate chastity in the way that is suited to their state of life.  Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy…Others live in the way prescribed by the moral law, whether they are married or single.  Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence.” (Paragraph 2349, Catechism of the Catholic Church, English copyright 1994)

“Those who are engaged to be married are called to live chastity in continence….They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love.” (Paragraph 2350)

“(E)very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil…” ( Paragraph 2370)

“Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that 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.  For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.” (Paragraph 2352).

“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.  They are contrary to the natural law.  They close the act to the gift of life.  They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.  Under no circumstances can they be approved…Homosexual persons are called to chastity.  By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”  (Catechism paragraphs 2357 and 2359)

So there you have the whole repressive theology of the Roman Catholic Church concerning sex. No birth control. Sex only in heterosexual marriage and then only for procreation.  No masturbation. No homosexual relationships.  And here’s the thing…beliefs have consequences, and I think we are seeing those consequences in the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, world wide, where sexual predation is concerned.

I like Francis, I do. He has made some great statements.  But…the institution over which he presides is way off base and misguided on the subject of sexuality.  Unless and until this underlying issue is addressed, I do not hold out much hope for a true reformation of the Roman Catholic Church.



PS  And just to continue the conversation, nuance it a bit, and make it clear I am not arguing for having no rules...here's a great article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/opinion/sunday/sex-christian.html?auth=login-email&login=email  And a quote from the article: "Purity culture as it was modeled for evangelical teenagers in the 1990s is not the future of Christian sexual ethics. But neither is the progressive Christian approach that simply baptizes casual sex in the name of self-expression and divorces sex from covenant faithfulness and self-sacrificial love."