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mrsbmoo
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 278 |
| First Name: | Becky | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | former Methodist. RCA, Presbyterian, Holiness, Wesleyan... Catholic as of June ... |
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Posted: Tue Jan 1st, 2008 06:34 pm |
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Since threads can't be chopped and moved I will continue my discussion with Dave and Rick on the purpose of sex and its consequences and free will here where it better belongs.
I talked over with my husband last night what I had written about and your answers. We were up until 4am. He had some comments.
But first, my feelings(being a woman I can't help myself). To use a metaphor I feel what you have told me has thrown my previous view of sexuality out the window and what is crawling in in its place is ugly and I feel like slamming the window on it, to keep it out. I came into Catholicism with the view that sex was given by God to enjoy within the proper setting, as a means of pleasure and increasing love, with a potential and positive side effect of receiving children. Now I discover that the church says sex is not for pleasure, it is for having children and uniting husband in wife in this struggle to have children. I described the whole unitive thing to my husband as being like fixing the plumbing in the house. Having good sound plumbing(like having children) gives me great joy and is an objective good. If our plumbing needed upgrading or repairs, my husband and I would work together to create good plumbing and after the ordeal feel united in overcoming an obstacle(like the unitive aspect of sex), it must be done in a correct prescribed manner(like the Catholic procedure for sex)....but honestly, who wants to work on the plumbing? So for me taking the Catholic view of sex instead of my previous view is like going from having a nice meal to working on the pipes in the house.
I don't have an issue with the contraceptive prohibition or having kids, NFP has worked great for me for nearly 10 years and I have 5 kids, all planned. But I am really pained by the thought of the procedure for sex being spelled out so rigidly. The thought has sucked the joy right out of me, good thing I am still allowed to eat chocolate.
My husband felt you guys were way off base. He pointed out that the Song of Solomon in the Bible is full of sensuality and pleasure in sex and that it says somewhere in the Epistles that husband and wife should not deny each other, which implied pleasure to him. I told him that the Bible no longer counted as a definer of morals and that I had been told that although I was free to let my conscience tell me to disagree, if I disagreed with the church it meant I didn't have a properly formed conscience so my conscience was invalid. Which in practical terms means I have no freedom of conscience.
He also pointed out that intent was more important than legalistic rules. Thus oral sex performed with love and respect was more moral than intercourse performed with resentment and legalism. He talked about how Jesus rebuked the legalistic jewish people constantly for following the rules to the exclusion of loving intentions. He said that never in a million years would he believe that Jesus would condone a legalistic procedure for sex that would destory the joy in/or the sacrament of marriage. He also said nowhere in the Bible is oral sex mentioned good or bad. He also took great exception to DaveA saying that it was as unnatural as homosexuality. I told him that at this point I felt so disgusted at the idea of having to turn sex into some rigid eccleasiastical procedure, I would just as soon never do it again. He said he would respect my wishes. I know you guys will say that it is just a sign of how sinful and worldly I am to think that way. I know Rick and Dave E often tell people of the benefits of giving up ordinary marriage for living as brother and sister and I guess that is what I am left with, although I don't believe a marriage can survive that arrangement except in extreme circumstances. He works a lot and take college classes anyway, so it will be easy to avoid him. I feel like my only choices at this point are to leave the church to benefit my relationship with my husband or potentially lose my soul and have a good marriage.
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Becky
Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 10 months and 17
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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
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| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Tue Jan 1st, 2008 07:32 pm |
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Becky, I think you are reading way too much "prohibition" into the Church's teachings.
From the Catechism:
372 Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh", they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work.
By leaving open the possibility of creating new life, a husband and wife participate in a unique manner in the act of Creation. God joins in the relationship, and it is unitive in a unique and special way joining husband and wife with God into a holy relationship. To separate either the unitive or procreative aspect in such a manner as to make it artificially impossible to conceive, or by removing the creative act from the marital relationship, is to take it out of the creative partnership God intended. It is important that the act be placed within the context of a permanent, loving relationship open to the possibility of unity (as is only possible within marriage) and creation. Sex exclusively for recreation is contrary to God's plan.
Within that marital relationship, the ultimate expression of love is when the two "become one flesh" as can only happen in the ultimate act of sharing. In preparation for this loving act, any means of expression acceptable to both partners and conducted in the privacy of their marital relationship is acceptable. Various forms of contact are perfetly acceptable in preparation for marital relations, but not in place of marital relations.
To use the metaphor of a meal, it is acceptable to have an appetizer before the main course, but not to make a meal off of the appetizer. You can't have a balanced meal off of just the appetizers; the marriage act can't fulfill the purpose for which God designed it by just having the appetizers.
At the same time, it is not necessary that the enjoyment of each other's physical selves be removed from the act (as you implied in the other thread), nor is it required that both partners have both unitive and procreative intentions in every act. Sometimes one partner will go along with the idea to please the other partner, and that's OK. An act of loving submission is unitive, and as long as the possibility of creation is there, it is as God intended it. However, neither partner should ever be forced against his or her will.
Some more sections from the Catechism:
2361 "Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death."
2363 The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.
The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.
2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is "on the side of life," teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life." "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act."
2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every 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.
The section on the relationship between husband and wife begins at section 2360.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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mrsbmoo
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 278 |
| First Name: | Becky | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | former Methodist. RCA, Presbyterian, Holiness, Wesleyan... Catholic as of June ... |
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Posted: Wed Jan 2nd, 2008 01:31 am |
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It isn't what the Cathechism says that upsets me so much. I knew I had to follow the Catechism when I joined and although much of the theory behind it is over my head, none of this stuff that upsets me is in there. I guess I need to be more clear about what in Dave A's post upset me so much.
Starting with: "That's(pleasure) not the point, which is not that intense pleasure has to be present every time a couple have sex." I am reading this as sex is not for pleasure. Unless I am actively trying to conceive a child, why do it if we aren't enjoying it?
Then, from a quote by Vincent Genovesi "Should it happen that she fails to achieve sexual fulfillment in the act of sexual intercourse, a woman is morally permitted, according to the Church’s teaching, to seek and achieve orgasm by other means." Maybe I am reading too much into it but to me this implies that if she is weak and too selfish, she may. "morally permitted" isn't much of an endorsement, sort of like, if you are starving, you are morally permitted to steal food.
..... and the worst, from the Edward Feser quote, "taking cunnilingus to orgasm outside the overall context of a completed act of intercourse(is prohibited)" To me this sounds like now the order and activities to complete the process are being laid out. In short, have the guy get the procreative part over real quick, doing only what is absolutely necessary for the woman to tolerate this, because his part is all that is truly important and if the woman is too morally weak to go without, she can have some pleasure. Why does it matter who has an orgasm first? It doesn't effect procreation. Do they think if the woman goes first, the guy will not bother? or be tempted to not have intercourse?
I would also like some further explanation of the term unitive. From what I am reading in the links it is like what a group of people who have survived some sort of crisis or ordeal feel. like "we will always be linked because we went through this terrible experience together" This does not sound like a very pleasant experience but if DaveA is right then sex isn't meant to be pleasant.
In further argument, my husband says the people quoted are just thinkers of one faction of the Catholic church and their words are not binding on me. He feels that God intended marriage to be a sacremental bond making "two, one flesh" to love and enjoy one another and procreate. He wants no part of being Catholic if the Church has been taken over by those that seek to snuff out the joy Christ promises, or as my daughter put it, "there is a big book of rules and God is waiting to smack you when you break one" I thought everything I had to agree with to be Catholic was put in the Cathechism(the big book of rules). My husband is concerned of the legalistic society that Christ repeatedly rebuked. After all he says, to take a sex act performed in a marriage as the same as if it were performed by homosexuals is the same nonsense as someone stating that prostitution should be legal because of the proverb saying "it is better to cast your seed in the belly of a whore than to cast it on the ground".
Are people who write about applying the catechism authorized to tell me what I must do? Am I confused about this? Even if I agree that more conservative apologists and thinkers believe these things about sex, does that make it binding on all the church? Could I not find just as many blogs from less conservative Catholics who I wouldn't have to obey either? I guess I am asking, where is the line drawn by by the church? At the catechism and scripture? At encyclicals? Where does church definition end and personal application begin?
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Becky
Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 10 months and 17
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Dave Armstrong
Network Apologist
| Joined: | Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Melvindale, Michigan USA |
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| First Name: | Dave | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Evangelical "Jesus Freak" (Arminian) / "Lewisian Schaefferite" / Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jan 2nd, 2008 03:19 am |
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Hi Becky,
I have provided you with Church teaching on the subject (upon your request; not some unsolicited, force-fed thing). You are free to disagree, of course, but in any event, an almost purely emotional reaction, as your post above appears to be (you yourself wrote: " But first, my feelings"), will not move the discussion along one bit.
I ask your patience in making a (hopefully charitable) response to that, if I may. If I am too harsh, then I ask beforehand that you please forgive me. It is not my intention at all, I assure you.
You and your husband both have taken great exception to what I wrote, yet you have not interacted with my (i.e., I believe, the Church's) reasoning. You simply put it down and described it in derogatory terms. That's emotional; it's not reasonable.
If you ask serious, complex, nuanced questions (as you did, and twice I commended you for asking excellent questions), I have to likewise respond with reasoned analysis and the facts of Church teachings (I can't very well just answer articulate inquiries with emotionalism, can I?). But you have responded with anger and emotion and little reason in the sense of a counter-reply or exchange or dialogue. It becomes like a big discussion over someone being dead-set against eating some food or music or style of clothes that they don't like. Who can discuss the matter with them and try to persuade them otherwise? It's an entirely subjective thing.
But I am really pained by the thought of the procedure for sex being spelled out so rigidly.
Becky, c'mon. We weren't the ones who were asking very specific "PG-13" questions about sex. You did that. Having asked it, my job is to present the teaching of the Church as best I can, and (as an apologist) to defend it a bit. That's what CHNI has hired me to do. But once I have carefully answered your question, then you imply that it is a legalistic thing and takes all the joy out of sex. Now, what do you think I could have done, other than what I did? How am I supposed to answer a question about rightness or wrongness of various sexual acts without delving into particulars, and the rationales for how and why the Church makes the distinctions that it makes?
But if I do that, I (and at bottom, the Church herself, since I am merely repeating her teachings) get accused of legalism. This is not fair at all because you eliminate the very possibility of a rational, factual answer. It's almost as if you imply that I am not allowed to either give or explain the thing asked about unless I pass a test and you agree with my answer before I give it.
He also pointed out that intent was more important than legalistic rules. Thus oral sex performed with love and respect was more moral than intercourse performed with resentment and legalism.
If you go this route without examining and pondering the reasons for why the Church forbids certain acts then I don't see how you would not also allow homosexual acts or bestiality or masturbation (or adulterous intercourse, for that matter) by the same token. People who advocate those things have all sorts of defenses based on how loving they are and with what pure motivation they engage in the acts. We also have to examine the thing itself. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you advocate those things. I'm saying that the reasoning you are using reduces to a state of affairs where it seems that those things would be sanctioned by the same reasoning. It's what is called in logic a reductio ad absurdum, in other words.
He also took great exception to DaveA saying that it was as unnatural as homosexuality.
I didn't argue that. What I argued was the following:If it existed on its own with no connection whatsoever to intercourse, as an end in itself (i.e., not a form of foreplay) then it would clearly be condemned by the Church's teaching on moral marital sexuality. It wouldn't have to specifically be mentioned, because it would be a species of the larger set of acts that violate the inherent bond between sexuality and openness to life. It would be essentially the same as mutual masturbation, and masturbation is clearly objectively a mortal sin in Catholic teaching. Homosexual sex would be another example of the same principle. It is wrong because it is 1) unnatural (St. Paul's argument in Romans 1) and 2) intrinsically non-procreative. I would also add that homosexual acts create a host of health problems because they utilize the body in a way that was not designed by God.
You see that I made a direct equation with masturbation, not homosexual acts (meaning, mainly, sodomy). If you read closely, I am arguing that homosexuality is another member of the set of sexual acts that are "unnatural" and "intrinsically non-procreative." That is not the same as saying that one thing is to the same degree of being "unnatural" as something else. I would definitely say, e.g., that sodomy is far less "natural" than masturbation.
If you're going to strongly disagree with me, please be careful to at least be sure of what it is that you are disagreeing with, and that it is my actual position.
I know you guys will say that it is just a sign of how sinful and worldly I am to think that way.
I wouldn't say that at all. I would say that you have responded emotionally (understandably so) to a serious ethical issue that cannot be approached purely on an emotional level, but has to be carefully thought about and reasoned through, just as the questions you asked were carefully thought out and reasoned through. You can't switch horses in midstream. If you want to have a rational discussion about ethics, then by all means do so and stick to the realm of reason. But please allow us the freedom to give our answers, and what we believe to be the teachings of the Catholic Church without being castigated as a bunch of Pharisees.
I know Rick and Dave E often tell people of the benefits of giving up ordinary marriage for living as brother and sister and I guess that is what I am left with, although I don't believe a marriage can survive that arrangement except in extreme circumstances.
This implies to me that you are awaiting an annulment. I wasn't aware of that when answering your questions. You asked a question about sexual morality and I answered.
I feel like my only choices at this point are to leave the church to benefit my relationship with my husband or potentially lose my soul and have a good marriage.
These are not your only choices. If you believe the Church's teachings are true, you are duty-bound to follow them. And whether the teachings are true does not depend on your emotional reaction to the truths. That must be based on faith and reasoning and examination. And if what is included in that truth is sexual morality and ethics, then you must follow that, too. You say this is too difficult? I don't think so. You are long-term Christians. Certainly you have read in the Bible that "with God all things are possible" and enabling grace. You have the Holy Spirit within you. You have the benefit of the sacrament of baptism. You have a support group of brothers and sisters on this forum and (I hope) in "real life". It is amazing what people can do with the power of faith and a loving God giving them the ability to do so. So this is also a test of faith. But what it is not is merely an emotional question that can be decided on those grounds alone.
No one said Christianity was easy. The sexual teachings are very difficult. If you are in a situation where you seek an annulment that is not the Church's or God's fault. Arguably it may not be your fault, either, depending on the situation, but it is certainly not the fault of the Church.
But God does promise that we can endure virtually anything with His help and aid. We're all faced with this in a variety of ways, not just sexual. But don't buy the devil's lie that you have no choice but to sin. That is never the case. People have chosen to die rather than deny the truths of the faith or God Himself. If they could do that, certainly we can go through far less difficult things, compared to being eaten by a lion, or starving to death in a dungeon.
"That's(pleasure) not the point, which is not that intense pleasure has to be present every time a couple have sex." I am reading this as sex is not for pleasure. Unless I am actively trying to conceive a child, why do it if we aren't enjoying it?
You are taking my statement out of its context, which was as a reply to your words:Ok, now back to where I am finding fault with the logic that bonding and babymaking cannot be separated for an act to be moral. This sounds like the medieval thinking that for a woman to conceive, she must enjoy sex . . .
I was not denying that sex was for pleasure at all. I was denying your extreme interpretations (as Rick has also commented on) of what the Church means when discussing the unitive and procreative dimensions of sex. You were the one making it out to be some legalistic thing (ironic, given your present criticisms).
What I was trying to convey, via quotes, about female orgasm, should be a positive thing, but instead you think it is negative. The Church is not against female orgasm! Why is this frowned upon? They were simply pointing out that if it doesn't occur during intercourse (which is quite common, I suspect), then it is fully permissible to obtain it by other means in proximity to intercourse, but not separated from it. This is important because some might misinterpret Church teaching to mean that intercourse excludes orgasm, if the latter didn't occur during the former, and in so doing, is somehow "anti-women." Quite the contrary.
In fact, I am replying to your post as I read, and your next statement expresses almost exactly what I just described as a misinterpretation of Church teaching:
In short, have the guy get the procreative part over real quick, doing only what is absolutely necessary for the woman to tolerate this, because his part is all that is truly important and if the woman is too morally weak to go without, she can have some pleasure.
No! This is a cynical interpretation. You obviously have some negative feelings about these teachings coming in. You're reading way too much into the words used, being over-literal, etc.
Why does it matter who has an orgasm first?
It doesn't (ethically speaking), as long as orgasm is not separated from intercourse, becoming, in effect, masturbation.
Do they think if the woman goes first, the guy will not bother? or be tempted to not have intercourse?
That has nothing to do with the reasoning, which is stressing the non-separation of intercourse with orgasm.
I would also like some further explanation of the term unitive.
In Catholic sexual teaching it means the pleasure of moral (marital) sexuality and the intense, beautiful bonding and oneness that occurs between a man and wife as a result: a picture of the unity and love between Christ and His Church.
From what I am reading in the links it is like what a group of people who have survived some sort of crisis or ordeal feel. like "we will always be linked because we went through this terrible experience together" This does not sound like a very pleasant experience but if DaveA is right then sex isn't meant to be pleasant.
Wow. I don't have the slightest idea how you arrive at this impression from what I wrote. I can assure you I am no Puritan or somehow against the pleasure of sex or against anyone enjoying it. Nor is the Church (though this is a very widespread stereotype that you seem to have been exposed to in the past).
In further argument, my husband says the people quoted are just thinkers of one faction of the Catholic church and their words are not binding on me.
What I have expressed to you is Catholic teaching. If you don't think so, then by all means, do some research and produce for us something that you think would suggest otherwise. It's easy to make a claim; a lot harder to back it up with substance. It's your life; if you believe this and think you can prove it, then I challenge you to do so.
He feels that God intended marriage to be a sacremental bond making "two, one flesh" to love and enjoy one another and procreate.
Absolutely. Amen! Nothing gives me more joy on a purely human, experiential level than being one with my wife in that way. But part of the joy (and "success" -- if you know what I mean) that we experience is based on the fact that it is moral sexuality with no guilt brought on by some sin involved. In fact, it is known now through several scientific polling studies that so-called more "progressive" or "promiscuous" couples who "played the field" quite a bit are actually less sexually fulfilled in the long term than a couple like my wife and I: neither of whom had sex with anyone else before we married. I reported some of these findings and discussed them in the following paper:
Discussions About Christian Sexual Morality and Marriage With Atheists / Massive Sociological Evidence Bolsters Christian Moral Positions (+ Discussion)
Catholic morality is the means to obtain a truly fulfilling sexual happiness for life. That sure ain't the stereotype, but it is based on the facts, that can be verified. I know a little bit about such studies as I majored in sociology and minored in psychology.
He wants no part of being Catholic if the Church has been taken over by those that seek to snuff out the joy Christ promises, or as my daughter put it, "there is a big book of rules and God is waiting to smack you when you break one" I thought everything I had to agree with to be Catholic was put in the Cathechism(the big book of rules).
You are caricaturing any rules at all as extreme legalism and Pharisaism. Could I not argue that your own background experiences may have something to do with that, so that what you think you see is not really as you suppose? Something to think about . . .
Again, as I argued, what you appear to be advocating is prohibited on the same grounds that masturbation is prohibited. It is a species of non-procreative, contraceptive sexuality. If your decision to join or not join theCatholic Church is based on your dissent from Church teaching on non-coital sex, then what can I say? It is loving to tell you the truth. If I didn't do that I would stand accountable before God (James 3:1). I think about that a lot, since I am a teacher, as an apologist, and (with the other moderators and more experienced Catholics here) have a tremendous responsibility in fostering understanding of Catholic teaching here, as part of the mission of CHNI.
My husband is concerned of the legalistic society that Christ repeatedly rebuked. After all he says, to take a sex act performed in a marriage as the same as if it were performed by homosexuals is the same nonsense as someone stating that prostitution should be legal because of the proverb saying "it is better to cast your seed in the belly of a whore than to cast it on the ground".
This is an extreme distortion of my position (and the Church's). It's a straw man. I strongly urge you to not become hostile to the Church based on an emotional overreaction and misrepresentation of what is actrually being argued.
Are people who write about applying the catechism authorized to tell me what I must do?
I don't know if you are referring to me, and Rick. But if so: we are simply conveying Church teaching. If you don't believe us, then by all means, go to the clergy consultants to CHNI, who certainly are "authorized" to speak for the Church and to tell you what you "must do." That's precisely why CHNI has such advisors: to always remain orthodox. I was hired after being considered by the board of CHNI, and confidently given the responsibility to represent the organization on this forum, which in turn seeks to be orthodox Catholic in every way, shape, and form.
As for my own credentials, suffice it to say that I have been a published apologist for almost 15 years now. I have four books published by reputable Catholic publishers: Sophia Institute Press and Our Sunday Visitor (the largest Catholic publisher). My first book has a Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. (died in 2000), who received me into the Church. He is being oconsidered for sainthood, was widely considered perhaps the most orthodox catechist in America, and was a close advisor to Pope Paul VI and also Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity. He wholeheartedly recommended my book A Biblical Defense of Catholicism. Is that enough "authority" for you?
But if you doubt my word on this, then I strongly encourage you to pursue authorities and find out for yourself. The danger there, however, is that there are a lot of folks who are less than orthodox (just read the horror stories of RCIA classes perpetually written on this forum if you doubt me), and who will not give you fully accurate information. Part of the purpose of CHNI and this forum is to provide a way to promulgate true Catholic teaching, so that people can know exactly what the Church teaches. In a word, you can trust CHNI to provide that information for you in this forum, through the moderators, and in its other resources. Everyone needs a little extra guidance when entering new territory.
Am I confused about this? Even if I agree that more conservative apologists and thinkers believe these things about sex, does that make it binding on all the church?
Becky, you can play the game if you like, of characterizing merely orthodox Catholics like myself as "conservatives" so we can be dismissed as fringe fanatics. It's simply not true. There is a correct, orthodox Catholic teaching that can be discerned and learned. I have given it to you on this topic. You probably don't know me from a hill of beans, but it's not about me. It is about what the Church teaches. My calling is to present and defend that teaching, and I have yet to be reprimanded on teaching a single unorthodox doctrine in the 17 years I have been writing Catholic apologetics.
Could I not find just as many blogs from less conservative Catholics who I wouldn't have to obey either?
I'm sure you could find several that would tell you exactly what you seem to want to hear and claim that it was Church teaching. But that would be on your conscience because you have now learned what Church teaching is and can never go back to not knowing it. In other words, you are more responsible now that you know something that you didn't before. So far it is an emotional and angry response. But I think with time you can come to accept this. We will pray for you. I hope others here will give some testimonies of following Church teaching on sexuality and reaping many benefits from it.
I guess I am asking, where is the line drawn by by the church? At the catechism and scripture? At encyclicals? Where does church definition end and personal application begin?
I repeat the Church teaching: willful ejaculation must always be within intercourse, and female orgasm must be connected in time to intercourse, and not separated from it, so that the unitive and procreative functions of sexuality are not separated. You may not like the teaching at this point, or despise it, but it is what it is. I have told you the truth. If indeed it is true, and you are willing to follow truth wherever it leads, ask God to guide you and confirm what I have written. He will do so. But He won't override your free will if you are determined to believe certain things no matter what.
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I'm happy to offer whatever theological & personal assistance I can. My blog, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, contains 1900+ papers & web pages (absolutely free) & 16 apologetic books (for sale):
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/
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mrsbmoo
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Virginia USA |
| Posts: | 278 |
| First Name: | Becky | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | former Methodist. RCA, Presbyterian, Holiness, Wesleyan... Catholic as of June ... |
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Posted: Wed Jan 2nd, 2008 10:41 pm |
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I agree that I am having a highly emotional reaction to the subject and it is hard for you to answer purely subjective emotional concerns that I have. I am sorry I sound like I am being irrational and attacking you, I really do want to understand. I even read your answers and then waited 7 hours and read them again to try to calm my emotions regarding them somewhat. Philosophy is not a strong subject for me and I am honestly having trouble getting my mind around the theory behind the "rules". I do understand the "what I should and should not do part"(although yes, my emotions are having trouble dealing with it) but am still somewhat lost on the "how the church came to that conclusion" part. Bear with me.
My husband is the one who is angry about legalism but he is not home tonight, so I can't add in his comments this time.
(Becky takes a deep breathe before she plunges in to her questions) I can see where the church gets the idea of 2 becoming one flesh, which I guess is taken straight from Genesis. I can see from basic biology that sex is procreative. I can see from the Bible that having children is a blessing and not having children is shown as a curse. I do not see where the idea that these 2 things are inseparable comes from. It may be obvious and logical to you from what you have said, but I missed the connection. I did read most of the natural law essay but didn't really understand it.
I am familiar with the Onan story but don't see how the church knows that his sin worthy of death was contraception and not taking advantage of the woman who was only putting up with him due to his duty to provide an heir for her late husband, or not fullfilling his responsibilities, or even probaby lying to everyone that he was doing what he was supposed to. He seems to be guilty of all of those. What makes the church interpret it that way?
I am not so much questioning the fact that Dave and Rick are trying to get across what they truly believe to be the position of the church, I am questioning how you, they, anybody, knows exactly what the official church position is? If you google something, you get a million supposedly "catholic" answers. Even among the links you gave me, there are small variations. So where is the official answer book, if it is not the catechism? There seem to be many things not directly mentioned there that I need to know. Dave said that I could ask a CHN church official if I didn't believe him but how does the official know? Where do people get this kind of information? I mean they sure don't teach it in the Faith formation classes at my church or in RCIA and the links I have been given, I never would have found on my own.
Actually, Cindy's link about conscience was really helpful in that it pointed out that moral truths must bind even if we don't like them because that is what makes them what they are and that this is limited to central truths of the church. So...if I am asked to burn someone at the stake, I can in good conscience refuse without risking sinning by disobedience. Maybe that sounds silly or obvious but I have seen church authority used like a club. For example, being told I could not have contact with my parents because they weren't in the same church. Yet, also I must obey them even when they don't ring true(if they are central) or not consider myself part of the church.
About whether I was waiting on an anullment, I already had one. I guess I just find the concept of a married couple living as brother and sister unnatural but I will admit this is a very emotional response. Both my first husband and my best friend's husband wanted to live this way with us. Mine because I was over 30 and after 30, a woman should have no interest in sex. Hers, because he was becoming a woman and although she refused to have sex with a woman, he didn't want a divorce(Even more odd, he was becoming a lesbian woman). In my case, the man left me for a woman 10 years younger whom he got pregnant 2 weeks after he moved out. In her case, she divorced him because of his sex change as 2 women can't be married in the state of VA. SO some of my emotional response to this relates to things that happened in my first marriage. I could write a book warning girls about marrying carefully.
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Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 10 months and 17
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CajunRick
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Posted: Wed Jan 2nd, 2008 11:39 pm |
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mrsbmoo wrote: I know Rick and Dave E often tell people of the benefits of giving up ordinary marriage for living as brother and sister and I guess that is what I am left with
Becky, I think you totally missed our purpose in even bringing up this arrangement. Neither of us was recommending it or talking about the benefits. For those in irregular marriages who don't want to wait for the completion of an annulment process, it is one option that may allow them to receive the Eucharist. It is absolutely not a preferred option, and in no way would I ever recommend it to anyone except as a last resort for a very short time. We certainly have never suggested a brother/sister type relationship as being in any way better than a normal, healthy sexual relationship between husband and wife.
I don't normally speak for David. He is certainly much more capable of speaking for himself than I could ever be, but in this case, I believe I can safely say you have misinterpreted our reasons for ever suggesting a platonic marital relationship. Some people are forced into that type of relationship for health reasons, and it is a burden that must be endured as part of the marriage commitment, like providing long-term care for a disabled person. In working with diabetes patients and the terminally ill I have counseled people forced into platonic relationships. I wrote a paper on it as part of my theology program. It is unnatural for a man and woman to live together in a non-sexual relationship within the context of marriage unless there are severe health issues.
In certain circumstances (like NFP) a mutually agreeable sexual fast can be beneficial to a relationship over a short term, but that's completely different from a long-term platonic relationship, which I would never recommend any couple undertake voluntarily.
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CajunRick
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Posted: Thu Jan 3rd, 2008 09:04 am |
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If we are going to continue this discussion, I think we need to avoid unnecessary animosity and misunderstanding by defining a term.
Mirriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines contraception as deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation. It is a combination of the prefix contra, which means against, and the latter part of the word conception.
This is the meaning of the word when I have used it. Any deliberate attempt to avoid conception or pregnancy, including Natural Family Planning, the Rhythm Method, and abstinence, would fall under the dictionary definition of the term contraception. Under this definition, the Church would condemn artificial contraception but not natural contraception.
Humanae Vitae and the Catechism seem to define the word differently, which I had never noticed before. Specifically, Humanae Vitae, after condemning abortion and sterilization, adds:
Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.
This seems to be the definition followed in the Catechism. It presumes that intercourse takes place during a fertile period, but that actions are taken to prevent conception (creams, barriers, pills, withdrawal, douches, etc.)
My journalism training taught me the meaning of words according to the dictionary. Previous interchanges have taught me that the Church does not always mean the same thing when it uses a term. This is a prime example. One reason is that Church documents are written in Latin and translated into English, and sometimes the translations are imperfect, and the literal meaning of the word in English does not always convey the literal meaning of the word in Latin.
So for the purposes of this discussion, I now see that the Church uses the term contraception differently than I was using it, and in the Church's use, all forms of contraception are condemned and acts such as Natural Family Planning are not considered contraception.
Under the dictionary definition, acts such as abstinence and Natural Family Planning are indeed contraception, and only artificial means of contraception (including withdrawal) are condemned.
So now that we can all see the difference, perhaps this discussion can proceed in a more orderly fashion.
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thiscatholicjourney
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Posted: Thu Jan 3rd, 2008 03:09 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: Mirriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines contraception as deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation. It is a combination of the prefix contra, which means against, and the latter part of the word conception. Under the dictionary definition, acts such as abstinence and Natural Family Planning are indeed contraception, and only artificial means of contraception (including withdrawal) are condemned.
I disagree completely here...
NFP users are not "against conception". Abstaining does not mean you are against conception either. Catholic NFP users who abstain at certain times still remain "open" to life. Avoiding conception for a time does not make one "against conception". If you apply such a definition to the practice of NFP, abstinence or abstinence within NFP, then you must also apply the same definition to chastity and celibacy... And clearly, we all know that one who is chaste or celibate is not "contracepting". Abstaining from intercourse does nothing to "deliberately prevent conception" because there is no act in which to provide the means.
It is, therefore, incorrect to apply even Webster's definition to NFP and abstinence.
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thiscatholicjourney
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Posted: Thu Jan 3rd, 2008 03:12 pm |
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Christopher West talks about the difference between contraception and NFP in Good News About Sex & Marriage:
Suppose there were a religious person, a nonreligious person, and an antireligious person walking past a church. What might each do?
Let's say the religious person goes inside and prays, the nonreligious person walks by and does nothing, and the antireligious person goes inside the church and desecrates it. (I'm framing an analogy, of course, but these are reasonable behaviors to expect.) Which of these three persons did something that is always, under every circumstance, wrong? The last, of course.
Husbands and wives are called to be procreative. If they have a good reason to avoid pregnancy, they are free to be non-procreative. But it's a contradiction of the deepest essence of the sacrament of marriage to be anti-procreative.
Last edited on Thu Jan 3rd, 2008 03:12 pm by thiscatholicjourney
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Posted: Fri Jan 4th, 2008 05:17 pm |
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If one is in a relationship situation while a previous ostensible "marriage" in all likelihood going to be proclaimed not a marriage at all, according to Church teaching (i.e., annulled), then before the actual decision, if the couple believes that the Church is correct in its assessment, they would have no choice but to abstain from sexual relations; otherwise it would be objectively adultery. They would even be duty-bound in conscience to do so. Cohabitation involves the same type of sin for never-marrieds: sex outside of a properly-determined bond of marriage.
People can get mad at me for saying this if they want to. I didn't make the rules; God did, and the Catholic Church tries to follow God's morality as best as is possible, by God's grace.
People can shoot the messenger if they like, but that doesn't change the fact that if the messenger is conveying what is the biblical teaching, then what he is saying has been revealed to us by God Himself. If people want to "shoot" God, that is up to them!
What God teaches us is always best for us, no matter how difficult it may be. We cannot deliberately choose sin; knowing it to be sin.
Last edited on Fri Jan 4th, 2008 05:22 pm by Dave Armstrong
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Posted: Fri Jan 4th, 2008 05:48 pm |
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Hi Becky,
I agree that I am having a highly emotional reaction to the subject and it is hard for you to answer purely subjective emotional concerns that I have. I am sorry I sound like I am being irrational and attacking you, I really do want to understand.
No problem. Thanks for your clarification.
I even read your answers and then waited 7 hours and read them again to try to calm my emotions regarding them somewhat.
Did I make you that mad! 
Philosophy is not a strong subject for me and I am honestly having trouble getting my mind around the theory behind the "rules".
You may not know philosophy but you are clearly very sharp, so I believe you can understand these things. You may still not like them emotionally, but you can grasp what the Church teaches and also why it does.
I do understand the "what I should and should not do part"(although yes, my emotions are having trouble dealing with it) but am still somewhat lost on the "how the church came to that conclusion" part. Bear with me.
Sure. Willingness to learn is nine-tenths of the battle.
My husband is the one who is angry about legalism but he is not home tonight, so I can't add in his comments this time.
I eagerly await more from him. 
(Becky takes a deep breathe before she plunges in to her questions) I can see where the church gets the idea of 2 becoming one flesh, which I guess is taken straight from Genesis. I can see from basic biology that sex is procreative. I can see from the Bible that having children is a blessing and not having children is shown as a curse.
Many people don't understand these things today, so you are in a great place.
I do not see where the idea that these 2 things are inseparable comes from.
Natural law. Let me give you an analogy that I have used in arguing this:We think people are weird who separate the pleasure of eating from the nutritional value. They exist together, too. We need food, and we like food. Taste buds are biologically unnecessary. They don't help us survive at all, except perhaps to taste unpleasant things (sour milk or rotten eggs, etc.) which may, in turn be harmful. But we find people strange who would eat only for nutrition with no regard for taste at all (say, surviving on moss-covered bark or grasshoppers or some other "odd" food). We also find it unbalanced if someone is a junk food junkie; if all they ever ate was Twinkies or Butterfinger candy bars.We instinctively know this. We also know that bulimia is mentally and psychologically abnormal. Food is to be retained, not thrown up. That separates the taste aspects of food from the nutritional value. Contraception and abortion are like the ancient Roman vomitoriums of today, where the deepest purpose and function of sexuality (the procreative purpose and the babies resulting from them) are regurgitated.
Why can we see the abnormality and moral shortcomings of these weird food practices, but not the same abnormality in people having sex for pleasure only, and deliberately preventing procreation? In effect they tie the hands of God.
It may be obvious and logical to you from what you have said, but I missed the connection. I did read most of the natural law essay but didn't really understand it.
Perhaps the above analogy will be helpful to you. Ask yourself (if you agree wuthg the food observation) why you feel that way and how contraception and the unitive-procreative connnection would be different. I submit that it is not different. God intended for both thngs to be together.
I am familiar with the Onan story but don't see how the church knows that his sin worthy of death was contraception and not taking advantage of the woman who was only putting up with him due to his duty to provide an heir for her late husband, or not fullfilling his responsibilities, or even probaby lying to everyone that he was doing what he was supposed to. He seems to be guilty of all of those. What makes the church interpret it that way?
That has been one way it has been interpreted. There are many reasons why the contraception interpretation is the most viable. That's too involved for this forum, so I'll reference a paper I did on it:
Dialogue: Why Did God Kill Onan? Why is Contraception Condemned by the Catholic Church?
I am not so much questioning the fact that Dave and Rick are trying to get across what they truly believe to be the position of the church, I am questioning how you, they, anybody, knows exactly what the official church position is?
I believe I showed it from the Catechism. That is how we know. The acts you speak of are not a hit distinguishable morally from masturbation, which is clearly condemned and always has been. That 's right in the CCC. There is also constant Catholic moral teaching, passed down through the centuries.
If you google something, you get a million supposedly "catholic" answers. Even among the links you gave me, there are small variations. So where is the official answer book, if it is not the catechism?
Catechism, papal encyclicals, ecumenical councils, books by highly respected churchmen and saints: male and female.
There seem to be many things not directly mentioned there that I need to know. Dave said that I could ask a CHN church official if I didn't believe him but how does the official know?
How does anyone know anything? We can only be skeptical so much. At some point we have to accept authority.
Where do people get this kind of information? I mean they sure don't teach it in the Faith formation classes at my church or in RCIA and the links I have been given, I never would have found on my own.
From those who teach about Catholic moral and sexual teaching, like Christopher West, from the Catechism, from orthodox catechists and apologists, from your local priest (if he has shown himself to be otherwise orthodox), and yes, from the Internet.
Actually, Cindy's link about conscience was really helpful in that it pointed out that moral truths must bind even if we don't like them because that is what makes them what they are and that this is limited to central truths of the church. So...if I am asked to burn someone at the stake, I can in good conscience refuse without risking sinning by disobedience. Maybe that sounds silly or obvious but I have seen church authority used like a club. For example, being told I could not have contact with my parents because they weren't in the same church. Yet, also I must obey them even when they don't ring true(if they are central) or not consider myself part of the church.
You mustn't equate Catholic authority with authority that has been abused by sectarian, cultlike situations. It is not the same at all. This is a self-consistent tradition that has been passed on through history, from the apostles, through great teachers and saints, down to our time. You can trust it. God set it up and He guides and protects His Church.
About whether I was waiting on an anullment, I already had one. I guess I just find the concept of a married couple living as brother and sister unnatural
It certainly is, but you beg the question in expressing it this way. They abstain precisely because it has been determined that they are not properly married. Once that is settled then there is no problem. The Church only suggests abstinence in cases where there is an irregularity of a previous (civil) marriage or when there has not yet been a marriage (i.e., it prohibits cohabitation).
but I will admit this is a very emotional response. Both my first husband and my best friend's husband wanted to live this way with us. Mine because I was over 30 and after 30, a woman should have no interest in sex.
I'm not following you . . he stopped having sex because you were 30? If so, he was missing some of the best years of a woman's sexuality! This was a sin. As a married man, he had a duty to fufill your normal needs and to be open to procreation.
Hers, because he was becoming a woman and although she refused to have sex with a woman, he didn't want a divorce(Even more odd, he was becoming a lesbian woman).
Ooooookay; that's an even weirder situation . . .
In my case, the man left me for a woman 10 years younger whom he got pregnant 2 weeks after he moved out.
So she was in her 20s; therefore adultery was fine. This man is an extremely troubled person, obviously . . .
In her case, she divorced him because of his sex change as 2 women can't be married in the state of VA. SO some of my emotional response to this relates to things that happened in my first marriage. I could write a book warning girls about marrying carefully.
You should! Such books are sorely needed, these days. There is no overemphasizing the extreme importance of wisdom and discretion in choosing a spouse. One's entire future life will be affected by that decision. It should be soaked in prayer and consultation.
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mrsbmoo
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Posted: Sun Jan 6th, 2008 02:29 pm |
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I think it is the whole idea of natural law that is making this foggy. As I understand it, natural law is the idea that the natural world should give us clues and directions about the purpose and meaning if life. I read that previous essay on natural law, and while I found the scenerio of the man who needed to use the bathroom and make love to his wife at the same moment, really funny, it presumed I had read some other guy's objections to ideas and I got lost. I guess you can tell from the catechism what is implied because of the principles of natural law.
Ok, now to the food analogy....
Where does diet food fit into this analogy? It has taste but no nutrition at all, positive or negative. If the 2 purposes of food can not be separated, because of natural law, is diet food immoral?  My husband is in deep trouble if it is, he is diabetic and drinks gallons of diet soda each week. Seriously, how does that fit into natural law?
and from the link in the last post on Onan.....
"but the separation of procreation from sexuality, so that sexual pleasure becomes an end in itself; contrary to natural law and the deepest, most essential purpose of sexuality. This lowers us to the level of the beasts"
first thought....but beasts don't have sex for pleasure, they only have it for procreation. For some animals sex is unavailable as a physical function unless they are fertile. OK, I admit I had a male dog who was fixed after puberty and mated with my other dog when she went into heat, completely non-fertilly of course.....but I would say sex for pleasure is a mostly human ability. How does that fit into the natural law thing?
OK, so the logic for why that passage deals with birth control and not anything else is that we can rule out Levirite law because the penalty wouldn't have been death and it wouldn't make sense to have included such graphic sexual detail if it wasn't important to the reason he was killed? Am I reading that right?
How did they rule out that it deals with deception? People definitely are struck dead for that.
As to my ex-husband, he had many odd ideas about sex. Not only did he feel sex should stop after a certain age for woman(he pushed me to go into counseling to cure my strange interest in sex at such an advanced age), but felt that for him, sex was just too much effort for the same reward as masterbation, so what was the point in having sex instead. He also had the idea that if he declared us separated in his mind or to me, then he was immediately free to persue other relationships and it didn't count as adultery. So, in the years preceding our divorce, he was in and out of the house, depending on whether he had met anybody he was interested in dating or whether I was his best choice of the moment. The pregnancy of the other woman was what finally made me divorce him(ironically, she was married to someone else at the time too, but he was in the military). Is it any wonder I ended up on medication for anxiety?
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Becky
Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 10 months and 17
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Dave Armstrong
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Posted: Mon Jan 7th, 2008 11:08 pm |
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Hi Becky,
I think it is the whole idea of natural law that is making this foggy. As I understand it, natural law is the idea that the natural world should give us clues and directions about the purpose and meaning if life.
Many argue (I agree) that Romans 1 refers to natural theology.
Ok, now to the food analogy.... Where does diet food fit into this analogy? It has taste but no nutrition at all, positive or negative. If the 2 purposes of food can not be separated, because of natural law, is diet food immoral? My husband is in deep trouble if it is, he is diabetic and drinks gallons of diet soda each week. Seriously, how does that fit into natural law?
You're taking the analogy too literally. Like most analogies it isn't perfect, but the point was to show that here is another natural phenomenon where we consider it weird if a person eats one sort of food to the exclusion of the other category (either junk food junkie or foods that have little appeal to the taste buds: all pleasure or all nutrition). I imagine your husband eats nutritional foods somewhere along the way, so he would not be the type of person I refer to there. There would be very few such people, which is precisely why the analogy is effective, I think.
and from the link in the last post on Onan..... "but the separation of procreation from sexuality, so that sexual pleasure becomes an end in itself; contrary to natural law and the deepest, most essential purpose of sexuality. This lowers us to the level of the beasts" first thought....but beasts don't have sex for pleasure, they only have it for procreation. For some animals sex is unavailable as a physical function unless they are fertile. OK, I admit I had a male dog who was fixed after puberty and mated with my other dog when she went into heat, completely non-fertilly of course.....but I would say sex for pleasure is a mostly human ability. How does that fit into the natural law thing?
I meant this in the sense that an animal simply follows its instincts, that are on the lower scale of things. Human beings have a will to do good or evil, because they are made in the image of God. If we simply follow the instinct of sexual pleasure we are like animals insofar as we have not used our higher capacity for thought and spirituality in ways that would guide us to be more than someone simply led by the whim of passion and desire for personal gratification.
OK, so the logic for why that passage deals with birth control and not anything else is that we can rule out Levirite law because the penalty wouldn't have been death and it wouldn't make sense to have included such graphic sexual detail if it wasn't important to the reason he was killed? Am I reading that right?
I believe that was one of the arguments, yes.
How did they rule out that it deals with deception? People definitely are struck dead for that.
I'd have to look back at the paper to see, and I'm too lazy right now. 
As to my ex-husband, he had many odd ideas about sex. Not only did he feel sex should stop after a certain age for woman(he pushed me to go into counseling to cure my strange interest in sex at such an advanced age), but felt that for him, sex was just too much effort for the same reward as masterbation, so what was the point in having sex instead. He also had the idea that if he declared us separated in his mind or to me, then he was immediately free to persue other relationships and it didn't count as adultery. So, in the years preceding our divorce, he was in and out of the house, depending on whether he had met anybody he was interested in dating or whether I was his best choice of the moment. The pregnancy of the other woman was what finally made me divorce him(ironically, she was married to someone else at the time too, but he was in the military). Is it any wonder I ended up on medication for anxiety?
No. Sounds to me that the man not only had an extremely odd morality, but that he was perhaps mentally ill as well. This is one of the strangest cases I've ever heard.
Last edited on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 11:10 pm by Dave Armstrong
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