Time for a Catholic ethic that sees sexuality as a gift

Monday, April 17th, 2023

In the recent discussions raised by San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy on “radical inclusion,” for LGBTQ people and others in the Catholic Church, one obstacle posed is the consistent teaching of the church in sexual ethics.

As a moral theologian, I believe it is worth knowing how and why those teachings were formed in the first place.

History helps us to see that underlying that “consistency” are a number of matters that convey an overriding negative estimation of human sexuality.

Christian moral teachings on sexuality evolved haphazardly over the centuries, with successive generations appropriating earlier positions based on very different premises.

In general, a series of fairly negative accretions were added one upon another until, in the 17th century we have basically an absolutely negative estimation of sexual desires.

Thus, with reason, historian James Brundage claims in Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe: “The Christian horror of sex has for centuries placed enormous strain on individual consciences and self-esteem in the Western world.”

For the most part, the teachings derive from the concerns of celibate men who, while pursuing a life of holiness, found sexual desires to be obstacles rather than aids in that pursuit.

These sexual desires were not understood as belonging to or needing to be included into a broader understanding of any particular dimension of human personality.

Rather they were as random and as precipitous as they were for anyone who does not have an integrating concept like “sexuality.”

As arbitrary, powerful feelings, there was little about their nature that lent to their being conceptually incorporated into an overarching, integrated reality.

The idea of these venereal desires was as unstable as the desires themselves were felt.

Language, too, hindered any tendency to understand these desires as belonging to something more integrated or holistic.

In his The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages, philosopher Pierre Payer reminds us:

A contemporary writer dealing with medieval ideas of sex faces a peculiar problem of language. Treatises entitled, “On sex,” are nowhere to be found, nor does one find talk about “sexuality,” because medieval Latin had no terms for the English words “sex” and “sexuality.” In the strictest sense, there are no discussions of sex in the Middle Ages. … The concept of sex or sexuality as an integral dimension of human persons, as an object of concern, discourse, truth and knowledge, did not emerge until well after the Middle Ages.

Of course, the development of these teachings is so different from the positive language of the body that helped early theologians to continually articulate teachings on the resurrection of the body, the Incarnation and the Eucharist.

As I argue in A History of Catholic Theological Ethics, our tradition on the human body expanded the depth and range of the Christian vocation.

Indeed, whether we talked of the body, the family or the virtues, we considered each of them as gifts.

Our tradition in those areas is indeed complex, but it is also rich, affirming and cogent.

The same cannot be said for the church’s teachings on sex.

The tradition on sexual ethics led us not to greatness but to negativity and minutiae. Anything we added to the tradition only cast human sexuality as more and more negative.

For instance, Paul’s simple injunction that those who could not remain celibate should marry (1 Corinthians 7:8-9) led later to the Stoics’ claim that marital intimacy needed to be validated not by the marriage, as Paul suggested, but by purposing the intimacy for procreation.

That led later to Clement of Alexandria’s judgment that sex for pleasure even in marriage was sinful. Why did we problematize marital love as we moved from Paul to Clement? Why did we need to validate marital love when Paul did not?

Still, a look at the patristic period is not as problematic as later periods.

In fact, Augustine’s theology is less negative on matters of sex and marriage than both his contemporaries or worse, his 16th- to 19th-century successors.

The negativity emerges more after than with Augustine.

For instance, we could examine the so-called consistent teaching on masturbation, which excepting Clement, was never assessed as a sin until John Cassian (360-435) and Caesarius of Arles (470-542) made it one, but only for monks and nuns who, violated their vows of chastity by masturbating.

Still, eight centuries later, when Pope Innocent III imposed upon the entire church the Easter duty in 1215 requiring an annual confession of all Christians, sexual teachings change.

Now masturbation is considered gravely sinful for all.

The genesis of masturbation as sinful was precisely dependent upon the vow of chastity of those who chose the ascetical life.

What was a sin for a 40-year-old monk in the eighth century became, however, the same sin for a 13-year-old boy or girl in the 13th century.

Worse, as we will see, we made it a very grievous sin. Continue reading