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

• James F. Keenan SJ is Canisius professor at Boston College, where he is vice provost for global engagement and director of the Jesuit Institute.

Domenico Bettinelli, a pro-life activist from Massachusetts, immediately wrote a blog post about Facebook taking down the Divine Office passage.

Facebook had said it took it down because it violated Facebook's "Community Standards on hate speech".

The quote says:

"Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon.

"But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others.

"They seek to criticise, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others."

Bettinelli likens the quote to the gospel of Matthew 7:3, in which Jesus talks about pulling the log out of your own eye before accusing someone else of having a splinter in theirs.

In his blog, he asked if the Gospel would also be "hate speech by Facebook's standards?"

Bettinelli also posted the quote on Facebook after he saw the social media giant had flagged it after two priests posted it.

The priests said they thought an algorithm rather than a person would flag the content.

After his post was also removed, Bettinelli asked for a human review appealing the decision.

His appeal was rejected.

"I still don't understand why this is hate speech," he wrote in his blog.

"It's a quote from a Catholic saint who expresses the opposite of hate speech. He is essentially restating the words of Jesus Christ in the Gospels to stop worrying about what the other guy is or isn't doing and worry about your own flaws.

"Is Facebook saying that the Gospel is hate speech?"

Bettinelli's blog continues: "But what's worse is that I have no more understanding now of what is a violation of your [Facebook's] community standards than I did before. I cannot for the life of me figure out why you label this hate speech."

A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the post has been reviewed and said it was removed in error.

The post has now been restored.

Source

• Catholic Heralsd
• Image: Integrated Catholic Life

Source

When Catholics discuss saints who were once great sinners, the first one that comes to mind is St Augustine of Hippo. And for good reason: as a teenager Augustine abandoned the Catholic faith in which he had been raised by his mother, St Monica, moved in with a mistress, and together they had a son out of wedlock.

Catholics who are well read in the Fathers of the Church might mention St Jerome, the linguist and translator who gave us the Vulgate Bible, and who was also the most thin-skinned, short-tempered and cantankerous of the Doctors of the Church.

After that, the conversation is likely to peter out, because for generations well-meaning parish priests have presented all the other saints as just so, well, saintly.

And that is not helpful for all of us who are wrestling with venial and mortal sins pretty much on a daily basis.

It was not always thus. In the early centuries of the Church and all through the Middle Ages, writers were perfectly candid about saints who initially were far from saintly.

It is from these ancient sources that we learn of St Mary of Egypt trolling the streets of Alexandria for new sexual conquests and St Olaf's imperfect understanding of how to convert a nation.

Without minimising the seriousness of Augustine's sins, or dismissing how unpleasant it must have been to be on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from Jerome, compared to other sinners-turned-saints, Augustine and Jerome were underachievers.

So how did we go from candor to the sanitised stories of the saints we have heard since childhood? We can blame it on writers of the 19th century (or perhaps earlier), who went out of their way to gloss over the more embarrassing years of their lives with the phrase "he/she was once a great sinner". When I was a kid and I ran across that phrase, I couldn't help thinking, "I wonder what he did". I don't doubt the hagiographers' good intentions, but it was misguided to edit out the wayward years of a saint's life. Continue reading

Sources

• Thomas J Craughwell, writing in Catholic Herald
• Image: Explorable

On July 25, 1994, he was ordained as auxiliary to assist Bishop Denis Browne in Auckland.

At a Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral last Friday, Bishop Dunn dwelt on two things he found inspirational.

The first were the words of St Augustine of Hippo about being a bishop.

"What I am for you as a bishop, terrifies me. What I am with you, as a Christian, consoles me," Bishop Dunn said, recalling the saint's famous saying.

Bishop Dunn said that during the past 20 years he had been inspired by the faith of the priests, deacons and people of Auckland diocese.

Later that day about 100 diocesan staff gathered at Pompallier Diocesan Centre and presented the bishop with his portrait, which they had commissioned from the Studio of John the Baptist.

In 1995, when Bishop Denis Browne was appointed Bishop of Hamilton, Bishop Dunn was installed as the eleventh Bishop of Auckland.

Sources: Lyndsay Freer and Michael Otto