The Catholic Tradition and Sexual Teaching

      Peter Kreeft’s succinct observation relates to recent events in the United States. It isn’t simply what occurred once at the 2004 Super Bowl’s “half-time show.” Repeatedly, the images of the strip-scenario continue to be telecast, or recounted via radio or newsprint, to the accompaniment of “tsk, tsk” commentaries. Kreeft has it right: in many ways, sex is “the effective religion of our culture.” Sexual displays have assumed in popular culture a soddenly-diminished “fascinans et tremendum,” mimicking Rudolph Otto’s description of the Holy: they combine powerful attraction with “shock and awe.” It is within this contemporary cultural context that theological reflection takes place on “the wisdom in our [Catholic] tradition about sexuality that young people desire and our culture needs that is obscured by the polarized debates.”

      In its deepest meaning, wisdom is a Gift of the Holy Spirit: the Gift of perceiving created realities as God sees them. That depth of wisdom is found, above all, in the words and lived witness of Jesus Christ. As the writers of Gaudium et spes aver in a celebrated statement of the Second Vatican Council: “Christ the Lord, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling.” (Art. #22) In perceiving the wisdom of the Church’s tradition regarding sexuality, then, it is essential to look to the Person of Jesus Christ, his words and witness. Theology has the task of bringing both faith and reason to an ever-deeper penetration of what he revealed concerning the inner life of God and the fullness of human personhood. There is a coinherence among the truths of faith, so that whatever the tradition authentically teaches about human sexuality must accord with the truths brought to fullest expression in Jesus Christ, who, the Johannine Gospel says, self-identified as “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” While this descriptive identity of Jesus embraces every aspect of faith life, it provides three pivotal approaches toward a faith-understanding of sexuality. This brief paper focuses on sexuality in light of 1) its truth; 2) its way of expression; and 3) its close identity with life. In a summary fashion, the truth of sexuality is explicated through systematic theology; the way of its expression and its life-giving aspects through moral and pastoral theology. What follows is a theological “Whitman’s Sampler” of principles and applications regarding sexuality that are crucial in conveying the tradition’s wisdom to the next generation.

      It is necessary to ask from the outset: what are the basic truths of human sexuality? How determine them? Unless there is a fundamental shared understanding of human sexuality, dialogue about its meaning for the “next generation” will be unavailing, or at least confusing. The present generation(s) tend to equate sexuality with sexual activity or “having sex.” Marketplace- perceptions of sexuality range from genital, oral, and anal interchange (virtual or real) to non-human objects and activities that provide sex-related stimulation or bring financial/career remuneration. The adjective “sexy” applies in common usage to automobiles, articles of clothing, media formats – or whatever arouses bodily response, momentary curiosity and attention. Candidates for public office are reported as “sexing-up” their promos. What, then, distinguishes the wisdom of the tradition from the array of objects and images termed “sexual” in everyday experience?

      When questioned regarding divorce (something which Moses had allowed) Jesus pointed beyond the question to the larger context of marriage, relationship and sexual expression. He told his interrogators to look to the beginning, to the intent of God in creating man and woman, an intent expressed in Genesis 1:26 - 28: “‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves’....God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.’” Jesus’ reply provides a primary basis for receiving sexuality, as Pope John Paul II has developed profoundly in the Audiences published under the title The Original Unity of Man and Woman.

      While the creation accounts of Genesis do not comprise historical data regarding the creation of humanity, they convey fundamental truths concerning the origin and destiny of woman and man: as embodied persons, they are created in relationship and called to be the image and likeness of divine persons. Just as Jesus directed his questioners “to the beginning” for an understanding of marriage, the Church continues to see its tradition regarding sexual teaching in the context of the divinely-revealed “in the beginning” and its unfolding through time.

In his perceptive book Body Theology, Anglican Bishop Arthur A. Vogel wrote:

The body we live is not something to which we must give meaning before it is significant to us; it is meaningful to us in the first instance, and becomes a source of meaning of other things because it is the primary location of our presence. The body gives location to presence, and to be a person is to be locatable. The body is thus a source of human responsibility, for to be responsible a person must “take a stand,” “stand for something,” defend one position rather than another....Personal presence is more than the body, but we are able to know it to be more only through the body and never without a body. Human presence needs the body in order to be itself, for body-meaning anchors us in the world. ¹

      Vogel stressed that there is a given bodily meaning. Taking into account humanity’s creation in the image and likeness of divine persons, and a given meaning of embodiment, I suggest a “working definition” of human sexuality that is consonant with the received tradition. Human sexuality is “our human capacity as whole persons to enter into love-giving, life-giving union in and through the body in ways that are appropriate.” ² Each aspect of this description is significant.

      First, our sexuality is totally human, pervasive of the whole person. It cannot be equated with an animal drive to copulate, or with minute material components that combine for the preservation of the human species. Being totally human, sexuality is personal, not a blind, uncontrollable instinct. We are not left clueless in this regard, because embodied communion of human persons is rooted in imaging what Jesus revealed concerning the inner life of God and the interrelationships of Divine Persons. In the Last Discourse (Jn. 14-16) Jesus spoke and prayed about perichoretic relationships among the Father, the Holy Spirit and Himself. They are total mutual Self-gift and the source of all life. True human sexuality will image those relationships.

      Secondly, human sexuality is a capacity for union, not simply a biological/chemical stimulus, nor a pleasure-power confined to specific bodily organs. Since it is a capacity, sexuality is a lifelong call to its genuine realization and it is not limited to certain age parameters. The human person is sexual from the first moment of existence. No matter how aged humans become, they do not cease to be sexual, although the expression of capacity for union will be open to ever deeper development.. Like all human capacities, sexuality requires suitable development, guidance, discipline, and honest expression suitable to the time and state of life. Sexuality is a vital aspect of Irenaeus’ assertion that “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”

      Thirdly, human sexuality is embodied. The capacity for mutual giving and receiving of self-gift is realized bodily. Although through the Christian millennia, various theologians or theological schools of thought have distorted Jesus’ vibrant revelation regarding the human capacity for bodily self-gift, the truth has endured despite misunderstanding and sinfulness. In recent decades, particularly through the Second Vatican Council and the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II, the dignity and enduring-to-eternal-life meaning of embodiment has been brought to new vibrancy, and concomitantly, the deepened meaning of sexuality.

      No doubt this is why the youth of the current generation know such a keen devotedness and response to John Paul II. Despite his age, physical infirmities, and depletion of strength, he remains a person whose vital love-giving and life-giving presence continues to be poured out for the Church and all of humanity. His capacity for personal communion, for total self-gift in and through the body is a prime witness to the truth of sexuality in this generation. The youth of the world who have gathered in Denver, Berlin, and Toronto have tasted something of the potential in human sexuality – a potential that is frequently perceived in severely limited terms.

      Fourth, in permeating the whole person, sexuality conjoins love-giving and life-giving. When Pope Paul VI upheld this basic wisdom of the tradition in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, many protested that the unity between love-giving and life-giving was no longer viable – nor necessary – when pharmaceutical and surgical interventions could allow spontaneous love-giving between spouses. It was asserted by many that the quality of married love would be improved through contraception, that it would assure a greater freedom to engage in coital activities without the tension of possibly conceiving an unplanned child, and it would enhance a couple’s responsibility in determining the number of children in the family.

      The call to communion in sacramental marriage is a precious reality, a sacrament of communion in Trinitarian image. Marriage in Christ can also be viewed as a kind of sacrament of re-creation, a sign of redeemed possibilities to sign anew what was rejected concerning integrity of man-woman union at the fountainhead of humanity? The self-gift in authentic marriage must be expressed bodily: a marriage is not considered ratified by the Church (even though a liturgical celebration has occurred) until there is a bodily consummation, a becoming two-in-one-flesh in mutual self-gift. The appropriateness of celebrating bodily communion in marriage has a sacredness already marked by Jesus in “the first of his signs” at a wedding in Cana. That also means that prior to a mutual commitment in lifelong union, attempts to act-out the bodily sign which expresses it subvert the fundamental truth of sexuality.

      In sacramental marriage, spouses promise a mutual self-gift that is permanent, exclusive, and open to the receiving and nurturing of children. The way of expressing this mutual self-gift in marriage flows from the truth of the bond, which, in divine likeness, can be summarized as “being-gift.” ³ Once there is a separation of the love-giving and life-giving aspects of intercourse (whether temporarily through pharmaceuticals, patches, implants, and condoms, or permanently through surgical interventions) there is a disruption of the mutual being-gift. Some assert that a temporary or occasional use of one of these means is no problem since the general intent of the couple is to be open to life in marital acts. This is a rationalization that sabotages the very meaning of intercourse.

      Genuine Gifts must be personal, given freely without reservation, and suitable to the relationship they express. In the most intimate of gifts, body-to-body exchange as an expression of love, there is no room for deception. Acting-out personal body union – while simultaneously subverting its meaning by putting barriers between the bodily exchanges, or placing killing agents where the exchange occurs – is trying to effect union through an act that is participation in a deception. The marvelous potential of mutual bodily self-gift is reduced to a pretense. Intercourse is an embodied communication – a message which, of its very truth, is a bodily exchange of one’s unique identity-bearing gift. To block or destroy the embodied gift – in the very act of simulating its transmission – denigrates the persons involved as well as the meaning of the act. What has been said to this point applies to a true marriage between a man and a woman. Attempts to equate mutual sex-related activities outside a true marriage with the reality of the marital bond between a man and a woman are destructive of the persons, and the larger community. For example, oral or anal penetration of another’s body may yield pleasure and release, but it is a crude simulation of the capacity for sexual union.

      Many simply disregard the wisdom of the Church’s tradition regarding sexuality, or consider it passe’, sometimes appealing to one of the following: 1) So many millions of contracepters cannot be wrong: the Church will simply have to change its understanding of sexuality in light of new possibilities; 2) Celibates such as Pope Paul VI who wrote Humanae Vitae, are not capable of arriving at accurate principles regarding marriage, nor do they understand the increased difficulties for couples in the contemporary world; 3) We have followed our consciences and have no regrets for using available means of avoiding pregnancies; and 4) Economically, it is essential for both of us to hold professional positions; at some point in the future, we can resume the life-giving aspect of our acts when we have financial stability. Dr. William May observes:

If a couple were deliberately to do something to impede the communication of spousal love, they would be acting in a non-marital way; they would not be open to the gift of marital love. Likewise, if they were deliberately to do something, either prior to their marital embrace, during it, or subsequent to it, precisely to impede the handing on of human life, their union would not be truly marital. ⁴

      The last aspect of sexuality specified in the working definition flows from what has been said of the truthfulness of sexual expression. It is this: the capacity for communion in and through the body is to be expressed in ways that are appropriate. The word the Church uses to express this reality is chastity. No matter what age in life, no matter what commitment has been made in marriage or celibacy, no matter if a spouse has died – there is an appropriate way to manifest human sexuality in and through the body. The truth of the gift of sexuality is intimately linked to appropriateness of its expression.

      When Humanae Vitae was promulgated many decried that the Church was stodgy, unwilling to change its theological principles, and fearful of “free but protected” sex. In the years following 1968 there has been an increasingly casual separation of the threefold components of the conjugal act (the marital bond, love-giving and life-giving). Western society has become accustomed to laboratory conception of human life, to same-sex partnership declared to be the equivalent of true marriage, and to multiple forms of pleasure-inducing practices dubbed as “sexual.” The wisdom of the tradition that this conference seeks to hand on to the next generation is found not only in respecting the integrity of each marital act, but in the larger context – the call of every person, at all stages of life, to grow in the capacity to be uninhibited person-gift in and through the body in ways that are love-giving and life-giving. Obviously this requires sacrifice, a difficult proposition at a time when youth are bombarded with messages concerning self-fulfillment without inconvenience or suffering.

      Who can measure the consequences of societal resistance to the principles that Paul VI enunciated in Humanae Vitae? Theodore Cardinal McCarrick recently entitled his column in the Catholic Standard “Decline and Fall.” After briefly citing events that led to the fall of the Roman Empire, McCarrick cited “the decline and fall of a culture that made this nation great and its people an example of decency and industry for the rest of the world.” Listing the Enron debacle, the values-challenged state of the media, and the growth of violent crime, especially among the young, he wrote:

...the ominous decline of the birth rate, the subtle and now court-supported attacks on the survival of marriage and the family, pornography and drugs and political correctness – if these are not signs of trouble ahead, then the sun won’t rise tomorrow. The Super Bowl halftime show should not have been surprising. It’s just another element in the decline and fall of a culture that made this nation great and its people an example of decency and industry for the rest of the world. ⁵

      In a culture which places high priority on indiscriminate bodily expressions of sexuality as a “right,” there is need to speak the truth of sexuality in terms of its honest expression at all stages of life. This requires that theological clarity regarding sexuality cannot be compromised, even when there is a justification of immoral activities through legal fiat. Fidelity to authentic sexuality does not mean naivete. Recently, a day-care professional told of a situation where supervision of children on a playground included preventing children of primary grade-age from acting out intercourse at the base of the slippery slide. Distortions of sexual encounter are not limited to the “next generation.” Above the March/April, 2004 masthead of The AARP Magazine is the headline “‘Help! My Husband Loves Porn.’” The headline refers to the magazine’s advice column for senior citizens. In response to a wife who wrote concerning her husband’s watching pornography on the Internet, the columnist assured her: “...I also believe that level-headed adults can enjoy erotic pictures in private without undermining their relationships, their immortal souls, or our republic. So, no, don’t be concerned that your husband’s interest in salacious words or pictures means he has lost interest in you or is unhappy with your sex life.” ⁶ The advice is symptomatic of the Western world’s easy familiarity with dissociative sexual experiences, without recognizing how they devastate persons and relationships. Responding to crisis-of-the-moment cases, apart from a basic turn to the sources of sexual meaning, will be piece-meal at best, a dousing of immediate blazes. There is need to go deeper. There is a coinherence among the truths of faith, so that what concerns a basic doctrine of the faith will coinhere, or be in accord with every other truth of faith, and the truth of human becoming. Despite a current penchant for interpreting Jesus Christ in terms of gnostic writings, he lived and taught a life of total self-gift, not rejecting the goodness of genital expression, but transcending its possibilities of intimacy and communion in his own manner of self-gift. How many realize and internalize that, except for faithful commitment to a spouse in marriage, all other relationships and encounters are called to be both integrally celibate, yet vitally and integrally sexual?

      Youth in any generation have the need (and the conveners of this Conference affirm also the desire) to know their capacity to be love-giving and life-giving every day, in every circumstance, in ways that are appropriate. When their understanding of sexuality is twisted they are vulnerable to dehumanizing factors which bombard them. Unfortunately, it has become necessary to teach even young children to discern what constitutes dangerous touching, and to suggest ways of escaping from predators in a society where morbid sexual imagery foments savage behavior. This level of informative teaching, however, is not the solution for handing on the wisdom of the Church’s tradition. Rather, such instruction provides information while evoking shrewd wariness.

      After reading the Gospel account of Christ receiving children and blessing them, an older priest recently remarked sadly that priests are no longer able to receive children as Christ did. Suspicion and self-defense are now instilled at an early age. A few decades ago, in her novel Surfacing, Canadian author Margaret Atwood made a cogent observation. She had the protagonist reflect:

There are no dirty words anymore, they’ve been neutered, now they’re only parts of speech; but I recall the feeling, puzzled, baffled, when I found out some words were dirty, and the rest were clean. The bad ones in French are the religious ones, the worst ones in any language were what they were most afraid of and in English it was the body, that was even scarier than God. ⁷

      Something deeper is required, something that goes to the heart of receiving the truth about the meaning of body, of the depth longing for authentic interpenetration, and the capacity to live within one another. This has been brought to fullness in Jesus Christ. Human realization of sexuality comes to fullest expression in the Eucharist. Its truth was a “hard saying” when it was proposed for the first time, and remains so today. If sex has become casual and is routinely interpreted on a superficial level, there is need to see how this relates to the manner in which the Eucharist is often similarly interpreted on a superficial level. There is a correlation here, I think. A recent national poll indicated that many Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence. A significant way to hand on the wisdom of the Catholic faith regarding sexuality must coinherently hand on the truth regarding Eucharist. Both involve reverence for real presence or they are treated with shallow casualness. Sexuality is the possibility of true self-gift and genuine communion of persons: there is no greater realization of this than sacramental Self-Gift as food and drink. What better Common Ground in the Body of Christ than shared understanding of sexual reality and the Eucharist?

      The capacity of sexuality is an energy that permeates the whole person and requires worthy and healthful expression suited to its truth. Each year, youth from across the nation throng to the national capital to participate in the March for Life. After attending Mass and rallying on the evening prior to the March, many who have brought sleeping bags cheerfully spend an uncomfortable night on gym floors, or in the memorial room of the Basilica of the National Shrine. Their enthusiasm and desire to witness to the goodness of sexual responsibility is a vital indication of hope. It needs our sustenance.

Sister M. Timothy Prokes, FSE, PhD

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