Transcript Slide 1
SEX CITY AND THE EPISODE 1: Sexual Ethics and a truly human civilisation Produced and Directed by: John & Kerry Kleinsman SEX and the City of God • Marriages are not what Catholic saints are made of! • Christianity has been susceptible to a profound suspicion of the body • The Catholic Tradition has recently moved towards a more positive and integrated appreciation of married love and spirituality SEX and the City of God • The energy generated by wholesome mindful sex is a powerful and fecund physical and spiritual force • a couple’s sexual relationship has profoundly deep spiritual, social, economic, political and even ecological ramifications Catholic Teaching: “Lost in Translation”? Contemporary Catholic approaches: 1. unwittingly reinforce the idea that sexual morality is an individual / couple issue 2. foster a lingering distrust of the body? 3. fail to help people establish the links with their real life situation SEX and the City of God • The Magisterium does not have the same power to influence people’s moral choices as it once did • We need to give a greater voice to married couples and single lay Catholics • If Catholic sexual ethics can be perceived as being grounded in the experience of Catholic couples then it might once again achieve some traction The Secular Narrative on SEX • Those who subscribe to the popular secular narrative re sexuality regard it as ‘no big deal’, having only minor moral implications and no religious ones • The search for a true integration of “body” and “soul” offers an important point of connection between the secular and Catholic narratives re sexuality SEX and the City of God • the physical self-giving would be a lie if the partners to the act are not totally committed to each other • Catholic teaching rejects extra-marital and pre-marital intercourse • Catholic teaching has managed to place a higher premium on the embodied experience of sensual gratification by speaking of the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive and the procreative 1995 National Survey of Family Growth • 96% of all Catholic women have used contraception at some point • 75% of Catholic women are regularly using contraception • Catholic use of NFP is the same as for the general population • Catholic infertile couples are choosing IVF in the same proportion as others SEX and the City of God • Catholic lay people obviously feel free to depart from Church teachings on issues related to sexuality. • By and large this departure involves a certain collusion that can only be described as a Catholic version of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” game. • How are we to make sense of this? How adequate are our descriptions? Pre-marital Sex “It is quite possible that all unmarried and premarried cohabitators are simply morally wrong … but it is also possible that when such a mis-match occurs between traditional, official teaching of the churches and the convictions and practices of many of their members, there is a deficiency in that teaching which requires the teaching to be reexamined. Adrian Thatcher, 2002, p.51 Pre-marital Sex • Are we asking the right question? • Sex rightly belongs in a permanent and committed relationship … but … • “When does a marriage begin?” • History teaches us that Christian couples whom we would judge to be living promiscuously would have been considered as being validly married in other times! Contraception • An “intrinsic evil” which renders a marriage “not capable of being ordered to God (Catechism of the Catholic Church n.2370) • The sacramental nature of marriage can only be adequately comprehended when the sexual act is seen as a holy act. Anything incapable of being ‘ordered to God’ cannot, be sacramental! • The central act in the sacrament requires an evaluation in positive terms; not just a sense of what wrong the couples are avoiding but what good they are achieving Sex and the City of God • Sex has been intertwined at every point with issues of gender and the gender perspective of Catholicism has been very patriarchal • The language of universal moral norms often ignores the experiences of the marginalised Sex and the City of God “Try being promiscuous! It’s not easy! It takes a lot of energy to keep sexuality on just the simplest level of lust and pleasure. You must hit and run! … You want it to be better. It gets to the point where pleasure is not enough. You want more than gratification. Then you begin to understand that sex is not just for pleasure … that it is there to bond people in that higher dimension. It’s of the nature of sexuality to bond you to your lover.” Dick Westley Changes in Catholic Culture • a greater willingness to celebrate positively marriage and sexuality • an attitude of greater humility that fosters a desire for honest exploration • a willingness to teach from a position of weakness and solidarity • a genuine desire for honest dialogue with married couples who need to be trusted as having the best interests of their own sacrament at heart.