IS THE POPULAR NOTION THAT THE CHURCH THINKS SEXUAL SIN IS ONE OF THE WORST ACCURATE?
Here is the traditional Catholic case for making sexual sin out to be one of the worst.
The blessed Apostle Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 6:18-20) that when a Christian has
carnal union with a prostitute he is guilty of uniting a part of Christ with a
harlot for we are all members of the body of Christ and are to be treated as if
we were literally parts of Christ. He says this of no other sin so sexual sin is
especially grave. Yet many Catholics want to hold that sins against
justice are worse than sexual sin and bemoan the “sex-obsessed Catholicism of
former days.”
When a man and woman unite in the marriage bed as husband and wife, it is the
body of Christ that unites. Any sin in this union is a grave sin.
In marriage, the husband and wife become one body, they are no longer two but
one. Our blessed Lord explicitly taught that (Mark 10:7-9). He said that God in
the beginning made us as male and female and for this reason a man shall be
joined to his wife and the two shall be one in marriage.
The joining refers to sex. Jesus unites a man and woman who have only
have had sex once in marriage and who don't even like one another. The two are
still one. We can point out that it is wrong to adduce that Jesus is saying that sex is a
part of God's plan and design and good. Sex may have been meant to be good but
since the fall it could be bad though we have to engage in it to produce babies.
Our Lord means more than the union of bodies in the marriage bed. He means that the
husband and wife are to be as one person for life. The Lord taught in the
scriptures that as it is unnatural for a man to hate his own flesh so he must
love his wife (Ephesians 5:28-31). It says the Church is the body of Christ
which is why he protects it so the husband should protect his wife as his own
flesh. This says that monogamous marriage is natural and that the husband owns
the flesh of his wife as if it were his own. Separation, divorce and adultery
and living in sin without being married are unnatural sins.
The apostles during the ecumenical council of Jerusalem had to pick four rules
out of the Jewish law for Gentile believers to obey as a minimum required in
those difficult times. One of the rules was to abstain from fornication. That
was the only moral rule in the four, the others were ritualistic. It shows how
important it is to abstain from the sin of fornication. Even stealing and
violence are better.
The reason marriage exists, according to God’s law, is that children may be
produced and nurtured. Clearly it is more important for the husband and wife to
be good at working together than for them to be in so-called love. Vatican II
teaches that love is the primary end of marriage even though nobody needs
marriage to love! A marriage in which the couple fail to recognise what the
primary end is, procreation, is not a marriage at all.
As St Augustine said, “And yet it pertains to the character of marriage . . . to
yield it to the partner lest by fornication the other sin damnably. . . . They
must not turn away from them the mercy of God . . . by changing the natural use
into that which is against nature, which is more damnable when it is done in the
case of husband or wife.” Marrying without intending to have children, or using
contraception in marriage is a most grave unnatural sin. It is worse then than
when it is when an unmarried man and woman use it.
“The Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defence of the integrity and
the purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which
surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union
from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine
ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of
matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately deprived of its
natural power to generate life is an offence against the law of God and of
nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave
sin.”
Casti Connubi, (Chaste Wedlock), Pius XI, 1930
This Encyclical condemned birth control. It never specifically condemned or
condoned the natural method. On the basis of the following lines many would
disagree: “Nor are these considered as acting against nature who in the married
state use their right in the proper manner, although on account of natural
reasons either of time or certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth”
Pope Pius XI Casti Connubii, The Pope however never said it was okay to
knowingly have sex during the safe period. He only said it was natural to have
sex if life couldn’t result because of the safe period or because the woman
couldn’t conceive. More importantly, he never said that though it was natural it
was acceptable to knowingly have sex under such circumstances.
It is argued that since Pope Pius XI only forbade whatever made the marriage act
unnaturally unable to create life that he didn’t condemn the natural method. But
what if couples were using a condom and putting a pin prick in it so that God
could create life if he wished? Such a method would ensure that conception
though possible wouldn’t be very likely. The pope would have condemned such so
by implication the natural method is wrong simply because it is an attempt to
prevent sex resulting in life. The pope didn’t understand fully what he
infallibly taught in the Encyclical and we conclude that natural family planning
is a grave sin.
If you turn sex into an act of pleasure and do something to stop it producing
new life, how can you forbid sex between males, between people and animals,
between sons and mothers? If sex is just recreation there is no way these
abominations can be rationally forbidden. You might say that incest is harmful
but many practitioners don’t think so and say that they have been in accepted
relationships that did damage and sometimes a lot of damage. The only way to
judge the rightness or wrongness of sexual acts is in the nature of the act and
not in how people feel abut it. The paedophile sees no wrong in molesting
children.
Reason bids us believe that all sex should be open to life. Artificial
contraception is wrong for it teaches that sex is for fun and that you don’t
need to make babies. Not all such methods are equally effective. Some forms of
contraception such as condoms just reduce the chance of the woman falling
pregnant. But they are still forbidden. The intention is to stop having babies
or at least make pregnancy very unlikely. How then can this be any different
from Natural Family Planning currently taught by many in the Conciliar Church? It claims
to be natural in using the safe period when conception cannot happen or is very
unlikely. What is wrong with contraception is the intention to have sex for
pleasure and not reproduction and this intention exists with this method. If you
didn’t intend that you wouldn’t be using the method. Natural Family Planning is
sinful. The Church says the pill though it doesn’t obstruct or alter the sex act
in any way from its natural form like condoms do is still sinful for it is
treating fertility the gift of God as if it was some kind of danger or sickness.
And this despite the fact that the pill isn't 100% effective. Natural Family
Planning does all that too. It teaches that fertility is to be avoided by using
the time when it is absent.
Using the safe period means that sex isn’t sinful when conception is not
intended. The sex is open to life but the life is not intended. Does it sound
right to claim that one wants to let God create life if he so wishes but you
don’t want him to? That is blasphemous. The Conciilar Church holds that
contraception is wrong for only God must plan families and then it allows
natural family planning! The doctrine forbidding contraception implies that you
should trust God to send a child if he wishes and trust him to do the right
thing. But if you trust him what you do you need the safe period for?
The safe period in what it seeks to achieve is no different to using a
perforated condom that allows God to get a sperm through if he wants to cause
conception and yet the Vatican II Church forbids it! Oh the blasphemous
hypocrisy!
Pius XII in 1950 permitted the use of the infertile period of the month, the
rhythm method, but this was only his advice to midwives. He said it was only
allowed under serious circumstances such as when the mother could die from
having another child. This cannot be taken as an official statement of doctrine
and the Pope may have sinned in giving this direction.
The Church never gave out any clear official statements allowing natural family
planning until Humanae Vitae in 1968 which unfortunately needs to be checked out
for loyalty to tradition for it came from a heretical pope, Paul VI. It like
Pius XII only allowed for natural family planning in severe circumstances.
When a woman is raped, is it right to destroy the attacker’s sperm or to prevent
ovulation so that conception will not result?
The Church forbids a man and woman consensually engaging in sex while using
contraception for it is an unnatural sin. But in rape the woman hasn’t
consented.
To this, we can say that if a married woman has sex with her husband and decides
it was a mistake and she should go and look for an annulment and she has
treatment to destroy the sperm this is still the sin of contraception.
Contraception is wrong because it is unnatural regardless of how much right we
think the woman has to prevent pregnancy. The Church forbids condoms even when
it is a woman protecting herself from AIDS.
If an unmarried girl has sex and she fears the birth of a child outside marriage
which a great evil, even then she is not permitted to attempt to have the sperm
destroyed or her ovulation postponed.
A woman can be taken advantage of in weakness without this being rape. In such
cases we still forbid attempts to prevent conception. That is why arguments such
as that she can have the sperm killed for it becomes unjust aggressors fail. If
a woman has sex and finds out that she was wrong to think one cannot get
pregnancy the first time the sperms are like unjust aggressors from that point
on but we cannot allow contraception.
If a woman is raped, the sperms are not the unjust aggressors. They are only
sperms. The rapist is the unjust aggressor. There is no logic in saying she can
defend herself against the sperms. They were seeds made by God to create babies
and God will use them for that should they be implanted in the woman by accident
or by rape or in marriage or by fornication. To do anything to sperm is
unnatural.
Conclusion: Every use of contraception in marriage or out is sinful.
Sacred scripture says that the marriage bed is honourable in all.
Sexuality is holy in itself for it is created by God. But however because we are
fallen creatures it is never holy when we do it. We corrupt it. This is the
teaching of St Augustine. We cannot bring it up to the level of holiness that
God requires. So all sexuality then is sinful even in marriage and when children
are planned.
The tradition of the Church has always stated that in marriage the place for the
man’s dishonourable part is in his wife’s vagina. The modern Church puts up
no resistance to the fact that oral sex or oral sodomy for the mouth is not a
sex organ is practiced in the vast majority of Catholic marriages. The Church
cannot expect anybody to believe its teaching on homosexuality when it permits
the same vice between husband and wife in marriage. It does not fight against
sodomy in marriage but against contraception. To use the wrong receptacle for
sex is even more evil than contraception for it is far more unnatural. The
Church knows it can have no credibility with contraceptors or homosexuals when
it allows natural family planning though it is as much trying to avoid
conception and as open to life as contraception is. The Church is encouraging
this sin of oral sodomy but in an underhand and manipulative way.
In Marriage the man is proclaimed to be the head of woman (1 Corinthians 11,
Genesis 3). This teaching has disappeared from the many parishes. So it is
undeniable that the marriages they perform are not marriages at all. Catholic men
who are getting married are not prepared by the Church to exercise lordship over
their wives and children and wives to be are not prepared to accept their
husband’s authority.
The only lawful grounds for annulling a marriage are
1 If the marriage has physically not being consummated
2 If it can be proved that the couple married under the threat of death
3 If it can be proved that one partner was insane at the time of the wedding
4 If it can be proved that one partner was already married
The doctrine that immaturity when marriage takes place is grounds for annulment
is heresy for though girls were married at 12 at the time of our Lord he still
said that if a woman divorces her husband she is committing adultery. The Most
Blessed Virgin was validly married though she was little more than a child and
God regarded her choice to have her son Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit as
valid.
We conclude from all this that sex is not about sex only or any
specific relationship. It has a wider application.
Sexual sin violates many principles and has bad ramifications which
is why it is so serious. It is a unique rebellion against God.
Many would throw God and heavenly happiness away over a few moments
of lust. Such is its power.
