Thou Shalt Not --And Shall

While remaining doctrinally conservative in matters sexual, the Roman Catholic Church in recent years has on a practical level adopted a more liberal attitude toward the sexual nature of man. If they did not exactly condone such sexual conduct as premarital intercourse, masturbation and active homosexuality, many confessors, theologians and pastoral counselors took a sympathetic view of the personal problems so often caused by the church's teaching against all three. Others went so far as to question whether some of these sexual activities were morally wrong at all. Last week the Vatican called for a halt to this "new morality,"if not to pastoral compassion. In the most ringing naysaying pronouncement since Pope Paul VI's 1968 anti-birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, it condemned "the unbridled exaltation of sex" and called for a return to traditional Catholic doctrine on sexual morals.

The condemnation came in a 5,000-word statement issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under a "mandate" from Pope Paul. Called a "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics,"the statement took seven years to prepare and was reviewed and approved by Paul. It was not just a Vatican idea; instead, it was mostly a response to complaints from Roman Catholic bishops in many nations, particularly in the U.S., that the church was not providing sufficient guidelines for sexual behavior in the wake of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s. Relatively few bishops are theologians, and many have been confused and bothered by the support that progressive theologians have been giving to priests disposed to take a conciliatory attitude toward sex.

The decree that resulted from their concern is no wholesale syllabus of sexual depravities. Instead, it singles out those "erroneous opinions" that Rome considers are spreading and causing confusion in the ranks of the faithful. Three areas of sexuality that have caused particular difficulties for Catholics--as indeed for many other Christians--are given major treatment:

HOMOSEXUALITY. To no one's surprise, the Vatican is not about to endorse Gay Liberation. Quite the contrary, it considers that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of." The ban is total: to the view held by some moral theologians that sexual relations are permissible for irreversible homosexuals, the declaration replies with a blunt no. Homosexuals must be "treated with understanding" and are not always "personally responsible" for their condition but there can be no justification for homosexual acts, which oppose the "moral sense" of Christians, the teachings of the Bible and the "objective moral order."

PREMARITAL SEX. Some writers on morals justify sexual union before marriage, at least in cases where the couple intends to marry. Rome will not have that. Says the declaration: "Every genital act must be within the framework of marriage." The decree reasons that "love must find its safeguard in the stability of marriage" in order to "protect human dignity" and give children the ordered environment they need. This requires nothing short of a marriage contract that is sanctified by the church and "guaranteed by society."

MASTURBATION. Autoerotism may be undergoing re-examination among Catholic scholars as a normal phenomenon of sexual development, but the Vatican rejects any such idea. Again echoing language that it uses throughout, the declaration reaffirms that masturbation "is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act." It lacks the sexual relationship called for by the moral order, one that realizes, in the words of Vatican Council II, "the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love."

In dealing with sexual acts, the declaration never swerves from traditional natural-law theory, which holds that "immutable laws" written by God are part of human nature. The church has always transmitted these timeless principles, the declaration says, "however much the opinions and morals of the world may have been opposed to them."

The problem today, however, is not only opposition from "the world" but from within the church itself. It will be surprising if the new restatement of sexual rights and wrongs is any more popular --or observed--than Humanae Vitae.

qed qed qed

While the Vatican was anchoring age-old religious views on sex, those who make a religion out of non-religion were decreeing the opposite in the name of freedom. In the current Humanist, a bimonthly magazine published for the American Humanist Association and the Ethical Culture movement, 34 sexologists have unveiled their "New Bill of Sexual Rights and Responsibilities."

The humanists celebrate "responsible" freedom after centuries of "bondage to church or state." Marriage "where viable" is "a cherished human relationship," but "other sexual relationships also are significant." The 34 signers predict a growing acceptance of premarital, homosexual and bisexual relations.

Though prostitution, sadomasochism and fetishism are gently tut-tutted as "limiting," the humanists state that if they are to be discouraged, it should be through education, not laws. Children's genital explorations are considered "learning experiences" that help to integrate a healthy sexuality into the personality. Masturbation is "fully accepted" as "viable mode of satisfaction for many individuals, young and old."

The humanists are unflaggingly optimistic. "We human beings are embarking on a wondrous adventure," they announce. "For the first time we realize that we own our own bodies."So long as "responsibility and mutuality" are respected, "we need to adopt the doctrine that actualizing pleasures are among the highest moral goods." Which is not quite what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has in mind.

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