A Response Paper
by Harvey Hall
Phallos by Eugene Monick
"As a child of about seven, in the early days of the psychosexual period which Freud called latency, I crawled into my parents' bed one summer morning. We had moved to our summer cottage on White Bear Lake, now a suburb of St. Paul but then two hours' journey by back roads from the city. Mother had left the bed to prepare breakfast..."
Read the full essay »
~
A Sane Sex View
by Dr. John J. Kennedy, Ph.D.
Contemporary Catholic Sexuality, What is Taught and What is Practiced by John E. Perito, M.D.
The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2003.
This very interesting book by a practicing Catholic psychiatrist treats a central concern of contemporary Catholics.
Over the past decade the Church in North America has been rocked by sex scandals involving clergy. Nowadays, the Church is trying to rally support for resisting the extension of definitions of traditional marriage (one man one woman exclusively) to include same-sex marriages in contrast to the Chretien Government's attempt to support the Ontario and B.C. Supreme Courts rulings in favor of extending the traditional marriage to homosexual couples.
Sex has, indeed, always been of central concern to the Church from its beginning down to our own day. It is not difficult to see why.
Society has been based on the family as a basic civilizing unit and so marriage has come to bear a significant role in socializing children, replacing those who have passed on and creating new more creative and vibrant societies.
Yet, human sexuality is also one side of our personalities which is not neatly "obedient" to either the dictates of reason, the will or of Church authorities. Indeed, anyone familiar with the history of the Catholic Church could be forgiven for observing that the Church's own norms have as often been violated by Popes, Cardinals and priests as by the laity.
In the past, this observation was often handled by the interpretation of Natural Law theorists that moral ideals are ideals and humans will naturally enough often fall short of them. But, human failings do not negate the validity of the ideals.
The problem with this interpretation is that it encourages both hypocrisy and a form of relativism. Do what I say, not what I do. If moral ideals are unrealistic and beyond attainment, then no matter how noble they may appear, of what real value are they as moral ideals? They place those who follow them in the position of Don Quixote, always questing after, but never attaining satisfaction, because the goal is impossible of attainment consistently to begin with. Such a position is indeed, Don Quixote's Impossible Dream.
Natural Law Theory
Today, many lay Catholics wonder about the Church's Natural Law theory and its realism for human sexual behaviour. John E. Perito appears to be one of them. A former seminarian, and a good Catholic, he is also a Medical Doctor/Psychiatrist of an Erikson/neo-Freudian type, with impressive work credentials as a therapist. He criticizes, in a most balanced fashion, the Church's teachings on sexuality from a person-centered point of view, as opposed to merely a review of acts (e.g. masturbation, fornication, artificial birth control, etc.).
In contrast to other recent books criticizing the Church teachings on human sexuality (e.g. Eugene Kennedy's), Perito is free of axes to grind or personal vendettas against particular formulators of Natural Law theory (e.g. St. Paul, St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas to mention just a few victims of liberal, feminist and other critics' spleen). He matter-of-factly shows over and over again how the Church's teaching about, for example, masturbation is contrary not merely to Freudian theory of psychosexual development but to ordinary common sense. Is masturbation the "serious and grave sin" the Church paints it to be? Clearly not as serious as aiding and abetting sexual predators of minors.
And Perito thinks that the church is doing a disservice to human sexuality by saying it is. Many others have come to similar conclusions but Perito, without psychobabble or arcane Freudian terminology, manages to emphasize that, for celibates too, sexuality is a central concern.
On the topic of homosexuality, the paradox of the Church's teaching is still more apparent. It is all right to be gay and remain in the Church. There have always been and still are many gays in the Church, lay and clerical. What the Church objects to is gays who are sexually active. But, why?
Natural Law points out how sexual activity between gays can never eventuate in procreation. A prime emphasis of the church's interpretation of Natural Law is that all sexual acts should be open to procreation. That is the goal and purpose of sexuality in the church's eyes, however peculiar that may sound to many. Moreover, that can only justly take place according to the Church within a marriage, so pre-marital sex is morally objectionable too, as is masturbation.
So, whether they realize it or not, all Catholics are ideally to remain celibate until after the marriage vows are officially signed, sealed and committed. But is the sole and only valid reason for all sexual activity procreation?
A person-centred view of sexuality
Perito questions both the validity and the reasonability of such an interpretation of Natural Law. A more person-centred view of human sexuality is explored by Perito. Telling gays that God loved them into existence and treasures them as people and simultaneously telling them that it is wrong to act on their act on their feelings to love sexually is inconsistent. To many it appears that either God made us as we are, with all that entails about our sexuality, because He loves us or God has done something rather strange, created natural impulses (for homosexuality is as natural in the animal world as it is notable in the human world) in order to frustrate them at every turn.
Convincing gays to never act on their sexuality because Natural Law Theory believes the only purpose of sexuality is procreative is comparable to telling gays to go play in traffic or to find somewhere to die.
Perito decries the inhumanity of defining human sexuality in terms of a set of temporal acts, which reason or will-power can allegedly reject or condemn.
He points out that Christ is much more person-centered in his approach to people as revealed in the Gospels. Jesus is not condemning, but open, loving and always ready to help the person to understand how she must grow to full emotional and spiritual maturity. Christ is an excellent example of a good therapist. Given the intimate bonds between our affects and our sexuality, it is hard for many to believe that Jesus would be as judgmental about masturbation, fornication, artificial birth control or homosexuality as the contemporary natural law theory interpretations suggest. But Perito does not condemn the Church nor dismiss the value of Natural Law theory. He simply tries to point that it needs to re-evaluate its thinking to retain future credibility.
I believe Perito has made a balanced, and constructive critique of the Church's teachings on human sexuality. Questioning the interpretation of natural law theory is a duty for all mature moral agents, lay and clerical, who are obliged to exercise their own consciences. Perito's book is a thoughtful and trenchant look at the Church's teachings on sexuality and it concludes with some ways contemporary Catholics can preserve their sanity at this trying time in the life of the Church.
John J. Kennedy Ph.D. is a psychotherapist at CPEB and a faculty member of the IPEB. His doctoral thesis on Freud's scientific method in the Philosophy of Science reflects his abiding interest in psychotherapy, spirituality, sexuality and the inter-relationship of character, religion and moral style. The history and philosophy of science remain as ever keen and absorbing interests.
