As someone who has long labored in the service of the Catholic Church’s teachings on fraught sexual expression topics, I think I understand Pope Leo XIV’s recent remarks on Catholic sexual morality in response to a reporter’s question about a German bishop’s proposed same-sex couple blessings. On a recent in-flight press conference, the pope said:
We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue.1
I understand because the world often reduces Catholicism to its sexual morality teachings, with no understanding of their origins or their relationship to everything else in Catholic life. And outside of these contexts, onlookers understandably find them incomprehensible or even harmful. They further focus on “the rules about sex” to the exclusion of everything else the faith contains, whether about justice, equality, freedom, or the very nature of Christian love. It’s important to push back on this.
But proposing a “ranking” of social teachings—remembering that all sexual expression teachings are also social teachings—doesn’t fix the problem. Because there is not a sliver of daylight between our teachings on sexual relations and those about other social relations, that is, relations with persons outside the family. All emerge from the Great Commandment to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, and all concern and conduce to justice, equality, and freedom. It is simply the case that the former teachings concern those persons strewn on one’s path Good Samaritan-parable-style in romantic and familial relations, while the latter concern those persons outside the family we encounter on the road of life.
The Irish bishops’ conference was spot on in their document Love is for Life when they characterized Christian sexual expression norms as an application of the Good Samaritan principle to our romantic interests and to our family.3 As was Pope Benedict XVI when in Deus Caritas Est, he characterized human love in familial and extra-familial contexts as “a single reality” including “love between man and woman, between family members, and love of neighbors outside the family.”1 Both Catholics and non-Catholics need to grasp these truths, or run the risk of dismissing our sexual expression teachings as mere “moralism”—man-made rules—and our social justice principles as mere politics or ideology.
In what follows, I will consider the necessary interplay between Catholic sexual morality and our social teachings on equality, freedom, and justice in order to overcome these risks. I will first show how our social teachings concerning sexual and family relations grew out of the same religious commitments that grounded our teachings about extra-familial relations. Then I will point to the emergence of a broad and robust empirical literature confirming what the Church teaches—that Catholic teachings and practices concerning sex and family life are most likely to lead to justice, freedom, and equality, especially for the most vulnerable members of society. And finally, I will offer a comment about the “architectural” significance of the Church’s sex and family teachings, closely tied as they are to the identity of God, how He loves us, and how we are to love him and one another.
From its beginnings, Christianity was marked both by its “conspicuous chastity”4 and its conspicuous charity to those outside the family, because Christians understood both spheres of human relations to be subject to the Great Commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as one’s self. Through the life and words of Jesus, and the words of his Apostles, Christians came to understand love to be characterized at the very least by: radical self-emptying for the good of the other, most exemplified in Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice; respect for the sacredness of every other human person including his or her body, as indicated by Jesus’ taking on a human body, his care especially for suffering bodies, and St. Paul’s admonition that our bodies are “members of Christ” (1 Thessalonians 4:3); and attentiveness to the natural order God had ordained, as described by St. Paul in that part of his letter to the Romans rejecting same-sex relations, in part because of their divergence from this order: “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Romans 1:20).
In the sexual morality sphere, according to noted historians Kyle Harper and Rodney Stark,5 this led Christians to embrace a set of norms drastically distinct from those prevailing in their Roman environment. Roman honor-shame codes proposed different rules depending upon one’s sex and social status, that is, upon whether one was a man versus a woman, or a master versus a slave. Christian norms respecting romantic and familial relations, by contrast, applied equally to everyone because they emerged from an understanding of human beings’ obligation to love as God loves: faithfully, sacrificially, fruitfully, and in order to capacitate each person to be all that God calls and gifts them to be, not hindering or undermining this.
Thus, for Christians, there would be no killing of the unborn, no infanticide of ill or female newborns, no divorce, no adultery, no polygamy, and no same sex-relations—even if you were a man and a master. Interestingly, historians report that women and slaves were particularly grateful for these Christian innovations, given that these groups regularly suffered disproportionately from the loss of freedom, equality, and justice these practices entailed. In the marvelous words of classics’ scholar Sarah Ruden in her book Paul Among the People, Christianity offered a “new way of thinking that must have been quite exciting, a hope for something beyond exploitation, materialism, and violence – a plan not for competing in purity and the denial of life, but for the sharing of life in full. It offered a chance not to be treated as a thing.”6
This same understanding of love within the family setting grounded Christians’ treatment of persons outside the family setting, too. Whether in their “sell[ing] their property and possessions and divid[ing] them among all according to each one’s need” (Acts 2:45), or their taking up a collection to assist the suffering denizens of Jerusalem (see 1 Corinthians 16:1–4; Romans 15:25–31). Whether Christians were pioneering charitable efforts to buy burial land for the poor or to set up free shelters, food distribution, and medical treatment for the neediest in places such as St. Basil’s “Basilead.” In both spheres, Christian love sought to be radically for the other, and attentive to created nature and the sacred human body. In the words of eminent Christian historian Peter Brown, because of their understanding of Christ’s radical call and example, early Christians felt a
need to place in society itself a series of concrete, unmistakable – even shocking – “markers” that served to remind believers and outsiders of the unimaginably wide horizons opened up to humanity by the Christian message…. Indeed, the preachers, writers, and organizers who advocated most vehemently the care of the poor were often the same persons who spoke out most passionately in favor of virginity and celibacy. These palpable markers brought the “incommensurable” into society.7
Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has written similarly, saying that while early Christians’ code of conduct in every sphere might seem “hard and legalistic” to onlookers, it should not surprise us, given their conviction that Jesus must be the “norm” in every single relationship, whether inside or outside the family. And that this norm is radically loving beyond what human beings might imagine on their own.8
Just as the more vulnerable members of the Roman world benefited disproportionately from early Christian teachings on sex and marriage, more vulnerable members of today’s society would benefit disproportionately—in the realms of freedom, justice, and equality—were they treated with the respect such teachings require. For it is children and the poor in the United States, including racial and ethnic minority groups, who suffer the most from uncommitted sexual encounters, cohabitation, nonmarital pregnancies, father-absence, abortion, divorce, and same-sex relations. The poor, as well as black and Hispanic Americans, are less likely to marry, more likely to cohabit, more likely to have serial uncommitted sexual relationships, more likely to experience nonmarital pregnancies, more likely to grow up without a father, more likely to have abortions, and more likely to divorce.9
Children, too, also disproportionately suffer the consequences of adults’ sexual and familial choices. Obviously, every abortion denies a child equality, freedom, and justice when it denies him or her life itself. Children of divorce, those living in cohabiting households, and children reared in single-parent households also, on average, suffer reduced educational, emotional, financial, and familial outcomes as adults. In particular, children living with a mother’s new cohabiting male partner are drastically more likely to be abused or killed.10 And children reared in same-sex households suffer in every single case the absence of their natural mother or father, or both, as well as diminished outcomes, on average, across a host of emotional, educational, and relational categories.11
In other words, Catholic sexual morality is a powerful force for achieving greater equality among human beings of every race, socioeconomic class, age, and sex and for achieving justice and freedom for some of the most vulnerable members of society. That it does this one adult or one couple or one child at a time does not make it less important than social justice practiced in relations with those many “neighbors” outside the family. For every single person is born into a family. Every person is deeply affected by what happens while growing up. It makes a great deal of difference not only to their happiness, but also to their achieving justice, freedom, and equality, whether they are aborted, adopted, or born, whether their parents are married, whether the marriage is faithful and permanent, whether they themselves experience stable marriage or rather a series of temporary sexual relations or cohabitations, and whether they cohabit, abort a child, or divorce.
This makes all the sense in the world considering Jesus’ admonition regarding “who is our neighbor” in the course of explaining the Good Samaritan parable. He says simply that it is the person strewn on our path of life in need of our help. For virtually all of us, those first neighbors we will encounter strewn on our path of life, and whom we will affect most deeply and indelibly, are family members. Of course, we each have an obligation to those in need outside our family whom we encounter on our path of life. Some of us will even take up such obligations as our primary work. But it is all too easy for many to forget that justice and love are required in that first society, of which every one of us is a member, and in which it can be hard to be loving every day on the way to the kitchen and to the bathroom.
A final observation concerning the importance of Catholic sexual morality in the context of our faith as a whole. It is not too much to claim that this area of teaching is “architectural to our faith” because one’s treatment of a romantic partner, a spouse, is such an important path to understanding the identity of God, how he loves us, and how we are to love him and one another.
This is because God himself, in the Old Testament and the New, refers to himself as bridegroom to our bride, inviting us to understand his identity in part by reference to our understanding of romantic and married love. The Old Testament refers to Israel’s rejection of God in favor of other gods from time to time as a form of adultery (see the Book of Hosea; Ezekiel 16; Jeremiah 2-3; Isaiah 54 and 62). And in his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes that marriage provides a glimpse of God’s relationship with his people (see Ephesians 5:25–32).
Furthermore, assuming that we are, as Genesis claims, made in God’s “image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26), then it is very important for understanding God to consider that he fashioned us as male and female, capacitated for complementary relations, which he also made procreative. That spouses long for, and promise one another, a permanent, faithful, until-death-do-us-part relationship. These experiences of the meaning and the dynamics of love provide us a glimpse of God’s identity as a never ending, Trinitarian community of love. No other relationship offers similar elements.
Clearly, Catholic social teaching encompasses much more than sexual and familial morality. Clearly, its vast body of teachings on relations with persons outside the family—whether respecting labor, the economy, or government—are crucially important to living the Catholic life and remaining in unity with the Church. But both sets of teachings are essential to promoting and protecting what Catholics understand as justice, freedom, and equality.
Endnotes:
1Pope Leo XIV, Press Conference on the Malabo-Rome Flight, April 23, 2026.
2See Irish Bishops’ Pastoral, Love is for Life, 1985.
3Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005, 2.
4Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013), 100.
5See Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1997), 95–107; Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin, 1, 3, 5, 7, 85, 100, 132–33.
6Sarah Ruden, Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (New York: Image Books, 2010), 11, 18.
7Peter Brown, “From Patriae Amator to Amator Pauperum and Back Again: Social Imagination and Social Change in The West Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Ca. 300–600,” in Cultures in Motion, ed. Daniel T. Rogers, Bhavani Raman, and Helmut Reimitz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 93–94.
8Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Nine Propositions on Christian Ethics,” in Schürmann, Ratzinger, and Balthasar, Principles of Christian Morality (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 75–104, 81, 86.
9See Helen M. Alvaré, Putting Children’s Interests First In U.S. Family Law and Policy: With Power Comes Responsibility (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2017), Chapter 3; and Helen M. Alvaré, Religious Freedom After the Sexual Revolution (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2022), Chapter 7.
10See Alvaré, Putting Children’s Interests First In U.S. Family Law and Policy: With Power Comes Responsibility, Chapter 3.
11See Mark Regnerus, “Understanding How the Social Scientific Study of Same-Sex Parenting Works,” Roczniki Nauk Społecznych, Poland (English title: Annals of Social Science) 48, no. 3 (2020): 43–60, 46; Catherine Pakaluk and Joseph Price, “Are Mothers and Fathers Interchangeable Caregivers?” Marriage & Family Review 56, no. 8 (2020): 784–793; Mark Regnerus, “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study,” Social Science Research41, no. 4 (2012): 752–70; Corinne Reczek et al., “Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter?” Demography 53, no. 5 (2016): 1605–30; and Paul Sullins, New Vindication for the Regnerus Same-Sex Parenting Study, Public Discourse, July 13, 2025.
(Editor’s note: This essay was posted originally on the “What We Need Now” site and is published here with kind permission.)
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“We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue”.
I quite frankly don’t get this distinction and who is this we that harbors this notion?
Sex is inseparable from justice. Sex is the most powerful act individual human beings can engage in, because of it’s ability to bind and create. We are largely stupid “hairless bipeds”, but God Almighty still extends to us the ability to cooperate in the continuation of our kind using our own discernment.
It is because of the binding and creative power that any capable human can exercise that it must be a primary focus. Very few people have the ability to create war, almost all can cooperate in the creation of a binding union and new life.
Consider the woman who surrenders her virtue to a man who is only interested in her until the next morning when she believes otherwise , or the man whom is enticed into fathering a child with a woman who only values him for his genes, money or status but he believes otherwise.
Every day people use sex as an instrument of injustice, and probably always have. At least in the past, the idea of marriage as a life-long, exclusive covenant of mutual affection and commitment was extolled as the ideal. Today popular media knows nothing but disposable, transient intimacy-where procreation is something to be avoided, endured and limited and when our impediments fail-the children that result are summarily executed by the millions for the sole crime of not having chosen their parents carefully.
People routinely treat each other as instruments of personal gratification as attested to by popular terminology such as “one-nighter”, “hook-up” and “friends with benefits” and we are awash in the explicit and aggressive use of others in prostitution, pornography, rape and trafficking. All of it is unjust.
Divorce is commonplace and the only people bettered by it are members of the Bar Association. I know many divorced people, and while divorce ends their “entanglement” legally, they are never quite free of each other. Even without marriage, “carnal knowledge” stays with a person, attenuating their ability to commit fully when/if they actually pursue the ideal. We have become numb to the term “baggage”.
The cost to humanity incalculable and injustice to a sexual “partner” is direct and personal, not to an amorphous group, but to an individual human being.
Why not simply follow Holy Scripture? Holy Scripture is direct and clear. No professorial or synodal language. It covers a good deal of sinful behavior, though it does not mention “social justice”, “equality,” etc. It does not consider these matters to be quantum physics or a topic for a synod. Nor do the Fathers of the church.
Romans 1:26-27
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men.
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The excellent site Catholic Answers has posted numerous examples of the early Christian thinkers on the subject of homosexual relations, in answer to the modern Catholic Church claim that “loving” homosexual relations, and not just “lustful” relations are OK and can be blessed by priests. Here are a few, which today’s popes and cardinals and bishops and priests act against and probably would label as “hate speech”: https://www.catholic.com/tract/early-teachings-on-homosexuality
SAINT EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA
“[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it’ [Lev. 18:24–25]” (Proof of the Gospel 4:10 [A.D. 319]).
SAINT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
“All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the mystery of the mother of the gods . . . condemning him as having become effeminate among the Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the Scythians” (Exhortation to the Greeks 2 [A.D. 190]).
SAINT BASI THE GREAT
“He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the same time as adulterers” (Letters 217:62 [A.D. 367]).
SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
“[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women; others curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not marvel that [lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these things are not plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts and hell are the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance and amendment” (Homilies on Matthew 3:3 [A.D. 391]).
“All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26–27] . . . were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored than the body in diseases” (Homilies on Romans 4 [A.D. 391]).
“[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men” (ibid.).
SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
“[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way” (Confessions 3:8:15 [A.D. 400]).
TERTULLIAN
“[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities” (Modesty 4 [A.D. 220]).
SAINT JUSTIN MARTYR (the first recognized philosopher of the Christian era)
“[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. . . . And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods” (First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).
THE DIDACHE
“You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born” (Didache 2:2 [A.D. 70]
Well researched & cited, dear Oscar. Thank you!
Catholics who’ve any knowledge of The Old & The New Testaments and/or who’ve taken the trouble to read the wise words of our Catholic saints know that fornication, adultery, homosexuality, & all other types of sexual promiscuity are spiritually deadly.
Not only that. The Holy Spirit of GOD within every true Catholic is a lighthouse warning of the treacherous shoals, rocks, & reefs that must be avoided on our hazadous journey to the eternity of safety in Christ.
Galatians 5:16 – “Guided by The Holy Spirit you’ll be in no danger.”
1 Thessalonians 5:19 – “Never try to suppress The Holy Spirit.”
In this season of Pentecost how sad it is that so many Catholic hierarchs are sidelining The Holy Spirit, eager to be in thrall to the spirit of this world, ignorant of his plans to shipwreck every Catholic soul.
Those with ears clearly hear the Claxon Horns sounding the alarm.
Yep. Thank God that His Spirit lives.
Perfectly stated.
The Pontiff Leo does not have the familiar voice of The Good Shepherd.
You may appreciate a look at her CV. https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/faculty/cv/alvare.pdf
“They further focus on “the rules about sex” to the exclusion of everything else the faith contains, whether about justice, equality, freedom, or the very nature of Christian love. It’s important to push back on this.”
To deny the Sanctity and Dignity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is to deny God’s Will that we respect God’s Desire that we respect The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life from the moment of conception. Only those who deny the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life from the moment of conception would claim that justice, equality, freedom, or the very nature of Christian Love does not depend on respect for the Sanctity and Dignity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and want to push back on “this”.
Our sexuality – our genitality, in fact, – is God’s gift to Man. Through that gift, God wills that we share with Him His most sacred act of creating. There is a moral component to this act of co-creation in that God has ordered creation according to a certain fashion. To depart from God’s specified order is immoral. So, no matter what Leo says, I would still place our sexuality as very high in the order of God’s Divine Will. One of God’s first commands was “Be fruitful and multiply.” God meant what He said.
God’s first commandment was a prohibition on eating from the tree of knowledge. He didn’t say we should multiply until He kicked us out of the garden for disobedience. One could rightly conclude therefore that procreation and sex are not gifts but curses of our fallen state.
Someone needs to go read her Bible:
From Genesis 1
Verse 26: “Let us make Man in Our image…Let him have dominion over the fish…the birds…cattle…
Verse 27: “So God created Mankind in His own image…male and female He created them.
Verse 28: Then God blessed them; and God said to them. “BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY (emphasis added); fill the earth and subdue it…
Verse 31: Then God saw everything He had made, and indeed, it was very good. So evening and morning were the sixth day.
.
The bit about the serpent and the tree of life doesn’t happen until Chapter 3
I have read the Bible, thanks! The command to be fruitful refers to productivity not procreation. God clearly didn’t need Adam nor Eve to create life for Him.
Yeah, sure. Explain the words “multiply” and “fill the earth.”
.
You know, I can sympathize with some of what you say: sexual relations aren’t for everyone. That’s fair I think. Your theology about being “fruitful” though is so far out of Left field, it is breathtaking.
Suzanne: Think as you will. Even though you’re wrong.
If the Scarecrow only had a brain, he’d be alive.
You’re wrong, miss suzy. I recommend you read more scripture before you presume to speak here to spread misinformation and inanity. Procreation is definitely not a curse.
On another site that no longer accepts comments, there used to be a poster that claimed to be a priest (almost a caricature of the hippy-dippy left-winger who cared more about being able to offer social activism soliloquys subsidized by a a priest’s salary/pension rather than the the salvation of souls).
He claimed to be distressed in a “deep red” state and left enough bread crumbs in his posts that I was pretty sure I found him in a “Big Sky” diocese out West, because he posted on a big city newspaper under the same handle.
Among the many causes he championed was contraception, claiming that its absence oppressed his mother who was forced to bear a large brood. We were supposed to accept his word on this, but maybe he generalized his mother’s regret in him. Of course, he never could get around to answering which of his siblings he would zap out of existence if he could get the counterfactual.
I always assumed he wanted to be an only child because he wanted to be the exclusive heir of whatever earthy goods his parents left. Having lost two siblings, one before birth and another after, I always found his desire to annihilate part of his family reprehensible.
There’s a couple other undocumented immigrants from that site here, perhaps they remember his handle.
Guess it depends upon your lived experience. Procreation is a curse for many as is sexual relations. Try not to be narrow minded.
Suzanne: Spoken like a true Manichean!
Project much?
Procreation is only necessary because sin and death entered the world through our disobedience.
Reading the Bible with understanding is key.
“One could rightly conclude therefore that procreation and sex are not gifts but curses of our fallen state.”
That’s right up there with that hate speech of Catharine MacKinnon.
Hate speech isn’t just speech you don’t like.
It’s not about whether or not I “like” it.
I evaluate statements by evidence, not emotion.
It’s an interesting take.
Look at all the human misery created by misguided sexuality…
The world would be a better place without it?
Pope Benedict xvi suggested that we become co-creators, when sexuality is well ordered within God’s Law.
We should recall that God’s law is enshrined in the 10 commandments, and that sexuality is addressed. Are the ten commandments not an effort from God to encourage us to redress our fallen nature and enable us to turn our faces towards Himself like the angels?
“One could rightly conclude therefore that procreation and sex are not gifts but curses of our fallen state.”
It’s not far off the mark… But procreation and sex Well Ordered within God’s law Can become redemptive.
Cracked, you have an understated teaching gift. I am blessed PTL.
Sometimes I get dyslexic about the order of things too, Miss Susanne.
Thanks for the thoughtful article; I heartily agree that Catholic social teaching and sexual moral teaching constitute a cohesive whole, as one would expect for the Deposit of Faith given us by Jesus Christ. I fear though, that, given the context of Pope Leo’s response, specifically leaving Fiducia Supplicans in place, his comments may just represent a tactical rehash of Cardinal Bernardin’s “seamless garment” argument, attempting to relativize into obscurity a teaching he wanted minimized.
Agreed. It is very surprising, and dismaying, that the holy father went to the seamless garment aspect when he could have said that the Church’s sexual teaching is the foundation of every other teaching. Without it, there is no justice, no freedom and no peace.
In using the words “much greater, more important“, he belies what he truly thinks and that we should stop pestering him about the Church’s teachings on sex.
Rosie you’re right on!
Amen!
The ghost of Bergoglian Papal hypocrisy haunting our present Pope.
Oh for the days of saintly JPII and BXVI & their inspired Catechism.
Not so surprising, I think.
The estimates of homosexuality in among the clergy are quite high. Although homosexuality in the priesthood with the new seminarians/priests is supposedly declining, some orders (one article I saw claimed 50% for the Jesuits) and some locations (Vatican north or 60%, although the US as a whole as low as 30%) have a large population of homosexuals.
This is likely why they don’t/won’t speak out forcefully about certain types of sins.
Many thanks, dear MrsHess, for the useful data.
What a catastrophic position our lovely Church is in: when we’ve come to think that 30% of our clergy known to be homosexual is not so bad!
That gross immorality grieves & quenches The Holy Spirit of GOD, who will not remain in such a people, no matter their sacramental duties.
No Holy Spirit, Saint Paul instructs, equals no Christ (Romans 8:9); they have rejected Christianity & are incapable of leading people in Christ’s ways.
It is a hellish thing to be approached by a priest wanting sex.
Agree.
In the voice of the Pontiff Leo, I do not hear the voice of The Good Shepherd.
That sounds like a you problem, Chris.
No, a “you” problem is
“One could rightly conclude therefore that procreation and sex are not gifts but curses of our fallen state.”
A you problem is not bible exegesis but rather the inability to examine your own perspective or hear that of others. Words have meaning.
Thank you. Happy Pentecost to all!
“Those who live according to the flesh are intent on the things of the flesh, those who live according to the spirit, on those of the spirit. The tendency of the flesh is toward death but that of the spirit toward life and peace. The flesh in its tendency is at enmity with God; it is not subject to God’s law. Indeed, it cannot be; those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh; you are in the spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. If Christ is in you the body is dead because of sin, while the spirit lives because of justice. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will bring your mortal bodies to life also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.
We are debtors, then, my brothers—but not to the flesh, so that we should live according to the flesh. If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the evil deeds of the body, you will live.
All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. You did not receive a spirit of slavery leading you back into fear, but a spirit of adoption through which we cry out, “Abba!” (that is, “Father”). The Spirit himself gives witness with our spirit that we are children of God. But if we are children, we are heirs as well: heirs of God, heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so as to be glorified with him.
I consider the sufferings of the present to be as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed in us. Indeed, the whole created world eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God. Creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but by him who once subjected it; yet not without hope, because the world itself will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. Yes, we know that all creation groans and is in agony even until now. Not only that, but we ourselves, although we have the Spirit as first fruits, groan inwardly while we await the redemption of our bodies. In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees? And hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance.
The Spirit too helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in speech. He who searches hearts knows what the Spirit means, for the Spirit intercedes for the saints as God himself wills.”
(Romans 8:5-27)
The “neighbor” in the parable of the Good Samaritan is the Samaritan, not the guy in the ditch. Neighbor means those who aid us or who accompany us. Brother means fellow Christian, not others-in-general. Charity towards the members of the household of faith (even when they mistreat us) is mandatory; charity beyond that is optional. We are not required to meet the needs of every person on the planet. Much of “Catholic Social Teaching” is based on a misunderstanding of what the church’s mission in the world is. It is not to make the world a better place. It is to get people out of the world and into the church: Go, therefore, and make disciples from all nations, baptizing them (the disciples you’ve made), and teaching them (the disciples you’ve made and baptized) to observe all that I have commanded you.
Yes.
Yes & Amen!
You are deeply incorrect on your understanding of the term neighbor and our duty towards that person. The Samaritan is the representative of the foreigner you most hate. If they are better than your “brothers” you should feel shame and fear of the Lord.
G. Poulin that’s wrong. According to what you say there the Good Samaritan had merely an option to help the victim at the roadside -contradicting the intended meaning in the parable. Also wrong in the sense that you would make it that duty in charity, was (in the story) to be restricted between/among Jews. Wrong in the further sense that the parable is about building up neighbours not finger-pointing “who is the neighbour required and/or free to act or not act”. Again, yours would allow a whole discourse about who is not neighbour.
The Lord is describing the action of grace on the receiver and the banishing of grace by those who were supposed to be predisposed to it.
Wrong on so many counts. Sorry big guy. Bear in mind that according to Scripture it is infallible that you can NOT catch ALL of the people at once, at any time.
You have to say a prayer to God about what is running in you that reduced the Scripture to what you said there and that you tripped up 2 other people.
I’m not sure charity towards others being “optional ” was taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan .
I think the lesson of the parable is just the opposite.
The parable of the Good Samaritan seems intended to show a couple things:
1) Goodness may be found in those we least expect, and God loves every man and woman. All men (and women) have been made in His image and likeness. Because every man is a sinner, every man blurs that image to a greater or lesser extent.
2) Closely related is the idea that the Good Samaritan is Christ, coming to save and heal ALL.
Also germane is who are our brothers? Benedict XVI’s analysis in “The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood” (Ignatius Press) focuses on the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew (25:31-46). Jesus says, ” Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Benedict concludes that we ‘owe’ more to those closer to us in the Eucharist. Benedict goes so far as to suggest that our Protestant ‘brethren’ may be more appropriately termed our ‘sisters’ in faith as they are farther removed from our Eucharist.
Early Christians shared everything in common, but they certainly did not give alms to the shrines of pagan gods! Jesus also defined his mother and his brothers as those who do the will of God. (Mark 3:35, Matthew 12:50, Luke 8:21)
We can “love” others by praying for them, counseling them, and admonishing (the sinners among) them. We are not commanded to give of our material gifts or our time. There are many different ways to show love. Sex is only one form and is ordained by God to be expressed in specific and well-ordered, loving ways.
We are commanded to give our material gifts as good stewards including our time.
1 Peter 4:10: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”Romans 12:6: “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith…”1 Corinthians 12:7: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”2. Material Gifts & GenerosityLuke 3:11: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”Hebrews 13:16: “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”Acts 20:35: “…In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”
Peter speaks of “whatever gift” you have received.” Neither Peter nor God commands that we give material gifts. Spiritual gifts differ from material gifts. One type is seen and one is unseen.
Paul speaks of “different gifts” in his letter to the Romans. He specifically mentions “prophesying.” Some may see material in the word ‘prophesying’ but those who understand the meaning of words do not.
Let us turn to the primordial authoritative God-given command to mankind: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Procreation, if you have the grace to do it, understands and honors God’s Word. God blesses men and women who follow his will by uniting in marriage and procreating. It is a magnificent blessing to bear and raise children. Look at all that the birth of Jesus, through Mary, brought to the world. Parenthood leads parents to learn the brilliant prism of LOVE’s many splendors. Parenthood brings many opportunities to learn the meaning of sacrifice. SHARING OF GIFTS, THE MOST IMPORTANT OF WHICH ARE NOT MATERIAL follows with parenthood. God shares with parents the giving of gifts of faith, hope, and love when dad and mom present their offspring for Baptism.
Have you been baptized, susanne?
Now that I’ve given you a share of my gifts, I’ll leave you to consider the gift of gratitude which one may give at any time and no cost. May the Holy Spirit inspire you. One final note: The person who gives in Christ gets more than the one who receives.
The Good Samaritan was wise enough to avoid taking on more charity work than he was able to handle. He didn’t impose a tax on other people to fund his charity. The modern social justice advocates are more than willing to involuntarily impose the doing of charity on people and communities that never agreed to provide this charity. The appetite of the modern social justice advocates appears to be unlimited, so long as other people have to pay for it and suffer the consequences.
Right! Interestingly, the Catena of Thomas Aquinas provides comments of the Fathers of the Church on all the different Gospel verses. See the parable in Luke l0:25-37. Notably, Chrysostom and Augustine provide the spiritual sense. They see the Good Samaritan as Christ. He comes to pick up and heal and save those who fall (from the heights of Jerusalem on a hill to Jericho below, and thus ‘sin’ because of the bad road they have taken) into the hands of robbers (thieves like the bad angels). No other type of human (priest, Levite) can save them. The ‘beast’ is the Body of Christ which will carry the wounded to the inn (the church). Read it and see.
GregB I was trying to get G Poulin to change his view but you’re helping him stick.
The victim in the parable Luke 10, is “a man” who is “going from Jerusalem to Jericho”. Could be a Jew or not; Jericho, symbolizing inter alia “the entrance into the Promised Land” from the days of the Exodus. That highway given to bandits.
The Jews who passed by are masters of the law and Jesus shows where they WOULD not stop to help in spite of their mastery of the law and their security.
The Good Samaritan who is of a class despised by Jews of the time, gives more than was due FROM HIM, he gives what would be needed to the point described.
Samaritan being a man whose own security is not assured.
I would say the fathers including Augustine did not intend to constrict the parable’s meanings; but also I say that the saints have a way of outdoing one another. So there is Mother Teresa giving life to the parse on the parable shared by Augustine; and she can not fit into what you or Poulin are saying.
If someone had to apologize for the suggestion that the Good Samaritan a non-Jew is Christ and the Church is the “beast” and the “inn” somehow “unbaptized”, it would be her. (And other saints like her.)
There is another side to the parable, Jesus already had in view the obstinacy of the Jewish authority and high culture, “not wanting to enter and taking it upon themselves to keep others from entering”.
We simply have no choice but to allow the whole breadth-scheme of the parable and humbly accept that our own part whatever it might be, howsoever good, could be small but it’s not the whole story.
Jesus tears up presuppositions of those days. If the man was a Jew he was helped by a Samaritan “to reach Jericho”. If he was a non-Jew he was helped by a Samaritan to reach ….. Jericho.
If there was at least SOME record of success. There isn’t.
The CIC (Charity Industrial Complex) is filled with grifters who engage in self congratulation and social Munchausen’s by Proxy.
The Goood Samaritan entered the life of a victim of the misfortune of a crime with the clear intent of restoring the man he rescued to health and the dignity of independence. He didn’t make a career out enfeebling him.
There will always be the poor. But I’m not going to be shamed into donating to “charities” where the C-Suiter (often with an amorphous title without a clear responsibility that always makes one wonder is this a make-work job for somebody’s friend). As a youngster, Covenant House was lauded for its “work”, but Ritter was a sexually incontinent financial fraudster.
Something right about what you say.
The beyond the bounds parish group in my experience years ago that I had mentioned before, accommodating with abortion and contraception still persisting. Theirs could never be any stripe of neighbourliness since it meant deliberate involvement in the termination of life, with guarding that as a common bond. Yet left in place by the clerics who sought instead to entice me to be “more charismatic” and to in effect “not be bogged down with passing things”. Who will not talk it through properly even to this day. I tremble.
Excellent! If only we had a pope who believed or could communicate the same.
We have a Holy Father by the Grace of the Spirit if we would put aside our pride it would be well for us.
You first.
Leo’s response is undoubtedly a shout out to Bernardin’s seemless garment argument!
Consider that when he was Prevost just a couple years ago he was given an honorary degree at a university in Peru. For his acceptance speech he highlighted what he considers the 2 great Cardinals of Chicago.
“Cardinal George and who” you might ask?
Sorry!
He praised Cardinals Cupich and BERNARDIN! Notably excluding George!
It’s not hard to put the pieces together on Pope Leo XIV.
Some things you should know about Cardinal Bernadin:
1. He was ordained a priest FOR THE DIOCESE OF CHARLESTON SC
2. In Charleston, he served under Bishop Hallinan
3. Bernadin lived in the rectory with Hallinan
4. Hallinan was appointed Archbishop of Atlanta
5. Bernadin was somehow, someway was transferred (?incardinated) to the ArchDiocese of Atlanta
6. Bernadin was appointed rector of the cathedral in Atlanta so I presume he lived with Hallinan
7. Hallinan made him an auxiliary bishop.
Draw your own conclusions.
Quoted as follows:
“Through the Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy, we are now emerging from a period of fixity and rigidity which was unnatural in the Church’s life.
There’s that phantom menace of rigidity again.
I’m reminded of the utility of the metaphor “one bad apple”, which emanates from the fact that rotting apples release ethylene gas that affects other apples and should be removed quickly to prevent the initiation of rot in other apples.
Since he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Cleveland on February 20, 1937, we can see how long its been since the neomaniacs have been with us.
Yes, indeed.
Once again, I reflect on how lucky I am to have had parents who set such a good example.
Once again, I reflect on how lucky I am to have had the strong Sisters and priests who educated me K-8.
R I P, all of them.
Yes, dear Mark Medvetz.
Surely faithful parents, teachers, & Church leaders (not forgetting Catholic writers & journalists!) merit their splendid eternal reward.
What will be the fate of unfaithful Church leaders (even popes!) . . ?
‘Justice , equality ..marriage ‘ – Pope Leo ,mentioning need for such to be seen as important – as cited in the article ; seems these are themes that also get ‘magnified’ in Divine Will truths . Caution – myself still very much a neophyte in such , thus with the hope & trust that those who are wiser would grasp the good of it much faster .
The human will, ‘married ‘ to the Divine Will, as it reigned in Bl.Mother, accepting the great infinite graces in an ongoing manner, to love God with His own Love, desiring to share same with us as His Little children – to help us see & love each other with more innocence , to get over the selfish, seductive, idolatrous confusions that came in after The Fall ..
Pope Francis also mentions the good / justice of loving God with His own Love – His great mercy in extending us His Love for us to accept & offer up as ours !
https://en.luisapiccarretaofficial.org/news/the-sacraments-in-the-divine-will-marriage/590
The justice of loving God in gift of creation , requitting the love we owe Him as ‘Rounds in Divine Will ‘ – good means to help young people too be more free from slavery to carnal passions . Hope such becomes part of marriage preparation courses etc : too
https://luisapiccarreta.me/the-rounds
Thank God we are in times of the Third FIAT – the Spirit Sanctifier with our Mother to bring forth the ‘seamless garment’ of the Reign of The Kingdom ! FIAT !
The author attempts to grant Leo a HUGE benefit of doubt. I get that. But the effort does not meet its mark.
Justice consists in giving to each what one is due. Sexual sins deny to God the justice He is due. Sexual sins injure the common good of the community. Sexual sins damage the integrity of reason within the sinner. The sinner cannot act with justice, prudence, constancy, or charity toward anyone while s/he is enslaved to sexual pleasure.
Slavery to sexual pleasure through sexual sin does not afford FREEDOM to any man, woman or to God. When a person repeatedly sins against chastity, s/he prefers sexual to God’s will. WHAT freedom? Where is any freedom of religion in that? The sinner of sexual pleasure prefers pleasure over any higher spirit or ‘religion.’
Re ‘Equality”: If Leo could prove that an oak tree equals a fig, he will have proven an error of inequality, which perhaps makes everything all right with him but wrong with those who see more clearly.
Sexual sins are serious. They engender harmful consequences to the fabric of a just Christian society. To deny or attempt to soften that truth is a lie.
That’s right.
Our present Pope glosses over the spiritual damage done every time a Catholic deliberately disobeys any of GOD’s very clear & often repeated commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs us that to deliberately break one command is the same as breaking all of them. Deadly.
In His commandments GOD, who is Love, is protecting us from ownership by that world’s spirit of lies, infamous from his hate-filled deceiving of Eve: “You will not die!”
Of what use to The Kingdom of GOD are Catholic social justice workers who have become owned by the great deceiver?
Like the Aussie, Fr Paul Costello who scandalized so many innocent young Gold Coast Rosies volunteers with his homosexual infatuations & seductions. Many young idealists were infected by this and very many have left The Church. I think Paul is now in New York, unrepentant still it seems.
In the larger context we can see Pope Leo’s recent comments represent yet another vain attempt to put the cart before the horse.
Speaking from much experience: Only Catholics who are submitted to GOD’s ways are qualified to be horses pulling the cart of Catholic social justice. Those who’re foolishly disrespecting GOD’s instructions are not qualified.
So much social justice work is futile, or worse, with disastrously Church-destroying outcomes because: “Unless GOD build the house we labor in vain!”
Primordial wisdom: FIRST THINGS FIRST, with respects to our dear Pope Leo.
No one is attempting to deny that. The point is that exclusive and obsessive focus on sexual sin blinds people to all the other sins.
“exclusive and obsessive focus on sexual sin”
It only sounds exclusive and obsessive to the people who minimize or deny it, and this isn’t the first time that you’ve beaten the topic here. Stop. The horse is so dead it’s giving off putrescine and cadaverine. Let the carcass be buried or incinerated.
The “birth dearth”, the spread of every more virulent and resistant “STDs”, the rise of loneliness and isolation are all effects of a world in pursuit of the itinerant encounter and the transient engagement-which result of the emplacement of sex exclusively within the realm of the hedonic and the denial that it is principally a instrument of procreation.
I’m not sure who articulated the idea first, but an internet search reveals multiple occurrences of individuals contemplating the absence of children among their peers or the young with a variation of the comment “So many people don’t want to have kids. Do you know how much you have to abuse a mammal to the point it doesn’t want to reproduce? Never happens in Nature.” And the truth is we are participating in our own abuse.
No where before in humanity, no matter what famine, plague or war accosted any society or time did human beings decide children were burdens to be avoided on a societal scale, but here we are.
One episode is instructive: Several years ago, an acquaintance’s wife was doing OB-GYN clinicals as a part of her CNRP education. She was presented with a college aged patient with an abnormal discharge.
Since the symptom was consistent to the point of decisiveness with what we used to call VD, she was informed that she would have to be treated with appropriate antibiotics.
The patient protested “but I’m only sleeping with my boyfriend”. The patient was told the known incubation period and then blurted out “that’s when the SOB went to spring break, he swore he was faithful”. We know at least three people needed medical attention. All have had their souls, minds and bodies injured, whether they know it or not.
The same people that like to lament the cost of healthcare in this country never stop to ask how much is caused by the pandemic of promiscuity and deviance. Doctors and nurses treating avoidable diseases, clinic, hospital and research resources directed at prophylaxis and treatment of these maladies, rather than unavoidable diseases that remain pathogenically mysterious or that have no treatment or cure as of yet.
Of course you think sex and procreation are a punishment so, you must think every desire or encounter is evil.
!Imagine what those sorts of persons would say in the confessional!:
“Bless me Father, for I am blind to all my other sins because I am obsessively and exclusively focused on sexual sin. I can think of nothing else. Honestly!”
Dear Susanne: “exclusive and obsessive focus on sexual sin blinds people to all the other sins.”
Yet again, your glorious ignorance of basic logic shines forth, my dear!
Your words are ‘a strawman argument’ where you falsely attribute a position to your opponent as a basis to criticise them.
In this Catholic’s 83 years of travels around the world, I’ve never found one Catholic who has: ‘an exclusive and obsessive focus on sexual sin’.
If you actually believe that, why not give us some examples?
Like all other sins, sexual sins are pitfalls set along our lifepath. The wise Catholic is informed of ALL the pitfalls & takes care not to fall into them! Or, having fallen, repents & takes care not to fall in again.
From your repetitive protestations, dear Susanne (obsessively commenting on several CWR articles) my discernment is that you’re in a pit & are desperately arguing: “Why does everyone think it’s so bad down here!”
If that’s the sad situation, sacramental confession is mandatory.
Always in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
Right now there is no assault from within the Church against “justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion”—issues Pope Leo thinks more important to emphasize than sexual morality.
But right now there IS a grave assault from within the Church on sexual morality which came to an ugly head with the recent abominable Synod Report No. 9 attempting to normalize homosexual sin.
This sin—-one of the 4 that cries out to heaven for vengeance—-is polluting the clergy, doing untold spiritual harm, costing the Church millions of dollars, bankrupting dioceses, and sullying the Church’s reputation.
Our Lady of Fatima told the children that more people go to hell because of sins against the flesh than for any other reason.
But sadly, Pope Leo is in La La Land and seems clueless to the wreckage that sexual sin is doing to souls, the Church and the culture.
Amen Maggie.
Contempt, both of God and of others, is the source of every form of degradation of human beings. There is no need to even touch the other to contemn them. To reduce contempt to primarily sexual sins is to excuse the contempt by focusing on one of its expressions. In fact, it is the underlying contempt of the other that makes sexual sins so dangerous. And there are far more denigrading actions than sexual sins. Every word, every look, every action that reduces the other to an object is an attempt to annihilate them. There is no need for sexuality to be involved at all. Pope Leo is perfectly right.
Well said!
Thank you for this article.
There can be no charity without chastity. Charity doesn’t come from ourselves, but from God dwelling within us. Mortal sin against chastity destroys that.
Sins against chastity damage children in particular, and their ability to relate to others, well into adulthood. In addition to the perpetrators destroying their own ability to have charity for others, they set their children up for the same: a broken home produces broken people who will generally proceed to commit the various sins of greed and anger and power and pride that are rated as worse sins. Nearly 90% of those in prison were sexually abused. The most common perpetrator of sexual abuse is the mother’s cohabitating boyfriend. Fornication can send you to hell for good reason.
So, of course, can skipping Mass on Sunday or a Holy Days of Obligation. In one sense sexual sins are not the worst. In another sense, the worst sin is the one you commit, not the one you imagine as a reason to think well of yourself for not committing.
Nicely reasoned. Thank you & may GOD continue to bless you.
In the text, Benedict’s Deus Caritas est is referenced as Endnote No. 1. Endnote l refers to Leo, not to Benedict.
Deus Caritas est is listed in the Endnotes as No. 3. In the text, Note No. 3 refers to the Irish Bishops Pastoral.
Endnote 3 designates paragraph “2” of Deus Caritas est as the source for the textual quote of Benedict cited in the text.
NB: Caritas Deus est paragraph 2 says something quite different than the words cited as Benedict’s by Professor Alvare. Paragraph 2 of Caritas Deus est says:
“Let us first of all bring to mind the vast semantic range of the word ‘love’: we speak of love of country, love of one’s profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love between family members, love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness. This would seem to be the very epitome of love; all other kinds of love immediately seem to fade in comparison. So we need to ask: are all these forms of love basically one, so that love, in its many and varied manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or are we merely using the same word to designate totally different realities?”
What gives? Does this article need a good editor-chef to correct some of its slurpy sloopy soup? I understand perfectly well that on this forum I often write in haste and make errors. In fact, it is not often. I do it ALL the time. But this article looks like confused soup, and I begin to wonder if its smell is not quite kosher because the MEANING of what Pope Benedict’s encyclical has been changed by changing his words.
” For it is children and the poor in the United States, including racial and ethnic minority groups, who suffer the most from uncommitted sexual encounters, cohabitation, nonmarital pregnancies, father-absence, abortion, divorce, and same-sex relations. The poor, as well as black and Hispanic Americans, are less likely to marry, more likely to cohabit, more likely to have serial uncommitted sexual relationships, more likely to experience nonmarital pregnancies, more likely to grow up without a father, more likely to have abortions, and more likely to divorce.”
Yes, Professor Alavare, people have a way of suffering as a result of bad choices they make during their lives. Maybe if we stopped treating people who do such things as victims of what is, after all, their own wretched behavior, and started holding them accountable, we’d see start seeing improvement.
People of every social group & income level can make poor decisions but lower income folks have less resources to deal with the consequences.
“suffer the most from ” doesn’t mean the poor or ethnic minorities are unique in making bad choices but they’re more likely to have worse outcomes.
Amen, indeed! Thanks dear Maggie.
Maybe PFi and PLxiv were & are, as you say: “in La La land”.
Without wanting to be at all conspiratorial, plain common sense seems to suggest they might be following an agenda. They’re both ‘smart cookies’.
One possibility: the electoral college of cardinals has prioritised the normalization of promiscuous sex as their strategy to neutralise the horrors of clergy sexual abuse of children & vulnerable adults (rather than doing the hard work of cleaning-up The Church). “Everyone’s doing it, why the fuss? There’ll be no need for compensation if it’s the norm!”
That might ring true: Bergoglio & then Prevost sequentially contracting with the other electroal cardinals, that if elected they’ll make sexual sins a minor matter, even normalise pornography, OK homosexuality among seminarians & clergy, elevate such as Fernadez (now even authorising his scandalous ‘Sodomy Synod’), & go-easy on clerical abusers.
Those who know cannon law might be able to say whether such machinations would throw into doubt the validity of the last two papal elections.
God is our Creator, Who made the human race in His Own image and likeness. Through the one flesh union of husband and wife we were were given a share in God’s image and likeness as Creator, by procreating the human bodies of our offspring. God provides the eternal soul. Christ was very clear in Mathew 19 about marriage and human sexuality. He also blessed the little children saying “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” St. Paul was very clear about marriage and human sexuality. The sexual revolution has separated the sex act from its procreative function, alienating it from God the Creator. The alphabet sexuality groups have a strong tilt towards sterile non-lifegiving sexualities. Many countries are below replacement birth rates, in demographic winter.
Paul was pretty clear in his first letter to the church in Corinth that the preferred state is unmarried and without children so one can be fully committed to the Lord. Marriage is for those to weak to avoid falling into sexual sin.
Dear Susanne: “Marriage is for those to weak to avoid falling into sexual sin.”
It’s a terrible error (though common among those lacking good Scriptural eduction) to cherry-pick verses to suit one’s prejudices. This is called eisegesis.
Even beginners in Scriptural study know that: “Texts must be exegeted in whole Bible context.
Paul’s approval of the married state is made perfectly clear in his first letter to Timothy chapter 2, verse 1-5; repeated in Titus verse 6.
It must surely indicate profound ignorance (or mindless prejudice) for a Catholic to denigrate the beautiful calling of Holy Matrimony, one of the prime Sacraments of our Church.
Dear Susanne, for the sake of your soul please repent & meditate on this Bible scholars’ rhyme:
“A text without a context is a pretext.”
Always seeking to hear & follow King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
A little insight and informed speculation into “susanne”
Consider the following post from the “Spike” article comments:
May 27, 2026 at 2:22 pm
“I find it interesting that in the year I was born the world had only about 1/3 of the population of today and yet, somehow, plenty of technological and scientific advancements. It’s also interesting to note that the plague took 1/3 of Europe’s population yet, somehow, European civilization did not collapse. World War I took 1-2% of the human population of less than 2 billion and still, somehow, civilization has continued. Agreed, we will be fine.”
Assuming this is the truth, it means “susanne” was born sometime in the 1950’s.
I think it’s safe to speculate once her time for marriage and family passed, she decided that the grapes were sour anyway.
Now she spends her time denigrating marriage and family, because that’s easier than coming to terms with missing out on what most of humanity considers a pinnacle experience of life and so we end up with this sort of bilious disdain: “Marriage is for those to weak to avoid falling into sexual sin.”
It’s also a stupid statement. On the contrary, it’s more difficult for a married person or avowed celibate to avoid sexual sin. Married people realize what would be an innocent attraction, flirtation, fondness or intimate conversation by a single person is a breach of the marital vow for the married, even if it doesn’t result in actual adultery. The idea of the “work wife” can very easily become the sort of affair former Norfolk Southern CEO conducted with his Chief Legal Counsel Nabanita Chaterjee Nag. As a married father of four, he not only committed adultery, he scandalized his four children.
Getting rather judgemental here about other people’s personal lives? Who are you to judge others anyway? You seem to revel in insults. What’s your problem?
Pitchfork infers, on the basis of all that susanne has shared. How has he insulted susanne? He thinks it fair to ‘speculate.’ She has denigrated those who marry, saying, “marriage is for those to [sic] weak.” Ask any spouse if that is true! Marriage is, rather, a means to sainthood by a thousand graced sacrificial cuts. The Church teaches a reason for sacramental marriage: The grace of the sacrament helps partners: They are a help to each other to get to heaven.
If Susanne were, as she has said she is, truly interested in learning and knowing, she would study the Catechism prior to opening her mouth and allowing her tongue to oppose it.
You do not know me or apparently world history enough to be correct about my age. It is good to know that I live rent free in your head!
“You do not know me or apparently world history enough to be correct about my age. It is good to know that I live rent free in your head!”
“I find it interesting that in the year I was born the world had only about 1/3 of the population of today”.
World population today: Approx 8.2B
1/3 X 8.2 =2.73.
Approx
Population 1955: 2.7B
1956: 2.8B
These estimates are published and readily available, so either you were born sometime in the mid 50’s, you don’t know the current population, the historic population, simple division, some or all of these things.
And you’ve revealed quite a bit about yourself to afford any reasonable person the opportunity to make reasonable inferences. OK, Boomer?
Frankly, pitchfork, I’m wondering whether ’tis nobler to read or not read posts which are, probabilistically, stupid. Some people seem so indelibly set in an inanity of their choosing or they lack education and reasoning skill. Some people seem unable to READ! Some demonstrate deficits in basic civility. The thought crosses my mind that some WANT to be purposeful gadflies. This is a Catholic website. That keeps me here.
Do you still read First Things? Rusty Reno has a little online piece on Evelyn Waugh’s 800 page trilogy on war (forget the title) ends with ONE soul being saved through the circuitous mixed-up lives of a few people in Europe at WWII. Is one soul worth it even when those wanting to help show no hint of a bud of a fruit? After three years, Jesus allowed the fig tree to be thrown out. Wonder what Carl Olson would do?
I believe the Baby Boomer is a very young adult by virtu
“Paul’s approval of the married state is made perfectly clear in his first letter to Timothy chapter 2, verse 1-5; repeated in Titus verse 6.”
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1 Timothy 2:1-5 has to do with prayer, not marriage. 1 Timothy 3:1-7 speaks of marriage but in the context of selecting bishops–the man in question must run a well ordered houseshold, one wife, sober-minded, no covetous, etc. Titus 6 is brief restatement: appointing elders who are blameless, one wife, faithful children, etc.
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I would not say either one have to do with the promotion of or approval of the married state per se, just that if an elder from the married state is appointed (I would guess most would be married), he should run his household a certain way.
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I have to agree with Suzanne somewhat on this one: St. Paul thought it better to remain unmarried (though perhaps unrealistic for most folks). And while the Church may teach that marriage is good and noble, it is in no way equal to celibacy for the kingdom, which is the superior state.
St. Paul’s quote is best translated as “GOOD” not “BETTER”. Someone with translating skill can review this little detail.
If celibacy were truly better or best, would God have commanded the first man and woman to “Be fruitful and multiply.”? There are complementary partners in all the animal kingdom and so in humanity. God surely could have made man and man alone. Instead, he made a ‘helpmate’ and commanded fruitfulness.
@ Meiron:
The Church teaches that celibacy for the kingdom is better. Council of Trent, Session 24, Cannon 10:
CANON X.-If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.
Now Trent does have some positive things to say about Marriage (Session 24 is about marriage), but the married state being in any way equal to celibacy is not one of those things.
The canon X you site from Trent says that marriage is NOT to be placed above celibacy. No one here has claimed that marriage is BETTER than celibacy. Susanne said that St. Paul used the word “BETTER” and I questioned whether the translation truly said BETTER or GOOD. The majority of translations use the word “GOOD” not BETTER.
Also consider that Jesus the Christ was celibate, AND he is the bridegroom of the Church.
MrsHess, I think we also need to remember that God’s will must be discerned in one’s vocation. A celibate life is clearly a CALL. It is a privilege to which not many are called and/or not many hear or answer that call from God.
Yes, the married state focuses on an earthly orientation, but being married does not negate one’s eternal end, since, as Jesus taught–in heaven there is no giving or taking of marriage partners.
The parents of St. Therese of Lisieux are both saints. Her mother reported that she wanted to enter religious life (I don’t know details), but she ended up married. She understood that the married state was the state in which she was to be, and she was blessed to sainthood through that state.
Meiron
The Canon directly states (in modern English)
If anyone says . . . that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.
It is awkward wording, but this clearly means that virginity is better, or at minimum that no one should say that marriage is better. At most, they are equal, but I’ve always heard that celibacy was better and the Church has taught as such.
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This is but one article on the subject.
https://catholicexchange.com/is-celibacy-really-superior-to-marriage/
Thank you, Mrs. Hess. I do NOT dispute Trent. What I DO question is the translation of “BETTER” (at 1Corinthians 7:8). Most editions I’ve checked do not translate Jerome’s Latin as ‘better.’ More frequent is “good.’ The Catholic Second Edition RSV of Ignatius Press translates it as “well.”
I further DENOUNCE the representation susanne put forward of marriage being for people to [sic] weak to control themselves. If I recall correctly, she claimed that in almost the same breath as claiming Paul said the ‘unmarried’ state was superior. I don’t remember if she even used he word “celibate.” I found her post ideas objectionable on many levels.
A STATE of life is a vocation, a CALL from God to an individual. He grants to each person different gifts and calls them in different ways. The state of celibacy IS superior in an OBJECTIVE, ABSOLUTE, abstract way, YES, because that state allows complete devotion to the Kingdom by those called to that state. Yes. Indeed.
But marriage is ALSO a graced, sacramental STATE. People in it are not necessarily too weak for celibacy. Indeed, once the marriage has been consummated (sealing the convenant), the couple is free to practice any form or degree of continence/chastity/celibacy they together with God may choose.
I have never argued that the marital state is better than the celibate state. But we should reasonably acknowledge that, as no one is perfect, sinners may live in “the celibate state” while saints may live “in the marital state.” No one state ennobles the person in it simply by virtue of that person choosing one state over another. Objectively, abstractly, the celibate state is superior. But the marital state does not prevent sanctity in its participants. Both are ways to heaven.
To argue that marriage is for the weak denigrates the sacrament of marriage. To argue that those in an unmarried state are superior to those in the marital state is not necessarily true. To argue that St. Paul said so is not fair to St. Paul nor to any of us here. See also Dr. Rice’s analysis on where susanne’s comments on Corinthians fail.
I hope you have a chance to read this: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/celibacy-is-a-gift
(sorry that i’m verbose and always make flaws in grammar/spelling/coherence).
@ Meiron
I didn’t say that you said that marriage was better, but your words
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“If celibacy were truly better or best, would God have commanded the first man and woman to “Be fruitful and multiply…”
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seem to imply that Celibacy (for the Kingdom) might not be better.
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The Ignatius Bible (RSV) has St. Paul saying 1 Cor 7:1 “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” 1 Cor 7:8 “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do…”
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The general tone of the chapter is that St. Paul believes the unmarried state is “better” (“preferable” is likely a better word) due to the “impending distress”–the married are concerned about the “affairs of the world” while the unmarried the “affairs of the Lord.”
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While St. Paul doesn’t denigrate marriage by any means, I can certainly see why an embittered person might see it that way: “To the unmarried….I say that it is well for them to remain single; but if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” (1 Cor 7:8-9).
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St. Paul openly states he wishes than all were like him–but recognizes that “each has his own special gift.” 1 Cor 7:7
@Meiron
It is most unfortunate that the letter(s) (“the matters about which you wrote” 1 Cor 7:1) to which St. Paul was responding were lost to time and not included in the Bible, as they may have provided more context in to St. Paul’s responses.
MrsHess,
My question, “If celibacy were better…”, was directed to susanne in the hope she would share her thinking. I had hoped to arouse her to explain an apparent paradox so I could understand why she wrote what she did. Much of what she writes seems off the cuff or off the top.
I am not a theologian but do read a lot of theology. For the best understanding of Catholic teaching, I recommend the Catechism. I also recommend the journal Nova et Vetera. At Nova, I found a few articles on the issue and linked one of interest. In addition to marital vows, the linked article contains a section on ‘state.’ It points to some historical development of Church teaching—VCII focused on the “universal call to holiness,” eclipsing somewhat the “state of perfection” earlier taught and associated with religious vows. As a former Protestant, you likely can appreciate Trent’s teaching and anathema in light of reformers (especially Luther?) wanting change.
You can browse around and search on many articles at Nova’s site.
https://archive.stpaulcenter.com/10-nv-7-3-mary-catherine-sommers/
Wishing you well in your Catholic journey.
M
This too looks good. I haven’t read it yet.
Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 19, No. 4 (2021): 1181–1214.
A wise & charitable reply, Dr. Marty. Thank you & God bless you.
I’m not denigrating marriage just pointing out that St Paul himself said it was better to marry than burn (in hell) but celibacy was the ideal. This is not “cherry picking” but plain text language. It is intellectually dishonest to twist the plain text to suit your preferred narrative, doctor.
That same problem again, dear Susanne:
Determined ignoring of the need for ‘whole Bible exegesis’.
From repeated comments on several CWR articles, it seems you’ve taken the error of eisegesis as your modus operandi.
You mention 1 Corinthians without citing chapter or verse. Probably you are referring to chapter 7 verses 25-40, where Paul is giving advice to a church community facing an impending crisis (verse 26).
His position regarding The Church at large is that excellence in the married state is a good recommendation for Church elders.
Susanne dear, are you not embarrased to be citing 1 Corinthians? In Chapter 5 beloved Saint Paul thoroughly contradicts your numerous comments that diminish the seriousness of sexual immorality.
Cherry-picking verses in The Bible to suit ones eisegetic viewpoint is not the way that scripturally-literate Catholics converse.
Please read more in the New Testament, my dear. You’ll find that Saint Paul worked for years together with a happily married couple – Prisca & Aquilla; great evangelists, catechists, and church planters.
Saint Peter, chosen by our LORD Jesus Christ to be the first leader of The Church, was married. As, most likely, were many others among the Apostles.
Luke mentions Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chusa, as prominent among the generous women who ministered to Jesus & His Apostles, most likely all married, including Susanna [!] (see Luke 8:3).
Hope this is helpful to you; ever in the love of King Jesus Christ.
In Matthew 19 Christ says:
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9 I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” 10 [His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 He answered, “Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. 12 Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.” (NABRE)
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He clearly says that ““Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted.” That lifetime celibacy is for those who are called to it by God. Even St. Paul says that each person has their own gift and life assigned by God. According to Christ this celibacy is done for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. It is ordered to a purpose in the same way that the sex act is ordered to a purpose. Celibacy to the kingdom of heaven, God’s heavenly family, and marriage to a spouse, a particular human family.
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Most of the writing about sex in the Bible is written in light of our fallen state from Original Sin. Christ uses the pre fall language of Genesis to describe the husband and wife in the one flesh union in Matthew 19. Our image and likeness of Original Righteousness, and the graces that went with it, was lost by Original Sin. This loss of grace left Adam and Eve spiritually naked and spiritually dead in their sin. Concupiscence is caused by the darkened intellect and the weakened will from Original Sin. These effects are not removed by baptism. These are left for us to overcome. In Contemplative prayer personal spiritual cleansing of conforming our will to God’s will is part of the Prayer of Union. This conformity of wills needs to be a part of any real understanding of what our image and likeness is. We need to see beyond the distorting effects of Original Sin to determine image and likeness.
Thanks, dear ‘GregB’ for this insightful exegesis.
In this supplemental on Jericho you will find Protestants sharing expansively on the symbolism of that city as well as AI trying to talk spiritual. So you will need some language to speak about the walling in that can happen around/with the vices including lust; and a compelling contrast with the Gates of Heaven.
AI Overview 1
The New Testament highlights its symbolic meaning through several key events:
a) The Fallen World: In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the journey from Jerusalem to Jericho—a descent of over 3,000 feet—symbolizes mankind falling from the spiritual heights of paradise into the sin and hardship of the earthly realm.
b) Spiritual Blindness and Healing: Just outside Jericho, Jesus healed Bartimaeus, a blind beggar (Mark 10:46-52). Here, the city symbolizes humanity’s spiritual ignorance and need for divine light, with the healing representing the opening of spiritual eyes.
c) Redemption and Transformation: Jericho is the setting for the salvation of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). Despite the city’s negative connotations, Jesus passes through to seek and save the lost, demonstrating that Christ’s grace can conquer any earthly stronghold or personal sin.
These stories build upon the Old Testament, where Joshua’s conquest of Jericho symbolizes God’s power to break down formidable, worldly barriers through faith and obedience.
AI 2
In the New Testament, Jericho symbolizes the fallen world, spiritual blindness, and the barriers to entering God’s kingdom. The city represents human obstacles and worldly pride, but it is also a powerful symbol of salvation, divine grace, and spiritual awakening.
The theological symbolism of Jericho is shaped by several key narratives:
a) The Fallen World: In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells of a man traveling “down from Jerusalem to Jericho” (Luke 10:30). In early Christian theology, Jerusalem represented heaven or the spiritual life, while Jericho symbolized the secular, fallen world and humanity’s descent into sin and spiritual exile.
b) Spiritual Blindness & Healing: Jesus visited Jericho to heal blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). Here, Jericho represents a place of spiritual darkness, ignorance, and despair. The miraculous restoration of sight symbolizes Christ’s power to bring spiritual illumination and open the eyes of the lost.
c) Transformation and Grace: Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector in Jericho (Luke 19:1-10), highlights the theme of redemption. It proves that even within a deeply materialistic and corrupt society, Christ’s grace can bring about salvation, repentance, and restitution.
d) The Power of Faith (Echoing the Old Testament): The famous collapse of Jericho’s walls (Joshua 6) serves in the New Testament as the ultimate Old Testament metaphor for faith and obedience. It demonstrates that God’s power can tear down seemingly insurmountable barriers to fulfill His promises.
Protestant Flourishes
Evangelicals
https://www.gotquestions.org/Jericho-in-the-Bible.html
Swedenborgs
https://biblicalmeaningz.com/jericho-meaning-in-the-bible/
Dear Elias Galy, thank you for this richly meaningful Biblical concordance.
Made me think of an old song about GOD’s omnipresence.
“GOD’s not dead, He’s alive. GOD’s not dead, He’s alive.
GOD’s not dead, He’s alive; I can feel Him all over me.
I can feel Him in my fingers; I can feel Him in my toes.
You can feel Him in the air; you can feel Him everywhere
You can feel Him in The Church; You can feel Him in the street.
No! No! No! No! GOD’s not dead, He is alive & He is always here”
Oh for The Church to return to understanding how integral GOD is to ALL that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Praise His Holy Name!
Dr. Rice the same folks I relate about using up the parish, above, Galy May 26, 2026 at 2:42 pm, appoint those “down by the riverside hymns” for rally and victory. A day ago or so the Pope said to respect the liturgy and I have heard like that before from the involved parish priest (now deceased) where it “say can speak to something but it is not the issue”. Something needs to be done by the Pope in certain areas of liturgy, actual intervention; similarly, laity can not just sit around and acquiesce in the procuring of abortion organized into parish life, the priest and Archbishop MUST do something about it. And lifting the requirement to confess directly to the Archbishop is NOT it. Which makes the problem, WORSE. The ramifications from the parish run high, wide and deep in society, government, the lodge and 4-wheel families who act as “expert guardians” and expect to be able to have their rule in the parish. In those days certain of the parish group would have been nodding to their connections or their “following abroad” in the US limited to the Democratic Party, nodding back at them; now the Republican Party with Trump leading off has stalemated the situation giving the nodding from either side.
Yes Dr. they have their own way of “insisting” and impressing it on you. “Stop fighting and lay down your weapons and be at peace!”
It’s a nice theme but it can’t work for abortion.
Study war no more.mp4
Mirco Ulfers | Feb 17, 2010
Lauren Solomons and the NAC Cape Choir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4L09wBSWQc&list=RDW4L09wBSWQc&start_radio=1
Your distress and mine too must be widespread among good Catholics worldwide.
From many contacts with clergy at all levels, in different countries, I’m beginning to question just how many of them actually believe in GOD & have day-by-day experiences of His Majesty and Authority.
What susanne is saying -I would surmise- is that there is a temperate approach to people caught in sins of the flesh and that many of them need the external aid.
You have the examples of saints who sought out sinners like that, among them, Vitalis of Gaza (hermit!) and John Francis Regis (SJ!). Saints love to reconcile sinners as you see with Therese and the murderer who got the guillotine, who Henry Pranzini was no paragon!
I would add, the rancour or malicious evil going with some of those who indulge with sins of the flesh who are simply dangerous, would have to be treated cautiously.
The series Sex and the City is yet another side to the issue, portraying women at their most abysmal. I wonder who are the backroom gnomes that think up of such things: it’s as if they deliberately come up with paradigms to CAUSE a fixation for the weekly tv watching to excite sick penchant and deviant interest and degrade the social dialogue.
You meet all sorts in the streets, many of them retain genuine qualities at the same time have nobody to share them with to sound them out and nowhere to turn.
All Catholics (both singles and marrieds) are supposed to be incorporate in the Body of Jesus Christ. He is our divine Head & we have a diversity of complementary roles in His Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-26).
It’s as if each of us (celibates & marrieds) are wed to Christ in whom, by grace, we are incorporated, and thus destined as parts of Christ to be married to The New Jerusalem, The Bride of Christ (Revelation 20:9-10).
The New Jerusalem is dramatically different to any of the world’s cities. It is the city whose architect and builder is GOD himself (Hebrews 11:10); this is the ‘heavenly’ destination believed in & longed for by all the godly men & women of history.
Catholic marriage is supposed to pre-figure the eternal marriage of The Lamb with The New Jerusalem, where our physical love will be transfigured into divine spiritual love on the grandest scale. A uniquely spectacular fulfillment of the persevering labors of our LORD Jesus Christ.
Joyful, mutual sexual love is an important part of lawful Catholic marriage, but will be supplanted by something much more wonder-full (Matthew 22:30).
Appreciating this great promise should help inspire every Catholic husband & wife, to look beyond the pleasures (& challenges) of the moment.
Concerning sanctity or continence/chastity for marriage, John the Baptist acknowledged that Herodias was validly married in spite of her “attachments” to Herod.
There is such a thing as sin in marriage against the marriage and it does not make marriage null it is just sin. In my vocabulary, marriage sin IS divorce.
When a spouse sins against the other spouse and the marriage he or she is committing divorces. It does not have anything intrinsically to do with legal recognition. Both spouses could be committing divorces at the same time of the same or different types.
The Church has to take back the language on divorce and set it aright.
On virginity and consecrated life, Aquinas has these as higher more meritorious states than the married. In both the “calling” and the relation to the next life.
A very holy person could be married but this occurrence does not reduce those other states or equalize goodness to marriage. The holy married person has a grace.
Some saints “chose” consecrated life or allowed themselves to be led into it and by the unfolding events “came to the call” and still thereby achieved sainthood.
If I may add to Ms Alvaré’s fine article, From the beginning God created Man, man and woman he created them although different in beauty from one another so as to be attracted to each other – to compliment each other, to live together, to love each other with the engaging reward of exclusive sexual pleasure with and for the other alone for deepening their mutual love – and primarily to bring new life into the world.
That changed with Original Sin. From that time Man is afflicted with all the deviations from the natural law due to sin, disordered behavior of every kind entirely irrational and evil. Paul the Apostle when speaking about marriage addresses it in that context.
Marriage is understood by Paul to be a God ordained good, a fulfillment of God’s created order and a means to sanctity. Although due to the fall from grace many are called to another level of life, a life of celibacy and chastity for the sake of a higher good. Not simply for their own salvation, but for that of others and for a more perfect love of God. Needless to say married persons are also called to sanctity in the practice of the virtues.
Also on the Apostle Paul. A man so exalted he’s called The Apostle. Although, not everything Paul says must be understood as a Gospel commandment. For example his opinion that women must be silent in Church and keep their heads covered. A woman should never teach men or possess authority over them.
That we know has changed. On marriage he makes it appear that marriage is a trial that is better avoided for celibacy and a more spiritual life. Although we know both vocations have their trials. We know he had Priscilla and other women helping him in his teaching the faith.
I took a Bible study on First Corinthians. It was explained that St. Paul had to give the church at Corinth correction to keep the faith pure in the face of pagan idol worship. St. Paul’s comments about women covering their heads and the eating of meat offered to idols was in response to the pagan worship practices of the time. The general sequence for pagan worship was for there to be a sacrifice to a pagan god. The meat from the pagan sacrifice was served in attached dining halls or sold in nearby meat markets. The people in the dining halls got drunk and engaged in sexual orgies. In the pagan temples women who wore their hair down meant that they were sexually available. Proper women wore their hair up.
Thanks for your research GregB.