Catholic theology of sexuality
The Catholic Church teaches that sexual intercourse has a two-fold unitive and procreative purpose;[2] According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "conjugal love ... aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul",[3] since the marriage bond is to be a sign of the love between God and humanity.
[citation needed] The following passage from his autobiography describes a critical turning point in his change of sexual morality: So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles, when I rose thence.
I grasped, opened, and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof."
[17] In her Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, Uta Ranke-Heinemann says that three discussions of marriage in the New Testament (Matthew 19, I Corinthians 7, and Ephesians 5:22-32) do not refer to generating children, which later became consistently emphasized in Catholic moral doctrine as the primary purpose of sexual relations.
[18]: 138 Some church leaders warned believers that children conceived on holy days would be born leprous, epileptic, diabolically possessed, or crippled.
[18]: 139–140 Intercourse was forbidden during the menstrual period and after childbirth, since "physicians mistakenly believed that the blood of a menstruating woman or one who has just given birth was poisonous".
[18]: 145 The Church Doctor St. Alphonsus Liguori, a preeminent moral theologian, considered therapeutic abortions to save the mother from immediate danger justified.
[28] Seventy-four percent of Catholics who regularly attend Mass believe that premarital sex with a committed partner is morally acceptable in some circumstances.
[30] In 2023, Cardinal Robert McElroy stated that "the moral tradition in the church that all sexual sins are grave matter" was a 17th century innovation.
So the interior order of married life, which enables the manifestations of affection to develop according to their right proportion and meaning, is a fruit not only of the virtue which the couple practice, but also of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with which they cooperate.
As Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae vitae, "The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, 'noble and worthy.
'"[43] Much of the Church's detailed doctrines derive from the principle that "sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive [between spouses] purposes".
[44] At the same time, the Bishops at Vatican II decreed that the essential procreative end of marriage does not make "the other purposes of matrimony of less account.
[46] The Church holds that the legal separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.
[51][52] Many early Catholic Church Fathers made statements condemning the use of contraception including John Chrysostom, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus of Rome, Augustine of Hippo and various others.
[53][54][55] Among the condemnations is one by Jerome which refers to an apparent oral form of contraception: "Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception.
[59] Pope Paul VI, rejecting the majority report of the 1963–66 Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, confirmed the Catholic Church's traditional teaching on contraception, defined as "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible",[60] declaring it evil, and excluded.
This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.... the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle .
[64]In January 2015, during his return flight from a visit to the Philippines, Pope Francis was asked by a German journalist for his thoughts on the findings of some polls that most Filipinos think the population growth in the country, with each woman having on average three children, is one of the chief reasons for its poverty, and that many there disagree with Catholic teaching on contraception.
[66] The Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result therefrom, so long as the contraceptive effect is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever.
[67] For example, the use of female steroid hormones as treatment for endometriosis rather than with contraceptive intent is not considered to conflict in any way with Catholic teaching.
[70][71][72] In November 2010 Pope Benedict said that it was a responsible act, though still not a truly moral solution, to use condoms in some very special cases as a device for the prevention of disease.
[73] While still believing that contraceptive devices interfere with the creation of life, the Pope stated that in that particular case, it can be a responsible act to raise awareness of the nature of such an act, and as a benefit, to avoid death and save life, though only as a first step, not a truly moral solution, before convincing the male prostitute of a truly moral solution, which means ceasing prostitution and sexual activity outside of marriage.
[77] Several historians have written that prior to the 19th century most Catholic authors did not regard termination of pregnancy before "quickening" or "ensoulment" as an abortion.
They are instructed to practice the virtues of "self-mastery" that teaches "inner freedom" using the support of friends, prayer and grace found in the sacraments of the Church.
[94] The Catholic Church disapproves of lust: "Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes".
[97] Thomas Aquinas, one of the most prominent Doctors of the Catholic Church, wrote that masturbation was an "unnatural vice" which is a species of lust", but that it is a less serious form than bestiality, which is "the most serious", and than sodomy, which is the next most serious:[98] "By procuring pollution [i.e., ejaculation apart from intercourse], without any copulation, for the sake of venereal pleasure ... pertains to the sin of 'uncleanness' which some call 'effeminacy' [Latin: mollitiem, lit.
In fact many young people and adults are in danger of becoming isolated in their consumption of lewd pictures, films, and Internet services instead of finding love in a personal relationship.
A 2009 edition of a USCCB document titled Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services states that treatment with medications preventative of ovulation or fertilization is permissible if testing proves that conception has not taken place.
However, it also states that Catholic healthcare providers may not prescribe treatments to rape victims that will interfere with the implantation of an already conceived zygote within the womb.
