Fixation on Sexuality Needs to End: French Moral Theologians

Nov 18, 2021 | 0 comments

St Augustine of Hippo – mistaken on sexuality and Original Sin?

According to an article in the French journal La Croix International, many Catholic moral theologians in France agree with a recent polling of ordinary French Catholics by the journal – that the traditional ‘fixation’ with sexuality – and the confusion caused by treating all sexual transgressions as equally serious – is counter-productive and needs to end.

The journal quotes Marie-Jo Thiel (an award-winning Catholic ethicist who teaches theology at the University of Strasbourg) as arguing that the failure to distinguish the seriousness of, for example, masturbation and rape, is a mistake – because rape is ‘a crime that kills someone else’.

Other French theologians argue that re-formulating Church teaching on human sexuality is one of the most “urgent” and most “difficult” challenges facing contemporary Catholicism.

France’s  ‘Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church‘ (CIASE) – which recently published a devastating report on abuse cases over the past 70 years – agrees. It wants church leaders to study “how the paradoxical excess of Catholic morality’s fixation on sexual matters may have a counter-productive value in the fight against sexual abuse”.

The CIASE report suggests that the failure to distinguish the greater seriousness of the abuse of another person – a child especially – may have misled even some priests into far more serious offences.

In a tradition arguably descending from St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE), Catholic teachings on sex tend to be grouped together under the sixth commandment – “Thou shall not commit adultery.”  For St Augustine sexual desire results from original sin and can only be sinless in the begetting of children. This increasingly criticised position influenced, for example the 1968 church document on birth control Humanae Vitae – which has seriously divided the global church ever since.

While many moral theologians and ethicists in France want to see change on this issue, many French bishops who were appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI are not yet ready for that.  Can ‘Synodality’ resolve this issue – a question of interest far more widely than just France?

Click here to access the complete La Croix report.

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ACI’s Campaign for Lumen Gentium 37

The Promise of Synodality

What we have experienced of synodality so far gives ACI real hope that a longstanding structural injustice in the church may at last be acknowledged and overcome.

As all Irish bishops well know, the 'co-responsibility' they urge lay people to share - as numbers and energies of clergy decline - has been sabotaged time and again by canonical rules that deny representational authority and continuity to parish pastoral councils.  ACI's 2019 call for the immediate honouring of Lumen Gentium Article 37 becomes more urgent by the day and is supported by the following documents - also presented to the ICBC in October 2019.

The Common Priesthood of the People of God and the Renewal of the Church
It was Catholic parents and victims of clerical abuse who taught Catholic Bishops to prioritise the safeguarding of children in the church

Jesus as Model for the Common Priesthood of the People of God
It was for challenging religious hypocrisy and injustice that Jesus was accused and crucified. He is therefore a model for the common priesthood of the laity and for the challenging of injustice - in society and within the church.

A Suggested Strategy for the Recovery of the Irish and Western Catholic Church
Recovery of the church depends upon acknowledgment of the indispensable role of the common priesthood of the lay people of God and the explicit abandonment by bishops and clergy of paternalism and clericalism - the expectation of deference from lay people rather than honesty and integrity.

For the full story of ACI's campaign for the honouring of Article 37 of Lumen Gentium, click here.

Prayer

"Come Holy Spirit, Renew Your wonders in this our day, as by a new Pentecost. Grant to Your Church that, being of one mind and steadfast in prayer with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and following the lead of blessed Peter, it may advance the reign of our Divine Saviour, the reign of truth and justice, the reign of love and peace. Amen."

Saint Pope John XXIII, 1962 - In preparation for Vatican Council II, 1962-65.

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