Word: sexualizing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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While remaining doctrinally conservative in matters sexual, the Roman Catholic Church in recent years has on a practical level adopted a more liberal attitude toward the sexual nature of man. If they did not exactly condone such sexual conduct as premarital intercourse, masturbation and active homosexuality, many confessors, theologians and pastoral counselors took a sympathetic view of the personal problems so often caused by the church's teaching against all three. Others went so far as to question whether some of these sexual activities were morally wrong at all. Last week the Vatican called for a halt to this...
...condemnation came in a 5,000-word statement issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under a "mandate" from Pope Paul. Called a "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics,"the statement took seven years to prepare and was reviewed and approved by Paul. It was not just a Vatican idea; instead, it was mostly a response to complaints from Roman Catholic bishops in many nations, particularly in the U.S., that the church was not providing sufficient guidelines for sexual behavior in the wake of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s. Relatively...
...decree that resulted from their concern is no wholesale syllabus of sexual depravities. Instead, it singles out those "erroneous opinions" that Rome considers are spreading and causing confusion in the ranks of the faithful. Three areas of sexuality that have caused particular difficulties for Catholics-as indeed for many other Christians-are given major treatment...
HOMOSEXUALITY. To no one's surprise, the Vatican is not about to endorse Gay Liberation. Quite the contrary, it considers that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of." The ban is total: to the view held by some moral theologians that sexual relations are permissible for irreversible homosexuals, the declaration replies with a blunt no. Homosexuals must be "treated with understanding" and are not always "personally responsible" for their condition but there can be no justification for homosexual acts, which oppose the "moral sense" of Christians, the teachings of the Bible...
PREMARITAL SEX. Some writers on morals justify sexual union before marriage, at least in cases where the couple intends to marry. Rome will not have that. Says the declaration: "Every genital act must be within the framework of marriage." The decree reasons that "love must find its safeguard in the stability of marriage" in order to "protect human dignity" and give children the ordered environment they need. This requires nothing short of a marriage contract that is sanctified by the church and "guaranteed by society...