Life
June 25, 2009
Bethel Journal
B3
A summertime reflection on human sexuality t u d e toward h u m a n sexuality. We’re certainly not there yet. A misuse of sex Father Lou still lies at Guntzelman the heart Perspectives of many social and psychological problems: rape, incest, pornography, abortion, pedophilia, even casual hooking-up and friends with benefits are all Exhibit A in evidence against a wholesome integration of sexuality into our lives. It’s as though since the 1960s we have made progress from a negative childish attitude toward sex, and have now arrived at a
collective adolescent stage where narcissism and indulgence reign – but still not a responsible appreciation and use. Years ago Fulton Sheen wrote, “Sex is the most psychosomatic of human functions. There is nothing else in which body and soul, finite and infinite, flesh and spirit are so closely intertwined. When sex and love are allowed to link the two, peace and joy result. When flesh and spirit are divorced, and sex is sought alone, boredom and ennui result.” Where are the men who will help in sexuality’s integration? In “Adam’s Return,” Father Richard Rohr, O.F.M., writes, “The most loving men I have met, the most generous to society and to life, are usually men who also have a lusty sense
New Teachers
THE ORIGINAL
of life, beauty, pleasure, and sex – but they have very realistic expectations of them. Smaller pleasures become a stairway and an invitation to higher ones …
They offer a first taste but then create a taste for something more and something higher. This is the necessary training of the lover archetype.”
Such men respect sex, women and God’s gifts. Father Lou Guntzelman is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Reach him at columns@community press.com or contact him directly at P.O. Box 428541, Cincinnati, OH 45242. Please include a mailing address or fax number if you wish for him to respond.
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Western beliefs and church attitudes about sex were especially influenced by Stoicism. Stoics took a stern view of sexual pleasure. Mastery of the mind should be maintained even in marriage. It is wrong to lust after another man’s wife, and equally wrong to lust after one’s own wife.
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Summertime offers a visual smorgasbord of the human body. Warm air, less clothing, swimming, jogging and sunbathing draw attention and create sexual interest. Regardless of season, our culture celebrates the human body on stage, screen, TV and fashion. Immature and exaggerated as it may be, our focus on the body is a moving away from a centuries-long appraisal of negativity. The body for so long was seen as a prison for the spirit. Some earlier religions and philosophies believed that the best thing that could happen is when we die and are released from our bodies. Now we hold that there is a wholesome unity between body and soul. Our bodies are honorable and essential components of being human. A healthy and spiritual understanding of human sexuality has not had good allies. Many moderns think that sexual restrictiveness is the result of Christianity and that the ancients were free of them. Quite the contrary. A perusal of Greek and Roman philosophy shows otherwise. In the “Phaedo,” Plato declared, “It seems that so long as we are alive, we shall continue closest to knowledge if we avoid as much as we can all contact and association with the body unless absolutely necessary.” Aristotle was particularly critical of the pleasures of touch and taste. Western beliefs and church attitudes about sex were especially influenced by Stoicism. Stoics took a stern view of sexual pleasure. Mastery of the mind should be maintained even in marriage. It is wrong to lust after another man’s wife, and equally wrong to lust after one’s own wife. Augustine thought “for a couple to copulate for any purpose other than procreation was debauchery.” St. Paul, influenced by Hellenism, saw marriage as a concession to human weakness. Since the 1960s, we have been blundering and stumbling toward a more mature and wholesome atti-