Neither did I! If it’s a long-dead zombie, usually I’ll notice when I see the name of a once-familiar poster who’s been banned, deceased, or just hasn’t posted in years. But everyone who posted to this thread two years ago is still an active poster here, so there was no “hey, I haven’t seen OldSoAndSo in awhile!” moment.
From the catechism: “masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.” Apparently the official Catholic party line is that the world is populated almost entirely by gravely disordered people. I guess they’d say only God’s grace and the leavening influence of the Church have kept us from killing each other off long ago.
And: “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of “the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.”
As I read it, a couple of fifteen year olds making out and consciously getting aroused by it (and isn’t that the point?) are making “deliberate use of the sexual faculty” outside of marriage and are violating the moral order.
What an incredibly twisted world view.
You know, I don’t expect the Catholic Church to give any ground on certain things they regard as fundamentally true - for instance, in the year 2101, they’ll still take the position that genital sex should take place only in marriage. OK, whatever.
But at some point I hope they will come to recognize that sexual desire is a fundamentally Good Thing, that nothing is inherently morally wrong with expressly non-procreative expressions of that desire, that good Christians who aren’t married are going to find ways of expressing that desire, and that those ways aren’t all inherently wrong.
Even in marriage “expressly non-procreative expressions of that desire” are forbidden, that’s why for example if man is impotent from diabetes oral sex with his wife is a mortal sin.
I was raised Catholic in the '80s and '90s and don’t recall any mention one way or the other about masturbation, certainly no particular injunction to bring it up in the confessional.
Go on.
Girls are allowed to be altar servers now, so it’s equal opportunity.
Well, Easter is coming…
So it’s probably not something you could give up for Lent?
There are two basic rules for confession.
- you have to genuinely believe it is a sin.
- you have to be sorry.
The Catechism describes a number of things that most people no longer think of as sins, masturbation being one. It’s a flawed institution, what can I say.
Hence the order I had them in. If the Catholic Church were to accept that there was nothing inherently morally wrong with expressly non-procreative expressions of sexual desire, it would be an immediate consequence that at least some such expressions within marriage would be OK. (I have no idea whether Catholic objections to oral sex are strictly a matter of its nonprocreative nature, or whether they would still forbid it as a kind of unnatural intercourse.)
But whether they’d also be OK with premarital expressions of sexual desire would still be an open question.
I think if you went into the booth to confess masturbation the priest would tell you to beat it.
It might just be me, but this kind of thing sends mixed messages, IMO. Especially during Lent.
ISTM that would be an Ulfreida rule, not a Catholic Church rule, though. Their take on it is the believer does not get to “genuinely believe” X conduct is a sin, the Church will inform him/her if it’s a sin, and if armed with that knowledge s/he still goes ahead and does it, s/he’s got to confess it.
( requirements for mortal sin: grave matter + knowledge of the sinfulness + deliberate act; requirements for confession: self examination, true contrition, purpose to amend, actual confession, willingness to do penance)
While at it, I suppose that doing a generic lumping together of conduct is allowed, otherwise if you had to itemize by each individual event most teenagers would never leave the confessional…
In this thread, you were quoting a document from the 1930s in an effort to show the Catholic Church’s beliefs in a negative light – and in that thread, I explained why that document was no longer good authority on the particular point.
Are you doing the same thing here?
Had no idea the church considers masturbation as a sin, but as a Catholic, I’m pretty sure my views on the wisdom of obtaining sexual advice from voluntary celibates is likely not in line with normal church teachings.
Nah, she’s not coming, she’s just breathing hard. 
This post is art. Make it a sticky. 
How did you become Catholic and not learn what is considered a sin?
I was born Catholic, that’s how!
JohnT Were you seriously unaware of what your church teaches about sexual ethics?
The Catechism, nowadays, is easily available online.
For the OP: yes, I confess it. I’m Episcopalian, though, not Catholic.