I never understood the difference between mortal and venal sin, figured early on that I can pick and choose whatever I care to take out of the experience, and never bothered to internalize the church’s teachings on a wide variety of subjects… like much of their stance regarding sexual acts, which to me sounds like a lot of restrictions guys with really bad sexual hangups would prescribe to punish themselves for thinking dirty thoughts, institutionalized.
Would I confess to masturbation? No more than I would confess to looking at my wife naked, noting that an actress is attractive, or using birth control. Just as I wouldn’t go to a person who didn’t play the piano for piano lessons, I don’t go to the Catholic Church to tell me how to handle sexual relations or the consequences thereof. I’m more likely to trust the Baptist’s on that one - at least their preachers are married, with kids.
I was born in 1961, have gone to Mass almost every week for 45 years, spent 13 years in Catholic schools, and got all he last of the old-school nuns before they retired.
So, wanna guess how many times the topic of self-abuse came up in church or school in all that time?
NEVER! Not once!
I never confessed it because I didn’t know it was supposed to be a sin.
So, to answer the question: Yes, I’m sure at one time I was told it was a sin, and promptly decided “No, not for me, thanks” and never concerned myself about the concept since. The Church says what it says, I do what I do, and that’s that.
JohnT Do you only take advice from oncologists who are cancer survivors? or from cardiologists who have heart problems? If not, then I’m not sure why the fact of priestly celibacy disqualifies the Catholic Church from making pronouncement a about sex.
I’m not Catholic and I think there are plenty of other reasons to disagree with the church and what it teaches. priestly celibacy is not one of them.
Would you go to a therapist who wasn’t contemplating suicide? Would you go to a doctor who didn’t have cancer? Would you go to a lawyer who wasn’t a convicted felon?
My church tells me to have sex only for procreation and not to use birth control.
My church does not offer me assistance to support the $125k-250k+ per child that this policy would cost me if I choose to follow it.
The Church’s position may have made more sense at a time when children could have been used as an economic asset and/or infant mortality rates are at Medieval levels. It makes no sense now and, imho, in the modern world this attitude can only be supported by people who, by their very admission into the decision-making body of that particular organization, are disallowed from having sex, wives, and children.
To me, this makes the very quality of their advice (on matters re: sex) suspect.
Do I go only to oncologists that are cancer survivors? No… but that analogy doesn’t really apply here. I would have to go to an oncologist that vows never to get cancer (and tells other people to join his no-cancer vow, then does little to assist them when they do get cancer) for the analogy to be more applicable.
Children are expensive. Taking the advice of “have as many as you physically can” from people who won’t take their own advice is, imho, folly. I live in this world, not one where kids are free and masturbation is a “sin”.
While those having sex should always be open to the possibility of procreation, the Church teaches that sex brings a husband and wife closer together, and it’s fine to have sex NOT for procreation, but simply for the unitive aspect.
And the Church forbids some kinds of birth control, yes – barrier methods, for instance – but is fine with Natural Family Planning. Which is NOT simply charting timing, but can include precisely the techniques like mucus measurement that are used when couples are trying to conceive.
In other words, sex is not simply for procreation.
JohnT They don’t say ‘sex is only for procreation’, and they don’t object to family planning / having smaller families. They simply argue that the only morally acceptable way to do so, is through NFP.
Of course. I’m on the altar server committee at the church, I have Christmas dinner with the priests every year, I attend every Sunday (well, about 48 out of 52), go to confession, my daughter goes to Catholic school, we financially support the church/school, and openly supported Obama last year (who won the Catholic vote 50%-48%.)
In regards to sex and procreation, I differ from the Church, true. The problem is that I’m an USAian, a people who post an especially vexing problem for the church - we are born and raised in a nation that celebrates dissent, founded by Protestant* dissenters, and we’re told from birth that we have the right to decide how we want to live. This is a poor support base for a church that teaches that Authority is revealed only to a select few, with the rest to do as they’re told. Even the US Conference of Bishops will look at a Vatican edict and say “Yeah, this is interesting. We’re going to set up a commission and get back to you with our opinion about this.” The latest case is Pope Francis’s poll, where the USCCB left it to the discretion of the individual church to decide whether or not to disseminate it, as opposed to just saying (like they would if they were good Catholics) “Here’s what the Holy Father wants. Make sure he gets it.” )
Are there other Catholics who claim that I’m not practicing? Of course. Do I worry about them? Of course not.
And, lastly, judging by the number of children per family at my daughter’s school, I doubt my attitude towards the Church and sex is uncommon. It’s amazing the number of 1-child, 2-children Catholic families there are.
*Defined as “largely non-Catholic”, though there were Catholics among the founding fathers.
You’re right, but this isn’t proof of it. Poland in the 1990s had a total fertility rate below 2.0, and the most common method of birth control was NFP.
Surveys of course do indicate that around 90% of Catholic American women use or have used contraception, in defiance of their church.
Nah, not really a digression. It’s the difference between the OP being a General Question about whether the Catholic Church considers maturbation to be a sin and therefore something to include in Confession, and whether in an individual Catholic’s opinion, it’s a sin.
From what reading I’ve done, checking up on what those crazy Catholics are espousing, as long as you are one man and one woman and married IN THE CHURCH (literally, in a church. and by a priest. Civil unions don’t count, you will burn in hell for eloping to a justice of the peace. Just the same penalty as murdering, coveting your neighbor’s ass, or not going to church)…you can put your 12 kids to bed and then you and your spouse can do anything and everything. As long as it ends up P in V. If not, you have sinned. It must end up P in V. Oh, go ahead and muck about with temperature taking and mucous sniffing and calendars, but any sex must end up P in V. Pornography and self-abuse are wrong-o, because any heating up of the sex organs must end in the chance the woman can get knocked up.
The Catholic Church does teach that sexual relations should ideally culminate in the particular act you mention, yes. It doesn’t teach that you will “burn in hell”, necessarily, for violating that one of its teachings, or for that matter for violating any of its other teachings. The Catholic Church has never made any dogmatic pronouncements, as far as I know, about how many people are going to hell, or whether any particular person happens to be there. (Possibly Judas, but then, Jesus Himself came very close to implying that Judas was in hell, so that’s not really on the church). As far as I know, you can be a Catholic in good standing and believe that hell is empty.
I look in at Catholic.com now and then, and the Catholic Answers boards there, and am both horrified and amused at the topics that come up I understand the concept of ‘cafeteria Catholic’, but the questions posted and the answers! There is only one WAY and that is the magisterium of the church. There are no allowances made. Everything you do, speak, say is a sin. OMG I really am going to burn in hell for all my many sins! Who knew? I think there are a very few special souls who are going to get on the bus to heaven, The rest of us dont make the cut.
Well, the practical truth of the matter is that people don’t confess sins they don’t think are sins and aren’t sorry for. What the Church considers ‘grave matter’ and what modern American Catholics think is ‘grave matter’ has undergone a substantial parting of the ways, and parish priests, unlike the people who wrote the Catechism (the new one, not the superseded Baltimore version, which was intended for children), have to deal with this reality.
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