Guinastasia got it right in the 3rd post. Go read it again.
Essentially, what Catholic guilt amounts to is that no matter what sacrificial acts you perform, no matter how hard you try, or whatever good you do, it’s not enough.
Not so long ago in confession, the priest asked me what good things I do.
He was being confrontational and I got pissed so I reeled off all the stuff I was doing. Some of them included making rosaries for two churches, Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration hour at 3-4am every Friday, as well as substituting 14 times in that month (mostly in the middle of the night), volunteering at the Dorothy Day soup kitchen, etc. etc. It was pretty impressive - except to a Catholic priest. His reaction was contemptuous snort and a change of subject. I still get furious when I think of it.
I almost told him to “Take this Catholic Church and…”
But I held back, and still, I get those guilt feelings.
Dr lao is correct. According to Fr Joe, if there is no intercourse to orgasm (possibility of conception or POC ) no sexual act what so ever between husband and wife is permitted even if the impotence is caused by illness. Again according to Fr Joe, you can’t just “make out” with your wife unless full intercourse POC occurs.
Again Fr Joe
The thread is about guilt, imagine there may be, may be some just some legitimacy to caressing your wife sexually as long there is POC.
Am I the only Catholic who’s never felt any of this? I thought it was just a big stereotype. Honestly, who feels guilty over spanking the monkey and sleeping in? I must be the happiest Catholic alive, and when I get to the Pearly Gates, St. Peter and I are going to have a big laugh over all this.
I’m married to a woman who grew up in the Roman Catholic church (even graduated from the local parochial school) and has since turned her back on the church. One of her biggest problems with the church was, in fact, the way guilt was heaped on her as a kid, not just by the nuns and priests, but by her parents and siblings. To this day, if she does something they disapprove of, those who are still Catholic – especially her mother – will pull the ol’ guilt trip on her. My theory is that some people take the “guilt” as a very personal criticism; they process it differently. One of the reasons they leave is that they get tired of being beat up on (as they see it) and go looking elsewhere for Christian love and charity. It’s just a theory, of course, based on my wife as the only case study. But it might explain why the “Catholic guilt” phenomenon turns up mostly among ex-Catholics. The people who stay just aren’t that bothered by it.
I can understand the reaction to this. Read Father Joe’s full answer, including this part:
I think Sarahfeena was getting at this as well–i.e., most priests I have encountered fully appreciate we’re all human, and confession is very often a discussion, one that places acts in a their particular context as opposed to categorizing them as black-and-white, “you go to hell for these, but not for those” types of things. Father Joe seems to feel this way as well; he is far from telling this man that he and his wife are destined for the fiery pit if the they do engage in such acts of intimacy.
This may seem like an unimportant distinction to you, given the RCC’s “official” teaching on this, but I’d just add that I have found priests to fully understand that we all live in the real world, and we all need to do our best, but we needn’t be wracked with guilt on occasions when we miss the mark.
Longing to be sexual with your spouse is not a weakness!!! This teaching is really screwed up, talk about demeaning to human sexuality in general and marriage in particular. Seriously how do Catholic couples keep all these rules at had when they make love?
You believe that Catholics think that longing to be sexual with your spouse is a weakness? Your post seems like a bit of a straw man. Also, the “rule” in question, whether you agree with it or not, is that sexual union should be within marriage and always open to the procreative aspect of the act (worded differently: it is wrong to substitute an act not open to procreation). Not terribly difficult to follow.
And, again, while you may disagree with it, I don’t see how it demeans human sexuality or marriage. This worded differently: if it’s not your belief system, don’t follow it, but why is it so difficult to believe that someone could believe this and still not hold human sexuality and marriage in contempt?
As Stratocaster points out, there is essentially only one “rule,” which is that all acts of sexuality between a husband and wife are supposed to culminate in intercourse that leaves open the possiblity of conception. Not very hard to keep track of. It might be hard sometimes to actually follow this rule, but it’s not hard to remember.
And Stratocaster also did confirm what I was saying earlier…the priests I know are in no way going to condemn anyone for lapsing on this particular rule. The point is that sex is supposed to be respected for its ultimate purposes…both unitive between a husband and wife, and procreative, and a balance between those two purposes should be strived for. Priests both in and out of the confessional are often very helpful in helping couples understand how to strike that balance in a way that works for them.
Finally, I will say that if anyone strongly disagrees with this teaching or can’t understand the value in it, they are certainly free to leave the Church and find one that works better with their own personal philosophies. People do this all the time.
But when I asked if a Catholic couple could just “make out” you said they can, but it is clear that it is not the case. If there is no possibility of conception no other sexual act is permitted. Correct?
I don’t think it’s as simple as you’re inferring. A couple who “makes out” as a substitute for intercourse would probably be on the wrong path, per this teaching. That doesn’t mean Catholics spend all day copulating, or even do so any time a tender gesture (or even “making out”) occurs. Where does an act cross the line that it becomes a substitution / replacement for the procreative act? Aquinas dealt with this in Heavy Petting: Summa contra genitals.
Stratocaster is exactly right. The “making out” is part of the unitive aspect of the sexual relationship between husband and wife. If a married couple does this, knowing that at the moment it is not going to lead to intercourse, it is a gesture of affection and bonding…the assumption being that this bonding is part of making the marriage stronger, and aiding in having a good sex life. The “trouble” comes in if the couple has some reason that they desire to replace intercourse with this or some other sexually satisfying behaviors, and therefore use it to avoid intercourse that can lead to procreation. (I don’t know about you, but “making out” as it is typically defined is not generally sexually satisfying for most people, I think…in fact, it tends to be just the opposite, and therefore is typically not used to replace intercourse.)
But a hysterectomy would not impede intercourse, that is the key, sexual activity that does not involve intercourse. The Fr Joe link has a man who is impotent due to diabetes, he can’t insert himself into his wife and wants to pursue other means to pleasure his wife.
Again quoting from Fr. Joe
Trying to pleasure his wife without intercourse is an “illicit act of affection.”
First, you are equating the problem addressed by Fr. Joe with the hypothetical you proposed, and concluding that a man and wife merely “making out” is somehow forbidden. As is correctly mentioned above, sexual activity has both a unitive and a potentially procreative aspect; there is no particular requirement that any given act of affection at any instant must lead inevitably to sexual intercourse, or else Catholic couples would be constantly humping like crazed rabbits. (Not that I, personally, am opposed to that approach, mind you, but Mrs. Bricker gets these moods and… anyway, I digress.)
If your beef is specifically with the result reached by Fr Joe as applied to the situation he is addressing, and you understand that it may not be generalized to making out… you still seem to be seizing upon his reasoning as though it were proclaimed by the Pope himself ex cathedra. I have no idea who Fr Joe is, but his reasoning and results are certainly subject to debate; he cannot speak authoritatively for the Church.
