33. Human sexuality and state of life: Consecrated life,

 

33. Human sexuality and state of life: Consecrated life, Matrimony, and single life. Authentic integration of sexuality: differentiated approach. Matrimony as an irrevocable choice. Marital love and human procreation: anthropology of authentic heterosexual intercourse. Responsible parenthood and the means and methods of birth control: subdivision, moral problems, and possible solutions.

Introduction: Sex is a gift and capacity to foster life. It is an essential determinative factor in man. It gives us gender identity of person as male and female. Not only this, it gives us human dignity that we are human and have some values. This totality of person is expressed by sexuality Human sexuality plays an enormous role in human life, especially in relationship. Human sexuality helps them to relate each other. So there is a higher level of understanding sexuality. Main goal of sexuality is the mental, spiritual, total union between male and female. Sexual intercourse is only a part of conjugal life to be in union with the body. 

 

Anthropological understanding of Sexuality: Every being has existence and has goal. Sexuality shows a sign of totality of man and female. Both of them needed to give birth child to fulfill the goal. It is a attraction to give fulfillment to a man and woman through love. Man and woman come together and make sexual relationship. Physical union makes them one. In this time they are more in love and as a result of this love they receive child.

 

Theological understanding of sexuality: Human being is created reality of this world. He is image of God. He is not God. Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being "very good", when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and "male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). He has some limitations but the aim of creation is not to this limitation. It has a great purpose. Human being is weak, he may commit sin but it cannot be accepted because God has given him knowledge and freedom; he knows the difference between good and evil. Human being has rationality and free will. Because of the very essence of human being he/she desires dignity. As a man I have to act as a man. If I act as an animal I lose my own dignity. God has created man in His own image so man has a dignity. If man does not know his dignity, he will not respect others dignity.

 

The Developing Theology of Sacrament of Marriage: Marriage is an exclusive and permanent bond between a male and a female who share their sexual rights and mutually establish parental responsibility for the children that come from their sharing of love and life in conjugal union In developing theology, marriage becomes more personal where the chief concerned is given on the covenantal relationship. In the Catholic understanding of marriage, love mostly reflects on the covenantal relationship. This covenant was intensified with the coming of Jesus. Matrimony, too, is a covenant. “Covenant is personal, relational, loving. It goes beyond the legal fiction and the bargaining compromise of law and enters into a new reality, a reality of exchange not of mere rights but of entire lives. It transcends the natural contract of marriage and mirrors God’s faithfulness to each of us through the deeply personal giving of self to another person. It is a covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring”, and which “has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized..

 

The Developing Theology of Consecrated Life and life of Secular Celibacy: The consecrated life is a gift which the Father has given to the church by means of the Spirit so that, in faithfulness to the Gospel, the most characteristic traits of the life of his Son Jesus, the chaste, poor and obedient one (cf. Mt. 8:20; Phil. 2:8), and the unfathomable riches of his mystery (cf. Eph. 3:8), might be present in the world and might draw everyone toward the kingdom of God. The consecrated life, which is inspired by the Gospel, is a sharing in the consecration of Jesus, the Son of God and savior, the basis of consecration for all the baptized. It is deeply rooted in the example and teaching of Christ the Lord, is a gift of God the Father to his Church through the Holy Spirit. The dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium and the decree Vita Cosecrata describe the rise of various forms of religious and consecrated life, that is, institutes devoted entirely to contemplation, institutes of monastic and consensual life. By virtue of their consecration they are particularly free and willing to leave all things and go to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel. The consecrated life is gift to the Church and The work of the Spirit in the various forms.

 

The Main Moral Problems or issues of Sexuality and a moral evaluation in the light of the teaching of the Church: Every sexual act must be open to procreation, and must be expressive of love. There are certain sexual moral problems that oppose the true meaning of sex. Some of these are masturbation, contraception, lust, sterilization and homosexual acts, rape, pornography, etc.  These are is the church’s basis for condemning. It is also the ground for 

 

Lust:  Lust is an intense sexual desire or appetite.  It is an emotion or feeling of intense desire in the body. Lust is considered by Catholicism to be a disordered desire for sexual pleasure, where sexual pleasure is "sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unities purposes.

Pope John Paul II said that lust devalues the eternal attraction of male and female, reducing personal riches of the opposite sex to an object for gratification of sexuality. The Roman Catholic Church disapproves of lust: "Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unities purposes". (CCC 2351).

 

Masturbation:  It an erotic stimulation especially of one's own genital organs for the sexual gratification. It is also called the self abuse.  

 

The Catholic Church also teaches that Masturbation is an offense against love (CCC 2352), because it makes the excitement of sexual pleasure an end in itself and uncouples it from the holistic unfolding of love between a man and a woman. It constitutes a very serious disorder that is illicit in it and cannot be morally justified, although "the immaturity of adolescence (which can sometimes persist after that age), psychological imbalance or habit can influence behavior, diminishing the deliberate character of the act and bringing about a situation whereby subjectively there may not always be serious fault".

Fornication: Sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. The Catholic Catechism defined: Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality. (CCC 2353). It is a Voluntary sexual intercourse between an unmarried woman and man which is generally forbidden by law.

The Roman Catholic Church disapproves of fornication "Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unities purposes". CCC 2351. It is "gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality". CC C 2353

 

Pornography: It is by visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement. It consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.

It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, and the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials. (CCC 2354)

 

Prostitution: Prostitution is a social scourge. It is practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment.

The Catholic Church condemns prostitution as a societal vice. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2355 states that Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit

 

Rape: Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of seual acts against a person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or against a person who is incapable of valid consent.

It is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them. (C.C.C.2356).

 

Homosexuality: It is sexual activity between the same sex. It refers to sexual acts, between men or between women.

The Church based on Sacred Scripture presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity "are intrinsically disordered."They are contrary to the natural law (C.C.C.2357). The Catechism states that they "violate natural law, cannot bring forth life, and do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarily.

 

Contraception: A deliberate prevention of conception. It frustrates a divine plan to bring a new life into the world. Contraception includes artificial birth control methods such as the pill, IUDs, diaphragms, and condoms, Catholics can use Natural Family Planning (NFP) techniques.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church specifies that all sex acts must be both unities and procreative. Pope Paul VI firmly rejected all contraception, "seems to have been the reason for massive apostasy and for a notable decline in religious devotion and belief." This teaching was continued especially by John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where he clarified the Church's position on contraception, abortion and euthanasia by condemning them as part of a "culture of death" and calling instead for a "culture of life

 

 

The Developing Theology of responsible parenthood indicating the moral question or problem on method of birth control: Responsible parenthood in the light of Gaudium et Spes and of Humanae Vitae it clear that When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, it is not enough to take only the good intention and the evaluation of motives into account; the objective criteria must be used, criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human action, criteria which respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; all this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is seriously practiced" (GS 51).

 In questions of birth regulation, the sons of the Church, faithful to these principles, are forbidden to use methods disapproved of by the teaching authority of the Church" (GS 51). A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. When there is a question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspect of any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives. Those forms that act after conception has occurred to prevent the continuation of the pregnancy participate in the additional evil of abortion. Thus, the same teaching of the Church which condemns the use of the unnatural methods of birth control explicitly approves of the use of Natural Family Planning when there is a sufficient reason to avoid or postpone pregnancy.

 

Conclusion: The entire discussion helps us to realize that sex is a gift of God to human being. It has enormous capacity which is largely depends on the proper utilization.  The Church has a particular on its proper regulation by making the faithful aware of the moral problem of the sexuality. By her teaching, she   denounces the using of artificial means for it opposes the very plan of God.  Nevertheless she encourages them in responsible parenthood by Natural Family Planning.