Poverty in the Bible.
In the Old
Testament, there was the idea that richness is the fruit of the blessing
of God, while poverty is the fruit of a punishment for something done
wrong.
Only with the prophets come out the idea that
often the rich are so because they exploit the poor. In Amos, but also
in Isaiah and Jeremiah we find already the message that the Lord will
listen to the cry of the poor and oppressed.
In the Psalms we find the invitation not to attach our hearts to material things which are destined to perish.
So poverty becomes something acceptable, but surely not a kind of life to be directly chosen.
In
the New Testament we have a radical change. Phil 2 says that Jesus
Christ though he was rich in heaven decided to lower himself and become a
servant. For this choice the Father glorifies him. Is in Christ that
poverty, humility, weakness are made choices needed to carry on God's
plan: the plan of salvation.
The life of Jesus
Nazareth
was the smallest village in Galilee (remember the episode in which
Nathanael comments: “can anything good come from Nazareth?”). Mary was a
simple young girl, Joseph a humble carpenter. Nobody could have
forbidden God to choose the Palace of Herod to be born in, if he wanted
so. Yet the poverty of Nazareth was not enough; they had to go up to
Bethlehem, where nobody wanted to accommodate them in their house, they
had to be contented with a stable. Only the humble shepherd came to
visit them, yet the powerful king, full of terror for this child, tried
to kill him.
Because of the persecution of the king,
the holy Family had to escape in a foreign country where they knew
neither people nor their way of living or religion. In spite of having a
so important and urgent and complicated mission to accomplish, Jesus
decides to spend 30 years in the silence of his house working (that is
10 times more than the time dedicated to the apostolate). When he
started preaching, he did it to the humble people; when he chose his
disciples (the future leaders of his Church), he didn’t choose them
among the scribes (teachers), the Pharisees (priests) or the Sadducees
(politicians) but he went among the fishermen and simple ones, and the
tax collectors, with a bad mixture of temperaments, which could have
exploded every single moment. Whenever he addressed the powerful ones he
used hard words. To the rich he gave the invitation to give up the
possessions and distribute them to the poor (see Zaccheus and the young
rich fellow).
The first of the Beatitudes in Matthew
is “Blessed the poor in Spirit”, while in Luke we have “Blessed are you
poor”. The difference between the two statements, which is so deep from
the theological point of view, is almost not existent in the meaning of
the words of Jesus because there is no real poverty if it is not
internalized, and no real poverty in Spirit which will not translate
itself in real poverty. To the disciples he tells: “The Son of man has
nowhere to put his head”.
The main point of Jesus' poverty can be so described:
- Incarnation: The word “sharing” is not deep enough. Jesus becomes one of us.
-
Rescue (Salvation): the incarnation is not meant for having an extra
poor person but for rescuing the poor from their situation. The poor are
blessed because now Jesus is there to save them.
-
Providence: the instrument to be used is much higher than any human
thing can be, so poverty is in order to make us available to administer
the power of God himself. As long as we are for him we can be sure that
he will provide us for whatever we are in need of. The material richness
is the consequence of giving things away and not of working hard for
them (you will receive a hundred fold).
- Purification: In order to recognize God and his plan we need pure eyes, not obscured by material things.
-
Spirituality: the apostolate is done in order to achieve a spiritual
good, not a material one so we have to learn to be detached from
material things. God has to be always at the first place: “Seek first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the rest will be given
unto you”.
- Full acceptance: He does not criticize people or their situation, but he makes them feel accepted as they are.
-
Co-operation: He does not simply help the poor from above, but he wants
their collaboration. He works with them and make use of what they give.
The poor become the main agent of their own salvation (see the fish and
bread accepted as tool for the multiplication of bread.
- Focusing on the goal and not on the means. What we are here for is for God’s plan not our plan. We should never forget that.
-
Material things are important but at the end we will be asked to give
account on how we have used them (I was hungry, thirsty etc.; see also
the parable of the Talents).
venerdì 17 aprile 2020
Poverty 1: Introduction
THE VOW OF POVERTY: INTRODUCTION
In order to understand the vow of poverty we should have a clear idea of what poverty means.
First of all we should make a distinction between misery and poverty.
By misery we mean the condition in which a person lacks the basic necessities, like clean water, proper and sufficient food, education, safe house, hygiene and medicines. Whenever any of these things is missing, the very life of the person is in danger. Misery is never the plan of God and should never be accepted.
By poverty we mean the situation in which all the above necessities are assured, but no much more than that. What is missing are the unnecessary commodities like vehicles, television, telephone, and the access to a higher quality of things (best food, higher education, proper hospitals etc.).
Poverty can be of two kinds:
Unwanted poverty, where the poor person is not happy about his situation and wants to get out of it.
Chosen poverty, where the person could have had access to a better life, but for some reasons he prefers the simpler one. This is the case of the religious who make the vow of poverty.
The religious are called to make the vow of poverty, but not the vow of misery. There can be situations in which a person can risk his life for a greater good, but this has to happen only in exceptional cases, and for a personal choice. See for example the case of St. Aloysius who left the religious house to go and serve the camp of people affected by plague, or St. Damien who went to live in Molokay, island of lepers. Both eventually got infected and died.
We have to note the fact that poverty will change greatly according to places and times, and the same has to be with the practical way of living the vow.
The vow of chastity is more or less the same for all congregations and all times, the same can be said for the vow of obedience. When we come to poverty, instead, we have differences between congregation and congregation, and sometimes, in the same congregation, from place to place. Of course the difference will not be in the substance of the vow but in the way of practicing it.
In order to understand the vow of poverty we should have a clear idea of what poverty means.
First of all we should make a distinction between misery and poverty.
By misery we mean the condition in which a person lacks the basic necessities, like clean water, proper and sufficient food, education, safe house, hygiene and medicines. Whenever any of these things is missing, the very life of the person is in danger. Misery is never the plan of God and should never be accepted.
By poverty we mean the situation in which all the above necessities are assured, but no much more than that. What is missing are the unnecessary commodities like vehicles, television, telephone, and the access to a higher quality of things (best food, higher education, proper hospitals etc.).
Poverty can be of two kinds:
Unwanted poverty, where the poor person is not happy about his situation and wants to get out of it.
Chosen poverty, where the person could have had access to a better life, but for some reasons he prefers the simpler one. This is the case of the religious who make the vow of poverty.
The religious are called to make the vow of poverty, but not the vow of misery. There can be situations in which a person can risk his life for a greater good, but this has to happen only in exceptional cases, and for a personal choice. See for example the case of St. Aloysius who left the religious house to go and serve the camp of people affected by plague, or St. Damien who went to live in Molokay, island of lepers. Both eventually got infected and died.
We have to note the fact that poverty will change greatly according to places and times, and the same has to be with the practical way of living the vow.
The vow of chastity is more or less the same for all congregations and all times, the same can be said for the vow of obedience. When we come to poverty, instead, we have differences between congregation and congregation, and sometimes, in the same congregation, from place to place. Of course the difference will not be in the substance of the vow but in the way of practicing it.
Vow of chastity and sexuality
Sexuality and vow of chastity
Recalling what we have already said we can affirm that:
- Man is made for relationship
- Love is the language of this relationship
Both relationship and love come from God and are a necessary part of human nature. From that we have to deduct that the vow of chastity cannot go against these two points.
We can say that: The vow of chastity is in no way against relationships or love, but has a different way of fulfilling them. We do not give up the relationship but simply the physical aspect of it in order to develop better the social and spiritual aspects. We do not give up love, but the erotic aspect of it in order to develop better the agape aspect. So whoever makes the vow of chastity has to be a mature person, able to understand his own impulses and desires, accept them as part of his nature and sublimate them rather than satisfy them.
Recalling what we have already said we can affirm that:
- Man is made for relationship
- Love is the language of this relationship
Both relationship and love come from God and are a necessary part of human nature. From that we have to deduct that the vow of chastity cannot go against these two points.
We can say that: The vow of chastity is in no way against relationships or love, but has a different way of fulfilling them. We do not give up the relationship but simply the physical aspect of it in order to develop better the social and spiritual aspects. We do not give up love, but the erotic aspect of it in order to develop better the agape aspect. So whoever makes the vow of chastity has to be a mature person, able to understand his own impulses and desires, accept them as part of his nature and sublimate them rather than satisfy them.
Sexuality 4: Moral and psychological problems connected with sexuality.
Problems and deviations in sexuality
Before dealing with the problems which can come out of sexuality we must put a clear foundation to our concept.
1- Sexuality comes from God (he is the source and so we should respect the way he made things).
It has a purpose. (Goal. We cannot use things for our own purpose)
2- The language of sexuality is LOVE. (Instrument. If we speak a different language then we create misunderstandings).
3- Furthermore we should keep in mind what in the person is:
- Gender. (Male or female, as provided by nature and written in the genes).
- Orientation. (This is the feeling we prove for other people, whom we are attracted to).
- Desire or choices. (The actions we take in our sexual behavior).
The deviations can be divided in groups according to where the problem lies compared to the 6 points above. Of course we have to remember that not all deviations are actual sins. A sin is a purposely made choice of something that is wrong, while many deviations may not be wanted or even desired.
1- A first group regards the gender or the orientation. Here we find Tran-sexuality, Transvestitism and homosexuality.
Trans-sexuality. Is when a person undergoes a surgical operation in order to change sex. Physically speaking the person remains of the sex he belongs to (the chromosomes cannot be changed). What changes are the external organs (remove the poenis, build some breast, change the pitch of the voice). Usually this is done because the person is unhappy with his gender. In most cases it regards men who want to be women, and most of them eventually end up to work as prostitutes.
There is the case of those people who are Hermaphrodites, which means have both sexual organs of man and woman. Usually those people are inscribed among the men but genetically can be women.
A special group among the trans-sexual are the Eunuchs, or castrates. They are common is some parts of India and usually do the change for religious purposes. If the castration is done in early age (before puberty), it is difficult to recognize them for what they are.
Transvestitism. This means that a person dresses and acts like people of the opposite sex, but without any surgical change. This is mainly present among men who want to work as prostitutes.
Homosexuality. Unlike the two previous cases, homosexuality is not fruit of a choice but something which we develop without being aware of it. An homosexual person is aware of his gender, but instead of being attracted by people of the opposite sex, he/she is attracted by people of the same sex (a man who loves men or a woman who loves women). A common name for homosexual men is Gay, for ladies is Lesbian.
The reason why homosexuality develops is not known. Usually it does not come out clearly until the person is in the late teenage or even early adulthood.
There are different levels of homosexuality:
1- Sexual curiosity. The person wants to experience everything. He is not really an homosexual, but he is into sexual experiences and enjoys them all. Sometimes we can call them Bisexual.
2- Average homosexuality. This represents the great majority of the cases. Here the person really feels attracted by people of the same sex, and not by the other. The reasons for this could be many. Strict childhood education in which all sexual things were considered bad; Parents too strict or dominating; frequent double message about sexual behavior; Environment in which to be men and women is considered inferior or bad; not acceptance of its own gender; etc. All these cases can be helped and brought back to normal or to an acceptable level, but the person has to give full cooperation to the counselor.
3- Radical Homosexuality. This cases are rare and found only among men. This cannot be cured.
Today’s society tries to say that homosexuality is normal since is from nature. So they think that we should do nothing about that and should give the homosexual people the same rights of the others like homosexual marriages, right of adoptions etc. This position does not take in account the plan of God ; it does not consider that the different sexes have the purpose to complete each other, to procreate and to give a complete differentiated education to the children.
Statistics prove that among homosexuals the percentage of those who change several partners is much higher than among the others. So we have to say that homosexuality is a deviation.
Is homosexuality a sin?
If by homosexuality we mean the feelings of attraction, then in itself is not a sin, is only a sickness. It becomes a sin when a person wants to pursue the feelings and enters in sexual relationship or in active sexual life.
If homosexuality is a sickness, then it can be cured. So theoretically speaking a gay can become a priest, as long as he cures himself and he does not follow his feelings. But, as we said, an homosexual is emotionally weak in matter of sexuality, so he will be always under the pressure of temptations. Furthermore, since all his companions are boys and do not know about his situation, they will act more naturally and so become more tempting. For this reason, Pope John Paul II, in a recent document, invited the superiors of the seminaries not to allow in priesthood or perpetual vows gay people, but rather to help them to find a solution or a different way of living.
2- A Second group of deviations includes Pornography, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Masturbation. The problems with these deviations is that the behaviour of the person is only oriented to self gratification and exclude any other relationship.
Pornography. It is when a person enjoys looking at material (pictures, movies etc.) which are expressly erotic (naked people, sexual activities). The person makes use of this material in order to have pleasure for himself. This activity is wrong because the person does not take in consideration any of the aspects of sexuality. Here we have no relationship, no love, no caring for others,, but the person closes on himself only for pleasure. Pornography is maybe the biggest illegal business today (together with drug dealing), and generates millions of dollars every minute. A research says that as many as 50% of the internet connections used daily in India have pornographic material in it.
Pornography is a very addictive activity, comparable to drug abuse, drinking, gambling etc. One of the reasons for being addictive is because is forbidden, secret, it gives pleasure but at the same time makes the person feel sad, empty, guilty, unable to do anything. In order to forget or repress such bad emotions, the person looks for more exciting experiences, so more pornography.
Voyeurism. It means trying to see erotic situations (scenes), not in books or television or internet, but real ones. The person peeps through windows, keyholes etc. while others are taking bath, making love etc.
Here, like in pornography, all the aspects of sexuality are forgotten, there is no relationship, no love for the other person, who is seen only as an object of my pleasure and fantasy. It is quite common among teenagers to peep through the key holes of bathrooms while their sisters or mother take bath, or try to see through open cloths of ladies. Among teenagers is curiosity and at the beginning is normal, it becomes a problem when it carries on for long time.
Exhibitionism. We have it when a person shows his intimate parts (sexual) to somebody else in order to attract his or her attention. The person tries to tempt others in order to seduce them. People who do this are usually mentally unstable and can become dangerous when they enter in real relationships.
A special kind of exhibitionism is the stripping, where men or women take off their clothes in special places, to get money from the customers. There are special clubs of stripping girls, where members pay to see the shows. For the strippers is not matter of mental sickness but a work for money similar to prostitution.
Masturbation. It is when a person produces pleasure for himself handling his own genitals. Masturbation is a normal process in the early teenage, and usually it helps the boy to discover the capacities of his body. This activity should not last too long (maybe only a few months). The problem is when it continues for years. Usually if the experience of masturbation is extended, it denotes problems connected with:
- High guilt feelings
- Low self esteem
- Boredom
- Lack of ideals
- Fear of sexual feelings
- Lack of happyness with own sexuality
- Selfish and self centered attitude.
In order to remove masturbation we have to remove its causes, whichever they are.
Why is masturbation bad? Masturbation is wrong because the person becomes close on himself, avoids relationships, looks for pleasure instead of real love, he becomes unable to make sacrifices.
Masturbation is one of the causes of lack of maturity in people and is strongly connected with low self esteem.
Masturbation is also the usual consequence of the wrong activities which we have seen in all the deviations above.
Some people who are not able to stop masturbation start hoping that it would stop by itself. Some other try to convince themselves that masturbation is dangerous for health. Both ideas are wrong.
What can then help to solve masturbation?
- Avoid places and times where temptations are stronger.
- Keep busy
- Enjoy your activities
- Have many friends and enjoy talking, playing, working with them.
- Have some healthy female friendships
- Do not be afraid to tell the confessor and the spiritual director about this problem.
3- A third group of disorders is connected with a wrong kind of relationship or a wrong way of doing it. This group includes Pedophilia, Premarital sex, Adultery, Sadism, Masochism, Rape, Prostitution.
Pedophilia: We call pedophilia any sexual activity which an adult performs on a child. This is a very big crime because the child is not able to understand the full meaning and consequences of what is going on. Furthermore the child is weak, and the adult takes advantage of his weakness for his own pleasure. It is considered a crime even if the child may have given a consent to it.
Statistics prove that whoever commits pedophilia once, is prone to commit it again and again. Usually the child who is abused grows with low self esteem, fear of adults, strong guilt feelings, and incapacity of stable relationships.
Most of the time the person who has been abused in early childhood does not remember what happened in its childhood because the pain and even the episode have been repressed in the subconscious; nevertheless the negative effects are there.
Pedophilia does not regard only sexual intercourse, but any explicit sexual activity like asking the child to touch sexual parts. Most of the times the child falls victim because those who abuse him are adults whom he knows well and whom he trusts like his father, elder brother, neighbor, friends etc. Even in strict and conservative societies like the Arab world and India, the number of abuses on minors is very high. Unfortunately most of the cases will never be discovered because the child will not talk about it out of fear, and also because he will tend to blame himself for what happened.
In the recent times many cases came out of abuses committed by priests, religious and sisters. They were abuses committed in the past thirty years on children in hostels, seminaries and parishes. Those people, now adults are asking compensations of very high price.
The Pope has issued a document asking that all those priests and religious who committed abuses, be removed (suspended) forever from pastoral cares.
Similar to pedophilia are the sexual abuses committed on mentally incapacitated people.
Premarital sex. We call premarital sex the sexual relationship between boyfriend and girlfriend who want to get married, but are not married yet.
Usually those people say that they want to test if their relationship works well, in order to make a proper choice. Someone else say that they would surely get married but they cannot yet do so due only to financial or logistic problems. All these ideas are wrong because they consider marriage only from the sexual point of view. What is missing is the stability, the capacity of sacrifice, waiting for the other, respecting the needs of the other. Today’s society influences strongly the mentality of young people through movies, publicity, etc. The need for sex becomes stronger, and those who want to follow the traditional values are called old fashion, backward people.
Statistics say that in the west 30% of the girls below 18 and 70% of the girls below 21 had at least one sexual relationship.
As consequence of this there is a great increase in the number of teenagers’ pregnancies and abortions. These have very bad consequences on the life of the girl. Usually the girl is the one who pays the high price. Many of the couples who have sexual relationship before getting married, will eventually break up.
Adultery. We call adultery the sexual relationship of a married person with somebody who is not his wife or her husband. Adultery usually ruins families because it ruins love. The person forgets the commitment taken up at the moment of the wedding, and considers marriage only from the sexual point of view. In the western society as many as 30% of the families are characterized by divorce or living in without marriage.
Sadism. It means enjoying the pain inflicted on others. It is a mental sickness. Here the person get excited sexually only when he sees the other suffering in the relationship. The pain may be caused by scourging, beating etc. The other person becomes the victim, an object to be abused.
Masochism. It is similar to the previous but in the opposite direction. Here the person needs to inflict pain on himself in order to feel the pleasure, so he asks his partner to beat him etc. This people too are mentally sick, very dangerous and have a very low self esteem followed by very high guilt.
Rape. This is a relationship in which one of the two partners does not want it but is forced into it. The person who commits rape is mentally unstable and uses sex to show power and also to fulfill his desires. The other person is used only as object. So here we do not have at all relationship, and one is a victim of abuse. Usually the girls who get raped feels ashamed of it and full of fear so they do not come out to report the case to the police.
Somebody says that even in a family, when a lady is forced by the husband to have sex against her will, it can be considered rape.
Prostitution. It means to have a sexual relationship with an unknown person paid for the service. Very often girls are abducted from their places and brought to other countries where they are forced to become prostitutes for the sake of getting back their freedom.
Prostitution is called the oldest profession of the world and is known to be present in different forms, since the beginning of humanity. In the past there were religions in which prostitution became a way of worshipping the goddess of love.
Statistic say that prostitution has become one of the biggest illegal business after pornography and drug dealing. Most of the times the girl does not want to do the job, but has no other choices.
Sexual diseases and HIV are spreading fast through prostitution.
In prostitution there is no real relationship, there is no love, there is only the exploitation of the other person for pleasure.
There is still another group of problems. They are not directly regarding sexuality, but are connected with it. This group includes Abortion and contraception.
Abortion. Very often it happens that a girl becomes pregnant, and has neither the will nor the capacity to continue the pregnancy and to give birth to the child. This happens especially in cases of rape, premarital sex etc.
The Church is very clear in the matter. From the very first moment in which the fecundation happens (the sperm enters the ovolus), we are in the presence of a person, though the embryo does not have yet the singular parts of a human body. So every kind of abortion is to be considered a murder. Many governments say that abortion is permitted up to the third month of pregnancy, time in which all the important organs are already formed. Some other countries say that if it is proved that the baby will be born handicapped, or the life of the mother is at risk, then abortion is permitted even after the three months.
The Church strongly rejects all these theories. Abortion is never to be accepted.
Contraception. It means to put a physical obstacle during the sexual relationship so that the lady does not become pregnant. There are different kinds of contraception:
- Natural methods: These are not to be considered part of contraception and are not a deviation. We put them here for knowledge and for a more complete treaty of the problem. They are the only methods accepted by the Church. From science we know that a woman is fertile only 2 or 3 days per month. The natural methods tend to discover when those days are and invite people not to have sex during those days.
- There is a second group of those methods which block the period of the woman. There are pills, that prevent the eggs from maturing and so, as long as the woman is faithful in taking such pills she will not have the periods and never be fertile. A problem with these pills is that whenever the lady stops taking them she may experience multiple maturations and risk multi-twins pregnancies. In many places, after a lady had 2 or 3 children, doctors make an operation called sterilization. They cut the tubes of the woman and stitch them. The eggs will have no more access to the uterus and so cannot be fertilized anymore. This is an irreversible operation so the lady will never anymore be able to bear children. This method is not accepted by the Church because it changes the natural flow of the woman’s life.
- The third group includes those methods which do not change the rhythm of the woman, but which prevent the fetus from placing himself in the uterus, so the fetus is discharged. Considering that the fetus is already a person, these methods have to be considered abortions. Among these methods we have the IUD which is a small device put in the uterus, we have also the day after pill.
- In the last group we have the condoms. They are kind of rubber gloves placed on the penis of the man during the sexual relationship so when the ejaculation happens the sperms remain entrapped in it and does not really enter the vagina
Condoms are used also to prevent sexual transmitted diseases such as HIV and Syphilis. The use of condoms is forbidden by the Church because it puts an obstacle to the normal flow of nature.
Before dealing with the problems which can come out of sexuality we must put a clear foundation to our concept.
1- Sexuality comes from God (he is the source and so we should respect the way he made things).
It has a purpose. (Goal. We cannot use things for our own purpose)
2- The language of sexuality is LOVE. (Instrument. If we speak a different language then we create misunderstandings).
3- Furthermore we should keep in mind what in the person is:
- Gender. (Male or female, as provided by nature and written in the genes).
- Orientation. (This is the feeling we prove for other people, whom we are attracted to).
- Desire or choices. (The actions we take in our sexual behavior).
The deviations can be divided in groups according to where the problem lies compared to the 6 points above. Of course we have to remember that not all deviations are actual sins. A sin is a purposely made choice of something that is wrong, while many deviations may not be wanted or even desired.
1- A first group regards the gender or the orientation. Here we find Tran-sexuality, Transvestitism and homosexuality.
Trans-sexuality. Is when a person undergoes a surgical operation in order to change sex. Physically speaking the person remains of the sex he belongs to (the chromosomes cannot be changed). What changes are the external organs (remove the poenis, build some breast, change the pitch of the voice). Usually this is done because the person is unhappy with his gender. In most cases it regards men who want to be women, and most of them eventually end up to work as prostitutes.
There is the case of those people who are Hermaphrodites, which means have both sexual organs of man and woman. Usually those people are inscribed among the men but genetically can be women.
A special group among the trans-sexual are the Eunuchs, or castrates. They are common is some parts of India and usually do the change for religious purposes. If the castration is done in early age (before puberty), it is difficult to recognize them for what they are.
Transvestitism. This means that a person dresses and acts like people of the opposite sex, but without any surgical change. This is mainly present among men who want to work as prostitutes.
Homosexuality. Unlike the two previous cases, homosexuality is not fruit of a choice but something which we develop without being aware of it. An homosexual person is aware of his gender, but instead of being attracted by people of the opposite sex, he/she is attracted by people of the same sex (a man who loves men or a woman who loves women). A common name for homosexual men is Gay, for ladies is Lesbian.
The reason why homosexuality develops is not known. Usually it does not come out clearly until the person is in the late teenage or even early adulthood.
There are different levels of homosexuality:
1- Sexual curiosity. The person wants to experience everything. He is not really an homosexual, but he is into sexual experiences and enjoys them all. Sometimes we can call them Bisexual.
2- Average homosexuality. This represents the great majority of the cases. Here the person really feels attracted by people of the same sex, and not by the other. The reasons for this could be many. Strict childhood education in which all sexual things were considered bad; Parents too strict or dominating; frequent double message about sexual behavior; Environment in which to be men and women is considered inferior or bad; not acceptance of its own gender; etc. All these cases can be helped and brought back to normal or to an acceptable level, but the person has to give full cooperation to the counselor.
3- Radical Homosexuality. This cases are rare and found only among men. This cannot be cured.
Today’s society tries to say that homosexuality is normal since is from nature. So they think that we should do nothing about that and should give the homosexual people the same rights of the others like homosexual marriages, right of adoptions etc. This position does not take in account the plan of God ; it does not consider that the different sexes have the purpose to complete each other, to procreate and to give a complete differentiated education to the children.
Statistics prove that among homosexuals the percentage of those who change several partners is much higher than among the others. So we have to say that homosexuality is a deviation.
Is homosexuality a sin?
If by homosexuality we mean the feelings of attraction, then in itself is not a sin, is only a sickness. It becomes a sin when a person wants to pursue the feelings and enters in sexual relationship or in active sexual life.
If homosexuality is a sickness, then it can be cured. So theoretically speaking a gay can become a priest, as long as he cures himself and he does not follow his feelings. But, as we said, an homosexual is emotionally weak in matter of sexuality, so he will be always under the pressure of temptations. Furthermore, since all his companions are boys and do not know about his situation, they will act more naturally and so become more tempting. For this reason, Pope John Paul II, in a recent document, invited the superiors of the seminaries not to allow in priesthood or perpetual vows gay people, but rather to help them to find a solution or a different way of living.
2- A Second group of deviations includes Pornography, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Masturbation. The problems with these deviations is that the behaviour of the person is only oriented to self gratification and exclude any other relationship.
Pornography. It is when a person enjoys looking at material (pictures, movies etc.) which are expressly erotic (naked people, sexual activities). The person makes use of this material in order to have pleasure for himself. This activity is wrong because the person does not take in consideration any of the aspects of sexuality. Here we have no relationship, no love, no caring for others,, but the person closes on himself only for pleasure. Pornography is maybe the biggest illegal business today (together with drug dealing), and generates millions of dollars every minute. A research says that as many as 50% of the internet connections used daily in India have pornographic material in it.
Pornography is a very addictive activity, comparable to drug abuse, drinking, gambling etc. One of the reasons for being addictive is because is forbidden, secret, it gives pleasure but at the same time makes the person feel sad, empty, guilty, unable to do anything. In order to forget or repress such bad emotions, the person looks for more exciting experiences, so more pornography.
Voyeurism. It means trying to see erotic situations (scenes), not in books or television or internet, but real ones. The person peeps through windows, keyholes etc. while others are taking bath, making love etc.
Here, like in pornography, all the aspects of sexuality are forgotten, there is no relationship, no love for the other person, who is seen only as an object of my pleasure and fantasy. It is quite common among teenagers to peep through the key holes of bathrooms while their sisters or mother take bath, or try to see through open cloths of ladies. Among teenagers is curiosity and at the beginning is normal, it becomes a problem when it carries on for long time.
Exhibitionism. We have it when a person shows his intimate parts (sexual) to somebody else in order to attract his or her attention. The person tries to tempt others in order to seduce them. People who do this are usually mentally unstable and can become dangerous when they enter in real relationships.
A special kind of exhibitionism is the stripping, where men or women take off their clothes in special places, to get money from the customers. There are special clubs of stripping girls, where members pay to see the shows. For the strippers is not matter of mental sickness but a work for money similar to prostitution.
Masturbation. It is when a person produces pleasure for himself handling his own genitals. Masturbation is a normal process in the early teenage, and usually it helps the boy to discover the capacities of his body. This activity should not last too long (maybe only a few months). The problem is when it continues for years. Usually if the experience of masturbation is extended, it denotes problems connected with:
- High guilt feelings
- Low self esteem
- Boredom
- Lack of ideals
- Fear of sexual feelings
- Lack of happyness with own sexuality
- Selfish and self centered attitude.
In order to remove masturbation we have to remove its causes, whichever they are.
Why is masturbation bad? Masturbation is wrong because the person becomes close on himself, avoids relationships, looks for pleasure instead of real love, he becomes unable to make sacrifices.
Masturbation is one of the causes of lack of maturity in people and is strongly connected with low self esteem.
Masturbation is also the usual consequence of the wrong activities which we have seen in all the deviations above.
Some people who are not able to stop masturbation start hoping that it would stop by itself. Some other try to convince themselves that masturbation is dangerous for health. Both ideas are wrong.
What can then help to solve masturbation?
- Avoid places and times where temptations are stronger.
- Keep busy
- Enjoy your activities
- Have many friends and enjoy talking, playing, working with them.
- Have some healthy female friendships
- Do not be afraid to tell the confessor and the spiritual director about this problem.
3- A third group of disorders is connected with a wrong kind of relationship or a wrong way of doing it. This group includes Pedophilia, Premarital sex, Adultery, Sadism, Masochism, Rape, Prostitution.
Pedophilia: We call pedophilia any sexual activity which an adult performs on a child. This is a very big crime because the child is not able to understand the full meaning and consequences of what is going on. Furthermore the child is weak, and the adult takes advantage of his weakness for his own pleasure. It is considered a crime even if the child may have given a consent to it.
Statistics prove that whoever commits pedophilia once, is prone to commit it again and again. Usually the child who is abused grows with low self esteem, fear of adults, strong guilt feelings, and incapacity of stable relationships.
Most of the time the person who has been abused in early childhood does not remember what happened in its childhood because the pain and even the episode have been repressed in the subconscious; nevertheless the negative effects are there.
Pedophilia does not regard only sexual intercourse, but any explicit sexual activity like asking the child to touch sexual parts. Most of the times the child falls victim because those who abuse him are adults whom he knows well and whom he trusts like his father, elder brother, neighbor, friends etc. Even in strict and conservative societies like the Arab world and India, the number of abuses on minors is very high. Unfortunately most of the cases will never be discovered because the child will not talk about it out of fear, and also because he will tend to blame himself for what happened.
In the recent times many cases came out of abuses committed by priests, religious and sisters. They were abuses committed in the past thirty years on children in hostels, seminaries and parishes. Those people, now adults are asking compensations of very high price.
The Pope has issued a document asking that all those priests and religious who committed abuses, be removed (suspended) forever from pastoral cares.
Similar to pedophilia are the sexual abuses committed on mentally incapacitated people.
Premarital sex. We call premarital sex the sexual relationship between boyfriend and girlfriend who want to get married, but are not married yet.
Usually those people say that they want to test if their relationship works well, in order to make a proper choice. Someone else say that they would surely get married but they cannot yet do so due only to financial or logistic problems. All these ideas are wrong because they consider marriage only from the sexual point of view. What is missing is the stability, the capacity of sacrifice, waiting for the other, respecting the needs of the other. Today’s society influences strongly the mentality of young people through movies, publicity, etc. The need for sex becomes stronger, and those who want to follow the traditional values are called old fashion, backward people.
Statistics say that in the west 30% of the girls below 18 and 70% of the girls below 21 had at least one sexual relationship.
As consequence of this there is a great increase in the number of teenagers’ pregnancies and abortions. These have very bad consequences on the life of the girl. Usually the girl is the one who pays the high price. Many of the couples who have sexual relationship before getting married, will eventually break up.
Adultery. We call adultery the sexual relationship of a married person with somebody who is not his wife or her husband. Adultery usually ruins families because it ruins love. The person forgets the commitment taken up at the moment of the wedding, and considers marriage only from the sexual point of view. In the western society as many as 30% of the families are characterized by divorce or living in without marriage.
Sadism. It means enjoying the pain inflicted on others. It is a mental sickness. Here the person get excited sexually only when he sees the other suffering in the relationship. The pain may be caused by scourging, beating etc. The other person becomes the victim, an object to be abused.
Masochism. It is similar to the previous but in the opposite direction. Here the person needs to inflict pain on himself in order to feel the pleasure, so he asks his partner to beat him etc. This people too are mentally sick, very dangerous and have a very low self esteem followed by very high guilt.
Rape. This is a relationship in which one of the two partners does not want it but is forced into it. The person who commits rape is mentally unstable and uses sex to show power and also to fulfill his desires. The other person is used only as object. So here we do not have at all relationship, and one is a victim of abuse. Usually the girls who get raped feels ashamed of it and full of fear so they do not come out to report the case to the police.
Somebody says that even in a family, when a lady is forced by the husband to have sex against her will, it can be considered rape.
Prostitution. It means to have a sexual relationship with an unknown person paid for the service. Very often girls are abducted from their places and brought to other countries where they are forced to become prostitutes for the sake of getting back their freedom.
Prostitution is called the oldest profession of the world and is known to be present in different forms, since the beginning of humanity. In the past there were religions in which prostitution became a way of worshipping the goddess of love.
Statistic say that prostitution has become one of the biggest illegal business after pornography and drug dealing. Most of the times the girl does not want to do the job, but has no other choices.
Sexual diseases and HIV are spreading fast through prostitution.
In prostitution there is no real relationship, there is no love, there is only the exploitation of the other person for pleasure.
There is still another group of problems. They are not directly regarding sexuality, but are connected with it. This group includes Abortion and contraception.
Abortion. Very often it happens that a girl becomes pregnant, and has neither the will nor the capacity to continue the pregnancy and to give birth to the child. This happens especially in cases of rape, premarital sex etc.
The Church is very clear in the matter. From the very first moment in which the fecundation happens (the sperm enters the ovolus), we are in the presence of a person, though the embryo does not have yet the singular parts of a human body. So every kind of abortion is to be considered a murder. Many governments say that abortion is permitted up to the third month of pregnancy, time in which all the important organs are already formed. Some other countries say that if it is proved that the baby will be born handicapped, or the life of the mother is at risk, then abortion is permitted even after the three months.
The Church strongly rejects all these theories. Abortion is never to be accepted.
Contraception. It means to put a physical obstacle during the sexual relationship so that the lady does not become pregnant. There are different kinds of contraception:
- Natural methods: These are not to be considered part of contraception and are not a deviation. We put them here for knowledge and for a more complete treaty of the problem. They are the only methods accepted by the Church. From science we know that a woman is fertile only 2 or 3 days per month. The natural methods tend to discover when those days are and invite people not to have sex during those days.
- There is a second group of those methods which block the period of the woman. There are pills, that prevent the eggs from maturing and so, as long as the woman is faithful in taking such pills she will not have the periods and never be fertile. A problem with these pills is that whenever the lady stops taking them she may experience multiple maturations and risk multi-twins pregnancies. In many places, after a lady had 2 or 3 children, doctors make an operation called sterilization. They cut the tubes of the woman and stitch them. The eggs will have no more access to the uterus and so cannot be fertilized anymore. This is an irreversible operation so the lady will never anymore be able to bear children. This method is not accepted by the Church because it changes the natural flow of the woman’s life.
- The third group includes those methods which do not change the rhythm of the woman, but which prevent the fetus from placing himself in the uterus, so the fetus is discharged. Considering that the fetus is already a person, these methods have to be considered abortions. Among these methods we have the IUD which is a small device put in the uterus, we have also the day after pill.
- In the last group we have the condoms. They are kind of rubber gloves placed on the penis of the man during the sexual relationship so when the ejaculation happens the sperms remain entrapped in it and does not really enter the vagina
Condoms are used also to prevent sexual transmitted diseases such as HIV and Syphilis. The use of condoms is forbidden by the Church because it puts an obstacle to the normal flow of nature.
Sexuality 3: from attraction to intimacy and the problem of boundaries
From attraction to intimacy
When a person reaches the teenage, he experiences a strong attraction
for people of the other sex. This is natural and has the important task to push
him towards relationship. Usually this attraction is strongly
"erotic". The person feels the desire of seeing, touching etc. ... At
the beginning the attraction is generic (for all girls), but little by little
it gets oriented towards one of them which more than the others fulfills what
he unconsciously feels he lacks. At this stage he is fully into eros. Usually
he is afraid to talk to her for fear of being rejected or made fun of. This
first stage is called attraction.
When we have the courage to talk to the girl, we start discovering even
more things which are attractive. Furthermore we discover that she is
available, she somehow likes me. At this point the emotions go full speed,
while the intelligence seems unable to work. The girl is seen as whole perfect,
she becomes the centre of all our thoughts, nobody can be compared to her. We
feel the need to be always with her, talk to her, share everything with her.
This stage is commonly called “falling in love” or “infatuation”.
At this point it is important to start using the brain
in order to reduce the imagination and bring it near to reality. It is also
important that we develop other kind of friendship, not much as competition,
but in order to test the reality of our feelings.
People who are not able to open their life to more friendships are in
danger of depression. If anything wrong happens in their relationship, they
have nowhere else to refer to for strength and support. That is why the suicide
rate among teenagers is very high. This is also the reason for the high number
of youth who elope (lovers who run away from home). Most of the cases of
eloping, end up in misery. Why? too many emotions and no brain.
When, instead, we are able to use the brain, to face the reality, to
lower the expectations, then the other person becomes more normal, more real.
Like anyone else, she has good points, but also some weaknesses. Now we can get
into the stage called friendship.
This is an important moment, because here we can build the reality of
life. We can put foundations which can
stay forever, we are able to enjoy the good moments, as well as to accept and
fight the difficulties. Friendship is an important and necessary stage of life.
Even here it is important that we are open also to other people so to have
references and support.
The relationship or friendship with the people around us is always of
different kinds, since no one is the same. So it is natural that one friendship
be particularly strong and somehow more fulfilling than the others. With this
particular person we can establish a particular relationship which we call Intimacy. Intimacy means a special
relationship in which we can share the intimate or most secret parts of our
life. Typical of intimacy is the fact that we feel safe, trusted by that
person, understood, happy. With him they would share things which we would not
say to anyone else. He or she is the first person to whom we would go for help.
Intimacy is very important especially in the moment of choices for life.
Intimacy does not mean that there are no problems and everything goes
well, but it means that love is stronger than the problems, forgiveness is
stronger than the mistakes, and the difficulties become instruments of growth
rather than obstacles.
The problem of boundaries
In all we have said, comes clear that the more a relationship becomes
strong, the more the desire of union will be strong and finally stronger will
be also the desire of sexual relationship. Two questions come out:
1- If friendship is so dangerous, then is it a good idea to have friends
of the opposite sex?
2- Can a man have an intimate friend who is a woman? Of course husband
and wife should reach the point to be real intimate friends, but the question
remains for the unmarried people like priests and nuns.
Intimacy is good and important but needs two things:
1- The two people must be mature. It is not enough that one is mature
and the other is not.
2- We must have clear boundaries, which means, clear limits which we
must not cross. We must know clearly where we can and where we cannot go.
Here are some useful suggestions.
1- Be truthful to yourself. Ask yourself often: “What do I really want
in this relationship”?
2- Control the time. How many times do I speak to her, and for how long?
Usually once in a week is enough; half an hour is enough.
3- Control the places and the timings of the meetings. Choose open,
visible, obvious places and avoid night meetings. (No personal rooms, secret
places, cinemas alone, meetings which go on till late at night, etc.)
4- Check if this friendship makes you stronger or weaker in your
vocation, in your apostolate, in your community life.
5- I should not be afraid that people know that she is my friend.
6- When I realize that something is not going well, I must have the
courage to talk openly with my spiritual director.
7- If, by mistake, anything happens, go and talk to the spiritual
director and to the confessor and follow whatever they tell you.
8- Avoid as much as possible unnecessary physical contacts like hugging,
walking hand in hand, caresses, kisses, etc.
Sexuality 2: the names of love
Love and sexuality.
Love is the most used and misunderstood word. Everybody likes to speak about love, but what they all mean is different. To love cricket means to enjoy, to love a girl means to feel attraction, to "make love" means to have a sexual relationship, to love our parents means respect and veneration, to love children means care and protection, to love your country means dedication, to love the enemy means to be like God.
Are there different kinds of love? Pope Benedict XVI wrote an encyclical letter called “Deus Charitas est” (God is love). In this letter he says that there are not different kinds of love, but different stages. Love is the nature of God. We human beings participate to the nature of God, (we are at his image), but we are also ruined by sin and by nature we are limited. So the more we grow in the image of God, the more our love is perfect. The more distant we are from God, the worst our love is.
The three stages of Love.
EROS: it means basic love, pleasure, enjoyment, attraction. In this kind of love, the person tries to get as much as possible, but is not willing to give. It is a selfish love. From the word Eros, comes the adjective erotic which is used for pornography, naked pictures etc.
PHILIA. This is the second stage. It means liking something, usually objects like music, art, studies, but also people. Here the person enters into relationship, he both gives and receives, but there is no much depth in the relationship.
AGAPE. This is the third and highest stage. it means pure love. This word is used only in the bible, and is usually referred to God. The word Agape itself was created trying to translate into Greek the Hebrew Ahaba (love) for which, the Jews felt neither Eros nor Philia would give justice. According to St. John, this is the very nature of God (1Jn 4,4). Here the person gives without expecting anything back.
So Eros is the beginning of the process, but in order to be mature we should be able to control eros and transform it into philia, and try as much as possible to reach agape.
All the sins against sexuality and chastity happen when we are slaves of Eros.
Now we understand that love and sexuality are very strictly connected. Sexuality becomes mature when we learn to relate to other people and to ourselves through real love. In other words we could say that love is the language of sexuality.
Sexuality 1: first foundations
Extra readings: some lessons on Sexuality
These readings are not to be done after the lessons on chastity as a separate topic, but together with them as a complement. They are put here as an appendix so they can be used with freedom. Reading them will help us to understand better the concepts developed above.
Genesis 1:26-27 has: "Let us create Human being at our image.... Male and female he created them". In this passage we see that both male and female are image of God so are equal.
Sexuality is the fruit of the creation of God, so everything that belongs to sexuality is good. What is sin is the wrong use of sexuality. When we use sexuality only for our pleasure and against the plan of God, then we commit sin.
The fact of being man and woman means also that the two of them are called to live as community (family) so much united through love that they become one. This means that human beings are made by nature, for relationship and must live by love.
The consequence of this love and of the life of the community is the fact that human beings are called to multiply.
Sexuality is not only the way of living, but also of relating. It is much more than the sexual organs, it gives meaning to everything in our life of relationships.
Stages of growth in sexuality.
At the moment of birth, the baby is already a boy or a girl, but he/she is not aware of it.
Until the age of more or less three months, his main preoccupation is to eat, to release, sleep or cry, and little by little to discover the world around him.
For him there is only the mother, she loves and protects him, her attitude teaches him the importance of love and security in life. Little by little the other relatives enter into the world of the baby. They too encourage him and play with him. This fact teaches the baby the importance of appreciation and support. After the age of three the boy learns how to control the urine and the faeces. This process causes some sensation of pleasure in the area of the penis and the anus. When he touches his penis, he feels something nice. Usually, when the parents see that, they scold him, and start covering him with dresses. The boy may grow with the idea that the penis is something bad, forbidden, and everything connected with it is also bad and forbidden.
From the age of 6 and until 11 the child goes to school. Now the main focus is on learning new things, and on competing with his companions. At this age the sexuality is sleeping and the children do not feel difference between boys and girls. Adults teach them what boys or girls do and do not do, how to dress, how to play, but those are the only differences between boys and girls.
Around the age of 12-14 the biggest and most radical change in the person takes place. The child grows fast, becomes strong. The boys change their voice, build up muscles, and grow moustaches; the girls develop breasts.
At this age, sexuality becomes very important and problematic. The boys see that their penis sometimes is big and hard and other times is small. They have bad dreams filled with erotic and naked figures. Sometimes, when they wake up they discover that they are wet. Sometimes they feel an inner push to do masturbation in order to release the tension. The girls start having the monthly period called menstruation during which they lose blood from the vagina. They experience headache, body pain, bad smell, tiredness. They too may have bad dreams and feel pleasure in touching their intimate parts.
This period called adolescence or teenage is very important in order to prepare the person for the union (marriage) by which the boy and the girl will eventually form a family.
The most important task of the teenagers is to know themselves and what is happening to them, and also to build up some good and healthy relationship. Boys feel attracted to girls, and girls to boys. But they are afraid to talk to each other. It is important that they find somebody mature ( a guide, a friend or a spiritual director) who can help them. Unfortunately, very often, this role of guiding is taken up by the group of peers of the same age. They are people who, like him, lack of experience, and so, problems are not solved and often leave deep scars. They have to deal with people of the opposite sex and discover that there is much more than just sexual attraction.
By the age of 18-20 they should be able to make up table relationships, make final choices for life, so in a few years they would be able to settle down in a family.
These readings are not to be done after the lessons on chastity as a separate topic, but together with them as a complement. They are put here as an appendix so they can be used with freedom. Reading them will help us to understand better the concepts developed above.
Genesis 1:26-27 has: "Let us create Human being at our image.... Male and female he created them". In this passage we see that both male and female are image of God so are equal.
Sexuality is the fruit of the creation of God, so everything that belongs to sexuality is good. What is sin is the wrong use of sexuality. When we use sexuality only for our pleasure and against the plan of God, then we commit sin.
The fact of being man and woman means also that the two of them are called to live as community (family) so much united through love that they become one. This means that human beings are made by nature, for relationship and must live by love.
The consequence of this love and of the life of the community is the fact that human beings are called to multiply.
Sexuality is not only the way of living, but also of relating. It is much more than the sexual organs, it gives meaning to everything in our life of relationships.
Stages of growth in sexuality.
At the moment of birth, the baby is already a boy or a girl, but he/she is not aware of it.
Until the age of more or less three months, his main preoccupation is to eat, to release, sleep or cry, and little by little to discover the world around him.
For him there is only the mother, she loves and protects him, her attitude teaches him the importance of love and security in life. Little by little the other relatives enter into the world of the baby. They too encourage him and play with him. This fact teaches the baby the importance of appreciation and support. After the age of three the boy learns how to control the urine and the faeces. This process causes some sensation of pleasure in the area of the penis and the anus. When he touches his penis, he feels something nice. Usually, when the parents see that, they scold him, and start covering him with dresses. The boy may grow with the idea that the penis is something bad, forbidden, and everything connected with it is also bad and forbidden.
From the age of 6 and until 11 the child goes to school. Now the main focus is on learning new things, and on competing with his companions. At this age the sexuality is sleeping and the children do not feel difference between boys and girls. Adults teach them what boys or girls do and do not do, how to dress, how to play, but those are the only differences between boys and girls.
Around the age of 12-14 the biggest and most radical change in the person takes place. The child grows fast, becomes strong. The boys change their voice, build up muscles, and grow moustaches; the girls develop breasts.
At this age, sexuality becomes very important and problematic. The boys see that their penis sometimes is big and hard and other times is small. They have bad dreams filled with erotic and naked figures. Sometimes, when they wake up they discover that they are wet. Sometimes they feel an inner push to do masturbation in order to release the tension. The girls start having the monthly period called menstruation during which they lose blood from the vagina. They experience headache, body pain, bad smell, tiredness. They too may have bad dreams and feel pleasure in touching their intimate parts.
This period called adolescence or teenage is very important in order to prepare the person for the union (marriage) by which the boy and the girl will eventually form a family.
The most important task of the teenagers is to know themselves and what is happening to them, and also to build up some good and healthy relationship. Boys feel attracted to girls, and girls to boys. But they are afraid to talk to each other. It is important that they find somebody mature ( a guide, a friend or a spiritual director) who can help them. Unfortunately, very often, this role of guiding is taken up by the group of peers of the same age. They are people who, like him, lack of experience, and so, problems are not solved and often leave deep scars. They have to deal with people of the opposite sex and discover that there is much more than just sexual attraction.
By the age of 18-20 they should be able to make up table relationships, make final choices for life, so in a few years they would be able to settle down in a family.
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