God’s purpose for sexuality
Procreation, love, and justice
We are created …
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Human
Male and female
Gendered
Sexual
Social
Heterosexual and homosexual
Sex and gender
• Biological sex (xy, xx, xxy and so forth)
• Gender (masculine, feminine, typical male
and female social roles)
Sexual orientation
• Types of sexual desire – the object of sexual
desire or eros
• Whom do you love?
• Sexual orientation may be as specific as
orientation toward a single person or type of
person
• Sexual orientation commonly refers to whether a
person is emotionally, physically, and
psychologically attracted to their own or to the
other gender
Sex and society
• We enact our sexuality
– Publically
• Through gender roles (mother, father, son,
daughter)
• Through the ways we communicate our own way
of being male or female
• Through the ways we communicate our own way
of being heterosexual or homosexual
– Privately
• Through our relationships in family and household
Natural purpose for sexual
difference
• There is a natural purpose for sexual difference
– Reproduction
– Sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual
reproduction) evolved very early in the history of our
planet
– Sexual reproduction gives organisms very strong
evolutionary advantages (relating to genetic similarity
and difference – variety in a population enhances
survival odds for the whole even if it does not
enhance survival odds for the individual)
Natural law and sexuality
• In Church teaching, we consider God’s
purpose for creating sexual difference
– God did not have to evolve sexual difference
(life on earth did not have to include fixed
sexual reproductive features)
– God did not have to evolve sexual
reproduction (life on earth could have
remained asexual or multisexual)
– WHY WOULD GOD create life to include
these features and characteristics?
God created them …
• Male and female
• We look to the wisdom of the ancient
Israelites and their stories about the
creation of the world
• God created us to share our sexuality with
a partner
– In an intimate union
– So that we will not be lonely or alone
– To share in God’s creating power
Sexuality is a gift
• Our sexuality (sex, gender, orientation,
desire for love and companionship, our
power to reproduce) is a gift from God who
creates us
• In our sexuality – rightly exercised – we
experience something of the joy and
happiness of God’s eternal love for us
The result of our sexuality
• The results of our sexuality is also a gift
– Children
– Loving companionship & communion with
one’s spouse
– Family and community life
• Family is more than just mother / father /
child
– In Church teaching “family” also includes the
extended family: grandparents / aunts / uncles
/ cousins
Gifts and responsibility
• In Church teaching, we seldom speak of
rights
• All good things come to us from God as a
gift and we do not deserve them and
should not expect or demand them
• We have a responsibility to receive God’s
gifts with humble gratitude, reverence, and
awe
Life is a gift from God
• We do not so much have a “right to life” as we
have the “gift of life”
• We have a responsibility to receive God’s gift of
life with humble gratitude, reverence, and awe
• This is true of our own life and of every other
person’s life
• Our DUTY is to RECEIVE and REVERE God’s
gift of life (for God did not HAVE to give life to
anyone)
An “ethic of life”
• In Catholic teaching, we hold an “ethic of
life”
– This means we receive and revere God’s gift
of life for ALL people with awe
– We uphold the value of God’s gift of life for all
people (perhaps even, for all creation)
– The lives of all are Gifts of God to them and to
us
– Our duty is never to stand in the way of God’s
gifts of life
Ways we “get in the way”
• According to Church teaching, we sinfully
“get in the way” of God’s gift of life to
ourselves and others when we:
– Prevent conception during intercourse
– Use in vitro fertilization and certain other
technologies relating to conception
– Clone
– Abort
– Apply the death penalty or torture
– Euthanize or assist a suicide
Quantity AND Quality of Life
• Because of our ethic of life, we have a
duty to uphold the value of life as God’s
gift at all times
• Upholding the value of life as God’s gift
requires us to uphold the quality of life at
all times for all people
Upholding the quality of life
• We fail to uphold the quality of life for all
people at all times when we
– Oppose universal health care
– Oppose universal access to education
– Pollute and contaminate the environment
– Hoard food or water which are necessary for
life
– Support capital punishment and torture in
most cases
Sexual ethics
Within the
Sacrament of
Marriage
Open to
possibility of
reproduction
(however
remote)
To express
love
Less than ideal
– immoral or sinful
– sexual activity
Adultery
Pre-marital sex
Extra-marital sex
Polygamy
“Without God”
Within the
Sacrament of
Marriage
Non-vaginal sex
Open to
Using artificial
possibility of
contraception
reproduction
After voluntary
(however
remote)
sterilization
(vasectomy or tubal
ligation)
Withdrawal
Masturbation
Reproduction without
sexual intercourse
In vitro fertilization
Surrogate parenthood
Cloning
Genetic engineering
To express
love
Rape
Sexual abuse
Recreational sex
“Make-up” sex
Coercive sex
For lust alone
A consistent ethic of life
• A “seamless garment”
• The “both/and” approach to life issues
– Both the mother and the unborn child
– Both the victims of crime and the victimizers
– Both the soldier and the combatant
– Both the terrorized and the terrorist
• What are the reasons for just punishment
and lethal use of force?
Lethal use of force
• Never justified with respect to the
powerless (infants, children, the aged)
• Justified only when life is immediately
endangered and no other means of arrest
or apprehension are available
• Justified only when a criminal is so likely to
reoffend that they remain a real and
credible threat even in the most restrictive
incarceration
Capital punishment
• Catholic opposition to capital punishment
rests on two key values
– Restorative justice is impossible after the
decease of the criminal (they are no longer
afforded the opportunity to repent and
reconcile) – mercy and reconciliation
– We can not justly take the life of a person who
has been rendered defenseless and unable to
commit further, proportionate, future harm
(incarcerated for life, disarmed, pacified) –
just defense for society
Euthanasia
• Catholic opposition to euthanasia
– Death is not to be feared, but not to be
hastened; extraordinary measures do not
need to be taken
– Lingering death is not a reason to hasten
death
– We have a duty to provide palliative care
(unusually high doses of morphine, e.g.)
– We have a duty to provide ordinary means of
care (food, hydration, oxygen, and bodily
comfort)
Assisted suicide
• Catholic opposition to assisted suicide
– Some people choose suicide only because
they are depressed; while their primary illness
can still be treated effectively
– Our duty is to provide hope, care, and
compassion to those who are in the final
stages of life; not to cure them, not to kill
them, but to assist them in their return to God