The bishops and the sexual revolution

Press, 14 December 1977, Page 19

The bishops and the sexual revolution

By

GEORGE W. CORNELL

i NZPA Washington Roman Catholic bishops in the United States are reaffirming their stand that sexual intercourse is morally right only within marriage and always wrong outside it. At the same time, their doctrinal committee has denounced a Catholic theological study favouring more flexible standards. The two actions came at a meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. They approved a section of a new national teaching guide condemning contraception and sterilisation, declaring that sexual intercourse is a moral and human good

only within marriage. The bishops added that, for a Christian, therefore pre-marital sex, extramarital sex, adultery, homosexual behaviour or other acts of impurity are forbidden.

Simultaneously, the bishops’ doctrinal committee assailed as contrary to Church teaching and morally unsound a recent theological study saying the ethics of sex acts hinge not on absolute rules but on the particular circumstances. This departs from the teaching of the Church,

elimates objective criteria for evaluating sex acts and undermines the demands of sound morality, the committee said. Repudiating the study’s conclusions, they said that by abandoning norms that make specific demands, the study reaches the conclusion that sexual

activity outside of ma r f i a g e can be permissible or even virtuous. The norms are wrong and potentially dangerous, Bishop Walter W. Curtis, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, told a news conference. The book-length study, “Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought,” was

made by a five-member committee of the Catholic Theological Society, of America and issued by it, arousing wide interest and varying reactions. It says the morality of all sexual acts, including the Church-condemned extra-marital and premarital sex, masturbation and homosexual behaviour, are to be judged not by fixed rules but by higher ethical standards within the context of particular situations. Citing those standards, the study says sex acts are moral if they contribute creative growth and integration of human personality and are honest, faithful, selfliberating, other-enriching, socially responsible, lifeserving and joyous.