Sections:

1)Jesuits, Myth or Reality

2)John XXIII

3)Paul VI

4)Christopher Dawson : Historian + Prophet

5)Vital role of laity in the church

6)Chastity

7)Confused Notions of Sin

8)Pope Pius XII and the Jews

9)Friendship and PR

10)Crisis in Christian Churches

11)Father Karl Rahner S.J

12)Christmas Greetings

13)Power of Prayer: St Monica Prays for her Son

14)St Augustine on Christ's Humility

15.)Book Review: "Praying As Jesus Taught Us"
- by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini

16.)Book Review: "The Mystery of the Incarnation"
- by Cardinal Basil Hume

 

Confused Notions of Sin

Probably the main reason for the modern confusion about the notion of gravity of sin is current preoccupation with sexuality. Cardinal Daneels of Belgium admitted recently that for too long the Church has been obsessed with sexuality. It is a sad reflection on the Church's moral teaching that when a person is described as immoral, most people think only of sexual sins. Such a person could be guilty of virtually every other sin - cruelty, injustice, greed - but not judged immoral unless guilty of sexual sin. The traditional moral teaching paid more attention to the sixth and ninth commandments than to the other - unlike Christ who put the emphasis on love - but worse still, its understanding of sex was Predominantly negative.

What is urgently needed today for the renewal of the Church and society in general is a positive theology of love rather than a negative theology of sin. Many people in the past believed that certain things were wrong because they were forbidden - but they should have been taught that they were forbidden BECAUSE THEY ARE INTRINSECALLY WRONG. The Commandments are not kill-joys but signposts to liberty and ultimate happiness. St Thomas Aquinas, probably the greatest theologian, stresses that God only forbids certain things because they ultimately hurt US.

Unfortunately, for many centuries the constant teaching of the church insisted that intercourse had to be for procreation in order to be free of sin, that intercourse during menstruation or pregnancy was a mortal sin! There was a negative attitude to women and all things feminine but this aberration is totally at variance with the teaching of the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis which depicted sex as something basically human and good. The creation narrative is quite explicit: "God made human beings, male and female...and God was pleased with what he saw. The man and woman were both naked and they were not embarrassed." (Gen 1-2) The Song of Songs describes the physical beauty and erotic love of two young people, a relationship that is sensuous, passionate and fully human. The prophets and later St Paul, were not ashamed to use the marital relationship as a metaphor to describe God's love for his people.

The Second Vatican Council speaks of reading the signs of the times in the light of the Gospel. We must then study our contemporary understanding and experience of sex because radical developments have occurred in our life time. The equality and complementarity of the sexes, the personal dimensions of the sexual relationship, the changing patterns of family life, the deeper awareness of what marriage can do in terms of profound personal fulfilment. Morality is about becoming a person and nobody grows alone.

It is only in relation to others that we grow in maturity and truly develop-as persons. Wholeness refers to the TOTALITY of the human person and must include the spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical dimensions in oneself and in others. To mature properly is to develop all these harmoniously.

It is most unfortunate that so much of the Church's energy in the last forty years has been expended on the question of contraception, and worse still, that so much of the controversy centred more on AUTHORITY than on the moral issue itself We need to re-focus our moral vision so that we are not hypnotised by sex. We must realise that in spite of all the talk about the moral laxity and sexual revolution, for many people their sexual sins constitute only a minor proportion of their general burden of sinfulness.