NOTES IN THEO 4: SPECIAL MORAL THEOLOGY

PART I. HUMAN RIGHTS: HUMAN BEINGS AND THEIR ACTIONS

Context: The establishment and maintenance of social order among human beings are anchored through
fundamental human rights. However, many people erroneously regard certain things as rights and
confuse them with caprices and whims because they misunderstand the meaning of rights.

1. Human Dignity
 Dignity of the Human Person (Life in Christ CCC 1699-1715)

Introduction
The basis for the theme of Human Dignity, the bedrock of Catholic Social Teaching, is that humans were created
in the image and likeness of God. Regardless of any factors or reasons we can think of, individuals have an
inherent and immeasurable worth and dignity; each human life is considered sacred. This theme is about our
radical equality before God that leads us to think no less of somebody because they are from a different place
or culture, because they believe something different to you, or because of their work or employment situation.

The principle of Human Dignity means that Catholic Social Teaching takes a strong position on issues around the
start and end of life (like the death penalty and abortion) but it also has big consequences for everything in-
between. For example it can affect how we think about how our society supports those with disabilities, how
we address global inequality and the approach we take to civil rights issues. It is from this idea that all people
have inherent dignity that the themes of ‘Preferential Option for the Poor’ and ‘Authentic Human Development’
develop within Catholic Social Teaching.

The idea that each life has value isn’t something Catholic Social Teaching has a monopoly on; it shares a lot in
common with International Human Rights which are also universal, inviolable and inalienable. But Catholic Social
Teaching differs slightly because of its basis. It grounds Human Dignity in the firm foundations of the Catholic
Church’s traditions thought about the sanctity of creation as told in the story of our creation (Genesis) and God's
incarnation (Gospels).

Further Explanation

The Dignity of the Human Person

A main theme of Catholic Social Teaching is the inherent value, worth and dignity of each of God’s human beings.

‘Catholic social teaching believes that human beings, created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-
27), have by their very existence an inherent value, worth, and distinction. This means that God is present in

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every person, regardless of his or her race, nation, sex, origin, orientation, culture, or economic standing.
Catholic Social Teaching asserts that all human beings must see within every person both a reflection of God
and a mirror of themselves, and must honour and respect this dignity as a divine gift.’

The Theme of Dignity in Church Documents

The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes – “The Joys and Hopes”, speaks clearly about human dignity;

“At the same time, however, there is a growing awareness of the exalted dignity proper to the human person,
since he or she stands above all things, and his or her rights and duties are universal and inviolable. Therefore,
there must be made available to all people everything necessary for leading a life truly human, such as food,
clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education, to
employment, to a good reputation, to respect, to appropriate information, to activity in accord with the upright
norm of one’s own conscience, to protection of privacy and rightful freedom even in matters religious.”
(paragraph 26)

From Evangelium Vitae – The Gospel of Life (1995): paragraph 34

Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-
destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body
or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions,
arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of human beings; as well as disgraceful
working conditions, where human beings are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible
persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do
more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury.

The life which God gives man is quite different from the life of all other living creatures, in as much as man,
although formed from the dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7, 3:19; Job 34:15; Ps 103:14; 104:29), is a manifestation
of God in the world, a sign of his presence, a trace of his glory (cf. Gen 1:26-27; Ps 8:6). This is what Saint Irenaeus
of Lyons wanted to emphasize in his celebrated definition; “Man, living man, is the glory of God”.23 Man has
been given a sublime dignity, based on the intimate bond which unites him to his Creator: in man there shines
forth a reflection of God himself.

There is also the U.S. Catholic Bishops Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy,
Economic Justice for All 1986 Chapter II paragraph 28 which states:

“The basis for all that the Church believes about the moral dimensions of economic life is its vision of the transcendent
worth – the sacredness – of human beings. The dignity of the human person, realized in community with others, is the
criterion against which all aspects of economic life must be measured. All human beings, therefore, are ends to be
served by the institutions that make up the economy, not means to be exploited for more narrowly defined goals. Human
personhood must be respected with a reverence that is religious. When we deal with each other, we should do so with
the sense of awe that arises in the presence of something holy and sacred. For that is what human beings are: we are
created in the image of God”(Genesis 1:27).

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Likewise, the U.S. Catholic Bishops 1983 document The Challenge of Peace paragraph 15 says: “The human
person is the clearest reflection of God’s presence in the world; all of the Church’s work in pursuit of both justice
and peace is designed to protect and promote the dignity of every person. For each person not only reflects
God, but is the expression of God’s creative work and the meaning of Christ’s redemptive ministry.”

From the Social Teaching of the Church: STC 153. In fact, the roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity
that belongs to each human being[305]. This dignity, inherent in human life and equal in every person, is
perceived and understood first of all by reason. The natural foundation of rights appears all the more solid when,
in light of the supernatural, it is considered that human dignity, after having been given by God and having been
profoundly wounded by sin, was taken on and redeemed by Jesus Christ in his incarnation, death and
resurrection[306].

2. Definition and Purpose of Rights

Human Rights (Cf. Lesson 15 in Panizo, p. 109-116)

- A human right is a moral and inviolable power to hold, to do, or to extract something from others.
a. It is a moral power to distinguish it from physical power or might based on physical force. Thus, even
those persons who are physically weak and powerless or mentally impaired still have rights.
b. It is a power to distinguish it from a duty, which is an obligation rather than a right.
c. It is inviolable because it cannot be unduly trampled upon or suppressed without moral guilt. (E.g. The
right of husband and wife to be exclusive to one another. An adulterer who destroys this right does so
with moral guilt. This is not necessarily the case of courting a girl who is not yet married, even if she has
a boyfriend. A right may be violated but the person who enjoys the right is entitled to make use of all
means, even physical force, to protect and defend it from violation. (E.g. the right to life entitles a person
to defend himself against an unjust aggressor even to the point of taking the life of the attacker is
necessary. Cf. the four conditions of Double-effect)

Four Conditions that Morally Justify the Use of Violence in Defense of Rights:
a. That the intention of the defendant should be directed only towards the protection or vindication of the
right.
b. That there is no other way of defending the rights
c. That violence should be employed only during the act of aggression (e.g. in self-defense)
d. That the right or good to be defended is exceptionally important, as life, body integrity, freedom,
chastity, etc. (e.g in just wars; Cf. Braverheart; rape; Cf. Sarah Balabagan)

From Catholic Social Teaching of the Church:

The ultimate source of human rights is not found in the mere will of human beings[307], in the reality of the
State, in public powers, but in man himself and in God his Creator. These rights are “universal, inviolable,
inalienable”[308]. Universal because they are present in all human beings, without exception of time, place or
subject. Inviolable insofar as “they are inherent in the human person and in human dignity”[309] and because

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“it would be vain to proclaim rights, if at the same time everything were not done to ensure the duty of
respecting them by all people, everywhere, and for all people”[310]. Inalienable insofar as “no one can
legitimately deprive another person, whoever they may be, of these rights, since this would do violence to their
nature”[311].

154. Human rights are to be defended not only individually but also as a whole: protecting them only partially
would imply a kind of failure to recognize them. They correspond to the demands of human dignity and entail,
in the first place, the fulfilment of the essential needs of the person in the material and spiritual spheres. “These
rights apply to every stage of life and to every political, social, economic and cultural situation. Together they
form a single whole, directed unambiguously towards the promotion of every aspect of the good of both the
person and society ... The integral promotion of every category of human rights is the true guarantee of full
respect for each individual right”.[312] Universality and indivisibility are distinctive characteristics of human
rights: they are “two guiding principles which at the same time demand that human rights be rooted in each
culture and that their juridical profile be strengthened so as to ensure that they are fully observed”[313].

3. List of Human Rights

The most important human rights and liberties as listed by most civilized and free countries of the world in their
constitutional provisions are the following:
a. The right to worship God and religious freedom.
b. The right of personal liberty and to equal protection under the just law.
c. The right to one’s own life. This includes the right to use necessary means for the preservation of
one’s own life, including self-defense in case of unjust aggression.
d. The right to make a livelihood (so that one might preserve one’s own life and the lives of those under
his care.).
e. The right to property (the right to acquire, dispose of, sell, or bequeath property).
f. The right to one’s honor. This involves the right to use all moral means to gain the esteem and respect
of the community; the right to defend one’s honor legally from being willfully slandered or libeled
and the right to ask for restitution of one’s violated honor. (eg. Tsismis about an actor or actress)
g. The right to choose one’s way of life, that is, the right to follow a vocation, a profession or occupation,
according to one’s individual talents or natural dispositions. Forced employment and forced labor in
ordinary circumstances are violations of this human right.
h. The right to marriage.
i. The right to educate one’s children.
j. The right to develop one’s personality morally, physically, and culturally.
k. The right to free expression. (Education, economic development, and cultural life in all their aspects,
depend upon the free exchange of ideas and opinions in accordance with truth and justice)
l. The right to petition for the redress of grievances, or the right to ask the government for due
compensation and reparation for suffered damages.
m. The right of association (to form social organizations for the promotion of his economic, religious,
and educational goals and for the defense of certain acquired benefits. However, associations with
anti-patriotic, and anti-social activities are immoral and should be declared illegal by the state.

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 n. The right of the members of the community to a voice in the administration of governmental
functions or the right of free political assembly. Since all men are equal, no human community is
supposed to be ruled tyrannically by one or by a few.

From Catholic Social Teaching of the Church:

155. Pope John Paul II has drawn up a list of them in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus: “the right to life, an
integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother's womb from the moment of conception;
the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child's personality;
the right to develop one's intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth; the right to share in the
work which makes wise use of the earth's material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support
oneself and one's dependents; and the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through
the responsible exercise of one's sexuality. In a certain sense, the source and synthesis of these rights is religious
freedom, understood as the right to live in the truth of one's faith and in conformity with one's transcendent
dignity as a person”[317].

The first right presented in this list is the right to life, from conception to its natural end,[318] which is the
condition for the exercise of all other rights and, in particular, implies the illicitness of every form of procured
abortion and of euthanasia.[319] Emphasis is given to the paramount value of the right to religious freedom:
“all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power,
in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or
publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits”.[320] The respect of this right is an
indicative sign of “man's authentic progress in any regime, in any society, system or milieu”[321].

4. Limitations of the Human Rights

a. Civil unrest – Whenever there is riot or crisis, there will not be freedom of movement.
b. Some people’s movement can be limited if they have a case in the law court.
c. A citizen who is infected with deadly diseases may be isolated for treatment in other not to infect
other people thereby denying him/ her freedom of movement.
d. A person’s land and property can be destroyed if built on the wrong place or if government wants to
make some construction of roads or other project that will be useful for the public.
e. A person who is found guilty of a murder case can lose his/her right to life.

5. Conflicts of Rights and Duties

From the Social Teaching of the Church:

156. Inextricably connected to the topic of rights is the issue of the duties falling to men and women, which is
given appropriate emphasis in the interventions of the Magisterium. The mutual complementarities between
rights and duties — they are indissolubly linked — are recalled several times, above all in the human person
who possesses them.[322] This bond also has a social dimension: “in human society to one man's right there
corresponds a duty in all other persons: the duty, namely, of acknowledging and respecting the right in

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question”.[323] The Magisterium underlines the contradiction inherent in affirming rights without
acknowledging corresponding responsibilities. “Those, therefore, who claim their own rights, yet altogether
forget or neglect to carry out their respective duties, are people who build with one hand and destroy with the
other”.[324]

Required Readings:
Genesis 1:27
Evangelium Vitae, 1 and 2
Dignitatis Humanae, 1
Caritas in Veritate, 15
Deus Caritas Est, 16
Catechism for the Catholic Church, 718
Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 1136-1137, and 11

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PART II. HUMAN SEXUALITY ISSUES

Context: Human sexuality is humanizing but dehumanizing. Our modern society has distorted or insufficient
understanding on the real meaning and purpose of one's sexuality. This deficiency is shown through
numerous sex related cases, such as: Masturbation, Pre-marital sex/ fornication, Adultery, Rape,
Prostitution, and Homosexual acts.

1. A Context for the Meaning and Morality of Sexuality

Religion and Sexuality (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, Chapter 4)

The consensus seems to be that religion is having less and less effect upon people’s everyday lives. Fewer
individuals regard the teaching of the Church as relevant to sexual activity. If various forms of sexual expression
are avoided today, it is not because of religious condemnation but because of personal, medical, social, and
aesthetic considerations.

While sexuality is an inherent and pervasive aspect of human existence, it is neither exclusive nor even the
primary area for moral reflection. Admitting this, however, still leaves unchanged the fact that many people
especially the adolescent and young adults, are very concerned about the proper role of sexual expression in
their lives. I suggest that one reason for this concern is that essentially it is most frequently in the area of
sexuality that an individual first uncovers and confronts the terror and the task of establishing his or her self-
identity and integrity. During adolescence we become very aware of and self-conscious about our own desires,
needs, expectations, and demands upon others. What kind of person am I? What kind of person do I wish to
become? What kind of person should I become? What direction am I moving in? Do I need a change of direction?
The perceptions that emerge and the answers we give to these questions will greatly influence the expression
we give to our sexuality and this, I think, is as it should be.

If it happens that we profess to be Christian, it is necessarily follows that our lives should be spent in the effort
to relate to others in a loving way. Sexual expression, whatever else it may involve, must be for the Christian an
externalization of love; it must be love-in-action. Explicit physical sexual relation should be a way of expressing
love, but they are not the only way, nor are they the way for all times, places, and people. We must be loving
always, and we cannot avoid being sexual in our relationships, but we are not always engaged in or desirous of
explicit genital or physical sexual unions. Since we do not go to bed with everyone whom we love or with
everyone to whom we are physically attracted, it makes sense to ask why this is so. What exactly is it that brings
us to genital involvement with another person?

An Overview of the End of Sexual Expression (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality,
Chapter 4)

According to St. Augustine, the genital activity and pleasure of spouses as merely tolerable or acceptable, and
only because of their connection with procreation should always be intended when intercourse occurs.

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According to St. Thomas Aquinas, as observed in natural law the primary end of sexual expression is procreation
and the secondary end is the education of the children.

In light with this point Charles Curran further explains: Sins against nature (depositing of semen to the vagina
or insemination doesn’t occur: masturbation, sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, contraception, and bestiality) are
wrong because they violate the order of nature and thus impede the procreation of offspring. However, even
the sins according to nature (the act of insemination does occur, but where some distinctively human aspects
of sexuality are violated or threatened: fornication, adultery, rape, and incest) are wrong primarily because they
are against the primary end of procreation and education of the children. Simple fornication is a grave sin
because both parents are needed to provide for the proper education and upbringing of the child who might be
born as a result of such an act.

Christian View of Human Sexuality (Cf. Catechism for Filipino Catholics)

1069. The first thing to be made clear to every Christian Filipino is the difference between sexuality in general,
and the sex act. The NCDP makes this point very well.

Sexuality is today understood in a more complete and integral sense than in the past when the focus was almost
completely on the sex act. Today sexuality signifies an essential dimension of the whole person, by which he/she
enters into relationship with others. It thus touches every aspect of personal life, and has to be developed by all men
and women just as life itself must be (NCDP 287; cf. CCC 2332).

1070. This wider meaning of sexuality is reaffirmed by the Sacred Congregation for Education: “Sexuality is a
fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with
others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. Therefore it is an integral part of the development of
the personality” (EGHL 4). “It is, in fact, from sex that the human person receives the characteristics which, on
the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a man or a woman, and thereby largely
condition his or her progress toward maturity and insertion into society” (DCSE 1).

1071. The basis for this wider understanding of human sexuality is, of course, creation. Man and woman
constitute two modes of “imaging” God and they fully accomplish such a vocation not only as single persons,
but also as couples, which are communities of love (cf. EGHL 26). The first consequence of this fundamental
truth of creation is that “in creating the human race ‘male and female’ God gives man and woman an equal
personal dignity, endowing them with the inalienable rights and responsibilities proper to the human person”
(FC 22; cf. CCC 2335). PCP II forcefully opposed “all forms of discrimination and exploitation of women” and
emphasized “the growing awareness of their dignity and equality with men” (PCP II 387). For the Filipino
Christian, then, this basic equality of man and woman grounded on God’s creation is the solid ground for an
authentically Christian view of sexuality and of marriage.

1072. But this equality as persons does not entail any unisex sameness that denies all distinctiveness of the
sexes. On the contrary, the second consequence of God’s creative action is that by their distinctive sexuality,

8
man and woman are both different and complementary, not only in their physical and biological being, but
reaching down to the depth of their moral and spiritual being (cf. CCC 2333). This complementarity is the ground
for a third consequence: man and woman are called to mutual gift of self, to a reciprocity (cf. EGHL 24). By and
through our sexuality we are called to live in a positive complementary relationship with one another. “The
partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons” (GS 12), and
constitutes the basic form of our co-humanity.

1073. Concretely, then, our sexuality is a relational power through which we can show understanding, warmth,
openness and compassion to others. The fourth consequence, then, is simply that sexuality is for love __ either
married or celibate love (cf. NCDP 287). Sexuality orients every man and woman toward interpersonal dialogue,
and contributes to their integral maturation by opening them up to the gift of self in love. Sexuality, oriented,
elevated and integrated by love, acquires truly human quality. Prepared by biological and psychological
development, it grows harmoniously and is achieved in the full sense only with the realization of affective
maturity, which manifests itself in unselfish love and in the total gift of self” (EGHL 6).

1122. What are the consequences of this view of sexuality? From this view of sexuality four
consequences follow.
Men and women are:
• of equal personal dignity and human rights;
• different but complementary;
• called to mutual gift of self and reciprocity;
• created through love and for love.

Human Sexuality as Language (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, Chapter 4)

One may ask whether our tradition has sufficiently acknowledged and helpfully addressed the presence of
sexuality as a human reality in the lives of individuals long before they desire or are ready for marriage. We
acknowledge that it takes a long time for people to grow into mature love, but do our moral teaching likewise
acknowledge the people need time to grow into mature expression of sexuality, or do these teachings
unrealistically expect fully integrated coping with sexuality by individuals caught up in the distress and upsets
of adolescence? Hence, as Christians, we should not be afraid to profess the view that openness to procreation
in the context of committed love relationship (marriage) embodies the ideal or most complete expression of
human sexual love. And the Church continues to strike the balance of stressing the potential abuse of sexuality
without destroying the fact of the goodness of sexuality, and without at the same time creating excessive
feelings of guilt, shame, or discouragement that will contribute to the frustration and disillusionment of any
person.

Bernard Haring has suggested that sexuality is a language and that learning a language usually, and perhaps
necessarily, involves making mistakes. Overreaction to mispronunciation and grammatical errors serves only to
inhibit the learning process. In the case of sexual development the situation is the same. “The sexual language
has to be learned gradually and dramatizing the imperfection and mistakes of childhood and adolescence leads

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to alienation of sexuality. However, one should also note that immature and irresponsible sexual expression
should indeed be pointed out and challenged, for unless mistakes are corrected, they become ingrained, often
with sad and hurtful consequences.

If we are to make reference to sexuality as a language, then we must ask, what is the basic meaning of this
language? What is human sexuality saying, and what does it tells us about ourselves? For Christians, the meaning
of sexuality is not something arbitrary. Rather, sexuality’s meaning is derived from the very meaning of our lives
as human beings. We live because God loves us, and insofar as we live with God’s life inside us, we are enabled
to love even as God has first loved us. This means that our lives are a continuation of Christ’s embodiment of
God’s love for us. Our sexuality plays a crucial role in our ability to live up our calling to become lovers. It is God’s
ingenious way of calling us to communion with others through our need to reach out and touch and embrace –
emotionally, intellectually, and physically. And above all, sexuality is a gift intended for the expression of true
love, but such love is rooted in justice, which demands that we honestly recognize and respect the rights and
dignity of other.

The Misuse of Sexuality (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, Chapter 4)

It is clear that certain actions or ways of living fundamentally distort the meaning and purpose of sexuality and
affront human dignity. We know, for example, of the disintegration of the family and the personal trauma to
spouses and children that often result from adultery or marital infidelity. We know, too, of the despair and
greed, the indignity and injustice, often associated with prostitution and pornography. Finally, we know also of
the horror and agony of rape and various other forms of sexual assault to which many people, especially women
and children, are subjected.

It is important to note that true love relationship are born only from within the mutual vulnerability that makes
human intimacy possible. In addition, a truly loving relationship provides the only proper context for the
expression of genital sexuality, it follows that human manifestations of sexual activity must themselves be
rooted in an appropriate level of vulnerability. Any exercise of sexuality that violates appropriate vulnerability
is wrong, and this includes violations of the partner’s vulnerability and violations of one’s own vulnerability

The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) describes adultery, or marital infidelity, as an injustice.
Whoever commits adultery does injury to the sign of the covenant which the marriage bond is, transgresses the
rights of the other spouses, and undermines the institution of marriage by breaking the contract on which it is
based. Furthermore, adultery compromises that good of human generation and the welfare of children who
need their parents’ stable union. (2380-81)

When speaking of prostitution, the CCC refers to it as a social scourge, and sees the person who pays for sex as
sinning gravely. Furthermore, prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages it, reducing the
person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The CCC concludes by noting that while it is always gravely sinful to
engage in prostitution, the immutability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social
pressure. (2355)

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From CFC: 1115. In the Philippine context, both present extreme cases of exploitation and injustice, foisted on
the poor by the affluent. Rather than primarily a problem in sexual morality, both are too often simply the
consequences of dire poverty and destitution. Yet, both constitute a dehumanizing, self-centered and immoral
use of our God-given sexuality.
A prostitute is robbed of his/her dignity as a person by being reduced to a mere means for the selfish pleasure
of the buyer. There is absolutely no commitment, no love, no service of life.

Pornography, the use of visual or print media to present nudity and sexual activity in a degrading or
depersonalizing way, often preys upon the most vulnerable in our society. Pornography propagates the sexually
obscene and licentious in a dehumanizing and exploitative manner. By reducing persons to sex objects for illicit
pleasure, it substitutes self-centered, commitment-less “Playboy” fantasies, for genuine loving interpersonal
relationships. Both prostitution and pornography flourish as parasites on a society that has become morally sick
and sexually confused.

The CCC speaks more specifically about the moral evil of rape: Rape 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 damage that can mark the victim for
life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Grave still is the rape of children by parents (incest) or those responsible
for the education of the children entrusted to them.

The Genital and Affective Dimension of Sexuality (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality,
Chapter 4)

Psychiatrist John Racy has stated that as a personal and human relationship between two individuals, sexual
expression should leave both gratified and neither damaged. All sexual activity creates distance between two
people or that leaves one or the other in pain, shame, guilt, or resentment is a failure and a perversion – even
if its anatomical and legal trappings are normal.

Genitality is only one dimension of human sexuality; when we reduce sexuality to genital expression, then sexual
fulfillment is largely equated with or reduced to the joys of genital contact and orgasm. Therefore, what is
necessary for sexual and human fulfillment is not simply the occasional use of one’s genitals but the
establishment of relationships with others precisely as persons. There is a whole other dimension to human
sexuality, one that may be called the social or affective dimension, which shows itself in the human capacity to
relate to others with emotional warmth, deep compassion, and tender affection. All of these human qualities
are rooted in sexuality and are true expression of it, but they are not specifically genital in nature or focus.

When we act as loving individuals, we are acting as sexual beings, but we are not necessarily involved genitally.
If one only highlights the importance of genital expression, it would lead to a behavior that is destructive and/or
futile because although physical needs surely are real, they are not our deepest needs. In fact, if our deepest
human needs go unrecognized the remain unmet, no satisfaction of our physical sexual needs is likely to result

11
in a sense of human fulfillment. Our deepest human needs are not purely physical pleasure – or for momentary
release of tension and stress – but for a linked physical and emotional intimacy, for bonding. If we enter a
physical pleasure to the other, we can achieve physical pleasure, but not the pleasure of satisfying our deeper
needs.

Goergen reminds us, “it is easy to confuse the need for genital sex with the need for sexual identity, the need
for self-acceptance, or the need for closeness.” Speaking in the same vein, Rollo May makes the point that for
human beings the more powerful need is not for sex, per se, but for friendships, intimacy, acceptance, and
affirmation. When these greater or more powerful human needs are met, our lower needs are more
manageable. Loving at higher need level makes the lower needs and their frustrations and satisfactions less
important, less central, and more easily neglected. But it also makes them more wholeheartedly enjoyed when
gratified.

Quite often genital relationships are no guarantee for sense of closeness, belonging, and intimacy. At the same
time, experience proves that achieving oneness and intimacy is quite possible without genital expression.
Psychologist Sol Gordon suggests that ultimately it is not physical expression of sex that succeed in keeping
couples together. According to Gordon, intimacy and sex are not synonymous, and a strong relationship that is
less than ideal sexually is not doomed. Good sex can be taught and learned, while the foundation of intimacy
and trust on which a mature relationship is built must serve as a constant in the couple’s mutual growth. In
short, it is easy to develop good sex between good friends than it is to develop honesty and trust between great
lovers.

Intimacy is born between two people who open themselves up, make themselves vulnerable, and allow and
invite each other to see their deepest selves. There is no shortcut to human intimacy, and attempt to have a
“quick fix” at it normally result only in a short-circuiting of the relationship.

The key in keeping the physical or genital dimension of a relationship in proper perspective is to develop the
affective dimension of sexuality. It is possible to live fully, healthfully, and happily without genital sexuality. It is
not possible to do so without developed affective relationships. But unfortunately, genital expression is often a
cop-out, an escape, because both inside and outside marriage it is far easier “to sleep with” someone than it is
to live with and for someone in a completely human way, that is, emotionally and psychologically as well as
physically. And more important to note that genital sexual expression itself tends to become routine and
unsatisfying when it is not nourished within a context of affectivity.

Sexuality, Chastity, and Love (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, Chapter 4)

What people want today are arguing for is a sexual morality that makes sense in terms of personal relationship.
It is acknowledge that sex does not create a relationship; rather, it expresses a relationship that already exists.
But the question to be asked is whether the physical sexual relationship reflects and corresponds to the depth
of intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal involvement that is shared by two people. I say this because I agree
with Norman Pittenger that living as a chaste person requires that the physical and external expression of our

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sexuality be under control of love, with tenderness and full awareness of the other. John A. T. Robinson also
suggests that chastity is fundamentally honest in sex, that is, chastity implies that we have “physical
relationships that truthfully express the degree of personal commitment” that is shared by two people. It means
that two individuals in their physical sexual relationship should not transcend, exceed, or go beyond the degree
of activity that would be appropriate for the commitment that actually exists between them.

It should be noted here that the criterion of honesty is not observed or met by what people tell each other
about the level of their mutual commitment but rather by whether their physical sexual expression exceeds or
moves beyond their real level of mutual commitment, regardless of what or how much they tell each other.
Thus just because two people openly admit to each other that they are in the relationship simply because of the
fun and pleasure involved, this does not mean that they can therefore legitimately engage in genital expressions
of their sexuality. The reason for this is that there is still a great discrepancy between their level of commitment
ad what the act of sexual intercourse itself says.

For the time being, let us simply admit that once chastity is described as honesty in sex, it becomes necessary
to distinguish between chastity and virginity. There are obviously people who give up their virginity but who do
not abandon their lives of chastity. Among such people are spouses whose physical relationships give honest
testimony to the deep commitment and love they share. Chastity, then, is expected of all people, not just of
those who are single. Spouses are, ideally, chaste nonvirgins. At the same time, it is possible to be an unchaste
virgin, which means that a person may retain his or her physical virginity but still be involved in a relationship
that is not honest in terms of physical sexual expression. Thus the question of chastity needs to be addressed in
a relationship even before the question of virginity, because often chastity is forgotten long before virginity is
lost.

In discussing the virtue of chastity, Goergen locates it within the overall context of our humanity and Christianity.
He suggests that chastity is a virtue that helps us to utilize the totality of our sexuality and put it at the service
of our becoming Christian. Far from being in any way opposed to sexuality, chastity accepts a person’s striving
for pleasure and attempts to put that striving in the service of other human and Christian values. A chaste
person, is someone who places the intense pleasure associated with the genital interaction at the service of
love. Chastity moderates or orders one’s sexuality, and in doing so, it makes sexuality neither “the end of man
nor the enemy of man.” The highest goal of any sex education is to introduce human beings to a knowledge and
exercise of truly responsible and partner-oriented behavior. Put another way, the goal is to develop in people
the ability to give and receive love.

True love or Illusion (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, Chapter 4)

It would be an understatement to say that many people are confused about the meaning of love. No less an
understatement it is to suggest that sex and love are often wrongly identified or equated. How often do people
say, for example, that they “made love” or that they “where intimate,” when they would be much closer to the
truth if they said simply that they “had sex?” Having sex or wanting sex with someone has absolutely nothing in
itself to do with love or intimacy. Sol Gordon makes this point when he reminds us that at times we can be

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sexually excited by people we do not even like. In commenting further on the difference between physical or
sexual attraction and love, Gordon says: You can be sexually attracted to someone with whom you cannot even
hold conversation. You can have an affair with someone you would not consider an appropriate parent. You can
be sexually excited by parts of people. But you cannot expect to build a lasting satisfying relationship with
someone with whom you share only sexual interests.

If it is not easy to discover the true meaning of love, it is even more difficult to live it. And so before we go
looking for the meaning of true love, we will begin by suggesting that the ability to love another has certain
prerequisites, not the least of which is the capacity to love oneself. Authentic self-love is necessary for mature
human relationships. The reason for this is that proper self-esteem and love of self make it less likely either that
I will try to exploit others or that I will make myself available for exploitation. Unless I have basic sense of who
I am and who I would like to be, unless I am able to find value in myself, accept myself, and love myself, one of
two things may happen. Not loving myself, I may come to imagine that no one else could possibly find me
lovable. And so, afraid of being hurt by being reclusive. I thus abandon any prospect of forming enduring
relationships. Or my poor self-image may lead me to seek protection from being hurt by pushing others away.
In this case I isolate myself by aggressiveness. In either event distance is created between others and myself.

Beyond this, what often happens is that people who are unable or unwilling to be vulnerable to other people
become vulnerable to things – drugs, alcohol, overeating, or addictive sexual behavior in which the pleasures of
body-to-body contact serve to substitute for the fulfillment made possible by true personal contact. In situations
like this, life is little more than a dead end, offering scarcely any possibility for true love and rather search for
love out of a sense of desperation and weakness. Truly loving someone is a mature enterprise undertaken from
a position of strength, at least in the sense that I must be sufficiently at one with myself to have a basic
perception of my strengths and weaknesses such that I know what I can and cannot offer the one whom I love.

We are now ready to reflect upon the experience of human love. To begin with, real love is not an accident that
befalls me. It is not something I fall into. Rather, love is my free response, my free decision to respond and
nurture the beauty and potential that I see in another human being. To understand what is at issue here, it
might be helpful for us to acknowledge that there are various human experiences, all of which make us use the
word “love” but which are quite different from one another. Certainly, we have to distinguish between “being
in love” and simply “being in heat.” But we also need to realize that “falling in love” and “being in love” often
have nothing to do with truly loving someone. Loving someone over the years is a very different matter from
being in love. It is much less an emotional state, much more a choice. Falling in love is something that happens
to a person; loving someone is something a person chooses to do or not to do. Love should be essentially an act
of will, of decision to commit my life completely to that of one other person . . . . To love someone is not just a
strong feeling – it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no
basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go.

It makes sense to say that two people who love each other do not so much “fall for” each other; rather they
“stand in” with respect to each other. To capture the significance of this distinction, it is necessary to reflect
further on the fact – too little understood and appreciated today – that there is indeed a lifetime of difference

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between true love and simply “being in love.” While the experience of being in love tends to be quite romantic,
true love must struggle with reality. One writer marvelously contrasts the two experiences:

Being in love is the high-voltage, circuit-blowing infatuation we’ve all experienced when we connect with someone
a new. It’s the intoxication of being accepted and desired. It’s the thrill of taking a leap, shedding clothes and
inhibitions, being dazzled by the private magnificence of another. Being in love is awesome and enthralling, but in
the end, sadly, it’s an emotional sprint. Like a blossoming flower, it’s simply too phenomenal to last longer than a
season.
Love, by contrasts, is a marathon of the heart. It requires training, disciplines, endurance and work. It is not a
spectator or an event whose outcome can be decided in seconds. It is pushing up hills and suffering pain and resisting
the temptation to drop out. . . . When love is viewed as an act of will . . . it can survive as long as your heart beats.
Put another way, while being in love may sometimes lead to marriage, it’s love that makes a marriage last. More
specifically, it’s the deliberate, active commitment implied by love that lies at the core of conjugal bliss.

According to Ray E. Short, a sociologist, that there are three signs of symptoms that can accompany both
infatuation and love and therefore cannot be seen in themselves as evidence of true love are these: a
“powerful pull to passion,” a “gnawing need for nearness,” and the experience of “funny feelings” like
weak knees, heart flutter, stomach butterflies, and a sense of “walking on clouds.” For those caught up
in such a relationship, life is a roller coaster of emotions and mood swings. Being preoccupied with “the
person of their dreams,” “the object of their desire,” “the center of their attention,” people who are
infatuated or “in love” find it difficult to concentrate. Moreover, people in the midst of infatuation or
immature love often find themselves worn out and unnerved by jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity,
and anxiety as they wonder if their feelings of “love” are appreciated, shared, and reciprocated by the
“beloved.” Finally, most often the experience of infatuation is short-lived. An infatuation will end soon
– unless the couple becomes involved in mutually satisfying sexual relations.

Short suggests that the mature love is relationship that is truly loving find they have more energy and
vitality. Not only are they are deeply grateful for the gift of their beloved, but they also sense an increase
in self-confidence and security. Less afraid and defensive, they become more creative, more expansive,
and more sensitive to others, with the result that their lives take on new meaning and purpose. Basic
indication that we are involved in relationship of true love is this: we want our loved ones to be happy
even if we cannot the ones to share that happiness; we continue to want what is the best for those we
truly love even if we ourselves are unable to make them happy. True love must be both healthy and
moral and doesn’t only consist simply or even primarily in the satisfaction of needs.

The decision to love someone necessarily involves the willingness to work toward creating an atmosphere in
which my loved one can reach the fullness of his her potential. Therefore, true love involves effort, an
investment of self. When I truly love another, I may sometimes desire to be with my loved one, but this is not a
constant, essential, or necessary part of a loving relationship. Rather, what lies at the core of true love is a desire
to be for the other. This desire gives birth to a willingness to do what is necessary to enable my beloved one,
not myself; yet I, of course, do not go unaffected by this love relationship. In giving, I receive and am enriched
and fulfilled. But my own growth is not the reason, the motive, or the purpose of my loving someone. I desire

15
not the domination of my beloved one but his or her freedom and growth instead. There is nothing forced about
love, and it has nor ulterior motives.

Describing true love as a basic decision and desire to be for the one I love clearly suggests a willingness to
sacrifice self for the sake of my beloved, but this in no way implies or requires any loss or diminishment of
legitimate self-love on my part. Rather, love must challenge and help those who are beloved to their best and
not to settle for being less than they are called to be by God.

In conclusion

Sexuality is an integral or essential element in the challenge we face of becoming fully human. It is also a crucial
factor in the mission we enjoy as Christians, namely, to continue proclaiming and manifesting the reality of
God’s love for all people, which became flesh in Jesus Christ. It is our nature as sexual beings that enables us to
be lovers, and it is love that must provide the context for our expression of genital sexuality.

From the Catechism for the Filipino Catholics (CFC)

1123. What are the different states of life expressing love? The different states of life for men and women are:
• conjugal union of the married;
• consecrated celibacy chosen freely for the sake of the Kingdom;
• Christian youths before entering into a definite state of life; and
• the single blessedness chosen by lay faithful

1129. What does the virtue of chastity do?

Chastity
• puts order into our use of sexuality;
• channels our sexual energies toward the positive service of love;
• seeks the proper limits within which our passions can be reasonably directed toward
authentic joy and peace; and
• demands that we develop the needed self-control for married as well as single persons.

1130. What does “growing up” to maturity mean? Growing up toward authentic integration of our sexuality
entails:
• freeing ourselves from our own natural self- centeredness, to realize our intrinsic need for
others;
• learning to respect and nourish positive attitudes towards others, and
• discerning when to say “No,” and the difference between true authentic love and its many
counterfeit imitations.

1131. What does “education for chastity” involve? Education for chastity involves:
• developing a strong motivation through positive focus on the authentic values of our

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sexuality;
• the importance of our imagination, and the family context, and
• the integration of the biological, affective, social and spiritual elements of sexuality.

On Masturbation (Cf. In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality, Chapter 8)

In this part, we will present the view of several authors, some of whom emphasize the psychological dimension
and meaning of masturbation and others who focus on the moral assessment of the act. It should be said
immediately that a good many writers would maintain that a moral assessment of masturbation, or of any act
for that matter, should never be attempted, and will probably be inadequate, without reference to the act’s
psychological or human significance. The traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on masturbation
will be discussed, and the chapter will conclude with some pastoral advice on dealing not only with masturbation
but also with the whole matter of temptation and sexual frustration.

Psychological Interpretation and Human Meanings

Masturbation has been characterized as “a wicked and perverse experience, one capable of corrupting a person
physically and psychologically.” And the effect of such notion has been to burden people “with great and
unnecessary sense of guilt.” Admittedly, in recent years a “more sensible and compassionate understanding of
masturbation has been achieved namely, that it is “something not to worry about at all just all, just ‘the second
best kind of sex.’” People are told that they should feel quite free about masturbating because it is one of those
actions that simply “don’t hurt anybody.”

Psychologist Eugene C. Kennedy is not satisfied with regarding masturbation as always harmful, but neither does
he consider it honest or prudent to glorify masturbation or to regard it as virtuous. According to him,
masturbation does indeed have different meaning. Sometimes the act can be expressive of a person’s, especially
and adolescent’s, effort to understand and integrate various elements of his or her self-identity as a sexual being
so that there can further movement in the direction of mature interpersonal relationship. At other times,
masturbation can be stultifying and isolating. This occurs when a person “finds the locus of all the pleasure in
himself,” with the result that he cannot pass through the further stage of being able to share himself, which is
essential to his complete growth.” At the very least, says Kennedy, masturbation is a complete complex
phenomenon, and to suggest otherwise is serious disservice to people.

Moreover, Kennedy is convinced that a psychological analysis of masturbation in any person’s life must precede
the attempt to evaluate the moral status of this activity. Although he is not sympathetic to the ethical judgment
that masturbation is intrinsically evil act, he clearly acknowledges that there are moral dimensions or
implications to masturbation insofar as it frustrates or impairs an individual’s capacity for the joy of
interpersonal living and loving. Yet he maintains that moral question is probably best and properly addressed
only within the broader context of attending to the psychological needs and blocks that are making their
presence felt through a person’s recourse to masturbation.

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Freud observed that “the problem of masturbation becomes insoluble if we attempt to treat it as a clinical unit,
and forget that it can represent the discharge of every variety of sexual component and of every sort of fantasy
to which such components give rise.” For Freud, in other words, masturbation is not to regarded as a problem
or entity in itself but rather should be seen as an action that expresses or reflects some internal psychosexual
state. In recent years, masturbation has been viewed in contexts broader even than those suggested by Freud.
In adolescence, for example, masturbation is often symptomatic of many nonsexual conflicts. This has led
SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S) to maintain that “boredom, frustration, loneliness, a
poor self-image, inadequate boy-girl relationships, conflict with parents, too many pressure in school, etc., can
all create tensions that the adolescent tries to relieve through masturbation. In some cases it is not the
masturbation that must be examined, but the conflict of which it is symptom; and counseling or psychotherapy
may be indicated.”

Psychiatrist Frederick Perls believes that masturbation is healthy when it expresses an outgoing drive and serves
as substitute for intercourse when intercourse simply is not available: “The healthy masturbation fantasy would
be that of approaching and having intercourse with a beloved person. Quite different position, however, is taken
by another psychiatrist, Thomas Hora, who maintains that “masturbation as a substitution for intercourse with
the beloved person when the opportunity for intercourse is not available is unhealthy and inauthentic. Rather
than simply a substitute for loving intercourse, masturbation is more a counterfeit of it. “Masturbation allures
and attracts but in the end it is an illusion which confers the opposite of what it promises: a sense of emptiness
and non-being rather than fulfillment.

In his book The Sexual Celibate Donald Goergen reports that there any psychological problems associated with
masturbation, they do not arise from the masturbatory activity but from the individual’s attitude towards it.
When masturbation is preferred to intercourse, something is wrong. Although he does not consider the act to
be intrinsically immoral, it does, he says, raise some moral question. This is not to say that masturbation is
always or even usually selfish act, but a definite possibility exists that such activity will lead a person “in the
direction of narcissistic rather than interpersonal sexuality.” Clearly “masturbation is not in complete accord
with the goal of sexuality, which is other-oriented love.

At the same time, Goergen can imagine situations in which this goal of the other-oriented love need not to be
violated or betrayed by the act of masturbation. One example of how love might sometimes even protected by
masturbation involves cases of a married person who masturbates instead of having intercourse with someone
else when sexual relations with his or her spouse are rendered impossible for some long period of time due to
physical separation or illness.” Another case is that when a man masturbates in order to obtain sperm for fertility
testing to see if there is a way of enhancing the possibility of procreating with his wife.

When all is said and done, Goergen suggests that “it is as false to say that masturbation is always wrong as it is
to say that it is never wrong. What can be most safely maintained is that masturbation points to the
unfinishedness of the process of a person’s sexual and spiritual integration as a human being. Goergen develops
this point with wisdom and sensitivity: “To be unfinished is not to be immoral nor irresponsible. It is, however,

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to be challenged toward further growth. We must accept unfinishedness but not choose to remain there. There
will always be the tension between accepting ourselves where we are and striving after the ideals of Christian
life . . . . We should not be ashamed of our present stage of growth nor should we stagnate there.

Moral Evaluations

One looks in vain to the Old and New Testaments for any specific or explicit condemnation of masturbation. The
Hebrew Scripture does make reference to seminal discharge (Lev. 15:16) and nocturnal emissions
(Deuteronomy 23:9-11) to say that they make a man temporarily unclean and ritually impure, and in the New
Testament we are told to use our bodies in a way “that is holy and honorable, not giving way to selfish lust” (1
Thess. 4:3-4) Moreover, “people of immoral lives” are warned that they will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1
Cor. 6:9-10). Scripture scholars seem to agree, however, that there is no convincing proof that any of the
passages pertain to masturbation as such. Nonetheless, in its 1975 “Declaration on Certain Questions
Concerning Sexual Ethics” the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (SCDF) maintains that “even if
it cannot be proved that Scripture condemns this sin by name, the tradition of the Church has rightly understood
it to be condemned in the New Testament when the latter speaks of ‘impurity,’ ‘unchasteness’ and other vices
contrary to chastity and continence.”

The official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on masturbation is clearly and concisely stated by the SCDF
in the 1975 declaration referred to above:

Both the Magisterium of the Church – in the course of a constant tradition – and the moral sense of the faith
have declared without hesitation that masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act.

The main reason is that, whatever the motive for acting in this way, the deliberate use of the sexual faculty
outside normal conjugal relations especially contradicts the finality of the faculty. For it lacks the sexual
relationship called for by the moral order, namely the relationship which realizes “the fullness of mutual self-
giving and human procreation in the context of true love” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World, 51). All deliberate exercise of sexuality must be reserved to this regular relationship.

The Church’s official teaching is reiterated in the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which says that
masturbation “is intrinsically and gravely disordered action.” At the same time, however, the CCC affirms that
in order “to form a n equitable judgment about the subject’s moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action,
one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other
psychological or social factors that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability. (2352)

The issue of a person’s moral responsibility or guilt in masturbating has caught the attention of Catholic moralist
over the years. In 1967 Joseph Farraher, S.J., maintained that

For a person to be formally guilty of a mortal sin of masturbation n, his act must be fully deliberate choice of
what he fully realizes is serious evil. If the act is performed with only partial realization or only partial choice of
the will, the person is guilty of venial sin. If there is no free choice of the will, there is no guilt at all, even if the

19
 person is aware of what he is doing. . . . Serious sin must always involve a fully deliberate choice of what one
be fully realizes to be seriously wrong. Such a choice is not easily presumed to be that of anyone who wants to
love and serve God.

Much more recently, John F. Harvey, O.S.F.S., has said that

In the question of masturbation many person torture themselves needlessly. I refer primarily to good living
people whose only “sin” is masturbation. The spiritual counselor or confessor who knows the struggles that
these persons have had tries to make it clear that there has been no free consent to the impulse to masturbate.

There is no grievous sin if a person masturbates while lacking in awareness, as when he is half awake, or half
asleep, or when a person is carried away by sudden passion and finds himself committing the act despite the
resistance of the will.

Harvey goes on to remind people of the moral principle that “spontaneous arousal is not a sin; the fact of
struggle against sexual fantasies indicates that one did not give full, if any, consent; and in matters of doubt
concerning consent the presumption is in favor of non-consent.” Harvey maintains that people, especially the
young,

Must come to understand that one cannot sin by accident. If one is careful and sincere in his spiritual life, in his
effort to love God, he is not likely to give full consent to the act of masturbation. In this wider perspective of
examining one’s overall relationship to God one Judges the individual act: “If this overall spiritual life is generally
good and wholesome, then it can be safely assumed that full consent is not present and you are not guilty of
mortal sin, even though you did something which is called ‘serious matter.’”

Of course, discovery and understanding even the human meaning of masturbation in any person’s life is itself
not a simple matter. Nonetheless, as psychologist William F. Kraft suggest, the process of analyzing the dynamics
of masturbation should be given by trying “to understand the life of the masturbator. In other words, the act
should be seen in light of a total process.” This means, for example, that the frequency and intensity of the act
are important variables. “Masturbation once a month differs from once a day in terms of its psychological and
spiritual impact.” Kraft also points out that “a person who masturbates daily for an hour with intense fantasy as
the only source of interpersonal intimacy will differ significantly from a person who masturbates infrequently
and who has healthy experiences of intimacy.”

When speaking of adolescent masturbation, the authors of CTSA study (Catholic Theological Society of America)
refrain from making any moral judgment of the act. They prefer simply to point out that at this stage of life
people are in need of “support and direction that will bring reassurance and foster growth and development in
terms of reaching out to others.” According to the report, what will be most helpful to adolescent struggling
with masturbation is that he or she be directed “to activities that strengthen self-confidence and encourage
growth and interrelationship with others.” As personal development occurs, it is expected that “the
masturbation in most cases will gradually disappear.” With reference, finally, to masturbation as a clinical
procedure “for obtaining semen for fertility testing or for diagnosing certain venereal infections,” the report
concludes that this “should not be viewed in any way as sinful or immoral.”

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At other times masturbation may be an expression of sexual curiosity, or it may function as an attempt to deal
with sexual feelings and desires that have not yet been perfectly integrated. Going even further in our attempt
to get a fuller sense of the various meanings that might be attached to masturbation.

At this point all we can say is that the variations in the human meanings attached to masturbation are likely to
be reflected in the moral evaluation made of the act. Thus before one makes the judgment that masturbation
is subjectively sinful, one must first determine whether the action accurately expresses that a person’s
fundamental loving relationship with God and others is being deliberately and intentionally altered or rejected.

Philip S. Keane, S.S. is one theologian who does not regard masturbation as always objectively morally wrong.
The act does, however, always embody some significant premoral or ontic wrong insofat as it closes off “both
the personal union aspect and the procreative aspect of physical sexual expression.” As example of some
instances where masturbation might be seen as a premora wrong rather than as moral evil, Keane mentions
adolescent masturbation, masturbation by an adult who has chosen “to remain single for some important
reason (care of a sick parent, a worthwhile professional career, etc.),” masturbation by married person whose
spouse is absent or ill for a long period of time, and masturbation for purposes of sperm testing. But whenever
masturbation is turned to without proportionate or sufficient reason, it carries the weight of an objective moral
wrong and would be sinful if the individual knowingly and freely entered into the act.

If any consensus has emerged among Catholic theologians regarding masturbation’s moral status, it would seem
to fall along the following lines. The potential immorality of masturbation does not consist primarily in whatever
obvious pleasure the act may involve, even though the CCC does regard sexual pleasure as morally disordered,
lustful, and inappropriate “when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes” (2351).
Rather, masturbation must be morally evaluated more in terms of its basic compatibility or incompatibility with
the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. If, in the full and rich expression of its genital dimension, human
sexuality is meant to be not only love-giving, unitive, and interpersonal but also life-giving, procreative, and
heterosexual, then masturbation must be seen as necessarily incapable of expressing faithfully sexuality’s full
meaning and purpose. In this innate inability to embody and reflect the richness of human sexuality lies the
moral danger associated with masturbation.

Moreover, it is not clear how a single act of masturbation or a short series of these acts is substantial inversion of growth
or substantive withdrawal from the human meaning of sexuality as unitive and procreative. Therefore, to the extent that
masturbation neither “impedes intersubjective and heterosexual growth” nor constitutes an inversion of the meaning of
human sexuality, it is not objectively immoral.”

In attempting to bring these thoughts on the morality of masturbation to a close, some final observations may be helpful
toward obtaining an overview of the matter. All of us must learn to resist the urge toward immediate gratification of
sexual desires. Controlling our instincts, of course, is the work of a lifetime and constitutes an integral part of the larger
task of finding and developing our true selves. Moreover, this task is successfully accomplished only to the extent that we
persistently resist the temptation to turn in upon ourselves and thereby fail to manifest a true love for others, if it is, “both
the physiological and psychological grounding of our capacity to love,” then we must be on guard against any self-
centeredness and self-preoccupation that can enter into our lives and become a part of our daily routine. In this context,

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the moral danger of masturbation is obvious: it can entrap a person in such a way that he becomes so fixed “on himself,
on his body, and his own sensual pleasure that his capacity to show love in a relationship with a partner ceases to be
functional.

Masturbation is particularly seductive because it is an easy and accessible way to reduce tension and to explore genital
feelings and fantasies without interpersonal vulnerability. In masturbation, we do not have to risk rejection,
embarrassment, or failure. Instead of engaging in mature relationship, we can create a world of make-believe people
where anything is possible and there are no limits. In a sense, masturbation can satisfy interpersonal yearning while
remaining an individual affair. In fantasy we can explore the world of sexual intimacy without leaving our room, more
radically, ourselves. Masturbation can lead to an affair with oneself.

The folly of masturbation, which consists in the fact that through masturbation “we silence the Spirit urging us to love.”
As a result of this, we end up “being more empty and lonely,” because the only kind of satisfaction masturbation provides
is “momentary and not growth oriented.” A habitual masturbator is pressured to live according to immediate gratification
and to see life and other people in terms of self-satisfaction and these motivations and perceptions may well continue to
play an unconsciously role in whatever personal relationship he or she enters into and attempts to develop.

Although it is reasonably to agree that masturbation is associated with the kind of human and moral threat we have been
looking at, honesty requires that we ask how often it happens that this threat is actualized or carried out. It is not clear
that in clear that in the ordinary course of events masturbation does in fact give birth to such selfishness, self-
centeredness, and rejection of vulnerability that a person’s desire or capacity to love is curtailed, thwarted, or destroyed.
Granting that the full richness and the meaning of human sexuality lie in its potential to confer love and life, masturbation
without question will always remain objectively an incomplete and inadequate expression of sexuality’s value. But it seems
that most often, especially among adolescents and young adults, recourse to masturbation indicates nor a selfish or
narcissistic flight from love, but rather an honest concession to the fact that a person is not presently prepared for, or
capable of, either love and its obligations or parenting and its responsibilities. Many people who masturbate with some
regularity do so, perhaps, not so much because they fear vulnerability and intimacy or because they refuse to love but
because they have not yet discovered the kind of love that allows for morally appropriate genital intimacy. And yet, more
often than not, these people do eventually find love, embrace it, and come to learn the lesson it has to teach.

When speaking of fantasies, Kraft reminds us that “we stand on precarious ground when fantasy becomes our main source
of intimacy and fulfillment. When fantasy fosters growth, it is healthy, but when fantasy impedes or violates growth, it is
immature and unhealthy.” To the extent, therefore, that most of the fantasies descried above are not likely to contribute
to a person’s growth as a lover, they are unhealthy and should be resisted. Moreover, insofar as it would be objectively
wrong to act out these fantasies, the guilt that is associated with freely encouraging or entertaining them during the act
of masturbation would seem to be authentic and proper.

Masturbation is especially problematical from the perspective of human and moral growth if it is chosen in preference to
the fuller and richer forms of shared sexual activities when these are readily and morally available. Even granting, however,
that masturbation is always an objective moral wrong – a concession as we have seen, some Roman Catholic theologians
are unwilling to make – strong evidence exists against the subjective sinfulness of the act in many instances. Quite often
masturbation occurs in a cyclic pattern in the lives of people who regard such activity as objectively wrong and do not
want it to be a part of their lives. As these people struggle to live the gospel of Christ, they find that a period of regular
and perhaps frequent masturbation alternates with a period of abstinence.

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