Just To Be Clear (On The Catholic Position On Masturbation).

The general views of Roman Catholics in the United States have changed a lot over the years. But some are still very strict and conservative, especially when it comes to church dogma. One subject that still comes up sometimes, believe it or not, is masturbation.

I had a doctor once tell me a story about that. He had an old man patient who was a Catholic and asked him about it. And my doctor, who was a conservative Catholic himself, said he really didn't think it was an issue anymore. True, it is a mortal sin. And if you die in a state of mortal sin you go straight to hell. But he told the old man he thought God would still understand.

Anyways, just to clarify, if anyone is wondering. Here is the official Church position on the matter:

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."


But then the Catechism goes on to say in the next paragraph:


To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' 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, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, SECOND EDITION (1995),
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Publishing.


In case anyone was wondering.

 

Ridiculous bullshit! Ruinous molesters of children , hypocritical control / money hustlers.

 

I was raised Catholic. My Mama used to tell me:"They're celibate old men. What do they know?"

 

I have struggled with masturbation for most of my life. I learned that I could justify it any number of ways, and pretend it was ok...but my guilt told me it wasn't. When you're involved with a habitual mortal sin, God has a way of calling you back to confession. I'm going to err on the side of caution. I don't want to go to Hell just because I like to play with myself.

 

I think that this sort of thing could definitely cause undue guilt. Scientific studies from leading universities like harvard have proven that if people, especially males, do not masturbate, they are 100% more likely to spontaneously burst into flames.

It might be easier if you are born into a christian community where you are guaranteed to be married by 20 or 25, but for the rest of us this is totally rediculous.

 

Control , down to the finest , ridiculous detail. What people will let themselves believe and put themselves through is astounding!!

 

Considering even an abbreviated history of the Catholic Church, from the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the conquest and enslavement of First Nations peoples, to the 'Magdalene Laundries', the Indian residential schools, and their well-documented systemic predilection for pedophilia, it's not abundantly clear to me why I should give a bubbly fart what the Catholic Church's opinion is on anything.
Any organization which has inflicted that much human suffering upon millions of people for hundreds of years must be, on it's most fundamental level, evil.

 

PINO here (protestant in name only) never grew up with this hangup, so don't carry it today, oh boy happy about that, and I really do embrace those of you who do.

 

Hell is a mental projection, nothing more.
It is used as a means of social control.
It's shit like this from the hypocritical Catholic Church that causes so many sexual hangups.

I remember the sexual liberation of the 70s. That was true freedom. The backlash to that has never stopped because it was turned into a political issue to divide us.

And now it's focused on the trans community because the gay community has become more accepted. They always need scapegoats to fear monger.

 

It's fascinating to me how some people take every opportunity to bash the Catholic Church without even trying to understand why the church teaches what it does.

Yes, the church has it's problems...it is an organization full of sinful people. But my belief is that it was started by Jesus Christ himself, therefore what it teaches is true and never changes.

I thought that Hip Forums was supposed to be a respectful place. We don't have to agree on everything, but at least be civil about our differences. If you don't like the Catholic Church then don't be Catholic.

 

When it comes to child abuse and pedophilia (particularly on as gargantuan a scale as the Catholic Church), I really don't give a rat's ass "why the Church teaches what it does", and the bullshit rationalization for such monumental evil that it's merely a few 'bad apples' and that "it was started by Jesus Christ himself" is not only factually wrong (the Catholic Church was started between 33 AD and 64 AD), but should be deeply offensive to Christians everywhere.

 

So, you are visiting the Christianity forum just to attack Christianity in general and Catholics specifically? You are not contributing anything to the conversation that started this thread. You are a troll. But then again you say it yourself, "Village Idiot."