50 In Search of a Healthy, Ordered Sexuality

Intro: Welcome to the podcast Interior Integration for Catholics -- the podcast formerly known as Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem! And for one episode, the last episode we called it "Resilient Catholics" -- but there is a podcast out there already called "The Resilient Catholic" so we don’t want to create confusion and division. InteriorIntegrationCatholicsEncompasses Human Formation Radical Transformation Shoring up the natural foundation for the spiritual life Resilience I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski and I am here with you, to be your host and guide.  This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up our natural foundation for the Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving God and neighborThis is episode 50, released on January 11, 2021and it is titled: In Search of a healthy, ordered sexuality.  This is the second episode in our series on sexuality.  We are going to spend time on sexuality and in the coming weeks we will address many topics, including masturbation, pornography, adulterous affairs, pre-marital sex, asexuality, homosexuality, artificial contraception and sexual trauma and its effects.  But to put those issues into context, we need to understand what a health sexuality looks like.  Vitally important because sexuality is so sensitive to how we live our lives in the natural realm   Also vitally important because an authentic Catholic view on sexuality is so radically different from what the world offers us. Most baptized Catholic reject Catholic teaching on many sexual issues. So many Catholics struggle with sexual issues.  Lots of confusion. Lots of distress.  We need a guiding star, an image of what sexuality should be.  That's what this episode is about. We will look at the authoritative sources of Catholic teaching but really flesh them out in a way that appreciates how people are wired physiologically, neurologically and psychologically So we can have answers to why we so often find ourselves falling and going astray in the sexual realm.  PartsExamplesVitally important to recognize a healthy sexuality because our sexuality is so sensitive to how we live our lives in the natural realm -- are we living in an ordered, virtuous way in harmony with natural and divine realities, or are we basing our actions on our subjective, distorted perceptions of reality.  Sexuality is either the first or one of the first areas in our life to go wrong when we depart from reality.  Sensitive barometer to how things are ordered or not ordered in our lives.  Most baptized Catholic report that they reject Catholic teaching on many sexual issues. Pew 2014 Survey of more than 7200 Catholics, 57% Favor or Strongly Favor Same-sex Marriages Pew 2016 survey of 817 Catholics only 8% of Catholics believe using contraception is morally wrong.  41% believe its morally acceptable and 48% believe it's not a moral issue.Lots more statisticsSocial referencing:  evaluating one’s own modes of thinking, expression, or behavior by comparing them with those of other people so as to understand how to react in a particular situation and to adapt one’s actions and reactions in ways that are perceived to be appropriate.  APA dictionaryLukewarm Catholics look a lot like lukewarm Methodists, look a lot like lukewarm Jews, look a lot like lukewarm Buddhists, look a lot like lukewarm agnostics, look a lot like lukewarm atheists. Going with the cultural flowRelying on own perceptions and insightsEverybody being influenced by the societal trends.  We don't want to be constrained Reductionism.  Universal, Eternal Moral Laws --> Confining, chafing Rules -->  outdated decrees from decades or centuries ago, promulgated by old white men in black cassocks who aren't supposed to be having sex anyway -- what do they know?  How are these teaching possibly relevant to my life in the 2020s.  Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, creating an impression that sex is bad, almost any sexual activity is bad, I'm tired of being told how bad I am . License vs. freedom Freedom is the capacity to choose the good for me and for others Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude (#1731). License is the capacity to choose what I want -- to take what I want  root of licentiousness -- lacking legal or moral restraints and especially disregarding sexual restraints Me as the measure Enlightenment -- man as the measure of all things instead of God. Ordered sexuality is what I think it is for me.  Assumption that I know what is best for me, by my own lights No need for divine revelation No acceptance of an external authority Chesterton “We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong.” The Catholic Church and Conversion Assumption that I can determine what is best for me.   So many Catholics struggle with sexual issues.  Lots of confusion. Lots of distress.  Catholic teaching on sexuality is very misunderstood, often watered down, often misrepresented.Intensity of bodily experience -- affects us.  Market for it.  We have itching ears 2 Timothy 4: 2-4  Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.  3 For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: 4 And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. St. Hilary of Poitiers:  mid-fourth century AD:  …they will gather teachers together for these things which they desire. They will compile a doctrine that fits in with their desires, since they are no longer eager to be taught. They want to bring together teachers for that which they already desire in order that this large number of teachers whom they have sought and assembled may satisfy the doctrines of their own passionate desires. ON THE TRINITY 10.2.69 GK Chesterton:  The Catholic Church and Conversion 1926 : We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. In these current fashions it is not really a question of the religion allowing us liberty; but (at the best) of the liberty allowing us a religion. Th...