What the heck is going on in Canada

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/01...9-in-marriage/

Canadian Catholic bishops are cautioning married couples to not get too focused on sexual acts other than intercourse, calling them a potential misuse of sex that ignore God’s intentions.

A pastoral letter released this week by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops calls on married couples to lead “chaste” lives — not meaning “celibate” but approaching sex with “purity of mind as well as body” and respecting the dignity of the other person.

“That is why the sexual act has to be unitive and procreative and why some kinds of activity are not chaste,” the letter said. “Though pleasure may be present, some acts are a misuse of sex when they fall short of what God intended.”

The letter — most of it is designed to advise young people on why it is important to avoid sexual encounters outside of marriage — was the result of a commission headed by Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver.

The passage on married couples does not use language of condemnation nor sin but could leave the impression that sex acts other than intercourse are wrong.

Hille Haker, a professor of moral theology at Loyola University in Chicago, said she is worried that the advice to married couples is a reflection of more conservative sexual attitudes that pre-date the reforms of Vatican II.

“Before the Second Vatican Council [in the early 1960s] sexual ethics would deal with all the sex acts that are possible,” Ms. Haker said. “They would be busy describing all the different sexual arousals just in order to say this has nothing to do with what we understand to be a permitted sexual life within marriage. It seems to me this passage from the Canadian bishops goes back to that time.”

Vatican II changed the notion of “physical materialized sexual ethics” with an emphasis on love, she added. And once love was seen as the prime function of sex in marriage there was no need “to go into sexual details.”

The pastoral letter quotes John Paul II, who promoted the idea that married people must not objectify their spouses nor use them for personal gratification and that sex within marriage had to be totally self-giving.

“Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love,” the late pope said.

The pastoral letter also said that married couples should not be fooled by the how the “media and Hollywood” turn sexual intercourse into simple “recreation or physical gratification.”

“Any physical pleasure should lead toward the ultimate expression of love between a husband and wife, the total self-giving of one person to another,” the letter said.

Other Catholic experts on sexual ethics say the letter fits exactly with the teachings on sex since Vatican II.

The Church is not saying not to do this or that but it is saying that the total of sex should be with the idea of being open to creating new life, said Moira McQueen, a Catholic bioethicist and theologian in Toronto.

Vatican II put an equal emphasis on the unitive and procreative aspects of sex, she added.

“The letter is reminding Catholics that both aspects are important,” she said.

She said the bishops’ letter does not say people cannot enjoy sexual activity outside of intercourse, but that any act ultimately should lead to intercourse.

Ms. McQueen said it was important the bishops put out the letter because its message runs completely opposite to how society sees sexual activity.

“The focus on society is that sex is purely for fun and recreation. There’s nothing wrong with that from the Catholic view as long at it becomes procreative.

“The bishops are reminding Catholics that there is an ideal that should be aimed for, they are setting a standard.”

It is estimated that the vast majority of Catholic couples use birth control but the letter makes no specific reference to contraception.

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Speaking as a believer (non Catholic) I don't know why anybody would take sex advice from a bunch of celibate dudes
 

Ian Clark

Supporter
What a let down, I thought this thread was going to be something enlightening about getting kit cars into Canada! LOL

Not that it matters, just appears to me that for a bunch of old hippies, we're going more right wing conservative than our parents generation and government we rebelled against.

And this is happening everywhere, not just in the land of frost bitten canoe carvers!

Cheers
 
I agree with Ian - What a let-down. Anyway, I'm interested to know how the church leaders know what God intended re sex. Were they at a committee meeting in the Garden of Eden?
 
Sorry for the let down guys I was just trying to spread a little humor in the paddock since we have all been a little coo coo about judges and politics in general.
 

Ian Clark

Supporter
Hey Damian, don't get me wrong, I think the post is great, just my dry humor on this friggin cold day.

Lots of coo coo stuff happens here. I think the ATP has taken over the government. ATP, that's the Alien Tea Party...

What's next, a couple of weeks ago the CRTC, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission decided to ban the Dire Straits song "Money For Nothing" because the word "faggot" has become impolite.

Banned, as in radio stations cannot play the original recording. Fortunately the OHWVC made enough noise to have the decision was rescinded. OHWVC, that's Old Hippes With Voter Cards.

Censorship and rewriting history to make it acceptable to todays sensibilities... wow.
 
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I think the Bishops are saying that the plumbing should be properly installed and working together as it was designed. Just the official line. Naturally, they leave individual decisions down to the individual and their conscience.
 
Male nipple to female coupling ?
Not bung to bung-hole ?
Those crazy guys , is all bolt to nut with no washer with them !
 
Given the beating the Catholic Church has taken over the prior 10 years or so related to fairly rampant child rape by Church pastors and employees, I hardly think the Church is now qualified to make judgments upon how everyone else should act in the bedroom. My memory is short, but not that short!
 
The Catholic Church has always taken this view, its not new. And, while it gets the bulk of the publicity by the press (I think most of us would agree that it is liberal), the press does not push other religions and non - religious people in the deviant sexual activity. If it were not for the deep pockets of the Catholic Church, I'd bet the abuses would be smaller.
 
I remember an old girlfriend of mine telling me that she felt sorry for her dad, because her mum thought sex was only for having babies, and she was an only child!
 
I used to go out with a gal that worked in a bank. Everytime I tried to make a deposit, she forced a withdrawal!
 
I think your old girlfriend's mother was living by an old view. The Church today doesn't talk that way. They are just saying (and we have all seen the stuff at one time or another) that kinky sex should be avoided, but don't forget, they are not in your bedroom watching you perform the marital act !!!
 
Speaking as a believer (non Catholic) I don't know why anybody would take sex advice from a bunch of celibate dudes

Or a bunch of "semi" celibate dudes that seem to have penchant for fondling little boys.

Or, even more tongue in cheek, interpreting the "words" of God when his actions speak otherwise (if you believe in the story of how Jesus came to be) - I am pretty sure He and Mary were not married and all ...

Ian
 
I think your old girlfriend's mother was living by an old view. The Church today doesn't talk that way. They are just saying (and we have all seen the stuff at one time or another) that kinky sex should be avoided, but don't forget, they are not in your bedroom watching you perform the marital act !!!

Domtoni,

Have to agree, I was bought up in a practicing catholic family. I had to do more practicing than the rest of the family as I wasn't very good at it.

I'm thinking of converting.

SAN DIEGO —

The occasion is a seminar called “Love, Sex and Marriage,” being given by Joe Beam, a Southern preacher out of the old school, a self-described “book-chapter-and-verse guy,” who runs an outfit based in Franklin, Tenn., called Family Dynamics. So I’m anticipating condemnation of American culture — especially America’s sexual culture — that has made conservative Christians feel besieged.

The San Diego Church of Christ is Beam’s sponsoring group today, but as far as he is concerned it could be any conservative Christian denomination. The message would be the same: Married Christians ought to be having more — and hotter — sex.
You could be forgiven for thinking “conservative Christian” and “hot sex” are oxymoronic. The missionary position has a real history, after all. But Beam is part of a burgeoning trend among evangelicals to bring sex out of the shadows, educate believers and relieve their guilt.

God's 'most wonderful gift'

Beam sees this attitude every day. Women tell him: “I feel like I am sinning when I make love to my husband.” “They want help,” he tells the assembled crowd at the Sheraton. At least a score of heads nod in recognition. “It’s hard,” he continues, “to make the transition from ‘sex is bad’ when you are young and single to ‘sex is good’ when you are married.” In fact, “sex is the most wonderful gift God ever gave Christians.”

The humor and the brazen talk, coming from a man who is not only one of them, but a leader who rubs elbows with James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, gives them permission to relax and hear his message.

It’s a simple one: Sex is good. Good sex makes people happy. It deepens relationships. So it helps marriages last and that pleases God and makes society better.
 
When I was a teenager (long ago), a counsellor at a teen camp, giving us a sex talk, said that God wouldn't have wired us up the way he did, unless we were meant to enjoy sex. Of course there were associated responsibilities, but I liked that thought.
 
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