Sodomy and Theology of the Body: The Death of Common Sense

Today is the feast of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, the martyrs of Uganda. These 22 young men lived and died near the end of the 19th century during the reign of King Mwanga. He was a pederast who demanded that the young men of the court engage in lustful relations with him. They refused and were put to death either by being burned at the stake or beheaded. What saints for our immoral age when in-your-face homosexual lust has taken to the streets and hotel ballrooms of our country! And what was the primary sin St. Charles and his companions condemned? Sodomy.

Please, somebody explain how sodomy can be considered acceptable foreplay in a loving, Catholic marriage or any marriage for that matter. It defies common sense! If anything goes in foreplay, what's the problem with using pornography or sex toys or with tying your spouse to the bedpost?

Randy Engel has common sense on her side. I'm sorry to be critical because I respect both Smith and West, but this issue absolutely defies reason!

FROM RANDY ENGEL

Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 10:55 PM

In my two year study on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which ran as a 7-part series in Catholic Family News (May-November 2008) and is now available online at www.newengelpublishing.com, I tackle the issue of the morality of anal penetration by married couple as a form of foreplay as explained by Christopher West.

In Chapter Five of his book Good News About Sex & Marriage – Answers to Your Honest Questions About Catholic Teachings (First Edition), in response to a question on the morality of anal sex for married couples, West states “There’s nothing inherently wrong with anal penetration as foreplay to normal intercourse.” This is a false teaching and a serious moral error.

Based on my 17 years of research for The Rite of Sodomy – Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church, which included a study of all of the Church Fathers, including Saint Peter Damian and Saint Bernardino of Siena, on the vice of sodomy, I can categorically state that the Catholic Church has always defined sodomy to include anal penetration, with or without ejaculation.

The act of sodomy, whether carried by homosexuals or by spouses, is intrinsically evil and a perversion. A married couple who engages in anal penetration and then goes on to normal coitus has engaged in two separate acts - the first, sodomy, is a grave sin, whether or not ejaculation has occurred. Further, the physiology of anal copulation is such that it would be most difficult to prevent ejaculation.

In West’s revised edition of Good News About Sex & Marriage, this grave moral error was not corrected. After pointing out that anal penetration is unsanitary and unaesthetic, West asserts:

Perhaps in some abstract, objective sense, there is nothing to condemn mere penetration of the anus as absolutely and in every case immoral. But subjectively speaking… it is very difficult to justify anal penetration as a loving act of foreplay to the marital embrace. It is an act that seems to stem much more from the disorder of lust than from a genuine desire to symbolize and renew the marriage commitment.

Now, alas, we have Janet Smith, claiming that:

Certainly there isn’t any “Church teaching” about this action at a magisterial level, but few seem to know that there is a tradition of approval of such behavior as foreplay to intercourse (not to be confused with the biblical condemnation of sodomy which replaces intercourse) by orthodox Catholic ethicists. The principle generally invoked is that consensual actions that culminate in intercourse are morally permissible…. Perhaps it is time for ethicists to work on the question…

What madness is this?

Where, pray tell, is the Catholic tradition that approves of anal penetration as a forerunner to coitus to be found?

What question is there for ethicists to work on?

Isn’t 2000 years of Church teachings on the immorality of sodomy good enough for West or Smith?

Do West and Smith have to be reminded that not all married couples have normal sexual desires? Indeed some are drawn into sinful acts as a prelude to intercourse including sadomasochist acts, the viewing of pornography to stimulate sexual excitement, and sodomy.

Isn’t it time that TOB advocates like Christopher West and Janet Smith be held accountable for their erroneous and dangerous pronouncements on Catholic sexual morality and conjugal love?