READER’S QUESTION
“Pat, an honest question to learn from the past. What should the church have done to prepare for the sexual revolution which has left a huge percentage of children born into instability and the killing of babies now used as contraception? At the time with their understanding what should they have done”?
PAT’S ANSWER
I’m not too sure if many people or organisations foresaw the coming of the sexual revolution. And if the RC church foresaw it they would have been condemning it as sinful.
I think the topic is best addressed from the point of view of the RC church’s views and teachings on human sexuality and how it reacted to the sexual revolution.
The Roman Catholic church has always had a flat earth approach to human sexuality – regarding it as bad and sinful and only necessary for human procreation.
It talked about the sexual imagination as being sinful and impure thoughts.
It talked about masturbation as “self pollution” and being a serious enough sin to bring you for hell for doing it once.
It talked about sex before marriage as being a mortal sin and that’s why its priests policed dance halls and rural ditches with the blackthorn stick.
It talked about homosexuality as being unnatural, against the natural law, gravely sinful and indeed a mental illness or disorder.
It regarded women giving birth as being “dirty” and as such a woman had to be “churched” after a birth to be cleansed before she could return to Mass and communion.
It regarded contraception as a mortal sin.
It regarded being sterilized or having “the snip” as being gravely sinful.
It sent pregnant girls and young women to be “imprisoned” in prisons policed by wicked and sexually frustrated nuns.
It ran homes for boys policed by priests and Christian brothers who beat them within an inch of their lives and then raped them.
Archbishop John Charles McQuaid reprimanded newspaper editors for printing adds selling women’s underwear where the outline of the women’s genitalia – the “mons veneris” was visible or semi visible.
Etc, etc, etc.
You might then go on to say that the sexual revolution was necessary because of views and teachings of the RC church and other bodies and societies like it.
There is little or no hope of these RC teachings changing anytime soon – and that does not really matter as they are becoming more and more irrelevant in our lives.
People have copped on to the RC crowd and they are more and more regarded as corrupt beyond redemption. Jesus himself could not redeem them because they do not see the need for their redemption. In fact they see themselves as having the keys of redemption. Its like Satan thinking he is god!
So let us concentrate on ourselves and our own morality in the context of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
This leads us to see that:
- The body is God’s creation as is our soul.
- The body is good – not dirty.
- Sex is good as it was God who created it.
- Sex is for pleasure – and even “recreation” as well as for the passing on of life.
- Homosexuality is a perfectly normal sexual orientation.
- Sex is always good when it is used to convey love and is only wrong when it is the use and abuse of another person.
- Masturbation is perfectly normal. It relieves stress and frustration and in fact the more ejaculations a man has the less chances he has of developing cancer of the prostate.
- Contraception is a medical and societal matter and is a matter between the two people using it.
- Sterilization and having the snip is a matter for individuals, couples and their doctors.
- I do not think that abortion is ever a “good”. In certain cases it can be the lesser of two evils.
Many of us who grew up brainwashed into having a negative attitude to our sexuality by popes, bishops, priests, brothers and nuns are in NEED of our own sexual revolution.
We need to integrate our sexuality and our spirituality.
We also need a sense of humour – even about our sexuality. On one occasion Woody Allen was asked if masturbation was a sin. He answered: “Only if its not done properly”.
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
61 replies on “THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION.”
Thst poor German bastardo, Benefict. As he’s grown older he’s grownnineffably and undeniabiably ohysicslly uglier. I fact, he is now physically repulsive.
What a sad, old fool! With sad old ideas. Who, in their right mind, listrnsbto these pathetic, paedophile-orotecting, old wankers now?😆
LikeLike
12.18: Hate speech. Pope Benedict is 92: what a brilliant intellect he has! To make so ignorant and ageist a comment displays an ignorant mind. You, sadly, are the repulsive one. What ugliness of mind and heart. Very distasteful and unacceptable a comment.
LikeLike
@12.18
I find him to have a beautiful face and aura, myself.
Horses for courses.
LikeLike
10:59
Yes, Benedict’s a genuine smiling assassin, isn’t he? All friendly and chummy, salt-of-the-earth type of guy you’d have a drink with down the pub (or somewhere in his beloved Bavarian alps), unless, of course, you were a learning-disabled adult who had been repeated raped/molested by one of Benedict’s prized priests. Then you would just be an inconvenience, and sworn to silence, with the possibility of excommunication for breaching it. It was dear old Benedict who, in 2010, made allegations of sexual abuse of such adults subject to the ‘Pontifical Secret’.
And what if you were a child who had been raped/sodomised by one of Benedict’s beloved priests? Would you find his ‘beautiful face and aura’ a reassurrance? A safe port of call? I think even someone as starstruck as you can answer that one for yourself.😅
And ‘starstruck’ is the right word here, isn’t it?😕
LikeLike
Pat, your ten points were excellent. A perfect understanding on morality and sex. Sad thing is the roman church will never change, and it will still be stuck in its time warp on morality and sex.
In terms of morality from the roman church, I finish with the words of Dan Savage:
” I am just done with being lectured about children and their safety by catholic fucking bishops, priests, cardinals ….. I hate to always go there, but they don’t have moral high ground when they talk about the welfare and safety of children. They just don’t. They have squandered that on the tips of their dicks”.
LikeLike
@12.34
Oh goodie, the nice man says I can have just whatever I want.
3hrs later: puke, puke, puke
LikeLike
I am so glad you are not a religion teacher in the school where I work and where my chikdren attend. This teaching if yours is narcissistic, all abiut “me” – all about what “you” want: there are no boundaries, morally or spiritually. No such concept as personal responsibility, it’s a “just do as you please” approach to life. Your moral compass is flawed and skewed, your moral teachings so watered down that they are not meaningful or challenging. This essay should be shredded. It’s a recipe for illicit, underage, abusive and reckless sexuality. If it’s enjoyable and good, just do it!! Just like abortion. What an irresponsible teacher of God you are. I wouldn’t let you near kids.
LikeLiked by 1 person
….and you kids, 1:33 am, will end up fucked up about their physical and sexual being, because of the warped and dishonest shiite that is peddled by your Roman Catholic Church and its discredited theology of the body and sexuality….
…you would be better to listen the + Pat and people like him….
LikeLike
9.18: My children are very balanced, normal, well educated in morals, sexuality and how to be a morally and ethically good human being. Children need security, protection, awareness of their self worth and dignity. Children need to be protected from a promiscuous and permissive “do what you like” mind set. Surely, if you are intelligent, you know the negative, skewed and dangerous images, the unboubdaried mores and pressures placed on children and how impressionable they are. We, as parents, not priests or teachers, are ultimately the true educators of our children. I wouldn’t throw my children to your flawed and liberal notions of human sexuality. I respect their integrity, beauty innocence and preciousness too much. I most certainly would not let Pat teach them his makey up, arrant, self serving norms, nor you either!! And, I also believe in teaching my children about faith, religion and philosophy. It’s the self-serving, liberal crap that Pat promulgates and his lifestyle that f***s children up!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
9.18: Are you serious….listen to the makey up theology of Buckley? Are you brain dead? His ideas are avrecioe for promiscuity and a do what you like mind set. Look at how easy the innocence of children is destroyed by easy access to pornography and ridiculous notions like those peddled by Pat….Self respect is primary for Children, not what you desire philosophy…
LikeLike
@9.18
Like you, you mean? Lol
You lot are all messed up, big time. Dear God, please protect us from the Andy West’s of this world.
LikeLike
9.18: If you are a parent, God help your children. I trust you’re keeping them safe from the proliferation of porno magazines and sites which are all too easily accessible to innocent young children and teenagers. I hope too that you are teaching them about the dehumanizing effects of casual sex, drugs etc…..or are you one of those crazy, reckless, irresponsible parents who don’t give a damn about their child’s safety, health and well being? Your laissez faire attitude stinks. As for following Pat’s plan…..I say, rediscover the 10 commandments.
LikeLike
The 10 Commandments do not mention sex!
LikeLike
9.18: Sir/Madam, it’s your “anything goes” morality that f***s children up. Undoubtedly, your liberal tolerance of pornographic material, drugs, alcohol, your ” have what you desire as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else” and “be what and who you want to be” philosophies has our innocent children corrupted, confused and without a moral compass. Hope you’re not a parent or a teacher!
LikeLike
Magna, thank you for your answer at 3.19 yesterday. I appreciate that. Pat, thank you for addressing my question. My own feeling is that if the laws had been recommendations instead of causing shame upon shame when they were naturally broken, it might have been easier to put love into action. But then Jesus set the tone when saying that looking at someone lustfully was adultery in the heart and that adulterers would not enter the kingdom. I wonder what would have happened if an angel had not appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary home as his wife. To the young women who ‘broke the rules’ at the time the church seemed to be saying, you can be mothers physically by giving birth but we are not going to support you to be actual mothers to your children.
LikeLike
Pat says the 10 Commandments do not mention sex. What about the sixth and ninety commandments?
LikeLike
As a response to the sexual revolution/ swinging sixties;
how about if the institutional church had had far more clergy/hierarchy living the Gospel authentically,
individually and collectively, at the time, and not having used christianity/ catholicism
as an ideology, from which to wield moral power.
The credibility of the gospel, church moral authority and efforts towards evangelization, are
now being discredited by moral corruption, an obsession with protecting the image/ reputation
and finances of the institutional church, plus gross hypocrisy of many clergy and hierarchy.
I’d say much the same was going on in the fifties or sixties in the institutional church, maybe
to a lesser extent.It was probably a lot easier to get away with it back then.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
LikeLike
Morning hi. Sexual Revolution but. Begorra yd think the church owns sex like a chip shop owns chips. Why da hell is church so obsessed. Sex and appropriate behaviour is a matter for society to monitor.
If church wants to be a church let it concentrate on worship of God or otherwise put up statues of Williams and pheck Hoff but
LikeLike
@8.52
You talk nonsense.
“Sex and appropriate behaviour is a matter for society to monitor.”
Which society would that be then?
The man and boy love society? The Islam society which approves multiple wives, child marriage nd ‘thighing’ of babies? The Kurdish society, for example, which approves of honour killings? The new society emerging here which mandates sexual indoctrination of children as young as 3 in homosexuality and ‘gender fluidity’, the new society which demonises parents who don’t want the “glitter hole” gang sexualising their small children in Dublin public libraries, the society of young schoolchildren today where it is odd NOT to send naked selfies of themselves?
What is this amorphous ‘society’ you are off-loading behaviour onto? The one which doesn’t let parents foster/ adopt and takes their own children away from if they don’t conform to big brother’s ideas? Whaddya mean you don’t want your 9 yr old having puberty blockers!!!!! Hand them over to us NOW!!!!! !!
LikeLike
12.24 Ya make some good points bud d ya get th pint hi. Multiple wives were part of the Old Testament Culture and some modern cultures as you say. Abuse is different and not to be tolerated The pint I make is that RCCPLC is does not own the sexuality enforcement franchise on their own. It is the responsibility of one and all hi
LikeLike
Good evenin fly.
Begorra fly d’would be a quarr chipper to sell only chips.
What about d rest of da menu. Are sexy sins d only sins in d’ book hi.
Is it a case of luv your neighbor butt don’t tell anyone hi
or love your neighbor out of luv for d’ Man above.
Just had chips burgur with salad. Triflin to follow.
Bye fly hi.
LikeLike
@9.23
Then we Catholics better get another Mayflower, because our children go to school with polygamists and those who have access to porn from 5yrs. They are not ALLOWED to grow up uncorrupted.
As for the Old Testament marriage, Jesus changed that and silly me thought He knew best. Multiple wives IS abuse, have you never watched ‘Sister Wives’? Even mormons don’t do it any longer.
You sound like someone with no skin in the game – no wife or children. Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Nicola Sturgeon – no kids and they don’t care about what’s left for our children.
LikeLike
9.38: A very honest reflection and very sensible. I would have similar thoughts to you but I still try to keep the ideals of the Church’s teachings on sexuality before me. However, I do not preach a sexuality that’s a burden on people. As you say, virtues like truth, justice, mercy, compassion, caring for those in need, fidelity in relationships and being a good person in Christ are what I focus on…These are redeeming qualities and virtues.
LikeLike
I have spent the decades of my life influenced by the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about sexuality and sexual morality. I have long thought that it was distorted and did not relate to the reality of life or of God. I often wondered if God really worried about what people did with their sexual bits, as much as the priests were worrying about it ! I often wondered if the emphasis on sexual behaviour and morality as preached by the Church should have had such paramountcy, and whether I should be hearing from the Church more about truth love, charity, goodness, justice etc. Gradually, I worked it out for myself, and I stopped listening to the priests and the Church about sexual and morality matters and made my own mind up. I was accused of being an ‘a la carte’ Catholic, and that by priests who were living a lie and doing unspeakable things to the most vulnerable. The bishops and priests of the Church have lost all credibility and any right to be listened to, and I have simply ceased to give them any credence any more. That is where the Church has put itself for so many of us. We do not trust it anymore, we do not listen to it anymore. God speaks to us in other ways, through events, channels, people and thoughts that are honest, rather than through a hypocritical, self-serving, clerical hierarchy. The bishops and priests of the Church should hang their heads in shame for what they have done.
LikeLike
Anon@ 9:38: You are following the path so many of us have taken. You have used your sound sense of morality and brain: both regarded as God given for those of a faith belief, or, as I believe, evolved throughout countless millennia.
Where did it all go wrong? My thoughts:
The RC church, and much of Christianity, appears to have derived much of its preoccupation with sexuality from sources as far back as Plato. His ideal world perceived the soul as separate from the physical world of the body. The soul and its purity of knowledge was viewed as requiring separation from the limitations of bodily senses and desires.
Following Plato, Western thought associated the capacity for abstract thought with the soul; the soul with absolute truth; and truth with immortality. Subsequently influential early Christian thinkers, like Augustine, went even further in believing that not only the human body, but the entire natural world should be regarded as distracting and corrupting the soul, therefore we should disregard our life in this world as of no great importance other than serving to secure our eternal life in the next. So for all living things, one of our strongest natural instinctive desires to pass on our genes through procreation are seen, for humanity, as distracting, corrupting and to be resisted, ………. other than through highly prescribed necessities of procreation.
And of course who better to lay down the necessary prescriptions than the self selected arbiters and promoters of morality?
I wonder if the God of Augustine is similarly preoccupied with the mores of sexual expression in countless differing societies and their traditions worldwide?
MMM
LikeLike
Pat Buckley at 11:39 what about the sixth and ninth commandments? And Our Lord’s forbidding that we look at others with lust in pain of hellfire in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)?
LikeLike
The 6th Commandment forbids infedility and the 9th coveting. Lust is what the RC junta made out of love and attraction.
LikeLike
No Pat. The Lord uses the word “lust”. You really aren’t the brightest are you?
LikeLike
Pat you are a chad
LikeLike
Well Pat, couple of questions.
Is paedophilia normal?
Is transgender normal?
Where do you draw the line with ‘normal’ sexual orientation?
It is easy throwing stones, but hammering the church and claiming that Jesus couldn’t save them is a bit much. You have quite a high horse that you use to justify your own lifestyle.
LikeLike
Paedophilia is using and abusing a child and both a crime immoral.
Transgender is a genuine medical and psychological issue. I do not see it as a moral issue at all.
Normal is a very dangerous word to use when it comes to difficult issues.
LikeLike
@anon 1.00pm
If a transgender person is not trying to cut your balls off then what harm are they doing to you? Live and let live, and you’d probably live better yourself.
LikeLike
No, they spend their time and our tax money policing us and bring us to court for ‘thought crime , and the rest of the time trying to have our toddlers mentally indoctrinated.
So, Ostrich, it does concern us. Big Time.
LikeLike
@2.04
If indoctrinating our children into believing we ca have choice in our life than perhaps you should have a a good look at what you were indoctrinated into as a child.
And if this is your biggesr problem with the tax spend than you should pull your head out of the sand.
LikeLike
@12.59
You try to sound learned but show yourself a fool.
Go to those ‘differing societies’ and see the pain: east European communism- astronomic and multiple abortions and Romanian orphanages. Muslim countries – women as property, sex slaves, permitted physical assault of women, child marriage, holiday marriage, war rape, sexual thighing of babies, Afghan dancing boys, women completely covered up to control men’s sexual urges etc etc etc. Communist China – one child policy, forced abortion, forced sterilisation. Southern Africa : at least 60% of girls / women have been raped, women bring up children single handedly to multiple men because men impregnate women but don’t stick around to parent them resulting in an appallingly violent and crude society.
A lot of these sexual mores, as you call them, are now inflicted on Europe. Machete murders in London because boys have no fathers – easy life, easy sex, easy money from drugs and moped thuggery……….
Drastically falling European birthrate through contraception and abortion. India – girls can’t even get on buses accompanied without being raped and little girls raped and murdered all the time and police do nothing.
And you criticise Catholic sexual mores! The sexual troubles in Catholicism come from people and clergy NOT following the teachings. The sexual ills in other societies come FROM following them. Big difference.
Why don’t you take your grandchildren and emigrate, or are you too concerned for their welfare?
Fool!
LikeLike
@9.23
Typical nonsensical answer from someone who espouses ‘live and let live’ while sueing every baker in town! Fascism – pure and simple. You must pretend that I’m an agender alien! You must ! You Must! Or I’ll squeam and squeam and squeam! Polit bureau speak.
LikeLike
11.39: Pat, the 6th and 9th commandments are spoken of in relation to the respect we give to the dignity of human sexuality and of relationships. You have changed all such moral norms, ideals and teachings to suit your own lifestyle which I wouldn’t propose as an ideal of “normal”. You have compromised the teachings of Christ. Again, I’m glad you’re not teaching our children. What confusion and corruption you’d sow!!
LikeLike
Bishop Pat. I frequently masturbate. Are you suggesting this isn’t sinful? Should I not confess this to the Priest?
LikeLike
Simon, it is sinful and you need to confess it as a sin against purity to a genuine priest and do your best not to sin again. Be wary though of any priest who questions you or who dismisses the sin as nothing. He is not the church but a functionary at its service. And these days church teaching still calls impurity a sin as Jesus did, so we must respect that ourselves and with the example we give to others. Pat is free to differ and give different advice but in the end it’s unlikely his teaching will have greater authority than the churches when it comes to morality.
LikeLike
Thanks. This upsets me because it has become a habit I can’t break. I am not in good health and I am so alone. I did confess it and the Priest absolved me but it keeps happening. I will pray about it and sorry for taking time up on your blog. So sorry.
LikeLike
4:50
You claim masturbation is sinful? What’s your reasoning? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
LikeLike
Yes it is sinful so stop chugging and say an act of contrition.
LikeLike
Simon, it is NOT a sin unless you do it deliberately to spite God. I imagine you do it for pleasure and relief.
LikeLike
Thanks Pat. Yes, do it for comfort, when feeling down and lonely. Thanks again
LikeLike
Of course, and God does not punish people for being lonely and feeling down. Very often masturbation is the adult comfort blanket.
LikeLike
It’s the most normal thing that all men do and I’m sure women too! It’s not a comfort blanket or a habit it just is part of being human, who doesn’t wake up in the morning with an erection ? Do you think most men think anything of it?
LikeLike
Simon, to be frank I think the responses you have got from people other than Pat here are the best indicator of the effect of the Catholic faith on people. You are obviously not feeling in a good place to start off with but your worry about whether masturbation is sinful just gives you another problem, thus burdening you more.
Pat may I suggest that while I know you value freedom of speech, answers such as the above should not be allowed through? – the context makes this a pastoral question and the answers are not pastoral in the slightest.
LikeLike
Cardinal Dolan has just published the list of clergy of New York against whom credible abuse allegations have been made. It’s a long and depressing list though there have been allegations against priests who were ordained after 2002. The problem peaked in the 1970s and is now back to pre-Vatican II levels.
https://archny.org/letter
LikeLike
Pat, your photo in front of St. Peter’s is totally incongruous with your hatred of the Church, of whom Pope Francis is the head, thee true successor of St. Peter. Do you have a secret longing to return to the true fold??
LikeLike
No. Why would I associate myself with such utter corruption and abuse.
LikeLike
6.44: Ha, Ha, Ha,…..🐱🐱🐱🐱😅😅😅 You are not Catholic in the true sense…..you have composed your own version…..
LikeLike
So Pat. Why the picture of you in Rome and why the poncing around the streets of Rome looking like a Roman prelate on your recent trip? Do tell.
LikeLike
It is the latest picture of me. I am NOT a Roman prelate but a “catholic” bishop.
LikeLike
8.18: One word: hypocrite.
LikeLike
In no respect, Pat Buckley, are you either a “Catholic”, a “Bishop”, or a “Catholic Bishop” – except in your own imagination. You are aping a Bishop.
LikeLike
The regulation of sexual mores puts whoever is charged with that responsibility, whether an institution or an individual, in a position of power because there is no one for whom sexuality is not an important part of their being. The real seduction is to power. Certainly it’s helpful that the Christian community would have some role in helping people arrive at moral positions by holding up values which are those of Jesus Christ. But reason is also a very important function of the individual which needs to complement the role of the institution. A mature conscience will be only too aware of the fact that black and white moral positions are not nuanced and that most human situations contain a lot of grey. Love is the primary Christian virtue.
LikeLike
Very well said Anon@11:47. Your comment acknowledges reality and sums it all up.
LikeLike
‘Mature’ is one of the great post Vatican Two buzzwords, what does it actually mean? Immature is always a criticism,is this a hang over from schooldays ?
LikeLike
Pat @8.18 – you shared other pics from your recent trip to Rome – the fact that you choose this one shows how confused you really are.
LikeLike
Why are so many people up tight about the pic in front of the Vat?.
Its as if I have invaded their sacred space.
LikeLike
No. It just makes you look like a fraud.
LikeLike