the timboucher experience

Two Catholic theologians have put out a book entitled It’s A Sin Not To Do It” which is supposed to be a frank and open discussion - in popular/secular language - of the Catholic Church’s little known positive views on sex. Positive views on sex? I was raised Catholic and I never heard of anything remotely resembling a positive attitude towards sex. Not once. Never.

The authors of this book, Roberto Beretta and Elisabetta Broli, claim otherwise though.

“When people think of the Church and sex, they think of prohibitions and taboos,” said Beretta. “But there is a very different and positive side to Church doctrine which needs to be emphasised.”

In both style and content, the guide - published earlier this month - marks a radical break with traditional Church pronouncements on physical intimacy. Forty years ago, the Vatican published a notorious set of guidelines for courting Catholics that outlawed even French kissing before marriage.

The pages of It’s A Sin Not To Do It, however, feature a frank interview with Cardinal Ersilio Tonini in which he emphasises that “the Church is not an enemy of the flesh”. He argues that Vatican doctrine has always defended the “nobility of sexuality”, which is regarded by the Church as a “treasure” of humanity.

There’s also supposed to be a chapter encouraging women to masturbate after sex if they didn’t have an orgasm. no matter what these people may be saying to the contrary, this is ABSOLUTELY NOT the traditional views of the Church towards sex. By no means. I mean, they don’t call it “missionary position” because Catholics were encouraged to experiment sexually. Quite the contrary.

One of the things they mention in this article is that the book was partly released in Italy because of the super-low birth-rate among Catholics in that country, and how the Pope is really worried about that. Which is certainly self-serving, since he’s really just looking to guarantee that Italy continues to be a Catholic country and thus favorable as a home for the church. So now, all of a sudden, they want to encourage people to fuck and have orgasms. Good for them, I guess. It’s better than advocating that they go invade other countries and fuck their women in order to spread the church, like they used to do during the Crusades, and like we’re currently doing in Iraq. (Zing!)

[Found via Diversionz, which seems like a pretty cool blog]

• “We don’t mean to offend you, but gay sex is a sin, and you’re all going to burn in hell forever.”
• Married Priest in Spanish Catholic Church
• That Sexy, Sexy Church!
• Catholic History of Abortion
• The Celibacy Loophole