This message was
delivered for the first time to the Honors Society of the Polytechnic
University of the Philippines for their anniversary seminar November 14, 2006.
It is noted that the objective of the PUP Honors Society is “to mould and
promote human values and virtues among its members.”
Religion and Sexuality is a fascinating subject.
But it is one that is full of dangers as well as rewards.
When I was in the seminary studying to be a priest,
our psychology professor told us that most of the people who are in mental
hospitals are there because of religion or sexuality.
That scared me. I knew I was a very sexual person
which I knew was taboo in the seminary. I knew I was in the seminary because of
religion. So surely I was a candidate for the mental hospital.
What I did not know was that it is 100% normal for
human beings to be sexual. They did not teach us that part. Sexuality is part
of our nature. We are sexual beings.
First we are wholistic beings. We are a whole
person if we fully exercise our four basic human components — our intellectual
component, our physical component, our spiritual component, and our emotional
component. And all four of these have to be in balance and harmony.
Now where is the sexual part? Where does that come
in, if it is not one of the four components? You see, Sexuality is not a
separate part of us. Our human sexuality pervades, goes into and lives in, and
is given meaning by its interrelation with each of our four basic human components.
Our sexuality is within our intellectual, physical,
spiritual, and emotional components in very distinct ways. Our intellectual
power gives us the ability to think and know what we are doing and why. Our spiritual
power gives us the ability to know the meaning and purpose of our life.
For two cats making a lot of noise together, it’s
simple. Their sex is not complicated by “meaning,” spirituality, or religion.
They just do it. And they don’t even speak to each other the next day. That’s a
simple look at animal sexuality.
For human sexuality to be fully human, it must be
directed by our intellectual component and given meaning by our spiritual
component, as it has its full delightful human expression in our physical and emotional
components.
Remember we said all four of these components must
be in balance and harmony. And that’s where the mental hospital, the mental
imbalance, the craziness comes in. We get things out of balance.
People would not normally be mentally ill at all if
they were sexual. It is normal. They would not be mentally ill at all if they
were spiritual. It is normal. But if they cannot put sexuality and spirituality
into harmony and balance, that’s where the sickness starts.
A quick example. Look at a rapist. The rapist does
not think about the rightness or wrongness or goodness or badness or harm or
consequences of his sex act. His thinking is only controlled by his physical
lust and emotional passion for sexual pleasure. It’s sick in many ways.
Now when we look at Sexuality and Religion, we have
to find a way to put them in harmony and balance with each other, so that the
whole human person is present in the sexuality and in the spirituality, and they
are present at the same time. We call it the integration of spirituality and
sexuality.
The churches in general have a done a terrible job
of putting these very integral elements of our human nature into harmony. They
have left out human psychology.
So, why are so many in mental hospitals or having
mental problems, craziness or depression because of religion or sexuality? It
is precisely because this balance and harmony has not been achieved. Why has it
not been achieved?
A big cause is that the churches who teach us
religion do not know how to teach us sexuality. They have a very incomplete and
out of balance approach.
Why do I say this? I say this because as a priest I
know as well as all the rest of us know what the churches in general teach
about sexuality. And, unfortunately, the tension, the mental problems have come
because people in general find a great contradiction between reality and what
the churches teach about sexuality.
Human psychology teaches us that sexuality is a
very important part of reality. At the same time, spirituality is a very
important part of reality. But all too often the teachings of the churches
leave out human psychology and human reality in their teachings about
sexuality.
I will give a quick example, but I want it
understood that I am not against any church or any religion. I am an advocate
of sex-positive theology which helps eliminate the abuses, the harm, and the
craziness caused by sex negative theology. For example, the Roman Catholic Church
teaches: no condoms, no birth control, no “artificial” prevention of babies.
Human psychology and common sense tell a father and mother with six children
that they cannot afford more children because they can’t even properly feed and
school the six they have. Human nature also tells them they are sexual. Common
sense tells them that the simple solution is to use condoms or some method of
birth control. The church tells they are bad, immoral, sinful if they do this.
And surely that is crazy making for people who are
not spiritually and psychologically and intellectually strong enough to make
the leap from church teachings to human psychology and common sense. So the
crazy making for so many people is that they want to follow the teachings of their
church because they were always taught that is the right thing to do. But in
the very core of their being they know they are sexual and they have to find a
way of dealing with their sexuality that makes sense, not just because the pope
or Father Garcia says so, but because they know it is right in the very depths
of their being.
Now I do not claim a person can figure out all the
complicated teachings of theology, the trinity, salvation, etc. by their own
inner feelings, or even by all the forces of their human powers. That’s a good
time to listen to a church and decide, “What do I want to believe? Do I want to
believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?” It’s a matter of faith; I can
choose to believe, or not to believe. That’s what faith is. There is no tension
between human nature and human spirituality in such theological faith. It’s a
matter of choosing to believe or not to believe.
But when it comes to human sexuality, our human
nature speaks so loudly that there is a tremendous tension between what our
very nature tells us and what the churches tell us.
When we are full human beings, what we like to call
“living with wholistic wholeness,” we have all our human elements and powers in
harmony and balance. If the church tells us one thing and human psychology and
human nature tells us the opposite, we have three choices.
1. Do what the church says and never question it,
and be happy.
2. Reject the sexual teachings of the church which
do make sense, and even reject the church along with it.
3. Realize that we are spiritual and sexual and put
them in harmony and balance ourselves, since the churches have not taught us how
to do that satisfactorily.
The third option means looking at human sexuality
as a thinking, fully functioning adult.
For a good Christian, or a good Moslem, or a good
Baha’I, or a good person in any religion, that does not necessarily mean
throwing out the baby with the bath water.
It means being a fully functioning adult human
being and dealing with human sexuality in accordance with human nature and
human psychology.
Other theological issues are not involved. For a
Christian who chooses, the Trinity can stay. Holy Communion can stay, if one chooses,
but rules rules rules against sex, rules that do not make sense in human
psychology and human nature, cannot stay.
So we call that forming an adult conscience.
Conscience is a very important part of every fully functioning human person.
It’s not just “an examination of conscience” in
order to go to confession and confess our sins. It’s far more and better than
that.
Conscience is a judgment or decision an adult human
being makes each time he or she decides whether a thing is ok, or not ok, right
or wrong, good or bad.
The father and mother of six who form their
conscience in an adult way about birth control form their conscience by
listening to their church, then listening to their common sense situation,
their human sexual nature, and their desire to be good persons. Then they
decide. Do we lead miserable lives of no sex? Do we lead lives of lacking food,
tuition, or proper care of our children? Do we do what the church says? Do we
do what common sense tells us? Do we listen to what our human nature tells us?
Can we hear the Spirit of God speaking to our hearts? Then they form their adult
conscience by deciding to use birth control and take proper care of their
children, knowing in their hearts that, if they don’t use birth control they
are committing a sin against human nature, and the sin of harming the children
they have brought into this world.
An adult human person forms their conscience every
time they are about to act.
If I pick up something in a store that my family
needs and take it without paying for it, will it be good for my family and
therefore not sinful? They I would have to convince myself that stealing is ok
if I need it. And that’s not the way I would go. I would want to make an adult
decision with honor and personal integrity. That is forming one’s adult
conscience.
When it comes to human sexuality, our input has
been quite biased from the religion side. We have more training in religion
than we have in psychology. The powerful pull of our human nature screams very
loudly, but we have never been taught how to form an adult conscience that deals
with God’s reality, which, sad to say, is not always God’s reality as depicted
by the church.
Taking a quick look at history, we see that St.
Augustine was the first powerful spokesperson of the church’s position on
sexuality. And unfortunately the majority followed him. Believe me, my friends the
majority is not always right in such situations. His position was basically
that sex is bad unless the following conditions are met: the two people are
heterosexual, they are married, they can have sex once a year, under the
blankets, with their clothes on, to make a baby. Get in there fast and get out
of there fast, make the baby, and don’t enjoy it!
Well, the church has loosened up. Pope John Paul II
even said when those two heterosexual married persons are having sex, God is
present, and it is a beautiful thing. Bravo! Bravo! Before we finish today, we will
say Amen to that, but we will say it’s not just good and beautiful for those
two heterosexual people trying to make a baby. We will say that ALL SEX IS GOOD
IF IT IS NOT HARMFUL OR FORCEFUL.
The church position unfortunately can be summarized
in putting some hateful words in God’s (unwilling) mouth. (Imagine God peering
over a cloud spying on the sexual beings God has created.) “No masturbation, no
condoms, no sex outside of heterosexual marriage to make a baby, and no sex
ever in any way, in your whole life, if I make you homosexual.”
So that brings us to the situation of the LGBT
person who is called by his or her nature to be a sexual person, who has strong
spiritual feelings, and may be a person with strong religious attachments.
How does one put being a homosexual sexual person
and being a spiritual or religious person into balance and harmony?
The very same process of forming one’s conscience
comes into the situation for a truly adult person. If that person is truly
trying to keep their life in wholistic balance, they don’t throw out sexuality in
favor of spirituality. They don’t throw out spirituality and keep only
sexuality. In other words they make an adult judgment about what is right and
how they can have both in a healthy and good way.
Human psychology tells us, that indeed some human
persons have a natural human attraction to persons of the same sex. In Rizal’s
time psychiatrists acknowledged this fact of life by saying, “Yes, this is so,
let us call these persons homosexuals.” In the very core of their being very
many persons with a same-sex attraction know they are born that way. Science
has not given a definitive answer on how, but much scientific research leads
some scientists to believe that it is indeed true that persons with a same-sex
attraction are born that way. But the indisputable fact is that there are many
human beings who are in this world with a sexual attraction to persons of the
same gender.
The church says it is disordered, but, they say, of
course treat the people with such a disordered attraction as kindly as
possible. However, do not neglect to tell them they can never have sex in any way
in their whole life.
Now they therefore try to put these words in God’s
mouth. By doing so, they make God into a monster who says, “Ha ha, I put you in
this world with a same sex attraction. All your brothers and sisters and
friends who are attracted to the opposite sex can have responsible sex, but you
can never ever have sex in any way because I have made you with a disordered
attraction.”
And that’s what they want us to believe. (Or worse
they want us to feel guilty and say it’s all a fantasy and we are not really
naturally that way, but that we just choose to be sinful.)
The truth is we do not choose to be heterosexual or
homosexual. We can, of course, choose our behavior, but not our natural
inclination or orientation. What we can choose to do, ultimately is either to grovel
in the condemnation we get from the sex-negative theology of the church, or we
can choose to make an adult decision, to form an adult conscience — and for many
of us that means to choose a responsible expression of our God-given sexuality,
without guilt feelings. For many of us that means we do not need to stop being
what ever religion we choose to be, or being the spiritual person we naturally
are, but we choose to make an adult judgment about our sexuality.
In our Gay Men’s Support Group (GMSG) which meets
weekly for the last ten years hundreds of gay men have come to know themselves,
their sexuality, and even their spirituality (although we do not teach “religion”
in the group.)
Many same-sex couples come to me to have a same-sex
wedding. I ask them, what will they say if someone says that it is sinful. I
used to hear such answers as, “I don’t care what they say. Or even I don’t care
if it is sinful.” That’s not good thinking. When one says, I don’t care if it
is a sin, it is hearing their conscience that say it is sinful and then go
ahead and do the sin. Not good. A good person does not willfully and callously
do what they think is bad. On the other hand, nowadays more and more people are
replying with much more adult responses.
Nowadays more and more people are saying, “I don’t
see how love can be a sin.” And I tell them that that is very good thinking. I
say that because I believe that GOD IS LOVE AND THOSE WHO LIVE IN LOVE LIVE IN
GOD AND GOD LIVES IN THEM.
Therefore I tell them beyond a shadow of doubt that
God is smiling on their love and loves them unconditionally and wants them to
remain in God’s embrace as they embrace one another in love.
So that’s the bottom line for the reconciliation of
sex and love, religion and sexuality. You give it the ultimate reality test. Reality
allows you to accept the loving embrace of God and worship God with the
ultimate assurance that God is love.
Then you are on the way to forming an adult
conscience that brings religion and sexuality into balance and harmony. You are happy and God is happy. And God is happy for you.
Image “angry god” is from derek m ballard on flickriver http://www.flickriver.com/photos/derek-m-ballard/29515715/ accessed on March 19, 2015 at 4:17PM
