Abstract

PIP: The Catholic Church and the Christian faith in general have been accused of a history of sexual repression and denunciation of the dangers of all expressions of sexuality as well as of neglecting sex education within religious education. This work seeks to analyze the apparent conflict between Christian ethics and the experience of modern sexuality, and discusses the response of Christian ethics to the conflict. Beginning at the Renaissance and for the entire modern epoch, a moral system that might be called secularized has confronted that of the Church; it has been more liberal, utilitarian, and hedonistic in sexual matters. In the course of becoming more permissive, human sexuality like so many other aspects of modern culture has lost most of its sacred character. The sexual sphere in modern cultural and moral development is 1 of the aspects in which morals and customs are most distanced from religious influence. Despite the great sexual permissiveness of the mass media and the culture at large, adolescents and youth of today do not appear to have advanced any closer to a general state of happiness. Sexuality today--despite whatever sex education is available--is still enveloped in the same ignorance, feat, complexes, and conflicts as ever. The youth of today should have access to better sex education, they should be liberated from both religious taboos that impede health sexual adjustment and from the sexual permissiveness celebrated in much of the mass media. Teachers and moralists should engage in a dialogue in which the problem of sex education is examined in its complexity in order to identify elements of an improved process that would lead to a true humanization. An ethics that goes beyond the permissiveness of the present is needed, but it should not be based on fear of AIDS, fear of pregnancy, or any other fears or threats. A positive secular ethics moved by natural motivations and a Christian ethics motivated by faith in the love of God should appear more frequently and clearly in social commentaries, instead of the usual advice to shed all inhibitions. Human sexuality should be examined in the context of the other elements of the interior life, including affectivity, liberty, and religiosity.