Love is Lord.: shortbreadsh: getmetoanunnery: To fellow Catholics: when did emotional...

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Love is Lord.: shortbreadsh: getmetoanunnery: To fellow Catholics: when did emotional...

I guess I just don’t see that as a “chastity” issue. It’s imprudent, perhaps, and disordered in that you are forming disordered attachments. But it’s not a chastity issue.

When it’s a chastity issue, it automatically becomes objectively sinful. So we’re teaching girls and women (not boys and men) that they are sinful for an involuntary, amoral and learned behavior. We’re conditioned from a young age to think that our wholeness hinges on a romantic attachment. And that’s not coming from the Church, or at least it shouldn’t be. That’s coming from a post-Enlightenment Western perspective (can anyone think of a shorter word for that, also beginning with P?).

Then, rogue catechists, “apologists”, youth ministers, etc who are influenced by that post-enlightenment western perspective, give the post-enlightenment western answer: women are weak and have to worry about extra sins that don’t affect men.

When we treat the problem you describe as a chastity issue (which it isn’t), we also prevent ourselves from being able to address it effectively. All we get is a bunch of beaten down young women in the confessional pouring their hearts out about wanting to be loved even though they have been taught that they are unloveable. And that’s a sad image, not a healthy one. A healthy image of the church is one where women and men frequent confessionals and are honest about the fact that they both experience and act on lust, among other things.

What’s the point of causing guilt where guilt doesn’t belong? Yes, you should work on building yourself up so that you don’t feel tempted to give your heart to every guy. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. And when you tack on the word “unchaste” to something, guilt comes with it.

Our puritanical background (hey there’s one P word that would have worked!) has unfortunately resulted in every sin being turned into a chastity related sin. And there are other sins/moral issues!

The language of the church is pretty smart a lot of the time (granted, not all of it) since it’s had so long to stew, but this language of ‘emotional chastity’ is extremely novel and smells of the P-word.

Everything she said.

Not to mention, I can’t imagine any confessor I’ve ever gone to not responding with, “that’s not a sin.”

(Source: getmetoanunnery)