Still Running Off at the Keyboard

SPOKEN LIKE A PSYCHOPHANT

Rome, Oct 20, 2008 / 11:39 pm (CNA).- Manfred Lutz, a psychiatrist with the Congregation for the Clergy, has responded in an extensive article to those who consider celibacy not to be "natural" and explained that the discipline is not only necessary for priests and religious to fully live out their vocations, but that it is also a "provocation" to a superficial world that does not believe in life after death.

In the article published by the L'Osservatore Romano, Lutz commented that celibacy represents "a permanent protest against collective superficiality." It proclaims that "the earthly world, with its joys and sufferings, is not all there is."

One who cannot renounce the exercise of sexuality is not capable "of joining in a marital union" either, Lutz continued. Looking upon women as "the object of satisfaction of a personal impulse plays a key role in the criticism of celibacy," he stated. Lutz also noted that there are even times when spouses cannot "fully exercise their sexuality, as in the case for example of a temporary illness or a permanent handicap. In these cases, a spousal relationship that is truly profound is not destroyed but rather enriched.” [emphasis mine]

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I especially disliked this notion also included in the article:

This explains, for example, the surprising fruitfulness of the writings on marriage of that great shepherd of souls, the Servant of God John Paul II."

Would that be the "Great Shepherd of Souls" who allowed the homosexuals to take over the seminaries so that today we have no priests? The Shepherd who knew about the clergy abuse of the laity's children and didn't try to stop it? Perhaps children and teenagers weren't worthy of shepherding.

Was the conjugal act made an integral part of the sacrament of marriage because it contributes to superficiality? Give me a break!

Chastity is a provocation to the contemporary world. Babies speak more accurately that "the earthly world, with its joys and sufferings, is not all there is." We get them by having sex within the confines of marriage. Superficiality disappears in the reality of caring for them. Which is the way God made it. And which is why the conjugal act is a part of the sacrament of marriage and needs to be preserved, even under difficult circumstances, when it is possible to do so without causing abortion.

The psychiatrists who advised Rome during the scandal did us no favors at all. Why listen to this one?