From: kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Cath. Christianity 101 - Church teaching on masturbation
Date: 14 Aug 1992 19:56:20 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: skat.usc.edu


How's that to get one's attention :-)

But anyway, there has been a lot of interest/questions regarding
this ever since I posted the relavent Church teachings on human
sexuality, primarily since it does have implications on all sorts
of other issues involving human sexuality -- specifically mentioned
in the discussion related to to this series were homosexuality and 
artificial insemination.  Anyway this is the section of the SCDF's
"Declaration on Sexual Ethics" dealing with the subject of 
masturbation.

In Christ,

dennis
kriz@skat.usc.edu

--------------------------------------------

From the SCDF's 1975 "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning
Sexual Ethics"

Regarding masturbation:

  9. The traditional Catholic doctrine that masturbation
constitutes a grave moral disorder is often called into doubt or
expressly denied today.  It is said that psychology and sociology
show that it is a normal phenomenon of sexual development,
especially among the young. It is stated that there is real and
serious fault only in the measure that the subject deliberately
indulges in solitary pleasure closed in on self ("ispsation"),
because in this case the act would indeed be radically opposed to
the loving communion between persons of different sex which some
hold is what is principally sought in the sue of the sexual
faculty.

  This opinion is contradictory to the teachings and pastoral
practice of the Catholic Church.  Whatever the force of certain
arguments of a biological and philosophical nature, which have
sometimes been used the theologians, in fact both the Magisterium
of the Church -- in the course of a constant tradition --- and the
moral sense of the faithful have declared without hesitation that
masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act [19]. 
The main reason is that, whatever the motive for acting in this
way, the deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal
conjugal relations essentially contradicts the finality of the
faculty.  For it lacks the sexual relationship called for by the
moral order, namely the relationship which realizes "the full sense
of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true
love" [20].  All deliberate exercise of sexuality must be reserved
to this regular relationship.  Even if it cannot be proved that
Scripture condemns this sin by name, the tradition of the Church
has rightly understood it to be condemned in the New Testament when
the latter speaks of "impurity," "Unchasteness" and other vices
contrary to chastity and continence.

  Sociological surveys are able to show the frequency of this
disorder according to the places, populations or circumstance
studies.  In this way facts are discovered, but facts do not
constituted a criterion for judging the moral value of human acts
[21].  The frequency of the phenomenon in question is certainly to
be linked with man's innate weakness following original sin; but it
is also to be linked with the loss of a sense of God, with the
corruption of morals engendered by the commercialization of vice,
with the unrestrained licentiousness of so many public
entertainments and publications, as well as with the neglect of
modesty, which is the guardian of chastity.

  On the subject of masturbation modern psychology provides much
valid and useful information for formulating a more equitable
judgement on moral responsibility and for orienting pastoral
action.  Psychology helps one to see how the immaturity of
adolescence (which can sometimes persist after that age),
psychological imbalance or habit can influence behavior,
diminishing the deliberate character of the act and bringing about
a situation whereby subjectively there may not always be  serious
fault.  But in general, the absence of serious responsibility must
not be presumed; this would be to misunderstand people's moral
capacity.

  In the pastoral ministry, in order to form an adequate judgement
in concrete cases, the habitual behavior of people will be
considered in its totality, not only with regard to the
individual's practice of charity and of justice but also with
regard to the individual's care in observing the particular
percepts of chastity.  In particular, one will have to examine
whether the individual is using the necessary means, both natural
and supernatural, which Christian asceticism from its long
experience recommends for overcoming the passions and progressing
in virtue.

---------------------------------------------------
Footnotes:

[19] Cf. Leo IX, Letter AD SPLENDIDUM NITENTIS, in the year 1054:
DS 687-688, Decree of the Holy Office, March 2, 1679: DS 2149; Pius
XII, Allucutio, October 8, 1953: AAS 45 (1953), pp. 677-678; May
19, 1956: AAS 48 (1956), pp. 472-473.

[20] GAUDIUM ET SPES, 51: AAS 58 (1966), p. 1072.

[21] " ... If sociological surveys are useful for better
discovering the thought patterns of the people of a particular
place, the anxieties and needs of those whom we proclaim the word
of God, and also the opposition made to it by modern reasoning
through the widespread notion that outside science there exists no
legitimate form of knowledge, still the conclusions drawn from such
surveys could not of themselves constitute a determining criterion
of truth," Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation QUINQUE IAM ANNI,
December 8, 1970, AAS 63 (1971), p. 102.

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