Page 8
By Marc Lewis
A VOICE FROM WITHIN: "SEX IS A VIRTUE!"
(Binding with Briars: Sex and Sin in the Catholic Church, by. Richard Ginder, Prentice-Hall, 1975, $8.95)
The headline of a Plain Dealer article about Father Richard Ginder's new book, Binding with Briars, read "Gay' priest raps Catholic sex doctrine." In announcing the publication of the book, the article revealed that Father Ginder is a self-,
ول
Peview
admitted homosexual who was arrested on a number of moral charges in 1969.
In the Forward of his book, Father Ginder admits: "I am a Roman Catholic priest. My diocese is Pittsburgh. I am in good standing and celebrate the Holy Sacrifice every day." He then reveals an amazingly impressive list of his credentials
as
a priest-theologianphilosopher highly regarded by the ecclesiastical establishment. After thus introducing himself, Father Ginder announces that "Sex is Good!" by totally and systematically dismantling the official Catholic attitude and
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A Voice From Within: "Sex is Virtue'
teaching that sex is evil. And lest one think that this book is for Catholics only, he reminds the reader that the Church's position on sex was basically formulated before the end of the fifth century. And the sex hangups in the world today can, in large part, be traced back to St. Paul and Saint Augustine, whose teachings have been widely accepted from the time of the Reformation down to Christian religious thinking today.
In fact it all started with St. Paul. (Can anyone remember Christ teaching against sex?) Paul was the only apostle who had never met Jesus Christ and in fact had probably never even read the complete Gospels. Yet it is St. Paul who did more than any other of the leaders of Christianity to formulate Western civilization's negative attitude toward sex. Father Ginder traces Paul's own life before he became a believer, his conversion, and his motivation in becoming the most prolific writer of the New Testament.
What little Paul left of sex was annihilated by Christianity's most famous prodigal son, St. Augustine. For all his loose. living, this fifth century Doctor of the Church has so bleak a view of sex that one wonders if a guilty conscience helped form the Christian "theology of sex."
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Father Ginder traces Augustine's education and those influences that would have affected his later teaching. From this revelation it is no wonder that Augustine taught that since virtue is the control of the will over the body, sex is inconsistent with the virtuous life! And whether we are Catholic, Protestant or Jew, we were probably raised with that erroneous philosophy!
men
Father Ginder spends a good deal of time tracing the teachings of these two through the ages and through various societies, especially America. Though a theologian, he is aware that he is writing for the general public and to get the general public discussing the possibility that sex is in fact a virtue, so he makes his analysis easy to understand without being condescending. From this theological base he takes the reader to the unbelievable story of the Church establishment and its control over the consciences of men and women.
Central to an understanding of this control is what is known as "infallability." This doctrine of the Church is much misunderstood. And some of that misunderstanding seems to be, at least tacitly, encouraged. Father Ginder's concise explanation of papal infallability is enlightening even to the Catholic reader who has had years of training in that faith. What develops then from an almost universal misunderstanding of infallability is the attitude of the average Christian that whatever is taught by the Church has direct divine guidance. And when that Church's teachings are in conflict with the rest of the world (science, for example) or a person's own conscience, what results is either psychologically damaging scruples or rejection of the Church or both.
According to Father Ginder, neither alternative is acceptable or necessary. And because the homosexual is the person who is most often the object of the
loudest and most damning anathemas against sex, Father Ginder spends most of his time demythologizing Catholic teaching regarding homosexuality and explaining the validity and the virtue of such sex. Regardless of the particular sex activity engaged in sodomy, oral sex, rimming, masturbation the homosexual (even the heterosexual!). not only does NOT sin, but does what nature and God intended: to be in love with life and the gifts of life!
After reading Father Ginder's book, one realizes that the essential message of any religion is LOVE. And in the Christian religions, the priestauthor points out, the Founder spent His entire life preaching that very message. He even let Love rule when He was presented with an adultress! And yet we have allowed a basically well-meaning though misdirected ecclesiastical establishment rob us of the essence of that message by developing false consciences regarding sex.
Father Ginder's reasoning calls for LOVE being returned to its central position in the Church and in the lives of men. He calls for an acceptance of gay sex not as a concession but as a God-given and natural right gays possess. He advances the gay cause because "Gay Liberation is the cutting edge of sexual liberation. It is the gays who are the shock troops, in the front lines, on the barricades." For in allowing gays their sexual identity, all peoples will be able to assume theirs without censures without condemnations.
Father Ginder claims: "All my life has been a preparation for the writing of this book." And this reviewer says: "Thank you, Father. I've spent my life waiting for it."
and
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