Sexuality/Sacrament of Sexuality/In Pursuit of Love
Carmody, Denise Lardner
ACCENTUATING THE POSITIVE Mary G. Durkin Thomas More, $7.95, 117 pp. SEXUALITY SACRAMENT OF SEXUALITY Morton Kelsey and Barbara Kelsey Amity House, $9.95, 312 pp. IN PURSUIT OF LOVE Vincent J....
...Durkin says that we have a big problem with sexuality, our history has developed a patriarchal imbalance, our faith has not made sexuality the joy and blessing God surely wants it to be, and Pope John Paul II gives us both surprisingly positive views and inadequate follow-through when it comes to church policies...
...Perhaps as a result, many of the discussions seem rather removed from actual family life and don't reflect the criticism of male rationalizing that many feminist ethicists have raised...
...Generally the tone is warm and healthy, while the positions taken are mildly liberal and courageous enough about criticizing official positions...
...A rather dramatic defect is the paucity of women cited as authoritative sources...
...She explains that sexuality must mean more than sex, provides an overview of the whole area of sexuality, and...
...The book is full of useful references to pastoral sources on each of its topics...
...The main topics treated include an analysis of sexuality, information about how sexual identity and attitudes tend to develop, reflections on the relations between sexuality and culture, consideration of the legacy of patriarchy, biblical influences, questions of long-term commitment, the varieties of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, celibacy, overcoming sexual fears, the relations among love, spirituality, and sexuality, and the questions speakers and counselors dealing with sexuality tend to hear...
...then deals with such topics as a biblical view of sexuality, the way sexuality has been treated in both the official Catholic church tradition and the little tradition that has informed popular religion, the views of the magisterium since Vatican II, sexuality in the 1980s, and future prospects...
...He has benefited from years of teaching Christian ethics to college students, so the chapters are clear and appropriately personal...
...By the very fact that it accepted sexuality as pervasive in the life of faith (while urging that sexuality be taken as perhaps the last great outpost of the extraordinary in a secular age), Sexuality avoided the convolutions that threaten psychological emphases...
...Vincent Genovesi's book is not a textbook but it covers the full range of topics one would expect in a text that first laid out the foundations of a Catholic sexual morality and then took up such concrete ethical problems as contraception, abortion, and homosexuality...
...He has a full chapter on magisterial authority and conscience, and throughout he shows himself a sedulous reader of Richard McCormick and Charles Curran...
...The chapters on contraception and abortion get rather technical, concerning both biology and moral principles, and they owe more to a neo-scholastic mentality than might be fruitful...
...While the biblical and historical sections only skim the surface, they seem accurate and balanced...
...All three books deserve respect and can be recommended as likely both to clarify problems and increase faith...
...Denise Lardner Carmody These three books provide a good indication of what mainstream to liberal Catholic Christian theologians (the Kelseys are Episcopalians) now tend to say about sexuality and sexual morality when they write for the general public...
...The faith being exposed has both feet on the ground...
...The love of God casts out fear, but until our theology centralizes the love of God and relativizes (without discarding) all other authorities, our sexuality is virtually bound to be full of bogeys...
...Mary Durkin's little book appears in the Thomas More series Guidelines for Contemporary Catholics...
...The writing is clear but seldom inspired or lyric...
...The book's stress on recent i$sues probably makes it relevant to most of its readers' personal interests, and Durkin's feminism allows her to approach sexuality from angles the mainstream tradition did not consider, without neglecting the wisdom in the traditional views...
...It is not hard to point out the dangers in Augustine's "love and do what you will...
...Durkin's overview is as comprehensive as one could wish, granted her spatial limitations...
...I thought the balance between reverence for the tradition and encouragement of individual liberty was fine...
...As well, it avoided the legalisms that threaten treatments always keeping an eye on the magisterium...
...Frequently the authors use anecdotes from their experiences as marital partners, parents, and pastoral counselors...
...Certainly Christian faith is vivid throughout, but the commitment to Jung-ian psychology is nearly as vivid...
...I also found less theology, especially less influence of the simplifying example of Jesus and his twofold commandment of love, than I find necessary for successful spirituality...
...Michael Glazier, $16.95, 416 pp...
...I myself would like to see the general agreement of all three books about the need for a more positive Christian view of sexuality riveted to the freedom of the children of God...
...Throughout, the major asset of the work is its healthy realism (Durkin has seven children...
...The book by the Kelseys is more ambitious, less theological, more psychological...
...The data they bring forward suggest that sexual behavior has varied considerably from culture to culture and historical period to historical period...
...So, overall, I would confidently put this book in the hands of teenagers, married couples not used to heavy reading, and any others whose main need is a brief, balanced view of sexuality...
...It is hard to get either church officials or intellectuals to see the radical wisdom in Augustine's epigram and so, after all their demurs, to say the necessary and liberating, "Nonetheless, he has summed up the implications of the freedom for which Christ has set us free...
...I found the writing interesting when dealing with case studies and examples but otherwise rather flat...
...Genovesi does a good job with the foundations, locating sexuality in the horizon of Christian spirituality as a whole...
...IN PURSUIT OF LOVE Vincent J. Genovesi, S.J...
...It reflects her previous work on the allocutions of John Paul II and her collaborations with Andrew Greeley, her brother...
...My own mild favorite was Durkin's, because it was blessedly brief, to the point, and low-key...
...The principal thesis they advance is that healthy sexuality is an essential component of psychological and religious wholeness...
...They show sympathy for the fears, pains, and scars most people have concerning sexuality, and probably most readers will come away with a salutary sense that doubts are par for the course...
Vol. 115 • January 1988 • No. 2
