Eroticism, Catholicism, and the Synod on Synodality

Talk about 'backwardism'! Francis and his Synod on Synodality are trying to take the Church back to the 1960s and the sexual revolution.

From Catholic World Report

By Thomas R. Rourke, PhD

To look at the sexual revolution as some mere subset of “issues” among other “issues” indicates that Pope Francis has not grasped the depth of the evil involved in eroticism and how it is actually one of the pillars of the anti-Christian civilization we now live in.

The role that eroticism plays in today’s world and in the Church is not well understood, even by those who are concerned about it in the first place. While everyone knows that there has been a change in sexual mores, often called the sexual revolution, the depth of the problem has more often than not been overlooked, even by those who express their concerns about it. It is necessary to trace its historical and philosophical roots in some detail before attempting a proper diagnosis.¹

The genesis of eroticism

The first problem is that even many critics fail to see that eroticism is far more than a shift in moral thinking concerning one dimension of human existence. It is rather one of the firm bedrocks of our entire civilization and has been for some time. Threats to what we might call “the erotic project” are threats to an entire conception of civilization held to militantly by cultural and political elites. Any interference with the course of the erotic project (which now includes full recognition of same-sex “marriage” and transgenderism) is a threat to the entire conception of the human good, rights, and law fundamental to the progressive view.

For example, during the debate over the contraceptive mandate handed down by HHS as part of the “Obamacare” legislation, supporters contended that the entire conception of human rights at the basis of democracy was at stake. Democracy itself, it was said, would fall if women could not have access to free contraception to be doled out by their employer’s health care plan. Those opposed to the mandate tended to see this as rhetorical excess, not believing that any serious person could really hold such a view of an alleged “right” never advanced by the Court or proclaimed by any legislature, when there were obviously other ways that Congress could have delivered contraceptives free of charge.

Yet, if we take a deeper look at the erotic project historically, we come to see that this way of thinking, grounded in no political or cultural tradition, is in fact part and parcel of a whole way of thinking.

Eroticism is historically linked to a radically atheistic worldview. It is a worldview opposite of that which informs Genesis and the Ten Commandments. It arose initially in the Marquis De Sade as part of the Enlightenment’s less-publicized, darker side, resurrected in the 1930s by relatively obscure figures, but never advanced beyond smaller pockets of militant atheists due to the influence of moral traditions coming from Christianity.² It was in the midst of the decay of global Marxism’s political base and the corresponding rise of the high-tech, affluent society, that the radical project of eroticism began to re-enter the West and eventually take hold.

From the beginning, eroticism was linked to scientific positivism and secularization in the West. A deep revolution was taking place that was insufficiently recognized. Reason itself underwent a shift in meaning. Increasingly, reason came to mean science and science alone. The broader understanding of reason that had undergirded the development of Western thought got largely obliterated. Under the reign of scientific positivism, reason could not demonstrate a “scientific basis” for traditional moral reasoning, which was based on commonly accepted understandings of the ends and purposes of human acts, which could be evaluated morally.³

Eroticism emerged with the skepticism of traditional moral reasoning, itself linked to the broader processes of secularization, which really accelerated in the 1960s. Natural law has always been buttressed by Revelation, wherein God was the ultimate source of law. Having lost its support from its traditional sources in the teleological understanding of nature and Revelation, natural law faded quickly as an influence in the West. In this context, arguments favoring traditional sexual self-discipline were swamped by unimpeded human instincts. All the defenses of that ethic now appeared hopelessly archaic and non-rational.

Eroticism and Modernism

Eroticism also made serious advances into theology. It was missed at first because it was smuggled in as part of a broader theological revolution that actually was well explained by Pius X in his landmark encyclical, Pascendi Domenici Gregis⁴. A key dimension of Modernist theology was an alleged respect for modern science. For the Modernists, theology must always respect these determinations. At the same time, religion shifted into the subjective realm of feeling, intuitions, and historically and culturally bound formulations; in essence, theology could no longer deliver objective truths in the sense that science can.

Originally, Modernist theology largely avoided discussions of sexuality. Its biggest influence, especially after it was condemned, was to shift the focus of theology away from metaphysics, transcendence, and “the last things.” The ways that individual human persons, communities, and the universe itself were tied to God became less the focus. Following positivism, theology would now focus on “horizontal causality,” that is, relations of cause and effect among observable, worldly things. New theorizing in the modernist vein would focus on this-worldly realities, precisely the topics that science could study and offer more definitive conclusions. The situation has only intensified in the ensuing decades.

The erotic project as it came to be embraced in the West was originally developed by Wilhelm Reich, a lesser-known figure in the psycho-analytic movement.⁵ Although arguably a very disturbed person himself, Reich remains one of the few who did grasp the depth and significance of the erotic movement he was proposing for the West. The goal was not simply to relax or change sexual morals. Reich was a revolutionary who had a profound and valid insight, which was that revolution of the kind Marx talked about would never succeed without a corresponding moral and cultural revolution. So long as the Christian-based moral thinking remained intact, there would be no real Revolution. The goal was to attack the Christian civilization at its core.

The fundamental problem is that families transmit a pro-family morality incompatible with revolution. One has to attack the enemy at his roots. So, the goal of the sexual revolution was to destroy Christian civilization by destroying the family, which could only be accomplished by disconnecting sex from reproduction. The more children could be produced and raised outside of traditional family environments, the better the prospects for revolutionary change. This was the true, metaphysical root of the sexual revolution, which most would miss over the years, even those who could see that the sexual revolution was harmful to civilization.

It is important to underline this incorporation of psychoanalytic thought into the entire project of the left in this century. As a professor of political theory, I can say that discussion of this dimension is almost always excluded from discussions of Marxism, as is the influence of the cultural avant-garde and Surrealism.⁶ For our purposes, I want to focus on only one dimension of Reich’s thinking, precisely because it became such an influential component of the erotic project. This is the idea, expressed very clearly by Reich but fully mainstreamed by the 1960s, was that traditional morality prompted people to do something that from the scientific-positivist view was very “unnatural,” that is, restrain from consenting to sexual impulses. While it was arguably not put forth by most psychologists in the stark terms of Reich, nevertheless it became mainstream to identify the consistent failure to give in to sexual impulses as “repression,” which came to be seen as the origin of other pathological behaviors. Even though the original Freudians would not go this far, popular psychology would shift in this direction under the combined influences of positivism and secularization.

Eroticism became mainstreamed into the civilization under the larger influences of scientific positivism and secularization. Two points here need be emphasized. The elimination of original sin was an important component of this as it was a key to the understanding of sexuality in the Catholic view. Catholic moralists had emphasized, correctly, that sexuality was a particularly weak link in the armor of human nature, and probably the most frequent source of serious sin for most people (although the contemporary claim that other serious sins were ignored or played down is pure fantasy). Secondly, positivism and rationalism fatally undermined natural law, which was based on the claim that we could truly know right from wrong through a reflection on the ends and purposes of human sexuality, which themselves could be known through reason.

At the magisterial level, the Church held the line against the erotic invasion of the Church, most clearly in encyclicals written after Vatican II: Humanae Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, Evangelium Vitae, and of course in the Catechism promulgated by John Paul II. But at levels closer to the Church’s pastoral contact with people in the parishes, chinks in the armor developed quickly. The most egregious failure was that of the bishops mounting any effective opposition to the takeover of most Catholic universities by Modernist theologians clearly influenced by the erotic project. The magisterium was not defended in the principal locations where it needed to be.

I believe even many clergy who formally accepted Church teaching became influenced by Modernism, which manifested itself in two ways: (a) an unwillingness to assert any vigorous defense of the teaching, because they knew it was against the grain and that their own theological formations, themselves influence by Modernism, were inadequate to the task; and (b) a tendency to miss the depth of the evil that the erotic project represented. They saw no more than exercises of bad taste emanating from the literary avant-garde and the sad effects of commercialism and consumerism. They did not see that eroticism was intended as an attack on Christianity itself by undermining its roots in the civilization, that its philosophical roots lied with militant atheism, of the kind clearly expressed by Reich and the literary avant-garde of earlier decades.

“Rigidity” and “sins below the waist”

A more subtle but equally effective argument put forth by the progressive theological establishment does not directly attack the traditional position, yet fatally weakens it. Since the 1960s we have seen in various forms something of a “division of virtues.” The theology which focuses on the mission of allegedly making the world better emphasizes patterns of behavior such as “engagement with the world,” “solidarity” and whatever leads to social justice, itself defined increasingly with no reference at all to the Ten Commandments. This is taught in a way that tends to make traditional moral virtues seem by comparison rather narrow in range and effect. A virtue such as chastity comes across as having an overly individualistic emphasis, as do other expressions of temperance.

And then we find again and again what became the pop psychology concern about “repression” associated particularly with Catholicism (hence the widely accepted term, “Catholic guilt”). So, chastity comes away as either a second-class virtue, or, if we top the analysis off with a little Marxism, (always popular in academic circles), a “distraction” from the real task at hand. If one takes the time to read progressive moral theology, one finds a consistent unwillingness to participate in any Catholic movement grounded in traditional moral views. Even when they do not go so far as to say that traditional morality is wrong, somehow for them these movements, such as pro-life endeavors, are simply a kind of false consciousness that distracts people from the broader concerns of social justice. Given the oversized role that universities play in the formation of elites, it is little wonder that Catholic progressivism is effectively of no help to Catholics attempting to promote traditional morality. Catholic progressives are ultimately no different from secular progressives, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

I find nothing more disturbing in the contemporary Church than the painful fact that the Holy Father frequently speaks in a manner exhibiting the influence of what I have called the erotic project. Let me be clear. I am not saying he is a member of the group, but his way of talking demonstrates a disturbing pattern of influence. The most obvious example is his repeated use of the term “rigid” used as a criticism against those whose only crime is a specific adherence to Church teaching. This is coupled with the claim or inference that such rigidity further manifests itself in psychological and spiritual maladies he intends to rid the Church of (in at least one case by closing an orthodox seminary).

Insufficient attention has been paid to the intellectual origins of that language. So, what does rigidity mean exactly and what does it do to the one who embraces it? It is clearly associated with the radical psychoanalytic view that “repression” is a bad thing and causes distortions in a person’s character. Clearly, in his use of the term, a “rigid” person is one who clings to what the Church teaches despite the circumstances, which is exactly what the Catechism says to do! Moreover, rigid is only meaningful when held in contrast with its conceptual counterpart, which would be a non-rigid person who would be more “fluid” in his views.

Even worse, I claim that the entire usage here ultimately goes back to the sexual revolutionaries arguing for a less rigid and more “fluid” exercise of human sexuality. I do not say Pope Francis holds those views. I do not think he does, but he is unwittingly playing into the arguments of very bad people. Another very unfortunate choice of vocabulary has been his reference to sexual sins as mere “sins below the waist”.  To look at the sexual revolution as some mere subset of “issues” among other “issues” indicates that the Holy Father has not grasped the depth of the evil involved in eroticism and how it is actually one of the pillars of the anti-Christian civilization we now live in.

A very similar term is “pelvic issues,” which I have heard many times in my life. But I have never heard it come from the mouth of anyone defending the Church’s teaching on family and sexual life. In my hearing, it is linked to a negative judgment on the Church for unduly talking about these matters. It is directly out of the progressive playbook, which itself is directly out of the playbook of the sexual revolutionaries. The Church needs effectively to give up its combat here and focus on the “real” problems like racism, sexism and global warming. If one thinks I am misinterpreting the Pope here, he or she should consider his oft-repeated belief that concern about eroticism is characteristic of exactly the kind of “clerical” mentality he hopes to rid the Church of.

As this Synod continues, we need to take an honest look at the most disturbing situation the Pope has led us into concerning the role of eroticism in the Church and in the world, which currently has become completely radicalized, wherein not even something as basic as gender is to be free from revolutionary change. In the midst of this, our situation in the Church is unparalleled. While the Pope has never pronounced in favor of the various components of the erotic project (contraception, extramarital sexuality, homosexuality) and while he has, to his great credit, strongly denounced “gender ideology”, he has often acted with indifference with respect to the invasion of eroticism into the Church. He manifests this through his offhand comments, but more significantly through his appointments, including for this very Synod, and including the cardinalate.

In the Church today, to believe explicitly in one component or other of the erotic project is no longer an impediment to being named a Bishop or Cardinal. Moreover, the Pope manifests a clear bias in favor of these types of clerics and laity. It is worthy to note that the greatest and most respected cardinal of Africa, Cardinal Robert Sarah, is not invited, but open opponents of Church teaching are invited and given special positions in the Synod (Grech, Hollerich). No, the Pope has not changed any doctrine, but the place of the erotic project has clearly changed. It is nothing to be condemned. It is now clearly and unambiguously inside the Church, with no sign of any exit. This means that the entire Catholic Church has been opened up to the pernicious influence of the sexual revolution.

In addition, it is abundantly clear that the likes of Fr. James Martin, SJ, and Cardinals McIlroy, Grech, and Hollerich feel no threat whatsoever to their roles in the Church coming from their advocacy. Martin sponsors a yearly Conference wherein there are no voices supporting Church teaching. Nothing could be clearer than that to embrace various components of the sexual revolution is no obstacle to clerical advancement.

[Editor’s note: As this essay was preparing to be published, it was reported that “Pope Francis met Tuesday at his residence with leadership from the U.S. LGBT organization New Ways Ministry, which was previously denounced by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office for causing confusion on sexual morality among the Catholic faithful.” Martin, who accompanied the group, predictably offered congratulations, calling the meeting a “significant step forward in the church’s outreach to LGBTQ Catholics.”]

Lay people must rethink their role here. What I see is a belief that the Pope should not be criticized, and that we should support him and his Synod, come what may. Many lay people are unhappy with this state of affairs, but little is said. For my part, I believe the Pope should be respected, because he is the Pope. But his actions concerning the matters raised in this article merit respectful but real resistance. We should pray for this Synod, but that prayer should include honest words about what situation we are praying about.

Endnotes:

¹ The views on the role of eroticism in the West today are derived principally from the genius of Augusto Del Noce, particularly as expressed in the volume The Crisis of Modernity, ed. Carlo Lancellotti (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014). Del Noce is a distinct figure in any discussion related to the sexual revolution. He removes it from any secondary discussion of contemporary culture, where in fact it is placed by almost all academic political philosophy, if discussed at all. He argues persuasively that eroticism is one of the pillars of the entire contemporary Western civilization, linked at its roots with scientific positivism and the entire phenomenon of secularization, to which he devotes a second volume: The Age of Secularization (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017). [Editor’s note: Also see Dr. Rourke’s Dec. 14, 2020 essay “Atheism: The core of modern Western culture in the thought of Augusto del Noce”.]

² For a discussion of the intellectual origins of eroticism, particularly the role of Wilhelm Reich, see Augusto Del Noce, “The Ascendance of Eroticism” in The Crisis of Modernity, 157-186.

³ The commonly accepted sense of ends and purposes went back to Aristotle and was strongly reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas and the entire natural law tradition flowing out of his thought.

⁴ Del Noce notes the truly prophetic character of Pius X’s encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis. He writes: “[T]he encyclical Pascendi contains, in its most rigorous form, the definition of the essence of Modernism. It is so organic that none of its theses can be left out: the assertion that it strikes at the old Modernism but not at the new is entirely baseless. Therefore, forgetting its teaching for even one instant is equivalent to recognizing that Modernism is true. But the outcome of Modernism is necessarily atheistic, as was shown already in those distant years. … by two philosophers who certainly were not concerned about Catholic orthodoxy, Giovanni Gentile and René Berthelot.” (The Age of Secularization, 154). My own reading of Pascendi confirms its prophetic nature. While it is a good summary of what in its time was a clear minority of theological writing, it is the best summary of all the directions academic theology will go after Vatican II, from the emphasis on science, to the “scientific” and “historicist” approach to the Scriptures, to the relativization of doctrine and dogma. The fact that most seminarians will never even read it is the best critique of post-Vatican II Theology imaginable.

⁵ Reich’s classic work on the subject was first published in 1930 but has four subsequent editions with changes in the Preface. See Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution, trans. Theodore P. Wolfe (New York: Noonday: 1963). Given that the movement as it arose has always been linked to Reich’s ideas, it is entirely appropriate that the movement bears the name of this book.

⁶ Surrealism is almost never discussed at all in the standard of Marxist histories of Marxism. But the dispute between Marxism and Surrealism led to the longer-term embrace of the literary avant-garde, which itself had absorbed the thinking of people like Reich. See the famous essay, “Inaugural Rupture” in Michael Richardson and Krzystof Fijalkowski, eds. Surrealism Against the Current: Tracts and Declarations (London: Pluto Press, 2001), 42-49. The Surrealists argued for a more explicit rejection of Christian morality and culture, along the lines of Reich.