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WE SHARE THE MAIL
This is an e-mail I received this past week from a friend of
mine --- a husband and father. I asked him to give me permission
to print it in the bulletin. He gave permission on condition
that I not include his name and that I edit it slightly to remove
some personal references. He has approved this slightly revised
version of his original e-mail. I think it is an exceptionally
good letter.
Dear Father Connolly:
I must beg your forgivness ahead of time
for bringing up such a sordid subject but, as is often the case,
you are the only man I know who might actually have an informed
opinion on the subject at hand and are not likely to consider
me insane for holding the view I hold.
I am blest in that I suffer few temptations of the flesh. In
fact, I believe I could easily adopt the celibate life and be
content. I am always hasty to add that I believe firmly that
this is an actual grace and is not due to any inherent quality
of my own. I also like to add that I am healthy and find women
beautiful and alluring but, like Job, I have “made a covenant
with mine eyes never to look upon a maid" and so forth.
Therefore, I do not spend
a great deal of time thinking about sexual
sins. However, once in a while, I do. Part of the reason is that
I come across so many persons with so many problems — both
heterosexuals and homosexuals. Sometimes I think back to my
own youthful indiscretions prior to getting married. By the grace
of God, I have never strayed as a married man.
As a result of some thinking and some reading, I have come to a startling conclusion:
I think masturbation is wreaking havoc on our society. For
some time, I have wondered why so many of the young men around
me seem so fey and so fair. They are effeminate. They lack ambition.
Not a few are turning homosexual. Moreover, as you know, there
is pornography. Recently, as I considered it, I started to wonder
if, perhaps, the widespread acceptance of the solitary vice might
have something to do with it. Such a concept is laughed to scorn
these days and a quick search on the Internet will show that
the dominant — I’m tempted to say “universal”
— opinion seems to be:
a)
that no man can live without playing with himself unless he is
"in a relationship";
b)
that there is nothing harmful about this and even . . .
c)
that it is necessary for good health.
How could such a universal opinion be wrong?
Well, as is often the
case anymore, I must disagree with modern
science. I think the solitary vice is harmful. Here are two things
of which I am certain — and I might add that I am sure that
there are others:
#1 — I am quite certain that the habit of masturbation diminishes a man's
ability to prolong the act of love. Therefore, a boy (young
man) who is always "interfering with himself" may find
himself unable properly to satisfy his future wife.
#2 — I am also rather
certain that a young, unmarried man who
does not engage in the solitary vice will have what are called
"wet dreams" (nocturnal emissions). I think this natural
phenomenon must answer to some natural purpose. They are probably
necessary for psychological health. If a boy starts playing with
himself all the time, it will not be likely that he will have
these dreams and I can't help but wonder if that doesn't do some
sort of psychological damage. In fact, I think the canard that
"people masturbate because they are sexually frustrated"
is backwards. I think masturbation might in fact CAUSE sexual
frustration.
I need not here go into
the damage that the fantasy life of a
self-abuser may do on his ability to relate properly to women.
As for the attitude that
persons who masturbate “just can't
help themselves", I just don’t buy it. I think that,
by God’s grace, by prayer and by conscious avoidance of
the occasions of sin, it is possible that a boy will never even
begin to masturbate. I think that, the longer a boy retains his
purity, the less likely it is that he will lose it. But I think
that, once the act of masturbation becomes habitual, the harder
it will be to break the habit. It will become something like
an addiction. Establishing a satisfactory sexual relationship
(by which I mean marriage) might serve to bring about the end
of the practice.
Enough for now. I would appreciate your opinion on this. I am
thinking about these matters as part of my overall thinking about
the education of the youth — what needs to be done to keep
them normal.
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Saturday, 13 June
A
PRIEST DOES NOT ALWAYS ENDEAR HIMSELF
to his parishioners by telling them the truth. If a priest aspires
to be popular, he usually does well to massage the facts, so
as not to offend. Therefore, when a Catholic school closes,
we often hear from the pulpit (or read in the press release or
in the letter to the parishioners) such banalities as “Well,
you know, it’s the economy”, as if “the economy”
were an entity entirely independent of the choices made by the people in the community.
And we say, “Well, you know,
it all has to do with the changing demographics”, as if
there were some sort of disconnect between how the demographics
have changed and how
the people have changed. (Hint:
The Greek word for “people” is “demos”).
BISHOP’S ANNUAL APPEAL
