560 - Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defense

Catholic Sexual Ethics:
A Summary, Explanation, and Defense
By Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., Joseph Boyle, Jr., and William E. May
Huntington, Ind., Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1985. 276 pp. $7.95.

This is an attempt to defend the present teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about sexual morality by showing its inherent reasonableness, as well as its continuity with Scripture and church tradition. The authors want to locate the disputed items-such as the immorality of contraception, the superior status of consecrated virginity, and the objectively "mortal" seriousness of every sexual misdeed from "kissing and fondling" outside marriage to bestiality-within a comprehensive understanding of the created

561 - Catholic Sexual Ethics: A Summary, Explanation, and Defense

goodness and value of sexuality, sexual desire, and procreation. I think they try to get more than is warranted out of Scripture, though few could deny that their present claims have found broad support in the Catholic past. They are to be commended for their discussion of the theory of "proportionalism" (on the basis of which some authors justify exception to traditional sexual norms). Not all will be convinced by their critique of proportionalism, but they handle with restraint a dispute which in the past has generated mischaracterization and animosity.

Lisa Sowle Cahill
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, Mass.