David and Catherine Deavel in a screenshot from “The Church’s Teaching on Sexual Morality and the Family,” the second in a four-part, virtual Faith and Culture Series Jan. 27. THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Tricia and Brian Borg were committed to sexual abstinence while they were dating, but at a retreat for engaged couples, something clicked for Tricia in a new way: Sex is “wedding vows made flesh.” 

“I learned that through the act of sexual intimacy, we express with our bodies what we profess with our words on our wedding day,” said Tricia, who, with Brian and their five children, attends Holy Family in St. Louis Park. “So how can I renew wedding vows that I haven’t even said yet? So, chastity inspired us to save the gift of sexual intimacy for the context of a sacramental marriage, where we could love each other freely, fully, faithfully and fruitfully.” 

Married in 2012, the Borgs shared their story as part of “The Church’s Teaching on Sexual Morality and the Family,” the second in a four-part, virtual Faith and Culture Series. The topics — the sources of Catholic teaching, sexual morality, the dignity of women, and the priesthood — were drawn from 30 Prayer and Listening Events with Archbishop Bernard Hebda held around the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the fall of 2019 and winter 2020 in preparation for the Archdiocesan Synod in 2022.  

The Faith and Culture Series continues that preparation. The 90-minute event Jan. 27 included a main presentation, two witness talks and a panel discussion. 

The Church’s teaching on sexual morality might surprise some Catholics, Archbishop Hebda said in his introduction to the session. The Church’s view — “that sex is something beautiful and great, rather than something shameful to which we are to just say ‘no,’ almost all the time” — is rarely heard in discussions about sex, he said. 

But, he said, he also anticipated the session’s content to be challenging to some viewers, “running as it does counter to how societal forces have been reshaping the understanding of sexual activity these past five decades, with implications that reach into almost every aspect of life, including the structures of families and work.” He asked that viewers open their minds and hearts to God speaking to them. 

The session’s main presenters were David and Catherine Deavel, a theologian and philosopher, respectively, who teach at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. They have seven children and are parishioners of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul. 

The Church’s teaching on human sexuality — that sexual expression belongs in a marriage of one man and one woman, and must be open to life — is part of the Church directing its members to authentic and perfect happiness, which is found ultimately in heaven, David Deavel said. During life on earth, however, some of that happiness can be experienced by obedience to God and people living the way they were created to live, he said.  

But, when it comes to the Church’s teaching on sexuality, happiness as the goal isn’t always recognized, because that obedience is hard, he said. 

“Lots of people see the price, but they don’t always see the payout,” he said. “Many are convinced that the Church, especially in the area of sexual morality, is not sex positive or body positive. Now the truth is quite different — and much more radical — because the Church, like Jesus, is pro-sex and pro-body. He made us the way we are. The Church recognizes sex to be a mutual gift of self between spouses, a profound expression of love and cooperation with God and bringing a new person into the world. Sex isn’t a hobby. It’s not casual. It’s not even just the kind of affirmation of somebody you love. It has a meaning and a purpose that goes far beyond just being a pleasurable activity.” 

Every person is loved by God and worthy of being loved unconditionally, he said. “Human beings are physical, emotional and spiritual,” he said. “Sexual love that is worthy of us and that will make us happy has to respect all of these aspects in order to be full and unconditional.” 

Respecting the bodies God created includes respecting their biological purpose of procreation, Deavel said. On a merely biological level, sex is the only way to create babies, and babies are best raised in a home with adults committed to a lifelong relationship. It also biologically — through hormones — bonds a couple. Sex is possible without love, Deavel noted, but over time, that kind of sex diminishes its participants’ attraction to it.  

And, while human beings have “sexual desires that tend to go in many different directions,” he said, “to simply go with our sexual desires and act on them in any way they seem to be going is not natural, in the sense that it will not fulfill our natures the way in which we are lovingly made.” 

Unfortunately, that’s what most of the developed world teaches about sex, he noted. But just to follow one’s desires is an approach that’s lost touch both with reality and with true romance. 

“That romantic impulse of sex to be completely united forever is a God–given one, and it is indeed the Catholic view that is the really romantic one,” he said. “It teaches that sex and love are meant to be together and that bodies, hearts and souls are meant to be together.” 

Catherine Deavel addressed common objections to the Church’s teaching on sexuality, including that artificial contraception is women’s health care. Altering a normal function of a healthy woman’s body is not health care, she said, and the love of marriage should honor the way a woman’s body is created.  

“To love someone is to want and to act for this person’s good, what is good for the person, for his or her own sake,” she said. 

In addition to the Deavels and Borgs, Anna Carter shared her testimony as a Catholic who is attracted to other women. A Twin Cities native who now lives in Milwaukee, Carter co-founded the Eden Invitation, which session moderator Jonathan Liedl described as “a movement for young adult Catholics experiencing same-sex desires and gender discordance.” 

She said following Jesus and living life in accordance with the Church’s teachings has given her freedom: “Not ‘free from’ attractions or desires, but ‘free to’ — free to surrender to him, to be open to the radical possibilities for my life that I never could have imagined for myself,” she said. “I’m the beloved of God. And that’s my love story.” 

The next session in the Faith and Culture Series is “The Church’s Understanding on the Dignity of Women” Feb. 4, presented by Helen Alvare, law professor at George Mason University in Virginia. The final session is Feb. 9 with “The Priesthood (Both Baptized and Ordained)” presented by Sister Esther Mary Nickel, a Religious Sister of Mercy and professor of sacred liturgy and sacramental theology at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver. Registration for the live events is full, but the entire series will be archived at archspm.org/synod, with each session posted shortly after its live event. 

The series began Jan. 20 with Bill Stevenson, a theology professor at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, presenting “Sources of Catholic Teaching (Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium).”  

Related