Catholic Sexual Pathology and the Western Mind

Hate Groups

Christian history is replete with the condemnation of human sexual behavior across the centuries. Medieval beliefs about human sexual morality rested upon basic notions borrowed from non-Christian sources in later rather than earlier antiquity. Many sex negative beliefs and attitudes common in Medieval Catholic Europe were Christian by adoption rather than by origin. Jesus, who was sex positive rather than sex negative, said almost nothing about human sexual behavior. Sex was not a central issue in his moral teaching.

Even in just the first five generations after his death Jesus’ followers became far more concerned about human sexual morality than Jesus himself had ever been during his life and ministry. It is clear from scripture that Jesus could never have fathomed that his disciples would imprison, torture and murder millions upon millions of human beings over sex and do this violence in his name. Indoctrinated by the Roman church government, baptized Christians performed these evil acts in the name of God. In Medieval Catholic Europe the Roman church system became absolutely obsessed with human sexual behavior. The church-state alliance (Greek theocracy) began to persecute, torture and execute men and women who dared to deviate from established Catholic sexual orthodoxy.¹

←1 | 2→During the Middle Ages six groups of people became the principal targets of hate and violence: Jews, witches, heretics, homosexuals, prostitutes and lepers. Abuse of human sexuality was the common denominator which linked all of these hate groups. Jews, witches, heretics, prostitutes, homosexuals and lepers were each charged with deviant human sexual behavior and sentenced to imprisonment, torture and death by the church. The image of the sexually lustful man and woman was closely linked with the image of the Devil by the Roman Inquisition to make the demonization of each hate group easy.²

While it would seem plausible that sexual repression naturally leads to anti-social, psychopathological and violent behavior, it will take centuries of mass psychological and sociological suffering and damage to hundreds of millions of human beings before this hypothesis is documented as scientific fact. Under a hierarchical church and state theocracy sexual repression led to mental illness, addiction, family abuse, spouse abuse, child and adolescent abuse, sex crimes, racism, sexism, classism, anti-Semitism, violence, war and genocide. The Medieval Catholic Church officially promoted both a sex negative doctrine and a sex negative formation which has historically and culturally impacted billions of human beings.

Mendicant Orders

Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) commissioned the Dominicans and the Franciscans to carry out the work of converting Jews, heretics, pagans and infidels to the Christian religion. At the beginning of the thirteenth century thousands of men and women joined these two religious orders. The Dominicans were known as the Order of Preachers and excelled at applying the new rational theology based on the logic, cosmology, psychology, ethics and metaphysics of Aristotle to the mysteries of the Christian faith tradition. The Dominicans were known as the Order of Truth (Latin Veritas).³

St. Dominic (1170–1221), the founder of the order, was dispatched by Pope Innocent III to face the Cathars (Latin Cathari), a group of heretics who lived in southern France. When preaching failed to convert the Cathars, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) sent its papal army to mass exterminate the people of Albi, France, for disobeying the pope in their human sexual behavior. The Albigensians were a free-spirited people who did not believe in procreation. The Cathars violated the heart and soul of Catholic sexual orthodoxy. The papacy accused the French men of practicing anal sex with the French women to have ←2 | 3→human sexual pleasure only and avoid procreation.⁴ The papacy which operated a medieval military machine needed millions of army soldiers and navy sailors to fight the numerous wars against church enemies. The Roman church government would not tolerate Christian or non-Christian men and women who deviated from Catholic sexual orthodoxy.

For St. Dominic, a former soldier, the gospel and the Roman hierarchical church government were inseparable. The Dominicans taught theology and philosophy in the Catholic Universities of Europe due to their rigorous academic formation. In the thirteenth century the Dominicans, a mendicant religious order of preachers, were chosen by various medieval popes because of their theological methodology to work on the restoration, renewal and development of Christian doctrine. Church laws, doctrines and morals were being seriously challenged by the common men and women across Medieval Catholic Europe.

As the Dominicans worked zealously to convert heretics to obey church orthodoxy Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241) and Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254) made special use of the Dominicans in the construction of the Papal Inquisition (1227–1500). By the end of the thirteenth century there were fifteen thousand (15,000) Dominican preachers ready to reinforce the work of the Medieval Inquisition, which had been designated to wipe out heresy across Medieval Catholic Europe.⁵

On the contrary the Franciscans were devoted to the passion of Christ. St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226), a former soldier, tried to image in every circumstance how Jesus had acted or would act in the treatment of human beings. Based on Jesus’ life and ministry Francis attempted to live the gospel literally and tried to practice unconditional love toward all people – rich and poor. Before he died Francis experienced the wounds of Christ known as the stigmata in his hands, feet and side. The Franciscans embraced lives of intense prayer and study mixed with the charisms of peace, love and joy in the service of the poor, the sick and the outcasts of society. It was the integration of human reason with a deep faith in God that made the Franciscans a dynamic spiritual force in their effort to reform Medieval Catholic Europe.⁶

The Franciscans were known as the order of love (Latin caritas). The Franciscans were dedicated to preaching the good news of Christ and performing works of charity. After a carefree youthful lifestyle Francis, the son of a wealthy merchant, fell in love with Jesus and freely embraced poverty, humility and simplicity. The Franciscans soon equaled the Dominicans in the pursuit of truth in philosophy, theology, law and science. By the year 1300 between 30,000 and 40,000 Franciscans were spread across the cities, towns and villages of Medieval Catholic Europe.

←3 | 4→In the thirteenth century the two mendicant orders suddenly began to emulate one another. The Dominicans who had been scholars and scientists embraced the Franciscan idea of poverty. And the Franciscans who had been anti-intellectual before the death of St. Francis suddenly embraced the Dominican idea of scholarship and the scientific method. There were enormous cultural and social changes as a result of the mendicant friars’ efforts to spread the Christian gospel across Medieval Catholic Europe. The Roman church government most regrettably co-opted many Dominicans and Franciscans over the centuries to set aside their charisms for truth, justice and love and instead work zealously as inquisitors to eradicate the spread of what the medieval church considered to be heresy.⁷

Most of the heretics identified and condemned by the Medieval Catholic Church did not consider themselves to be heretics but merely ‘good Christians’ who wanted to live the gospel of Christ. The men and women accused of heresy quite often regarded themselves as far more devout Christians than many greedy and corrupt bureaucrats of the Roman church government who ruled by fear rather than love and power rather than service. The Franciscans were founded on gospel inspired humanism and socialism. The Roman church system however managed to seize control of the Franciscan movement before it could blossom and radically change the face of Christendom.⁸