Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
We have discussed the alleged War on Women in past blog articles here on Prof. Turley’s blog, as well as the Roman Catholic Church’s attempts to silence the Nuns over their support of Obamacare. The Vatican is now battling the good Sisters over the alleged evilness of Masturbation! The Vatican’s watchdog office called “The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith” has come out against a book written by Sister Margaret Farley’s in 2006 titled, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, because, among other evil statements, the female author states that masturbation never hurt anyone. Such heresy!
Let me state up front that I just can’t imagine why one of the world’s largest religions, entirely led by men who are sworn to celibacy would be against masturbation? Does Pope Benedict really think that his priests do not masturbate? These are the same men who continue to hide child molesters from civil authorities on an international scale, but they cannot sit back and let any women suggest that masturbation is harmless!
Maybe the Vatican is just upset that this nun is getting the royalties and not the real experts on the subject. MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell uttered the evil word many times on a recent TV segment during his defense of Sister Farley’s book.
“Coming to the defense of Sister Margaret Farley’s 2006 book “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” O’Donnell displayed an image of a crucifix and the Bible with the word “rewrite” just below them, then thanked the Vatican for bringing Farley’s book to his attention before launching into his tirade. As it would happen, he said, the church’s office that “spends its time deciding which books to hate” was, until 1908, called “The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.” O’Donnell was speaking, of course, about “The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith,” which took issue with Farley’s book and singled out her positions on three specific things: masturbation, same-sex relationships and divorce. And in particular, they called self-pleasuring “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action” that poses “grave harm” to Christians — whereas Farley suggested that no harm has ever come of it.” Raw Story
Now, I realize that this story isn’t the most important issue that is confronting the nation, but I was struck at the sheer arrogance of the Vatican’s hypocrisy. Allegedly celibate men wouldn’t think of ever pleasuring themselves, right? At least not according to the official word of the Vatican. I would think that if the Vatican was smart that they would take the high road and keep their pie hole shut and worry about the evils that their celibate men have exacted on the world’s youth. I guess doing the right thing only works in the Bible. Don’t the Cardinals and Bishops know that masturbation might actually prevent cancer?
Researchers in Australia did a study and asked men with prostate cancer and those without prostate cancer about their sex habits. The results might surprise the Vatican.
“They found those who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to develop the cancer. The protective effect was greatest while the men were in their 20s. Men who ejaculated more than five times a week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life.” BBC
I am not suggesting that all priests should masturbate in order to help save their lives, but when is the last time that you heard of a priest developing prostate cancer? Hmmmm?? 
I will be attending the 48th reunion of my St. Lambert’s Catholic Grade School class this coming weekend and I don’t know if any of our good Benedictine Sisters are still alive or if any will be in attendance, but if they do attend, I will let them know that I appreciate their fellow Sisters taking a stand against the Male dominated Roman Catholic Church and its attacks on Catholic women speaking their minds. What’s that old saying, “Behind every good Church is a Good Women”? I think I have that right!?
RAFFLAW:
a seminal article
Raff,
A fine piece of information…… Thanks….. Next they are probably going to excommunicated you for this….. And if you’re not catholic now….. They will baptize you just so they can…. See WWII History…… Of the Mormons……
I think this is a better excuse than any I have found, just trying to prevent prostate cancer. or as Sgt Sipowitz would say prostrate.
My all time favorite joke on this subject is the one about the kid who gets caught and is told that if he keeps it up he will go blind. He replies that he will only do it until he needs glasses.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sister+bertrille+and+sister+sixto+discuss+masturbation
The priests need to get over their fear of sex. They need to find a willing nun, and just do it. God will not condemn them. God is not condemning of multiple wives either. God is no0t condemning of any kind of sex. .Humans condemn humans..
The priests need to get over their fear of sex. They need to find a willing nun, and just do it. God will not condemn them. God is not condemning of multiple wives either. God is not condemning of any kind of sex. .Humans condemn humans..Humans fixate on names.
Bron,
I should have written that!
AY,
In the immoral words of Georg W. Bush…Bring them on!
I don’t belong to any religion and never thought I’d think it but I’ve to say that the nuns rock! It’s time for women priests and bishops and pope.
You write, “Let me state up front that I just can’t imagine why one of the world’s largest religions, entirely led by men who are sworn to celibacy would be against masturbation?”
Then you’re not thinking like the ones in power.
When you’re playing a power game, you want your pawns to be as tense and fearful and guilty as possible. Forbidding them to perform an act that most males in the world do every day obviously raises their tension level. Threaten them with “the wages of sin” and they’ll fear you (and your god). When (not if) they break the rule, they’ll feel guilty, and will therefore be more easily led and manipulated in other areas.
Good post, rafflaw. Who would have guessed that nearly fifty years after eighth grade graduation that the church would still be saying all this crazy stuff? I remember the white pumps that we were allowed to wear and the first dance. Not clicking on your link, anon. lol
Kate,
I was trying to be sarcastic.
Swarthmore,
You are right that in almost 50 years the Church hasn’t progressed. Actually they have regressed.
Of all the people who should not be moralizing, Pope Ratzo is at the top of my list. I was watching one of the documentary channels on the teevee machine the other day. It was about the Hitler Youth. As I watched all those fresh young faces giving the Nazi salute, looking all fierce and stuff, ready to go out and kill Jews, I could not help but wonder if one of them was the future Pope.
rafflaw, At least they were good on social justice issues back then. Don’t hear much from priests like the Berrigans and Drinans anymore. Now it is all about issues involving sexuality and the republican party.
Neither clicking on your link, Anon. Educate your own women.
You are right Swarthmore.
OS,
Benedict was probably front and center!
Interesting link Woosty!
~~ I would think that if the Vatican was smart that they would take the high road and keep their pie hole shut and worry about the evils that their celibate men have exacted on the world’s youth. ~~
The power hungry misogynistic Catholic hierarchy spends too much time dictating to others on issues they themselves are still struggling with and not enough time devoting themselves to the poor, widows, and orphans as Christ commanded.
rafflaw,
I thought you’d enjoy reading this piece by Charles P. Pierce:
Let He Who Is Without Spin
June 14, 2012
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/catholic-bishops-conference-day-2-9717371
The Clan of the Red Beanie, American Division, is in the second day of its annual shindig down in Atlanta, and it seems to have dawned on the bishops that they have something of a public-relations problem. And, stepping up to meet it head on is our own Sean Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, who ascended to his current position when Bernard Cardinal Law was transferred to a post at the Basilica Of Our Lady Of The Clean Getaway in Rome….
The recent Vatican crackdown on the largest organization of U.S. nuns turned into a public relations “debacle” for the bishops, said Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. He complained that the Vatican’s decision to put bishops in charge of rooting out “radical feminist” elements within the nuns’ group was linked in the secular media to unrelated events, such as the bishops’ investigation of the Girl Scouts, with negative consequences for the church’s image. The bishops are looking into concerns that the Girl Scouts sometimes work with groups that promote access to contraception. The U.S. church’s image also has been hurt sex abuse scandals.
What was your first clue on that last part, Sherlock?
Sean, lad, I know you can’t say it, so I will. The problem is not that the attack on the nuns was a public relations debacle. The problem was that it was a thoroughgoing debacle. The problem is not that the institutional Church has an image problem. The problem is that the institutional Church is openly insane right now, and everybody can see it. The institutional Church, desperately attempting to reassert the authority it squandered during its days as an international conspiracy to obstruct justice, is barging around the landscape, reeling like a crazy person drunk on absinthe, doubling down on policies concerning human sexuality that people stopped following in 1965, and making life difficult for the fking Girl Scouts. This is behavior unsuitable for an authoritarian middle-school principal in Donkey’s Balls, Texas, let alone the Church of the Gospels. And, of course, the new publicity campaign will have rooted within it the same old terror of pee-pees and hoo-hahs and what people will do with them if the Church is not watching. Vamanos!
Outreach efforts also include a Spanish-language video, now in production, that will take the form of a tasteful soap opera, tracing one family’s interactions over generations. The drama aims to promote traditional marriage and combat rhetoric that frames gay marriage as an issue of equality, civil rights or justice, said Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland.
Yeah, that’ll work. I think more people still will watch Sabado Gigante, but that’s just me.
You don’t need better flacks, Sean. You need better Christians. Ask the nuns. They’ll show you how it’s done.
You were right Elaine. That was great. However, that international conspiracy to obstruct justice is still in operation.
If I were the Vatican, I’d be worried about the use of the term “material witness” by nuns.
Oh . . . different “m” word. My bad.
Woody Allen as Alvy Singer in Annie Hall: “Hey, don’t knock masturbation! It’s sex with someone I love.” With a name like Woody, . . . .
Oro,
That was a classic line!
Gene,
I am glad that you finally got that straight!
Also from a Woody Allen movie: After a wild night of lovemaking, the royal chamber is in ruins and the two lovers (Woody and some woman) are exhausted. She asks him, “How did you get to be such a great lover?” He answers, “I practice a lot when I’m alone.”
Also from a Woody Allen movie: “Do you know what I like best about masturbation? The cuddling afterwards.”
The Catholic hierarchy is quickly becoming a caricature of the typical cleric in a Victor Hugo novel. Perhaps we remember certain periods as most hopeful because we were ourselves most hopeful then, but when I think of the ’60s, I think of Vatican II, the civil rights movement, the Peace Corps, the Berrigan brothers, Dorothy Day, Michael Harrington, liberation theology and the nascent women’s liberation movement. We are indeed regressing.
Mike A.,
I agree with your determination of regression. I might add in Cardinal Bernandin who was at least gave us a shred of hope that progress could be made. Not anymore.
Oro,
You are on fire with the Woody Allen references! Malisha too!
raff,
When erecting a joke, I try to keep things straight as possible.
The hierarchy progression is Novice Baiter, Apprentice Baiter, Journeyman Baiter, Master Baiter.
Are we taliking about bait shops or fish fries? “Go see the Fish Friar; I’m the Chip Monk.”
She was only a fisherman’s daughter, but her dad was a master baiter.
Catholic Health Association Rejects Obama’s Birth Control Compromise
Religion News Service | By David Gibson
6/17/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/17/catholic-health-association-obama_n_1601808.html
Excerpt:
(RNS) In an unexpected blow to the Obama administration and a major boon for America’s Catholic bishops, the influential Catholic Health Association on Friday (June 15) rejected White House proposals aimed at easing faith-based objections to the contraception mandate.
“The more we learn, the more it appears that the … approaches for both insured and self-insured plans would be unduly cumbersome and would be unlikely to adequately meet the religious liberty concerns of all of our members and other Church ministries,” Sister Carol Keehan and leaders of the CHA said in a five-page response to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Keehan, a crucial ally of the Obama administration in passing health care reform in 2009, had initially sounded a positive note about the administration’s proposals in February and again in March that sought to address a wave of bad publicity by accommodating religious concerns about the mandate.
The mandate requires that all employee health insurance plans must provide no-cost birth control coverage to employees, and it grants what many consider an unacceptably narrow exemption for religious groups.
Keehan’s early openness to Obama’s compromise angered the Catholic bishops and social conservatives who have made defeat of the mandate — or expansion of the narrow religious exemption — a centerpiece of their public activism.
As the largest private health care provider in the nation, overseeing a network of hundreds of hospitals and medical facilities, the CHA is a critical player in health care issues. Many accused Keehan of showing the White House more deference than she did the hierarchy.
Keehan’s role in the controversy became further complicated by the recent Vatican moves against American nuns, but the latest twist also creates a serious political headache for the president as he heads into an increasingly tough election campaign.
Gene,
I thought you would “get” my point.
Elaine,
I saw that article and it is disgusting. The Church is doubling down on its stupidity.
Why is the the church regressing? Because the world is progressing.
What did the Republicans promise the Vatican for the votes? A grand inquisition in Washington. Auto-da-fé on the Mall.
idealist,
I am not suggesting that their is any political conspiracy between the Vatican and the Right. I am merely trying to shine the bright light of transperency onto the Vatican’s actions in respect to the nuns who are the unsung heroes of the Church.
I’m really not sure that “masturbation never hurt anybody.” There might be some presumably prospective sexual partners who have been hurt by the possibility that their intended objects of desire found THEM less desirable than themSELVES…
A kind of “unfair competition” tort, if you will (and even more so if you won’t).
http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/redefining-radical-catholic-nuns-vs-the-vatican
Excerpt:
Of course, the sisters are amply able to speak for themselves. On June 18, a group of them will embark on a bus tour crossing nine states, in which they will visit food pantries, homeless shelters, and charity ministries. It is a striking and unusual form of civil disobedience within the institution of the Church.
On Monday, Sister Simone Campbell went on the Colbert Report to promote the bus tour, stating her case well and giving the satirist some choice opportunities to send up the Vatican.
Rafflaw,
If I made a mistake by making an OBVIOUS joke about the Vatican and the Republicans, I will apologize.
However, I don’t think I am the first to do so.
Nor am I the first to intimate that their might be some opportuniam present on both the sides mentioned above.
I, perhaps, should have praised you for your moral stature and courage in taking up this subject.
It could have been met with deeper response than it did, Í felt there was more to say, but that a deepening after the joke tirade would be inappropriate and not appreciated.
Why you react to my joke instead of to all the previous ones is for you to know and me to wonder over.
Best line: ..keep their piehole shut and….”
ID707,
It is my fault for not catching your saracasm!
Malisha,
interesting angle!
bettykath,
thanks for the link. I saw some articles about the bus tour. Those nuns are brave for sticking their necks out.
I think I’ll go back to signalling my jokes with JOKE again. Safer if more boring. I make the aame mistake so many times myself Rafflaw.
I am listening to a Madonna song right now.
Oh, the same old rhetoric coming from the holier than thou catholics. My entire sexual educational experience at my school (catholic) in Belgium consisted of a nun spending a few minutes on the ‘coming together of a seed and an egg to create a wonderful new baby’ and ten minutes on the evils of masturbation: we’d go blind instantly. The rebel in me couldn’t wait to get home of course and I disappeared into my bedroom to try it out. I admit I was really worried about opening my eyes but when finally I did I jumped out of bed and told myself that they had gone too far. Watch out for Santorum and his dedicated love to the catholic church (via Opus Dei) and hope that he never amasses any more power than he already has for with him the rights of women will be eroded faster than a wave destroying a sand castle.
Elsie, you got it.
Unfortunately, though, it will only be a wave destroying a sand BUNGALOW.
We never got that castle built.
Elsie,
You are right about Santorum. He was even too crazy for the Republican primary voters.
Rafflaw, trust me for the “interesting angle.” My hobby is saying, “Another way to look at it is…”
Someone taught me once that you can never tell anyone “there are four (5, 5, 6, 7, 8…) reasons…
You have to stop at THREE. She said, “ONLY THREE THINGS! EVER!”
So I made it my business to always find the fourth.
An ex-husband of mine made it his business to always find the fifth (of vodka).
Malisha,
I used to enjoy taking the fifth, but that was in my college days.
Rafflaw, I took the Fifth once in the Pentagon and a general nearly broke my goddamn hand.
True story:
He had called me and said he needed to meet with me (another activist and I had contacted him and a dozen others about a child abuse case at Fort Benning, GA) immediately. He practically begged me to get there within the day and I got there in the early afternoon. I was escorted to his office by a Colonel, very polite, very accommodating. I came into the General’s office in my grey suit (“look officially acceptable”) and he stood to greet me. BEFORE reaching me, he asked, “Where did you get the documents?” I reached my l right hand out to shake his and said, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.” He squashed my hand so hard that I could feel it three days later; it went “crrrrrrrrrr” as he shook it! I realized later that what I should have done was to scream and fall to the floor, but I couldn’t think fast enough.
Another true story:
I was subjected to a trial in Virginia that was a mixed criminal civil trial, without any criminal charges, all hodgepodged together because a judge was angry. I was called as the first witness — against myself. As the attorney (NOT a prosecutor) was questioning me, I answered one of the questions, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it could incriminate me.” The lawyer argued and said, “How could it incriminate you to sign over ownership of a used car?” I repeated the language. The lawyer asked the judge for a ruling, and the judge said, “I don’t know if the Fifth Amendment applies in a civil proceeding like this.” Then the lawyer asked me if I understood that refusing to answer the question would give rise to an inference that I was lying. I said, “No, I don’t understand anything at this point.” Later, the Court of Appeals of Virginia refused to review the case because I had filed a civil appeal rather than a “writ of error” for a criminal appeal! So much for the Fifth Amendment.
Where did you say you hid that vodka? I think I’m still hungover.
Malisha,
Who said anything about vodka? Southern Comfort was the medicine of choice back then.
raf:
Just got around to your fine article on the latest putsch against the nuns. Thanks for outing a bully.
Thanks Mespo!
Y’all forgot to thank the Prof. Snarty, shart, snart.
Good cause anyway. The more we masturbate the less we fight and sexually abuse, at least in theory.
Rafflaw, oops, sorry.
See, when I pretend to be an expert in something, I always get found out!
;-(
Uh oh, make that
Interestingly in traditional Jewish Law masturbation and gay evils are solely male, while females are free to masturbate and be lesbians to their hearts content. (I actually had the balls to ask a knowledgeable Orthodox Rabbi about this subject. Granted, he was a free thinker as far as the Orthodox Rabbis go.) This is inconsistent with the claims that traditional Judaism is sexist against women. Why do they get a free pass?
Interesting insight commoner.
Commoner, I think it is for several reasons:
(1) because the idea of “spilling seed” is a male evil based on the idea that women have no “seed” to spill so they are not wasting god-substance; it doesn’t “spill” eggs either;
(2) the law is written for men and they don’t really care what the women do unless it is something the man wants to control and then, the control is simply his to apply and needs no law;
(3) men don’t really mind womansex; in all the ancient cultures I have read about it’s perfectly OK because there’s no real competition involved (“who cares what the girls do as long as we get what we want?”) and
(4) It wouldn’t keep men from having their wives, their children, their property, their perogatives. And
(5) Who cares if the women all go blind; that just makes it easier for the ugly men to find dates.
The only one the DYING Catholic church is really at war with is itself. The sad fact is that most priests & most Nuns, are accepted into seminary before they themselves reach sexual maturity, and are from that point on indoctrinated in the church’s own twisted outlook on all matters sexual….. Therefore, rendering them unable to, and incapable of rendering decent information on the subject. And, that’s the way the church wants it. Remember, if you control a person’s sex life, you’ve pretty much got that person totally under your control! Oh, I wish I was younger than 67….. I’ve dreamed of watching the Catholic church destroyed, and razed to the ground…… But, I fear, it’s taking way too long. We are witnessing the beginnings of the realization by beleivers, that their beliefs may have been based on false information, and people are opening their eyes to the truth. The ranks of the ‘Non-Believers’ are growing faster than any other facet of religion. Thankfully, their, the Catholic church’s, ignorant, regressive, out of touch Nazi Pope, is helping speed the process up a bit. I hope I’m not too old to join the celebration when the church finally does become just a memory, instead of the Plague upon Humanity which it is now……..
Zara,
I do not want the Catholic Church to die and go away. I want them to treat women equally with men and to allow women to be priests and be full members. I want the Church to own up to its illegal and immoral dealings in child predation and do what Jesus would have done.
The Catholic Church is expected to retire over fifty saints in order to make room for Saint Chad, patron saint of hand-held devices; Saint Burt, patron saint of legroom; and Saint Chi-Chi, patron saint of unwanted hair.