Saturday, December 31, 2016

Amoris Laetitia - Par. 153



Violence and manipulation


153.  On the basis of this positive vision of sexuality, we can approach the entire subject with healthy realism.  It is, after all, a fact that sex often becomes depersonalized and unhealthy; as a result, "it becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts".155  In our own day, sexuality risks being poisoned by the mentality of "use and discard".  The body of the other is often viewed as an object to be used as long as it offers satisfaction, and rejected once it is no longer appealing.  Can we really ignore or overlook the continuing forms of domination, arrogance, abuse, sexual perversion and violence that are the product of a warped understanding of sexuality?  Or the fact that the dignity of others and our human vocation to love thus end up being less important than an obscure need to "find oneself"?

155 John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (25 March 1995), 23: AAS 87 (1995), 427.


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