HISTORY OF MISOGYNY—Will Pope Francis Have Courage Break Church’s Solidarity With the ‘Man Seed’?
The Catholic Church has always maintained its stance that the sperm has a God-given right to try to get to the egg.
More than 1600 years ago, in the waning days of the Roman Empire, Augustine Aurelius, Bishop of Hippo declared himself a sex addict. His classical 13 book treatise Confessions of St. Augustine, one of the foundational texts of Catholicism was written “to remind myself of my past foulnesses and carnal corruptions”. Augustine was the first theologian to equate sex with sin.
For Augustine the exercise of lust was acceptable only when occurring within a marriage and only when it might produce a baby. It is “a procreative purpose which makes good an act in which lust is present” he wrote and declared that married people who use contraceptives “are not married”.
Whenever theologians discuss sex they often also comment negatively on the role of women and Augustine was no exception. He insisted that sin entered the world because man (the spirit) did not exercise control over woman (the flesh) and declared, ‘It is the natural order among people that women serve their husbands and children their parents, because the justice of this lies in (the principle that) the lesser serves the greater’.”