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SACRED CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
Persona Humana

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This opinion is contradictory to the teaching and pastoral practice of the Catholic Church. Whatever the force of certain arguments of a biological and philosophical nature, which have sometimes been used by theologians, in fact both the Magisterium of the Church - in the course of a constant tradition - and the moral sense of the faithful have declared without hesitation that masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act.[19] The main reason is that, whatever the motive for acting this way, the deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal conjugal relations essentially contradicts the finality of the faculty. For it lacks the sexual relationship called for by the moral order, namely the relationship which realizes "the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love."[20] All deliberate exercise of sexuality must be reserved to this regular relationship. Even if it cannot be proved that Scripture condemns this sin by name, the tradition of the Church has rightly understood it to be condemned in the New Testament when the latter speaks of "impurity," "unchasteness" and other vices contrary to chastity and continence.




19. Cf. Leo IX, letter "Ad splendidum nitentis," in the year 1054 DS 687-688, decree of the Holy Office, March 2nd, 1679: DS 2149; Pius XII, "Allocutio," Oct 8th, 1953 AAS 45 (1953), pp. 677-678; May 19th, 1956 AAS 48 (1956), pp. 472-473.



20. "Gaudium et Spes," 51 AAS 58 (1966), p. 1072.






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