Are Lay Catholics Allowed to Read Moral Theology Manuals about Marital Sexuality?

Should lay Catholics have access to the old manuals of moral theology? This article explains why, in an age of weak priestly formation and widespread confusion about marital sexuality, recovering the Church’s traditional moral theology can help Catholics form their consciences more clearly and avoid both scrupulosity and laxism. 

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One objection sometimes raised against our Apostolate is that, by making the old manuals of moral theology accessible to lay Catholics, we risk giving scandal through the public discussion of sexual matters best reserved for the confessional. Those who raise this objection may appeal to the counsels of St. Alphonsus against reading such material without the responsibilities of a confessor. We readily acknowledge the prudence of discretion in these matters. But directing the faithful to seek answers exclusively from their confessors raises a practical question: are their confessors being given the formation necessary to answer them? The manuals were written for priests precisely because the faithful needed the guidance those works equipped them to provide. Any judgment about the prudence of making that guidance accessible today must therefore consider what happens when it is no longer reliably available through the ordinary channels of pastoral care. 

When it comes to marital sexuality, it is an unfortunate fact that priests these days are simply not trained adequately enough to reliably field disputed questions that have not been clearly settled by the Magisterium of the Church. Ever since the wholesale abandonment of the manualist tradition, there came with it a tragic loss of formation in the art of making judgment in the confessional. Make no mistake, it is art and it is also a science, because the moral life is not simply about vaguely orienting one’s life to the lofty aspirations of the Gospel, it also has to do with the concrete education of conscience applied to specific actions, so that the soul can know clearly and precisely what to pursue and what to avoid. This is especially true when it comes to moral questions that have not been decided by the Magisterium but have instead been subjects of debate among moral theologians. These debates, contrary to the opinion of modern critics, were not exercises in abstract minutia, but reflected precisely the kinds of practical questions that were on the minds of faithful lay Catholics who simply wanted to follow the Lord in every circumstance and situation they may have found themselves in.  This is why the old manuals of moral theology were written for confessors as part of seminary formation, so that parish priests would be prepared to field these kinds of questions in order to properly educate the consciences of their flocks. It is no surprise, then, that in the absence of this formation, Catholics have never before been more easily led into the spiritual dead ends of scrupulosity or apathy in the ongoing formation of their consciences. 

To make matters worse, in the area of marital sexuality in particular, the problem has been compounded by the fact that instead of being schooled in the actual moral theology of sexual acts within marriage, priests are reliant for their formation in these matters on John Paul II’s collection of Wednesday catechetical audiences referred to colloqually as the “Theology of the Body”. It is not my intent here to offer criticism of these papal audiences, but simply to offer clarity about what the “Theology of the Body” is and what it isn’t. John Paul II never intended these lectures to serve as any kind of substitute for moral theology, not even as it narrowly relates to the domain of Catholic sexual ethics. In fact, it is not moral theology at all, but theological anthropology. Its intent was to offer a philosophical and theological framework within which Man can understand himself as an embodied creature who also happens to be a sexual creature and has therefore a sexual vocation. It is within this theological framework that Catholic sexual ethics can be more deeply integrated and understood, but it does not and cannot stand in for the scientific work of discerning which sexual acts cohere with the natural law and with the Gospel and which do not. 

Therefore, if the Theology of the Body is the chief resource for the formation of priests in perfecting their art of being good confessors in the area of sexuality and marital chastity, we must conclude on categorical grounds that this formation is ipso facto poor and woefully incomplete. Because of this, the otherwise very wise and prudent counsels of Alphonsus mentioned earlier have lost their practical application. Moreover, this kind of pietistic thinking overlooks the fact that exposure to sexual topics is unavoidable in the age of information and in the age of the internet. It is simply a fact of contemporary life that the moment an impressionable young person ventures beyond the outer limits of their own house, they immediately become willing or unwilling pupils of the culture, most disturbingly in the area of human sexuality. From advertisements, to podcasts, to social media reels, to news outlets, and to all forms of modern entertainment, the topic of sexuality is ubiquitous. And if young people are adequately resistant to the allurements of secular messaging in this area, they will inevitably be carried into discourses online about Catholic sexual ethics from amateur and untrained lay commentators who have not been adequately formed in the proper sources of moral theology, which, again, tend to end in either scrupulous rigorism or laxism. 

It is for these reasons that we at the Apostolate firmly believe that it is prudent and necessary to ensure that amid all of these loud voices on the subject, the sober, pastoral, and wise voices and counsels that formed generations of priests and seminaries be given a proper platform and seat at the table. That is exactly what we aim to do at the Apostolate for Marital Intimacy. If you’d like to access these opinions, consider becoming a patron and checking out our Compendium. This support enables us to continue serving Catholic marriages!