Very informative and essential scholarship

I read this book in mid 2001. For anyone who wants to know from where the Catholic Church derives its intense sexual pessimism and its antagonistic attitude towards heterosexual love within marriage, then this is the book for you.

Many of the sexual taboos the Church is fixated upon have no Scriptural basis, and as the book incisively points out, no rational basis either. And the Church's extreme negative hatred of married sexual pleasure has been very costly to it over the centuries - even contributing to the Schism of 1054 and later the Protestant Reformation.

One of the conclusions that I was compelled to draw based on the overwhelming evidence of centuries of papal and clerical animosity towards heterosexual love (especially within marriage!) is that such an intense hatred of married heterosexuality is itself an immoral perversion in the same class as the sexual perversions the Church routinely condemns. One suspects, after reading this book, that the celibate clergy talked down marriage, in part, to bolster their prestige both within the Church and society at large.

Another conclusion that became clear was that the Catholic Church hurts its credibility immensely in the modern world by its obstinate clinging to a discredited, pessimistic view of human sexuality. The faithful often times do not listen to the Church on current major issues - issues that the Church is correct on - because the institutional Church has trivialized and abused its moral authority on so many minor or non-issues.

The author points out that this sexual pessimism was not dominant in the very early Church of the first three and a half centuries, but became dominant later. And, most surprising, is that this destructive sexual pessimism has pagan roots! We can hope that, in time, the Catholic Church will return to the more positive and constructive thinking of New Testament times.

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Incredibly Insightful Read

This book is incredibly well referenced and insightful. I was amazed by the amount of reference materials that were also included throughout the book. I was also amazed by the information set forth in the book. If you have ever wondered where some of the practices and ideas in the Catholic church originated, this is a very helpful book. It's not just limited to a female audience either - it's also quite helpful in understanding some of the requirements placed on men by the Church. I gave it four stars instead of five because it can be a very difficult read -- not a great book to read after a long day at the office!

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ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF ALL TIMES

This books simply unmask the horror,perversion and insanity of Catholic Church.It is important people live the pleasure and freedom as a sin,because companies need them for work.It is important to maintain and consolidate socio-economic domination-see Marx and Freud-and the SEXUAL dimension of the man and of the women is FUNDAMENTAL for this.Church and rich and powerful makes an invisible alliance.
Do you want to understand Columbine massacre,american psycophats and so on...? Start on this book,on Freud and on Marx.

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