The Heart and Soul of Sexual Suppression

Patrick Scully claims that women priests, women bishops and an end to celibacy have nothing to do with the current scandal (letter, June 12). Nothing could be further from the truth. If God had never instilled within us the need for sexual expression, the human race would not have lived long enough to leave the caves. It is both the minimal socializing with women on an intimate level and celibacy that are at the very root of the current scandal.

By suppressing the natural, human need for sexual expression the church is also suppressing the human spirit. As we all know, suppressing any need leads to it eventually surfacing somewhere else. Suppressing the human spirit has always led to some form of rebellion. The history of the world is filled with examples of this.

America considers itself the country with the most freedoms. Yet we have made taboo one of the most important aspects of the human experience to the point where violence is more acceptable as entertainment than sexual expression. Scully’s inability to see the blatant correlation between the scandal and the issues of celibacy and a woman’s role in the church only guarantees such a scandal happening again.

Todd Groves

Santa Monica

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One Catholic activist’s suggestion that “all Catholics would write down their grievances on slips of paper and place them in a bowl, where they would be burned” amazes and amuses me no end (“Bishops Confront Pressure to Give More Power to Laity,” June 12). Isn’t this stretching “turning the other cheek” a bit too far? I only hope that this suggestion is not adopted by governmental agencies, corporations and other lay organizations as a means of “answering” complaints.

Horace Gaims

Los Angeles