The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human Sexuality

The Catholic Church has not yet learned to speak gracefully and truthfully about sexuality, according to Eugene Kennedy's The Unhealed Wound. Kennedy's book blends history, psychology, theology, and journalistic storytelling in a sophisticated and humane analysis of where and how Catholic teaching about human sexuality has gone wrong. Teaching that flesh and spirit are locked in a battle with each other, the Catholic Church has treated human sexuality as a bane of human existence, not a gift from God. The Unhealed Wound argues that Catholicism will have a hard time righting its teachings because so much of its power as an institution depends on keeping its members in "a frightened and dependent state" regarding their own sexual impulses: "This emphasis on power diminishes [Catholicism's] true authority to help ordinary men and women put away childish things and grow up even by small steps.... the way, imperfect but tolerant of failings, we become human." --Michael Joseph Gross