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To: Cookie123

Sometime back in the 1960's, the Church - well, some of its more "progressive" members - decided to replace Christ with Freud, and it's been all downhill ever since.

I will admit that even Freud thought that homosexuality was a sign of a personality disorder, but in general, it was Freud's idea that sex was all, that one's so-called "sexual nature" trumped everything else in one's being.

Christianity, of course, simply regarded it as one more part of human life and human being, and by no means the most important one in itself.

In many ways, the 1960's were the full flowering of Freudian thought, which had long been an undercurrent in popular literature and university thought and teaching. It swept the field, not strictly in the form of Freud's initial ideas, but in the sort of popularized conception of it where sex was enshrined as the most important activity in the world and one's so-called "sexual nature" became a sort of independent god-let that had to be cherished and allowed to do whatever it wanted.

What is very sad is that so many in the Church cheerfully followed this particular Pied Piper. I've never been clear on why Catholic thought was so ill prepared to deal with Freud, although perhaps the fact that the modernists had been busy undermining Catholicism for several decades at that point contributed to it.

I also think that the conversion of the Church in the 1960s from Catholicism to Freudianism is one of the great neglected areas of investigation.

After the scandals of recent years, many of which were perpretated while the priests were undergoing "psychological counseling" or had even completed it, the psychiatric profession may be losing its grip on the Church, at least in the US. But the intellectual influence still remains, and many modern Catholics' automatic assumptions about human nature are Freudian and not Christian.


38 posted on 11/23/2005 9:12:10 AM PST by livius
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To: livius
I believe much of the recurring abuse came about as a result of the psychiatrists convincing Bishops that the priests were 'cured' of the problem. These priests were allowed back into ministry and the abuse began again.

I've often wondered why no psychiatrists received blame in all the media surrounding the abuse scandal.

47 posted on 11/23/2005 11:06:21 AM PST by SuziQ
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To: livius

I recall that Bishop Sheed was very much against Freudianism. I gather that he knew that many priests had fallen under its spell. As regards homosexuality, Jung had what I think an interesting observation: he said that it is much more pervalent in urban societies, that in such societies there is often more confusion about sexual roles than in rural environs. No doubt that there is a natural element in the disorder. Francis Parkman found it among thr Sioux indians. A handful are unfit to be counted as braves and dress and work with the women. I remain unconvinced, however, that the cause is natural, exc ept in the way that natural weakness lead all of us to take the paths of least resistance.


49 posted on 11/23/2005 11:49:20 AM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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