The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human Sexuality - Softcover

Kennedy, Eugene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031228358X ISBN 13: 9780312283582

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2002

Synopsis

Kennedy, a psychologist, former priest, and a leading Catholic author and scholar, addresses one of the most compelling yet undiscussed issues in the Church: human sexuality. The Unhealed Wound is a penetrating and insightful study of the unresolved conflicts Catholics face regarding both their sexuality and spirituality, deep conflicts which grow more and more serious as they remain unaddressed within the Church.

He astutely yet respectfully takes to task a faith that—despite the reality of erotic love as a natural and human aspect of life itself—condemns birth control, marriage for priests, and sex outside of marriage. The Unhealed Wound also examines the Church's formidable hierarchy, challenging those clerics who uphold papal edicts unthinkingly. Articulately postulating our need not only to understand but celebrate our own sexuality, this book will engender both controversy and heated dialogue among today's scholars, students, and believers of Catholicism.

About this title

Review:

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

About the Author:

Eugene Kennedy is an award-winning author, syndicated columnist, and professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University of America. He and his wife, Sara Charles, M.D., live in Chicago

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 031228358X
• ISBN 13: 9780312283582
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256