Does true love have to wait? While she agrees with much of Catholic teaching on sexuality, this young Catholic believes that the church needs to listen more to the lived experiences of young adults. She argues that waiting for marriage isn't always the only moral choice.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH NEEDS TO LISTEN MORE TO THE experiences of young adult Catholics in its approach to sex before marriage. I'm not talking about casual sex, and I'm not talking about teenagers having sex. I'm talking about adults in committed relationships, coming to the conscious decision that they are ready to give of themselves completely to each other in this way.

I vividly remember an encounter I had with a priest-theologian at the Catholic university I attended. He was giving a talk about chastity and sexuality, and I asked, "Why is sex reserved only for marriage?" He got very annoyed and replied that "only within the bonds of marriage is a person able to give of him or herself completely to another."

"But, why?" I asked. He moved on to another question.

People don't get married at 18 anymore. U.S. census numbers in 2002 revealed the average age at first marriage is 27 for males and 25 for females. And by this age they are used to making complex moral decisions. If they're conscientious, they discern each and every day how to be ethical in their personal and professional lives.

What's right and wrong before God is not decided by a majority vote. But if we acknowledge the importance of the sense of the faithful, shouldn't we listen more to the vast majority of today's young adults--including conscientious Catholics--who believe that engaging in sexual intercourse in a loving, committed relationship is not sinful?

For kids and young teens, explaining sexual ethics in black-and-white terms is useful. But for mature adults that approach is not convincing. They see too many things that don't fit into those strict categories. And when they keep getting black-and-white answers to complicated life issues, they get frustrated and angry and often as a result will reject the teaching wholesale. Some even reject the church altogether.

I APPRECIATE AND PRACTICE MOST OF WHAT MY CATHOLIC upbringing taught me about sex and sexuality: that sex is sacred, that our bodies and minds are the most precious thing we have to share with another and should always be treated with respect. And I appreciate how the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines chastity as the "successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man [sic] in his bodily and spiritual being."

The Catechism goes on to explain the why and the way of chastity, and these are all ideals I can say yes to: integration of mind, spirit, and body; exercising self-control and spiritual effort; witnessing God's love for us through our love for the other; and respecting the sanctity of the human person before us.

But then it abruptly makes a sweeping exclusion to all of this complicated moral and philosophical teaching with the following: "Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence." Is that really the only possible conclusion? Chastity for unmarried people is not as simple as sexual continence. It never has been and it never will be.

I believe the church could get a lot more people to pay attention to its important message against casual sex if it took a more pastoral approach to adults who are in committed, long-term relationships. The church tends to hold sexual sin above all other sorts of offense. The message is that keeping your sexuality under strict and total discipline is the primary indicator of your status as a moral person. This risks leaving the faithful feeling beyond the pale when they fall from the church's ideal.

Catholic teaching on sexuality limits intercourse to an ideal within an ideal: sexual union characterized by mutuality, profundity, and sanctity between two people joined by lifelong marriage vows. Indeed, in the ideal, sex between married partners would always live up to its theological epitome of total self-giving and a glimpse of divine wonder. But in reality, as one married friend put it, "Sometimes it's wonderful and profound and holy, and sometimes it's like brushing your teeth."

Sex between married people is not automatically more sacramental or sacred than that between two unmarried people who are deeply in love and committed to each other. How could the same act between two people the day before they get married be so drastically different on the day after? Can't an unmarried couple make love and really feel closer to each other and to God as a result?

Between an ideal and its opposite is an entire bell curve of experiences, behaviors, and relationships that includes marriages that end in divorce and spouses who act in selfish ways.

To hold people to an ideal that so many will never attain can drive people away with feelings of unworthiness before God. The ideal is not always attainable, and more importantly, just because something's not ideal doesn't mean it's automatically wrong. There's a big difference.

CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, IN HIS recent book Against an Infinite Horizon (Crossroad), defends Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage against what he describes as a culture that normalizes divorce and sex outside of marriage. Still, he recognizes that the culture "offers things that need to be integrated, as an antithesis, within the classical view of sex and marriage."

"Where it is corrective morally is in its insistence that love and sexuality are complex, evolving, and almost infinitely resilient. Sometimes we didn't emphasize that sufficiently in the past, namely that falling from the ideal of love leaves scars that are permanent but not fatal, that love gives us more than one chance in this life, and that we are asked to deeply love more than one person, even within the ideal of monogamy, lifelong commitment, and sex only within marriage--and not everyone who doesn't fit the norm or has fallen away from it is tainted, fallen, second best, or (like the rich young man) must go away sad. Romantically, it also offers something positive, namely not to put so much stock in the Romeo and Juliet ideal (one man and one woman, destined for all eternity to be salvation and wholeness to each other) so as to render real marriage an institution that can only chronically disappoint."

If the church recognized such bits of value in the culture's critique, it would gain credibility with those who feel their life experience doesn't fit with what the church holds.

Fortunately, on the ground, some pastoral care is going on. One priest tells me that he distinguishes in the confessional or in counseling between casual sex and sex between two committed adults headed toward permanence.

Another priest who ministers at a Catholic college reports that the majority of sins confessed to him are of a sexual nature. In these conversations he leads penitents to examine their intentions and motives: Was it out of love and care for the other? Did it feel wrong at the time? Does it feel wrong now? Why or why not? In the context of loving and committed relationships he encourages them to recognize that something significant and sacred has transpired, that the relationship has taken on a new level of commitment that should be honored.

Is this letting someone slide for something that is actually a sin? No, it's recognizing that the person is an adult who needs to engage his or her mature and informed conscience.

I currently live with my fiance. This is more and more common, even for Catholic couples. And for us, the sacrament of our marriage has already begun. It began when we first met and has grown through the grace of God ever since. We've daydreamed about and made plans for our future together. When we are officially and publicly married, that will begin a new chapter in our lives in the practical sense that our promise to one another will then supersede all other considerations for the rest of our lives. But I don't believe that our relationship now is any less permanent, any less sacramental; it's just that it's yet to be set in stone. Our love is fierce and based on a complete self-giving and fidelity to the other. God is everywhere in our home, even in our bedroom.

The church is right to defend against "I do, for now." Marriage should be for a lifetime. But nowadays couples date for an extended period of time, usually several years, before they make the decision to marry. And often they have several long-term relationships before meeting the person they marry. It seems inevitable that some will pursue a committed sexual relationship. Rather than categorically condemning that reality and equating it with irresponsible and casual sex, the church should try to listen more.

Maybe then these same people will look to the church for advice in their relationships, advice on their sexual behavior, and discernment on marriage as the next step.

KATHERINE OSBORNE, a freelance writer in Chicago. The name is a pseudonym.