Pre-marital sex is really fornication.

This sermon was delivered at a Toronto parish in early 2006. As the above news report about MP Belinda Stronach affirms, the idea that sexual relations outside marriage are sinful (i.e., against God and the good of society) is publicly being mocked. The following sets forth what is at stake.

The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

(1 Cor 6:13).

Our culture has a tendency to change the names of things. In many cases, it does so in order to soften or hide some truths we are uncomfortable with, especially if we call these truths by their real names.

EUPHEMISMS

And so new expressions are invented to replace the ones that are too frank--too truthful. It could be called "cover-up" or "smokescreen" language. The technical term for this "newspeak" is "euphemism."

The real purpose of the euphemism is to deceive us--to hide a truth that the inventors of the euphemism do not want us to know--or if we do know it, they want to soften its negative or offensive impact. Here are some examples:

"The Holiday Season"--a euphemism to avoid the "offensive" word Christmas because it is supposedly laden with "narrow" religious meaning.

"Ethnic cleansing" is a euphemism for genocide. It hides the grisly truth that what is really going on is the systematic extermination of a whole race of people.

"Terminating a pregnancy" is a euphemism for abortion. It covers up the reality that a human being is being murdered in its mother's womb. Terminating a pregnancy is much easier to live with--and, more to the point, much easier to kill with. The euphemism's lethal power is evident isn't it?

You and I grapple with many euphemisms each day. We have to be alert and decode them to discover whether they are a cover-up for something that is evil?

The prophet Isaiah was only too aware of this when he said: "Woe to those who call evil, good, and good, evil" (Is. 5:20). That is what euphemisms do. They play a tragic trick on us. Their purpose is to assure us that evil is good and good is evil. But our faith tells us that we cannot do something that is evil in order to achieve something that is good.

If we hear and use a euphemism often enough, it can lull us into remaining silent in the face of such evils as abortion, same-sex "marriage" (itself a euphemism for sodomy), genocide, and soon, unless party platforms are carefully examined by us voters over the next few days, euthanasia will be presented, under its euphemism "mercy killing" or "dying with dignity," as part of the agenda of a new federal government.

TRUESPEAK

In today's second reading (1 Cor. 6), two very blunt words appear that are certainly not euphemisms. They are "truespeak." They are the words "fornication" and "fornicator." Just the sound of them makes us wince.

"Fornication" and "fornicator" along with "adultery" are just a little too revealing--too disturbing, and truthful, to be allowed to stand. They send shivers up and down our spine. We do not want them applied to us. Hence, replacements--euphemisms--must be found for them.

And so "adultery" becomes an "extra-marital relationship." This is much less disturbing. And "fornication" becomes "make love" or "pre-marital sex," or a "live-in arrangement."

These names are much more respectable, especially since Holy Scripture does not name them--but, deep down, we know they stand for "adultery" and "fornication," which Scripture condemns again and again.

Have the euphemisms "pre-marital" and "extra-marital" sex, with the help of the media and the movies, so transformed fornication and adultery that they are now accepted as innocent pastimes--fashionable, even moral--when in reality they are still what they are--fornication and adultery--grave moral evils?

Are we falling into the trap Isaiah warned about? Are we calling evil, good, and good, evil and not realizing it, or worse, winking at it?

What is the difference between fornication and adultery? Fornication is voluntary sexual intercourse between two persons of the opposite sex who are not married. Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between two persons of the opposite sex, one of whom, at least, is married.

Adultery is fornication plus--because it adds the sin of injustice to the already grave sin of fornication. The victim of the injustice in adultery is the innocent spouse or spouses whose marital rights the sinning parties are violating.

WHY FORNICATION IS WRONG

Why are fornication and adultery wrong? That is best answered by another question: why did God create sexual intercourse? He had two purposes in mind. The first was to make sure the human race continues. If the next generation were not in the picture, then there would not be two sexes. There would not be any sex.

We were not made sexual for our own bodily or sexual pleasure. The sex drive is like the other human drives. If we did not need food, for example, we would not get hungry.

Hunger is an incentive to eat and so preserve our lives. And we like the pleasure of eating. But pleasure is not the primary purpose of eating. Mistaking the pleasure of eating as an end in itself leads to the sin of gluttony.

There is no escaping the fact that sex was created by God for the basic purpose of transmitting life, and the pleasure that accompanies it is an incentive to give the gift of life. As in eating, the pleasure is not an end in itself.

When did God say that one of the purposes of sexual intercourse was the transmission of life? He said it on the very first page of the Bible.

"God created man in the image of himself ... male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:27-28)."

If that is so, what is wrong with pre-marital sex? It can and does generate life.

True. But when a couple engages in sexual intercourse, God presumes they have accepted some very serious responsibilities. Among them is the permanent commitment to stay with each other and with any child that may be conceived as its father and mother until it is raised to maturity.

A MATTER OF JUSTICE

Pre-marital sex cannot assure this commitment. This kind of "until-death-do-us-part" commitment can be found only in the Sacrament of Matrimony.

A child has the right to the father and mother who generated it; it is a matter of justice and charity. Another great injustice in pre-marital sex is that the woman is usually the one left with the responsibility of providing for the child.

It takes two to stumble into an unwanted pregnancy. Abandonment of a pregnant woman by the father of her child is a grave sin. He is running away from the guilt and the responsibilities of his role in the pregnancy. These responsibilities include the emotional and physical crises of the woman, disease, financial hardship, raising the child, the health of the child, and the possibility that its life could be terminated--read, aborted--killed!

The other purpose of sexual intercourse is the building up of the unity and love of the spouses. God spoke to this when he said:

"'It is not right that the man should be alone. I shall make a suitable partner for him!' Then God ... took one of Adam's ribs and fashioned it into a woman, and brought her to him The man said: 'This one at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh! She is to be called woman, because she was taken from man!'

"This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes united to his wife, and they become one flesh (Gen. 2:18, 21-04)."

God does not say that a man leaves his father and mother and is united to a woman, or is united to his girlfriend. No, he is united to his wife.

MARRIAGE

Suddenly marriage is in the picture. Marriage is the divinely instituted context of sexual intercourse. It is not as a single man and a single woman that God wants men and women to unite in sexual intercourse, but as husband and wife. That is how he wants his command to be "fruitful" and "multiply," to be fulfilled.

The other reality is that God attached great pleasure to sexual intercourse not only as an incentive for a husband and wife to bring new life into the world but also for building up the love between the spouses and strengthening the bond of unity between them.

So sexual intercourse was meant by God to be the right of married people only and to be used by them for two purposes only: to procreate new life, if nature so co-operates--that is sexual intercourse's procreative purpose, and to build up the love and unity of the spouses--sexual intercourse's unitive purpose.

To be morally right, then, the act of sexual intercourse must always include or be open to these two purposes--the procreative and the unitive. To deliberately exclude one or both of these essential elements is gravely sinful.

And how is this related to fornication or adultery? Well, usually none of this happens in sex outside of marriage.

Government approves and pharmaceutical companies sell contraceptives to prevent the transmission of of life during fornication or adultery, while the "morning-after pill" simply aborts the life of a child, should one be conceived.

In this case, most of the time neither the woman nor the man knows that an abortion has taken place. These are chemical abortions and they are far more numerous than surgical abortions.

So in fornication and adultery, the man and woman come together not as husband and wife, not to bring forth new life, not to confirm their life-long commitment in love to each other, but only to experience a fleeting moment of selfish pleasure.

Sex outside of marriage rejects all that God intended his beautiful life-giving and love-giving gift of sexuality to be. Unaware, the couple is convinced that they are celebrating their love, but in reality they are celebrating sterility. True love is not sterile; it is fertile and fruitful. We see the power of euphemisms to pervert the whole meaning of human sexuality.

MORTAL SIN 

Jesus and the Scriptures condemn fornication and adultery as grave moral evils, as mortal sins. Mortal sin! Mortal means deadly or lethal, doesn't it? Mortal sin is lethal in the sense that it can rob us of our eternal life--salvation.

But lovers are convinced that their "extra-marital sex" is a genuine expression of their love for each other. But what kind of love is it for two loving people to lead each other into mortal sin? What if, for example, one or both of the lovers were to die in the state of unforgiven mortal sin? One or both could die in any number of violent ways, even on the way home from their rendezvous.

Or weeks, months, or years later, one or both could die from natural causes, but having neglected or forgotten to approach the Lord in the Sacrament of Confession to receive forgiveness and absolution.

I am reminded of the story of Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was jealous of his brother Abel because God accepted his sacrifices but was displeased with Cain's. Cain's jealousy became so inflamed that one day he up and killed his brother Abel.

God asked Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" Cain answered God in a flippant tone, "I don't know. Am I supposed to take care of my brother?"

God answered Cain with a resounding 'yes:' "Why have you done this terrible thing? Your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, like a voice crying for revenge.... You are accursed and you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth."

Can we say, then, that leading a sister or brother into fornication or adultery, by whatever names we call them, and thereby endangering their eternal salvation, is really taking care of them?

Pope John Paul II was speaking to university students in Rome in 1981, and he reminded them how euphemisms like "pre-marital" or "extra-marital" sex could delude them into believing that evil is good.

"Learn," he counselled them, "learn to call what is white, white, and what is black, black; call evil what is evil, and good what is good. Learn to call a sin, sin."

If we learn to call fornication and adultery by their real names, that is, recognizing them as sins, we will be more likely to shy away from them.

But we should also remind ourselves that if we have been deceived into sinning by the euphemisms of our culture, God is still a forgiving Father. His greatest delight is extending his limitless mercy to those who repent.

He awaits us with open arms in the Sacrament of Confession--to restore us, to forgive us, and to strengthen us with the power of his grace to defeat Satan and his deadly euphemisms.

Husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, God wants you to co-create the human race with him and to deepen your mutual love. As you do so, he wants you to keep a keen eye, not only on this world, but upon the world to come, doing everything you can in your life together to help each other on the journey home to God--a journey that takes a lifetime.

Similarly, God wants you to prepare your children not only for this life but for eternal life--for their eternal life with Him, their eternal life with you, their mother and father, and their eternal life with their sisters and brothers. Yes, getting to heaven is a family project--the bottom-line family project!

What a magnificent calling! Spouses, parents, tap into the power of your sacrament--the Sacrament of Matrimony. There God has promised you the power you need to use his sacred gift of sexuality for the purposes he designed it--in marriage for love and for life!

Father Norman Fitzpatrick, C.S.B., is a priest of the Congregation of St Basil. This homily was delivered in a Toronto church in January of 2006.