Thomas C. Fox, in Sexuality and Catholicism, presents a simple, clear, and fair argument that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is pursuing a self-defeating policy with respect to sexuality. Fox does not intend to merely bash the Church for its strictly conservative policy on birth control, abortion, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, homosexuality, non-traditional sexual behavior among consenting adults, and ordination of women. To the contrary, he acknowledges that the Church has much to offer the world. as in the Pope's 1995 encyclical which "reaffirms the sacredness of life," a "message the world needs desperately to hear" (4). However, the good the Church does is undermined by its counter-productive stand on sexual issues. Fox calls the problems of the Church in its sexual policy symptoms of an "illness" which is "woven into a Catholic fabric that makes up much of twenty centuries of sexual teachings supported by a moral theology that for now appears intractable." Fox hopes that "the telling of the Catholic Church's story of sexuality will lead to greater understanding and perhaps even to healing (8).
Fox's central idea is that this intractable policy on sexuality is destructive to the Church and its goal of spreading Jesus' message of "compassion and forgiveness" (3), and alienating to many Catholics and non-Catholics. Fox's book is
a call for dialogue, for creative responses to a host of global problems--rapidly expanding populations in less developed nations, the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, the sanctioned abuse of women in many societies, to name just a few (4).
Fox is respectful of the Church and acknowledges the good it does, but argues that it could do so much more if it changed that policy. Not only does the Church reduce its power to do good with such policy, but it diminishes the inherent worth of sex itself:
This book . . . attempts to tell the Catholic sexuality story in a str...