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Catholic “Wicked Married Sex”?: 4th Reply to Sean Luke

Catholic “Wicked Married Sex”?: 4th Reply to Sean Luke

Last updated on: April 6, 2026 at 10:03 pm by Dave Armstrong

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Catholic “Wicked Married Sex”?: 4th Reply to Sean Luke 2026-04-06T22:03:20-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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Photo credit: Sean Luke, from a Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (“TEDS”) page (now this college is the divinity school of Trinity Western University).

Sean Luke obtained Masters of Divinity and Masters of Systematic Theology degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He runs the YouTube channel, Anglican Aesthetics, where he made a video, “This ONE Issue Debunks Roman Catholicism” (7-1-25), in which he made the gigantic claim that certain proclamations and practices of a local council in 1022 and some other related ones, brought about binding Catholic proclamations that were intrinsically evil, which in turn inexorably leads — so he argued — to the conclusion that Catholic authority is null and void. I critiqued it in my article, “History of Required Celibacy Disproves Catholicism?” (3-11-26).

He quickly counter-replied with a Substack article entitled, “The History of Clerical Celibacy Still Refutes Roman Catholicism: A Reply to David Armstrong” (3-12-26). I in turn replied again in my blog article, “2nd Reply to Anglican Sean Luke on Catholicism & Celibacy” (3-12-26).

Vigorous related discussion then began on Sean’s Substack with him, fellow Anglican Austin Suggs, who runs the Gospel Simplicity YouTube channel (99K subscribers and 669 videos), and especially with a non-denominational Protestant, Tom Alberto. I collected all of that with my responses in my article, Reply to Protestants: Invalid Catholic Authority? (3-13-26).

Then Sean produced his second reply, “Yes, Clerical Celibacy Was Wrong and Roman Catholics thought married sex was defiling: Second Response to Dave Armstrong” (3-13-26), to which this is a response. I think four lengthy replies is more than enough. Sean agrees, since he writes here, “I do not want to be locked into an eternal cycle of blog back-and-forths. So this will be my last written response.” In my mind, I have more than adequately refuted all of his contra-Catholic contentions. The topic has been beaten to death, and I regret to report to Sean that the Catholic Church is still alive and kicking, having somehow survived his wrongheaded “debunking” onslaughts.

E for effort, and I really appreciate the willingness to interact and debate, and in a civil, non-insulting manner (very rare these days), but also an E for content . . . Sean’s words will be in blue.

*****

See the entire four-part debate:

History of Required Celibacy Disproves [the Authority of] Catholicism? [3-11-26]

2nd Reply to Anglican Sean Luke on Catholicism & Celibacy [3-12-26]

Reply to Protestants: Invalid Catholic Authority? [3-12-26]
*

Catholic “Wicked Married Sex”?: 4th Reply to Sean Luke [3-14-26]

*****

Happy to have Dave on the channel.

I’m delighted to be there (allowed to freely comment!), and I’ve been really enjoying it. The discussion I’ve had with Sean and two others in his Substack combox has been on a very high level, and it’s heartening to interact with Protestants who have the courage of their convictions and are quite willing to interact with Catholics, without any rancor or nonsense. I plan on interacting a lot with Sean’s work (including reply-videos), in light of this encouraging development.

In this post, I’ll show that the way Clerical Celibacy was imposed on the Roman Church still falsifies the magisterium’s claims about itself. Along the way, I’ll also show that clerical celibacy itself did indeed originate from a perception that even married sex was somehow defiling.

Reiteration of his [failed] argument . . .

He then responded to my protest against his claim that I was introducing “irrelevant” motifs into the discussion. We need not go over that again. Oftentimes I’ll interject sort of “footnote” remarks in passing. I never get too far off-track concerning the topic, as these four replies surely demonstrate. I was laser-focused. He wrote, “it is wise to focus on a single thesis.” I totally agree!

Now, Dave argues against the notion that clerical celibacy was imposed because of a negative perception of sex. He argues it was purely a matter of asceticism, not a matter of seeing sex as dirty.

That’s right. Sean is simply misinformed about this, and I dare say that he suffers from a sort of common Protestant prejudice or extreme bias in this regard that is very old, tired, and oft-refuted. A sacrament (which is what matrimony is to Catholics) can hardly be considered “dirty” in terms of its sexual consummation. It makes no sense at all, and it doesn’t because it’s demonstrably untrue. It’s a ludicrous charge, as I will again prove.

But think about this. Fasting from food is a matter of ascetism. No one has ever said “it is good and right for a Priest to skip breakfast before mass because eating Oatmeal is defiling” or whatever.

So is temporary abstinence “for a season” from sex, according to Paul:

1 Corinthians 7:3-5 (RSV) The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. [4] For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does. [5] Do not refuse one another except perhaps by agreement for a season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer . . .

As I have already explained, it’s the sacrifice of a good thing for the sake of concentrating on spiritual matters, not an assertion that the thing sacrificed is inherently bad and wicked.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at the sources themselves. I will post several, and then exposit them.

He cites The Gratian Decretals Distinction 82. Gratian (fl. 2nd quarter of the 12th c.) was a canon lawyer. His Decretals, compiled around 1140, is undeniably not a Catholic magisterial document, by definition, since he was merely a monk. It was a private academic project, and although influential and used in the Church courts for centuries, it was never formally promulgated or endorsed by a pope. Therefore, it lacked even official legal force, unlike the Decretals of Gregory IX from 1234. So that’s one thing, and a very important consideration, since Sean is, remember, attempting to prove that Catholicism has supposedly “officially” renounced the goodness of married sex.

Secondly, the excerpt he produced was an assertion of the preferability of celibacy in the clergy, and also about temporary sexual abstinence for spiritual purposes. Sean himself has agreed that priestly celibacy is not an objectionable thing.

Thirdly, it’s not certain at all that Gratian was totally “against” married sex (though his views weren’t “perfect”, judged by current far more developed Catholic views of sexuality). There is indication, in fact, that the opposite was very much the case. An academic page from the University of Oregon entitled, Canon Law on Marriage: A Primer, maintained the following:

This left open the question of how a marriage came into being. This matter was given much sharper definition in Gratian’s Decretum (ca. 1140). Gratian tended to regard marriage as a process with two stages: (a) in initiation, the couple exchanged freely-consenting vows of marriage, which created a spiritual union between them; in the (b) completion or perfection of the marriage, the couple created a physical union by consummating their bond sexually. Both stages were necessary to complete a marriage: no sexual union constituted marriage without consent to marry, just as no marriage as wholly formed without sexual union. Indeed, for Gratian it was sexual intercourse that transformed the union into a “sacrament” [Dave: which gives grace] and made a marriage indissoluble. If marriage was situated between three kinds of union — sexual, spiritual, and social — Gratian’s Decretum shifted definitions strongly toward the first of these. But not to the neglect of consent: only a marriage freely entered was valid, . . .

With its emphases on the necessity of consent and on sex as a positive good in marriage, . . . this conceptualization represented a departure from the hostility and revulsion toward sexuality that characterized the writings of many earlier canonists. [my bolding]

[sources used: James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice (London: Routledge, 2000); Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing unto Others (London: Routledge, 2005).]

Sean’s second “proof” that the Catholic Church hates marital sex comes from the Lenten Synod of 1076 and Pope Gregory VII. It, too, is about temporary sexual abstinence in the ascetic sense. If it’s not an absolutely perfect expression, it still doesn’t bring down Catholicism, since it’s not magisterial. Hence, the AI Overview, in answer to the question, “is the Lenten Synod of 1076 magisterial?” states:

The Lenten Synod of 1076, held by Pope Gregory VII, is generally not considered part of the infallible magisterium (extraordinary teaching authority) of the Catholic Church . . .

This was a functional exercise of papal authority, intended to manage the conflict and enforce church discipline, rather than a definition of dogma aimed at universal, infallible teaching.

Sean’s third argument is the Second Council of the Lateran from 1139, canon 6:

We also decree that those in the orders of subdeacon and above who have taken wives or concubines are to be deprived of their position and ecclesiastical benefice. For since they ought to be in fact and in name temples of God, vessels of the Lord and sanctuaries of the holy Spirit, it is unbecoming that they give themselves up to marriage and impurity. [his bolding]

Once again, this is referring to the preferability (following many suggestions of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7) of priestly celibacy. It’s not “against” marital sex as some sort of evil. These scenarios are described as “unbecoming” and “impurity” not because sex is bad, period, but rather, because these “marriages” were considered not to be marriages at all. How do I know that? I know from the context: the very next canon: “we do not deem there to be a marriage which, it is agreed, has been contracted against ecclesiastical law.” That being the case, if indeed there is no true marriage, then it is fornication in play, and that is mortal sin and therefore obviously also “unbecoming” and an ongoing state of “impurity”.

The same council, in its canon 23, states that “Those who . . . condemn the sacrament of . . . legitimate marriages, we expel from the Church of God and condemn as heretics” (Denzinger, 43rd 202 ed., #718, p. 242). So once again, there is nothing here of any consequence to our discussion. 0 for 3 . . . What a surprise!

The Decree or the Armenians at the Council of Florence in 1439 stated that “the sacrament of matrimony” was “the sign of the union of Christ and the Church [Eph 5:32]” and that “A triple good is found in matrimony . . . begetting of children . . . faithfulness . . . the indissolubility of marriage” (Denzinger #1327, pp. 342-343).

So recall Dave’s argument. His argument is that celibacy was introduced as a practice of ascetism, not because the Roman Church thought sex was somehow intrinsically defiling.

But this makes no sense.

I’m quite content to let readers, who have miraculously survived four lengthy tedious articles in exhaustive reply to Sean, decide whether I have successfully refuted this claim or not. And with that, Sean finally gets back to the main topic, about halfway through his entire effort. He cites my word, and this is the first time in this now four-part debate that he has ever dealt with any of my many biblical arguments:

I proved from the Bible (Abraham, God the Father, Ezra, Jesus, Paul) that what the Catholic Church decreed about married priests who violated the newly adopted rule of celibacy is thoroughly biblical and not “intrinsically sinful” at all. Jesus not only taught that Peter as a married man would receive a “hundredfold” back in this life, for leaving his wife and following Jesus, but also that he would receive eternal life for it (Mt 19:27-29; Lk 18:29-30). God sanctioned Abraham sending away his concubine and his own son, Ishmael (Gen 21:9-21).

If the Catholic Church was gravely sinful in doing the same thing, then so is God Himself, per inspired, inerrant revelation. That’s what’s called a reductio ad absurdum in logic, folks . . . I guess it’s because I completely exploded his argument from the Bible, that Sean chose to absolutely ignore all of my biblical arguments. “Hear no evil, see no evil . . .” / head in the sand etc. That’s a way for him not to deal with the relevant biblical data, but it’s not rational argumentation or debate, and it’s a strange and ironic “anti-biblical” approach, especially coming from a Protestant.

I had hoped restating my argument would have been sufficient

That’s been the problem all along. He keeps repeating himself, which makes an argument no stronger or more plausible, rather than interacting with my arguments (which is what debate and dialogue are).

that no one is arguing that celibacy is intrinsically sinful. Once again, that is not my argument.

I understand that that is his position. In any event, that was not what these biblical arguments were about, but rather, they were produced in defense of the notion that sometimes in some extraordinary circumstances, married couples and families can be separated, and that it’s God’s will. Everything that Sean objected to with regard to Catholic policy in dealing with improperly married priests in the 11th century has close or very close analogies in Scripture. In my mind, that really sealed the debate in my — and the Catholic Church’s — favor, because Sean can’t argue against the Bible and God.

Hence why I didn’t see fit to address the point raised from Ezra in his first article here [he cites me again]:

But there is at least a strong analogical / conceptual biblical basis as well. In Ezra 10:2-11 (cf. 9:1-2), many Israelites sent away the foreign women they had married. They did this not simply because they were foreigners, but because they caused them to become corrupted by the false religions and idolatry practiced by the women, as indicated by Ezra 9:14: “shall we break thy commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations?” These were never legitimate marriages in the first place, because they literally violated Mosaic law (Deut 7:1-4).

This is more or less the same concept as a Catholic annulment: those considered to be wives actually were not so, according to Mosaic law (parallel to sacramentality and canon law in Catholicism), authoritatively declared to be such by a an authority, including separation from these women and subsequent freedom to marry according to Jewish law, precisely because this was not divorce, but rather, annulment.

If Dave is arguing that in Ezra, the marriages were not valid in the first place, then this has nothing to do with my argument. My argument is that at the Council of Pavia, reiterated over the 12th century, Priests who were validly married were then forced to separate from their wives. As Dave acknowledges, an annulment is a judgment that the marriage was never invalid in the first place. But of course, raising the issue of annulment is irrelevant then to my argument because by every account many of these Priests had been validly married.

I wasn’t arguing here, technically, that the situation in the 11th century was all about annulments. I was trying to establish grounds in Scripture for familial separations. No analogy is perfect, but scriptural analogies strengthen arguments. One analogy offers a parallel in one or more respects, and another does the same, in a different way. All of mine were relevant in that fashion. Sean argues that it is “intrinsically evil” for the Church to force married priests to send their wives (or concubines) away. So I note that this happened in ancient Israel:

1a) Men had married foreign women (contrary to Mosaic Law), who corrupted them and brought them into polytheism and idolatry.

1b) Likewise, many Catholic priests married against the Church’s will and rule that they be celibate.

2a) In ancient Israel, these men sent their wives and children away, with God’s consent.

2b) In the 11th century, wives and concubines of these priests (but not children) were also sent away.

The second analogy is to Abraham and his son Ishmael. It was God’s will that he was sent away from Abraham, along with his concubine, that was allowed in Mosaic Law in cases of barren wives. Thus, Ishmael was a legitimate son.

The third analogy was to Jesus saying that His disciples could permissibly leave wives, children, siblings, parents, and lands to follow Him. That’s voluntary, but it still shows a permissibility of a “radical separation” from one’s family and even wife. Jesus said they would be rewarded with eternal life for doing so. The common theme and analogy in all three is sanctioned familial separation: the very thing that Sean is arguing is intrinsically sinful in the case of these 11th century married priests. In my mind, this response eliminated and neutralized his objections and his entire argument, and nothing he says now causes me to revise my opinion. He’s simply nipping away at the non-essential “edges” of my argument, without touching its essence.

Sean concentrates on the sad cases of the priests (we don’t know proportionately how many, who were validly married before they were aware of any rule of celibacy. But that seems to not be the main focus of the decree in 1022 that he is so opposed to, and thinks is a silver bullet against Catholic magisterial authority. I wrote about this at length in his Substack combox for his first reply:

These are observations about and analyses of the lengthy citation Sean provided: The Preface of Pope Benedict VIII (citations in green). He made the argument that this had to do with validly married priests and entailed a separation of them and their children. This is partially true but not totally, from what I can tell, so we would have to determine the percentages of each group. The statement says that it does apply to married priests (but there is still the question of disobedience if they knew that they were required not to) and also clandestine relationships involving illegitimate children. There are four allusions or possible allusions to validly (?) married priests:

“. . . sons and daughters of clerics belonging to the household of the Church, however they are born—even from free women as wives . . . “

“no matter from what women they are born”

“from free women as wives or concubines”

“. . . the sons of lay servants of the Church born from free wives . . .”

It also refers seven times to totally irregular relationships (i.e., non-marital):

“according to the Nicene law [presumably soon after 325], if any cleric is found living with a woman or having shamefully known her and has begotten a son or daughter, he shall be deposed. According to the law of Justinian [Roman emperor; r. 527-565] both father and children become slaves of the curia . . .”

“however they are born”

“no matter from what women they are born”

“whether born from free women or from slaves“

“from free women as wives or concubines“

“the sons of clerics born from free concubines“

“For adultery, condemned by the whole world, produces no lawful fruit”

Moreover, separation from children is not always — perhaps even not at all — involved, per these two examples:

“if any cleric is found living with a woman or having shamefully known her and has begotten a son or daughter, he shall be deposed. According to the law of Justinian, both father and children become slaves of the curia; thus fathers will serve in the civic curia with their sons“

“even when clerics are condemned and removed from office, they do not therefore cease to belong to the household of the Church. . . . they remain within the public responsibilities connected to the Church.”

So the wives or unmarried mother of these men’s children are “afflicted with exile” (much like the “foreign wives” sent away in Ezra, in accordance with Mosaic Law) but the children serve the Church with their fathers. Contrariwise, Sean had made the following claims in his first reply to me:

“validly married husbands had to forsake their covenantal obligations to their wife and children,”

“. . . yield their children as slaves to the Church, renouncing their duties and privilege of fatherhood over their children”

This is hardly the case if both together are serving the Church as indentured servants or serfs (or “slaves”). They’re living and working together. Certainly that is not impairing “their duties and privilege of fatherhood” or their “covenantal obligations to their . . . children.”

Thirdly, the Church claimed a right to these priests and their children, over against the secular authority, who would otherwise take custody of them:

“when the divine law delivered them to the civic curia, it carefully added provisions lest public officials presume to enslave them for their own purposes rather than recognize them as belonging to the Church.”

That would separate them from their fathers, whereas the Church wanted to keep them together.

Fourth, since priests serve the Church and are bound to it, so it was with their sons and daughters:

“the sons of such men are servants of the Church, since they inherit their servile condition from head to foot. . . . lest these sons of clerics think that they may escape all bonds of servitude and flee freely as fugitives . . .”

It was all apparently part of the system of serfdom in the Middle Ages, that the Church — it looks like — adopted as its own in some respects, too. Certainly there were good economic and “security” aspects connected with service to the Church. It was probably — I suspect — usually better than alternative options of making a livelihood. They would have room and board and food provided, and we know how the Church was in the forefront of medical care — as well as the primitive science and technology of the time –, too.

But of course, my claim was not that enslaving children do such tasks for the Church is itself intrinsically evil. I think it is and that there are relevant differences between the Gibeonites and what is going on here,

So he thinks this is intrinsically evil, but that wasn’t his claim? Okay . . .

but I’ll leave that aside because it isn’t relevant to what I was arguing: that enslaving children on grounds they were bastards by declaring a valid marriage covenant invalid is intrinsically immoral. The issue isn’t with merely slavery. The issue here is that the Church obligated husbands who were validly married—many as laity—to then abandon their marriage covenant forged as a layperson. If their marriage covenant forged as a layperson was valid, then it cannot become invalid and as such annulment would not be legitimate.

Again, there were several things going on, as illustrated in my analysis above, of The Preface of Pope Benedict VIII. There were priests who knew they shouldn’t have married (over against Church rules), and there were others who simply had children outside of any marriage at all. There were also considerations of such children being free of servanthood to the Church, which had to do with taking economic advantage of the Church (as I dealt with in past instalments). As the 2nd Lateran Council of 1139 stated, and I cited above: “we do not deem there to be a marriage which, it is agreed, has been contracted against ecclesiastical law.” So that is clear.

This leaves those marriages that took place before any such law, or (subjectively) before any knowledge of such law. These are very difficult cases, as I’ve never denied. But it was a difficult transition period between a scenario where priests can get married and one in which they cannot. So the Church decided that a priest who was married could no longer be a priest and stay with his wife. If it came to that — if he insisted on staying with her –, he would have to be deposed from the priesthood. But he was still bound to the Church in servanthood, whether a priest or not, and the Church declared that any children would be alongside him, serving the Church in some capacity (such as cleaning, etc.). But the wives couldn’t because they were disallowed in ecclesiastical venues, due to the celibacy rule, leading to a male-only environment.

Sean thinks this is “intrinsically evil.” I think it is a difficult exception to a new rule, that entailed some human suffering. One doesn’t determine things by the most difficult aspects of it: the “hard cases.” They are always bound to be present. We can’t determine what proportion of these instances involved a valid contracted marriage. The Preface of Pope Benedict VIII suggests to me that most of these priests knew exactly what they were doing, and were not “innocent” victims. But I’d like to see more information about all this, if possible. I couldn’t find very much, and am just going by what I have found so far.

Now here, Dave seems to be arguing that annulment can declare valid marriages retroactively invalid.

I did no such thing, and it would be absurd if I did, because annulment by definition (as Sean points out) deals with situations where a valid marriage never took place; they decree that they never did.

He writes,

Here Sean — not surprisingly — expresses his opposition to annulments altogether, but I showed that it’s a concept in secular law and that there are strong analogies in the Bible as well. More directly analogous are the examples of Jesus in effect requiring Peter to leave his wife for the sake of following Him (that was a legitimate marriage) and sanctioning and rewarding others who do so (including the leaving of children), and Abraham ceasing to take care of his son Ishmael, legitimately conceived through permitted concubinage in cases of a barren wife.

First of all, I did not express my opposition to annulments. I think they can be done under the right circumstances where there was never a marriage to begin with.

I was responding there to one particular statement he made that seemed to me to deny the concept of annulments altogether, but I happily accept his clarification that he accepts them as valid in some cases.

But wildly, he seems to try to argue that Peter traveling with Jesus rather than staying with his wife or Abraham ceasing to take care of his son Ishmael are…*checks notes*…analogous to annulling a previously valid marriage?

He has misread me here, which happens. I misread him, after all, as being against annulments, and now acknowledge that. In the above excerpt I was not comparing the Abraham and Peter scenarios to annulment. I was moving away from talking about annulments, as indicated the phrase, “More directly analogous” [i.e., to Sean’s objections]. In other words, I was saying that Peter was in a legitimate marriage and Abraham’s son really was his son, according to Mosaic Law (even though from a concubine), and in both cases, a profound separation occurred, by God’s will (analogous to the scenario with married or otherwise sexually active priests in the 11th century).

Peter’s action was voluntary, but still involved separating a man and wife from their usual domestic situation. Abraham wasn’t pleased with sending his son away (permanently) but he did, and God told him to not be displeased. These are the closest analogies that I brought to bear, and Sean has not overcome them. If those can happen, then so can what happened in the 11th century with married or invalidly “married” priests. In another place in this overall 4-part debate, I also noted that the children from “foreign wives” were also separated from their fathers through no fault of their own, with God’s consent.

This is strange, because earlier Dave had agreed that an annulment cannot make a previously valid marriage now invalid, since it’s a judgment that the marriage was never valid.

That’s right, and I did no differently here, so it isn’t “strange” at all. Once Sean understands this, perhaps he’ll see for the first time how very strong my biblical analogical argument here is (indeed, I think it’s fatal to his argument).

So it obviously does not apply to St. Peter (who never annulled the marriage covenant) or Abraham (who is also never said to have annulled his marriage to Hagar).

Exactly. I never said otherwise. Hagar was a concubine for the purpose of letting him have a son, since it was thought that Sarah would never bear children. The New Bible Dictionary (1962, “Concubine”, p. 246) states:

A secondary wife acquired by purchase or as a war-captive . . .

Concubines were protected under Mosaic Law (Ex 21:7-11; Dt 21:10-14), though they were distinguished from wives (Jdg 8:31) [“Gideon had seventy sons, . . . for he had many wives. And his concubine . . . also bore him a son”: 8:30-31, RSV] and were more easily divorced (Gen 21:10-14).

So that is a special case, but if Sean wants to argue that Abraham and Hagar had a [valid] “marriage” that would only strengthen my case: God told Abraham to separate permanently from his “wife” (legitimate under Mosaic Law). This is exactly what the Church was commanding these married priests, under Church law (i.e., ones who were actually validly married without sin), and so this clinches my case even further. Sean is virtually sabotaging his own argument more and more as time goes on. He can’t overcome these strong biblical analogies.

I’ve already debunked the analogue based on Abraham and Ishmael and Peter; none of their marriages were ever annulled.

Exactly! God told Abraham to send his “wife” / “concubine” (whatever Sean wants to call her) away, never to be seen again, along with his own son. Now, how is that different from the Church in this transitional period [in his words] “demanding fathers and husbands not fulfill their marriage covenant”? Perhaps Sean can explain that to us. Abraham never saw Ishmael or Hagar again. How is that fulfilling his “covenant” as a father and husband? Peter rarely (we suppose) saw his wife. That’s a very irregular situation, to say the least, involving heroic self-sacrifice and perhaps a considerable amount of sexual frustration, the heartache of separation from a spouse, and agony. We don’t know, but it’s plausible. But it was God’s will in both cases, as we know from inspired revelation.

Dave seems to be arguing here that though annulment is a judgment that there never was a valid marriage, a marriage can be valid, annulled, and thus that annulment makes it the case that there never was a valid marriage. It’s unclear to me, but it sounds like this is what he is arguing. But obviously, if there was a valid marriage, it is a simple violation of the law of non-contradiction to say there never was one. No annulment can rewrite history—that’s not how they work. If Dave thinks this can be the case, then we have bigger problems: not even the law of non-contradiction is exempt from Rome’s decrees.

Yes, he is confused, and that is not what I was arguing. It’s literally nonsense and Orwellian [or Calvinist] “doublethink.” I have clarified in-depth above, and Sean’s argument is in shambles, as a result. He’s spent most of his effort in this reply repeating things, which is argumentatively useless (the fallacy of argumentum ad nauseam), and misunderstanding my argument[s]. There ain’t much else. Whatever was left, I have refuted, too.

Lastly, it was Martin Luther — not the Catholic Church — who thought even marital intercourse remained evil in every instance:

Intercourse is never without sin; but God excuses it by his grace because the estate of marriage is his work, and he preserves in and through the sin all that good which he has implanted and blessed in marriage. (The Estate of Marriage [1522]; translated by Walther I. Brandt; pp. 17-49 in Luther’s Works, Volume 45 [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1962], p. 49)

***

Here’s what the Catholic Church has taught about marriage through the years:

The First Synod of Toledo in 400 (405?) stated: “If anyone . . . believes that human marriages that are regarded as permissible according to divine law are blameworthy, let him be anathema.” (16, Denzinger #206, p. 76 in the 2012 edition)

Pope Leo the Great in 458 or 459 stated that “marriage can be honorable” (Denz. #321, p. 116)

The First Synod of Braga, Portugal, begun in 561 affirmed: “If anyone condemns human marriage and despises the procreation of children . . . let him be anathema.” (Denz. 461, p. 159)

And: “If anyone says that the formation of the human body is the work of the devil and that the conception of children . . . is brought about through the activity of the devil . . . let him be anathema.” (Denz. 462, p. 159)

The 2nd Lateran Council (1139) stated: “[Can. 23] Those who . . . condemn . . . legitimate marriages, we expel from the Church of God and condemn as heretics . . .” (Denz. 718, p. 242)

The Synod of Verona in 1184 anathematized those “teaching otherwise than the holy Roman Church preaches and observes concerning . . . matrimony, or the other sacraments of the Church . . . ” (Denz. 761, pp. 248-249)

Pope Benedict XII condemned the following as one of the errors of the Armenians in 1341: ” they say that . . . even Christian parents when they lie together in marriage commit a sin . . . because they say that the marriage act and even matrimony itself is a sin . . . ” (Denz. 1012, p. 304)

The Council of Florence in 1439, Decree for the Armenians, held that “the sacrament of matrimony . . . is the sign of the union of Christ and the Church” [cites Eph 5:32] (Denz. 1327, p. 342)

Nor did Humanae Vitae (“HV”) in 1968 originate the idea of the unitive function of sex. Pope Pius XI in 1930 in Casti connubii, wrote: “The mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism [1564) teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at, not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the communion, intimacy, and partnership of the whole of life . . .” (Denz. 3707, p. 745)

He was responding, of course, to the Anglican Lambeth Conference in 1930, which dared to overturn 1900 years of unanimous and universal Christian teaching that contraception was a grave sin and evil. There starts (arguably) the sexual revolution of 30 years later and legal childkilling some 35 years later (premised legally upon the “right” to contraception).

Thanks, Anglicans! Meanwhile, we’ve taught what we’ve always taught, and NFP and HV are, of course, consistent developments of our teaching on the goodness of marriage as a sacrament and reflection of Christ & His Church.

Most Protestants who have tangled with me about either NFP or doctrinal development have little understanding of either. Understanding these and why contraception is wicked are what made me a Catholic more than anything else.

Paul is the one who said that virginity is the superior state, because it involves heroic renunciation of a good thing for the sake of the kingdom. 1 Corinthians 7:32 (RSV): “The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 7:38: “he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.”

The Roman position could not, prior to HV, see sex for the sake of the joy of marital union as a good in itself. Clement and Augustine would have condemned NFP-having sex without a view to having children.

Protestantism did uphold the superiority of celibacy while also holding the goodness of sex in marriage. Once again, this is in Jeremy Taylor’s works. We, contra Rome, did not hold that if a man and a woman in marriage sought the joy of uniting themselves to each other without the intent to have kids–not merely “well I owe it to you”, but a joyful union–that this was sin. But Humanae Vitae, by identifying seeking unitive joy as a good in itself, takes the Protestant position on sex.

Now one might argue “rendering the marital debt” can involve seeking joy. But then you’ve just taken the Protestant position–that seeking sex to be united to your spouse in joy is a good itself, despite earlier condemnations among some (not all–e.g. Chrysostom) fathers.

Once again, believing that marriage and pro-creation are not sins does not mean you think sex for the sake of unitive joy itself is not a sin. That simply does not follow. Hence why the quotes you brought up are irrelevant to what I posted–which I’ve already shown and argued. The quotes I posted take Augustine’s stance quite clearly that sex that isn’t done for the sake of having kids is sinful. And that position is well represented in the fathers as well.

You specifically argued in our debate on this celibacy stuff — several times — that the Catholic Church regarded marital sex as sinful, period.

Do you seriously want to maintain that the Catholic Church all through history taught in its magisterium that all marital sex after menopause and during pregnancy and infertile periods such as the time of menstruation, or, e.g., sexual relations of a couple that is experiencing infertility, was wicked and evil? Just citing fathers doesn’t establish that.

When one gets into the unitive function and NFP vs. contraception it’s a much more involved and nuanced debate. NFP is not merely “Catholic contraception.” It can be used in a sinful way if not properly understood, as simply a more sophisticated contraceptive or “contralife” method. The intent is key. Therefore, what Augustine said could be sinful or not sinful, depending on the circumstances and intent.

The main question here is whether contraception: the deliberate intention to have sex and avoid having a child when there is no good reason to do so, is sinful. Everyone thought it was till 1930. You obviously want to follow ancient tradition. So do you follow that tradition, too, or the spirit of modernism, which, unfortunately, Anglicans are infamous for caving into?

*****

Photo credit: Sean Luke, from a Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (“TEDS”) page (now this college is the divinity school of Trinity Western University).

Summary: Fourth and last round of debates with Anglican apologist Sean Luke about sublime Catholic authority and whether two “evil” (?) decrees on celibacy in the 11th c. destroy it.

Church (Ecclesiology)

Inquisition & Crusades & Scandals

Sexuality and Gender Issues

Catholic authority

consecrated virginity

eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom

priestly celibacy

Sean Luke

undistracted devotion to the Lord

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March 14, 2026

Purgatory & Scripture vs. Jeff Durbin