Disclaimer: This is not
a book review
The first discovery made by Adam and Eve after they
disobeyed God was sex. Sex is sin in Christianity except when the union takes
place with the sole intention of procreation like a farmer sowing the seed. Saint
Augustine said, Adam and Eve would have procreated by a calm, rational act of
the will if they had continued to live in the Garden of Eden. The Catholic
Church wants sex to be a rational act for it not to be a sin.
The body and its passions are evil.
The soul is holy and belongs to God. One of the most poignant novels I’ve read
about the body-soul conflict in Catholicism is Sarah Joseph’s Othappu.
Originally written in Malayalam, it was translated into English with the same
Malayalam title. The word ‘othappu’ doesn’t have an exact equivalent in
English. Approximately, it means ‘scandal’ as in the Biblical verse: “If
anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them
to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the
depths of the sea.” In the Malayalam version, cause to stumble’ is ‘to give
othappu’.
The protagonist of the novel Othappu,
Margalitha is a young nun who feels drawn to a young priest, Father Roy Francis
Karikkan. The attraction is a double sin. First of all, it is sexual. Secondly,
Catholic nuns and priests should have no sexual desires; they are supposed to
control them with asceticism.
Right from the first woman Eve, all
women are evil simply because they lead men to sin. This is one of the beliefs
of the Church. A preacher in Joseph’s novel says, “Sin originated in the world
through a woman…. I have learnt that woman is more bitter than death. Her heart
is a snare and her hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her.
But the sinner will be trapped tragically.”
No woman in the preacher’s audience
questions the view. Because the preacher is quoting the Bible [Ecclesiastes 7:26].
The body with its passions
like lust is evil, according to the Church. You have to constantly strive to
overcome those passions, overcome your body. Be a holy soul through austerity.
Interestingly, the priests of the Church have ended up equating passion with
sex; they eat gluttonously and enjoy luxurious lifestyles, the novel suggests
more than once. But sex? No, never.
Karikkan, as Margalitha calls the
young priest, is troubled by this body-soul conflict. He is drawn to
Margalitha, a young and beautiful nun. But he knows that a woman’s heart is a
snare and her hands are chains. He, a priest, a man of God, should save himself
from the snare. The conflict drives him crazy. 
Illustration by Gemini AI
Both Karikkan and Margalitha abandon
their religious vocation. But their society won’t accept them because that
society is taught by their religion and its holy book that lust is a cardinal
sin. The sinfulness becomes more severe when a priest and a nun are involved.
Margalitha has the courage to dare
the society. Karikkan doesn’t. He abandons the pregnant Margalitha and goes to
a faraway place to save his honour as well as soul by performing the penance of
cleaning a churchyard daily with his bare palms. Karikkan is running away from
himself, Margalitha tells him, because he is unable to rise above the
indoctrination fed into his very being by his religion. His God had died on the
cross. Karikkan is now nailing himself to a cross. Karikkan is rejecting one
whole part of his being: his body.
Repression of a passion is never a
solution. Karikkan could have remained a priest if he had learned to integrate
his bodily impulses into his spirituality rather than viewing them as sinful.
He could have transformed passion into compassion, which is what ‘successful’
religious people do. There are more priests who hit compromises and go on, like
Father Daniel in the novel.
There are hints in Joseph’s novel
that the Church should allow its priests to marry if they wish. Sexuality can
be part of the sacred, why not? Karikkan is driven mad by his repression of a
very integral part of his being: his intense sexuality. His final collapse is
not just a personal fall: it symbolises a spiritual system that has lost
harmony between body and soul.
Margalitha, on the other hand,
refuses to suppress either. She embodies what Karikkan could not: a
spirituality that embraces both eros and agape, the human and the divine.
Sex is not sin, in other words, in
Sarah Joseph’s vision. Without the body, there is no life. You can’t just deny
the body and be a whole person. Karikkan could have remained a priest
only in a Church that recognised the holiness of the human body. The Catholic
Church is not quite the place for him. Yet he clings to it because of his
upbringing as well as deep guilt feelings over the suicide of his father. His
father killed himself when the son left priesthood. A priest in the family,
marked by poverty, is an honour. The father couldn’t live anymore with the
dishonour of a son who left priesthood for lust, the most shameful evil.
Clinging to a church to which his
being doesn’t belong, Karikkan goes cranky. Abandoning that church, Margalitha redeems
herself. If your religion doesn’t bring you internal harmony and peace, what
use is it? Sex can be holy, Karikkan should realise, even by quitting his
religion.
PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Half
Marathon 2025
This was a very deep read." Passion can be transformed to compassion. "
ReplyDeleteReligion should be doing that. Unfortunately it is doing the opposite today: rousing passions.
DeleteThought-provoking post on the Catholic Church’s stance on sexuality and the body-soul conflict.
ReplyDeleteAlso offers insight on the deep-running misogyny in all religious scriptures. Women and their bodies are seen as vessels that only inspire lust and sin while men are on an ultra-tough lifelong mission to keep themselves pure and chaste. The Catholic Church seemed to have been making some improvement (albeit not big enough) under Pope Francis, not sure what direction it will take under the new pope
Yes, Pope Francis was remarkably progressive. I think his successor is good too in that regard, though I'm yet to experience that progressiveness in his writings and so on. I feel there won't be a going-back.
DeleteAsI read in the conclusion of an LIVEautobiographical article on vows as a Path of Integral Humanism, celiband acy is not repression of the Divine gift of Sexuality. And much less is chastity, a denial of sexuality. Even married people are called to be chaste, in passionate love of one another and others, men, women, transpersons and the entire creation. Celibacy is the channelisation of genital love for the cause of transforming love, which overflows into composition, with an integral love of the self and others and others and creation, in an ENFLESHED LOVE. A consummate master draws the line between chastity and genitality. Others are in the process of learning the Aet of Integration... It might take years... Openness to embodiment , in appreciation of beauty, the lightweight edness of non-pidsessiin and the sense of humour not to take oneself too seriously are the qualities for a celebste, who basically celebrates his life and of others.
ReplyDeleteThere is a character in the novel, one ascetic called Patti Punyalan (Dog Saint) by the people. He is an embodiment of what you are speaking about. He is not moved by the sexuality of women. He is moved by compassion all the time. He is a saint who has achieved the harmony that Sarah Joseph envisages as the ultimate objective of religion. I didn't go into that detail because blog readers may not have so much patience to read such heavy stuff, especially religious.
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteThe litany of sexual misdimeanour that has been perpetrated by the Catholic church (though not that alone) is evidence enough that suppression leads to agression. Sex in and of itself is a natural act. Mankind has, in its great intellectual prowess, managed to make of it something entirely depraved, found ways to twist it in every possible direction. And in almost every iteration, the female half of the species is the victim... or the children... YAM xx
I hope the Church will change its stand on this matter. It has to. Otherwise it won't have priests anymore. Seminaries are running empty almost.
DeleteThere are exemplary priests who understand the meaning of celibacy and practise it meticulously without strain. I know people. But there are many who can't do that. Why not let them marry? Actually marriage may make them more human, humane.
Priests and nuns are human, like everybody else. I've known of priests and nuns who have given up their vocations and married. Personally, I feel it's better that way than continuing in your vocation half-heartedly. As you say, I hope that the church changes its stance someday.
ReplyDeleteThere's no logic in making celibacy compulsory for priests. Up to 12th century, priests were free to marry.
DeleteAnd it's the woman's fault. Religion does seek to control sex. It's one of those things that's intensely personal, but those with power want to find a way to keep it under their control. All sorts of crazy comes from this conflict.
ReplyDeleteReligion is also about power. Man's power over woman also. In India, we had certain brutal customs against women sanctioned by religion.
Delete