Catholic Laity Speak on Human Sexuality & Belief

Author and Researcher Hilarie Roseman, a Catholic woman, presents her communication research and narrates the difficulties of engaging with today's issues of human sexuality. Catholics of Melbourne, Australia were researched: (a) to ascertain lay Catholic access and acceptance of human sexuality messages from the Catholic Church and secular sources in the mass media; (b) to define the issues of human sexuality that they felt were most important to them. The research also examined lay Catholics to find out if there was any perception of belief change since the implementation of Vatican Council II and to obtain a description of the communication of men and women. One outcome was that many of the respondents thought the Church to be in schism because of confused teaching, lack of understanding of family life, and a falling apart of the congregations. In analysis it is argued that this 'falling apart' is a cultural falling apart from the central belief of the Catholic Church, the belief in Jesus Christ.