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Question 103

My question is everything has changed so much since I was a young lady. So what does the Church say about sex before marriage or living together without marriage and having children before marriage?  

 

Answer to Question 103

 

The Church’s teaching is the same now as it was 300 years ago or a thousand years ago. This doesn’t mean that the Church has stood still in time. She grows and adapts to new things as they come into being. Her teaching remains the same, but her approach to worldly problems change. She allows herself what we call “Economy” or “Dispensation”. When it comes to teenagers or young adults her teaching was and always will be to warn that sex outside of Marriage is a sin. Marriage was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden where we are told: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24) Thus the sexual act where two people become one is sanctified only in the Sacrament of Marriage and any sexual activity outside of this is considered fornication. True the world has changed over the past 50 years and the Church has not remained blind to these changes, but she cannot change teachings found in the Bible that would in effect spiritually harm her flock. But she does understand these changes and tries to adapt a more modern approach to the problems facing people of today.