Cohabiting with the opposite sex (No relationship)

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I was wondering if the Catholic Church has any official teaching on cohabiting with someone of the opposite sex. I am a man and The woman has a bedroom available in a townhouse and it is honestly the best available option for me. I would have my own bedroom and bathroom.

Is this okay? Or does the Catholic Church feel people should only consider cohabitation with people of the same sex to avoid the near occasion of sin?

Edit: Sorry, maybe I did not explain it properly. There would be other people in the townhouse living in different rooms, some of which would be female.
 
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I personally don’t see scandal in the case of a man renting a room from a woman landlord. Women ran boarding houses in the past. Do you feel there would be a near occasion of sin…is there a mutual attraction? Otherwise, I don’t see an issue…though I know some here will.
 
Sorry, maybe I did not explain it properly. There would be other people in the townhouse living in different rooms, some of which would be female.
 
cFed said:
I was wondering if the Catholic Church has any official teaching on cohabiting with someone of the opposite sex.
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That’s a prudential matter. And it’s not “cohabiting” in the sense that the Church uses that term narrowly, to mean an ongoing sexual relationship while living together or a trial marriage situation.
 
You may or may not raise a few eyebrows depending on what you say and to whom you say it. So perhaps the less said, the less likely someone is to make presumptions.
 
I honestly don’t see the problem here, unless there is some sort of mutual attraction between you and the landlady/female tenants.

Now if the question is, in the strictest sense, could living in a tenement house, that also has those of the opposite sex living in it, cause a heterosexual male to come to the near occasion of sin?

Absolutely it can, but so too can watching a pg-13 movie for some men.

Just as watching a pg-13 movie has not been condemned by the Church, the Church has not condemned living in a tenement house, that also has those of the opposite sex living in it.
 
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No, you are not cohabiting.

Many people live in apartments or houses together that are not romantically involved.

If some sort of attraction develops you can always find another place to live.

Deacon Christopher
 
The Church has no laws about flatmates.

The Church says to avoid near occasions of sin. You know if this arrangement would be tempting for you.
 
You are simply talking about living in someone’s house as a lodger. This is not an issue.
otjm said:
You may or may not raise a few eyebrows depending on what you say and to whom you say it. So perhaps the less said, the less likely someone is to make presumptions.
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Really? Even in the Victorian era I don’t think this would have raised eyebrows.
 
Well, high top boots went out a long time ago, along with corsets, hoop skirts, crinoline under them and bustles; and we have little use for a hand crank telephone or the telegraph. And attitudes have changed; rooming houses and boarding houses pretty much have disappeared, and people now seem to have an almost automatic presumption that if one is sharing housing with someone of the opposite sex, that automatically implies they are sharing a bed.

My comment takes into account the near knee jerk response of shared housing implying cohabitation - as in, the bed. Less said, less opportunity to presume motives and facts not in existence. “I rent a room in a house” does not need a further explication of “with some women”.

In fact, it could be reduced to “I rent”. Explication not required.
 
otjm said:
My comment takes into account the near knee jerk response of shared housing implying cohabitation - as in, the bed.
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I didn’t think that that was what people would assume. The problem is that the OP is using the term “cohabitation”, which most people would understand as meaning living together like a married couple, although without being married. The OP can just say, “I lodge in someone’s house”, “I rent a room in a woman’s house”, “my landlady rents a few rooms in her house to lodgers”, “I live with housemates; our landlady lives in the house with us”, " I rent from a woman who has a few spare rooms to let out". The point is that it is a commercial arrangement.
 
Exactly - and the less said, the better.

You might be surprised what people will assume - it certainly has surprised me over the decades.
 
The staff apologist’s at Catholic Answers have addressed this question in the past:
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