Living together but not having sex

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My wife and I lived together before we got married. Financially it made sense we are in the heart of the northern oil boom and couldn’t each afford 2500 a month rent plus student loans and other basic necessities plus my crash pad rent in New York.
 
Lea101 said:
That’s a little different from parking my car in front of a bawdyhouse five nights a week, going in, and spending about an hour there. Those are optics that really don’t have any other reasonable explanation, regardless of how innocently I spend my time there.
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Yes, and my explanation would leave many people snorting with laughter and rolling their eyes.

It’s just a hypothetical, a reductio ad absurdum, to illustrate a point. I don’t have any friends in bawdyhouses. None I know of, anyway.
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You have an inheritance from God to be a child of light in this dark time.
This is your time to shine.

Colossians 1:9-20 New International Version (NIV)

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,[a] 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[b] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
 
Ok well first off I didnt know the respondent was a priest. I just thought he was batman. Are there a lot of priests on the forum? Second, I was not disrespectful. I’m sure father’s seminary training was good but I have my own opinion as do other priests. He has chosen to not engage me further and I respect that.
 
I dont assume that people are always having sex. If others are that’s on them. I’m sure a boyfriend and girlfriend are in a car alone together, I’m sure there is a quiet room at someone’s house they can lock, or a roommate is gone for a few hours, or a dark movie theater or even an airplane bathroom! I am sure people can imagine them doing “sinful” things anytime of the day. But the poster has already said that sex will not be involved. So who is the exact person scandalized? Can you point to a specific victim if a sin here?
 
Pnwcatholic said:
Yes, that’s nice. But it isn’t the only way.
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Nice?
To be a Catholic who is chaste in this world is heroic. It’s a light in the darkness, the narrow path to Life. Catholicism that is lived requires courage, steadfastness, unselfish love toward the other.
Nice is a word better suited to blueberry muffins.
It’s not the only way. That’s true, for sure. That’s why there’s 60 million abortions.
 
Pnwcatholic said:
So who is the exact person scandalized? Can you point to a specific victim if a sin here?
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As many questions that come up on Catholic Answers, it’s ‘how close can I go to the edge of the cliff without falling off?’

Who is the person who is going to be scandalized? When you look around and see that the whole world is doing scandalous behavior, this is when you and I can shine even brighter. Honor God in your dating. There’s no regrets there. Be that light. Show others what love really looks like. Don’t fall for the counterfeits.
 
The poster has taken sex out of the equation, why is everyone so focused on sex? The poster says they are “heroically chaste” as you put it. But even if one falls, is there not a remedy for that?
 
Lea101 said:
Would it be an issue if the people around them do not know they’re Catholic?
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But the Catholic who cohabit have also Catholic relatives, Catholic friends and are know bu their co parishioners. They don’t live in a bubble surrounded by only an hostile world.

Sorry, but when I see faithfull Catholic friends who live with their boyfriend or girlfriend, or who go to sleep to each other house even if they live in the same city, I assume that they have sex. And I am almsot sure that I am correct at least 90% or the time. And discusions that we can have or a pregnancy that occurs proove it.
 
That’s right that you don’t assume that people are always having sex. But don’t think that it is not the majority of people may think.

A couple who is cohabited, most people will think they have sex, even if they are a faithfull Catholic. And in a great majority, they are having sex.
 
Who is most people? Those watching them through binoculars to see where they live?
 
Family And friends that are preoccupied with sex? Maybe when people come over they could address it at the door!
 
Sorry, but I don’t understand if your reply is done in all sincerity or if you want to be incivise…

It is easy to know if people live together or not.
Family know, of course.

Friends. When some friends moove on together we (or I) know. They made box, they can ask for help, they can moove or city to go to the other place. If you have a certain degre of proximity, you will know very quickly. That being said, I notice around my circles of faithfull Catholics friends, when you cohabit when you met new friends, you tend to try to hide it. Sometimes the true is exposed by a pregnancy. Sometimes because of marriage (of course, the adress are visible on gift card).

Co workers. I have find it is more difficult to hide the people you live with (whatever they are, boyfriends, parents, in-law etc) that the contrary. If you choose to do so, you would have to always control your answers and be very vague when you evoke your life. Because many innocent question about your agenda would be asked.
 
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What you are saying is that to protect others from scandal we must make sure that those around us dont think we are sexually impure. Since most couples in the world have premarital sex we must make sure we communicate to others we dont or at least never put ourselves in situations where others might think we have sex. Right? I mean even since the cruises of the 50s cars have been places people have sex premarital, so should the poster not share a car with her boyfriend? Are we really that puritan so as to bend to the assumption all people must be thinking about any couple? Sex sex sex… what is the preoccupation!?
 
You don’t have to be extreme, people generally don’t know all the details of your life. But when you do such an obvious think as cohabiting it is much more see as an officialisation of relation that is of the same nature than marriage.

You can’t ignore that living together means usually sex.
 
I don’t know why it’s such a big deal. If they want to live together they can. It’s the business and no one elses
 
The Poster asked if living together and treating it as brother and sister is ok.

In very rare circumstances I have heard of Bishops allowing it in their diocese because of reasons that can not be changed. However, I have also heard of Bishops not allowing it because the reasons everyone tries using for justifying it, don’t count and aren’t serious enough.
There is, like stated throughout the thread with proof from the CCC, the sin of scandal involved as well. Two Catholics can be living together as brother and sister, but unless the situation is that of truly a brother and sister or perhaps a young man renting a old woman’s spare room, the sin of scandal will very likely be present. People shouldn’t assume things, but it is still your duty as a catholic, wherever possible, to mitigate being the cause of someone else’s sin. If you can find arrangements to live with the opposite sex, then you are 99% of the time going to be able to find arrangements to live with someone of the same sex as well. Might take a little more work but it can be done.
 
rosejmj said:
I don’t know why it’s such a big deal. If they want to live together they can. It’s the business and no one elses
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Of course they can. They can do whatever they wnat including living together have children and never get married. It is their own business.

But in all honesty, it is not what the catholic Church expects from its members, nor what she thinks is the best for the society and the individuals.
 
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