Weekend retreats for couples promoting "divine sex" given by Polish Fr Ksawery Knotz are booked solid for the next year following publicity for the Capuchin Friar's counselling work.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports Fr Knotz has been dubbed the high priest of Catholic Kama Sutra, but he says that he is simply doing God's work.
"I certainly encourage married couples to pray for a good and happy sex life, it's a way for them to become closer to God," the 43 year old monk says.
"At first people are usually slightly shocked but at the same time happily surprised," says Fr Knotz.
Knotz has held retreats with more than 3,000 devoutly Roman Catholic couples in Poland since 2000, with the tacit blessing of church superiors ... and an approving nod from secular therapists.
"If you believe in God, then you believe God is involved in life, in love, marriage and in sex and sexuality, it seems natural to talk about sex to remove taboos and the label of sinfulness," says the monk, who resides in a monastery of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in Stalowa Wola, southern Poland.
He admits the popular teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the subject of sex have been weak, if not downright dissuasive.
"It's been labelled taboo or sinful," Fr Knotz says, but is quick to point out that in keeping with the Church's teaching, he preaches only about the joys of sex restricted to marriage between women and men.
Both his book, entitled The Act of Marriage, and his Chance to Meet website, launched in 2004 and has both English and Polish versions, graphically explore the steamy details of divine love making.
In a passage entitled the "theology of the orgasm", Fr Knotz likens the peak of sexual excitation to meeting God in heaven.
"Love between a married couple expressed in sex, brings the human body closer to heaven. The ecstasy in the joy of sexual intercourse can be likened to the joy of eternal life," he says giving an unusual twist to the religious notion of eternal salvation.
"This is why the conjugal act allows spouses to begin to understand the sweetness of encountering God," Knotz concludes, and is quick to caution that "concentration on the physiological side of a sexual intercourse causes reduction of its most important elements."
Fr Knotz also insists "good, open communication between spouses" is the best technique to achieve orgasms of heavenly proportions.
And he does not neglect women, encouraging husbands to take their time to "fully appease" their wives.
"When a woman is excited, she wants to experience absolute pleasure as much as a man does," the monk's website says.
"The feeling of sexual dissatisfaction, for a woman who is already excited, is a great physical and psychological suffering."
"I look at it this way: you don't have to have a heart condition to be a cardiologist and you don't have to be an alcoholic to work as a therapist," Fr Knotz says in reply to critics who say that as a celibate he lacks authority.
He says he was originally inspired by the open atmosphere of his family home and the early teachings of late Polish born Pope John Paul II who broached the subject of sexuality in his book Love and Responsibility.
"The Holy Father's 'theology of the body' and other philosophical and theological works delve deeply into the divinity of sexual relations in marriage, I'm just making these complex ideas more accessible to average Catholics," he says.
Psychotherapist Marek Ruzdziewicz says conventional sex therapy does not address or really consider spiritual aspects of sex.
"It's a novel approach which in my experience helps couples achieve greater intimacy, so why not?"
SOURCE
Polish monk preaches 'divine' sex (Sydney Morning Herald,4/8/08)
Monk preaches ‘divine’ sex (Daily Times, 4/8/08)
LINKS
Ksawery Knotz website (English)