In this incisive analysis, Catholic theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann daringly confronts her Church's manipulation of its ancient doctrine and willful ignorance of the modern world. Using sources ranging from the earliest Church fathers to recent popes, cardinals, and bishops, she examines evidence that the Church has denigrated women and their sexuality by its glorification of Mary's virginity; championed a perverse idea of celibacy by not allowing priests to marry; and damned birth control and un-reproductive sex to the extent that, even today, Catholic AIDS patients are forbidden to use condoms.rnBoth fascinating and horrifying in its revelations, but always illuminating, here is a work that needs to be read by anyone questioning the mores of organized religion today.