Repressive Censorship versus Merciful Sublimation

This chapter examines repression and censorship as parallel mechanisms in psychoanalysis and Catholicism. Freud defined repression as the distancing of instinctual desires from consciousness by the superego, a process that is never wholly effective, since the repressed inevitably returns. The Catholic Church institutionalized repression through the Index of Prohibited Books , which sought to censor ideas which threatened the Magisterium. Focusing on the censored works of Angelo Hesnard and Marc Oraison, this chapter demonstrates how Catholic censorship of sexuality mirrored the psychic mechanism of repression. It pushed desire underground without preventing its harmful expression, including clerical abuse. Against the logic of repression and legalism, Pope Francis advanced mercy, which refuses harsh judgment and instead opens desire to transformation. The chapter concludes by proposing sublimation, not as an ideal, but as a constructive response to human drives, aligning psychoanalytic insight with Catholic mercy.