And I think my sexuality was heavily repressed by the church, by

The words of Thomas Keneally — “And I think my sexuality was heavily repressed by the church, by the, you know, the design of the mortal sins.” — are not the idle reflections of a man resentful toward faith, but the lament of one who has glimpsed the conflict between the sacred and the human, between the call of spirit and the yearning of the flesh. In this confession, Keneally exposes a struggle that has echoed through centuries: the tension between religion’s moral architecture and the natural desires that pulse within every human soul. His words speak for countless men and women who, born into systems of strict piety, were taught to see their own bodies not as vessels of wonder, but as battlegrounds of shame.

To understand the weight of this statement, one must understand the “design of the mortal sins.” In the doctrine of the Church, sins were classified according to their gravity, and those deemed mortal were said to sever the soul from divine grace. Among these, sexual sins held a power of particular fear — lust, desire, even thought itself, were branded as paths to damnation. The very structure of morality, as Keneally describes, was a design that shaped not merely the actions of believers but their inner lives, turning what was natural into what was forbidden. In this, he reveals how belief, when rigidly enforced, can shape the soul’s relationship to its own nature — transforming innocent passion into guilt, and curiosity into fear.

This conflict is as old as civilization itself. The ancients, too, wrestled with the balance between restraint and expression. The Greeks revered Eros, the divine force of attraction, as both creative and destructive — a god to be honored, not denied. Yet in later ages, as asceticism took hold of the Western spirit, desire became a thing to conquer, not to understand. The body, once seen as sacred, became a vessel of temptation. In this transformation lies the essence of what Keneally calls repression: the loss of harmony between body and soul, replaced by a war within the self.

History offers us many examples of souls torn by this same tension. Consider Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, whose genius coexisted with a deep torment over his desires. He, too, was devoutly religious, and he viewed sexuality as a stain upon purity. In his diaries, he confessed to loathing his own body, to seeing every impulse as evidence of moral weakness. Yet, his greatest works — Anna Karenina, Resurrection — emerged from this struggle, for the war within him gave birth to understanding. Like Keneally, he was a man formed by faith and wounded by it — seeking reconciliation between what he was taught to fear and what he could not deny as part of himself.

The deeper meaning of Keneally’s reflection, then, lies not in rebellion but in integration. He speaks as one who has learned that no human being can flourish in the denial of what is natural. When institutions build moral systems that condemn the body, they fracture the soul. True spirituality does not repress, but transforms — it teaches the sacredness of the physical, the beauty of desire rightly guided, the holiness of self-knowledge. To repress is to break; to understand is to heal. Keneally’s insight is thus both personal and universal: that faith must evolve from control to compassion, from judgment to understanding.

Yet there is courage in his words. For to name repression is to confront centuries of silence. Many have lived entire lives burdened by the weight of shame inherited from teachings they never questioned. Keneally’s confession gives voice to them, reminding us that faith, if it is to endure, must be large enough to hold the whole of the human experience — not only its purity but also its passion. The divine does not ask us to deny our humanity, but to live it wisely, fully, and with reverence.

So let this be the lesson, passed down like an ancient truth: do not fear what is human within you. Examine it, understand it, and offer it to the light. Question the systems that bind your spirit with guilt, and seek instead the wisdom that unites body and soul. For repression breeds shadow, but understanding brings peace. As Keneally’s words remind us, even the most devout must one day learn that the path to holiness is not through the rejection of the human, but through the embrace of its wholeness — where grace and desire dwell together, reconciled at last within the temple of the heart.