**3. The passive oedipal constellation**

Within psychoanalytic theory "Die Anatomie ist das Schicksal" ("Anatomy is destiny"; [12], p. 400). In order to unveil the unconscious Oedipal organization underlying this unique social confrontation, we need to restrict our investigation to either of the two anatomical sexes. Since the male Catholic clergy plays a core role both in Church hierarchical organization and in the anticlerical polemic which has been flooding western media for some decades now, our investigation will focus on the male child's Oedipal organization.

In *Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse*, Freud observed that "In der groβen künstlichen Massen, Kirche und Heer, ist für das Weib als Sexualobjekt kein Platz." ("In the large artificial masses, the army and the Church, there is no place for the woman as a sexual object"; [13], p. 158). In fact, Catholic priests and people with homoerotic sexual preferences share a basic anthropological dimension: their object relation organization does not allow for the sexual cathexis of female objects. The harsh confrontation we behold every day in parliament, in the squares, and in the media might actually rely on this very parallel, which warrants a careful exploration of the Oedipal constellation underlying this minority interpersonal styles.

Freud believed separation from mother was a necessary condition for a child's proper access to the Oedipal situation. In *Eines Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci* [14] he suggested a core factor in a passive Oedipus development could be an enhanced libidinal cathexis of the mother object:

*Bei allen unseren homosexuellen Männern gab es in der ersten, vom Individuum später vergessenen Kindheit eine sehr intensive erotische Bindung an eine weibliche Person, in der Regel an die Mutter, hervorgerufen oder begünstigt durch die Überzärtlichkeit der Mutter selbst, ferner unterstützt durch ein Zurücktreten des Vaters im kindlichen Leben ([14], p. 169).*

*In all our homosexual men we behold in the early, later by the individual forgot, childhood, a very intense erotic tie to a female person, as a rule to the mother, elicited or fostered by the mother's herself excessive tenderness, further supported by the father's withdrawal from the child's life.*

Freud's theory of homosexuality undoubtedly offers intriguing insights into psychosexual development. In Freud's view, too close an unconscious or preconscious erotized tie to mother would prevent the later investment of age-appropriate extrafamilial sexual partners. In the terms of object relation theory, we might state that access to the active Oedipal configuration is critically dependent on an adequate differentiation from the maternal object. Without a proper *cleavage* of oral dependence from the mother, she will never come to be the object of unconscious genital level libido cathexis. Therefore, Freud stated:

*Endlich kommt doch nach vollendeter Pubertät die Zeit, die Mutter gegen ein anderes Sexualobjekt zu vertauschen. Da geschieht eine plötzliche Wendung; der Jüngling* 

*Vicissitudes of the Oedipal Organization, and Their Impact on the Anticlerical Polemic DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107392*

*verläßt nicht seine Mutter, sondern identifiziert sich mit ihr, er wandelt sich in sie um und sucht jetzt nach Objekten, die ihm sein Ich ersetzen können, die er so lieben und pflegen kann, wie er es von der Mutter erfahren hatte ([13], pp. 119–120).*

*However, when puberty is completed, the time finally comes to change the mother with another sexual object. We behold then an abrupt turn; the youngling does not leave his mother, rather, he identifies with her, he transforms himself in her and seeks now objects, which can replace his Ego for him, which he can love and take care of, just as he had experienced from his mother.*

Unable to leave their mother, the homosexual young man would incorporate her through introjective identification. In homosexuality, then, the same psychic mechanism Freud deemed momentous in the genesis of melancholy would be at work ([15], p. 435).

In summary, inner object relationships of individuals unavailable to libidinally cathect female objects would feature a mainly dyadic and pre-Oedipal quality. Within this configuration, the mother object cannot be clearly differentiated from the self-representation. The eroticized tie mentioned by Freud can more properly be reformulated in narcissistic terms. We typically behold here a poorly differentiated mother–child relation, where the subject and the object reciprocally exploit each other with the aim of supporting his or her own self-esteem and maintaining adequate well-being.

In as much as mother's image is included in the self, her consistent emotional availability is a prerequisite for a minimal mental adjustment: she can never actually be experienced as emotionally missing. Therefore, in this interpersonal configuration mother cannot be invested with authentic erotic greed (as conceptualized by Melanie Klein, [16], p. 62).

The resulting Oedipus complex takes on a peculiar character. The father's sexual access to mother's interior is felt as harmless, inasmuch as it does not challenge the Oedipal collusive alliance with mother. Father will be perceived as weak and interpersonally meaningless. To him, the child spares the more customary unconscious murderous hate, while identification with him appears basically useless to the child's core interpersonal aims.

On the other hand, identification with mother will be unavoidable, as the only cherished love object. The intensity and quality of such identification will depend on the severity of the object relations pathology. More primitive individuals, featuring enhanced autistic contiguous traits ([17], p. 47ff.), will inevitably turn to adhesive identification and mimic the mother's behavioral style and attire.

Within this configuration, a genuine cathexis of adult female objects is clearly impossible. In the active male Oedipal constellation two forces drive the adolescent towards sexualized female objects: identification with father and the awareness of the unavailability of the mother object. Within negative male Oedipus, neither of these motivational components may prove consequential. Father is perceived as powerless and castrated, while separation from mother is felt as the utmost threat to the integrity of the self. From this perspective, attachment to the real mother cannot be given up as long as she is physically alive. Therefore, age-appropriate female partners appear particularly ominous inasmuch as they implicitly endanger the collusive alliance with her.

In essence, both Catholic clergy and male homosexuals are unwilling to establish deep permanent relationships with female partners. Psychoanalytic theory allows us to formulate the network of inner object relations underlying such specific manifestations in interpersonal terms. The sadomasochistic entanglement sticking priests and homosexuals in a centuries-old confrontation seems to depend on a specific, shared unconscious constellation: an *incomplete cleavage* of the relation to the maternal object.

The second set of questions stays unanswered, yet. What sets these two social groups apart? Which emotional needs and strategy lead them so far away at the time of adolescence, when sexual maturity compels them to make choices about their sexual identity and their interpersonal and social life?

Relationship to paternal imago is here at issue. Within a passive Oedipal constellation father is not a competitor for mother's unconsciously sexualized body. Rather, it is basically perceived as an ethical ruler, a Super-ego regulator. The handling of the relationship to such an annoying inner object may follow two different paths.

If the father's power and authority are perceived as overwhelming, complacency is negotiated through submission: to interpersonal power figures, to Super-ego values, to powerful institutions. This first constellation fosters an ascetic access to adolescence. Sublimation may then appear as a valuable strategy to control both aggression and libidinal drives.

In some uniquely gifted individuals the explicit identification with the Ego ideal of an entire community, through the sacred orders, may offer a viable identity and a wide room for development and growth through a rich network of social relationships. Obviously, the conflict over libidinal drives is always enhanced and identification with parental ideals may sometimes be precarious and maintained through the primitive mechanism of adhesive identification.

In the other possible configuration, an identification with a seductive mother prevails, and father is radically kept at bay through manipulative strategies. The inner father, then, is castrated through frustration of sexual gratification and humiliated through the preference accorded to other younger and allegedly more attractive partners. In the manifest love relationship life, a homosexual identity is so established.

We have reported above that the Oedipal constellation typically detected in celibatary Catholic clerics and in individuals explicitly identifying with LGBT values shows an extended overlap. Inability to adequately detach from mother, intensified identification with her, inability to libidinally invest in a heterosexual object, and explicit giving up to any claim to a male powerful identification are among the most prominent features.

The Bible prophesied a perennial hostility between the woman and the snake, an obvious representative of the male genital. However, recent history gives wide evidence of a long-lasting enmity between advocates of free, unrestricted sexuality and the male Catholic clergy. The world over, LGBT movements advocate for dedicated anti-discrimination laws which appear to be specifically tailored to restrict Catholics' and particularly Catholic clerics' free speech.

According to the Kleinian model of unconscious mind, regression to paranoidschizoid position is an available option all along the developmental path and beyond. The psychic apparatus would turn to primitive modes of functioning whenever anxiety is enhanced, and the cohesion of the self is threatened. The defense mechanisms of splitting and projection are often mentioned as the unconscious basis of hostility and reciprocal devaluation between social groups. They surely contribute to the confrontation between two parties whose intrapsychic organizations share a specific feature: an inadequate *cleavage* from the mother. As psychoanalysts, we are called to understand why psychic organizations which feature an *uncleaved* inner relationship

to mother are unstable, and always liable to regressive phenomena. Some material from a clinical case will help us to illuminate the issue.
