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Notes -
This is by no means a Catholic critique at all. There are two completely different ways of how modern feminism or even modern thinking breaks down intersexual relationships. The first one is that the basis of Catholic teaching is not some maturity or anything like that, our morality is Virtue Based. Both men and women should strive to be virtuous: humble instead of prideful, chaste instead of lustful, generous instead of greedy, kind instead of jealous, balanced in moderation instead of gluttonous, patient instead of wrathful, diligent instead of slothful. Above all these virtues we have Christian love, caritas as guiding principle. There are of course other virtues such as courage or wisdom which are subsided in there. The point is that Christian ethics is Virtue Ethics, it is not utilitarianism or harm reductionism - it is centered around personal virtues related to deification and individual relationship toward God and other people.
Catholic anthropology follows this in sacraments. In baptism, a child is introduced into a community where mother, father, godfather and godmother take responsibility to educate the child toward these virtues in form of caretakers utilizing methods of discipline and consistency to teach the child. This results in first communion around age of 7 o 8, this tracks the ability to discern between good and evil, the child is capable of sacrament of confession and to decide on what is good and evil. From there there is the period of theological grounding for child's decision making, the parents are there as teachers with the child having more autonomy to explore these realities. The child is a catechumen and this period ends around age of 15-16, where he is considered and adult but still to be mentored by other people, including parents and the community.
Now the point is that in terms of maturity, by age of 16 you as a Catholic should be fully aware of what is Christian moral teaching, what are vices and virtues and live you life accordingly. There is no eternal "kid" mentality where somebody can be 28 and still "exploring" as some forever university student, it is preposterous. You can be 17 or 18 years old and preparing yourself for marriage and taking care of children in the same loop. Maturity is not about wealth, "responsibility" in terms of being a manager of team of 50 people or anything like that. While this is of course one way to grow, it is by no means implied in catholic teaching. You are mature as long as you posses ability to discern good and evil and as soon as adult Christian you know the doctrine to live virtuous life. The catholic teaching of responsibility is stemming from subsidiarity, by age 15-16 you are fully capable of thinking and managing yourself, and you are preparing to take care of your closest family such as husband/wife and even children and whole community. But this is reciprocal, The Church is proper way to live Christian life and the community is helping everybody till their last days. The process of deification is a lifelong process where the whole community including your priest is helping you in this endeavor.
That is not lack of maturity, these young adults are mature enough to have capacity to understand what is going on. It is lack of virtue. You can be 80 year old alcoholic bum jerking off on your pissed matrass doing stupid shit. We do not think that such a person did not mature, they are just lacking virtues.
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