Recently, parishioners burned a Rainbow Flag in Chicago. They felt justified to take matters into their own hands because they recognized that the ideology represented by that flag challenges the truths upheld by the Church. So they did something about it. And now one priest is paying the price. The Rainbow Flag in the Church? … Read more
Somehow, almost overnight, our culture decided that an “LGBT” identity is something that one is born with. There is no research proving this. As a matter of fact, the American Psychological Association website states that, although much research has been done, scientists have not reached a consensus on the causes. However, our culture speaks of … Read more
Many years ago, in one of the standard editions of The Tempest that I had ordered for my students, I read an angry little essay whose proximate target was the mage Prospero, and whose ultimate target was anyone alive, particularly men, who would uphold a view of sexual morality one or two steps higher than, … Read more
As a deacon, only once have I had the privilege of sitting around a table with one priest and one bishop, effectively forming a trio representing the three degrees of Holy Orders during a stimulating conversation about the Catholic faith. I have such an exchange in mind as I write this essay—I see what follows … Read more
My imaginary sparring partner Mike has come back with some trepidation, because he never wanted to be maneuvered into saying that he wants to allow the killing of a weak and innocent human being. But now he speaks the language of “realism.” I have learned, and sometimes to my chagrin, that the Church is almost … Read more
Perhaps one of the more sensitive personal issues you can raise with people is that of dress. How you dress has become a purely personal affair. Most are left to their own opinion as to what is appropriate. There are, of course, some limits. Most Catholics will admit in theory that there is something that … Read more
Once regarded as a virtue, chastity is now largely considered a fool’s quest. Those perpetrating chastity’s demise depict its death as a victory for life and love. Yet the opposite is true; an unchaste world is one of self-absorption and death. In subordinating the procreational nature of sex to recreational purposes, an unchaste society will … Read more
Did you know that St. Maria Goretti was even the least bit controversial? The facts of her case are not disputed. She was a peasant girl of 11 who came under sexual assault from a twenty-year-old male who shared the building where she lived with her family. She resisted, telling him it would be a … Read more
“Is homosexuality a psychological disorder? And could it be cured?” These are the “dead-horse” questions that blogger Melinda Selmys mentions as she takes exception to the substance of a Crisis Magazine article on homosexuality—Mark Latkovic’s “Using Modern Science to Treat Homosexuality.” Selmys considers this question—“homosexuality as mental illness”—as tantamount to a lifeless horse brought back … Read more
A half-dozen of the usually non-monolithic Spiritual Friends have joined forces in an educational project that, unfortunately, will probably bring more confusion than clarity to Catholics seeking to understand what the Church has to say about same-sex attraction. The website CatholicSexuality.com—a chastity-education project from a Yonkers, New York group called the St. Augustine Foundation—invites people … Read more
Love is not sacrifice. Love is gift. Without clearly seeing the difference between gift and sacrifice, the Christian message can only be muddled in a modern world where one man’s sacrifice merely signifies his subjection to another man. In such a world the purpose of society is not to encourage the free exchange of gifts … Read more
If you’re in need of some comic relief this week, check out this piece from The Atlantic on “the sexually conservative Millennial.” In it, writer Emma Green sets out to show that Millennials (the generation of Americans presently between 18 and 35) are in fact far less libertine than is widely supposed. They are, in … Read more
There is no way to end abortion short of changing the way we love and live. Without addressing abortion as a corruption of how we love, the greatest legal victory is a sand castle on a beach before the tide comes in. The tide will win no matter how large the sand castle, or how … Read more
Of late, much attention has been given in both the secular media and Christian media to those who call themselves “gay celibate Christians.” As a man attracted to men yet committed to traditional Catholic teaching on human sexuality, I find the notion both of being “gay” or “celibate” strange. Indeed, in the context of what … Read more
According to Vice President Joe Biden twenty percent of college women will be sexually assaulted over the course of their college life. Walk onto any college campus, and one out of every five women you see either has been or likely will be the victim of rape during her college years. Can you believe it? … Read more
I once had the misfortune to watch a television program about the economic crisis. There was some attempt being made to explain why people kept investing in schemes that really were not very sound, why they kept getting bigger mortgages than they could not afford to pay back, why they kept believing that the value … Read more
Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me…for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” I’ve suggested in an earlier essay that chastity is but the giving of due reverence to the goodness and the holiness of sexual being, male and female. A land where chastity—not mere abstinence, and not prideful scorn of … Read more
The last two weeks have brought good news for proponents of abstaining from sex until marriage. Two Fridays ago, for example, the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee released a report which said abstinence-only education is superior to so-called “comprehensive sex education.” The subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the nation’s federal sexual education policies, released … Read more
When Satan, in Milton’s Paradise Lost, insinuates himself into the garden of Eden, he encounters a perfect riot of beauty: lush grapevines hanging over grottoes and heavy with fruit, grassy meadows full of browsing cattle and sheep, streams splashing their way over the rocks, and flowers literally pouring forth at the bidding not of dainty … Read more