What if I told you that a new law labeled as anti-gay by the New York Times and CNN was going to take effect soon. What if I also told you that Apple CEO Tim Cook compares it to Jim Crow laws, that Connecticut’s Governor has issued an executive order banning state-paid travel to Indiana … Read more
When was the last time anyone heard a sermon that condemned the evils of fornication, or adultery, or cohabitation, or divorce, or bearing children outside wedlock (let alone homosexuality)? Controlling these sins is a core Christian value. At one time a preacher could be expected to devote extended attention to these sins. And he could … Read more
The statement signed by prominent public intellectuals and published in First Things is a well-intentioned effort to avert same-sex “marriage.” In it the authors declare same-sex “marriage” a more serious matter than divorce or cohabitation. This claim should not be invoked lightly since it reflects a serious failure of leadership. This is not what Christian leaders … 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
Forgive me, Lord, if I use your words for an admonitory parable. You said to the Pharisees, “What man among you, having a hundred sheep, and learning that one of them has wandered into the wilderness, will not leave the ninety nine and go after the lost sheep? And when he has found it, will … Read more
As mainline Protestant denominations increasingly accept the ordination of gay clergy and publicly affirm same-sex unions, the sociologist in me wishes to understand what this development means for people in those denominations. I’m not talking about subtle linguistic shifts. While the difference between speaking of marriage as a “civil contract between a woman and a … Read more
Taking offense certifies the modern man as one who cares. If we take offense on behalf of another, we can number ourselves among the sensitive and loving. If we take offense personally, we can brandish a stop sign declaring to all that the offense must cease. In either case, the offending words must stop and … Read more
More than four decades ago, Pope Paul VI predicted in Humanae Vitae that the emergence of the new reproductive technologies—especially the birth control pill—would lead to a “lowering of moral standards … and a rise in infidelity.” Today, with the emergence of Truvada, a pill that has been shown in clinical trials to be up … Read more
Marriage requires sex. This seems to be the sine qua non of marriage even in a world where the definition of marriage has been broadened in ways never imagined even a generation ago. And indeed marriage does require sex because sex is unitive in a unique way and marriage is about union. A shake of … Read more
A few weeks ago, a Catholic priest caused quite a stir in one of our local diocesan high schools. He spoke the truth about sex. Pause here to sigh, and to wish that our heresies were more interesting. Some of the parents and students objected. They did not say, “The priest presented the truth in … Read more
The story of Boston’s Father Gerald Fitzgerald (1894-1969), who founded the Servants of the Paraclete congregation, has been told before. For example, it appears in the National Catholic Reporter of March 30, 2009; in the Dallas Morning News a day later; and was reported by news services like the Associated Press. But most readers outside … Read more
RACHEL LU: When Adults Encourage Self-Destructive Behavior in the Young Sex has consequences. I realize that admitting this probably marks me as some sort of misogynist, but somehow I can’t help myself. For one thing, I have it on good authority that even in 2013, sex still has something to do with babies. Even before … Read more
We continue to reel from the blows dealt by the Culture of Death. The attack on life, and particularly on the family, that institution which is the incubator and nourisher of life, continues relentlessly. Our states and our courts have now given the name of “marriage” to a fundamentally unnatural and barren relationship that was … Read more
The absurdity of the mantra “don’t judge” is lost on the ideologues. Ideology is the worship of an idea and as such it is the worship of self because in deciding what ideas to worship, the ideologue makes himself the arbiter of truth and in doing so increases in his own sight. We Catholics worship … Read more
Several weeks ago, Saint Valentine’s Day at my school came and went. There was no dance. There was no concert. There was no ice cream social. There was no party for trading little gifts. There was no showing of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or Marty or Goodbye, Mr. Chips or Casablanca. There were no … Read more
Gay activists tell us that “gay marriage is inevitable.” It’s a taunt devised to pick off the more faint-hearted clingers-on of traditional marriage by exploiting the human instinct to be on the winning side. And all too often, it works. Traditional marriage advocates rightly protest that this isn’t an argument. Nothing, they say, is ‘inevitable’ … Read more
According to Christianity, we are made for communion. Created in the image of a God who is Divine Communion, we are made to give ourselves to and for others. Without Eve, for instance, Adam could not enter into the communio personarum and so was not fully able to bear the image of God. A recent … Read more
One thing that defenders of the sexual revolution will not understand is that, although the act of intercourse is private (or better be), everything else about sex is public. I don’t simply mean that people will know that John and Mary are in a “relationship,” horrid denatured word, or that sexual intercourse results in those … Read more
What strikes me most powerfully about the defenders of the sexual revolution is their immovable abstraction. Always the matter is couched in terms of rights, or individual desires—what I want, what I may pursue. That this sexual laissez-faire destroys the common good, by undermining families and rotting whole neighborhoods from within, seems not to matter. … Read more
G. K. Chesterton wrote in his 1908 classic Orthodoxy, “The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people.” The outer crust of Christian reality is a moral sternness that seems ugly, but makes possible “pagan freedom.” Neo-pagans wishing to excise those outer morals have brought on themselves … Read more