John Garvey Brings It On.

John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America, posted a clear and moving explanation of CUA's decision to bring the HHS mandate to court. Alma mater, I salute you.

Particularly poignant is his commentary on Eleazar of Maccabee fame (if your family is unfamiliar with the Books of Maccabees, now is a good time to read them aloud!):

"A wonderful story in the second book of Maccabees describes the martyrdom of the old scribe Eleazar. It occurred during the Hellenizing campaign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He forced the Jews "to forsake the laws of their fathers and cease to live by the laws of God." 


Eleazar was ordered on pain of death to eat pork. He refused. The men in charge of the sacrifice, who had known him for a long time, took him aside and offered to spare him if he would just eat something that looked like pork. "Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life," he said, "lest many of the young should suppose that Eleazar in his 90th year has gone over to an alien religion[.]" And so they killed him."

The point, Garvey says, is twofold: First, God's law is higher than the law of the state, and it is "cruel" for any government to force its citizens to choose between their beliefs and their freedom. Second, Eleazar is a witness to the communal aspect of our Catholic praxis. Whatever we do, "the young" --and I would add, those who have rejected the Faith-- are watching. Even the appearance of compromise in matters of morals is a grave sin against the spirit of the law.

Garvey also mentions the much-touted reality that a majority of Roman Catholics do not practice the Church's teaching on fertility and sex. While this is a tragedy and symptom of our human failure, however, it hardly changes the truth. Truth does not shift and change with societal norms: rather, practice seeks to conform to truth, goodness, and beauty. That's why the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are called transcendentals. They transcend the changing and shifting man-made laws.

Garvey's essay is brief, but forceful. It is a great example of the unapologetic, but nevertheless sympathetic, approach we all need to be ready to take toward the world. He does not dismiss objections. He does not call names. He doesn't even mention the leaders in government behind this mandate. He simply states who he is, what he believes, and what he must do.

Bravo.

Thinking feminine.

The masculine and feminine.

A two-hour survey of evening activities:

1. the newscasts ("HHS Saves Women's Health!" "Same-Sex Marriage Approved in ______!"),

2. channel-surfing (have you seen "How I Met Your Mother"? "The Bachelor"? even "The Voice"),

3. and even giving up and going for a walk (bumper sticker: "Abortion is Healthcare. Healthcare is Good.").

The overwhelming message is this: the categories "masculine" and "feminine" no longer need apply. They are inessential, simply describing certain behaviors of either sex that remind us of the fact that, "Oh! Men and women used to be different."

The only real difference is that now we know that men are much more stupid than women. See any five-minute commercial break on television.

See? Dumb, fun-loving men. Responsible, calm, in-charge women.

We've come so far.

A friend recently shared a paper on the loss of the feminine in post-Nietzschean societies. His ideas (the friend's) bear much more in-depth treatment, but for the moment I was struck by a few passages from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.

Now, Nietzsche was no modern feminist: he believed that in order to escape the Judeo-Christian slave morality, women must once more be seen solely as the bearers of offspring--a role entirely unmasculine, but also entirely isolated from the masculine. The man must dominate the woman in order to use her as a woman.

But he had a unique insight into the tragedy of modern women: "[The modern woman defeminizes herself] so as to imitate all the stupidities from which ... European manliness suffers." (BGE, 239)

How. True.

Let's think of all the popular female complaints about men.

1. They are so stupid (see commercial), that they think they still run the world.

2. All they want is sex (see sitcoms).

3. They never think about children.

4. They fear commitment.

5. They are either hairy and unsanitary or uber-clean metro-sexuals (laser hair removal!).

6. If they're nice, they're gay. (How many times have you heard that line?)

Now let's think of the popular image of independent modern women.

1. They are so smart and accomplished that they dominate everything they attempt--and so well, too, that the stupid men don't know who's really in charge.

2. They have uncontrollable sexual urges. If they cannot fulfill these urges without "being punished by a baby," then Something Bad will happen.

3. They never think about children (see #2).

4. They seek out long-term commitments to anyone but the men in their lives.

5. They are either unsanitary and dressed for bed or sanitary and dressed to kill. They are always hairless.

6. They are really nice and friendly to everyone who agrees with them.

Now, this is harsh. And these are stereotypes. But take a close look: the stereotypical view of men is in strange parallel to the image held up for women.

Masculine: stupid aggressor.

Feminine: smart aggressor.

Together: it's war.

But is there any alternative? Nietzsche solves the problem with a classic domination scheme: If men were more classically masculine and women were more classically feminine, then the war would be won. By men. Domination-subordination.

This could be what the secular feminists rage against. They think they're raging against the Church. They're actually raging against the Father of Nihilism.

There is another way: John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem suggests that, because the male-female differences are a way in which the human person--the communion of human persons--is the image of God, they are not originally at war.

The man and woman can exist, not only together, but also "mutually 'one for the other.' (MD, 7)

Try a new list. While these traits should be present in every human person, they exist more intensely in each sex.

Masculine:

1. creating

2. proclaiming

3. saving

4. striving

Feminine:

1. gestating (spiritually and biologically!)

2. listening

3. praising

4. waiting.

The Church notes--in a redeemed echo of the "stupid man" commercials--that every Christian must in a sense become feminine. We are all listening to the Word, gestating the Word in our hearts, praising the Word, and waiting for the Word to come to us.

The honor due to the truly feminine.

Nietzsche knew women had lost something in the modern era. He just had no idea how tragic that loss was. Or how glorious would be its recovery.

Contra Wills.

I've been trying to work through the legal, spiritual, economic, and personal upheavals since the HHS mandate was announced. Then came the minutes of hope--the President will make an announcement--followed by a return to the slump (even Sr. Keehan is still sad).

Then there have been the personal battles begun. Friends, relatives, and even the hygenist notice you're Catholic, recall hearing something about the bishops, and the floodgates open.

There are also the Links Wars on Facebook. I post something I found logically sound, charitable, and compelling. My third cousin-once-removed's ex-girlfriend from the Maldives then comments, telling me and my world that I'm clearly a repressed Jew who hates ovaries and wants her to live in the slums with her 20 children. Then I notice an old friend has posted Gary Wills. And I wonder whether I should change the baby's diaper or respond. I change the diaper.

But my heart just aches and cries for the next hour. I swear I'll never check Facebook again.

So, while the girls are down for a nap and the Big Girl is copying Bach's "Minuet in G Major" (the awesome one that starts with an arpeggio-thingy), I head back to Gary Wills. If this is the sort of thing that the "other sides" see as compelling and logically sound, then perhaps I need to really read it.

The first rule of defending your position is this: You must be able to articulate the attack on its own grounds.

Here's my best attempt at Wills' argument.

He starts out with, "By a revolting combination of con men and fanatics..."

Ooh. Ouch. Well, that was a nice, objective way to engage Americans across diverse backgrounds. The "con-men" he identifies as the Republican candidates (they are exploiting this controversy to gain political points--no surprise there) and the "fanatics" are the "stupid..." bishops of the Catholic Church. So, we have "con-men," "fanatics," and "stupidity."

He does have some real objections under the rhetoric--he obviously just wanted to first make it as hard as possible for any sincere believing Catholic to listen to his argument. I think it's worth looking at, because his op-ed follows the trajectory of almost every in-person argument (I mean, exchange of opinions) I've had so far.

Wills: "The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom."

First, his first sentence is right: the bishops' opposition to contraception is not a part of their argument at all. Reading the statements by spokesman William Lori, bishop of Bridgeport, or any bishop for that matter, I cannot find a single argument defending the Catholic (and Orthodox) teaching on human sexuality. In fact, he (and many others) have identified this teaching in the category as the Jewish Kosher laws. He assumes that his interlocutors will not, in fact, be remotely interested in any arguments--Scriptural, Magesterial, or natural law--for or against Humanae Vitae.

The last two claims, however, are false. The appeals of the bishops for an exemption clause is not an attempt to force any non-Catholic to stop using birth control. If you Google "Medicaid birth control coverage by state," you discover (via the Kaiser Foundation) that in almost every state, every FDA-approved form of prescription contraceptives are available to Medicaid patients. You will also find that your local Women's Center, Planned Parenthood, and countless on-line non-profits are ready to assist you in purchasing--not just condoms--but your contraceptive of choice. At my last OB-GYN appointment, I was offered the phone numbers for three separate "clinics" that would assist me in my family-planning choices.

There is nothing in the bishops' request for an exemption that would substantially change any of these services. Religious dictatorship? Because a group (an infinitesmially small group, Wills claims) does not want to pay for something they believe is evil? He doth protest too much--and it makes no sense.

But on he plods: "Contraception is not even a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture or the Creed is it forbidden. Catholic authorities themselves say it is a matter of “natural law,” over which natural reason is the arbiter—and natural reason, even for Catholics, has long rejected the idea that contraception is evil."

One might say the same about the Kosher laws, the hijab, and Christian Scientist medical practices. Mr. Wills' interpretation of Scripture and the role of natural law in Catholic Tradition is his own business. I certainly agree that--to unaided human reason--the condemnation of contraceptive sex is, at best, puzzling. But the point is this: Mr. Wills has claimed that natural reason is the arbiter of what is right. The question of human politics is: What happens when men of good will arrive at different conclusions by the exercise of their reason? Two humans reasoning about one issue rarely reach an agreement: What then, Mr. Wills? Do we force a dictatorship on one another? We've seen that before.

All the bishops want is the freedom to follow their own convictions--to which they have as much a right as Wills.

Mr. Wills: “What matters here is that contraception is legal, ordinary, and accepted even by most Catholics. To say that others must accept what Catholics themselves do not is bad enough.To say that President Obama is “trying to destroy the Catholic Church” if he does not accept it is much, much worse."

Well, no. That's not what matters here. Religious convictions rarely hold a majority.

The First Amendment is not about protecting the free exercise of what almost everyone does. It's about protecting the free exercise of those few who otherwise would be crushed by the majority. That's why we have a Bill of Rights--so that when slaves, African Americans, Jewish Americans, women, and other minorities are denied these rights, they can appeal to our founding agreements as a nation.

Then Mr. Wills really holds out the olive branch: "Yet a man who believes that contraception is evil is an aberrant from the American norm, like the polygamist or the faith healer."

Yes. I am an aberrant. Does that mean I am unworthy of the protections of the First Amendment? (For an introduction to HHS mandate's relationship to the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, see Rivkin and Whelan). So there have been bishops who were total jerks and criminals. Does that mean the entire Catholic population has forfeited its right to free exercise?

Then Wills gets into his second argument: "The Phony Contraception Argument." You can read it for yourself. Basically, he repeats his claim that there is no Scriptural, historical, or natural law argument to support the Church's constant teaching. Then he argues that the only basis left to explain our aberrant views of sex is our historical hatred of the body as "unclean." (Incidentally, "unclean" does not, in traditional Judeo-Christian thought, connote sinfulness or unworthiness. It actually denotes a purposeful emptiness that is filled only by holiness--the unclean woman is holy, the unclean animal is holy, the unclean act is holy--set apart for God. It was only with the destruction of the rituals of purification that "unclean" came to mean "unredeemable.")

That's fine. I'm sorry he feels that way, but I'm still not going to pay for his bacon. If I'm such a rare aberration, how does my desire to bow out of the HHS plan in any way affect women's access to birth control? Wills' opening argument is defeated by his closing:

Then he launches into an attack on the authority of "the Church": "Catholics who do not accept the phony argument over contraception are said to be “going against the teachings of their church.” That is nonsense. They are their church. The Second Vatican Council defines the church as “the people of God.” "

I think this argument is meant to liberate me from any authority other than my own puny brain and the legal demands of the HHS mandate. "You're not going against the Church! You are the Church, and the Church said so herself! Ergo, there's no one to go against!" (I'm going to ignore the obvious fallacy: You can ignore the authority of your church, because your church has authoritatively spoken: you may ignore our authority. Sweet. Nothering matters ever.)

Then he points out that, prior to the publication of Humanae Vitae, lots of Catholics wanted the pope to reverse the Church's teaching on contraception. But he didn't! "When Paul reaffirmed the ban on birth control in Humanae Vitae (1968) there was massive rejection of it. Some left the church. Some just ignored it. Paradoxically, the document formed to convey the idea that papal teaching is inerrant just convinced most people that it can be loony.... When Pius IX condemned democracy and modern science in his Syllabus of Errors (1864), the Catholic historian Lord Acton said that Catholics were too sensible to go crazy every time a pope does. The reaction to Humanae Vitae proves that."

But Wills left out a significant part of the narrative: "Some left the church. Some just ignored it." And some? Some embraced the teaching whole-heartedly, uniting themselves with the unbroken tradition of all the people in history who have displayed a "deep historical disrelish for sex itself" (to quote an earlier passage). That "some" is a part of the Catholic Church in the United States--an aberration, perhaps, but still a cohesive sub-culture in our country. (See photo at right: "Look! Our pope told us to hate sex!")

Then I'm not sure what Wills does--he attacks Rick Santorum as a fanatic (again), citing Santorum's adherence to Humanae Vitae's teaching as his primary evidence. That's fine. I'm not asking Wills to vote for Santorum. But I sure as hell defend Santorum's right to run, and my neighbors' right to vote for him, and Wills' right to lambast him. The last bit isn't worth engaging--because Wills has failed to articulate his opponents' viewpoint. He has not addressed the First Amendment, the legal statutes related to it, or the question of our freedom for lunacy. I'm willing to be called a lunatic, but not to be told by the government that I have to conform to Wills' form of sanity.

And that was all very therapeutic for a few minutes. But there's still my family, my friends, and that third-cousin's ex. We're all so convinced of our rightness, and we're all willing to throw each other under the emotional bus to be right. Perhaps a glass of Merlot will help. Or a stiff bout of English tea.

Or Lent, and a good, heavy bout of fasting from Facebook.

Guest Post: "Government Pork," by K. Fabian

This parable originally appeared here. I'm interested to hear how y'all think it fits (or does not fit) the current argument over the HHS Mandate. Please comment! And if you're looking for another letter of petition to sign opposing the mandate "compromise," here is a link to the StopHHS website.

Government Pork.

Once there was a wonderful town full of people who loved to eat, and many wonderful and varied restaurants that served excellent food: Italian and French, Japanese and Mongolian, Middle Eastern and even a kosher delicatessen. Not everyone liked every restaurant, of course, and some people even thought particular restaurants were odd, but they appreciated the variety available to all.

There were also a lot of pig farmers, and people enjoyed the fresh pork. One year, they had a mayor who loved fresh pork. He thought it was the right of everyone in the town to have pork at any meal they wanted. “Why,” he’d say,” if there was only one meal I could give my kids, it’d be pork chops!” Of course, lots of the people loved pork as well, and they applauded his enthusiasm.

One day he sat in his office, thinking about how much he and others liked pork, and he decided that every restaurant should serve pork and wine, at every meal. Oh, maybe not every individual would want to eat pork, but they deserved the right to have it on their plate! Otherwise, they didn’t really have a choice, right? And so, he set out a decree that all restaurants would serve some form of pork in every meal.

Well, the delicatessen and the Middle Eastern restaurant were upset by this. They couldn’t serve pork—it was against their religions. So they went to the Mayor and asked to be excused from this rule. “After all,” they said, “people know we never serve pork.”

“But you should. People have the right to pork. Some of your customers eat pork. Even some of your employees enjoy a good ham!”

“And if they wish to, they may–but not in our restaurants,” the owners said. “It’s against the kind of restaurants we are to serve pork. And we have customers who do not want pork, who would be offended and do not want to pay for pork.”

“Well, I’m offended that you won’t serve it—and I’m sure other pork lovers agree that your attitude is most disagreeable.”

“Our customers and our employees know where we stand, and they continue to frequent our restaurants and work for us. We serve them well, but we do not serve them pork. We have the right to our own menus. We should not be forced.”

But the mayor stood firm. “No,” he said. “Everyone has the right to have pork, and it’s my duty to make sure it’s always available, whether you agree or not. It’s healthier than beef anyway. If you don’t like it, you can pay a fine and stop serving food—or you can close down.”

The restaurant managers refused to change their menus. Many people stood by them—because they, too, would not eat pork and didn’t want to pay for it; or because they agreed that restaurants should choose their own menus; or because they didn’t like the mayor telling people how to run their own businesses. The movie theaters stood by him, because they were afraid if the Mayor could change menus, he might also start dictating what shows would be played.

The pork lovers, however, were incensed. How dare the restaurants not give them pork if they wanted it?

“I can’t eat beef; what should I do then?” one demanded. “Do you just want to send me away to starve?”

“We have other dishes,” they said. “Our menu and service would be no different than before. We can feed you many things; just not pork.”

Nonetheless, the press, too, said that the two restaurants would rather let people starve rather than eat pork.

Despite the outcry of the pork lovers, more and more people said, “Let them choose their own menu!”

So the Mayor called the restaurant owners into his office. He had a compromise, he said.

“I won’t make you buy pork. You don’t have to prepare it, or touch it. Instead, all restaurant suppliers will have to supply pork to every restaurant, free of charge, and for those that don’t want to serve the pork, suppliers will cook it and put it on every plate themselves. You just look the other way.”

“But there would still be pork in our restaurant!” the owners cried. “Besides, they will increase the price of meat to cover their new expenses.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t do that. I’d tell them not to. Besides, the point is you wouldn’t be actually serving pork. See how well that works? Everyone gets pork and you can say you never provided it. And if your patrons don’t want to eat it, they don’t have to; it’s enough that it’s there for them.”

So, problem solved?

—-

(“Hold on!” one restaurant supplier said. “I’m Jewish!”)

Time for a laugh!

This is for the Mothers of Many. I feel your pain.

Thanks to the Modest Mama!

Brother's Keeper: In Defense of Caring.

Rarely does Facebook's format serve the interests of human discourse. Facebook is for letting the world know what you ate for breakfast, keeping in touch with old friends, sharing thought-provoking articles (where something resembling discourse can happen), and--primarily--for "saying the good things that men need to hear." Encouragement. Camaraderie.

Once in a while, a question appears in a status that demands more respect than the FB can give. For example, here is a good question, although it was probably intended rhetorically. It appeared in the status of a friend (what does it mean?):

Here it is, paraphrased:

"Why do people care? So what if your next door neighbor takes birth control ...? Who cares if the guy down the street holds the hand of another man when they take their morning stroll? Who cares if some woman has sex with multiple men? How do their choices affect you?"

It's a good question and a common question. I'm going to take a blind shot and assume that it's a common reaction to traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. Why do I care whether the gay couple down the street just adopted two children? Why do I refuse to call a legal partnership "marriage"? Why can't I just do my thing in my house and leave the rest of the world alone? I assume that I should also refrain from teaching my children to believe what I believe--because then they, too, would care about other people's private lives.

It's a good question--don't dismiss it! The answer you give could destroy or cement your dearest friendships and family relationships.

Given the recent, state-sponsored, all-out attack on the religious freedom of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and some Protestant groups, my first reaction was, "I don't care. But if I leave y'all alone, will you just the heck leave the Church's schools and hospitals alone?" I know the answer: no. We won't be left alone, because what we believe is offensive and freakish--and we believe that we should care.

But that was a bad answer to an honest question.

Here is the good answer.

First, let's define what we mean by "care." "Care" is not "morbid curiosity." My friend is absolutely right: It is twisted for anyone to investigate and watch (MTV?) what goes on in someone else bedroom. I can mask the ugliest, nosiest prying under the veneer of "Christian charity" (you know, you want to know so you can pray for her!). But just "wanting to know so I can be entertained by my own disgust" is ugly and wrong. And, no, in that sense we should not care.

I also do not care in the sense that I want to impose my convictions on the minds of my fellow citizens. Because, you see, dear friend, the heart of my conviction is a free and total submission to the Triune God. The very idea that "caring" for another human being involves imposition of certain behaviors, or even judgement of the state of another's soul, is nonsensical to the Catholic heart. The Church never "cares" by imposing. In that sense, you are alone. Only you can impose the form of the Cross on your heart.

But there's something equally perverse in saying, "Just leave me alone, I'll leave you alone, and we'll all do whatever the F*** we want as long as we don't hurt anybody (or don't get caught hurting anyone)."

That is because no man is an island.

I will always "care" in the sense that I will forever propose to every man I meet that vision of a life lived in conformity to the Cross and in hope of the resurrection. That is the sense of caring that the Church demands of her children:

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were... any man's death diminishes me." ~John Donne

Human beings are weak, dependent creatures. We need to care and be cared for by other human beings. Every human act--hidden or plain--affects the happiness of every other human being. (In fact, is that not why the idea that someone is "imposing" her morality on her neighbor so repelling? We know that to judge someone else is not to care, but to kill.)

Ignoring each other, not caring, this is inhuman.

We hear in Schindler's List that, "If you save one man, you save the whole world (the original is in the much more poetic Talmud)."

A human being should care what his neighbor does, because his neighbor is as himself. I am man. She is man. He is man. The whole of what is good and worthy and beautiful lives or dies in the life of a single human being.

Now, I know very well that this view carries no resonance with most of the world I live in. If there is no heaven, if God has no mercy, if there is no hope of happiness in this world, if Christ did not come... then no one should care. In fact, no one will care about the woman down the street who takes birth control and sells Marie Osmond. No one will care to ask her over for lunch. No one will care to bring her a meal when she's sick. No one cares after she dies (except for the annoying sense of grief that afflicts the living--the dead don't care, anyway).

But if God did make us, he made us to be together. In this month's Touchstone, Anthony Esolen provides a much more profound defense of caring. Read the whole thing, but here's the heart:

'In other words, the good of a man is the good of man, and the good of man is the good of a man;and both find their fulfillment in God. This is not an equation to be solved, but a mystery of love to be lived. The man who understands it does not say, “My good is in its essence inferior to the good of a million others taken together,” nor, “My good is my own, and I will pursue it, and let the other millions pursue theirs.” Human society is a whole, says Maritain, made up of wholes, and the wholes are persons, meant for the joy of love. That means that we can never purchase our good at the price of another person; his good is mine.

But we may, for the good of others, engage in heroic acts of love: “And when the person sacrifices to the common good of the city that which is dearest to it, suffers torture and gives its life for the city, in these very acts because it wills what is good and acts in accordance with justice, it still loves its own soul, in accordance with the order of charity, more than the city and the common good of the city,” just as the hermit, who, “seeming to forget the city,” contemplates beauty and truth, and in so doing, “still serves the common good of the city and in an eminent fashion.”

How does my neighbor's sexual behavior affect my life, today, right now? I don't suppose "breaking my heart" counts. The truth is, I don't think we can claim to know how any one, isolated human act affects the lives of human beings--now, in the past, or in the future. We're too small.

But we can know THAT every action affects every human being who ever existed or will exist. I know that what Margaret Sanger--even though she never imagined that I, Erika, would exist--believed 100 years ago changed forever the world in which I live every day. I know what St. Peter did on Good Friday before dawn changed forever how I can hope in mercy--even though he lived worlds and ages away. I know that what the Russian Tsar did to a little village in Lithuania in 1904 frightened my grandparents into leaving, and that means that I exist (thank you, Russian Tsar?). I know that because my parents cared about what I chose to do with my body, I became a woman who could marry Todd and have three beautiful girls. We cannot know that immense good, or evil, our choices bring to other human beings.

But we know with certainty: No man in an island.

Ghost sex.

That Bad Catholic has written a fabulous post on "How Descartes Ruined Sex." It's pithy, it's simplified, and it's hilarious (you laugh or you cry).

I was a bit miffed because he's made my latest idea, "Descartes' Bad Sex," moot. But that's just vanity. This, however, is just dead-on:

"Biology and anatomy are a bit brusque with this issue: Sex is the reproductive act, all else is imitation. In fact, if one must qualify sex as to its location, use mechanical devices to have it, or otherwise separate its form from its function, then it is specifically defined as being ‘not sex’."

He doesn't quite explain the leap here:

"But notice what its advocates use in its defense, or in the defense of any other exotic form of foreplay being ‘sex’ itself. They will, in one way or another, split the body and the soul. They must. It’s impossible to argue that parts of the body besides the genitalia were meant for reproduction, so they will move on to “sex is what the partners make of it,” or something of the sort. What your body is doing isn’t important, whether it be anal sex, oral sex — whatever. You can have sex without sex. The union of the sexual act can be achieved without the true, natural union of your body. You can have the soul without the body."

I think what he's arguing at the very end is this: The "soul" of sex is that union of two persons, the "body" is the physical act of reproduction (or the simultaneous use of the reproductive organs--yes, they're physical organs. But the world of the flesh (as in, sarx) tries to divorce the union of the reproductive organs--which normally leads to reproduction--from the union of the whole persons. They try to have the soul of sex without the body.

And it's all Descartes fault?

No. But he sure did help the whole durned thing to collapse.

It ain't poetry, but it's close.

Regarding the outright disdain layered upon parents of large families, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach tells it like it is.

“Why are people impressed that Jay Leno owns 20 motorcycles, but disgusted that some religious families choose to have 10 children?

Let’s not finesse the response. We all know why. A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings who are innocent. A world that has become selfish has soured to the idea of leading a life of selflessness. A world that has become grossly materialistic is turned off to the idea of more dependents who consume resources. And a world that mistakenly believes that freedom means a lack of responsibility is opposed to the idea of needy creatures who ‘tie you down...’

By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free."

Amen to that.

Let it all hang out!

Head on over to Catholic Exchange today for my article (post?) on abstinence in marriage. This is a sort of combination of my two previous posts here and here, with some added twists thanks to y'all's profound commentary.

Abstinence and marriage, Part II: Bueno!

I've read some exquisitely thoughtful and transparent comments from yesterday's post, Abstinence and marriage: ¿Que pasa? The only worthy response would be to continue with a few more thoughts.

Jen wrote that she finds an inherent difference between priestly (or monastic) celibacy and periodic (or permanent) abstinence in marriage. I think she's right on this: Celibates (priests and religious) have freely vowed not only to live a life without sexual intercourse but also detached from the particular, one-on-one friendship that the marriage vows demand. Very few men and women get married expecting years and years of sexual abstinence. One anonymous commentator wrote that "the single person and the religious are both called to live chastity for many years. What makes it possible for them is fidelity to the spiritual life and the life of prayer. What is four weeks in comparison?

My response would be that four weeks living in the same, close quarters after years of a shared bed, shared sleeplessness, shared affection, and shared tears can make the shift from "sexual active married couple" to "sexless married couple" very different from life in a cell or large, lonely rectory. I'm not denigrating either sacrifice, I just think it might seem callous to compare (much like comparing the struggle of an infertile couple to my struggle).

The same anonymous commentator makes, however, an excellent point about the nature of human life: The great equalizer for all vocations and states of life is the call to sacrificial love. It's a difficult teaching, but, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Anonymous: "My recommendations to you aren't rocket science— daily Mass, weekly confession, weekly adoration, weekly fasting. Fasting, in particular is key to taming one's desire to engage in the marital act. I know that this sacrifice isn't easy— but it's part of what the marital vocation calls on you to do— but in a marriage— every step of the way is paved by sacrifice..."

April puts a positive slant on it: "God is making us into saints and THAT is beautiful. That is life-giving." She's put her finger on a truth we hold dear: All suffering can give life. It is all able to bear fruit.

I was listening to Abbot Tryphon this afternoon. He said, "When we are free, there are no battles. Life is a constant battle with the material world." As we battle in our desire to have it all--sex, health, avoid pregnancy, achieve pregnancy, Brownie Sundaes, a slim figure, plenty of sleep, completion of all projects--we inevitably feel the pull of the "flesh" (as in, the things that are transitory) to compromise. "If I just used a Pill, I could have sex and avoid pregnancy." "If I just made myself throw it all back up, I could eat Brownie Sundaes and be slim!" The killer argument comes from the psychologist: "You will go crazy if you don't have it all!"

But new life is not born of these compromises. It is born of becoming free of the desire to compromise. I think anonymous #2 gives good suggestions for training our souls and bodies to become free: fasting, prayer, the sacraments. It is only if we live in the very life of Christ himself that we can be free as he is free.

The Abbot also said that--as he was feeling miserable one day in all his accumulated wealth--he realized suddenly that this life was given him only as a time to prepare for eternity. The married life is only a sign of that real life: eternal consummation of our union with God. It is a means, not an end, to bring us to our true end.

In a sacramental and faithful marriage, abstinence is going to happen. For various reasons--voluntarily or involuntarily--we cannot always come together physically. Another friend pointed out to me the many examples of saints and blesseds who have chosen abstinence within their marriages either permanently or for a short period of time. We can join secular culture and psychoanalyze these men and women to pieces, or blame the Church for bashing sex in honoring them, or we can assume the best: They were seeking freedom, total freedom for the things of God. Their joy and final victory doesn't denigrate large families or sexually active marriages: It uplifts "those who are bowed down" under a battle they did not originally anticipate.

I am grateful for your company and witness.

Image Source: Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini