Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

This was John Paul the Great’s take on what the sexual revolution has brought us to in terms of what we think about children. In his 1985 letter to youth he writes: 

Today, the principles of Christian morality concerning marriage are in many circles being presented in a distorted way. Attempts are being made to impose on environments and even entire societies a model that calls itself “progressive” and “modern”. It then goes unnoticed that this model transforms a human being and perhaps especially a woman from a subject into an object (an object of specific manipulation), and the whole great content of love is reduced to “pleasure”, which, even though it involved both parties, would still be selfish in its essence. Finally the child, who is the fruit and the fresh incarnation of the love between the two, becomes ever more “an annoying addition”. The materialistic and consumeristic civilization is penetrating this whole wonderful complex of conjugal and paternal and maternal love, and stripping it of that profoundly human content which from the beginning was also permeated by a divine mark and reflection (Dilecti amici, 10).

When pleasure becomes the end of sexual intercourse, the other person involved becomes an object. The act becomes spiritually (and often physically) sterile. There is no total gift of self and the resulting selfish orientation leaves no openness for the fruitful expression of this love…a child. Sex has been package and marketed for our consumer culture and this has cheapened and distorted its meaning well beyond what had been possible prior to today means of worldwide communications. Oftentimes, even when having a child is pursued, it is for purposes of self-fulfillment rather than self-giving. This is not love. The beauty of love is only found in a love that makes clear demands on people. John Paul tells the youth where they can find these demands articulated—in the teachings of the Church. However, the results of acceding to these demands is true love, a love in which a child is viewed not as an annoying addition, but as a gift.