Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Up to this point we have said that the structure of all creation reflects its Source–the Trinitarian God. More to the point, the cosmos is structured in accordance with the cosmic principles of masculinity and femininity. These principles have their origin in Trinitarian love. As such, human sex differences must be understood in terms of these cosmic principles. Thus, there is one human nature that is comprised of two binary terms, man and woman. We showed that one’s sex affects almost everything about him. In fact, the psycho-physical evidence from the sciences corresponds to the understanding that sex differences go to the very depths of the human person, in part, constituting their personal identity.

John Paul the Great, in his theology of the body, explains that the body reveals the person. The body shows that there are two, and only two, ways of being a human person–as a male and female. These two ways complement each other and reach all the way to the dimensions of self-consciousness and self-determination.

Karol Wojtyla, in his book Love and Responsibility, notes that looking at sex from an external, scientific perspective one can see that each sex obviously has features the other does not. The anatomical features themselves suggest a mutual complementarity. In addition, sexual attraction, which is also an urge to mutual completion, shows that the opposite sex has a reciprocal value for the other. However, this complementarity goes much deeper than biology.

Wojtyla goes on to give an example by performing a phenomenological analysis of the complementarity found in the makeup of the human psyche:

The very structure of the male psyche and personality is such that it is more readily œcompelled to disclose and objectivize the hidden significance of love for a person of the other sex. This goes with the relatively more active role of the male in such love, and also imposes a responsibility on him. Whereas in the woman sensuality is as it were covert, and concealed by sentimentality. For this reason she is by nature more inclined to go on seeing as a manifestation of affection what a man already clearly realizes to be the effect of sensuality and the desire for enjoyment. There exists then, as we see, a certain psychological divergence between man and woman in the manner of their participation in love. The woman appears more passive, although in a different way she is more active. In any case, her role and her responsibility will be different from the role and responsibility of the male (Love and Responsibility, 111-12)

This analysis shows the differences between the way men and women experience and manifest love, but in their very differences, they complement one another. Wojtyla makes a significant point that both the man and woman are complementarily active, but in different modes such that one’s activeness complements the other. Their roles and responsibilities must differ or they would naturally conflict. Another example of this is that:

The sexual urge expresses itself in these life processes in such a way that the organism possessing male properties “requires” an organism possessing female characteristics, in conjunction with which it can attain its proper end “that end in which the sexual vitality of the body finds its natural consummation. For the sexual life process is naturally directed towards procreation, and the other sex serves this end. This orientation is not in itself a consumer orientation” nature does not have enjoyment for its own sake as its aim. It is, then, simply a natural orientation in which an objective requirement of existence finds expression (ibid., 106-07).

While the complementary relationship of love transcends procreation, intimate interpersonal love derives its very structure from procreative anthropology. One cannot ignore this truth of complementarity without exacting a physical and psychological price.

Woman and man are two complementary ways of being human and at the same time, two ways of being conscious of the meaning of the body. This complementarity is an important aspect of the man-woman relationship, a relationship, remember, which has its origins in the Trinity.

John Paul finds that these psycho-physical findings are supported by the biblical witness. In the biblical formulation of Genesis 2:23, the woman in her femininity and the man in his masculinity discover themselves in the presence of one another. The subsequent verse shows that this gift of sex difference allows them to become “one flesh” through their bodies. In marriage, they become a communio personarum (community of persons), in the image of the Trinitarian Communio Personarum, through the body. The marital communio is a reflection of the Trinitarian Communio, in whose image man “male and female” is made. The spouses most intimately and completely express this communio in marital intercourse which is open to fruitfulness.

John Paul indicates this when he says that “the unity of which Genesis 2:24 speaks “they become one flesh” is undoubtedly expressed and realized in the conjugal act. The biblical formulation, extremely concise and simple, indicates sex, femininity and masculinity, as that characteristic of man “male and female” which permits them, when they become “one flesh,” to submit their whole humanity to the blessing of fertility.” Again, this complementarity in the witness of the bodies is brought home:

The body which expresses femininity [through masculinity and vice versa masculinity through femininity,] manifests the reciprocity and communion of persons. It expresses it by means of the gift as the fundamental characteristic of personal existence. This is the body, a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and so a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs. Masculinity and femininity namely, sex is the original sign of a creative donation and an awareness on the part of man, male-female, of a gift lived in an original way. Such is the meaning with which sex enters the theology of the body (John Paul II, Theology of the Body, 61-62 [January 9, 1980], the bracketed text above is missing from the English translation, so I have included a translation from the original Italian).

The meaning of the body in marriage reveals an even greater meaning of sex differences for the person. It is a witness of one person’s relation to another and the call to a sincere relationship based on a gift of the self, as a communion of persons imaging the Trinitarian Communio Personarum. Trinitarian Communion, as source and goal for man, has its most perfect corporeal witness through sex in marriage. The body, through its sex differences, becomes the substrate by which the husband and wife form their irrevocable communion. John Paul repeatedly makes it clear that it is the complementarity of the unique masculine and feminine anatomy which reveals sex’s deepest meaning. This view that the body, in both its structure and its actions, can reveal the deepest meaning of gender and its complementarity, is coherent only when one keeps in mind the Pope’s presupposition that the soul is the substantial form of the body.

John Paul II refers to the relationship among femininity, receptivity and love in a text I quoted earlier: “The Bride is loved: it is she who receives love, in order to love in return.”  He states that this phrase has meaning that extends beyond marital spousal relationships. It has a universal meaning that applies to every woman in her relations with all other men and women, regardless of her race, nationality, creed, culture, age, education, spiritual or physical state, marital state, etc. This is because it has to do with her very femininity, which one can now begin to see is deeply rooted in the person’s being. In the context of Ephesians 5, he associates the feminine primacy in the receptivity of love with what he calls “a special kind of ‘prophetism’ that belongs to women in their femininity.”  An analogous statement can be made about men. In other words, masculine primacy in an initiating love also marks his relationships with everyone else as his masculinity is rooted in the depths of his being.

In the end, it is the very complementarity of sex differences that establish the framework for interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, it is the telos, the purpose, of these sex differences which define the sole context for the most intimate communion of persons; namely, fruitful self-giving love. The series will end with the application of these findings to the problem of same-sex attraction.

Sex and the Human Person: Part V - Consummation

Researchers from a nationwide study showing “gay” men and “lesbians” experience high rates of depression, suicidal thoughts and verbal abuse have blamed the problem on a “hostile” society and called for law reform and public education to deal with the issue. The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society surveyed about 5,500 LGBT Australians aged between 16 and 92 – one of the largest studies of this kind.

Very interesting that the only cause of mental health problems of the study group that was identified and discussed is assumed to be an external factor. Unlike credible studies which assume the burden of truth, this one appears to be designed with a predetermined outcome already in mind? It would be nice to know some patient characteristics, such as a history of childhood abuse, a family history of depression, single parent household, etc…

In order to draw a conclusion from a study, shouldn’t there be some type of randomization or a control group of non-”homosexual” participants, who have had similar social histories and experiences? At best, this “study” should be considered an analysis, used to identify a problem or correlation between mental illness and those with same sex attraction, but in no way can it be considered useful in determining a definitive cause/effect relationship. If there is a sincere desire to help people with same sex attraction who have a mental illness, then crappy “studies” like these need to be designed with the search for truth as an end point, not to produce tools to be used to advance a social/political agenda. There are real people who are hurting, and I wish they would be treated as real people (not social/ political tools) by the people who claim to care for them.

To illustrate that this “study” raises more questions than it answers: “the situation (depression, suidiciality) improves as gay men and lesbian grow older, according to the study. Participants over 45 reported much lower rates of depression than their younger counterparts. They also felt more secure about their sexuality.” Based on this trend, should we assume that society has become more intolerant? How different is the acceptance of homosexual behavior today, compared to 20 - 30 years ago?

If a perceived presecution by society is the common stressor, what has caused this change in the older subjects? I wonder what “the numbers” are on minorities who have gone under more intense perseclution, including death? People are people, and there will always be some level bigotry and hatred in our world, so maybe to identify the source of the real problem could also be of benefit of offering a real solution, and that is focus on the individual with the mental/emotional disorder.

For the sake of arguement, we will assume that society has been constant (in reality, society has shown to be more accepting of the homosexual lifestyle), while the subjects behaviors (according to age) has changed, how can this be? I agree that society may have an impact on the individual level, but to say it is the SOURCE of the problem has no merit, what so ever.

Source

The portrayal of complete female sexual liberation in television shows such as Sex and the City could be a myth, according to research suggesting that many women regard one-night stands and casual sex as wrong. The idea that women might seek to have a one-off sexual encounter purely in the pursuit of pleasure is simply not believed by most women, who regard others who have one-night stands as desperate, pitiful or extremely needy.

“The findings, presented at the British Psychological Society annual conference in Cardiff, show that while women did not condemn others who had casual sex, 90 per cent believed them to be wrong. Many believed that women couldn’t have sex for their own pleasure outside of a committed relationship.”

“They argued that women who have casual sex or one-night stands do it not because they are sexually liberalized, but because they have ‘lost control’ or because there is ‘something lacking’ in their lives. They pitied these women and they saw it as deviant behaviour”.

 

Source

Thomas has an excellent post about the debate of some years ago in which Janet Smith quashed Fr. Charlie Curran in Dallas over the issue of contraception.  He includes the audio of the debate and an article covering the debate, from a (not very) Catholic newspaper which I will not name.

Curran is clearly out matched in articulate presentation as well as logical argumentation.  I won’t summarize the debates or arguments here; I will let you help use up the rest of Thomas’ bandwidth for the month as you listen to it.  Rather, I would like to mention one of Curran’s arguments using the terms he has coined: “physicalism” or “biologism.”

Here what he means as far as contraception is concerned, is that in looking at the telos of the sexual act, he claims the Church reduces the acts moral character to the physical aspects of act itself.  Fr. Benedict Ashley addresses Curran on this point.

Fr. Ashley finds that Curran calls it the “fallacy” of Thomists in trying to ascertain the morality of human acts by determining the teleology of various bodily parts.  Curran claims that this approach succumbs to the Stoic reduction of human morality to the teleology of animal instincts.  Ashley agrees with Curran that one must reject the Stoic reduction but argues that Curran’s complete separation of human morality from the teleology of the human body falls into Platonic dualism (Cf. Benedict Ashley, Theologies of the Body: Humanist and Christian [Braintree, MA: The Pope John Center, 1985/1995], 369-70).

Platonic dualism or, perhaps, Cartesian dualism but dualism nonetheless.  It is the separation of the person from his body.  It is a materialist presupposition that seems to think that the body and the material world have little to do with the physical world.  If Fr. Charile has paid attention during his philosophy courses he would not fall into this Cartesianism.  He would recognize that the soul is the substantial form of the body, likewise the body expresses the soul.  Thus, the telos of sexuality express something about the soul, in fact, about the entire person.

Curran’s reductionism also fails to recognize the ontological nature of acts for the person.  In other words, a human act (or an act of volition) has a perduring effect on the person for the better or worse.  In a certain sense, the act resides in the soul and becomes part of the person.  Pardoxically, Curran thinks that he is trying to maintain the totality of the good of the marriage by allowing contraception within marriage.  However, he refuses to see that he fragments the human person and isolates him from his actions in the process.

We have posted on Fr. Charlie here previously.  His arrogance is well attested to and it is no small arrogance for someone who has sworn an oath of obedience to teach the gospel under the authority of the Magisterium, to think that he has it right and the Church is wrong.  Curran justifies himself because he finds a few issues like slavery and religious freedom, which can easily be reconciled as development of doctrine, which he thinks show that the Church can be wrong and so they warrant his disobedient arrogance.  Pray for Fr. Charlie that his heart may be softened, that he repent of his sins, and that he spend the rest of the time he has left on this earth trying to repair the great damage he has done to Christ’s Church.

Go over a listen to Dr. Smith expose Fr. Curran’s faulty thinking.

“…in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27)

John Paul the Great sees in this passage the unity of human beings in one nature–God created him (singular) in the image of God. But immediately the text shows that there is a binary character to this single human nature, as male and female. In terms of relation, human nature is binary. That is, we also image God as male and female together.

In his apostolic letter Christifideles laici, the John Paul the Great links sex differences to God’s plan for each person which “‘from the beginning’ has been indelibly imprinted in the very being of the human person—men and women—and, therefore, in the make-up, meaning and deepest workings of the individual.” While the full meaning of sex difference is deeply interior in the psychology, emotions, indeed in the entire mystery of the person, it also has empirical manifestations. Therefore, John Paul commends the study of the human person and gender to the human sciences and theological disciplines to find and clarify the specific gifts of femininity and masculinity. However, he warns that the findings of science will be partial and so they cannot change the deepest and immutable realities of the person and his sex which are revealed by God.

Fr. Manfred Hauke in his work, Women in the Priesthood?, shows that masculine and feminine physical characteristics are integrated into almost all aspects of a man’s or woman’s physical constitution, respectively. The primary sexual characteristics of men and women (i.e. the genitalia and other aspects of the reproductive system) are obviously oriented toward facilitating sexual intercourse for the purpose of reproduction and in the case of a women, gestating and giving birth. It is also visibly obvious that these primary characteristics correspond to a theme of interiority for women and exteriority for men.

Referencing German author Philipp Lersch, Hauke says that looking at the physiology of the act of coitus, the woman has the natural role of receiving and assimilating which Lersch calls a ‘centripetal’ process. In other words, her physiology directs what comes to her from the “outside inward toward the center of life.” The man on the other hand, has a ‘centrifugal’ function in which he directs “from the center of life outward.” This can be viewed from what he calls the primary sex characteristics.

Hauke goes on to show how secondary sex characteristics, such as skeletal structure, musculature, adipose tissue distribution, epidermal texture, etc. are all organically integrated in accord with these primary sex characteristics. Masculine secondary sex characteristics all serve to facilitate the male’s “reaching out into the world and of overcoming and conquering space.” Female sex characteristics converge in a way in which the woman is more strongly directed toward the inside. Hauke finds that there is a psycho-somatic integration of these functions which is not limited to physiology.

Hauke studies body dynamics, psychological development, differences in experiencing the world—including religious experience, and differing world visions. He calls ‘summary forms’, the terms which generally describe the differences between men and women. These are ‘centrality’ for women and ‘eccentricity’ for men. In every aspect of the human person, secondary sex characteristics are present. These characteristics can be described in terms of centrality and eccentricity. However, like JPTG, Balthasar, and Kreeft, Hauke says that these are dominant modes for each sex. Masculinity and femininity have the features of the opposite sex but they function in a secondary manner.

Even brain studies show an early and marked difference between masculine and feminine brain structure. Stephen Rhoads in his book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously, reports:

Brain research also reveals inherent sex differences. For example, neuroscientists have determined that men have fewer neurons connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This difference may help to explain why women are better at talking about their emotions. (The left brain controls the talking; the right brain controls the emotions.) More important than physical differences between the male and female brains are differences in the way the sexes use their brains and in the effect of their brains’ hormones. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans show that women seem to use more neurons for almost every activity tested. The typical woman’s brain seems to be “networked,” the typical man’s compartmentalized. The woman’s way seems to be better for many verbal tasks and for recovery from strokes, the man’s for spatial tasks (pp. 27-28).

Theological anthropology tells us that our sexual identity is given to us as a gift and is immutable, as either male or female. We are created this way, it comes through no choice of our own. The sciences offer confirmation, to the extent they are competent, that this Christian anthropology is sound. While the sex characteristics serve a telos, a purpose, they do it in such a way that the masculine primary and secondary characteristics are eccentric, he initiates and goes outward. Feminine primary and secondary are integrating and interior. In the context of the previous post, you can already see how this will come together. The next time we will look at the way in which men and women are not just different, but different in a unifying manner. We will discuss complementarity.

Sex and the Human Person: Part IV - Complementarity

”The Rape of the Soul” is a fear-mongering, small-minded, and pathetically smutty polemic about art and the Roman Catholic Church. Presented as a documentary by filmmaker and self-described devout Catholic Michael A. Calace, the film seeks to discredit ”predatory artists” from da Vinci and Botticelli to anonymous designers of contemporary greeting cards.” 

“Calace’s mission: To reveal all the satanic faces, genitalia, spellings of the word sex, and other evidence of evil lurking in painted clouds, shadows, and designs in art related to the Catholic Church. Freud had an eye out for phallic symbols, but he would have had nothing on Calace. He could find an orgy in a bowl of oatmeal.” (more)

The Catholic Diocese of Providence is refusing a “gay” Rhode Island resident’s request to place the word “husband” on his “late spouse’s” mausoleum plaque at a church cemetery. He informed the cemetery people that if they did not accept his word choice, he would contact Rhode Island’s NBC 10 News. A field reporter later interviewed the man at the cemetery and the station aired a report on its evening news programs. He also contacted Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the Boston-based GLBT legal advocacy group. I do really feel for this grieving man. He just doesn’t understand that truth is not changed by words on a grave site, and the Catholic church cannot mislead or change truth based on individual desires or suffering.  (more)

New rules that are forcing UK Catholic retreat centers to accommodate militant gays or even satanists have been met with opposition. A director of a Jesuit run Loyola Hall, said he would rather go to court than let a black mass be celebrated on the premises by a guest. Other Christian bed and breakfast establishments have also promised to ignore the legislation which they say conflicts with their Biblical beliefs. Under the new legislation, providers of services to the public cannot refuse to deal with individuals or groups because of their religion or sexual orientation, but Christian groups are demanding an exemption. (More)

 

MUSLIMS in Albania’s northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican.

“We do not want this statue to be erected in a public place, because we see her as a religious figure,” said Bashkim Bajraktari, Shkoder’s mufti, a Muslim religious leader. Shkoder’s Muslims recently protested against crosses being erected on prominent hilltops around the city.

(SOURCE)

By analogy we can use this phrase if we understand that human sex differences arise from universal cosmic principles of masculinity and femininity. However, we are not talking about gendered biology here.

I have mentioned before that Peter Kreeft has an excellent article on sexual symbolism that articulates how all of creation is ordered according to the cosmic principles of masculinity and femininity. This is due to the fact that creation is an overflowing of Trinitarian love. Hans Urs von Balthasar provides a very explicit discussion of this in Vol 4 of his Theodrama. John Paul the Great’s theology, though it does not directly address this theme, is quite compatible with Balthasar’s on the point. This discussion will integrate insights from these three thinkers.

God is a Trinitarian Family of Three Persons Who are unified in such a manner that all Three fully possess the one and only divine nature. These Persons are described by the Eternal Processions which John Paul characterizes as the total gift of Self of one divine Person to the Others. The Father’s total gift of Himself to the Son and the Son’s reciprocation of this gift are fruitful. This mutual Love is a Person–the Holy Spirit. Being the Source of everything that exists, this total self-giving establishes the framework for creation and so it is the interpretive key for understanding creation and most especially the human person who is created in the image of this Self-giving God.

Von Balthasar teaches that the eternal Trinitarian Processions have analogical expression in human sexual differences:

. . . the divine unity of action and consent . . . is expressed in the world in the duality of the sexes. In trinitarian terms, of course, the Father, who begets [the Son and] who is without origin, appears primarily as (super-) masculine; the Son, in consenting, appears initially as (super-) feminine, but in the act (together with the Father) of breathing forth the Spirit, he is (super-) masculine. As for the Spirit, he is (super-) feminine. There is even something (super-) feminine about the Father too, since . . . in the action of begetting and breathing forth he allows himself to be determined by the Persons who thus proceed from him; however, this does not affect his primacy in the order of the Trinity. The very fact of the Trinity forbids us to project any secular sexuality into the Godhead (as happens in many religions and in the Gnostic syzygia). It must be enough for us to regard the ever-new reciprocity of acting and consenting, which in turn is a form of activity and fruitfulness, as the transcendent origin of what we see realized in the world of creation: the form and actualization of love and its fruitfulness in sexuality (Theodrama: Theological Dramatic Theory, Vol V. The Last Act, trans. Graham Harrison [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998], 91).

Balthasar anchors masculinity and femininity in different modes of ‘act’. For Balthasar, the primary male mode is an initiating act of love. The woman’s primary mode is a receptive act of love. The woman secondarily then returns this love and the man secondarily receives it. Human souls, which are substantial forms of the body, have all that is necessary to human nature. They simply possess it differently. This reading of Balthasar is quite consonant with John Paul II’s morphology of the communio personarum-gift in his theology of the body catecheses, and which he succinctly summarizes in Mulieris dignitatem (MD): “When the author of the Letter to the Ephesians calls Christ ‘the Bridegroom’ and the Church ‘the Bride’, he indirectly confirms through this analogy the truth about woman as bride. The Bridegroom is the one who loves. The Bride is loved: it is she who receives love, in order to love in return” (MD, 29).

As you can see, this relation of love–an initiating love that we refer to as masculine and a receptive, reciprocating love which we call feminine, overflows into Creation. God relates to His creation according to the masculine principle of love. Creation responds to God according to the feminine principle of love. But within creation, the principle of masculine and feminine relation is also found. Kreeft describes it this way:

…we must distinguish “male” from “masculine.” Male and female are biological genders. Masculine and feminine, or yang and yin, are universal, cosmic principles, extending to all reality, including spirit.

All pre-modern civilizations knew this. English is almost the only language that does not have masculine and feminine nouns. So it is easy for us who speak English to believe that the ancients merely projected their own biological gender out onto nature in calling heaven masculine and earth feminine, day masculine and night feminine, sun masculine and moon feminine, land masculine and sea feminine. In the Hindu marriage ceremony the bridegroom says to the bride, “I am heaven, you are earth.” The bride replies, “I am earth, you are heaven.” Not only is cosmic sexuality universal, its patterns are suspiciously consistent. Most cultures saw the sun, day, land, light, and sky as male; moon, night, sea, darkness, and earth as female. Is it not incredibly provincial and culturally arrogant for us to assume, without a shred of proof, that this universal and fairly consistent human instinct is mere projection, myth, fantasy, and illusion rather than insight into a cosmic principle that is really there?

Once we look, we find abundant analogical evidence for it from the bottom of the cosmic hierarchy to the top, from the electromagnetic attraction between electrons and protons to the circumincession of divine Persons in the Trinity. Male and female are only the biological version of cosmic masculine and feminine. God is masculine to everything, from angels to prime matter.

Thus, we have a cosmic structure of complementary relations with binary terms. The first term, masculinity, is an initiating total-gift of self and the second, femininity, is a receptive and reciprocating total self-gift. This is the cosmic structure of creation because it is the structure of Trinitarian love. The next installment will discuss human sex differences based upon this.

Sex and the Human Person:  Part III - Sex Differences

According to the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, a Christian anti-pornography group, 50 universities around the United States offer classes in which students study pornography.

Cornell University - A course, called “Desire”, screens the porn movies Deep Throat and Paris Hilton’s homemade sex tape. Pornography is never discussed in the “abstract”, “and it works very well with Plato on the syllabus.” English department paid for professor’s copies of Deep Throat.

Wesleyan University in Connecticut - produce their own pornographic movies, which include writing erotic fiction and videotaping themselves.

University of California in Santa Barbara - Professor - “I wanted a pro-sex, anti-censorship form of feminism to circulate.” She is proud of what she sees as the progress many of her female students have made. “Back in ‘93, the women in the class hadn’t seen much porn.”

If you do “it”, it’s called sexuality, if you tell someone to do “it”, it’s meant to offend and anger.

(Source)

The Tomfoolery of a Seminarian played a role in  National Outdoor Intercourse Week! (he’s the one with the hat).

Iranian bloggers have been harrassed and threatened by their own government,  many have been arrested for their views, and some have fled the country in fear of prosecution. In the conservative Islamic Republic, the government has controls the newspapers and the airwaves, weblogs are one of the last chances for the freedom of expression. For many, this is the only place where  people can write and openly read about everything from sex to the nuclear controversy. I wonder what happened to this author/blooger?

The Iranian government has developed one of the most extensive and sophisticated networks to censor and filter the Internet content of any country in the world. The debates on Iranian weblogs are rarely political. The most common issues are cultural, social and sexual. Blogs offer a place to chat and share ideas in a society where young men and women cannot openly date, including women’s issues, art and photography. Arash Sigarchi, an Iranian journalist and blogger, was arrested and charged with insulting the country’s leader, collaborating with the enemy, writing propaganda against the Islamic state and encouraging people to jeopardize national security. He had been in jail for 60 days when he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He appealed, and was released on bail. Although his sentence has been reduced to three years, he still faces charges of insulting the leader and writing propaganda.

Despite the crackdown, most Iranian bloggers say the government is not interested in eliminating blogging. Instead, they believe authorities want to use blogging to further their own goals and agendas.  

(source)

There is many a confusion about the human person in our world today. One of the most serious manifestations of this confusion is with respect to sex and human personhood. We have become conditioned to think that sexual identity is defined by our feelings such that it has become radically severed, in our minds, from human nature. The moral approach to sexual intercourse is too often viewed in terms of libidinism; that is, as long as everyone is enjoying themselves–it must be o.k. Again, this separates the act from its foundation in human nature. Over the last thirty years the cultural treatment of sexual intercourse has been so divorced from its proper context in marriage between one man and one woman, that in our minds the very idea that sexual intercourse should be limited to marriage has come to be seen as quaint.

Our society desperately needs to recover the recognition that human nature, as it is visible in the sexed body, defines our sexual identity and in part, constitutes us as persons. John Paul the Great understood that ideas have consequences and in no place is the danger of false ideas greater than in that of understanding who and what we are. That is why he spent so much time studying and teaching on the truth of the human person. His theology of the body is an innovative attempt to providing a compelling arguments for explaining who and what we are. I will use this approach as the foundation for addressing sex differences in a topic we have had occasion to discuss here lately–that of the problem of same sex attraction.

In all of these discussions, in fact in almost every discussion I see, the unsupported presupposition of those who say that their sexual identity is “gay” is that being “gay” is part of who they are. The response to the statements that ’same sex attraction is a disorder’ is never an argument for why it is clearly a part of human nature (I suppose because there is none). Rather, the responses include the accusations of bigotry, “homophobia” (I’ve never figured this out, is that the fear of sameness or the fear of human beings???), hate speech, fear baiting, and many other attempts to change the subject.

Now if I were to call homosexual pedophilia an affective disorder and an activist from NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) accused me of bigotry most people would see that this was clearly an attempt to change the subject from a discussion of the issue at hand. However, in part, because the MSM has conditioned us to think of SSA as an alternative life style it is not so clear that the same logical fallacy is at play in discussing the “gay” issue.

Over the next week or so, I plan (notice the qualifier) to dedicate a series of articles to showing, using theology and natural law, why SSA is clearly a disorder. I will also show the root reasons that we cannot arbitrarily redefine who we are as human persons and what happens when we try. Many who are personally affected by SSA might see this as a personal attack. It is not. In fact, the very reason for this series is to show why calling SSA a disorder cannot be viewed as a personal attack any more than is saying cancer, or a closer parallel perhaps, alcoholism is a disorder. Let me know what you think…

Sex and the Human Person:  Part II - Sex in Creation?

Irish Senator David Norris, the first openly homosexual politician elected in Ireland, has replayed the Nazi card, and compared Pope Benedict XVI to Hitler for the Catholic Church’s stand against homosexuality.  Speaking of the Pope, Norris said he would refuse to take “moral instructions from a man with a swastika on his arms.”  His intellectual capabilities of arguing a point is inspirational, isn’t it? I like the histrionic tone used so eloquently with the swastika classic!

Doesn’t the senator have better things to do than to perseverate on the pope? What is it man, why are you so bitter?  Probably, because the Senator is an actively anti-Catholic, ”gay”,  and according to some reports has been identified as taking part in the controversial anti-Catholic Orange marches, refused to back down from his comments.  He said that the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality are “in line with the prejudices that included Hitler and Himmler”. 

I often wonder,  why are so many non-catholics in the world obsessed with the Catholic church? What is this force that tries to bring Her to Her knees by any means possible? Of course, that has been the objective by so many for over 2,000 years, as She stills stands in all of Her glory!!  I think there is something to be said for an institution that has been consistent in It’s teaching on morality for over 2,000, and I am confident that senator Norris, nor is anybody else for that matter,  up to the task of bringing down The Church, nor will they ever be.

Well, our little post of a couple of weeks ago has been making the rounds in the blog-o-sphere. Amélie picked it up first and then Fr. Neuhaus blogged on it, and then we experienced a flurry of visits from folks who have given us awards of tin foil hats to those who have promised us there is a special place in hell reserved for us.

Now, the infamous erstwhile Catholic, currently anti-Catholic bigot, Andrew Sullivan has deigned to toss a rather meager epithet our way, calling us a far-right Catholic website. Tell the rad-trads that. I suspect that many consider us only a little bit better than Andrew himself. After Sullivan’s post smaller blogs began to pile on, whose purveyors advertise themselves as suffering from and embracing the temptations arising from same-sex attraction disorder .

Of course we do not have top billing in the Sullivan post, rather we play a bit part to the ire he fumes at Fr. Neuhaus. I do believe that this is the first time I have read any of Sullivan’s writing. I understand that he is not unintelligent; however, I also realize that flaming emotions can undermine one’s intellectual capacities. I think that may have happened here. My first impression in reading his attack on Fr. Neuhaus was an old maxim my mom taught us as kids, “now if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.”

He complains:

Neuhaus is a highly intelligent person. He knows that his slurs against gay parents cannot be substantiated, which is why he tosses these claims out there to see if they can stick.

However, Sullivan then does exactly that of which he accuses Fr. Neuhaus. Sullivan attempts to dismiss the arguments by undermining the credibility of a “far-right Catholic website” that uses a review done by “Pat Robertson’s ‘Regent University’” which analyzed a study done by Dr. Paul Cameron. Hmmm, I wonder how he knows we are “far-right.” You might have noticed that we have absolutely no political postings here by design. I suppose he falls into the trap of misapplying 18th century political constructs as euphemisms for whether or not one follows his personal desires or the Truth of Christ as taught by His Church (see here for some further thoughts on this). I suppose the ad hominem approach is quite conveneint for those who wish to be able to dismiss someone as having no credibility rather than having to deal with his arguments.

Cameron is someone very familiar to the “gay” lobby. They have done much to try to smear his reputation (does anyone see a pattern here?). I have seen the ad hominem together with the substantive criticisms and I am reserving judgment at this point. However, Sullivan tries to portray all of Fr. Neuhaus’s argument as being based upon the Cameron-Cameron study. Sullivan was not as careful as was Fr. Neuhaus. Fr. Neuhaus actually said:

The claim that 50 or 60 percent of children reared by male homosexuals turn out to be homosexual or bisexual doesn’t cut any ice in some quarters. So what’s wrong with being homosexual or bisexual?

Notice here, that Fr. Neuhaus couches his comment in terms of a “claim”. He recognizes that the Regent’s scientists have said that while the Cameron-Cameron methodoogy was sound, the sample size was small so the data is “suggestive.” Fr. Neuhaus’s comment then incorporates the statement attributed to the American Psychiatric Association’s star research advisor, Charlotte J. Patterson quoted later on in my earlier post:

…Patterson acknowledged in a newspaper interview that her paper didn’t address one of the questions most often asked about lesbian families: do their children turn out to be homosexual? She and others who promote lesbian families have always indicated that such a question is irrelevant because it doesn’t matter, since homosexuality, in their view, is simply a variant of normal sexuality. Such questions are dismissed as “homophobic.”

In other words, regardless of the concerns, investigating the sexual identity of the chidren raised by SSA couples is not an issue the APA’s star expert on SSA child rearing wants to discuss. Regardless of the numbers, however, Fr. Neuhaus makes an important point. There is a claim. Why not investigate it independently instead of dismissing it as ‘homophobic’? Because of an agenda?

O.k., I see where we are going with this. It’s always a conspiracy with you ‘right-wingers” isn’t it? Well, this claim comes not from us, but from a former president of the APA at one their annual conventions. Of reorientation therapy with homosexuals, Dr. Robert Perloff said:

“It is considered unethical…That’s all wrong. First, the data are not fully in yet. Second, if the client wants a change, listen to the client. Third, you’re barring research.”

“How can you do research on change if therapists involved in this work are threatened with being branded as unethical?”

You see, the question cannot even be asked. Who is being anti-science? We cannot expect to get much out of the APA if anything that shows that “gay” is not o.k., is by tyrannical fiat–unethical. Fr. Neuhaus makes another point:

And, if the incidence of sexual abuse of children in such settings is many times the norm, well, isn’t it time we reconsider the legitimacy of intergenerational love?”

If Sullivan had read the other link we provided to an earlier post, he would have had plenty more studies not associated with Cameron and Cameron, that show ephebophilia is from many times to orders of magnitude greater in men with SSA who practice homosexual sex. This is strong support for Fr. Neuhaus’ concern.

Now Sullivan turns his (water) guns on the Cameron and Cameron study. He says that the sample size is too low to make across the board generalizations. He is right. The Cameron and Cameron study itself admits this. In fact, this is where I agree with Sullivan, as does the Regents study.

Sullivan says that many of the studies suffer from small sample size and poor methodology. In fact, the Regent study shows, and the point that we making, is that there are no studies currently available that are either methodologically valid or statistically significant (only one had a statistically significant sample size but was flawed because of sampling bias) that can show there is no harm done to children raised by SSA practicing parents. Dr. Fiona Tasker, no “right-winger”, has found similarly. It is not enough to show that there is no evidence of problems; SSA couples as parents must be shown to be safe. Parenting is not a right; the safety of children is at stake.

Is there a reason to be concerned? There is. In fact, the medical and psychological disorders that plague SSA practicing folks at such a high rate (see again, It’s not so gay after all) presents a problematic environment in which we cannot in good conscience introduce children.

These problems combined with the “suggestive” concerns raised by the Cameron and Cameron study are sufficient to warrant at least the provisional conclusion that SSA parenting may be problematic. There is also plenty of anecdotal concern (for example). Unfortunately, the Regents study shows that because the rate of SSA parenting is so low and the target group so hard to reach and unbaisedly sample, that it may be cost prohibitive to do the random sampling of statistically significant sample size in order to make valid population wide generalizations. In addition, because the issue is now so politicized, I doubt even a random sample of sufficient magnitude will provide sample responses that one can be sure are truthful.

Sullivan is concerned about slander against “gay” people. This is the fundamental problem isn’t it? I suppose that it is understandable. Every time he hears that SSA is problematic he hears it as an attack against his person.

He does not want to address the arguments that show homosexuality is not an ontological state but rather an affective disorder. In the words of Hierothee: But it is clearly an affective disorder because it is an orientation of desire in conflict with one’s sexed bodiliness. When one’s emotional drive is pitted against one’s concrete, bodily condition in this way, one is psychologically malformed, if the notion of psychological health or illness is to have any meaning at all.

Well, we’ll keep trying to find ways to say so in as charitable manner as possible. Maybe someone will find it helpful, when they are ready to listen…

In Houston, as reported in the religion section of the Houston Chronicle, a fascination with Mary Magdalene is reflected in a contemplative Christian group (i.e. gnosticism) known as the Magdalen Community, women ” and a few men” gather every Sunday morning at the Rothko Chapel. They are inspired ” not by an outdated image of the repentant prostitute, but by Mary Magdalene the apostle/goddess, described by feminist scholars as “the apostle to the apostles.” It’s an image the community is trying to revive and one that has led them to a new way of thinking and worshiping God.

“In an hour-long gathering, from 12 to 50 people sit in a circle surrounded by Mark Rothko’s powerful paintings. Some weeks, they listen to ethereal music written and performed by Anita Kruse and other musicians, accompanied by a single dancer. Instead of communion, there is an intense dialogue, followed by a “peaceful silence” and readings from many different traditions. Many in the Magdalen Community say they are there because traditional churches were not meeting their spiritual needs. Others use it as a complement to their regular Sunday church services.”

What some believe:

Mary Magdalene figures almost as significantly as Christ

Her name is derived from term that means tower of the flock, or good Shepard

a vital partnership between Jesus and Mary that synthesized gender equality, anointing rites, and sexual rituals

Christ’s Apostles and, later, the Catholic Church strove ardently to suppress gnostic truth

Saint Peter was a repressive man who was also jealous of Mary Magdalene because of her relationship with Jesus.

Eventually, feminist scholars say, the gentler Magdalene Christianity lost out to the traditional Christianity of Peter and Paul.

This group doesn’t have all the rules and laws such as obedience to the 10 commandments, … there is freedom to sin….promotion of the androgynous principle…revolt against authority,…returning to “wholeness” is through the sexual act,…..the key to salvation is knowledge. So typical is it in the life of the rebellious and sexually confused. They take their cue from the one who originally coined the phrase, “I will not serve”. They dance with the devil, as they celebrate their prideful knowledge which is nothing more than a facade to conceal their insecurities and inflated ego.

Source Article

Gnostic - Gospel of Mary

Sandro Magister’s latest article focuses on a brand new Catholic church constructed in Rome, and designed by American architect Richard Meier. Magister begins his article discussing the reason for the church’s construction–it was for the 2000 Jubilee Year. He discusses its symbolism–the church is supposed to represent the bark of St. Peter with three main sails representing the Trinity and the large main sail representing God’s protection of His people. His problem is that this must be explained. In addition, the church itself is spartan in terms of images and decoration. Apparently this is quite clear to everyone as Magister describes preparations for the Holy Father’s visit today.

The same crucifix that is above the altar – a beautiful seventeenth century crucifix made of wood and pasteboard – had to be brought in from another church on the outskirts of Rome. In another corner, a blue and white statue of Mary on a plastic pedestal has been set up haphazardly. These last instances are signs of a desire to fill up an emptiness that is felt as unbearable.

I do not believe that this Catholic nod to modernity is not without its roots in the Reformation. Reformed tradition, following Calvin’s notion of total depravity and a dualistic division between body and soul, a Christian Dualism if you will, greatly influenced spartan Reformed architecture and decoration. Reformed worship services emphasize the intellectual and are generally short and spartan in terms of the liturgical. In the U.S. especially, this spartanism has affected the other Protestant traditions. I suppose this is the influence in modern secular architecture?

This dualism is an offshoot Nominalism; the outcome of a decadent Aristotelianism. It is historically linked to Nominalism by way of Cartesian scholasticism. It is logically linked to it through the Nominalists’ focus on the reality on the concrete singular. However, this Aristotelian approach went awry and ended up denying the objective status of the universal. This is the root of modern subjectivism, of the distinctively modern separation of body and soul, mind and world. The universal becomes locked in our own mental cabinet. The concrete singular is then unknowable.

Christian Dualism has been edging its way into popular thinking and Catholic architecture and liturgical decoration since midway through the 20th century in the U.S., maybe earlier in some circles. It took off after the Second Vatican Council. It is uncommon to enter a church built since the early 1960s an not seen large empty white walls and have to hunt to find a statue or even the Stations of the Cross. In our liturgical practices we have largely eliminated most of the faithful’s bodily gestures. With those few gestures remaining it is rare to see them observed (e.g. striking of the breast during the Confiteor and bowing during the Creed).

Christian Dualism can be described as the conception that the body matters little; what is truly important is the soul. The body is simply, at best, a shell that holds the soul; at worst, it is the prison from which the soul seeks to escape. This is not Christian. The human person is a unity of body and soul. One single entity. This is the way we will spend eternity after the final resurrection. The dignity and glory of the body was shown by the Incarnation.

The human person is incarnational. Except for the rare instances of infused knowledge, everything comes to us through our five senses. Our bodies reveal our souls because our souls give shape and motion to our bodies. That which we experience through more of our senses becomes more real to us, it is more integrated into our person. This is the reason the Sacraments are so powerful. It is also the reason that Catholics have always held Christian art and artistic architecture in such high esteem.

We need to shake every dualistic presupposition from our thoughts and recover an incarnational faith. This by the way is what Gen-Y is pining for. It is interesting that those of the virtual generation are the ones who are demanding the “smells and bells” be put back into worship.

We have starved ourselves and our children from a more authentic experience of liturgy for far too long. It is time we rediscover who and what we really are and return Catholic liturgical expression back to its full-throated incarnational glory.

Updated: Hierothee’s comments have been incorporated.

Yesterday morning’s Daily Mail ran a story about a UK plan that intends to have specially trained nurses in every school, primary and secondary. What is this specialty? Do you suppose maybe looking for signs of avian flu? How about preparing for the possibility of WMD attacks?. Nahhh, those are just minor irritants. What is really the concern is to have “boots on the ground” who will be able to arrange for abortions and hand out “emergency” contraception.

The Department for Education and the Department of Health must be very well funded. They don’t need more teachers or books because by 2010 they will have come up with the pounds to ensure that every high school and grammar school has at least one of these critical positions filled. Will the nurses be able to dispense aspirin or put on plasters (band-aids)?

Apparently that is not a priority. What is a priority is that they have to be trained to observe patient confidentiality. What this means is that even girls under 16 can receive abortions without their parents permission or even knowledge. Apparently they are hard at work already. Last year they handed out “morning after” pills to over 2400 girls 13 or younger!

Well honey, I guess that the government knows best… If they say it’s o.k., I suppose it must be. If that is not an argument for home schooling, try this:

Of course, we will need to provide the whole package. The nurses will also be trained to help students find their sexual identities. No word on whether the parents need be involved on this account. What do you think?

The International Lesbian and Gay Association is well known by the U.N., and has been nothing less than pesky irritant since they were suspended in 1994, only one year after gaining its ECOSOC status. It was revealed that sexual freedom included pro-pedophilia groups such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association, who had membership within the organization. ILGA attempted to regain status in 2000, and again in 2003, but were refused. This past January, a U.N. committee again rejected ILGA’s latest bid to regain ECOSOC status.

To no one’s surprise, The ILGA conference is scheduled to coincide with this year’s U.N. Commission on Human Rights session, with the aim of putting pressure on the United Nations to grant full recognition of lesbian and gay rights. Pro-family groups have warned that gay rights activists would use a non-discrimination clause in a U.N. document to bolster their claim to same-sex “marriage” and to bolster the call for hate crimes laws. Muslim and Christian groups argue that accepting “sexual orientation” could deny religious faiths the freedom to criticize the homosexual lifestyle. (more)

O.k., it doesn’t matter where you live, I will bet that you have heard this in a Lenten homily at sometime: ‘instead of giving something up for Lent, this year you should yadda yadda yadda…’ Even if the yadda yadda was a good idea, has this bothered you? I think it should. Why, might you ask? Well, I’m glad ya’ did, ’cause I was going to tell you any way.

Lent is a time for getting back to the basics of a good spiritual life, Spring training if you will (for those in the Northern Hemisphere anyway–we are keeping you in mind Venerable Aussie). As part of “training” for a mature spiritual life, the Church has always encouraged prayer, fasting and almsgiving. You see, it is not an either or proposition. We need to integrate all aspects of spring training. As an athlete, say a football player, one cannot say instead of aerobics conditioning this year, I think I will work on being more flexible. Well, I suppose he could say it, but come football season he would be sitting the bench–if he were lucky.

Fasting is an important part of spiritual development and a prerequisite for spiritual maturity. For some it is harder than others, but it should be a sacrifice. But what is it about fasting that makes it so important. There are many helpful ways of describing the benefits of fasting:

Not filling oneself up on created goods in order to leave room for the Holy Spirit

Saying no to oneself in order to say yes to God

Suffering with Christ such that we might be glorified with Him

Sacrificing what is perishable for the sake of gaining the imperishable

John Paul the Great presented it this way. He begins with the understanding that we are in a fallen state and among the results of this state is an interior disharmony between the appetites and reason. Tradition calls this concupiscence. We have a natural inclination to satisfying our appetites even at the expense of the common good. When consent to this behavior it is sin.

Nevertheless, even if we do not engage in sinful behavior there is still the fact that if we have not trained ourselves to deny our desires then we still fall short in what is required for holiness. Why is this? Well, JPTG emphasizes again and again that we only completely find ourselves, perfect ourselves, by giving ourselves away. George Weigel has coined the phrase “Law of the Gift” to describe this fundamental human truth. A disinterested gift of self is what we were made for because we were made in the image of a Trinitarian God. God Himself is a Total Self-Gift of one Person to Another (see About for more on this).

The point is this, if we are to give ourselves, totally, to another–ultimately that Other is God–then we need to be totally self-possessed. JPTG uses the term self-possession to refer to the man who is master over his will. To gain this mastery, this self-possession, one must train himself. This is simply a more dynamic (and for many compelling) manner of describing inculcating the virtue of temperance. If you want to become holy, in other words, if you want to totally give yourself to God, you must first totally possess yourself. You must be master over yourself. You must be temperate.

So go ahead and add those things the homilist may have suggested. Joyful acts of charity are excellent alms.  This is also an essential way in which we give ourselves away. Working toward a more profound prayer life during Lent is a great idea because it is also a necessary step in preparing for eternal life.  A deep prayer life leads us to a total self-surrender to and communion with God.  But don’t let our fragmented way of thinking lead to the misconception that one can choose just one of these. 

Lent shouldn’t be thought of as a diet in which we temporarily deprive ourselves only to toss the practices aside come Easter Sunday.  It is an opportunity to reassert and recommit ourselves to a life of constant response to the universal call to holiness.  It is training in holiness and anyone who has trained for something knows that there is no stasis.  If one does not keep it up, the gains are quickly lost.  I have heard it put this way, “in the spiritual life, if you are not moving forward then you are going in the wrong direction.”