Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Well, I have just completed my first full week of unemployment.  I think that I had more leisure time while employed.  Unemployment began by waking up to 8 inches of water in the basement Saturday morning before last.  The sumps had stopped running for some reason.  I was able to get them started before heading off to Mass. The water was pumped out by the time we returned.  Tricia spent the morning trying to dry out our files that had been inundated with water while also holding a garage sale.  I spent the morning cleaning up the basement.  We headed out to Chicago to visit some friends in the afternoon and made it back home by 11pm.  That has been one of our more leisurely days.

We are in Dayton for our goddaughter’s graduation, so that is the only reason I have a breather right now.  I thought I would take the time to comment on a topic I have seen in my inbox this  month.  Several articles by several different persons have been forwarded to me about Christopher West and the fallout from his Nightline interview.  He has been taking quite a bit of heat for it.  According to some (Alice von Hildebrand and David Schindler), it is not simply the case that West was taken out of context and misconstrued,  but rather that he has some underlying problems in his anthropology.

First for some caveats and disclosures: I cannot speak as an expert on Christopher West’s interpretation of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, as I have read and/or heard relatvely little of his thought.  However, I have read and heard some and have found that I share some of the concerns being presented.  I know David Schindler.  I took a course from him at the John Paul II Institute which, by the way, served as the inspiration for the title of this blog.  He was also a reader for my dissertation.  I do not always agree with Schindler’s take on John Paul II. I think it is often too heavily read through his “Balthasarian lens.”  However, I do think that some of Schindler’s criticisms are well-founded, and these criticisms will be the focus of this post.  I don’t claim to be the world’s foremost expert on John Paul II or his theology of the body, but I do consider myself to have an above-average expertise, as this was the foundation of my dissertation, and I have taught undergraduate courses on the theology of the body for several years.

Schindler begins with some apparently rather questionable statements that Christopher West has made.  Oftentimes, these questionable statements can seem to be reconciled with orthodoxy when contextualized, but even in doing so, Schindler says that there is a residual problem.  Schindler lists four issues he sees with West’s approach, and also with the substance of his theology.  These Schindler sees as giving rise to what many find vulgar and prurient in West’s approach.

Schindler first lists West’s underestimation of the damage done to humanity by concupiscence.  Schindler refers to his having brought this up to West a number of years ago.  I recall Schindler’s having mentioned this discussion (back in 2003, I think it was).  He mentioned West’s problematic dismissal of the perduring effects of concupiscence and West’s response.  However, I also recall that I did not agree with the way the Schindler seemed to frame the meaning of concupiscence.  He seemed to reify it as some positive reality then, as something that resides in the body.  His statement in the above linked article also intimates this understanding.  Nevertheless, what I have heard from West seems to suggest to me that he does in fact underestimate the impact of concupiscence on the human person.  Redemptive grace in this dispensation does not remove concupiscence, and concupiscence in sexual attraction cannot be ignored.  West seems to forget this, though “Christopher” of this blog, who has recently taken a class from West, indicated that West is reconsidering his take on concupiscence.

I have the impression of West that he seems to consider puritanism as a greater threat than the sexual libertinism of the sexual revolution.  I seem to recall seeing this written by him, but if I am wrong about this, I apologize.  However, if it is true, it would explain many things about his overemphasis on sex which Schindler thinks arises from his lack of a proper sense of the analogia entis (the analogy of being), which takes its archetype in God but never forgets that the difference between God and His creation is greater than the similarity.  Puritanism is a distortion of chastity.  Libertinism is a rebellion against not only puritanism but also against chaste virtue.

West seems to think that concupiscence can and must be defeated.  This is impossible.  Temptation must be overcome and defeated but concupiscence remains for the entirety of this lifetime.  Concupiscence is not an object to be defeated.  Concupiscence is a privation of integrity between the affects (i.e. emotions and appetites) on the one hand and the intellect and will on the other.  The original state was one of integration among these faculties, which we had only because of original grace–but this is how we were created–we were created for grace.  This integrity can be provisionally restored to a greater or lesser extent by cooperating with sanctifying grace, but the proclivity to sin always remains, and so it must not be tempted.  West can seem to dismiss this.  In doing so, it seems that he is falling into the error of presuming upon God’s grace in order to reject the admonition to avoid the near temptation of sin.  God’s grace can transform us if we cooperate it, but in our fallen state this is not a straight path that one can achieve simply through the force of will or by a quietist presumption on grace.

Schindler criticizes West for a lack of Marian sensitivities in his theology of the body. The way Schindler describes this is pure Balthasar and so it is not fair, I think, to consider this a failure. John Paul’s theology is certainly sympathetic with Balthasar’s Mariology, and good arguments cans be made that he incorporated this to some degree in his own thinking.  At most this should be proposed as a corrective to West’s prurience but not a fault in West’s theology.  Hildebrand argued that West loses the mystery of the person by his lack of sensitivity to the dangers of concupiscence.  This I think I have seen.  It is, I think, the reason behind his inability to discern what is inappropriate or vulgar and what is not.

Puritanism and sexual libertinism are both threats.  The former because it set the stage for justification of the latter.  However, both reject the authentic meaning of the human person and the sacredness of the body.  The danger is (and I think that this is the trap that West falls into) that the response of one who suffers from puritanical thinking can look very much like the response of one who has an authentic anthropology and responds out of a desire for purity.  That is, when subjected to sights that might be a temptation both will turn away.  The puritan because he thinks that the naked body is dirty or evil and the wannabe saint because he realizes that the goodness of the naked body is sacred, and in his fallen state he can be tempted to reduce the other to his sexual value.  Furthermore, there is a stewardship for the weaknesses of others that must be observed in order to protect them from temptations.

When inadvertantly subjected to experiences that can lead to lust, one does indeed have the obligation through self-mastery to overcome the temptation.  However, one also has the obligation to avoid the near temptation of sin.  It is ill advised, indeed it can be sinful, to  subject oneself purposefully to anything with which Satan or our simple fallenness can use to draw us more easily into sin.  Everyone is different.  Men and women are tempted differently.  Men tend to reduce women to their sexual value for the sake of pleasure.  Women tend to reduce men to the latter’s ability to meet their need for complementary bonding and personal fulfillment.  Among men, however, temperament, experience, history of subjection to pornography, etc. all factor into what can lead to temptations and how difficult it is to master oneself in this regard.  One may not sin in a misguided attempt to attain self-mastery. Neither may I assume that what I can safely be subjected to is the standard for everyone.

West’s use of images that offend the sensibilities of many good Catholics seems to be motivated by the fact that he thinks that puritanism is the root cause for their offense.  He needs to be reminded that puritanism is a relatively recent phenomenon and that chastity and purity are age old virtues.  While it is true that some cultures are not offended by things sexual that do offend others (a point I recall West often making), one must not draw conclusions based upon superficial assessments.  Lack of offense does not imply purity in reception.  Cultures in which men and women are both publicly naked must not be assumed to show that public nakedness is a possibility for a society that wants to achieve purity.  In fact, these cultures rarely show a high regard for women and their sexuality.

Ok, enough blathering and back to the question: is Christopher West’s interpretation of theology of the body dangerous?  First, I will say that I wish that this discussion could go on in private because it serves to give comfort and aid to dissenters and can undermine a good apostolate that West has developed, albeit, one that is in need of some course corrections. However, with respect to the question,  I suspect that for some people it can be.   I do think that in many ways he has done very much good, and I have no way of knowing how much that his disregard for concupiscience may have caused damage to those misled by it.  I do hope that he will take the public criticism to heart and find someone who can help him to correct his misinterpretations.  Our culture needs it and so does the Church.

[This post is a joint effort between Hierothee and David]

Donna Freitas, a Catholic theologian and Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University, recently published a book on attitudes toward sex among contemporary students at colleges and universities, Catholic and otherwise: Sex & the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses.

She found that Catholic college and university students are as prone to contemporary “hook-up” culture as students at secular universities. She found that only strongly evangelical colleges comprise student bodies that reject the hook-up culture: because, she says, in the manner of a liberal protestant, these evangelical colleges encourage a “cult of purity.”

Freitas is apparently not a profound theologian. You can read a little bit about her book and her general take on things at National Catholic Reporter and decide for yourself. Nevertheless, it is useful to learn from her that students at Catholic colleges are as prone as any to engage in thematic “sex parties.” One particularly prevalent type of sex party, Freitas shows, involves young women dressing up as sexual objects (prostitutes, etc.) and engaging in random fornication with their male hosts.

Freitas gives us useful, though somewhat abstract, sociological information in this book. But the whole sordid trend becomes personally shocking when one hears a first-hand account of such a party.

We at C-L-S have been apprised of such an incident. It happened recently off campus at a prominent Catholic university, and involved undergraduate students from the university in a swingers’ game that was prominent in the 1970s. We cannot, of course, give the identity of the person who was brought, unwittingly, to the party and who told us about it. Nor can we disclose the particular university. The student in question left the party, appalled, as soon as it became evident what was going on.

There are many shocking things about all of this. But what is most shocking of all, in our opinion, is the resigned attitude that women who willingly partake in these sordid activities have about them.

We have recently posted on a study revealing the grim fruits of Catholic higher education.  The study indicated that half of the students in Catholic colleges and universities think that it is morally permissible to fornicate.  Most surprisingly, the study revealed that women were more likely (50%) than men (41%) to engage in premarital sex. Troubling as these numbers are, they do not prepare one for arrival of 1970’s swingers’ games that for some, or even many, appear to be what college is all about.

John Paul II was often accused of paying so much attention to women that he virtually ignored men in his theo-pastoral writings. He did, in fact, directly address women much more than men.  He did so because he recognized that a great evil had entered the culture, one that was directly attacking femininity.

What John Paul saw was that modern feminism had adopted Margaret Sanger’s distorted viewpoint that for women to be equal to men they must be able to compete with men in everything.  At the forefront of Sanger’s concern was the ability to be “equal” with men in hedonistic, sexual debauchery, which demands that women be free not simply from any procreative ramifications of unrestrained sex, but even free from any emotional attachments arising from sexual intercourse. Science was to help in the former, but not the latter.

Men and women are both created for complementary, total self-giving.  Sexual intercourse is the most intimate manner of total self-gift, but sex has an immutable, inner structure.  The complementarity of sex is not purely physical.  The natural telos of this physical complementarity points to a greater meaning. Fruitful sexual intercourse results in the unity of persons and, simultaneously, the openness to life-giving love.  This physical structure suggests a metaphysical structure to complementary love.  Namely, masculine love is one of initiating love, and feminine love is actively receptive.

As such, both men and women in their entire make up, physiological, emotional, psychological, and spiritual, are ordered according to this structure of love.  This makeup orients women more toward relationships and, in terms of the sexual act, to experiencing it as the permanent bonding themselves with another person.  Karol Wojtyla indicates this in his book, Love and Responsibility:

The very structure of the male psyche and personality is such that it is more readily “compelled” 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 (Karol Wojtya, Love and Responsibility, [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993] 111-12).

The context of this statement is sexual intercourse. It is so very important, especially for girls and young women, to understand the differences between the meaning which men and women generally attach to the sexual experience. Because of their masculine structure, which is less integrated than women, men generally experience it more in terms of sensuality and enjoyment. Women, on the other hand, because they are more interior and integrated, will see and experience it more in the way of affection and attachment. That is not to say that men and women are not both damaged when this structure is violated.  They are, but in different ways.  Men, in general, experience the inability to form lasting relationships when they regularly fornicate.  Women generally experience emotional trauma.

The resignation of the young women at college sex parties shows that they are getting the message that they should be talking and thinking about sex in a manner more in keeping with fallen masculine habits.  Nevertheless, they still will experience sex as feminine persons. Due to their feminine structure, they generally should be more reticent about engaging in sex outside of wedlock, but in their confusion they are setting themselves, and the rest of society, on a collision course with reality.  They do not experience pre-marital sex in the same way they are told about it and talk about it. We suspect that the epidemic of cutting, anorexia/bulimia, and other psychological ailments that all too many young women are experiencing is due in large part to this confusion. The sage wisdom that says: God forgives always, men sometimes, but nature never, applies here. With religious restraint on social debauchery all but gone, and feminine restraint waning, there is little to prevent the cultural collapse that all societies face when they so reject the order of nature.

If we had a child ready to go to college, we would seriously consider delaying his entrance until we were morally certain that he had the spiritual maturity to weather the storm of hedonism that he will confront during his four years at what appear to have become fornication factories. Certainly this is not the case at every Catholic school, but only at those which take their Catholic identity seriously will there be a likelihood that the experiences of the young student that we mentioned at the beginning of this post will be avoided. Saint Maria Goretti and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassatti, pray for us!

John Paul the Great’s Theology of the Body is very popular today with many young, faithful Catholics. That is a very good thing. However, there are at least two groups of folks who are not all that pleased with it. One of these groups is not surprising.

It is generally eschewed by those who promote sexual license, if not wanton promiscuity, at least in ways that reject the meaning of the human person and sexuality as authoritatively taught by the Church (read here same sex attraction disorder, sex outside of the marital union, etc.). Because it clearly shows how the human person is made to be complementary in terms of sexual difference and the real meaning of the sex can only be authentically understood in terms of a marital act, it negates the legitimacy of these folks’ attempts to insert pagan sexual “enlightenment” into Catholic theological discourse.

Another group that is unsure about it are those of a more traditionalist bent. This group is generally familiar with it through its popularizers. A good summary of what this group finds problematic with it, or more precisely they way it is interpreted by some of its popularizers, can be found here. Disregarding the dangers of oversimplifying, which I am wont to do at times, I would say that the way it is presented to them they believe that it goes against Church tradition in terms of modesty and purity.

The concerns that Michael J. Matt (see the previous link) summarizes were evident in the comments on an article that Hierothee pointed me to on Inside Catholic. Kate Wicker, the author of the article, writes about her overcoming her “shame” about breast feeding during Mass. As justification, she cites Christopher West as an authority on JPTG’s Theology of the Body:

Christopher West, the Catholic author best known for his insightful commentary on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, describes a nursing mother as “one of the most precious, most beautiful, and most holy of all possible images of woman.” So why should I feel ashamed nursing in church — in the presence of the Most Holy Eucharist — but not at the mall? Do I believe breasts are made to feed babies or are they just meant to be squeezed into rhinestone-clad bras for surfers to ogle on the Internet?

Kate gets what seems to me (I did not read all of the comments, much less tally them) an evenly mixed response between those who support her and those taking issue with her. In a relatively early reply (in the combox section, #27) she again goes back to Christopher West in support of her position:

An article by Christopher West is what inspired me to write this article. I’m going to take the easy way out rather than addressing everyone’s comments indvidually and share some of the article here. I also want to mention that I’m not saying we should be giving kids of all ages snacks at Mass. My preschooler is not allowed any food or drinks in Mass. We are supposed to be fasting before receiving the Eucharist and children (even those who have not made their First Communion yet) can wait to nosh until after Mass.

However, babies’ wants and needs are the same thing. A hungry baby needs to be fed and cannot be spoiled by responding to his/her needs. (This may spur another debate). Also, as some of you have pointed out, nursing DISCREETLY is key. Even when I’m at the beach where women are walking around in string bikinis, I nurse so discreetly most people wouldn’t have any idea I was feeding my baby.

Still, I’m always amazed by how the idea of nursing still makes so many people uncomfortable. So without further ado, here’s an excerpt from Christopher West’s article entitled “Nursing a Sexually Wounded Culture.”

“I remember attending the Second World Meeting of John Paul II with Families in Brazil in 1997. Nursing mothers were a common sight at this international gathering. What I found intriguing, however, was that women from “first-world” nations tended to drape themselves and sit off in a corner, while women from other nations seemed to have no qualms whatsoever about feeding their babies in full view of others. I remember one woman unabashedly roaming the crowd passing all manner of bishops and cardinals with her breast fully exposed while her child held on to it with both hands happily feeding. The only people flinching seemed to be those from the northern hemisphere.

Isn’t it interesting that the part of the world producing the most pornography and exporting it to the rest of the globe has seemed to lose all sense of the true meaning of the human breast? What a commentary on the sad state of our sexually wounded culture! Breasts have been so “pornified” that we can fall into thinking that even their proper use is shameful. In other words, we have been so conditioned to see a woman’s body through the prism of lust that we find it very difficult to recognize the purity and innocence of breast-feeding.

St. Paul hit the nail on the head when he said, “To the pure all things are pure, but to the impure nothing is pure” (Ti 1:15). It is a tragically impure world that labels the purity of a baby at the breast as “gross.””

God bless!

Written by Kate Wicker

I have not followed Christopher West much at all so I do not wish to take these few decontextualized comments to characterize what very well could be a more nuanced position. So let me comment on what Kate and others seem to be getting from him.

It is interesting that Kate uses the term “shame” to characterize her initial feelings about breastfeeding in Church. Shame is in fact a central theme in JPTG’s Theology of the Body. Interestingly enough, it is not a purely negative concept for him. John Paul finds that shame serves an essential function in our fallen state.

He makes it clear that concupiscence is an ill fruit of the Fall and that this proclivity to sin will always be with us until we die. In fact, John Paul is adamant that we cannot authentically interpret our current experiences without understanding the “man of concupiscence” (the earlier translation used the “man of lust” which I find more appealing for its dramatic tone but as the translator of the updated edition points out, concupiscence is a more accurate rendering of what JPTG intends). The man of concupiscence is in a continual struggle against temptations to sin, especially sexual sins.

John Paul makes distinctions among many types of shame. He terms sexual shame the fear of being reduced by another to one’s sexual value. This is a great temptation in the fallen state. Concupiscence leads one who is exposed to those aspects of another’s body (the opposite sex for the vast majority who do not suffer from SSAD) which reveal his sexual value, to see only the sexual value and not the entire person. In seeing only the sexual value, one then reduces the other to this value. This reduction is the sin of lust when it is consented to.

John Paul says that the body’s sex reveals its spousal meaning but this meaning is nearly (but not completely) annihilated by concupiscence. Thus, sexual shame serves the purpose of trying to restore the body’s nuptial meaning. It promotes modesty. The modest person covers those aspects of his body which lead him to be reduced to his sexual value. These of course include the genitals for both sexes as well as the breasts for women which uniquely point to their sexual value as mothers, though some other secondary sexual characteristics can also be problematic. Christopher West, by the way, is correct that the sexual value of the female breast has been gravely distorted by our “pornified” culture making it not a sign of motherhood but of sexual use for pleasure (however, even if he correctly interprets his observations in terms of a trend I do not think that it is legitimate to intuit that the first world women were uniformly motivated by Manicheaism and the third world women were motivated by a healthy understanding of their bodies).

Sexual shame serves an important function with a two fold purpose. Thus, John Paul does not dismiss it as something to be overcome as some seem to infer. First, it motivates one to protect his personhood from being reduced. However, a second motivation is to protect the other person from the loss he will suffer through succumbing to temptation if he were exposed. So one is not only concerned with himself but he also has a grave responsibility for the other as well.

In his Theology of the Body, John Paul takes pains to make the distinction between the Church’s teaching on the body and Manichaeism which is a hatred for the body. He does this because he recognizes that superficially, one can interpret actions motivated by modesty for the sake of purity to be those motived by a Manichean outlook. The latter is termed prudishness or puritanism. This distinction is of fundamental importance. Without understanding it, one can fall into a category error and so misread much of John Paul’s writings.

Here is where I think the problem lies in the way many understand the Theology of the Body. They recognize that the body is good and has a good meaning but they miss the fact that concupiscence demands modesty for one’s own sake and especially for the sake of others.

Women especially have little idea, at least relying only on their own experiences, the effect that their bodies can have on men. Women in general reduce the man in his body to a use in terms of satisfying relational needs. They do not tend to experience the “testosterone rush” men must cope with when exposed to sometimes even seemingly innocuous feminine movements and gestures, much less more direct evidence of feminine value.

Men, on the other hand, tend to reduce women to their sexual value in terms of use for the sake of pleasure. Some men can experience this temptation so compellingly, that it takes what seems to be superhuman effort to resist. Our oversexed culture reinforces this temptation so greatly that, except for various disorders, this is fairly universal among men (of course it comes in varying degrees based upon temperament, environmental factors, the degree to which he has subjected himself to pornography, etc).

So what is the response to solve this problem. In the traditionalist post above, Michael Matt references a comment by Christopher West that seems to suggest that one should by some means (we can safely assume that if he is suggesting this that it be through self control aided by sacramental grace) overcome these temptations and no longer be subject to them. West references Karol Wojtyla’s Love and Responsibility:

John Paul II warned that if chastity is lived in a repressive way, it’s only a matter of time before sexual desires explode (see Love and Responsibility, pp. 170-171). I think we find here a key for understanding the sexual revolution of the 20th century. It was a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate in response to the prudery and repressiveness of the previous era.

Unfortunately, this is also what Kate seems to take from Christopher West’s statements. However, If one reads the passage cited above completely, one will see that Wojtyla makes it clear that repressiveness has the same superficial response as modesty. One still says “no”, but for a different reason. One says no to exposure to the body in its nakedness for the sake of seeing the whole person, not because the body is evil. Wojtyla understands that mistaking the body for an evil gives more “ammunition” if you will, for temptations. Thus, it is important to understand the Wojtyla/JPTG is not suggesting that we can set aside modesty.

Now we could make precisions in what John Paul the Great says about the naked body. He does find that it is possible to present it in art. He generally finds that the naked body should not be the subject of photography because there is not the ability to control the presentation of the whole person as there is in mediums like paintings, sculpture, and drawings. Nevertheless, not everyone can expose themselves to even authentically portrayed nudity in art, even if the majority can safely do so. For all of whom this might be problematic he has the obligation to avoid the near temptation to sin.

So what is the end result. I will say first, that one cannot legitimately point to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body as a defense for the decision to breastfeed during Mass. There are other issues to consider here as well to consider, not the least of which is the restraint demanded against even pure and noble, but still mundane activities, because of the solemnity of the Sacrifice of the Mass (can a bottle of breast milk substitute in this one limited case?).

Nevertheless, if someone’s prudential judgment dictates it is legitimate, after very serious consideration of the issue, one must not blithely dismiss covering oneself under the misguided notion that it necessarily implies Manichaeism or that one has no duty to safeguard the purity of others for whom such potential exposure might be a temptation to sin.

The feminine breast is a beautiful sign of motherhood, especially when a baby is being suckled. It is a shame that not everyone can enjoy such a sight without temptation. But that is the state in which we live. The man of concupiscence must be ever vigilant. He must not try to pretend he can bring back original innocence. John Paul the Great is adamant that the threshold was crossed and can never again be restored. Grace and cooperation with it through practice of the cardinal virtues is essential to self-possession, the precursor to holiness. However, this grace is given now to the man of concupiscence in a way not given to man in original innocence. We cannot forget that until we reach heaven, we are living East of Eden and shame will always be an ally.

Christopher, who is in the midst of a graduate degree program in counseling and so is excused from not having posted in a while, was perusing the APA’s website last week and sent along a link to this story that they had featured that day. Here is the header:

Web pornography’s effect on children

Although research is scarce, investigators see links between young people who access Web porn and unhealthy attitudes toward sex.

The average person reading this would respond with “duhhh!!!!!” I would suspect. However, in reading the article, even the short intro above may seem to overstate the case. I say this because the author concludes the article with:

It’s too early to say what these findings mean—or even what to do if clearer results are shown. Some, for example, believe that being sexually curious is part of the developmental process and that Internet porn is one, albeit problematic, way to satisfy that curiosity. And it may prove nearly impossible to completely prevent it … .

This statement, while it certainly reflects the sad state of affairs, indicates that the sad state of affairs is contributed to in no small measure by a psychiatric academy that has jettisoned an integral view of the human person. Rather, they have left aside traditional morality as socially relative and completely unrelated to personal wellbeing. They do not even seem to know what comprises wellbeing any longer. For example, this appears to be the most that we can say about human flourishing in terms of healthy relationships:

“We don’t really know, but we suspect that exposure to, say, 10, 20, 30,000 pages of pornography may bias a young person in terms of what they consider a normal relationship,…

“We don’t really know.” This is the main point of this post. What is revealed by this statement is that theses folks assume that common sense must be dismissed in their new “world order.” Why? Because we do not “know” anything unless it has been empirically established and verified by other empirical investigators. This is scientism at its worst. That is, it is assuming that empirical science is the only source of valid knowledge.

But wait you say, isn’t this just medicine? Don’t we use the scientific method in medicine? Yes, we do. However, what is problematic is that when we reduce what we can know about the human person to that which can be established by empirical methods alone, then we have a reductionist view of the human person and so we make ourselves utterly incompetent in trying to understand him.

For example, one does not need to empirically verify in order to know as fact that anyone who habitually submits to his emotions without subjecting them to reason and gaining full possession of himself, will not flourish. Experience tells us that we will become slaves to our passions. We do not need a research study to tell us that this in order to know that it is true for everyone, though some experience it more severely with some things rather than others. We know that there is a universal structure to human beings that we call human nature. We know when we violate human nature, that sooner or later, we will suffer for it.

Furthermore, empirical data is meaningless outside of contextual models. The data has to be understood in terms of a world view for it to be useful. These models are built upon theories about the human person. The difficulties found among the soft sciences is that there is an inbuilt contradiction between the underlying presupposition that the subject of the study can be reduced to a biological entity describable by deterministic laws and the recognition that, in reality, there is something that cannot be accounted for (called intellect and free will) and this works at cross purposes with these presuppositions.

These models (not proven–i.e. not “scientific” but presupposed) cut the subject free from any structure that one could call human nature and so the subject is to be understood only in terms of the variety of individuals studied. The closest thing to nature they will allow is statistical averages. If one comes at this data from the reductionist perspective, he will interpret it completely differently than if one comes at it with the common sense, traditional, perspective…i.e. that there is such a thing as human nature and violating it comes with problems.

This is what explains the hesitancy of these so called “experts” to say that exposing kids to pornography will damage them. Someone with less knowledge and more wisdom can look at the data and say, yes, this confirms what we know about children and human nature. The academy, most of whom have traded wisdom for knowledge, say no we have to collect more data to be make such a claim because they rule out, out of hand, the classical understanding of human nature.

These are the people to whom we subject ourselves for healing when we, our children, or other loved ones experience psychological or emotional difficulties. The “experts” reductionism ought to scare you given the sage insights this article reflects. Added to that, is that too often, those who enter the profession (as Shelray has pointed out many times) are drawn to it because they suffer from the same maladies they are trying to treat. Because those treating them cannot heal them because they do not have an integral view of the human person, the most they have learned are coping skills. This brings to mind the local psych hospital in which the child sexual identity expert is a man who is undergoing a “sex change” operation. I cannot imagine a parent in good conscience letting her child be “treated” by someone who himself needs treatment.

I’ll tell you what. I think that the average person would be better off sitting down with a wise ole grandmother or grandfather who can apply their common sense with wisdom than subjecting oneself to these folks who are not willing to say that children should be prevented from being exposed to pornography because the data is not yet conclusive that it is harmful. If a psych doctor does not exhibit common sense, I would recommend exercising your own…and finding one who does (like here).

These were the options I heard a CNN correspondent claim that college co-eds were going to have to make this year . . . well, o.k., not in these terms. It seems that pharmaceutical companies have had to eliminate the subsidies for oral contraceptives that they used to make to the health departments at schools of higher education due to the apparently unintended effect of a new law (see this WSJ article from July).

Well, the prices are going up from about $20 for a months supply to around $50 for name brands. CNN did not mention the generic options that the WSJ article mentions. This is probably because, as the WSJ article claims, it is unfair to ask women to change from a brand that they are comfortable with. So, CNN asserts, this means that many co-eds will end up having to choose between books, food, or contraception. Hmm . . ., a few thoughts here.

Another option that CNN didn’t mention that was in the WSJ article, is co-eds using their parent’s insurance for this. Perhaps this is unconscionable in the mind of the CNN reporter because, as the WSJ article says, this would require forfeiting the student’s privacy. We cannot have this now can we? After all, this is the foundational principle upon which our most cherished ideals stand . . . the right to off our unborn.

Now, this breathless, “the sky is falling” coverage is par for the course for most television reporting these days. However, the underlying logical contradictions make it noteworthy. You see, co-ed simply have to fornicate. If they meet a guy at the football game or the bar, or perhaps they might even have a meaningful relationship, they do not the capacity to say no to sex. Our media assumes that they cannot decline sex (unless the guy is unpleasing I suppose) because they are just animals who are driven by instinct or, at least, they would develop some sort of psychological complex by not submitting to their ids’ demands. Freud has done his work well.

However, in the same breath, the reporter says that they do have the capacity to choose to eat, or buy books. Abortion was the other option that was mentioned (surprisingly after having the child but I suppose this option was for the dramatic effect of having to destroy your life because you wanted to eat), which again is a choice. But the underlying presupposition is that they will get pregnant. So we are more than animals. We have a choice to eat, or buy books, or purchase expensive contraception, or leave school and have a baby, or simply eliminate the unwanted biological material from the womb. But wait, no we are not more than animals, we must submit to our sexual desires whenever they arise . . . again, unless the guy is ugly. We either have the capacity for self-mastery or we do not. We cannot have it both ways, unless we appeal to sentiment, or science, or medicine I suppose.

How can this be, that one would have to choose between a primary material need (nutrition), the primary reason one is at school (education) . . . or so I once thought . . . , or fornication. Not to worry, CNN reports that Congress is going to put a stop to this madness. However, the crisis will not end this news cycle. Until then, if you see a hungry co-ed hanging around your garbage can, open your charitable hearts and give her something to eat. After all, she will need her energy if she is going to make use of that name brand contraception for which she is now paying top dollar.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you might be asking yourself what the heck is this guy doing writing about Catholic, or for that matter any, literary matters. This would be an excellent observation. I don’t intend to write about the literary arts per se, rather, on a particular concern associated with the. Some time ago I posted on a book by a Catholic novelist on the issue of chastity.

It was a good book but I had some misgivings about some of the content (actually a quite small part). However, it was very much in line of what you might read from Walker Percy or Flannery O’Connor. There was the use of obscene language and some mild sexual scenes. So what’s my problem?

There are three issues here as I see them. First, there is the issue of purity. Second, we have the matter of material participation in evil. Finally, we have the issue of scandal. I will take them one at a time.

Flannery O’Connor had some misgivings about her style and how it corresponded to her faith but after consulting with her spiritual director, he told her that she did not have the obligation to write for a 15 year old girl. True enough; I suppose that we are guilty here at C-L-S of assuming this as well. However, there ought to be more said about this. While we do not have the obligation to limit everything we write or say to audiences that are not sufficiently mature to deal with certain topics this is not the same as saying we do not have the obligation to attend to the concern of avoiding putting others into the near occasion of sin. We are our brothers’ keepers and must help to guard others’ purity. This is not the same as puritanism.

O.k., so what is the difference between purity and puritanism? Purity is a single minded commitment of the will to be in accord with God and therefore to look upon other human beings in the way that God created them. In other words, purity recognizes that each human person is made in the image of God and created for their own sakes. The person is made body and soul and purity recognizes, therefore, the beauty and goodness of the body and its important role in manifesting the person. It also recognizes the importance and goodness, nay holiness, of marital sexual intercourse. Purity recognizes that the only proper attitude toward a person is love. Others cannot be treated as a means but must always be looked upon as ends in themselves. Thus, no one can be reduced to their physical (or any other) attributes. They cannot be looked upon as a means to pleasure.

Purity also recognizes that we are in a fallen state and that it is a constant struggle to avoid the reduction of the other to a means to an end. This is very often sexual or emotional pleasure, but not always. And so purity recognizes that there are certain things that can lead one to see and treat others as objects. As an example, men are very visual and can be, in varying degrees, visually superficial. Thus, those wishing to be pure must avoid such occasions that would subject them to impure thoughts. While these are often visual, as I will discuss below, words can be powerful occasions for returning one to problematic visual experiences. Women wishing to guard men’s purity will not subject reveal their bodies in such a way as to make themselves the occasion of temptations against purity.

Puritanism, on the other hand, sees the body and even marital sexual intercourse as dirty, as something of a necessary evil. So while the response of someone motivated by puritanism and one motivated by an authentic concern for purity may sometimes externally appear to be the same, it will not be such in all cases because of their different motivations. For example, while respecting purity, the naked human body may be portrayed in art if it is done in such a way as to reveal the whole human person rather than to evoke an erotic response. Puritanism would never allow this to be done.

So now that we have these terms defined, we need to look at what we are doing in literature with words and word images. Words are symbols and have symbolic value. They point to a reality beyond themselves. I suppose that our post-Cartesian mindset has led us to view symbols in a disembodied, even arbitrary manner. A rose by any other name…

There is some truth to the claim of arbitrariness to the assigning of names to things, but this is not universally true. Nor does this fact negate the mediation of the thing symbolized, in a very real way, through its symbol. Symbols are more than just arbitrary signs of something else. We recognize this in our human experience. For example, the way a person’s name can mediate their presence to us in such a way that we actually experience in a certain manner, their presence.

Another example might be the way we react when someone says something kind or hateful to us. Even if we know what they are thinking, the experience of hearing or reading the words gives us the sense that the words have an ontology of their own. We are cut to the quick with hateful words or uplifted in an almost transcendent way with words of affirmation. There is a weightiness to the spoken and written word that goes beyond simple affective or psychological response.

Thus, words and word images can and do mediate to us the object or experience they symbolize, in way that cannot be reduced to the cognitive. That is why words are so powerful and must be used with much care. This brings us to the second issue: material participation in evil.

We must always avoid evil, but there are times when as an unintended side effect of a good act with a good intention, we find that the good done results in bad consequences. Sometimes we find that accepting the unintended consequences is justified by the greater proportion of good that will come from the good act and good intention. The Catholic tradition refers to this as the principle of double effect. Just war teaching relies upon this principle. In the case of using words or word images that might evoke impure responses in others but the intention is to explain circumstances and/or actually counter the effects of such events and words the use of them may be justified. However, we must first recognize that they are evils.

If we look at obscenities, we can see that they usually have to do with the bathroom or the bedroom. Most others tend to reduce the human person to something less than human. Most all have the same goal. They take what is holy or sacred (an act or a human person) and try to reduce it to the profane. Even if they are not always intended in this way by those who use them, that is their etymology. Thus, the use of them is at least a material participation in evil. Formal participation would be actually intending, to some degree, to convey the evil sentiment. Material participation can sometimes be licit and necessary. Formal participation in evil can never be justified.

Therefore, one must recognize the gravity of choosing to use obscene words or word images. It seems to me that literary merit in and of itself cannot be the only consideration. Rather, the gravity of material participation in evil dictates that one must ensure the use of obscene words or word images is an absolute necessity with no other effective way to bring about the good. Furthermore, one can never employ obscenities with the intent that the reader will experience a lurid response and furthermore, the writer must use all his skill to ensure that this is avoided. This would be formal participation and no good result can ever justify it.

The final issue is scandal. There are two aspects to this issue. The first is that which we have been discussing all along. Christian scandal is not what is often meant colloquially by the use of the term, mainly shocking sensibilities. Rather, the Christian meaning can be found in its Greek etymological origin, scandalon, which means a stone upon which one stumbles. In other words, in this context one is guilty of scandal when he causes others to sin or he makes it at least a near temptation. Today, so many have been exposed to pornography that this becomes a dicey issue. It does not take much for some (many?) to be led back to these images impressed forever in their memories. This ought to be taken into consideration, at least in deciding how to craft the use of one’s literary material.

However, something else ought to be considered as well. We are conditioned by our culture with the idea of “adult” humor, content, etc. into a mistaken notion about adult abilities. Now, while it is true that adults do have a greater maturity and therefore, capacity and obligation to master themselves and their responses to exposure to impure, or suggestively so, experiences, we too often naively assume that these exposures have no effect on us. All have varying degrees of self-mastery, but no one can be so confident in themselves that they would unthinkingly expose themselves to impurity. In fact, I would submit that exposure to impurity has a tremendous, cumulative, and perhaps almost imperceptible effect on our thinking and willful responses to temptations against purity. Being an “adult” does not give anyone license to expose himself to impurity with the presumption that their are no negative consequences for so doing. In fact, just the opposite is true. As an adult, one has the obligation to recognize and avoid all temptations against purity.

The other aspect of scandal is that by use of obscenity one can lead his readers to assume that obscene words or word images are “no big deal.” I think that this does happen when, for example, someone reads Walker Percy, knowing that he was a very faithful Catholic and sees his use of obscenities, the reader comes to think that there is nothing wrong with or at least no caution necessary with their use.

This is why you do not see the use of such words here and that we edit out or delete any such use as seems appropriate. Thoughts?

A little over a month ago, I did a post on a book by Juli Loesch Wiley entitled Emma’s Journal. John Bambenek over at Part Time Pundit has done his own review of the book. In case you might have been interested but wanted another (i.e. better) opinion, here is your opportunity to go over and see what John has to say.

According to the Linacre Institute, the major cause of the sex-abuse scandal in The Church goes beyond isolated incidents and poor judgment of disturbed individuals. The problem of today can actually be traced back to the 1950s, when the basic religious purpose and intellectual formation of many priests began to mutate into what is commonly referred to today as a progressive Catholic. Catholic World News highlights an in-depth analysis from a book called After Ascetism: Sex, Prayer, and Deviant Priests which explains why the sexual problems of some go well beyond pedophilia or pederasty, and more importantly outlines the key elements which provide a solution. These solutions can empower the Church to break free from some of the failures of psychology specialists who have never had an interest or comprehension of religious devotion, chastity, prayer, ascetical discipline, in other words, an adequate understanding of the whole human person.

The Linacre Institute, which was founded within the Catholic Medical Association to develop position papers on various bioethical issues, has taken a special interest in the role that the sciences and professions have in shaping judgment and opinion on sexual ethics, and the treatment of disturbed priests, and has supported efforts to advance Catholic social teaching in these areas. With After Asceticism the Institute has made an important contribution to a discussion– long overdue– about the collapse of clerical discipline that allowed the sex-abuse crisis to develop.

The core change over the course of the twentieth century was one of purpose or allegiance– leaving behind ascetical discipline, having disdain for religious tradition, and adopting the therapeutic mentality, a popular belief that fulfillment of the human person springs from emotional desire in a quest for self-definition, or self-actualization, without regard to an objective philosophical, religious or moral truth. Further, the therapeutic mentality views sin as a social concern and discourages loyalty to religious authority; it is profoundly anti-ascetical.

As society becomes more deeply immersed in pagan sexuality, the Catholic Church will remain mired in sexual crisis absent a return to its ascetical tradition.

I recently finished reading a book entitled Emma’s Journal, by Juli Loesch Wiley. The book is an edited version of Juli’s journal which she kept during the years 1983-88. It is not exactly her conversion story. By this time she had already become Catholic. Rather, it is a story of her struggle for chastity after she had committed her life to Christ.

As a promotion of chaste living, it is not unlike Dawn Eden’s, Thrill of the Chaste. They both are very personal and brave testimonials about their faults and weaknesses. They both also provide the firm conviction that a chaste life is the authentic, and only path to true happiness and joy.

This is Juli’s description of the book:

The story of an activist’s journey from living as a lay woman in a community of radical sisters to founding a movement combining peace and pro-life conviction. In the process she wrestles with conflict, friendship, suffering, sexuality, grace, pain and love and finds – eventually – her heart’s home.

What I liked about it:

I think that Juli is a very talented writer (this might even be a negative for regular readers of this blog so you can find samples of her writing here and here to decide for yourself). Because her story is so very personal, it is also very compelling. However, she also has a gift with her prose that keeps the story moving and engaging. She allows the reader to discover along with her, the areas of her life that she needs to transform and along the way, perhaps might allow one to be somewhat self-reflective in a nonthreatening way. While the story, I suspect, will resonate with women more than men, there is still much in it for men as well. Men can understand more about the way the women experience the temptations against chastity which I think most will find quite foreign to them. It can provide men insights into feminine psychology (for lack of a better phrase) that can allow Christian men to better empathize and support Christian women in their vocations to holiness.

We need more books of this genre on chastity. It is important for women to realize that they can easily be misled by the false sense of intimacy that they get from corporal intimacy. This is especially important for women who have already begun to engage in pre-marital sexual relations. I say women because this is not the same experience for men.

Some other comments and cautions:

It would not be valid to consider this category of comments as the polar opposite to my “what I liked” paragraph. Rather, these are caveats for those who might be taken aback by some parts of the book. First, there is the issue of some graphic language and mildly descriptive sex scenes. If you subscribe to the Flannery O’Connor school of literary license in this regard, then you will not be disturbed. Myself, I have upset some commentors on this blog for deleting their comments that followed this line of thinking. I will explain more my thoughts on this in a later post. I do not want these thoughts to take away from my recommendation for this book. However, you should realize that if your temperament and/or personal history are such that these would be temptations against purity, then you ought not read the book.

Juli was/is a peace activist. While, I agree with all of her sentiments with regard to peace and violence, I do not agree with all of her moral analyses. Some, especially those who have served in the military as I have, might find it hard to identify with her do to some of these statements. However, I think that we should listen closely to what she has to say in this regard. As I said, I do not agree with everything but she comes closer to the authentic Christian position on the use of violence than the tendency of some of us who have been bred in the military.

Conversations with a female acquaintance (if she would permit, I would say friend) about the book suggested the concern about Juli’s comments about the “fictionalization” of her journal. Well, the first “fictionalization” is that she uses a pseudonym, Emma. I asked Juli about this and she offered that her plans for anonymity changed as she wrote the book. But more importantly, she employed the Emma pseudonym as a psychological tool to allow her to distance herself enough to make this project an emotional possibility. Another concern was the caveat in the preface that some of the characters were composites, leading to the question: what was real and what wasn’t. Juli told me that this was done primarily to make the book more readable. All of the events and conversations were as they occurred but to avoid having to sort through 50-70 different names, for example, she assigned conversations with 8 different sisters to 3 composite sisters…however, all of the conversations were actual. In the end, I would say that this is not an issue.

If you think you would like to read it, you can get a copy for a very modest sum right here.

What others have said: Amy Welborn, Mark Shea, Maggie Gallagher, and Annie Gottlieb

As a postscript, in the book Juli writes about her parents. Here is a very moving witness she gives to the recent passing of her father.

Harvard University seniors Sarah Kinsella and Justin Murray founded a student group earlier this year, called True Love Revolution which promotes abstinence on it’s campus. Unlike many campuses which have abstinence clubs which are affiliated with religious organizations, the True Love Revolution is totally “secular,” and it should come as no surprise that many members of the group have come under attack from feminist students and others who mock and ridicule their choice to abstain from sex. This, I believe, is a rather natural reaction for those suffering from a low self-esteem. Somehow, because someone chooses to believe and behave differently and refuses to coddle and affirm a particular (destructive) lifestyle, those who have adopted the lifestyle feel offended and angered as if they were being personally threatened or attacked. Quite telling I would say.

The True Love Revolution is just part of an encouraging trend of unlikely colleges from around the country forming groups devoted to abstinence. For example, Princeton and M.I.T. have formed Anscombe Societies. Just last month the Anscombe Society of Princeton University held a conference on marriage, family, and sexuality which was dedicated to the memory of Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Given that I was part of the problem when I was a college student, you can understand why I’m all the more impressed and that I admire the courage and conviction of these students and others like them who persevere despite being treated like societal freaks. May God bless all those who are on the front lines of this cultural war.

Here is another article on Dawn and her visit to the U of I. And for those who don’t know her story, it provides a nice synopsis of her spiritual journey.

Well, this week was the annual Sex Out Loud “fair” hosted by the University of Illinios student organization, Feminist Majority.  In response, three student organizations in association with St. John’s Catholic Newman Center brought in Dawn Eden as I had previously mentioned.

There was a very good turn out for Dawn’s talk the night before the SOL fair.  We probably had around 100 students in attendance.  The response was generally very positive to her talk and based upon the sales of her book it seems, very well received.  One student even made the comment that she felt blessed to have been able to hear Dawn’s witness and her description of the joy she found in living a chaste life.

Wednesday morning, Dawn and the students headed over to the student union for the fair.  Apparently the chaste birds are also the early birds as they were the first to arrive and got their choice of tables.  Whether this was the reason or not, their table turned out to be the most popular.  They had copies of Steve Kellmeyer’s book “Sex and the Sacred City” on CD, chastity pamphlets one of the students made up, Dawn’s books of course, cupcakes, and in addition, Dawn had brought with her about 100 miraculous medals.  She gave them all away.

Moved by the grace of the medals no doubt, Dawn led the students in a spiritual assault on the Planned Parenthood table.  They offered each of the PP workers a medal as a “Peace” offering.  I’m sure the PP folks did not recognize the significance of the term “peace” in the context of covenant peace or that they were being quietly evangelized.  The workers accepted them.  I told Dawn at dinner last night, that I expect one day to read a conversion story about how someone gave her a miraculous medal at a sex fair one day…  Hopefully, Dawn will have more to say on her blog.

It was interesting to read some of the reporting on the “fair.”  The front page story of today’s issue of the student newspaper, the Daily Illini, focused on the students’ chastity table (though the pictures they ran along with it showed the infantile displays of feminine genitalia at the fair).  It is interesting to note some of the comments from those who object to the message of chastity.  The former president of Feminist Majority had this to say:

Kristen Rains, University alumna, former president of the Feminist Majority and former Daily Illini employee, said she thinks abstinence-only education is repressive because it is typically only directed toward women. “Personally, I didn’t want to admit them,” Rains said about the pro-abstinence group. “I feel like abstinence only is anti-women, anti-feminist.”

I don’t quite follow her logic.  Besides her mistaken impression that chastity means simply abstinence from sex, it is not clear to me that even if her dubious opinion about its typical orientation toward women is correct, how it could possibly be “anti-women, anti-feminist.”  Perhaps she explained this to the reporter but it did not make it into print?  Who knows.

There was another article in today’s Daily Illini reacting to an op-ed piece by Part-Time Pundit John Bambenek, who plugged Dawn’s talk and the chastity table at the fair.  This young lady’s thinking is even less lucid.  I cannot tell what the author is really intending to say.  Perhaps this is due to a quick deadline?  I dunno.  However, I wonder about the editorial standards at the DI for even allowing this to be published.

Here are some quotes perhaps you can help me with:

Although Bambenek briefly touches on adultery, he discusses it in terms of an emotional consequence, but, especially if you were having “natural” sex, there are potential physical consequences as well.

Unless a couple is trying to procreate, the use of condoms as a means of not only pregnancy prevention, but protection from life-altering STDs is strongly recommended by most medical associations.

Huh?  I suppose the second paragraph is intended to support the first but since I cannot figure out what either of them is trying to say, I can only guess at a relationship.  Here are a few more:

Also false is the contention that the degree of a person’s “sexual freedom” is in any way tied to their emotional growth.

The “sexual empowerment of women” through the advent of contraceptives was not intended to destroy the romantic relationship.

A promiscuous person is as capable of loving (emotionally and spiritually) as a chaste one.

Furthermore, no one has the right to force their views of how a relationship “should be” upon your access to information. Sex Out Loud acknowledges that there are many types of sexuality, including chastity.

Information will be available on each of these choices. Sex Out Loud IS a sexual health fair; what it is NOT is an attempt to control the behaviors of others.

Now I know that in print, stealing extra words is nearly impossible, but there still seems to be no logical argument here, just the spraying of personal feelings in stream of consciousness fashion.  Is this article emblematic of the “rigorous” thinking of those who support cultural hedonism?  Me thinks that it may indeed…

I have have been swamped, and still am…so what’s new (and who isn’t)?  Well, since Shelray is off galivanting around in the Holy Land with Steve Ray, et. al.,  for a couple of weeks, I figured that I had better get some half started posts completed.

However, before doing that let me do a plug.  If you are in the area of Champaign, IL next Tuesday evening (13 March) you will want to come to Lewis Lounge in Newman Hall at the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center (corner of 6th and Armory).  St. Blog’s own Dawn Eden (who now seems to be the rage in Colombia as well) will be here taking on the promoters of sexual perversion on the University of Illinois campus.

At 7:30pm that evening, she will be giving a talk based upon her new book to which we have repeatedly referred in the past.  The next day, she will go into the lion’s den with a host of intrepid students to witness to the joy of chaste living at the annual Sex Out Loud “Fair,” hosted by the student organization, Feminist Majority.  They will have a chastity table set up at the event among the sex toy vendors, chocolate phalluses, vagina coloring contest, Planned Parenthood exhibit, etc.

If you can’t be here, your prayers for Dawn and the students would be most welcome.

Fruit of the Loom withdrew their claim that a film made by Catholic film-maker Michelle Messina, called Fruitful Sex, infringed on the company’s name. Her short film is about chastity, where a banana and an orange meet, fall in love, and get married by a rhubarb and eventually have a little banana and carrot babies. She was warned that her message would be unpopular, but it won honorable mentions and received considerable media coverage. She believes, “It’s a very strong message, and it’s one that people should be telling their children: wait for the right person and wait till marriage before getting involved with sex.”

Source

The very creative Dawn Eden sends along a YouTube version a video promoting a book that she has coming out in December, entitled The Thrill of the Chaste. For the video, she connects up with the Raving Theist to adapt a Dylan song and provide a very interesting message of purity in a world that seems to think that all things meaningful begin below the waist line.

Here are some publicity quotes:

“Why would a thirtysomething modern woman give up sex? At the heart of The Thrill of the Chaste is this mystery story which as it unfolds reveals our deep human longing for a love that matters, for a sexual union that is real. A brave, beautiful book.” – Maggie Gallagher, President, Institute for Marriage and nationally syndicated columnist

“Dawn Eden is part of a growing group of talented professionals who, having bought into our culture’s message about sex, found it wanting and searched for something better. Her life experience enables her to demonstrate with compelling, hard-earned wisdom why living chastely is, as the title suggests, ‘thrilling.’” – Christopher West, Theology of the Body Institute“

New York Daily News columnist and blogger [Dawn] Eden offers a Christian apologetic for premarital chastity, aimed at “marriage-minded single women who’d had enough of the Sex and the City lifestyle.” Eden herself is a convert to both Christianity and chastity, and now an unmarried 30-something, she’s persuaded that chastity is more “hope-filled” and “vibrant” than sex outside of marriage. She draws on John Paul II’s theology of the body to explain why Christians should reserve sex for marriage; “our bodies are living metaphors of God’s loving nature,” she argues, and to have sex casually is to make a false promise of total commitment…” [Full review] – Publishers Weekly

You can preorder Dawn’s new book here.

……………………………………………

Fundamental to John Paul the Great’s theology of the body is the truth that the body and soul form a dynamic unity (i.e. hylomorphism). In other words, the body receives its shape, its motion, indeed, its entire existence from the soul. The human person is a unity in one single nature that has both a spiritual and material aspect. It is not correct to think of the person as the joining together of two preexisting “things” but as a single entity who is at once material and spiritual.

This unity is such that the soul expresses itself through the body. Everything in the body that is not a deformation due to environmental or other effects, has its origin in some aspect of the soul and this includes one’s sex. The body, then, is a window into the soul.

This brings up the question of aesthetics. What does hylomorphism say about the souls of very physically attractive people? Moreover, what does this say about the souls of those of us who may not be physically attractive or are perhaps even initially physically repulsive?

It is clear that intutitively we recognize from the importance of our body image to our self identities, that our bodies are an integral part of who we are as persons. While there are varying degrees of consciousness about body image, ranging from inattention to pathological obsession, generally most people experience a desire to be accepted in their bodies. It is more often the case, because of the female constitution, that women are much more attuned to this and are more apt to be preoccupied with their body image than are males. Again, this reflects the intuitive sense that we are who we are which includes our bodies and we all have the need to be accepted and loved. So then what does this say about physical attractiveness?

There is a physical attractiveness that some people possess that cannot be attributed to some environmental defect or some other cause related to the fact that we now live East of Eden (i.e. we live in a fallen world). The fact that some are more physcially attractive than others is part of the mystery of creation but that is not the focus here. It is sufficient to note that the perception of physical beauty has a cultural component, is usually linked to youth and degrades with age, and can be attenuated or enhanced based upon other factors, especially one’s personality. In fact, close relationships and an affectively appealing personality can affect the perception of physical beauty to some degree. In fact, even beyond physical beauty a sense of personal holiness can greatly affect the perception of physical attractiveness, Mother Theresa being a case in point. In other words, physical attractiveness plays a part in initial, superficial attraction but it provides no insight into the moral attractiveness of the person.

John Paul the Great’s treatment of attraction is very much in tune with Benedict’s first Encyclical, Deus caritas est. What is missed by many commentators of this work, because they possess a dichotomous view of two aspects of love–eros and agape–is that love is a unity with differing aspects to it. Because of our fallen states, love is also a process. Love often begins with eros, an attraction or desire. But love must mature to self-giving love. Physical attractiveness is often the first step, but it need not always be so. It is a sign of affective and spiritual maturity that one can train himself, aided by grace, to subordinate initial involuntary responses to physical appearance in order to see, by means of the body, the whole person who is created imago Dei, in the image of God.

In our culture, too often relationships remain at the superficial level. This is often the reason that relationships are incapable of progressing to an authentic, mature love and often dissolve. The problem here is one of reductionism. The person is reduced to his attractiveness (whether sexual or not) and then becomes an object of use. In these cases I use the person for the way that he makes me feel (or what he can do for me) rather than love him for his own sake. For love to be authentic, and so fulfilliing, the various types of attraction need not be ignored or suppressed. Rather, they must be integrated into a disinterested self gift of oneself to the other because he is a person created in the image of God. The other must be loved for his own sake.

A manifestation of a lack of spiritual maturity is the preferential consideration that we might give to a person who is affectively pleasing to us. In this way, we are also reducing the person to his physical appearance. This is the case both for those who gain the advantange of the preference as well as those who suffer the disadvantage.

The problem in these cases again, is the reductionism. It is not that physical appearance is unimportant. Asserting such runs the risk of bifurcating the person and absolutizing the soul in a Manichean fashion. Rather, the problem is not integrating the physical appearance into the whole person, allowing oneself to see the beauty of the entire person and allowing oneself to re-perceive the physical beauty in a more integrated fashion. This reperception can take place only as one, moved by grace, allows eros to complete itself in agape.

From the director who brought Live Flesh (film about a women who committs adultery because she is not sexually “satisfied” by handicapped husband) to the big screen, will now bring St. Teresa of Ávila to theaters in Teresa: Death and Life.

Film-makers don’t do spirituality as easily as sexuality and, in exploring the saint’s sex life, they find themselves accused of treading sacrilegiously.

The film was denounced by Benedicta Ward, a nun and Reader in the History of Christian Spirituality in the Theology Faculty at Oxford University, who wrote the introduction to a recent edition of the saint’s celebrated work, Life.

On being told about the film’s content, she said: “The stress on her virginity and her sexuality are entirely modern interests — as if she were living now. That’s not fair. She is the greatest of the mystics. She has visions and writes about them and analyses them in an extraordinary way.”

On the director’s opinion on women and the Catholic Church:

“So far, they’ve only offered two models to women — The Virgin Mother, which, in my opinion, is an aberration and quite harmful to women, and the redeemed whore symbolised by Mary Magdalene. These role models worry me. The Church hasn’t been able to find a better explanation for women within the context of our relationship with God.”

Source

The St. Louis Review ran an article last week on Fr. John Harvey, O.S.F.S. and his Courage Apostolate. Courage held its annual conference at St. Louis University at the end of July. One item that caught my attention was a statistic from a soon to be released study looking at the Courage apostolate which found that 74% of those who have participated in courage are able to lead chaste lives through daily Mass, prayer, and the Sacraments. Some additional interesting comments:

[snip]

He cited the Scriptures and teachings of the Church — including how Jesus reaffirmed the monogamous, heterosexual form of sexuality found in Genesis — and noted that “God made man and woman physically different from one another so they can complement one another.”

[snip]

A member of Courage spoke to the group and told of being molested at age 18, and later had two relationships with someone of the same sex. The member knew the relationships weren’t right and sought help through confession. A nonChristian therapist earlier had been unable to help the person deal with the molestation, including attempts to fill the wound of abuse with sex. The priest gave the person a referral to a prayer group, whose assistance proved invaluable. Prayers to Jesus’ Mother have been a big help for those in Courage, the member noted. The people who come to Courage are lonely, frustrated and have no one to talk to, Father Harvey said.

[snip]

Clinical psychologist Rudegeair, who is from the Philadelphia area, countered the homosexual lifestyle promoted by secular media and by homosexual organizations. He pointed to an assumption that there is a genetic cause for same-sex attraction. Various studies prove this is not the case, he said.

[snip]

Same-sex attractions and behaviors are attributable to a combination of emotional, psychological, social and biological factors, he said. Sexual abuse or rape is a big factor, he noted. Also cited as a factor — children who are unable to attach to a parent.

[snip]

Both Rudegeair and Father Harvey addressed what is called reparative therapy, where people seek therapy to change their same-sex attraction. Rudegeair noted that people who want that are given referrals to therapists but that Courage does not focus on it.

[snip]

Father Harvey said Courage has supported men and women who desire to get out of the condition to do so, but the choice to heal the orientation is an option, especially since some who try are not able to change their orientation but yet are able to lead a life of chastity. Father Harvey, in answer to a question, said parents should not reject their sons and daughters even when they are living a homosexual lifestyle.

It seems very telling to me that so many suffering from and embrace their SSA disorder seem so threatened by those people who wish to be healed from the damaging “gay” lifestyle and those organizations that assist them. They seem especially vexed by folks who have gone on to be healed of the affective disorder itself and no longer experience the troubling sexual attractions. I suspect the phenomenon is that when one sees the truth face to face he has the choice to either embrace it or attack the messenger who brings it. That is what happened with Jesus…”if the world hated Me…”

Did the Baby Boomers make a Faustian bargain that they have come to regret? This article, from Newsweek of all places, claims that they did, indeed, have their own Mephistopheles. And, it claims, they have come to a point of “Faustian bewilderment,” looking back regretfully at the excesses of their lives and the revolution that they wrought.

This article brings to mind a fact about the Boomers, or at least the most vocal segment of them, that has, in recent years, become a point of vexation for me: they suffer from a collective delusion of grandeur so severe that one wonders if Napolean himself had a tighter grip on reality than the typical, “elite” Boomer. Even in this article, where self-doubt is manifest, they seem to overestimate themselves. Also, self-loathing has always been a fact of life for the elite Boomers, if only under the surface. So, it is no wonder that, as they near the not-so-golden years of their lives, they would ask themselves, self-importantly and ruefully: “What have we done to the world?”

The S.C. has got’em (links), and they’re still fresh!