The Language of Love: Gospel Commentary for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27.

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ROME, AUG. 29, 2008 (Zenit.org).- In this Sunday's Gospel we hear Jesus who says: "Whoever wants to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Because whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

What does it mean to "deny" yourself? And why should you deny yourself? We know about the indignation of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche over this the request of this Gospel.

I will begin answering these questions with an example. During the Nazi persecution, many trains full of Jews traveled from every part of Europe to the extermination camps. They were induced to get on the trains by false promises of being taken to places that would be better for them, when, in fact, they were being taken to their destruction. It happened at some of the stops that someone who knew the truth, called out from some hiding place to the passengers: "Get off! Run away!" Some succeeded in doing so.

The example is a hard one, but it expresses something of our situation. The train of life on which we are traveling is going toward death. About this, at least, there are no doubts. Our natural "I," being mortal, is destined for destruction. What the Gospel is proposing to us when it exhorts us to deny ourselves, is to get off this train and board another one that leads to life. The train that leads to life is faith in him who said: "Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live."

Paul understood this transferring from one transport to another and he describes it thus: "It is no longer I who lives, Christ lives in me." If we assume the "I" of Christ we become immortal because he, risen from the dead, dies no more. This indicates the meaning of the words of the Gospel that we have heard. Christ's call for us to deny ourselves and thus find life is not a call to abuse ourselves or reject ourselves in a simplistic way. It is the wisest of the bold steps that we can take in our lives.

But we must immediately make a qualification. Jesus does not ask us to deny "what we are," but "what we have become." We are images of God. Thus, we are something "very good," as God himself said, immediately after creating man and woman. What we must deny is not that which God has made, but that which we ourselves have made by misusing our freedom -- the evil tendencies, sin, all those things that have covered over the
original.

Years ago, off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy, there were discovered two encrusted masses that vaguely resembled human bodies. They were removed from the sea and carefully cleaned and freed. They turned out to be bronze statues of ancient warriors. They are known today as the Riace Warriors and are on display at the National Museum of Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria. They are among the most admired sculptures of antiquity.

This example can help us understand the positive aspect of the Gospel proposal. Spiritually, we resemble the condition of those statues before their restoration. The beautiful image of God that we should be is covered over by the seven layers of the seven capital sins.

Perhaps it is not a bad idea to recall what these sins are, if we have forgotten them: pride, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy and sloth. St. Paul calls this disfigured image, "the earthly image," in contrast to the "heavenly image," which is the resemblance of Christ.

"Denying ourselves," therefore, is not a work of death, but one of life, of beauty and of joy. It is also a learning of the language of true love. Imagine, said the great Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, a purely human situation. Two young people love each other. But they belong to two different nations and speak completely different languages. If their love is to survive and grow, one of them must learn the language of the other. Otherwise, they will not be able to communicate and their love will not last.

This, Kierkegaard said, is how it is with us and God. We speak the language of the flesh, he speaks that of the spirit; we speak the language of selfishness, he that of love.

Denying yourself is learning the language of God so that we can communicate with him, but it is also learning the language that allows us to communicate with each other. We will not be able to say "yes" to the other -- beginning with our own wife or husband -- if we are not first of all able to say "no" to ourselves.

Keeping within the context of marriage, many problems and failures with the couple come from the fact that the man has never learned to express love for the woman, nor she for the man. Even when it speaks of denying ourselves, we see that the Gospel is much less distant from life than it is sometimes believed.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Wednesday Liturgy: Masses for Priestly Vocations

ROME, AUG. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Q: We have been refused to have a Mass said for priestly vocations. I have tried to determine the reason and only found information to the contrary. So the question is: Under what circumstances is a Mass for priestly vocations not allowed, if ever? -- C.B., Detroit, Michigan

A: Our reader also provides some texts to support his position that a priest may always offer a Mass for priestly vocations.

For example: "Canon 901 [of the Code of Canon Law] states that: 'A priest is entitled to offer Mass for anyone, living or dead.' From this premise he concludes: That means to me it does not forbid intention for priestly vocations."

Also, Canon 897 states: "The most venerable sacrament is the blessed Eucharist, in which Christ the Lord himself is contained, offered and received, and by which the Church continually lives and grows. The eucharistic Sacrifice, the memorial of the death and resurrection of the Lord, in which the Sacrifice of the cross is forever perpetuated, is the summit and the source of all worship and Christian life. By means of it the unity of God's people is signified and brought about, and the building up of the body of Christ is perfected. The other sacraments and all the apostolic works of Christ are bound up with, and directed to, the blessed Eucharist."

Thus he affirms: "The Church cannot live and grow without priests; thus it does not seem that a Mass intention for priestly vocations is forbidden but rather encouraged."

He also points out that the missal specifically lists Mass formulas for priestly vocations and that several bishops in the United States have had public Masses for priestly vocations.

Our correspondent has clearly done his homework and proves that a Mass for priestly vocations is certainly permissible.

However, I think one or two distinctions should be made to further clarify the point. We must distinguish between the celebrant's intention in offering the Mass and the liturgical formula used.

With respect to the priest's intention in offering up the Mass for vocations to sacred orders, there is no limitation whatsoever. If a person offers a stipend for this intention, a priest can freely accept it and celebrate for this intention on any day of the year except All Souls' Day.

It falls under the umbrella of offering for the living mentioned in Canon 901, since this implies offering for their intentions. A person can request a Mass for his own or someone else's spiritual or physical welfare. Indeed, any intention found as a Mass formula in the missal may be requested as an intention, as well as many that are not covered by specific formulas.

The priest is also free to add any number of personal intentions to that which is tied to a stipend, as the Mass is of infinite value.

The case is different regarding the use of the specific Mass formulas for vocations to sacred orders and vocations to religious life. These Mass formulas fall under the same restrictions as all Masses for various needs and votive Masses. Their celebration is usually reserved to weekdays of ordinary time when no obligatory memorial is to be celebrated.

They are usually excluded from the liturgical seasons of Advent from Dec. 17 on, and from Christmastide, Lent and Easter.

Even during these periods there are some exceptions for Masses celebrated when a sufficient reason interposes. For example, if the diocese proclaims a special day of prayer for vocations, the bishop can mandate, or at least permit, the use of the Mass for vocations even on a Sunday of Christmastide and ordinary time, feasts as well as all weekdays of Advent, Christmas after Jan. 2, and those of Lent and Easter.

He may not do so on solemnities, the Sundays of the other major seasons, the Christmas and Easter octaves, Ash Wednesday, and Holy Week.

In conclusion, I have no idea why the request for celebrating a Mass for the intention of priestly vocations was refused. It is certainly not justified by any liturgical rule.

Indeed, while respecting the liturgical norms, it is highly recommended that all parishes and communities celebrate such Masses from time to time.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Precious Blood for Young Children

ROME, AUG. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.


Related to our July 29 reply on giving the Precious Blood to children, a reader asked about the proper place for distributing Communion to servers.

He asked: "It is the practice in our parish for the celebrant to give Communion under both kinds at the side of the altar to the server (who may also double as assistant in distributing Communion to the congregation) or, if there are a number of Communion assistants, to them all, also at the altar. Is this correct? It is also the practice to give Communion from the chalice only to individuals from the congregation who, presumably, have requested this because of a problem with gluten?"

Following the Gospel principle that the "last will be first," I will tackle quickly the second question and affirm that it is correct to offer the chalice alone to those who for a good reason cannot receive the host.

Regarding the first question, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 162, says: "The priest may be assisted in the distribution of Communion by other priests who happen to be present. If such priests are not present and there is a very large number of communicants, the priest may call upon extraordinary ministers to assist him, e.g., duly instituted acolytes or even other faithful who have been deputed for this purpose.[1] In case of necessity, the priest may depute suitable faithful for this single occasion.

"These ministers should not approach the altar before the priest has received Communion, and they are always to receive from the hands of the priest celebrant the vessel containing either species of the Most Holy Eucharist for distribution to the faithful."

This number does not explicitly address whether the extraordinary ministers may receive Communion near the altar after the priest's communion. But I think that this is a logical conclusion as it would be cumbersome for the priest to give them Communion somewhere else and then return to the altar to distribute the sacred vessels. It is also appropriate that these ministers receive Communion before distributing it to others.

It is not necessary that servers who are not extraordinary ministers of holy Communion receive near the altar. But there could be good practical reasons for proceeding in this manner and it is not forbidden.

Who Do You Say I Am?: Gospel Commentary for 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20.

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ROME, AUG. 22, 2008 (Zenit.org).- There is a practice in today's culture and society that can help us toward understanding this Sunday's Gospel: opinion polls.

These are conducted everywhere, especially in the political and commercial spheres. One day Jesus also wanted to do an opinion poll, but, as we shall see, for a different purpose. He did it not for political reasons, but for educational ones.

Having arrived in Caesarea Philippi, that is, in the northernmost region of Israel, and taking a little rest alone with the apostles, Jesus asks them, point blank, "Who do people say that the son of man is?"

It seems that the apostles were not expecting to be asked more than to report what people were saying of him. They answered: "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

But Jesus was not interested in measuring his popularity or in looking for an index of how well he was regarded by the people. His purpose was entirely different. So he immediately followed his first question with a second: "Who do you say that I am?"

This second, unexpected question catches them completely off guard. There is silence and they stand looking at each other. In the Greek it makes it clear that all of the apostles together responded to the first question and that only one person, namely, Simon Peter, responded to the second question: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"

Between the two responses there is a leap over an abyss, a "conversion." To answer the first question it was only necessary to look around, to have listened to people's opinions. But to answer the second question, it was necessary to look inside, to listen to a completely different voice, a voice that was not of flesh and blood but of the Father in heaven. Peter was enlightened from on high.

It is the first clear recognition of the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels. The first public act of faith in Christ in history! Think about the wake that a big ship makes in the sea. It widens as the ship goes forward until it is lost on the horizon. But it begins at a single point, which is the ship itself. Faith in Jesus Christ is like this. It is as a wake that widens as it moves through history, and travels to "the very ends of the earth." But it starts at a single point. And this point is Peter's act of faith. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"

Jesus uses another image, which implies stability rather than movement. It is a vertical instead of a horizontal image. It is that of a rock: "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church."

Jesus changes his name -- as often happens in the Bible when someone receives an important mission -- from Simon to Cephas, or Peter -- "rock." The true rock, the "cornerstone" is, and remains, Jesus himself. But once he has risen and ascended into heaven, this "cornerstone," though present and active, is invisible. It is necessary for a sign to represent him, a sign that makes Christ, who is the "unshakeable foundation," visible and efficacious in history. And this sign is Peter and, after him, his vicar, the Pope, successor of Peter, as head of the college of apostles.

But let us return to the idea of polling. Jesus' poll, as we saw, has two parts, which have two distinct questions. First, "Who do people say that I am?" And second, "Who do you say that I am?"

Jesus does not seem to value very much what the people think of him. He wants to know what his disciples think of him. He immediately asks them to speak for themselves. He does not let them hide behind the opinions of others. He wants them to speak of their own opinions. Almost the identical situation repeats itself today.

Today as well "people," "public opinion," has its ideas about Jesus. Jesus is in vogue. Just look at what is going on in the world of literature and entertainment. A year does not go by in which there does not appear a novel or a film with its own distorted and sacriligious vision of Christ. Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" has been the most well-known one of late and has produced many imitators.

Then there are those who are middle-of-the-road, like the people of Jesus' time, who believe Jesus to be "one of the prophets." He is regarded as a fascinating person and placed alongside Socrates, Gandhi and Tolstoy. I am sure that Jesus does not scorn these responses to him, because the Bible says of him that he does not "quench the smoldering wick and does not break the bruised reed," that is, he appreciates every honest effort on the part of man.

But, the truth be told, this view of Jesus does not seem quite right even from a human point of view. Neither Gandhi nor Tolstoy ever said: "I am the way, the truth and the life," or "Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worth of me."

With Jesus you cannot not be middle-of-the-road. Either he is what he claims to be, or he is not a great man, but rather a great lunatic lifted up by history. There are no half-measures. There are buildings and structures made of steel -- I believe that the Eiffel Tower in Paris is one -- made in such a way that if you touch a certain point or remove a certain element, everything will come down. The edifice of the Christian faith is like this, and this neuralgic point is the divinity of Jesus Christ.

But let us leave aside the responses of the people and consider the nonbelievers. Believing in the divinity of Christ is not enough; you must also bear witness to it. Whoever knows him and does not bear witness to this faith, indeed even hides it, is more responsible before God that those who do not have this faith.

In a scene in Paul Claudel's play "The Humiliated Father," a Jewish girl, beautiful but blind, alluding to the double meaning of light, asks her Christian friend: "You who see, what use have you made of the light?" It is a question that is asked of all of us who claim to be believers.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Wednesday Liturgy: Interpreting Liturgical Norms

ROME, AUG. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: Is there a Church document or scholarly treatise on "how" to interpret liturgical laws and norms? In civil law there is something known as "legal methods." This course and treatise contains a collection of "maxims" or accepted rules and standards of interpretation when reviewing cases or statutes. For example, I read in one of your responses an interpretation of the meaning and use of the word "fitting" as used in a particular liturgical norm. In civil law one could consult an official text or case to provide a standard for interpreting the term. Is that standard for interpretation discussed or defined anywhere either by the Church or by scholars? This seems to go to the heart of many challenges with interpreting Church norms. -- S.M., Westfield, Indiana

A: Although the Church's canon law was first codified only in 1917, the codification reflected a long legal tradition eventually rooted in Roman law.

Thus, expert canon lawyers are able to drink from a deep wellspring of traditional interpretations in stating the meaning of laws. Most canonists will claim that doubts regarding the objective meaning of a law are fairly rare.

They do occur, however, and are usually clarified over time by an authentic interpretation promulgated by the legislative authority, by a new law that further clarifies the question at hand, or by development in canonical doctrine until a consensus is reached among the practitioners of the craft.

The Holy See has a special body dedicated to the authentic interpretation of laws. Its first decision regarding the 1983 Code of Canon Law dealt with the meaning of the word "iterum" (which can mean either "again" or "a second time") in Canon 917 which refers to reception of Communion. The decision fell on "a second time" as to how often one may receive Communion in one day.

All but the most essential aspects of liturgical law are found outside the Code of Canon Law and have never been completely codified into a single volume.

Within liturgical law we must distinguish between laws applicable to the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman rite.

The rites of the extraordinary form are meticulously determined, a factor which endows this form with a particular beauty, reverence and spiritual force when celebrated with due care.

Over four centuries this rite generated a considerable body of jurisprudence gathered together in the volumes of authentic decrees of the former Congregation of Rites. Fortunately, this series of complex laws were frequently digested by sedulous scholars into descriptive manuals for use of priests and masters of ceremonies. Two of the best of these have been republished: A. Fortescue and J.B. O'Connell's "The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described," updated by Father Alcuin Reid, OSB, and the even more complete Italian "Compendio di Liturgia Pratica," by L. Trimelloni.

The interpretation of the norms of the ordinary form presents some particular difficulties. The rite's relative youth (at least as regards its rubrics) means that there is little in the way of historical jurisprudence that could clarify any doubtful passages.

There is also the difficulty that in general the rubrics quite deliberately eschew detailed descriptions of the rites so as to leave a certain degree of flexibility. For example, both the extraordinary and ordinary forms indicate that the priest pray with hands extended, but the latter rite makes no determination as to distance and position of the hands, leaving this up to the discretion of the celebrant.

Also, the existence of official translations can sometimes make interpretation difficult especially when translations vary the meaning of a text, even among countries sharing the same language. We saw this discrepancy in a recent column (Dec. 4, 2007) when some liturgists interpreted the English translation of the introduction to the lectionary to conclude that the Alleluia is omitted if not sung, an inference absent from the original Latin and other modern translations.

Unlike the liturgy, canon law has no official translations and only the Latin text may be used for legal purposes.

Another factor is the involvement of other instances of liturgical legislation besides the Holy See, such as legitimate customs and bishops' conferences. The conferences may propose particular adaptations for their countries requiring approval from the Holy See before becoming particular law. They may also publish other documents such as guidelines on certain liturgical questions which, while not strictly legally binding, in practice become a legal point of reference.

In spite of these difficulties liturgical interpretation is not arbitrary.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments sometimes makes authentic interpretations of the liturgical texts. For example, it declared that No. 299 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, in stating that a celebrant's facing the people seemed "more desirable," did not constitute a legal obligation.

Such authentic interpretations throw light on the mind of the legislator regarding similar texts and so help in resolving disputed points. In some cases historical decision regarding the extraordinary form are still useful in understanding the present form.

Another means is to examine the use of a particular word throughout the official documents so as to gauge its overall sense. Compared to civil law the totality of liturgical ordinances constitutes a relatively small corpus, and this makes such comparisons fairly easy.

Finally, again unlike much civil law, liturgical law is actually designed to be clearly understood by non-experts and so it actually means what it says based on a literal reading. Therefore priests, deacons, sacristans and other liturgical actors are absolved of the need for a law degree in preparing for Mass.

The difficulty in liturgical law is not usually in the understanding but in the faith, love and will to carry it out.

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Leaving Right After Communion

ROME, AUG. 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Our July 21 column dealt with people who leave Mass early. Several readers asked about those who arrive late for Mass. We addressed this question in several columns, principally on Nov. 4 and Nov. 18, 2003, and on Oct. 23 and Nov. 6, 2007.

At the risk of appearing presumptuous, I hazard a little publicity directed toward newer subscribers to ZENIT's services. It is quite possible that your question has already been touched upon in previous articles, and I recommend searching the liturgy section on the ZENIT Web page.

Chipi's Gospel Commentary: Sunday, 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Mt 15:21-28

Our Lord, at this point, was retreating from the Jewish authorities with growing antagonism to His teachings and His rising popularity. Evidently, His teachings is not yet complete as how we know it now but in spite of this hiatus from Jewish public eye, He does not waste time and chooses to spend it strengthening His select group of apprentices in various ways and means.

This Sunday's Gospel is both strange and instructive. Our Lord, as we know Him in a "summary" sense, would not be the type who would simply shrug any poor woman, a social category that would have evoked a "double compassion". As it is, our hearts would move already whenever we see someone suffering material poverty. In this case, being a Canaanite meant that she is not only poor materially but even spiritually, not being part of the favored people of God. Further, being a woman meant that she does not have a favorable position in society, as usual preference gravitates towards men. And yet, Our Lord seemingly rejected the simple, direct plea of the Canaanite woman.

It is true: Our Lord was first sent to the lost sheep of Israel. This was Our Lord's second response to the cries of the woman (the first response would be his "non-response" to the earlier pleas of the woman until His disciples begged Him to drive her away). It would have been unfair for Him to conveniently grant the wishes of someone who was not part of the intended audience of Our Lord. This is instructive in a sense that we should not go out there immediately, dealing with complete strangers or mere acquaintances, when those around us such as our family and relatives are not led to the light of Christ.

Now take look at the Canaanite woman. She did not give any objection to Our Lord's response. In fact, her silence reflects her agreement to what Jesus said. It like she was saying this, "Yes, Lord, it is true you have been sent to the lost sheep of Israel. So what now? Lord, help me." She did not give up, in spite of the fact that she would not have a good knowledge of Our Lord. She could have learned it from her neighbors or friends -- possibly pagan too -- who would have also learned it from others. In short, her knowledge of Our Lord was neither first-hand nor formal. Also, as mentioned earlier, her position as a poor Canaanite woman puts her at a disadvantage in a typical political negotiation of sorts. Doesn't she know that Jesus is retreating from Jewish authorities? Instead of thinking "selfishly", she should provide Jesus and His band a place of refuge in that foreign land. And yet, she is "pestering" Our Lord to do something for her. Most likely but highly speculative, since He is bound to return, Our Lord did not want to put everything at risk by dealing too conveniently with pagans. It would caused confusion even among His disciples. Although there was a growing antagonism with the Jewish authorities, the general Jewish crowd is still astonished and bewildered by Our Lord's teachings, a sign that they are still receptive to Him and His teachings. Imagine, a Jew dealing with a pagan woman, and then one wonders -- Is He really who is mentioned in the Scriptures???

However, as we read further, a very wonderful thing happened. Our Lord's third response was a more descriptive one, stating that it is not right to give children's bread to dogs. As it is, the poor Canaanite woman has so little dignity left and Our Lord pummels that further down, implicitly stating that she is not even human. What does Our Lord want to prove here?

First: Like the poor Canaanite woman, Our Lord wants us to respond directly. He wants dialogue. As God, He already knows what we need even way before we would have been able to articulate them ourselves. And it is through dialogue that Our Lord is able to raise us up from a lowly level of shame and disregard.

Second: Constant humility breeds perseverance and then comes grace. Remember how in another scene, the rich young [Jewish] man was talking to Our Lord? A perfect contrast to the poor pagan woman in today's Gospel! And yet, that rich young man walked away. Our Lord wants us to understand that for us to gain His graces, we have to empty ourselves to receive it. In a way, He "pushed" the woman to feel her nothingness in the face of true "completeness" in the person of Our Lord. All that was left was for the woman to still acknowledge Our Lord in the state of nothingness. That extra step is perseverance.

The poor Canaanite woman did all that. She responded to Our Lord directly. She never gave up in spite of being pushed down to nothingness. And her reward was great.

Faith is all these, not a typical one-shot declaration. Faith is not just acknowledging the greatness of God (the poor Canaanite woman did just that in the early parts), but also acknowledging our nothingness in front of God and recognizing that without Him, we are nothing. And these series of acknowledgments is also not a one-shot action. We have to constantly do this, without losing hope. Our Lord will choose when to give us the reward. What's important is that by doing this, we will be rewarded eventually.

Article: Message Refused: Humanae Vitae, 40 Years Later

RUSSELL SHAW

I know a woman -- and, in fairness, I must say that she's a truly good Catholic woman -- who's slightly bonkers on the subject of birth control.

I suppose there are people like that on both sides of this argument, but this woman happens to be bonkers on the pro-contraception side. You can't help noticing it. Whenever the subject comes up in conversation -- and, not infrequently, even when it doesn't -- she lets everybody within earshot know that the Church is flatly wrong about birth control and absolutely, unquestionably, and incontrovertibly must change its position without further delay.

Poor lady. She may be in for a hard time of it in the next several weeks. Today is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Humanae Vitae , Pope Paul VI's encyclical reaffirming the Church's teaching against artificial contraception; and although, among those taking note of the occasion, some will undoubtedly join this good Catholic woman in rapping the document and calling for change, many others just as certainly will praise the encyclical as not just true but even prophetically so. Pope Benedict XVI got in the first licks a little while back when he spoke to a group meeting in Rome to celebrate the anniversary.

"What was true yesterday is true also today," Benedict said. "The truth expressed in Humanae Vitae does not change . . . . The transmission of life is inscribed in nature and its laws stand as an unwritten norm to which all must refer. Any attempt to turn one's gaze away from this principle is in itself barren and does not produce a future."

Unfortunately, the gaze-turning of which the Holy Father speaks has been going on for four decades now and gives no sign of being at an end. Birth control is a subject a lot of people just can't leave alone, including many Catholics who disagree with the Church. Like the woman mentioned above, these folks say they're absolutely certain contraception is okay, yet they keep bringing it up obsessively as if they weren't quite sure and needed the approval of the Church to be at peace. Which suggests to me, among other things, that after 40 years, there are still lots of unsettled consciences out there.

Before someone tells me I'm being presumptuous, let me hasten to add that I don't question anyone's good faith. God knows about things like that; I surely don't. My point is not that anyone in particular who goes on and on about how wrong the Church is in this matter is insincere. It's simply that all these people together manage collectively to give the impression of not being all that sure. And that stands to reason -- since, after all, they're wrong. Those of us who see how wrong they are need to give them a hand.

Ten years after Humanae Vitae appeared, Rev. Charles Curran, the most highly publicized of the American dissenters, made an extremely important point. At the time the document came out, he said, "'the conservatives' saw much more clearly than 'the liberals' of the day that a change in the teaching on artificial contraception had to recognize that the previous teaching was wrong." But if the Church was wrong about birth control, then of course the Church could be, and no doubt was, wrong about much else. As Father Curran pointed out in 1978:

Catholic theologians frequently deny the existing teaching of the hierarchical magisterium on such issues as contraception, sterilization, artificial insemination, masturbation, the generic gravity of sexual sins. Newer approaches have recently been taken to the question of homosexuality. [Remember, this was 1978. The dissenters have gone far beyond "newer approaches" since then.] All these questions in the area of medical and sexual morality are being questioned today.

Aside from the reference to the "teaching of the hierarchical magisterium," a common rhetorical ploy by dissenters indicating their dismissal of doctrine they disagree with as only the teaching of the pope and the bishops in union with him, this was a very honest remark. Since it was made, Father Curran and people like him have moved on from individual moral questions to matters of moral principle and moral methodology. For centuries, the teaching of the Church was based on the conviction that there are absolute, exceptionless moral norms -- some actions always and everywhere are wrong in all circumstances.

It is not a rational argument against contraception but more like an intuition, both moral and aesthetic, to say there'd be something very nearly blasphemous about likening the relationship of Christ and the Church to a contraceptive relationship between a man and woman. As metaphor, it just doesn't work.

Now, not a few moral theologians deny that. Adopting relativistic moral theories with names like "proportionalism" and "consequentialism," they proceed on the assumption that the morality of an action is always determined by circumstances; in the end, nothing can be ruled out in principle before the fact.

Pope John Paul II brushed all that aside in Veritatis Splendor (1995), his admirable encyclical on morality, when he said: "The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance." As any dissenting moral theologian worth his or her salt will be quick to point out, however, that's only the hierarchical -- or, in this case, papal -- magisterium talking.

With spectacular timing -- good or bad, depending on how you look at it -- Humanae Vitae arrived on the scene smack in the middle of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Many Catholics joined that revolution then, and many have joined it since. The consequences of the sexual revolution are clear by now in statistics on things like abortion, out-of-wedlock births, cohabitation, divorce, and HIV/AIDS.

As for Catholics, in the last four decades, the number of Catholic marriages in the United States -- not the rate of marriage, mind you, but the absolute number of marriages -- has fallen by half, and this at a time when Catholic population was surging 30 million higher. In one recent survey, more than half the young, unmarried Catholics in the country saw no reason to get married in the Church.

The central Christian metaphor for marriage is in Ephesians, where the relationship of husband and wife is likened to the relationship of Christ to the Church:

No man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, as Christ does the church . . . . For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church (Eph 5:29-32).

It is not a rational argument against contraception but more like an intuition, both moral and aesthetic, to say there'd be something very nearly blasphemous about likening the relationship of Christ and the Church to a contraceptive relationship between a man and woman. As metaphor, it just doesn't work.

The reason it doesn't work has to do, among other things, with the fact that contraception depersonalizes the other -- it turns the partner into an object, while focusing narcissistically on the gratification of the self. Sex becomes an essentially solipsistic activity rather than a relational experience of self-communication and mutual giving. This is the kind of thinking John Paul II develops to good effect in his well-known theology of the body.

People like the good Catholic woman who believes so strongly that the Church is wrong about birth control ought to think about it. Forty years after Humanae Vitae , the question is how to get her and the rest to do that.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Russell Shaw. "Message Refused: Humanae Vitae, 40 Years Later." Inside Cathiolic (July 25, 2008).

This article reprinted with permission of Inside Catholic.

THE AUTHOR

Russell Shaw is a writer and journalist in Washington and a contributing editor of Crisis magazine and Our Sunday Visitor national newspaper. His books include Personal Vocation: God Calls Everyone By Name, Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church, Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion, and the Crisis of Faith. He is editor of Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine.

Copyright © 2008 Inside Catholic

Article: How to say stop

JASON EVERT

Q. If you're on a date and things are going too far, how do you stop suddenly and tell him "no"?

Most situations of impurity can be avoided if you think ahead and avoid people and places that are likely to tempt you. But if you are already in a situation where you need to cool it off, there are a number of things you can say. Everyone seems to recommend different approaches.

For starters, do not underestimate the direct approach: Simply saying "We need to stop -- we're going too far" may do the trick, especially if it is already understood that you are committed to chastity. Include yourself as well as him -- say "We need to stop" instead of "You need to stop" -- to indicate that you are not blaming him, just putting on the brakes. This may be hard, but learn from it so that you don't let things get to that point again.

On the other hand, some prefer the humorous approach: "Here's my cell phone. Call my dad, and if he says it's okay for us to do what you want, then I'll do it." Or, "You've got protection? Good. You are going to need it if you don't get your hands off me." And then there is, "Everyone's doing it? Then you shouldn't have trouble finding someone else."

These may be entertaining but I do not know how realistic they are. It might be more practical to give him a compliment--guys love that--such as, "I really like you, and I have so much fun when we're together, but this is the kind of stuff I want to save for marriage." Also, feel free to blame your parents for your decision: "My mom would kill me if she ever found out we were doing this. I need to cool off."

Another reason to skip the humorous approach is that this is not a time for jokes, but for witnessing to the truth of love. Be humble but clear, confident, and firm, and see this as a teachable moment. Use a verbal "no" and a "no" with your body language. If you're lying with him on a couch and whispering a half-hearted "no," he probably won't take you seriously, since you don't take your comittment to purity seriously.

Your purity is a treasure, so have the confidence to respect yourself. When the two of you work to preserve purity, it will keep an element of mystery and excitement in your relationship that is lost when couples do not bother to keep anything secret and sacred.

Also, when a girl is unable to say no, she is less attractive. Wendy Shalit described a "deadness" in girls' demeanor, "that comes from inauthenticity, from giving away too much," from not knowing how to set limits and having the character to stand by them.¹ To avoid this deadness, pray to God for the strength to maintain and grow in your purity.

Even if you don't convince your date to live purely in his own life, that's okay. It is more important that you do what is right than it is for you to convince another. You shouldn't have to play the chastity cop. In fact, both people in a relationship should be mutually accountable. The responsibility to blow the whistle should not rest entirely on one person. Also, you do not owe your date a thirty-minute presentation on why chastity is important to you, and you certainly don't owe him sexual favors. If he doesn't accept a simple no, then he doesn't love you.

Let the guy go, and hold out for a man who knows how to honor a woman. Most important, do not be afraid. One girl wrote to me and said, "I really like him, but I do not know why I have sex, like sometimes I am scared to say no." There are worse things in the world than not being asked out again by a guy who only loves himself. If he dumps you over this, then he did not deserve your attention to begin with.

When things are going too far, value yourself enough to say no. Unfortunately, many young women use physical intimacy as a way of giving themselves value. The embraces feel like an affirmation of their worth, and perhaps because of mistakes they have made in the past, they do not understand the tremendous value of their bodies. Your purity is a treasure, so have the confidence to respect yourself. When the two of you work to preserve purity, it will keep an element of mystery and excitement in your relationship that is lost when couples do not bother to keep anything secret and sacred.

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1. Shalit, A Return to Modesty, 57.
   
   

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Jason Evert. "How to say stop." excerpted from If You Really Loved Me (San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2007).

Reprinted with permission of Catholic Answers.

THE AUTHOR

Jason Evert earned a master's degree in Theology, and undergraduate degrees in Counseling and Theology, with a minor in Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is the author of If You Really Loved Me, Pure Manhood, Answering Jehovah's Witnesses, Love, Sex, and Babies, Teen Relationships And Sexual Pressure, and Pure Love, which challenges young people to embrace the virtue of chastity. Jason speaks at seminars, participates in debates, and responds to thousands of questions about Catholicism from people around the world.

Copyright © 2008 Catholic Answers

Article: The Social Footprints of Contraception

JANET E. SMITH

The Church’s teaching on sexuality that lies behind its teaching that contraception is intrinsically immoral is dazzlingly beautiful.

Many people whose understanding has been clouded by the corruption of our culture have difficulty understanding it. The Church understands sexuality to be an inestimable gift from God. This gift allows a man and a woman -- in a personal, profound, spiritual and physical way -- to express their deep desire to unite with another and to live out the essential human need to love and be loved.

Love Overflows into Life

God himself is a lover and is Love Itself. Love is a union, and the sexual union of spouses allows them to more fully actualize the love between them that unites them.

Furthermore, it is natural for love to overflow. In fact, all of creation is the result of the natural overflowing of God's love. The Trinity has no need of "others." It is three perfect persons who love each other perfectly, but they "naturally" explode with love and that love "naturally" leads to new life and new possibilities for love. Thus the whole universe is fueled by love.

Spouses are meant to image the love of God; they are meant to be committed unconditional lovers whose love overflows into new life. (That new life results is not always possible because of infertility, but the spousal relationship is the kind of relationship that is designed to foster love and life.) John Paul II spoke of spouses as being "co-creators" with God who assist God in bringing forth new human souls.

Spouses because they truly appreciate the gift of fertility understand that when they are not prepared to accept the gift of a child, they should abstain from sex when a pregnancy is possible; that is, they use natural family planning (NFP). NFP is a way of respecting the great gift of fertility.

Many studies and testimonies affirm the benefits of using NFP. The U.S. Bishops issued a fine statement about the meaning of sexuality and the value of NFP in their 2006 document, Married Love and the Gift of Life .

Consequences of Contraception

Our culture is accustomed to thinking of sex as just a form of recreation that has no inherently profound meaning. People rarely encounter the Church's teaching in its full glory and, when they do, they don't easily understand it. One method of helping people be open to the Church's teaching is to alert them to the bad consequences that contraception has for individuals, for the culture and even the environment.

But hormones also affect our judgment and responses in other ways. What is important here is that women who are on chemical contraceptives have squashed the influence of their normal fertile hormones.

The case is quite easily made that contraception has greatly contributed to the increased incidence of abortion, unwed pregnancy, divorce, and the poverty and trauma that comes with single motherhood. After all, contraception tremendously facilitates sex between partners who have no intention of having a baby.

All contraceptives have a failure rate and people fail to use contraceptives even when available. Presently, about one out of four babies conceived in the United States is aborted, nearly thirty- seven percent of babies are born to a single mother, approximately one out of two marriages contracted today is likely to end in divorce, and over eighty percent of children who experience long term poverty come from broken or unmarried families.

Who can calculate the harm done to babies born out of wedlock and to children impacted by divorce? The evidence is overwhelming that children born to parents who are married to each other and who stay married to each other have numerous advantages over children born out of wedlock or impacted by divorce.

Who can calculate the harm done to individuals who are in and out of sexual relationships? The biggest selling point of natural family planning should not be that it is as effective as any form of contraception (it is), or that it has no bad health side effects (it doesn't). Rather, we should proclaim from the rooftops that NFP is so good for a marriage that those who use NFP almost never divorce. Almost everyone who uses NFP has used contraception at some point and finds that the use of NFP improves both sexual relations and marriage.

The Chemistry of Attraction

To be added to the bad consequences of contraception are the effect of hormonal contraceptives on a woman's health and on male/female relationships. The health risks of the chemical contraceptives have been known for a very long time and range from weight gain to increased incidence of breast cancer, and even death from blood clots. More and more studies are showing the bad effect that contraceptives have on relationships.

In my talk "Hormones 'R Us" (mycatholicfaith.org), I report on some of the little known effects of chemical contraceptives.

We often speak of "chemistry" as being powerful between a male and a female who are strongly attracted to each other. The talk of "chemistry" is not an analogy; the attraction is truly based on chemical differences between males and females.

Males and females exchange hormones, called pheromones, and these are the cause of the chemical attraction between them. These hormones are received through the olfactory nerves. Many women testify that one of the things that most attract them to a man is the way he "smells." Some studies show that males and females who are more biologically compatible -- that is, those who are more likely to be able to reproduce with each other -- are more attracted to each other.

But hormones also affect our judgment and responses in other ways. What is important here is that women who are on chemical contraceptives have squashed the influence of their normal fertile hormones. Chemical contraceptives work by putting a woman in a state of pseudo-pregnancy. When pregnant, women don't ovulate. Researchers who invented the chemical contraceptives realized that they could "deceive" a woman's body into "thinking" that it is pregnancy by giving it synthetic forms of the hormones that are present when a woman is pregnant. One problem with this scenario is that women respond to men differently when they are pregnant -- or on a chemical contraceptive -- and when they are not. And men respond to them differently.

Chemically Induced Choices

So we have an interesting phenomenon: women are choosing their mates not under the influence of their own more reliable fertile hormones but on alien synthetic hormones.

Consider the T-shirt study report in the marvelous book The Decline of Males by Lionel Tiger. This study involved two groups of females, one that was on contraceptives and one that was not. It also involved a group of males who had been rated for their "evolutionary" desirability. The women, who never met the men, smelled the T-shirts and on that basis identified which men they thought would make desirable mates. The non-contracepting females chose the evolutionarily desirable males, the contracepting females chose the losers!

The website nbc10.com has a fascinating video called "The Divorce Pill" that features research showing that women on the pill often choose to marry men who are not suitable spouses for them. This is of special concern since most women of child-bearing age in the United States use chemical contraceptives, especially during their years preceding marriage -- precisely when they are choosing a mate.

One amazing effect of chemical contraceptives is that they reduce the amount of testosterone that a female produces -- and for females as well as males, testosterone is the source of sexual desire. Thus, women on chemical contraceptives find their sexual desire is reduced; when they go off the chemical contraceptives, it may never return to the level it had before that they began using chemical contraceptives.

So we have an interesting phenomenon: women are choosing their mates not under the influence of their own more reliable fertile hormones but on alien synthetic hormones. When they go off chemical contraceptives, they may find they have a higher sex drive, but they are not much interested in the men they are with!

NFP: Eco-friendly

Contraceptives not only step all over relationships, they also leave a considerable carbon footprint. Consider that NFP has a zero carbon footprint: it burns nary a fossil fuel, whereas the amount of energy needed to produce, transport, distribute and dispose of contraceptives is astronomically high. Indeed, studies have suggested that divorce has a huge carbon footprint, since divorces generally double the need for housing, etc.

Moreover, the estrogens in contraceptives have a lethal effect on some elements of the environment. For instance, they have been shown to destroy the fertility of some groups of fish.

Not only is the Church's teaching on contraception based on an understanding of sexuality that is sublime, it is also eco-friendly: friendly to a woman's internal eco-system, friendly to the "ecology" of the culture and of relationships, and friendly to the environment.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Janet Smith. "The Social Footprints of Contraception." Mosaic, (Summer 2008) 8-9.

Mosaic is a magazine for friends of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan.

THE AUTHOR

Janet E. Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. She is the author of Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics, Beginning Apologetics 5: How to Answer Tough Moral Questions--Abortion, Contraception, Euthanasia, Test-Tube Babies, Cloning, & Sexual Ethics, Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and the editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right. She has published many articles on ethical and bioethics issues. She has taught at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Dallas. Prof. Smith has received the Haggar Teaching Award from the University of Dallas, the Prolife Person of the Year from the Diocese of Dallas, and the Cardinal Wright Award from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. She is serving a second term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family. Over a million copies of her talk, "Contraception: Why Not" have been distributed. Visit Janet Smith's web page here. See Janet Smith's audio tapes and writing here. Janet Smith is on the Advisory Board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Copyright © 2008 Mosaic

Article: Pornography

JASON EVERT

Q. What's wrong with looking at pornography? It's not like you are getting a girl pregnant or spreading STDs.

A. The problem with using porn is that it emasculates men, degrades women, destroys marriages, and offends the Lord.

You may be thinking: "That's going a little overboard, don't you think? I mean, what's wrong with checking out a few web sites?" Take a look at the effects of pornography, and you will see why real men don't use it.

First off, when Jesus warned that anyone who looks lustfully at a woman commits sin with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28), he spelled it out in no uncertain terms that it's not enough to avoid pregnancy or STDs. He wants us to be pure.

What does pornography do to a man? For starters, it robs him of the capacity to be a man. The essence of manhood consists in readiness to deny oneself for the good of a beloved. This is why Paul reminds husbands in his Letter to the Ephesians that their love must be like that of Christ, who allowed himself to be crucified for the sake of his beloved, the Church (Eph. 5:21-33).

Pornography defeats this calling. Ask yourself: Wouldn't it infuriate you if a guy looked at your daughter or wife in the same way he looked at pornography? Instead of denying himself for the good of the woman, a man, through the use of porn, denies the woman her dignity in order to satisfy his lust. In essence, pornography is a rejection of our calling to love as God loves. It is no wonder that those who use it are never satisfied. Only love satisfies.

Pornography gradually cripples a man's ability to love. It is impossible to love a fantasy, but living in a world of fantasy allows a guy to escape from reality and evade the demands of authentic love. In a way, the fact that pornography allows men to indulge their lust without having to worry about pregnancy or STDs is part of the problem. It encourages him to live in a world in which sexuality offers only pleasure without meaning or consequences, in which "no one gets pregnant, no one catches a disease, no one shows signs of guilt, fear, remorse, embarrassment, or distrust. No one suffers from the sexual activities of others and the men, at least, are always carefree, unrestrained. . . . The priority of lovingly protecting one's partner is of little concern in pornography because no harm seems possible."¹

Simply put, pornography is the renunciation of love. As the writer Christopher West said, "[Pornography] seeks to foster precisely those distortions of our sexual desires that we must struggle against in order to discover true love."² For the person who indulges in porn, the purpose of sex becomes the satisfaction of the erotic "needs," not the communication of life and love. Pornography drives a man to value a woman only for what she gives him rather than for the person she is.

Some guys will slough this all off, saying, "Boys will be boys," or "I'm just appreciating the beauty of womanhood," or "I like the articles in the magazine." Sometimes they will realize how unconvincing these arguments are, and they'll become resentful, saying, "You want to repress sexuality and rob women of their freedom. It's unhealthy for you to have such little appreciation for women!" This resentment has found its way to the billboards and titles of the strip clubs, which advertise the establishment as a "gentleman's club" for "adult entertainment." Having the word "gentleman" or "adult" associated with a strip club is nothing less than fascinating. Why would a man feel the need to justify that his behavior is mature and gentlemanly? Can you call to mind any time where an adult needed to remind others that he was mature? Or can you think of any activity on earth where a gentleman needs to announce that he is one? Usually actions speak for themselves. Besides, a gentleman doesn't need to pay women to pretend that they like him.

For the person who indulges in porn, the purpose of sex becomes the satisfaction of the erotic "needs," not the communication of life and love. Pornography drives a man to value a woman only for what she gives him rather than for the person she is.

So even when a man's lack of self-control makes him resemble a boy and nothing in his behavior is reconcilable with the title "gentleman," he still feels a need to identify with authentic manhood. This is because no matter how much we fall, Christ has still stamped into our being the call to love like Jesus. If only we can untwist the lies and humbly come before the Lord in all of our woundedness, he will raise us up and make us into true men.

Now what does pornography do to women? Since it trains men to think of women as objects to be used instead of persons to be loved, guys speak of them as objects and treat them as objects. When men learn their "love" from videos and magazines, they accept the idea that a woman's "no" is actually a "yes" and that she enjoys being used. This can lead to a rapist mentality.

Consider, for example, a study done in the Oklahoma City area. When 150 sexually-oriented businesses were closed, the rate of rape decreased 27 percent in five years, while the rate in the rest of the country increased 19 percent. In Phoenix, Arizona, neighborhoods with porn outlets had 500 percent more sex offenses than neighborhoods without them.³

Ted Bundy raped and killed dozens of women. He was sentenced to die in the electric chair and requested that his last interview be with Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. In that meeting, Bundy talked openly about pornography and told Dr. Dobson that his struggles all began there. He explained that all of his fellow inmates had an obsession with pornography before going to prison. Porn magazines, web sites, and videos lay at the root of innumerable rapes and murders. No one can tell the husbands, siblings, children, and fathers of those violated and deceased women that pornography is harmless. If you want to see for yourself what Bundy said, click here.

What does pornography do to marriages? To be blunt, pornography is the perfect way to shoot your future marriage in the head. Imagine that a young man has a habit of using pornography, and he does not reveal this to his fiancee. He hopes that once he is married, the desires for illicit sexual arousal will subside. But what becomes of his lust once he marries her? It does not disappear, it is foisted upon his wife. The pornography has trained him to react to the sexual value of a woman, and nothing else. He has trained himself to believe that women should be physically flawless and constantly sexually accessible. Even if he rejects this intellectually, the fact remains that his attractions and responses have been conditioned and shaped by warped, pornography-inspired fantasies.

Provided his wife is a life-size Barbie doll with a squad of make-up artists and hairdressers that follow her around the house, things might run smoothly for a time. But when reality confronts fantasy, the man will be left disillusioned and the woman's self image will suffer. His disordered desires and fantasies can never be fulfilled by any real-life woman. They focus solely upon self-centered gratification rather than mutual self-giving and joy in pleasing one's spouse. One woman explained that if a man's real-life partner is not always as available sexually and willing to do whatever he wishes as the women he has fantasized about, he may accuse her of being a prude. If she looks normal, and unlike the models he has come to adore, he may accuse her of being fat. If she has needs, unlike the passive images in the magazines, then she may seem too demanding for him.⁴

This is why part of the problem with pornography is not simply that it shows too much, but that it shows too little. It reduces a woman to nothing more than her body.

In other words, he'll be quick to blame his disorder on her; his fantasies will have robbed him of the ability to be truly intimate with his wife. One reason he is unable to have healthy intimacy with his wife is because intimacy is not an escape from reality, but the capacity to see the beauty of the other. The presence of lust in the heart of the man blocks his ability to view the woman as a person. He has reduced her to an object and ignored her value as person. When this happens, he forfeits love. True intimacy is impossible.

This is why part of the problem with pornography is not simply that it shows too much, but that it shows too little. It reduces a woman to nothing more than her body. Thus, a man will assume that the greater the body, the greater the value of the woman. With this mindset, men not only expect their future wives to look no less perfect than Miss September, they also do not appreciate a woman's most beautiful and precious qualities, since a centerfold display fails to highlight these. This drives men to look elsewhere in an impossible quest to satisfy their disordered appetites. After all, pornography fosters the false mentality that casual, uncommitted sex is the most fulfilling and enjoyable. Who does not want to be fulfilled?

One all-too-common response to the marital dissatisfaction often caused by pornography habits is to actually bring pornography into the bedroom. This is a vain effort on the part of the man to have the illicit excitement that he has formed an attachment to. The poor wife may allow this, but the joy of loving has escaped the man, who no longer sees the value of the person and the need to give himself for her. Married couples who use pornography find that their marital problems only worsen. If a husband needs to pretend that his wife is someone else in order for him to be excited, then he will become less and less drawn to her. Instead of making love to her, he is destroying love between them.

Because the effects of pornography are so severe, Christian men have an obligation to rid their own lives of it. According to Pope John Paul II, "[God] has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman."⁵ When we act in a way that is contrary to the dignity of women, we act contrary to our own dignity and vocation as men.

Even if pornography had no adverse affects on people, we must never forget that sin is not simply a social matter. We owe it to our neighbor to love him, but we also owe it to God to honor the Lord in all our actions and thoughts. To lust after his daughters is a grave sin, even if no one becomes pregnant as a result of another's imagination. "So shun youthful passions and aim at righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart" (2 Tim. 2:22).

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1. Wetzel, Sexual Wisdom, 72.
2. West, Good News About Sex and Marriage, 84.
3. U.S. Department of Justice. Child Pornography, Obscenity, and Organized Crime. Washington, D.C., February 1988.
4. Laurie Hall, "When Fantasy Meets Reality" (www.pureintimacy.org).
5. Pope John Paul II, general audience, 24 November 1982. As quoted by Theology of the Body, 346.
   
   

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Jason Evert. "Pornography." excerpted from If You Really Loved Me (San Diego: Catholic Answers, Inc., 2007): 115-119.

Reprinted with permission of Catholic Answers.

THE AUTHOR

Jason Evert earned a master's degree in Theology, and undergraduate degrees in Counseling and Theology, with a minor in Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is the author of If You Really Loved Me, Pure Manhood, Answering Jehovah's Witnesses, Love, Sex, and Babies, Teen Relationships And Sexual Pressure, and Pure Love, which challenges young people to embrace the virtue of chastity. Jason speaks at seminars, participates in debates, and responds to thousands of questions about Catholicism from people around the world.

Copyright © 2008 Catholic Answers

Article: When Mother Comes Home

FREDERICA MATHEWES-GREEN

While I'm not very informed about the Intelligent Design debate, the idea sounds inoffensive enough: Scientists cannot prove there is a Designer, and neither can they prove there's no Designer, so why not leave the question open?

Instead the concept of Intelligent Design has been greeted with outrage and the case is considered closed. Clearly, it struck a nerve.

When I tried to picture why, I thought of a page in Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, one that comes near the end. "Sally and I" have been standing by helplessly while the hatted Cat, with his Thing One and Thing Two, made havoc of the house. The toy boat is in the cake and the cake is on the floor, the rake is bent and mother's new dress has gone sailing through the room on a kite string. The fish has been trying to warn us, but we chose not to listen.

And then, through the window, we see her. There is a flash of red skirt and a leg striding into view, terminating with a high-heel pump with a bow. "Then our fish said, 'LOOK! LOOK!' And our fish shook with fear. 'Your mother is on her way home! Do you hear? Oh, what will she do to us? What will she say? Oh, she will not like it to find us this way!'"

This is the crisis point of the plot, as you probably remember. I can recall as a child finding it a terrifying moment. What if you had made a terrible mess of things, and suddenly Mother came home?

I think that's how our materialist friends feel when they hear the term "Intelligent Design." It is essential, indispensable, to believe that Mother is never coming home. Otherwise the things we do might have unanticipated meanings and unforeseen consequences.

For materialists, it's essential that the material is all there is. If our bodies are just machines, then we can use them however we like, and the smartest course, obviously, is to accumulate as much pleasure as possible. When the pleasure is sexual, sometimes new little bodies come into being, despite our emphatic inhospitality. But no matter; those tiny bodies are just more meaningless fleshy machines, and can be dismantled and discarded handily. It happens every day. In fact, it happens three thousand times a day.

For those banking on the theory that this is only a material world, it would be a very uncomfortable thing if Mother were to appear.

In the last thirty-four years we've done a great deal of discarding; about forty-eight million little American bodies have gone down garbage disposals, into incinerators, and into landfills. If we stopped for a moment to imagine that some day Mother might be coming home, we might have a prickle of anxiety.

And if the purpose of life is pleasure, what do we do with people who reach an age or a state of health when they are enjoying substandard levels of gusto? The obvious response is to terminate them, right? No one would want to survive in a permanent coma.

No one would want to survive in a conscious state either, I guess, if they were brain damaged. And they probably wouldn't want to live even if they were fully alert and aware, but quadriplegic.

Paraplegic. Had a limp. I expect some would look at me, a plump, graying grandmother, and find it terribly poignant, suitable grounds for "release."

These pink billows of compassion flow outward further and further, embracing all the weak and old and unsightly of the world. Tender poison would free them from their misery -- or, at least, make their misery disappear. And a world without misery is a perfect world, isn't it? Last week I saw a young woman with Down Syndrome, and realized how rare it is to see them any more. Advances in prenatal testing has made it such that they can be easily tagged and terminated before they are born. Thus we make progress toward a world where everyone is uniformly healthy, hearty, and attractive. And if they know what's good for them, they'll stay that way.

"'But your mother will come. She will find this big mess! And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall, we can not pick it up. There is no way at all!'"

For those banking on the theory that this is only a material world, it would be a very uncomfortable thing if Mother were to appear. They were just having fun on a rainy day, assuming that the cake and rake and cup and ball were their toys to play with. But all these bodies we were indulging or starving or tearing apart might turn out to belong to someone else after all. And that is a prospect the materialist cannot bear.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Frederica Mathewes-Green. "When Mother Comes Home." On The Square Blog (July 29, 2008).

On The Square Blog is maintained by First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life.

This blog entry is reprinted with permission from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, 156 Fifth Avenue, Suite 400, New York, NY 10010. To subscribe to First Things call 1-800-783-4903.

THE AUTHOR

Frederica Mathewes-Green is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and a contributor to the Christian Millennial History Project multi-volume series. Her books include The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation, At the Corner of East and Now (Putnam), The Illumined Heart (Paraclete Press), The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer (Paraclete Press), and Gender: Men, Women, Sex, and Feminism. She lives in Linthicum, Maryland, with her husband Fr. Gregory, pastor of Holy Cross Orthodox Church. They have three children and three grandchildren.

Copyright © 2008 First Things

Article: The shortest life

MARGARET SOMERVILLE

A woman decides to carry her child despite the fact it is doomed.

My Saturday morning luxury is breakfast-in-bed reading newspapers.

The Globe and Mail on July 19 had an article by Cate Cochran, "Why not just talk about it?" that discussed women's reluctance to speak about having had an abortion and Toronto photographer Kathryn Palmateer's Arts4choice project in which women who have had abortions tell her their stories and pose for a portrait as a way of breaking the silence. It was thoughtful, but strongly pro-choice in the sense that all the women featured believed they had made the right choice in having an abortion.

Just after reading this, I went downstairs and opened my e-mail to find one from a woman whom I'd never been in contact with that had come in at the same time as I was reading the Globe article. It tells a very different story, one of a pregnant woman's truly remarkable, life-affirming and life-respecting response to a tragic situation and why she decided against abortion.

One reply from pro-choice advocates to the story this woman tells, would be that she had a choice and decided to continue her pregnancy and that is consistent with their stance. That's correct, if you focus just on having choice. But if you focus on the substance of the choice she made and why, and compare that with the substance of the choices made by the women featured in the Globe's article and why, there's a night-and-day difference. These two stories reflect two very different sets of fundamental values.

But, overwhelmingly, only the pro-choice values stories are being told in the general media. The pro-life values stories are dismissed as being too personal, just based on religious belief, and so on. (Why one set of reasons for holding certain values is regarded as automatically validating these values in the public square and the other set of reasons as necessarily invalidating the values based on them is an important question that I can't explore here.) The point is that this imbalance in media coverage means there is not a balanced approach to the abortion debate in the public square and, whatever our own personal stance on abortion, we should all be concerned about that. I can't recall ever having seen even one story like the one below in a major newspaper, but pro-choice ones, similar in tone and content to the story that appeared in the Globe, are not unusual.

So, in an effort to change that, here is one courageous woman's story explaining her reasons for deciding against abortion (edited to ensure privacy and for length, and used with the permission of the author):

Dear Dr. Somerville:

I'm sure that you have probably heard many stories like the one I'm about to tell, but wish to share mine with you anyway .... I secretly pray that by telling my story to you, that in future debates (on abortion) ... you will be able to reference the circumstances of my situation (not directly of course) to help clarify for people some realities I have been experiencing.

So, to begin ...

I am a happily married, 32-year-old Catholic and a teacher. This past February, after seven glorious months of marriage, my husband and I discovered we were expecting a baby in October. My doctor confirmed the happenings of a "regular" pregnancy, and we refused any genetic testing.

Then, at a scheduled 20-week ultrasound, the technician discovered something in her sonographs that caused her to consult with the radiologist. He told us that our baby appeared to have hydrocephalus, and that we would be referred to the "high-risk maternal unit" at the (university teaching hospital in our area).

Four days later, Dr. G, a fetal maternal specialist, informed us that our baby actually had holoprocencephaly (a hole in the brain stem), much fluid in his brain, and a severe heart condition. At this point, Dr. G. offered a few options (not necessarily in this order): a termination of the pregnancy; the opportunity to perform an amniocentesis; or an uninterrupted continuation of the pregnancy.

Termination was not an option for me, and I informed the doctor of this immediately. He was extremely supportive of this decision, despite obviously disagreeing (with references to "quality of life"), and said that he would happily monitor me through this pregnancy, and future ones.

As I am writing this letter, the little one in my womb is moving around, kicking his mother, and hopefully enjoying a refreshing swim. I am told that he knows no pain, and that while he is in the uterus, he is as safe as can be. I walk him every day, talk to him often, and pray for him always.

The next day, Dr. G performed an amniocentesis. It was my understanding that results from the amniocentesis might have the ability to indicate the cause of our baby's abnormalities, and therefore help to determine possible future developments related to the pregnancy. Dr. G was certain that the results would show that one of five known "lethal" chromosomes was responsible for our baby's health and that our baby would die quite quickly after birth (if he made it that far).

So far (a month and a half after the initial information was passed down), no testing has shown a cause of the abnormalities. Long story short, Dr. G's "certainty" was discounted. He honestly says that he cannot predict whether our baby will die in utero, shortly thereafter, or whether he will live for a time. We have been told by another specialist (heart doctor) that our baby's heart condition can be repaired with surgery, but leaves that decision to us considering the severity of the brain condition. Both doctors have indicated, that should we wish, during labour, our baby can receive an injection that can stop his heart before he is born (which of course is also not an option in our opinions).

As I am writing this letter, the little one in my womb is moving around, kicking his mother, and hopefully enjoying a refreshing swim. I am told that he knows no pain, and that while he is in the uterus, he is as safe as can be. I walk him every day, talk to him often, and pray for him always. I tell you this because I want you to know that, despite the grim outlook described above, I am carrying this baby as long as he will let me, and will not be the killing hand. After his birth, if he lives longer than a few days, my husband and I will let ourselves be advised by doctors, but do not intend to extend extraordinary means to keep our little one alive (as hard as that will be). Our prayer is simple: That we will get to meet our little one, tell him that we love him, and watch him fall deep into a sleep that will bring him to heaven.

With each new day, I learn to accept this situation. For example, I know that I cannot change my circumstances, and therefore must proceed with the daily grind of life. In other ways, it becomes more difficult. It is a very odd experience to be pregnant, knowing that I may never get to bring my baby home from the hospital, and that instead of anticipating his whole life, I may have to prepare for his funeral and burial.

We are in awe of how our little one continues to live despite his abnormalities. I say he must really be extraordinary to be discounting all medical theories with respect to chromosome-gene results, and his longevity. I tell him that even the doctors aren't sure why he's lived so long (most babies with these abnormalities self-abort long before now), and that he is special because of this.

As I said in the beginning, I am telling you my story because I want you to know (and to tell the world), that there are women who do not wish to "terminate" their pregnancies despite devastating news, and that the option of abortion is definitely offered past the point of 12 weeks. In fact, I am sure that for many women, abortion is strongly recommended in cases like mine, especially if women do not have a strong belief about it originally. As I told you, several references to quality of life were made at the initial meeting with the high-risk physician. And, I firmly believe that had I not been so definitely opposed, the option of abortion may have been the end of my story.

Cheers,

M.G.

The very heart of parental love is that it's unconditional -- you love your child simply because he is your child. This kind of love is under serious threat in the search for the perfect child made according to the parent's specifications, who they hope will fulfill all of their utopian fantasies. M.G.'s story is one of immense unconditional love. It brings us back to the essence of our humanity in the most intimate of our relationships, that with our children to whom we pass on life.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Margaret Somerville. "The shortest life." Ottawa Citizen, (Canada) 5 August 2008.

Reprinted with permission of the author, Margaret Somerville.

THE AUTHOR

Margaret Somerville, AM, FRSC is an Australian/Canadian ethicist and academic. She is the Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and the Founding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University. She is the author of The Ethical Imagination: CBC Massey Lectures, Death Talk: The Case Against Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide, The Ethical Canary: Science, Society, and the Human Spirit, and Do We Care?.

Copyright © 2008 Margaret Somerville

Article: The best thing ever written about music in our language

PAUL JOHNSON

If I had a teenage child with a passion for serious music, I would not hesitate to give him or her Essays in Musical Analysis by Donald Francis Tovey.

Donald Francis Tovey 1875-1940

This is a formidable work. The first volume is on symphonies, the second on symphonies, variations and orchestral polyphony, the third on concertos, the fourth on illustrative music and the final volume on vocal music. There is also an index volume which includes a valuable glossary, and the general introduction provides a dazzlingly clear explanation of such basic concepts as key, tonic, dominant, tonality and sonata form. There are copious musical illustrations throughout. You say a teenager is not going to wade through six volumes of uncompromising gravity. Not true. I discovered Tovey for myself in the school library when I was 15, and read him virtually all through. It provided me with the basis of my musical education, and much of what he said lodges in my mind to this day. I recently read some of him again, and found him as fresh, captivating and revelatory as when I was a boy. These are books, covering most of the concert repertoire, which you cannot put down if you love music.

Who was Tovey? He was born in 1875, the same year as Ravel; Tchaikovsky wrote his notorious first piano concerto and Bizet's Carmen had its premiere; Rachmaninov was two years older, Casals a year his junior. Tovey came from Eton, son of a master at the school. He never went to school but was educated entirely by Sophie Weiss, a passionate musicologist and headmistress of a girls' school, though he also had lessons in counterpoint from Sir Walter Parratt, organist at St George's Chapel, Windsor. He was composing systematically by the age of eight, and at 13 was thought promising enough to be taken up by Parry, whom he called 'my master'. When he was 18 he went to Balliol with a music scholarship (like Ted Heath later). Being a pianist of exceptional skill, memory and resource, who could play anything in the orchestral repertory at sight, he was soon performing in public and could have made a brilliant career as a concert pianist. As it was, he had the opportunity of working and playing with Casals, Henry Wood, Suggia, Lady Hallé, the Bosches and, above all, Joachim, who pronounced him the most learned musician who had ever lived. However, he was asked to do the musical entries to the famous 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, probably the most distinguished work of reference ever published, and in complying he discovered a talent and delight in writing which he found even more exciting than playing.

He was in fact a polymath. His essays are dotted with parallels and citations ranging over vast areas of literature and science. He also had what is so rare among musicologists (or art scholars for that matter) -- a tremendous sense of humour, an engaging self-deprecation and a highly infectious sense of enjoyment.

However, when in 1914 he was made Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh he was able to do both, for there he founded the Reid Orchestra, composed of students and professionals. Over the next quarter-century they played the entire classical repertoire, as well as many novelties by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Hindemith and Walton, and he integrated the band, which he always conducted himself, with his revolutionary and inspired methods of teaching music to his undergraduates. The orchestra was underfunded and never large, and Tovey often had to work frantically re-arranging the scores to enable his slender forces to tackle the great canonical symphonies. But this gave him a valuable insight into the often desperate exigencies to which 18th-century composers like Handel, Haydn and Mozart were put by limited means, as well as a profound empirical knowledge of what every instrument in the orchestra could do, alone or in combination.

Moreover, for his concerts he supplied regular programme notes, which formed the basis of his Essays. These conveyed not only his profound knowledge of what music tries to do, how it is composed, played and conducted, but also his excitement and enthusiasm. His parents gave him a fine grounding in English literature and at Oxford he expanded his range to take in philosophy, astronomy, higher mathematics and physics. He was in fact a polymath. His essays are dotted with parallels and citations ranging over vast areas of literature and science. He also had what is so rare among musicologists (or art scholars for that matter) -- a tremendous sense of humour, an engaging self-deprecation and a highly infectious sense of enjoyment.

All these qualities make Tovey one of the three greatest writers on music in English. The other two are Ernest Newman, another idol of my youth when the Sunday Times was part of my adolescent education, and in our own day the great David Cairns, whose two volumes on Berlioz are a model of how to write a musical biography and whose most recent work, Mozart and His Operas, is a delight and my Book of the Year 2006. (I should also mention the American critic Jay Nordlinger.) Of all these writers, Tovey is the greatest because of his combination of originality, authority (based on his enormous knowledge) and nerve.

It is characteristic that he begins his wonderful analysis of all the Beethoven symphonies with the sentence, 'Beethoven's first symphony, produced in 1800, is a fitting farewell to the 18th century.' One is conscious in all his writings of a strong sense of history and a firm framework of chronology. There is also the sense of the mechanics of producing sublime sounds. His analysis of the last three symphonies of Mozart -- 39, 40 and 41 -- composed in six consecutive weeks, begins by examining what instruments in the normal orchestra are absent or present. He notes, with feeling, for his own experience was similar, that 'Mozart's material resources would mean starvation to any but the most spiritual of modern composers'. But each of the three symphonies has its own special colouring nonetheless. In the 39 there are no oboes but the clarinets have a splendid time, for 'Mozart was the first to appreciate the true importance of the clarinet both in chamber music and in the orchestra', and in 39 he uses the instrument in all possible ways. In 40 he first reversed the procedure and used only oboes. 'But he afterwards rewrote the oboe parts, giving all their softer and less rustic utterances to the clarinets, and it is a great mistake not to accept his revision.' The C-Major or Jupiter Symphony, 41, has no clarinets 'and no room for them in its scheme'. Tovey concludes that 'the whole orchestra is affected by these differences of scheme; and an intimate knowledge of these three scores is the foundation of a fine sensibility towards the possibilities of modern orchestration'.

The word 'intimate' is the key. Tovey not only had all the academic knowledge you could possibly require, he also had the intimacy of the rehearsal room, the concert platform, the earnest, sometimes heated discussion between conductor and players and soloists. Reading Tovey, you smell the Brasso with which players polished their horns and trombones, you hear the timpanist tightening his drums and the snap and whine of a broken violin string. You hear Bach grumbling in his organ loft, Beethoven hammering his stricken piano, and Haydn (who came to be Tovey's favourite, as he is mine) joking with the Prince of Wales about his cello-playing. Tovey also wrote a short book on Beethoven, a Companion to his piano sonatas, and one on The Art of Fugue. His Britannica articles were collected and published and I believe there is a recording of some of his radio talks. But the Essays are his masterpiece, his monument and his achievement, without parallel in the history of music in Britain.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Paul Johnson. "The best thing ever written about music in our language." The Spectator (January 13, 2007).

This article is from Paul Johnson's "And another thing" column for The Spectator and is reprinted with permission of the author.

THE AUTHOR

Paul Johnson, celebrated journalist and historian, is the author most recently of George Washington: The Founding Father. Among his other widely acclaimed books are A History of the American People, Modern Times, A History of the Jews, Intellectuals, Art: A New History, and The Quest for God: Personal Pilgrimage. He also produces brief surveys that slip into the pocket, such as his popular The Renaissance and Napoleon. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Spectator, and the Daily Telegraph. He lectures all over the world and lives in Notting Hill (London) and Somerset.

Copyright © 2007 Paul Johnson